Mystery, Fear, And Confusion

The Product of The American Government…

I have vowed not to watch programs on TV Channels that select the majority of their participants from two particular racial minorities. C-Span has been guilty of that distortion and I have purposely neglected it as a result.  However, I like Brian Lamb’s interviews when he is not stuck with the anointed races.  Recently he interviewed James Risen http://www.c-span.org/video/?322401-1/qa-james-risen , a New York Times writer and the author of a couple of investigative books that have gotten him indicted by our tyrannical government.

It is difficult to comprehend how in about two centuries the United States of America has evolved from a new nation whose leaders advised that it not become involved with foreign intrigues to a nation that seeks to dominate the entire world.

There were clues.  Even in its infancy it was avaricious.  Expansion seemed to be in its blood.  It captured the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific and garnered the Far Eastern island of the Philippines, Cuba in the Caribbean, and Alaska to our North.  It imposed its will on South American nations and fought several wars including one with our Southern neighbor, Mexico.  It even tried to annex Canada.

Following the devious imposition of the Federal Reserve System it flowered into international leadership.  Wars became a means for gaining control over other nations and no longer had anything to do with the nation’s welfare.  From that time on a mysterious power seemed to have hand on the rudder of the America ship.  The League of Nations, founded after WWI, was unable to gain widespread support but following WWII the United Nations, a second similar organization, emerged and has been working behind the scenes to gain control over various entities within nations around the world.

Suddenly, after the mysterious 9/11 event, United States separated itself from the United Nations and became the leader of an operation called the “War on Terror”.  The War on Terror did not specify an enemy; the dictionary defines terror as a “state of intense fear”.  From that definition it appears that the United States has embarked on a mission to eliminate fear by bombing, invading, and tyrannizing a series of Middle Eastern nations most of which are Muslim and enemies of neo-Israel.

While we fight the endless war on terror Muslims have been encouraged to immigrate into Western nation in both Europe and America.  Allowing the so-called enemy to infiltrate the adversary’s borders is a seeming contradiction in intent and has caused serious conflicts.

Near the end of the interview with Brian Lamb, Risen tells Lamb that the purpose of the War on Terror is mysterious and that many things are hard to understand.  He says it is difficult to determine what is real and what is fiction.  Lamb made no comment and did not pursue the subject.

Risen recounted a story about Senator Ron Wyden who for several months spoke of some injurious action that would upset the American people but he could not say what it was.  Only after Edward Snowden’s NSA revelation did the Senator admit that this was the thing he had not mentioned.  Risen used this to illustrate the lack of oversight that surrounds our intelligence agencies and the war in general.

If James Risen with his extensive investigation cannot understand the war on terror it is not wonder that United States citizens neither understand it nor pay much attention it.  Life goes on as if continuous war is normal. Trillions of dollars of debt accumulate to the account of American citizens and neither congress nor the people, nor the press mounts a substantial challenge.

This mysterious war on terror has caused the structure of a police state to rise over freedom.  Most of the laws enacted to protect the people from the government have been abolished and the structure that has been erected can be activated at will.

Risen has challenged a tiny part of the monster.  He seeks freedom of the press as indispensable for the maintenance of a free nation.  He is not challenging the entire series of questionable events that have brought us to this point nor the pervasive press control that has saturated all of our news outlets. The destruction of the World Trade Centers has never been properly investigated.  The evidence available defies the government’s story but our timid elected officials fail to provide a challenge. The mysterious power that seems to control us has frightened everyone and the highly visible, small, though brave, challenge Risen has mounted is a drop in the bucket.

As airplanes fly over our cities and create long slender clouds citizens ignore them.  The mention of this startling operation brings a hush to the conversation.  People know that a mysterious force is operating and are afraid of it.  In previous times a shocking appearance of this kind would have brought a crowd to government offices demanding to know what was going on.  Today, like frogs in the boiling pot we are accepting more and more serious infractions without protest.

The Bush family has been pawns in the quest for world tyranny for several generations.  In the coming national election Jeb Bush, the former Governor of Florida, is positioning himself to be the Republican nominee.  The American people will not be given a choice.  Jeb Bush affixed his signature to the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century  This organization bears substantial responsibility for the war on terror.  It signers and crafters were stained with the philosophies of Leon Trotsky.

As a presidential election looms the press and media begin to give the pre-selected candidates free publicity.  Widely hated former President George W. Bush wrote a book and is now seen on TV doing light and jolly sessions with former President William J. Clinton.  Though Jeb Bush is not shown the publicity is designed to create a favorable impression of the candidate in the minds of the public.  It is effective.  One need only look to the inappropriate candidacy of President Barak Obama to understand the ability of the press and media to manipulate the electorate.

Any candidate for President of the United States that sincerely means to act in the best interests of the people of the United States will be purposely marginalized by the press and media.  Both Congressman Dr. Ron Paul and Patrick Buchanan had to fight a negative press.  Though these candidates had a sizeable following their platform was never given serious coverage.  They were lucky to be allowed to join the presidential debates and when they did they were marginalized and were made to look foolish.

The next President of the United States of America will continue the policies set in place by President George W. Bush and President Barak Obama.  Massive debt will continue to accumulate, perpetual war will continue, moral deterioration will progress, the presidency will increase in power, and freedom will continue to deteriorate.  It is in the best interests of the world power seekers to maintain peace but that does not mean the riots will not continue.  Trotskyites in the press and media view riots as an opportunity to consolidate power.

We have forgotten the Creator, the Triune Christian God who was the power behind the founding of our nation.  We have forsaken the humility of the creature and usurped the station of the Creator, a position we are ill equipped to occupy.  We are created beings, unable to govern ourselves; the confusion of cognitive dissonance is a result.   Peace tarries until we begin to allow the Master to assume His role of King and Ruler.

Establishment Partisan Politics Protection Racket

The enormous energy spent on analyzing candidates and predicting elections is time wasted when the actual decisions are predetermined before the voting takes place. Even excluding voter fraud from the final count, the party selection process has made the decision. The pretense that primaries reflect the will of the electorate deceives the registered voter, amuses the party insiders and benefits the advertisement and media moguls. Ideas, policy positions and core principles take a back seat to the art of spinning and negatively defining the opponent.

Rivals start within your own party. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Republicans Tighten Grip on Debates in 2016 Race.

“Party leaders want to tighten their grip on a presidential primary season they believe has grown unruly and too long. This year, the party moved to set the nominating calendar by scheduling the first four contests — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — for February, allowing other states to begin voting in March and holding winner-take-all primaries starting March 15.

Taken together, these procedural steps could thwart an underfunded insurgent who needs the free exposure of televised debates and would be hurt by a series of rapid-fire contests in March that could be tilted toward an establishment-backed contender.

A few conservative stalwarts on the committee are nervous about the establishment’s consolidation of power over the primaries. “Do we want a committee of the national committee, which will surely be controlled by the national chairman, picking which candidates participate in all Republican presidential debates?”

This point is illustrated in the AP report RNC Changes debate Rules for 2016. “The RNC rules panel endorsed the creation of a 13-person committee that would limit how many presidential debates can take place and who can ask the questions. The full committee on Friday went along with that plan to ban candidates who participate in scofflaw debates from future RNC-backed sessions, by a 152-to-7 vote.”

Before the usual ceremonial indignation takes hold, ask yourself what is exactly sacrosanct about a stacked primary system that has little to do with an open contest. Patricians that make up the GOP establishment long ago graduated from the country club set.

Nonetheless, the bleeding hearts over at Salon would have you believe that the Democrats operate by different rules. Why Democrats need a primary, too offers advice why the anointed “Queen of Mean” that Rodman woman, would attain a benediction from going through an orchestrated charade before her canonization.

“Clinton would benefit from that input just as all incumbents and other party luminaries do, despite the fact that they would rather not have to have that fight. It is not good for a president to take the office without having taken the temperature of his or her supporters and understanding what they care about and what they expect. During a tempestuous period like this one, it’s even more important than usual. It would only be to her advantage to have a challenger who could bring forth those issues and allow the public to see them argued before she goes up against a Republican.”

Lost in the fervor of progressive rhetoric is that the Democratic Party is just as elitist as the Republicans are. Both operate as useful idiots and corporatist tools of a system that has long ago abandoned the practice of free enterprise.

Contrast this American version of a Punch and Judy show that has an elephant bully bemoaning the folk hero Robin Hood, who actually resembles an ass, with the exceptional Broadway Play, “The Best Man” by Gore Vidal. Watch the 1964 movie version and consider just how far the political system has collapsed in half a century.

The basic assumption in the play and movie is that the nominee of the Democratic Party will handedly beat their Republican opponent. Characterizing convention ballot voting by delegates as a genuine selection process may be strange to those who were raised on the myth that registered voters in a state primary really has a voice in the inauguration of the next President.

A system of party bosses and smoke room dealmakers, surely must be far worse from the televised mortifying pilgrimage and penitent self-flagellation that goes into winning the party’s nomination? Or, is it . . .

Remember the way the primaries served the faithful Democrats in 2008.

“According to news reports, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went out of their way to hold their long-awaited private meeting in a very specific location – not at Hillary’s mansion in Washington – but in Northern Virginia, which also just happens to be the scene of the 2008 Bilderberg meeting.The neo-liberal website Wonkette, which had previously ridiculed “conspiracy theorists” for ascribing power to Bilderberg, seemed to take a somewhat different tone when it made the connection between Obama and Hillary’s meeting and the Bilderberg Group.”

Orders from on high or more to the point, international deciders had their “heart to heart” with Hillary, passing her over, and giving her a maybe for 2016. George W. Bush liked to call himself the decider, but we all should know that decisions out of Skull and Bones are not based upon primary results.

Vidal’s screenplay portrayed a party convention as a real nomination fight. To whatever slime degree existed in the horse-trading to win delegates back then, the appearance in today’s selection makes no pretext of concealing the hidden hands behind picking the next President.

The partisan politics protection racket has but one goal; namely, serve and safeguard establishment interests of the elites, who really command the ultimate power. In addition to the Presidency, Congress shares broad similarities in their version of The Incumbent Protection Racket.

“In the U.S. House of Representatives, over the past five elections, incumbents have been re-elected at an average rate of 96 percent. According to my unscientific calculations, a congressman is more likely to be eaten by a polar bear while panning for gold in Key West than to be voted out of office.”

Serious challenges in Congressional district primacies are rare. The exception was in 2010 with the success of Tea Party candidates. However, such expression of the will of the people cannot stand in the polluted Potomac sewer that passes for representative democracy. Just look at the concerted efforts to sabotage populist support to retool the excesses in the federal government. Party Goers – What Do You Take With Your Tea?, indicates that all the sugar in the Caribbean will not prevent the political diabetes disease from going into shock. The bipartisan protection con knows how to close ranks among the political class.

“When main street middle class beleaguered taxpayers resonated that, the system was out of whack, the damage control team went into overdrive. This background helps to explain why the face of unprompted Tea Party individualism must be distorted, maligned and redirected.”

Great disappointment among Tea Party activists in the hostile welcome from establishment NeoCons has set in. The alternative to playing the no win beltway game provided in Dissecting U.S. Elections – the People vs. the Pols, best states the rational solution.

“What if a real grassroots national movement emerged that supersedes all ideology with a singular purpose – remove all careerist “pols” from office. Forget about the phony No Labels effort to diffuse popular disgust. The solution is to attract the very citizens who NEVER vote in elections.

A national campaign – No Confidence – would be the clear message that the arrogant confidence game crooks could understand.”

Drawing upon a universal appeal to break from the travesties of the two party frauds is necessary to register countrywide outrage. Only through vigorous dissention will The Meaning of Third Parties in America, bring the necessary pressure to collapse both the Democrat and Republican Parties.

“The solution to implement meaningful reform is to defuse the political power that is presently concentrated within the ‘Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle Dee’ parties. The notion that differences between them are based upon core principles, denies the unending descent into ‘collectivism’. The edges have varied shapes, but the centers are formed from the same sponge.”

You can always resolve that either party will never nominate “The Best Man”. If you are so delusional to believe that a woman is the answer in the oval office, look in a different direction. Elizabeth Warren the self-proclaimed Pinocchio-hontas, is a sorry excuse for an accomplished liar. Flush with law school disingenuous skills, this want-a-be feminine messiah would have you believe that Hillary is the New World Order’s favorite grandmother.

Nonetheless, fake opposition simply projects the image that there is a choice in candidates. Noam Scheiber, in the New Republic writes, “A Clinton-Warren matchup would have all sorts of consequences, none of them especially heartwarming. The most immediate is that Warren would probably lose.” Well so much for a contest between squaws, better suited for commitment to the Hiawatha Insane Asylum.Partisan politics is mostly a ruse designed to divert attention from service to the substantial interests of establishment globalists. The noise generated around campaigns and media coverage, ignores or conceals the existent deals that serve the real goals and intentions of the master puppeteers. The terminal lesson is that establishment politics treats the public as reservation squatters.

Live Life On Your Own Terms

In this high-speed society we created for ourselves, Americans live in traffic-congested cities with skyscrapers piercing the sky.

On the ground floor, humans race to catch crowded busses, packed subways and Yellow Cabs. With expressways gridlocked from dawn to dusk, people overflow sidewalks and sirens slash through the air 24/7. The evening news reports robberies,  accidents, homicides and a plethora of  calamities too numerous for human emotions to endure.

But if you look at all the people living in cities, whether in their workplace or their office cubicle, what do you see on the partition wall?

You see posters of what they would rather being doing: windsurfing, skiing, sunbathing on a beach in the Caribbean, scuba diving, dancing, mountain climbing, camping, rafting, bicycling and a dozen other activities they would rather be living.

If you’re one of those people wishing you lived a different life or wishing you could live your dreams, then why don’t you go after it?

Why not live your poster instead of wishing you were windsurfing across Lake Tahoe or sunning on the beach in Hawaii?

Did you ever wonder how those people you see traveling around the world with a backpack or bicycle, or climbing mountains or taking a winter off to go ski bumming do it?

They defeat the tyranny of resistance.

Henry David Thoreau said, “The mass of men and women live lives of quiet desperation”.

In 2014 America, anyone at any station in life, at any age, can renew his or her life by choice, by intention and by action. Such individuals learn how to defeat the “tyranny of resistance.”

First of all, what constitutes this modern day tyranny that locks people into cubicle prisons in cities or into humdrum jobs that provide zero meaning?

Such persons yield to an inner resistance to transform themselves because they feel afraid, don’t know how to break their cubicle-bonds and, often times, none of their office mates know any better. It’s easier to be safe with the constancy and comfort of a paycheck and friends.

Do you remember the TV sitcom “King of Queens” with the fat boy Kevin James and co-star Leah Remini, who also got fat in the series, staged in New York City?  They never showed any happiness, but mostly conflict. Their  jobs: meaningless! They didn’t know how to escape their relationship or their jobs.

If you live such a scenario, how can you avoid a lifetime of regrets?

• Find your gift of what turns you on to life.  Discover your talent, your ability, your genius and your expertise. You can find it by examining what you do in your spare time. Pursue it, love it and live it.
• Practice self-awareness.  Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Instead of going through the motions, create your own wave and ride it.
• Incorporate your independent will as a “course correction” on your way to your life’s destination. As Jack London said, “You can’t wait for inspiration to change your life; you have to go after it with a club.”
• Discover your True North in the scheme of your life.  That’s your soul’s true knowing and what you desire most about your life. It’s your deepest truth.

Finally, you must engage your physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well-being.

Exercise daily to blow off excess energy in the body to release your mind to express itself.  Eat healthy foods to maintain a lean frame.  That, in turn, allows you  emotional balance that originates with your relationship with friends, families and co-workers.  For your mental well-being, read books, take classes and express yourself through journaling, painting, sculpting or other art forms.  Finally, feed your spiritual being via inspirational books, church or nature, and the peace you find from a walk down a tree-lined path.

You will find the tyranny of resistance fades as you walk or gallop toward your happiness in work, play and friends. You won’t wish for what you see in the poster on your cubicle wall, you will live it for real.

War On Terror Advocate To Head Homeland Security

Obama intends to nominate former Defense Department general counsel Jeh Johnson as new DHS chief.

He’s responsible for endorsing some of Washington’s most lawless policies. His rap sheet reveals great cause for concern. More on him below.

Post-9/11, police state terror followed. Obama expanded it.

It’s unprecedented in size, scope and ruthlessness.

DHS is America’s Gestapo. The November 25, 2002 Homeland Security Act established it. Twenty-two federal agencies were combined under one authority.

They include Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Transportation Security, the Secret Service, FEMA, National Protection and Programs Directorate, and the Coast Guard among others.

DHS concentrates unprecedented executive branch military and law enforcement empowerment. It’s a rogue agency. It’s insidious.  It’s a police state apparatus writ large. It’s a dagger at the heart of freedom.

• Its four main mandates include:

• border and transportation security;
• emergency and disaster preparedness;
• developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons countermeasures; and
• centralizing storage and analysis of potential threat information.

US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) was established months earlier (April 25, 2002). Doing so was unprecedented.

For the first time, America’s mainland, Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Gulf waters, Florida straits, and portions of the Caribbean were militarized. Troops may be deployed on US streets.

Doing so violates core 1807 Insurrection Act and 1878 Posse Comitatus Act principles.

They prohibit using federal and National Guard forces for domestic law enforcement except as constitutionally allowed or expressly authorized by Congress in times of insurrection or other national emergency.

No longer. Usurped diktat authority lets presidents claim emergency powers, declare martial law, suspend the Constitution, and deploy federal and/or National Guard troops on US streets to suppress whatever is called disorder.

Fundamental freedoms are endangered. First Amendment ones matter most. Without them all others are at risk. They include free expression, assembly, religion, and right to petition government for redress.

Police state ruthlessness defines today’s America. International, constitutional and US statute laws no longer matter. They lie in history’s dustbin.

Diktat power replaced them. No one any longer is safe. Doing the right thing is dangerous. Guilt by accusation is policy.

Anyone can be arrested, held uncharged, and detained indefinitely. Due process, judicial fairness, and other civil rights no longer protect.

If confirmed, Johnson will replace Janet Napolitano. She reflected the worst of repressive governance. Throughout her tenure, she violated fundamental rule of law principles.

She terrorized Latino immigrants. She waged war on Occupy Wall Street. She obstructed FOIA requests.

She advanced America toward full-blown tyranny. Expect Johnson to pick up where she left off. His record gives pause for concern.

His legal career combined private and government service. From 1989 – 1991, he was GHW Bush’s Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

From 1998 – 2001, he was Clinton’s Air Force Department general counsel. He’s currently a Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison partner.

His former Defense Department responsibilities included legal review and approval of all military related operations.

An unnamed senior Obama administration official said:

“The president is selecting Johnson because he is one the most highly qualified and respected national security leaders, having served as the senior lawyer for the largest government agency in the world.”

“During his tenure at the Department of Defense he was known for his sound judgment and counsel.”

It includes defending military commission prosecutions. They’re for so-called “unprivileged enemy belligerents.” Bush called them “unlawful enemy combatants.”

Francis Boyle called this designation a “quasi-category to create an anti-matter universe of legal nihilism where human beings (including US citizens) can be disappeared, detained incommunicado, denied access to attorneys and regular courts, tried by kangaroo courts, executed, tortured, assassinated and subjected to numerous other manifestations of State Terrorism.”

Johnson supports all of the above. Doing so qualifies him to head DHS. He endorses targeted assassinations by drones or other means.

He defends lawless NSA spying. He champions waging war on terror at home and abroad.

On November 30, 2012, he addressed the Oxford Union in London. He titled his talk “The Conflict Against Al Qaeda and its Affiliates: How Will It End?”

He claimed credit for working with Congress “to enact the Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2009.” It renewed its initial 2006 authorization.

It scrapped habeas protection. It granted sweeping police state powers. They’re unchanged today. MCA states:

“(N)o (civil) court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause for action whatsoever…relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission (including) challenges to the lawfulness of (its) procedures…”

With or without evidence, “Any person is punishable who aids, abets, counsels, commands, procures,” or in any way provides “material support” to alleged terrorists.

Charged suspects are guilty by accusation. Enhanced interrogations (aka torture) are authorized.

So is denying detainees international law protections. Presidents can authorize military commissions at their discretion.

Torture coerced confessions are admissible. Hearsay and secret evidence is permitted. Kangaroo court justice follows.

Johnson vowed to keep fighting Al Qaeda. “(W)e are taking the fight directly to AQAP (Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula),” he said.

He omitted explaining that Washington uses Al Qaeda and similar groups strategically as enemies and allies.

He called targeting Al Qaeda “a new kind of war. It is an unconventional war against an unconventional enemy.”

He implied that old rules don’t apply. Waging war on Al Qaeda won’t “end in conventional terms,” he said.

The most “unconventional” tactics are used. Fundamental rule of law principles are violated doing so.

On February 16, 2012, New York City Bar President Samuel Seymour wrote Johnson, saying:

“(W)e write to express our concern with the Order Governing Written Communications Management for Detainees Involved in Military Commissions, dated December 27, 2011.”

“The Association is alarmed at the dramatic impingement on the attorney-client privilege resulting from the procedures set forth in the Order.”

“The sanctity of the attorney-client privilege is fundamental to our system of justice.”

“If the Order is implemented, (it) will be gravely undermined.”

“We urge the appropriate authority to vacate the Order and (replace it with) a (proper) legal framework.”

It’s in stark contrast to civil proceedings. It’s fundamentally unfair and unjust.

Seymour’s letter was comprehensive. It was lengthy. It ran nine pages.

He concluded saying “the Association believes the Written Communications Order is problematic because it invades the attorney-client privilege, inappropriately inserts outsiders into the defense team, and reverses the presumption that the privilege should be respected, all on a blanket basis and without any particularized showing of need.”

“We believe the Order threatens to undermine the proper functioning of the adversary system and” helps delegitimize military commission prosecutions.

On March 18, 2013, Johnson spoke at the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School.” He titled his address “A ‘Drone Court:’ Some Pros and Cons.”

He claimed “appropriate lethal force” made America’s homeland safer. It’s never been less safe.

He advocates drone killings. He asked what about establishing a drone court? He’s comfortable about an authority acting as judge, jury and executioner.

He wants it kept within the executive branch. Targeted assassination authorizations aren’t suited for judicial review. Quick action is needed to implement them.

Doing so violates core international, constitutional and US statute laws. Johnson didn’t explain. Nor that drones mostly kill innocent civilians.

A tiny fraction of deaths are so-called “high value targets.” Innocent men, women and children comprise most others. It doesn’t matter.

Johnson calls “targeted lethal force” justifiable. “The essential mission of the US military is to capture or kill an enemy,” he said.

In a February 2012 Yale Law School address, he called US citizens fair game.

“Belligerents who also happen to be US citizens do not enjoy immunity where non-citizen belligerents are valid military objectives,” he said.

“(U)nder well-settled legal principles, lethal force against a valid military objective, in an armed conflict, is consistent with the law of war and does not, by definition, constitute an ‘assassination.’ ”

America’s domestic “war on terror” will be in good hands with Johnson. Expect freedom to suffer another major body blow. Perhaps it won’t survive his tenure. Ends justifying means alone matters.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at .

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Privacy Gone On Offshore Assets

When struggling consumers hear about offshore banking, they naturally think such assets only apply to the rich. Secret bank accounts issued in the name of a confidential number, often portrayed in mystery movies, are less prevalent than a stake in an oversea property estate. Cash in a financial institution is an easy reporting task for foreign banks. Although, most Americans do not possess such wealth, many do have an interest in real property or chattel ownership in portable entities that are outside the physical soil of the country. Even if you are not one of these fortunate beneficiaries, the principle behind the (FATCA) statue can certainly apply a broad interpretation domestically.

The provisions commonly known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act became law in March 2010.

• FATCA targets tax non-compliance by U.S. taxpayers with foreign accounts

• FATCA focuses on reporting:

• By U.S. taxpayers about certain foreign financial accounts and offshore assets

• By foreign financial institutions about financial accounts held by U.S. taxpayers or foreign entities in which U.S. taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest

• The objective of FATCA is the reporting of foreign financial assets; withholding is the cost of not reporting. Notice 2013-43 revises the implementation timeline and provides additional guidance

Clarification for individual’s states:

Taxpayers with a total value of specified foreign financial assets below a certain threshold do not have to file Form 8938

If the total value is at or below $50,000 at the end of the tax year, there is no reporting requirement for the year, unless the total value was more than $75,000 at any time during the tax year

“The IRS anticipates issuing regulations that will require a domestic entity (corporations, partnerships, trusts, or estates)to file Form 8938 if the entity is formed or used to hold specified foreign financial assets and the total asset value exceeds the appropriate reporting threshold.”

If you have insomnia, try some bedtime reading – Basic Questions and Answers on Form 8938. Especially, note Question 5.

Q5. I am a beneficiary of a foreign estate. Do I need to report my interest in a foreign estate on Form 8938?

Generally, an interest in a foreign estate is a specified foreign financial asset that is reportable on Form 8938 if the total value of all of your specified foreign financial assets is greater than the reporting threshold that applies to you.

The IRS clarification in Q3 states, “Foreign real estate is not a specified foreign financial asset required to be reported on Form 8938“, seems to provide relief for real property ownership. Notwithstanding, the purpose and intent of the FATCA is to cast a broad net around the eventual reporting of any negotiable instrument that citizens hold worldwide.

Imagine the next incremental step might well be a yearly financial statement under penalty of perjury. The exemption caveat being, if you do not have sufficient income that requires the filing of a Federal tax return, you can forgo the torment of the 8938 torture.

Make no mistake about the implications of tracking down the last penny of treasure. The Caribbean buccaneers stole pieces of eight from the colonial empires who promoted the slave trade. Today the practice of trading on the flesh of labor is substituted with the taxation on the “financial assets” of the incarnated serfs that need to pay tribute to their feudal lord.

Through the Intergovernmental Agreement Model 1 & 2, the IGA provides for a partnership agreement between the U.S. and a FATCA Partnership jurisdiction, namely France, Germany, Italy and Spain with the United Kingdom first to sign the IGA agreement and model 2 IGA reflects the framework that was described in the joint statements by U.S. and Switzerland and U.S. and Japan.

Now this multilateral global financial compliance is spreading back to the islands of the erstwhile pirates. This go around is practiced by computer keystrokes instead of wheeling a saber. The significance of the Cayman, US agree on reporting of Americans’ assets, is to eliminate one of the last refuges of financial privacy.

“The Cayman Islands says it has reached agreement with the United States to provide information on accounts held by American citizens to comply with a sweeping U.S. law designed to combat tax evasion.

The British Caribbean territory, considered the world’s sixth largest financial center and a major haven for mutual funds and private equity, said the texts of the new pacts will be made public once an official signing ceremony is held.

The Cayman government said the pacts are tied to a U.S. law called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which was enacted in 2010 and expected to take effect next year. The law targets non-tax compliance by U.S. citizens with foreign accounts around the globe, and Washington is pressing nations to provide client data.”

Oddly reminiscent of “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Seems like the Pelosi logic extends to the Grand Cayman financiers . . . the moneychangers seldom service the discretion of their customers.

When the NSA scoops up every wire transfer, fax instruction or email message, who can maintain the privacy of their personal papers? Just because the technocratic dragnet stretches globally, the inalienable right of private property still maintains the moral high ground.

If FATCA is merely a legitimate cooperative coordination, many people would eagerly support closing the door on the wealth sheltering hidden assets in foreign depositories. However, the encompassing scope of defining financial assets to be whatever serves the interests of the taxman, should disturb every citizen.

Recollect how different our lives are today from a century ago before the Revenue Act of 1913. The past century has assaulted privacy rights to the point that the average person simply accepts that the government is acting properly. When filling out Form 8938 becomes routine, the surrender of what is left of your meager fortune is sealed. The greed of the real pirates never ends.

Hurricane Sandy’s Austerity Lessons

Teaneck,N.J.  — The damage incurred by Hurricane Sandy – the largest Atlantic super-storm on record — is second only to New Orleans’ Hurricane Katrina in terms of magnitude and cost.  Occurring just before Halloween and dubbed “Frankenstorm,” Sandy demolished coastal communities in the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States.

One hundred-mile winds and powerful high tide waters ripped into coastal barriers and the landscape, causing an estimated $60 billion dollars in damages 1.  Flooding and power outages were commonplace, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless, and millions without electricity, heat and/or provisions.  Others devastated by the storm included the sick, elderly, handicapped, and poor who could not get vital medicines by pharmacy or mail; those who lost life savings because the damage to their homes were not insured against certain eventualities; and those who lost their livelihoods through destruction. And although there was no gas shortage by cause of resource depletion, the lack of electricity prevented filling stations from dispensing fuel, resulting in long lines and rationing.

While the level of distress among storm casualties should not be underestimated, and many Good Samaritans rushed to the aid of the less fortunate and continue to selflessly volunteer right up until today, there were those in the Northeastern United States who were wholly unprepared to be inconvenienced by ensuing power outages. It is to “the inconvenienced” that this article is dedicated.

Following are bona fide statements made by some New Yorkers and New Jersey-ites during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

• “I couldn’t take living in a cold house, so checked into a hotel.”

• “The storm has been devastating. No Internet and TV for two days.”

• “I’m dying to wash my hair, but it’s too much work to heat the water on my stove top.”

• “It was murder waiting in line for three hours this morning for gas.”

• “How am I supposed to survive without eggs?”

Now let’s compare these to comments made by authentic casualties of the super-storm:

• “Our house got washed out into theAtlantic, but we’re glad to be alive and will make a fresh start.”

•  “A tree fell on our roof and other neighborhood homes, so we’ve gathered the downed limbs and hosted an outdoor bonfire to build morale.”

•  “Winds were whipping through my windows when I heard screams for help. I saw my neighbor clutching a fence as water surged around her. If I didn’t open our door and drag her in, she would have been swept out to sea.”

• “I’ve stayed behind to chainsaw down a tree that fell on our house, but the worst hasn’t happened. The important thing is that my wife and children are out of harm’s way.”

• “Floods displaced almost everyone on the block, so we hosted a Hurricane Party to offer a safe place and serve the food that was going to spoil without refrigeration.”

The latter category of commentaries demonstrate that there are many who know the meaning of life-and-death circumstances, and can even uplift others in the wake of hardship.

While surely unintentional, this natural disaster has afforded those affected by it a small taste of how countless others around the rest of the world live – and many not just during a crisis, but on a regular basis. Perhaps the most ironic here is that a great number of the deprived in less fortunate lands have been disenfranchised or “bombed back into the Stone Age” as a result ofUSforeign policy.

According to a 2009 report in Scientific American magazine, more than one quarter of the world’s population does not have electricity 2. Obviously, since that estimate was recorded three years ago, it does not include the more recent destruction, sometimes of entire infrastructures, in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, or Gaza.  And a World Watch Institute report notes that the United States, with less than five percent of the global population, uses about a quarter of the world’s natural resources 3.

Perhaps Americans — especially younger generations who have not experienced war, shortages or poverty — are unaware of the above statistics and the privileged lifestyles that they themselves enjoy. More than 1.5 billion people around the world live in absolute poverty, with scarce access to food, shelter, water or sanitation 4.  In many countries, people customarily wait on lines for the distribution of food and fuel.  Kenyans, among many other nationals around the globe, boil untreated water for cooking and drinking. As Peace Corps volunteers will attest, firewood remains a primary everyday source of heat and method of cooking in many countries where reliable electricity and gas supplies are still not always available 5.  Families in Armenia with the means to do so salt their meats, pickle their vegetables, and preserve their fruits to cope with the absence of refrigeration or food in winter.   According to an Aleppo native who only wanted to be identified as “Takouhi,” and who, like her neighbors, roams for food while dodging indiscriminate shelling in Syria, “we eat what ever we can find at this point.” The above are where austerity lessons are to be learned.

If Hurricane Sandy has helped those inconvenienced by the storm begin to identify the however temporarily missing privileges they have taken for granted, the storm’s damage may provide a ‘teachable moment.’ But if a college-educated, foreign-born-but-local acquaintance of mine is any barometer (she was nonplussed that her grocery store stocked no bananas in the immediate aftermath of the Hurricane), let us not be surprised if cognitive dissonance persists among some who can’t or won’t gain insight from adversity.   As such, I welcome the notion of a lawful requirement that every American perform volunteer humanitarian work, particularly abroad, to get a sense of how many others must live.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is among those who consider climate change “the new normal,” and calls for fresh approaches to protect the environment and public 6. As natural resources continue to deplete and pundits debate the reality of global warming and its effect on the planet, will Americans wake up to the realities and necessities of conservation? Are we prepared to survive amid hardship if and when we cannot simply retreat to the nearest hotel, restaurant or safe house? Do we know how to deal with scarcity, practice self-reliance, and band together?  While municipalities are increasingly on the alert, it would be circumspect for individuals to also prepare for future environmental disasters, and interrupted or altogether eliminated conveniences down the line.

A woman slated to participate in the New York Marathon was interviewed on CBS News Radio, saying, “As soon as Mayor Bloomberg cancelled the Marathon in the face of Sandy, I donated my hotel room to someone displaced by the storm, and volunteered with relief workers to help those in need. 7”  Once electrical power returned to her home in Queens, civic-minded Rocio Duque immediately joined with the “Occupy Sandy” volunteers to help the dispossessed in Staten Island 8.  “We want to teach our children that while there may always be somebody more fortunate in life than they are, there will also be those who are less fortunate, too,” said Wendy Loszynski of Bergenfield, New Jersey, who, with her husband and three children, helped out at a hurricane relief center in Moonachie. “Volunteering this way can help our children better appreciate what they have in life, whether possessions or good health, instead of worrying about what they don’t have,” Loszynski continued.

Particularly as Thanksgiving approaches, may these and other examples of altruism, charity and solidarity in the face of adversity continue to emerge, inspire, and even guide us if and when disaster comes along.

1         http://business.time.com/2012/10/31/hurricane-sandy-estimated-to-cost-60-billion/

2         https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electricity-gap-developing-countries-energy-wood-charcoal

3         http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810

4         http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/gaef3313.doc.htm

5         http://www.teachkidspeace.org/the-importance-of-the-work-of-the-peace-corps-volunteers.html

6         http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/cuomo-on-climate-change-extreme-weather-new-york-governor-daily-news-op-ed_n_2137559.html

7         http://www.wtop.com/1211/3105123/NYC-marathon-runners-donate-hotel-rooms-to-Sandy-victims

8         http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/

 

Devastating US Drought Heralds Global Food Inflation

Severe drought spread rapidly across the central US this week, further damaging staple crops and heightening the risk of a global food crisis. The Midwest, where roughly one-third of the world’s staple grains are produced, is experiencing the deepest dry spell in over half a century.

The National Drought Mitigation Center in a statement Thursday reported “tremendous intensification of drought through Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, Arkansas, Kansas and Nebraska, and into part of Wyoming and South Dakota in the last week.” Almost 30 percent of the Midwest is under extreme drought, triple that of the previous week.

Every state in the country had some counties under abnormally dry or drought conditions, making the disaster the most widespread US drought since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has declared 1,369 counties across 31 states disaster areas—officially the largest US disaster on record.

“It’s getting to the point where some of the damage is not reversible,” said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist at the center. “The damage is done, and even with rain, you’re not going to reverse some of these problems, at least not this growing season.”

With temperatures remaining in the triple digits across the Midwest, scattered rainstorms did little to restore moisture to topsoil. Iowa State University agronomist Roger Elmore said that over the week, “most of the state got a quarter- to half-inch of rain. We lose the equivalent of a quarter-inch of moisture every warm, sunny day.”

Meteorologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center have warned that the high heat and dry spell could extend through October. Through June, the year has been the hottest ever recorded for the US. Globally, land temperatures likewise broke all previous records last month. The extreme weather corresponds to projections issued by climatologists over the past three decades, indicating the worsening impact of global warming.

“This year is very emblematic of the type of thing we worry about with climate change,” David Lobell of global warming monitor Climate Central told ABC News. “The new normal for agriculture is going to be frequent episodes of very high temperatures. Temperatures at which pretty much any crop does not do very well.”

For the seventh consecutive week, the USDA on Monday downgraded its assessment of corn and soybean crops. For the week ending July 22, the portion of the corn crop rated in “poor” and “very poor” condition rose to 45 percent. Thirty-five percent of soybean acreage was rated poor to very poor. Purdue University agricultural economist Chris Hurt told the World Socialist Web Site in a recent interview that a rating of “very poor” likely meant such crops were “approaching no yield.”

Since June 3, the portion of corn rated in “good” to “excellent” condition plummeted from 72 to 26 percent. Seven of the largest corn-exporting states now have only one percent or less of corn acreage assessed as “excellent.” A similar plunge was recorded in soybean acreage (65 to 31 percent).

The assessment is the worst since the drought of 1988, when small farmers went out of business en masse after a decade-long rural economic crisis.

The impact of the agricultural disaster on the global food supply is compounded by a speculative frenzy on grain futures on the Chicago Board of Trade. Last week corn futures surpassed all-time records at $8.2875 a bushel, before falling back on news of rain. As of Friday, corn for September delivery was trading at $7.9375 a bushel. Some analysts have suggested that corn futures for December delivery could fetch $9 or more per bushel in August if climate predictions prove correct.

With pastures in ruin and feed prices driven up in trading, smaller US livestock producers are facing the prospect of liquidating their herds. As a result, supermarket prices for beef, pork, and other meats are likely to surge in the coming year, after the initial influx of slaughtered herds. Prices for quick-to-market meats such as chicken and eggs, as well as dairy products, will likely rise more swiftly.

The USDA on Wednesday announced that supermarket prices would rise in coming months. Currently it projects beef prices will rise 4 to 5 percent, and dairy products 3.5 to 4.5 percent.

However, large meat producers are warning that cheaper meats such as pork and chicken will become “luxuries” if Washington does not suspend a program enabling the energy industry to secure up to 40 percent of the US corn crop for ethanol production.

“I’ll use the word catastrophe—that’s my definition,” Larry Pope, head of Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, told the Financial Times. In June, Smithfield moved to lock in feed costs on the futures markets before corn broke $8 a bushel. “I thought that $6 corn was the end of the world,” he said. “I never could have realized that I would be thankful to be buying it at $7.”

“Beef is simply going to be too expensive to eat,” Pope said. “Pork is not going to be too far behind. Chicken is catching up fast… Are we going to really take protein away from Americans?” He said US meat prices would rise by “significant double digits” per year.

Even a less drastic price increase in protein food sources would compell millions of low-income Americans to choose what they can afford to buy over the nutritional value provided.

The disaster bears brutal consequences for the populations of import-dependent countries across Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Caribbean. In 2008, riots erupted in more than 30 countries after a similar confluence of severe weather and speculation drove up staple food prices. Among the billions of people living on $2 a day or less, the cost of food consumes as much as three-quarters of a family’s income.

Grain suppliers are beginning to default on deals with importers in Egypt, Libya, and Iraq. Egypt, the world’s largest consumer of wheat, is turning to Russia as the US drought deepens. However, Russia has also cut its wheat outlook by 3 million tons.

The US corn outlook negatively impacts wheat exports, as a poor corn harvest tends to mean wheat is held more tightly for domestic use. Because Egypt imports half of its wheat, and a quarter of its wheat imports originate in the US, any fluctuation in the grain’s price or supply sharply impacts living conditions in the country. Forty percent of the Egyptian population subsists on $2 a day or less.

The world’s population is subjected to the irrationality of the market, and the disjointed global food system. Barges loaded with Southeast Asia-bound grain have clogged Indian ports, creating delays of up to 25 days. Spotty rains in Asian growing regions may further compound food shortfalls and inflation.

“The deficit in rainfall will definitely cause food inflation to go up,” Dun & Bradstreet economist Arun Singh told Reuters. “The extent of the impact will be known only after the monsoon is over.” With monsoon season half over, some agricultural areas of the country have seen rainfall 68 percent lower than average. Food inflation in India is already 10.81 percent, significantly higher than general inflation; on lentils, chickpeas, potatoes, and other staples, the rise is far higher.

Source: Naomi Spencer | wsws.org

Class Warfare Is Being Used To Divide America

At a time when America desperately needs to come together, we are becoming more divided than ever.  The mainstream media and most of our politicians love to pit us against one another in dozens of different ways, and right now class warfare has become one of their favorite tools for getting us to hate one another.  If you are struggling in this economy, you are being told that “the wealthy” are the cause of your problems.  If you have money, you are being told that the poor hate you and want to tax you into oblivion.  Class warfare has already become a dominant theme in the 2012 race for the White House, and there will certainly be endless speeches given along these lines by politicians from both major political parties all the way up to election day.  Class warfare will be used by both sides as a way to divide America and get votes.  And the frightening thing is that it is clearly working.  There is more hatred between the poor and the wealthy in America today than at any other time that I can remember.  But hating people because of how much money they have or don’t have is not going to solve anything.  Instead, it is just going to cause more problems.

The other day, Yale economics professor Robert Shiller told CNBC that the globe is already in a state of “late Great Depression“.  The United States is heading into unprecedented economic and financial problems and we desperately need to pull together as a country and solve these problems.

But instead, our leaders are tapping into the politics of division in a desperate attempt to get elected in the fall.

Rather than focus on real issues and real solutions, our politicians attempt to make “the wealthy” or “welfare recipients” the focus of our debates.

Well, you know what?

Most people that are rich and most people that are poor are not purposely trying to abuse the system.  Most of them are hard working people that are trying to do the best that they can in a world that is increasingly going crazy.

These days, the Occupy Wall Street crowd loves to talk about how evil the “1 percent” is.  But most of the “1 percent” are people that have worked really hard and that have been fortunate enough to get some really good breaks in life.

Yes, there are some among the “1 percent” that do some really bad things.  The too big to fail banks and the big money managers on Wall Street should be held accountable for the crimes that they have committed.

But most wealthy Americans are not trying to oppress the poor.  Most of them are just trying to do the best that they can for themselves and their families.

Neither are most poor people trying to abuse the system either.

Yes, without a doubt there are some that do not want to work and that want to live on government benefits indefinitely.

But that is a minority.

Most Americans that are receiving government benefits today would rather be working good jobs that would enable them to provide for their families.

Most Americans understand that government handouts can never provide dignity and hope for a better future.

But if you don’t demonize the poor and you point out the decline of the middle class, many Republicans will call you a “liberal” or a “socialist”.

And if you don’t demonize the rich and you don’t blame them for all of our economic problems, many Democrats will call you a “pig” or a “fascist”.

Unfortunately, playing the blame game is not going to get us anywhere.

The number of Americans living in poverty increased dramatically under George W. Bush and it also increased dramatically under Barack Obama.

Our country is drowning in debt, millions of our jobs are being shipped overseas, the middle class is shrinking at an astounding pace, and the Federal Reserve continues to destroy our financial system.

Getting angry at the wealthy or the poor is not going to fix those problems.

But it will distract us from the reality that both major political parties have been doing a horrible job.

Sadly, Americans seem to really enjoy blaming one another these days.  Just check out some of the slogans that have been seen on various signs at Occupy Wall Street protests….

“They Only Call It Class Warfare When We Fight Back”

“Eat The Rich – Feed The Poor”

“The Rich Are Wrecking The Planet”

So will destroying the lives of the rich solve our problems?

Of course not.

The truth is that we should want millions more Americans to be prosperous.  We should be cheering for one another instead of tearing one another down.

But that is heresy to many on the left.

On the right, it is heresy even to mention that our tax system is fundamentally flawed and that it has thousands of loopholes that are being abused by the very wealthy.

In a previous article, I detailed how many of the largest and most profitable corporations in America get away with paying absolutely nothing in taxes.

There is something very wrong with that.

Our income tax system should be abolished altogether, but if we do have to pay income taxes, then it is fundamentally unfair for some people and businesses to be able to pay little or nothing while the rest of us get absolutely obliterated by taxes.

But if you try to say that to many on the right, they will look at you in horror.

The other day, there was a New York Times article that detailed the extreme measures that Apple takes to avoid paying taxes.  It turns out that Apple sets up shell offices all over the globe in order to evade taxation….

As it has in Nevada, Apple has created subsidiaries in low-tax places like Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands — some little more than a letterbox or an anonymous office — that help cut the taxes it pays around the world.

That same article talked about how Apple has become a model which hundreds of other companies have followed.  To giant corporations such as Apple, tax evasion has become an art form….

Apple, for instance, was among the first tech companies to designate overseas salespeople in high-tax countries in a manner that allowed them to sell on behalf of low-tax subsidiaries on other continents, sidestepping income taxes, according to former executives. Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the “Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich,” which reduces taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands and then to the Caribbean. Today, that tactic is used by hundreds of other corporations — some of which directly imitated Apple’s methods, say accountants at those companies.

So what is the solution to all of this?

Raising income taxes won’t work too well because the tax lawyers are always several steps ahead of our politicians.

The truth is that when taxes get raised it is always the middle class that gets absolutely clobbered and the wealthy always find more ways to reduce their exposure.

Just take a look at Mitt Romney.  He made more than 42 million dollars in 2010 and yet Romney had an effective tax rate of only 14 percent.

If I could find a way to have an effective tax rate of only 14 percent I would be jumping up and down for joy, and so would millions of other Americans.

Our tax system is deeply, deeply broken and needs to be thrown into the trash can.

Abandoning the current tax system would not solve all of our problems, but it would be a start.

Unfortunately, neither political party is willing to even consider this.

Instead, the Democrats want to raise taxes a little bit and the Republicans want to lower taxes a little bit.

But neither alternative will do much of anything to solve any of the real problems we are facing.

Our economy is dying and it is not producing nearly enough jobs for all of us.  When Barack Obama took office, the number of “long-term unemployed workers” in America was 2.6 million.  Today, it is 5.3 million.

At this point, an astounding 53 percent of all college graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or underemployed.

So where is all of the “change” that Obama promised?

Things just keep getting worse.

Since Obama has been in the White House, 14 million more Americans have gone on food stamps, and more than 25 percent of all American children are enrolled in the program today.

How will class warfare help those people?

Will blaming the wealthy make things better for them?

They are already receiving government handouts.

Will increasing those handouts a little bit more fundamentally change their lives for the better?

Of course not.

What those people need are good jobs.

But instead, both the Democrats and the Republicans continue to pursue the same job killing policies that have been destroying American jobs for decades.

Without good jobs, the number of Americans dependent on the government is going to continue to grow.

In a previous article, I detailed the explosive growth of social welfare benefits that we have seen under both Republicans and Democrats….

Back in 1960, social welfare benefits made up approximately 10 percent of all salaries and wages.  In the year 2000, social welfare benefits made up approximately 21 percent of all salaries and wages.  Today, social welfare benefits make up approximately 35 percent of all salaries and wages.

The goal should not be to rape the rich and give out even more social welfare benefits.

Instead, the goal should be to develop an economy that creates good jobs.

We need have an economy that empowers individuals and small businesses.

Instead, we have an economy dominated by big government and big corporations.

We have an economy that funnels the vast majority of the economic rewards to a tiny elite while most of the rest of us struggle.

Just consider the following statistics….

*Back in the 1970s, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States brought in about 8 percent of all income.  Today, they bring in about 21 percent of all income.

*The following is how income gains in the U.S. were distributed during 2010….

-37 percent of all income gains went to the top 0.01 percent of all income earners

-56 percent of all income gains went to the rest of the top 1 percent

-7 percent of all income gains went to the bottom 99 percent

*In America today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

*According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.

So what is the solution to that problem?

Is it to attack the rich and take away all their money and give more government handouts to the poor?

Of course not.

Rather, we need to change the rules of the game so that individuals and small businesses are empowered to succeed.

We need to decentralize economic power and dramatically reduce the undue influence that big government and giant corporations have over our economic system.

We need to create an environment where almost anyone that has a good idea and that is willing to work hard can succeed.

But instead of focusing on real solutions like shutting down the Federal Reserve, converting to debt-free currency, eliminating the income tax, shutting down the IRS, massively reducing the size of government and getting rid of thousands upon thousands of unneeded regulations, the mainstream media and our politicians are going to continue to try to get Americans to blame one another for our problems.

The efforts to divide America are working, and hatred is growing to unprecedented levels in this country.

Eventually this will lead to mass rioting in our major cities and that will make our problems far worse.

Hatred and division are not going to bring us a better future.

They are only going to destroy us from within.

We don’t need hate.

What we need is more love and more solutions.

Unfortunately, our leaders are leading us down a very dark path, and we are heading for a future that is going to be a complete mess.

Source: The Economic Collapse

The Saga of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Wikileaks

“Defense lawyers say Manning was clearly a troubled young soldier whom the Army should never have deployed to Iraq or given access to classified material while he was stationed there … They say he was in emotional turmoil, partly because he was a gay soldier at a time when homosexuals were barred from serving openly in the U.S. armed forces.” (Associated Press, February 3)

It’s unfortunate and disturbing that Bradley Manning’s attorneys have chosen to consistently base his legal defense upon the premise that personal problems and shortcomings are what motivated the young man to turn over hundreds of thousands of classified government files to Wikileaks. They should not be presenting him that way any more than Bradley should be tried as a criminal or traitor. He should be hailed as a national hero. Yes, even when the lawyers are talking to the military mind. May as well try to penetrate that mind and find the freest and best person living there. Bradley also wears a military uniform.

Here are Manning’s own words from an online chat: “If you had free reign over classified networks … and you saw incredible things, awful things … things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC … what would you do? … God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. … I want people to see the truth … because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”

Is the world to believe that these are the words of a disturbed and irrational person? Do not the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Geneva Conventions speak of a higher duty than blind loyalty to one’s government, a duty to report the war crimes of that government?

Below is a listing of some of the things revealed in the State Department cables and Defense Department files and videos. For exposing such embarrassing and less-than-honorable behavior, Bradley Manning of the United States Army and Julian Assange of Wikileaks may spend most of their remaining days in a modern dungeon, much of it while undergoing that particular form of torture known as “solitary confinement”. Indeed, it has been suggested that the mistreatment of Manning has been for the purpose of making him testify against and implicating Assange. Dozens of members of the American media and public officials have called for Julian Assange’s execution or assassination. Under the new National Defense Authorization Act, Assange could well be kidnaped or assassinated. What century are we living in? What world?

It was after seeing American war crimes such as those depicted in the video “Collateral Murder” and documented in the “Iraq War Logs,” made public by Manning and Wikileaks, that the Iraqis refused to exempt US forces from prosecution for future crimes. The video depicts an American helicopter indiscriminately murdering several non-combatants in addition to two Reuters journalists, and the wounding of two little children, while the helicopter pilots cheer the attacks in a Baghdad suburb like it was the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.

The insistence of the Iraqi government on legal jurisdiction over American soldiers for violations of Iraqi law — something the United States rarely, if ever, accepts in any of the many countries where its military is stationed — forced the Obama administration to pull the remaining American troops from the country.

If Manning had committed war crimes in Iraq instead of exposing them, he would be a free man today, as are the many hundreds/thousands of American soldiers guilty of truly loathsome crimes in cities like Haditha, Fallujah, and other places whose names will live in infamy in the land of ancient Mesopotamia.

Besides playing a role in writing finis to the awful Iraq war, the Wikileaks disclosures helped to spark the Arab Spring, beginning in Tunisia.

When people in Tunisia read or heard of US Embassy cables revealing the extensive corruption and decadence of the extended ruling family there — one long and detailed cable being titled: “CORRUPTION IN TUNISIA: WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE” — how Washington’s support of Tunisian President Ben Ali was not really strong, and that the US would not support the regime in the event of a popular uprising, they took to the streets.

Here is a sample of some of the other Wikileaks revelations that make the people of the world wiser:

• In 2009 Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano became the new head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which plays the leading role in the investigation of whether Iran is developing nuclear weapons or is working only on peaceful civilian nuclear energy projects. A US embassy cable of October 2009 said Amano “took pains to emphasize his support for U.S. strategic objectives for the Agency. Amano reminded the [American] ambassador on several occasions that … he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.”
• Russia refuted US claims that Iran has missiles that could target Europe.
• The British government’s official inquiry into how it got involved in the Iraq War was deeply compromised by the government’s pledge to protect the Bush administration in the course of the inquiry.
• A discussion between Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and American Gen. David H. Petraeus in which Saleh indicated he would cover up the US role in missile strikes against al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen. “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Saleh told Petraeus.
• The US embassy in Madrid has had serious points of friction with the Spanish government and civil society: a) trying to get the criminal case dropped against three US soldiers accused of killing a Spanish television cameraman in Baghdad during a 2003 unprovoked US tank shelling of the hotel where he and other journalists were staying; b )torture cases brought by a Spanish NGO against six senior Bush administration officials, including former attorney general Alberto Gonzales; c) a Spanish government investigation into the torture of Spanish subjects held at Guantánamo; d) a probe by a Spanish court into the use of Spanish bases and airfields for American extraordinary rendition (= torture) flights; e )continual criticism of the Iraq war by Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, who eventually withdrew Spanish troops.
• State Department officials at the United Nations, as well as US diplomats in various embassies, were assigned to gather as much of the following information as possible about UN officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, permanent security council representatives, senior UN staff, and foreign diplomats: e-mail and website addresses, internet user names and passwords, personal encryption keys, credit card numbers, frequent flyer account numbers, work schedules, and biometric data. US diplomats at the embassy in Asunción, Paraguay were asked to obtain dates, times and telephone numbers of calls received and placed by foreign diplomats from China, Iran and the Latin American leftist states of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia. US diplomats in Romania, Hungary and Slovenia were instructed to provide biometric information on “current and emerging leaders and advisers” as well as information about “corruption” and information about leaders’ health and “vulnerability”. The UN directive also specifically asked for “biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats”. A similar cable to embassies in the Great Lakes region of Africa said biometric data included DNA, as well as iris scans and fingerprints.
• A special “Iran observer” in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku reported on a dispute that played out during a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. An enraged Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff, Mohammed Ali Jafari, allegedly got into a heated argument with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and slapped him in the face because the generally conservative president had, surprisingly, advocated freedom of the press.
• The State Department, virtually alone in the Western Hemisphere, did not unequivocally condemn a June 28, 2009 military coup in Honduras, even though an embassy cable declared: “there is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch”. US support of the coup government has been unwavering ever since.
• The leadership of the Swedish Social Democratic Party — neutral, pacifist, and liberal Sweden, so the long-standing myth goes — visited the US embassy in Stockholm and asked for advice on how best to sell the war in Afghanistan to a skeptical Swedish public, asking if the US could arrange for a member of the Afghan government to come visit Sweden and talk up NATO’s humanitarian efforts on behalf of Afghan children, and so forth. [For some years now Sweden has been, in all but name, a member of NATO and the persecutor of Julian Assange, the latter to please a certain Western power.]
• The US pushed to influence Swedish wiretapping laws so communication passing through the Scandinavian country could be intercepted. The American interest was clear: Eighty per cent of all the internet traffic from Russia travels through Sweden.
• President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy told US embassy officials in Brussels in January 2010 that no one in Europe believed in Afghanistan anymore. He said Europe was going along in deference to the United States and that there must be results in 2010, or “Afghanistan is over for Europe.”
• Iraqi officials saw Saudi Arabia, not Iran, as the biggest threat to the integrity and cohesion of their fledgling democratic state. The Iraqi leaders were keen to assure their American patrons that they could easily “manage” the Iranians, who wanted stability; but that the Saudis wanted a “weak and fractured” Iraq, and were even “fomenting terrorism that would destabilize the government”. The Saudi King, moreover, wanted a US military strike on Iran.
• Saudi Arabia in 2007 threatened to pull out of a Texas oil refinery investment unless the US government intervened to stop Saudi Aramco from being sued in US courts for alleged oil price fixing. The deputy Saudi oil minister said that he wanted the US to grant Saudi Arabia sovereign immunity from lawsuits
• Saudi donors were the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
• Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial 1996 drug trial involving children with meningitis.
• Oil giant Shell claimed to have “inserted staff” and fully infiltrated Nigeria’s government.
• The Obama administration renewed military ties with Indonesia in spite of serious concerns expressed by American diplomats about the Indonesian military’s activities in the province of West Papua, expressing fears that the Indonesian government’s neglect, rampant corruption and human rights abuses were stoking unrest in the region.
• US officials collaborated with Lebanon’s defense minister to spy on, and allow Israel to potentially attack, Hezbollah in the weeks that preceded a violent May 2008 military confrontation in Beirut.
• Gabon president Omar Bongo allegedly pocketed millions in embezzled funds from central African states, channeling some of it to French political parties in support of Nicolas Sarkozy.
• Cables from the US embassy in Caracas in 2006 asked the US Secretary of State to warn President Hugo Chávez against a Venezuelan military intervention to defend the Cuban revolution in the eventuality of an American invasion after Castro’s death.
• The United States was concerned that the leftist Latin American television network, Telesur, headquartered in Venezuela, would collaborate with al Jazeera of Qatar, whose coverage of the Iraq War had gotten under the skin of the Bush administration.
• The Vatican told the United States it wanted to undermine the influence of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez in Latin America because of concerns about the deterioration of Catholic power there. It feared that Chávez was seriously damaging relations between the Catholic church and the state by identifying the church hierarchy in Venezuela as part of the privileged class.
• The Holy See welcomed President Obama’s new outreach to Cuba and hoped for further steps soon, perhaps to include prison visits for the wives of the Cuban Five. Better US-Cuba ties would deprive Hugo Chávez of one of his favorite screeds and could help restrain him in the region.
• The wonderful world of diplomats: In 2010, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the question of visas for two wives of members of the “Cuban Five”. “Brown requested that the wives (who have previously been refused visas to visit the U.S.) be granted visas so that they could visit their husbands in prison. … Our subsequent queries to Number 10 indicate that Brown made this request as a result of a commitment that he had made to UK trade unionists, who form part of the Labour Party’s core constituency. Now that the request has been made, Brown does not intend to pursue this matter further. There is no USG action required.”
• UK Officials concealed from Parliament how the US was allowed to bring cluster bombs onto British soil in defiance of a treaty banning the housing of such weapons.
• A cable was sent by an official at the US Interests Section in Havana in July 2006, during the runup to the Non-Aligned Movement conference. He noted that he was actively looking for “human interest stories and other news that shatters the myth of Cuban medical prowess”. [Presumably to be used to weaken support for Cuba amongst the member nations at the conference.]
• Most of the men sent to Guantánamo prison were innocent people or low-level operatives; many of the innocent individuals were sold to the US for bounty.
• DynCorp, a powerful American defense contracting firm that claims almost $2 billion per year in revenue from US tax dollars, threw a “boy-play” party for Afghan police recruits. (Yes, it’s what you think.)
• Even though the Bush and Obama Administrations repeatedly maintained publicly that there was no official count of civilian casualties, the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs showed that this claim was untrue.
• Known Egyptian torturers received training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
• The United States put great pressure on the Haitian government to not go ahead with various projects, with no regard for the welfare of the Haitian people. A 2005 cable stressed continued US insistence that all efforts must be made to keep former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whom the United States had overthrown the previous year, from returning to Haiti or influencing the political process. In 2006, Washington’s target was President René Préval for his agreeing to a deal with Venezuela to join Caracas’s Caribbean oil alliance, PetroCaribe, under which Haiti would buy oil from Venezuela, paying only 60 percent up front with the remainder payable over twenty-five years at 1 percent interest. And in 2009, the State Department backed American corporate opposition to an increase in the minimum wage for Haitian workers, the poorest paid in the Western Hemisphere.
• The United States used threats, spying, and more to try to get its way at the crucial 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen.
• Mahmoud Abbas, president of The Palestinian National Authority, and head of the Fatah movement, turned to Israel for help in attacking Hamas in Gaza in 2007.
• The British government trained a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a “government death squad”.
• A US military order directed American forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis.
• The US was involved in the Australian government’s 2006 campaign to oust Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.
• A 2009 US cable said that police brutality in Egypt against common criminals was routine and pervasive, the police using force to extract confessions from criminals on a daily basis.
• US diplomats pressured the German government to stifle the prosecution of CIA operatives who abducted and tortured Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen. [El-Masri was kidnaped by the CIA while on vacation in Macedonia on December 31, 2003. He was flown to a torture center in Afghanistan, where he was beaten, starved, and sodomized. The US government released him on a hilltop in Albania five months later without money or the means to go home.]
• 2005 cable re “widespread severe torture” by India, the widely-renowned “world’s largest democracy”: The International Committee of the Red Cross reported: “The continued ill-treatment of detainees, despite longstanding ICRC-GOI [Government of India] dialogue, have led the ICRC to conclude that New Delhi condones torture.” Washington was briefed on this matter by the ICRC years ago. What did the United States, one of the world’s leading practitioners and teachers of torture in the past century, do about it? American leaders, including the present ones, continued to speak warmly of “the world’s largest democracy”; as if torture and one of the worst rates of poverty and child malnutrition in the world do not contradict the very idea of democracy.
• The United States overturned a ban on training the Indonesian Kopassus army special forces — despite the Kopassus’s long history of arbitrary detention, torture and murder — after the Indonesian President threatened to derail President Obama’s trip to the country in November 2010.
• Since at least 2006 the United States has been funding political opposition groups in Syria, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country.

Malvinas In Britain’s Imperialist Claws

The simmering tensions over the Malvinas Islands or Falkland Islands (off the coast of Argentina in the South Atlantic) as called by the British occupiers have become a matter of great concern as the UK decided to deploy destroyer HMS Dauntless to the islands.

The British Royal Navy is planning to send the Type 45 destroyer HMS Dauntless, a state-of-the-art warship, to the region on her maiden mission in a few months, a move interpreted by some experts as a provocation of war. Also known as the Daring class, HMS Dauntless is often regarded the most powerful air-defense warship in the world. This warship is equipped with the SAMPSON Multi Function Radar with the capability to detect hundreds of targets out to a distance of 400 km as well as outer atmosphere objects such as ballistic missiles.

Argentine Vice-president Amado Boudou sees the escalating conflict as an excuse to “distract public opinion from serious domestic problems such as unemployment.”

“London is after issues of big media impact to hide the daily sufferings of Britain with its problems of unemployment, shrinking economy, social unrest by appealing to a very distant situation such is the South Atlantic Islands dispute.”

However, the British Royal Navy says the Portsmouth-based destroyer’s deployment is “not a reaction to heightened tensions over the Falklands.” Paradoxically, Britain has already deployed anti-aircraft installations, a tracker station and modern jet fighters on the archipelago.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner says the UK harbors secret plans to plunder the natural resources such as oil and fish in the area of the territorial dispute and that Argentina insists on her legitimate claim to the islands.

“Don’t expect an outcry of xenophobia from us, we stand on the concept of sovereignty which is in agreement with the interests of the state, our people and protection of our natural resources.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron has recently slammed Argentina for trying to ‘colonize’ the Malvinas Islands while the UK has basically cast its specter of imperialistic domination and colonization of Argentina’s South Atlantic islands since 1833.

“What the Argentineans have been saying recently I would argue is actually far more like colonialism because these people want to remain British and the Argentineans want them to do something else,” Prime Minister Cameron said on Wednesday.

Mr. Cameron’s statement was, however, welcomed by a spate of criticism on the part of some Latin American leaders. For instance, Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota said Latin America and the Caribbean “back Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas and back the UN resolutions calling on the Argentine and British governments to hold talks on the issue.”

Although some pundits rule out the possibility of a full-scale invasion of the islands on the 1982 lines, Michael Clarke, head of the Royal United Services Institute, believes that a similar invasion particularly supported by the construction of an airfield at Mount Pleasant is possible. “In the event of tension, the UK could quickly reinforce the island because of its control of the airfield. We simply don’t need the kind of naval taskforce we had in 1982.”

On Friday 2 April 1982, Argentine forces mounted an attack on the Malvinas Islands and South Georgia in order to redeem their long occupied territory.  Britain sent a naval task force and retook the islands through amphibious assault. The war, which lasted 74 days, ended to the triumph of the British imperialist army, claiming the lives of over 600 Argentine troops, and 255 British soldiers.

Britain has a long-standing interest in the Malvinas’ oil which originally dates back to a couple of decades. In 1975, Britain conducted preliminary studies in this regard and in 1998-2009, two British exploratory missions succeeded in proving the oil potential of the area. It remains unclear how much oil there is in the Malvinas islands but initial estimations place the offshore petroleum potential at a minimum of 6.525 billion barrels of oil.

On March 22, 2011, British transnational Rockhopper announced it had discovered a commercially viable deposit of crude oil in the Malvinas. Rockhopper Exploration PLC reported a “significant reservoir package” at its Sea Lion prospect.

When the company gave an initial report on its oil find at Sea Lion, Argentinean President Cristina Kirchner’s administration issued a statement and said the oil-drilling operation runs counter to international laws and treaties as well as UN resolutions which urge both sides to not take steps which might exacerbate the situation.

With an established history of imperialism and colonization, Britain has long coveted the windswept Malvinas as a strategic shipping stopover and treasure-trove of natural resources such as oil and fish.

With economy declining terminally at home, Britain is exploring ways to save itself either by virtue of climbing on the shoulders of others i.e. digging   its imperialistically colonialist claws into others i.e. the Malvinas Islands or by foisting its weapons off on nations with a turbulent status quo such as Bahrain.

That the British government is contemplating another imperialist adventure in the Malvinas Islands is an irrefutable assumption but it is painfully difficult to conjecture how Britain is going to achieve this nefarious objective.

10 Ways The War On Drugs Is A Wild Success

For all the evidence of how the War on Drugs has failed society, there’s equally as much evidence of how it is a great success to those who continue to support it.  The drug war has many advantages if you wish to control society and expand your empire.  It also enriches several industries that would otherwise have a very difficult time staying solvent without it.

Here are ten ways the War on Drugs is a wild success:

Military-Industrial Profits: As the Vietnam War came to an end, it struck fear into the military-industrial machine that enjoyed great profits from that conflict.  In a world where contrived enemies were needed to keep a constant funding of weapons, .  Thus, domestic armies were erected to combat the illegal drug trade, delivering consistent cash flow to weapons manufacturers.  These companies make money, not just from the needs of the DEA, border patrol, and local police forces, but also from drug traffickers. Win-win and profits all around.

Huge Boon to Private Prisons: The private prison industry thrives off long sentences for drug offenders.  At least 25% of their profits come from these nonviolent criminals.  A great number more are held on “drug related” charges that may have resulted in drug violence.  However, the current trend shows that three-quarters of new inmates admitted to state prisons are nonviolent offenders. Private prisons clearly depend on arresting pot smokers and addicts of more severe drugs.

Prevents Higher Unemployment Rates: Imagine if the millions of American currently jailed on drug charges were released into a job market already suffering from real unemployment numbers over 20%.  Additionally, if it wasn’t for drugs being illegal, countless people like DEA agents, court staff, prison guards, parole officers, drug dealers, etc would otherwise be unemployed.  Thank goodness for the war on drugs, or the U.S. economy would look even worse.

Suppresses Minority Populations: It’s often said that the drug war is a war on minorities: “According to the ACLU, African Americans make up an estimated 15% of drug users, but they account for 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted and 74% of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. Or consider this: The U.S. has 260,000 people in state prisons on nonviolent drug charges; 183,200 (more than 70%) of them are black or Latino.”  So it is a huge success for those who wish to suppress minority populations.

Drives Up Prices: Making any substance illegal will result in much higher prices than a free market would dictate.  Especially when there’s a high demand for that substance.  In the case of the cannabis plant, which grows like a weed and requires very little value added, the dried flower would virtually be free if it wasn’t for the harsh restrictions and dangers involved in producing and distributing it. These high prices are terrific for drug dealers and even medical marijuana growers opposed legalization in California because it threatened their profits.

Drug Violence Justifies Tough Gun Laws: The violence generated from the prohibition of drugs is reminiscent of the extreme mob violence during the prohibition of alcohol. Prohibition of anything will always create black markets which require firearms to protect banned products.  Recently, the U.S. government itself was  to Mexican drug cartels in their “Fast and Furious” scandal.  It’s now proven that the ATF plotted to use Fast and Furious to push for new gun control regulations.  Indeed, most street violence is due to turf wars over the drug trade, and tougher gun laws are proposed as the war escalates. It’s wonderful for those who blame violence on guns and wish to restrict them from law-abiding citizens.

Protects Big Pharma Monopolies: No one is happier about the war on drugs than Big Pharma.  Their control over the FDA and monopoly of “controlled substances” would be threatened if all drugs were legalized.  They want you addicted to their FDA-approved versions of heroin and cocaine, not something you can get on the black market.  In turn, they also benefit greatly when the prices of street drugs increase, as they can then inflate the cost of their products.  They love the drug war so much they’ve lobbied to extend it to vitamins and supplements.

Allows Proxy Armies: If you want to create an empire by force, but it’s politically disadvantageous to base your army in certain countries, then the global war on drugs is your ticket to supplying troops or creating proxy armies. One of the most recent examples is Costa Rica, a peaceful country in Central America without an army, where the U.S. bribed the government to allow the Navy and Marines to be stationed off the Caribbean coast to fight the war on drugs.  In other nations where even this won’t be allowed, the CIA funds and arms one of the drug cartels who then act as their hired enforcers, or they’re used as an excuse for governments to accept U.S. help to combat the enemy they created.  In either case, the U.S. sells more arms and trains soldiers to be used upon command.

Keeps Big Banks Flush with Cash:  It has long been known that big banks happily launder money for the big drug cartels. According to The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), “Up to 1.5 trillion dollars in drug money are laundered through legal enterprises, accounting for 5% of global GDP.” Take just this year and one bank, Wachovia; who had to pay a slap-on-the-wrist fine for laundering more than $420 billion for Mexican drug cartels.  Imagine where the big banks would be without this money, given that they also needed a bailout of over $23 trillionfor lack of sufficient deposits to pay for their gambling habits.

Funds CIA Black Ops: Do you ever wonder where the U.S. government gets all that money for their secret “Black Ops” like underground bases, secret wars, corporate takeovers and seed money, etc?  It’s been proven over and over that the CIA (and Pentagon) controls a large majority of the illicit drug trade either directly or indirectly through proxies mentioned above.  They’ve been caught in the act of shipping in massive amounts of cocaine, while the CIA now openly admits to protecting and facilitating the opium trade in Afghanistan.  If it wasn’t for this tremendous profit, the CIA would not be able to build their secret shadow government.

So, as you can see, there are great benefits to the War on Drugs depending what side of the coin you’re on.  If you’re a poor pot smoker, well, you’re out of luck.  But if you’re the biggest heroin and cocaine dealer in the world and desire a monopoly . . . well, you’ve got the world right where you want it.

Source: Activist Post

Caribbean Sea Pirates In Crisis

(A lecture on Economics delivered at Rhodes Forum on October 9, 2011)

The crisis peaking in Britain is of a Caribbean-sea-pirate type: long time no trophies, while lifestyle has to be maintained. Neoliberal policies have undermined the toughest folk on earth, hard-working, prudent, obedient, stiff-upper-lipped red-faced Brits, the people who managed India, burned down the White House and withstood Hitler. Their backbone – Yorkshire miners and Sheffield steel workers – was broken by their Golders Green grocer-at-large, a.k.a. the Iron Lady. She folded down the industries, and turned the Isles into a Tortuga-like pirate paradise, a place for financiers to relax, unwind and plan their raids.

England has become the most godless society in the world. Buses with the logo “There is no God” cruise London. In the Globe theatre, Mysteries are staged, purported to be revivals of Tony Harrison’s 1977 production based on medieval British plays but, in direct opposition to the previous production and to the old original, it is overtly anti-Christian. Instead of the Jewish high priest and his coterie, the evil guys are … Christian priests in full dress. The Holy Virgin is presented as a young coloured tart in a short dress. Not a single voice of protest has sounded in England. But you can be sure that if director Deborah Bruce had put rabbis back into the place of the priests, we’d have never heard the end of it.

England is home to al Fayed and Abramovich and to millions of immigrants imported to service them. The English provided financial services, ran security companies, charged a lot for education. The country went upmarket, and lost its productive base, just as the tulip-adoring Dutch did in 17^th century. Now, if they do not rob, they have nothing to live off of. They need to fleece foreigners just to make ends meet.

Now they are being hit by a Crisis of Confidence. Not only do ordinary people feel they have been cheated once too many, but the powerful and rich outsiders share the feeling, which is particularly strong in Russia and other post-Soviet states, in the oil-producing states, in countries with national industries. This feeling has been translated into action:

• Hugo Chavez has demanded his physical gold back;
• Vladimir Putin has declared his candidacy for the post of President;
• Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, the main proponent of Russian Sovereign Wealth Fund, has been fired.
• Russia has decided to dramatically increase military spending; this is fallout from the Libya War.

The fate of Qaddafi hovers like worrying Hamlet’s father’s spirit over many presidential and managerial desks. The Libyan leader amassed quite a fortune, some for himself and his family, some for his nation, placed it in various banks, funds and shelters, and it turns out that instead of greenbacks he could have amassed so many beautiful reddish maple leaves with greater satisfaction and safety. With a wave of their hands, the US and its allies froze the assets and later stole them. Some assets were given to arbitrarily chosen Libyans, a.k.a. “Benghazi rebels”, some were used to pay for the dog food that was airlifted to Tripoli to feed people made destitute by the NATO strikes.

This was the biggest robbery of a sovereign state ever, and the biggest robbery of private fortunes as well. And it taught many nasty and greedy people a lesson in Gospel truth: Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where thieves break in and steal. These people thought that they could find a safe refuge from despotic rulers, rebellious masses and ordinary robbers by placing their wealth in the safekeeping of the Swiss gnomes or some other civilized environment. Now they’ve learned that electronic money in Cayman Islands is no safer than the folded 20-dollar bills under your mattress. What a shock!

Why does this cause a crisis? The corrupt officials and wealthy tycoons of the outer world, that is, outside of the US and Western Europe, are the powerful secret weapon of capitalism. When capitalism was on the verge of collapse, this doomsday weapon was used, the tables were turned upon socialism, and the USSR collapsed. Its wealth was stolen by these men and women, and delivered to the Western banks, to power another twenty years of luxury for bankers.

Since then, the officials and tycoons have functioned like bees, busily collecting the sweet sweat of the ordinary citizens’ brow. They siphon their takings into overseas banks – beehives, thinking it is safe. The West has encouraged them to think this way. They have spread rumours that Putin and Lukashenko have put away billions into Western banks for a rainy day. Their media have told stories of oligarchs who were able to escape to their riches when they fell from grace. Many silly and corrupt officials and greedy businessmen believed it and kept collecting honey.

This honey collection is the best-guarded secret of capitalist superiority. It is based of human weakness. Drug mafias do the same: they produce and sell drugs and extract money to keep in the banks. This works instead of savings, and even better. When economists bewail low rate of savings in the US, they forget to count savings executed via drug cartels. This was one of the reasons of the US ten years stay in Afghanistan: the drugs fuel banking system.

Privatisation is another great tool: the privatised properties feed so many derivatives produced by the bankers. The privatisers need the banks, and to the banks they take their profits. In the post-soviet space, the officials charge their commission in the form of bribes, and these moneys also go to the banks.

Thus, the corrupt officials, businessmen and drug barons perform an important function for the world financial system: the Western bankers did not have to go to remote Russian town or Indian village to squeeze a few roubles or rupees from a worker. The bees bring honey to the beehive.

With the robbery of Libya, even the silliest and most corrupt official in Russia or Kazakhstan has discovered what bees painfully learn, too. When beehives are full of honey, the beekeeper smokes the bees away and collects the product. The bees may have planned to use it for their retirement or for home improvement, but they sadly discover that humans have other plans for their honey. The first wave of Crisis 2008 was the beginning of a smoking-out operation; the Libya campaign is the second stage showing what can be done to crisis-resistant bees.

Given the total information superiority of the Masters of Discourse, such robbery can be justified at any time. Russian wealthy men suspected they couldn’t just salt away a billon and run to Bahamas. I have heard about the men who tried: when they came to collect, they were told that their visa had expired, that they would have to produce proof it was honestly earned, or that it was gone for some good reason.

Two countries catered to the runaways: Britain and Israel. The Jewish billionaires who run to Israel were duly fleeced by the Jewish state. Nevzlin had to contribute half of his wealth to some doubtful Israeli enterprises; Gaydamak was ruined almost to the point of bankruptcy. Gusinsky was run from jail to jail and was ripped off by established Israeli families. Britain provides refuge for the runaway oligarchs and shields them from criminal investigation. It fleeces them well: the fabulous billions of Boris Berezovsky were shrunk down to a few million. But the rest still hoped that they would be allowed to keep some of their illegal gains in the comfort of the West if they abide by Washington’s orders. Now this hope, too, is fading away.

The bees do not deliver honey anymore. There are more ways of getting honey. The Western banks and states promoted their loans and they allowed the recipient politicians to steal the loans, as Perkins has. But now this method is less popular, as the odds of successfully stashing stolen goods have gone down considerably. Much hated in the West Vladimir Putin, the past and future president of Russia, paid off all Russia’s debts at first occasion, while another hated “dictator”, Lukashenko, also refused IMF loans.

Then, there are the sovereign wealth funds. The oil-producing countries usually keep a big part of their earnings in the US and the UK. These funds are held hostage to the good behaviour of the producer. Iran lost its funds after embracing an Islamic regime. Some Russians consider it a form of tribute their country pays to their vanquisher in the Cold War. They even connect Breivik’s attack to Norway’s plan to repatriate its SWF, a plan that is anathema to the US. There is no practical reason for Russia to keep its money invested in US funds for very low interest while Russian industries pay high interest on such borrowed money. And as we know, these funds may be frozen or seized any moment. They can also disappear as a result of imprudent investment as once happened to Swedish and Norwegian pension funds.

For 11 years, Alexei Kudrin was finance minister of the Russian Federation. He was the most vocal and influential proponent of the US-held funds among Russian officials, and he was duly applauded as a prudent and excellent financier. A few days ago he expressed his dissatisfaction with President Medvedev’s plan to increase military spending dramatically. He was sacked right away. This was quite a shock for the man who considered himself a cut above; it was a shock for his supporters.

The Wikileaks cables reveal that Kudrin was considered by the US Embassy the “most transparent and realistic senior GOR interlocutor on economic issues. He has also been the most forward-leaning in seeking economic cooperation with the U.S. and other western countries”. Among Russian officials, some find him “irritating” and accuse him of treason, say the cables. Kudrin supported a soft line in foreign policy and opposed the line represented by Putin’s Munich speech. At the peak of the 2008 crisis, he gave money to the banks and completely stopped government spending for six months. Incidentally, Kudrin was never charged with huge fraud and theft of so-called Kuwait and Algeria Debts Affairs, though his deputy has spent a few months in jail. This neo-liberal, monetarist, pro-western figure at the key position was lost to the West within a few weeks of the fall of Tripoli. And that bodes ill for the western beneficiaries of the Russian SWF, whether it is repatriated or allowed to wither.

This is the reason for the crisis. Even the bad guys have lost confidence in the system. The collapse of the USSR postponed the crisis that was long overdue. So much wealth was taken out of the dismembered chunk of the USSR! The successor-countries were robbed, and their robbed goods used to subsidise a better life of the West. The bankers and financiers got used to living well while controlling the streams of cash and assets. But they forgot an important rule of beekeepers: leave some honey in the hive, otherwise the bees will not bring more product. They ripped off too much, from too many people, and now the people have lost whatever confidence they had in the system.

Cruise ships to Gaza: Netanyahu opens the Strip to tourism? Yeah right.

In a historically unprecedented move recently, Israel’s militant neocon prime minister Bibi Netanyahu claims to have relaxed his iron grip on Gaza and has cordially invited tourists to visit this bombed-out, violently occupied and haunted place.  According to Netanyahu, at last there’s been a major breakthrough in the subjugated and occupied Gaza Strip!  It has now been officially designated as a hot new tourist destination.  Yeah right.

In a recent televised conversation with Mike Huckabee on Fox News, Bibi stated that, while he would never allow armed vessels to arrive in Gaza, he would definitely welcome cruise ships.  

Despite multiple well-documented neutral inspections by international peace-keepers stating that last year’s non-violent human aid flotilla to Gaza was not carrying weapons, Netanyahu still claims that the flotilla had actually been armed to the teeth.  Bibi then went on to bravely compare himself to John F. Kennedy, stopping armed vessels from arriving in Gaza in the same heroic manner that Kennedy had stopped Soviet missiles from going to Cuba.  Yeah right.

“People claim that they want to free Gaza, to be able to import goods,” Netanyahu went on to say.  “Well, they can.  Basically, you can import anything to Gaza!  It’s completely open.”  Yeah right.

“Hamas is trying to smuggle in weapons, rockets.  We are willing to let you bring in anything but weapons.  We don’t care if they bring in love boats, cruise ships, tourists, we’re okay with that.”  Yeah right.

According to Bibi, if Princess Cruises or Royal Caribbean or even Norwegian Cruise Lines want to send “Love Boats” to Gaza, he is okay with that.  Yeah right.

Has Netanyahu taken a page from the Republican/Democrat corporatist playbook here — wherein it is not only morally correct but NECESSARY to lie to the public?  Or did the American corporatists learn this mendacious technique from Bibi?  Or, as highly-esteemed senior Israeli journalist Uri Avnery suggested recently, have they both been taking their pages from the Joseph Goebbels playbook? http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1311959069/

Breivik’s “2083” The Mass Murderer’s Manifesto

Analysis of Breivik’s Ideas: The massacre was essentially a publicity stunt…

After the tears have dried and the cries of outrage fallen silent, we may begin to recognise that the cinematic qualities of the Utoya Massacre were drawn from trashy horror flicks. It is a recurring theme within the Friday the 13th Screams at Elm Street genre that a serial killer must stalk a peaceful summer camp and murder innocent youths. Friday the 22^nd’s killer effectively brought the celluloid violence to life, further crystallizing the phenomenon of Man’s nightmares intruding onto reality. This trend towards violence began innocently enough with grim dime novels and gore spattered cinema, but it then began to deaden the minds of our children with “first-person shooter” video games of increasing realism. Nowadays those same children have grown into soldiers directing unmanned drone attacks upon far-away lands, and at least one of them has visited a nightmare upon this peaceful island summer camp.

Shooting people who can’t shoot back is a vile act, the mark of a mass murderer, a paid executioner, or a NATO soldier. For two hours the killer professionally, confidently, and coolly stalked the unarmed youths, executing them one by one in absolute safety; for one hundred days the killer’s ex-classmates, now in NATO Air Force, professionally, confidently, and coolly stalked unarmed Libyans from the absolute safety of distant compounds. Breivik hated Muslims, hated Socialists, no doubt he hated Qaddafi, a Muslim Socialist; but his deed better than a thousand Qaddafi-dispatched terrorists should remind the people of Europe that wars abroad will bring war home, too. There are too many licences to kill being produced.

Why did he do it? We can answer the question: the massacre was essentially a publicity stunt to attract worldwide attention to the killer’s opus magnum, a 1500-page compendium entitled “2083”. Breivik’s screed is no great work of human spirit; it is rather a copy-paste hodgepodge of Neocon ravings against Islam and Communism. In any case it does merit a look, if only because so many people were killed in order to make us read it. If this Breivik was a Herostratus, let us see why he burned down the temples of so many lives. Moreover, we must pinpoint where he went wrong.

2083 reveals that a new, vicious strain of political virus has emerged from the genetic engineering labs within the think tanks of the Neocons. The Masters of Discourse have long referred to traditional conservatives as “Nazis” because they oppose unrestricted immigration. They have made much hay of the fact that Nazis once considered Jews to be corrupt, once opposed the weaknesses of homosexuality, and once admired spirituality of the Muslims. The bad guy was supposed to be racist, love Adolf Hitler, hate Jews and gays. He did not have to hate  Commies because Communism was a similar totalitarian ideology according to Karl Popper and George Bush. The new strain passed through these filters.

The long labours of Jewish ideologists within the Neocon movement have borne fruit, and now it is the Jews who are considered to be above suspicion, the homosexuals who are considered strong, and conservative Muslims who are held to be alien to the new conservatism. Today we are witnessing the rapid spread of many well-financed political parties and activist groups that connect far-right ideas with sympathy to Jews, tolerance of gays, and a rabid hate of Islam. The writer of 2083, too, is pro-Jew, pro-gay, violently anti-Muslim and anti-Communist. His nearest analogue is Pim Fortuyn, the assassinated Dutch far-right Judeophile and gay politician. Breivik marched with the English Defence League (EDL), a British group set apart by its strongly pro-Jewish, anti-Muslim militancy.

Breivik’s 2083 is heavily influenced by far-right Neocon Jewish writing. As is often the case with copy-paste compilations, it is difficult to assign an accurate lineage to the conglomeration of words and those of compiled authors. However, if 2083 is ever published, the copyrights of David Horowitz and Bat Yeor, Daniel Pipes and Andrew Bostom should be given pride of place.  These are the writers who inspired Breivik to commit mass murder.

Gilad Atzmon reports that just a few hours before the attack Joseph Klein published an article entitled “The Quislings of Norway” (here) with additional incitement to murder. Klein wrote: “The infamous Norwegian Vidkun Quisling, who assisted Nazi Germany as it conquered his own country, must be applauding in his grave… Norway is effectively under the occupation of anti-Semitic leftists and radical Muslims, and appears willing to help enable the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel.”

These are fighting words, and Breitvik heeded them as he loaded his guns. The content of 2083 reflects his admiration of his Neocon sources. Quotes from David Horowitz’s Frontpage articles contaminate hundreds of pages with his vitriol. Bernard Lewis has his own place of honour. The notorious Bat Yeor, an Egyptian Jewish woman living in Switzerland who coined the term “Eurabia” (an alleged conspiracy to subjugate Europe to Arabs) and did much to promote and grew rich off the fear of Islam, corresponded with the killer. She “kindly” advised him and sent him her unpublished texts. She is the only person named in his Declaration of European Independence, and her advice the newly independent Europeans should follow, according to Breivik. Bat Yeor provided “inestimable service” to his project, and is quoted extensively throughout.

Robert Spencer, a sidekick of Jihad Watch’s David Horowitz, is another great love of the killer, and so is American Zionist Andrew Bostom, self-proclaimed expert on “Islamic anti-Semitism”. Daniel Pipes is presented with his thesis that “The Palestinian phenomenon was created with the intention to justify Jihad.” Serge Trifkovic, an anti-Muslim Serb, Melanie Phillips, the British far-right Zionist who is friendly with the BNP leader Griffits, and Stephen Schwartz are all quoted, along with numerous other activists and scholars who earn their bread by demonizing Islam. (Funnily, these guys repeatedly condemned me for my “anti-Semitism”).

Politically, the killer’s sympathies lie squarely with the United States and Israel: “The creators of Eurabia have conducted a successful propaganda campaign against these two countries in the European media. This fabrication was made easier by pre-existing currents of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism in parts of Europe.” Economically, he likes Milton Friedman and Hayek; he would get rid of taxes and welfare state.

Breivik hates the Palestinian people, and rails against the “Palestinian terrorist jihad”.  Like every good Zionist he brings up the Mufti and the Holocaust whenever possible: “Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Arab nationalist leader, a leading force behind the establishment of the Arab League and a spiritual father of the PLO, was a close collaborator with Nazi Germany and personally met with Adolf Hitler. In a radio broadcast from Berlin he called upon Muslims to kill Jews wherever they could find them… he had visited incognito the gas chambers of Auschwitz.” Among the first things the newly independent Europeans should do, Breivik declares, is to stop all support of the Palestinians.

For Breivik, as for all his Jewish teachers, Adolf Hitler represents ultimate evil. For this reason, he recommends that his readers avoid historically ominous words like “race”.  2083 is largely an attempt to categorize the other reasons to hate Muslims besides “race”. In the end, he did demonstrate to the world that he is not racist: he killed with an even hand, blue-eyed Norwegians as easily as brown-eyed guests. Breivik even hates David Duke – for being anti-Jewish. His hatred of Islam is not limited to the borders of Norway, or even of Europe – like all proper Neocons he hates Muslims wherever they are to be found.

Breivik spends many pages describing the evils committed by Turkey, including the massacres of the Armenians, Greeks and Kurds. There is a long chapter on the modern history of Lebanon where Israeli hand has been excised, and the wars are presented as a struggle between Christians and Muslims. His favourite historical hero is Vlad the Impaler, the Romanian prince better known as Count Dracula.

His logic is as primitive as it is faulty: “If all ethnical groups and all cultures are equal, why is it black Africans, Afro-Caribbean blacks, Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, and Eastern Europeans want to abandon their own lands en masse to live in the lands of the West?”

The most obvious explanation: “because the West has robbed them blind,” does not occur to Breivik.

He continues his fallacious dialog: “If we’re all truly equal, why does the rest of the world want to live the Western lifestyle, a lifestyle created in the main by white people? Just why exactly, do they want to be part of capitalism, run businesses, work for the white man’s industries, claim the white man’s welfare and buy and use goods created by the creativity and ingenuity of Western – white – people?”

The fallacies are opaque to Breivik. His Neocon informers have not equipped him to understand that the hated immigrants had once worked in their own successful industries in their own countries. He has forgotten the colour revolutions, the actions of the IMF, and all the other signs of busy Neocon activism.

By no means can Breivik be characterised as a Christian fundamentalist; nor is he a Christian Zionist. His feelings towards Christianity are lukewarm at best, little more than a cultural solidarity. He hasn’t decided whether to call himself Christian. He is still “struggling with this myself. Some of the criticism of Christianity…is legitimate.” Like many Jewish activists, he approves of “the Second Vatican Council from the 1960s …for reaching out to Jews”, an interpretation that at one time was universally resisted by conservatives everywhere.

Breivik’s theological liberalism, however, evaporates when he considers Islam. Though his arguments are valid for immigration policies around the world, he will only speak out against Muslim immigrants. He does not call upon his country to stop tormenting the Muslim states even though this is the main reason for Muslim immigration. He cannot even consider the connection.

In any case, the immigration dispute is practically over in Europe. The understanding that immigration carries huge social costs slowly percolated through every strata of European society, and the tide has turned. Just a few years ago immigration was often viewed as a magic wand that would save the citizens from repetitive, boring chores; people do not see it this way anymore. These immigrants were not slaves, nor were they robots; they quickly became enfranchised, though not integrated. If they work they push the natives into the ranks of the unemployed or working poor; if they do not work, they overload the welfare budgets. The realization dawned slowly, but the about-face is final. Today, a Norwegian does not have to shoot his fellow citizens in order to express disagreement with immigration: this has become the mainstream attitude.

Counterpunch writer Vijay Prashad wrote: “the [murdered] Labour youth had among them children of migrants from Sri Lanka and North Africa. Their Norway was not Breivik’s Norway.” Exactly. That is why Breivik hated them: he did not want their new, international Norway to displace the Norway of his youth. Prashad condemns European conservatives who “cannot fathom that human beings are able to live convivial lives with those who are different”, but the history of Sri Lanka is not the best example of peaceful conviviality. If the people of Sri Lanka want to “live convivial lives with those who are different” they might have tried that back home – no need for the long flight to Norway. Prashad may call Merkel and Sarkozy “Nazis” for refusing to let in more immigration, and yet even he must sense that the Utoya Massacre is a strong signal that many people have had enough immigration and want it stopped.

In point of fact, immigration into Norway has slowed to a trickle. In a wild swing away from its own liberal policies, the government of Norway – like many West European governments – has changed the rules to make immigration almost impossible. In a famous case, a young girl from the Caucasus lived for some ten years in Norway, completed her university studies, wrote a novel in Norwegian – and ended up being deported as an illegal alien. Multiculturalism is a failed slogan of the past, and Breivik is as out-of-date as Prashad.

American Hellholes

From: The Economic Collapse…

The U.S. economy is dying and we are heading for the next Great Depression.  The talking heads in the mainstream media love to spin the economic numbers around and around and they love to make it sound like the economy is improving, but the truth is that it doesn’t take a genius to see what is happening to the U.S. economic system.  All over the nation many of our greatest cities are being slowly but surely transformed into post-apocalyptic wastelands.  All over the mid-Atlantic, all along the Gulf coast, all throughout the “rust belt” and all over the entire state of California cities that once had incredibly vibrant economies are being turned into rotting, post-industrial hellholes. In many U.S. cities, the “real” rate of unemployment is over 30 percent. There are some communities that will start depressing you almost the moment that you drive into them. It is almost as if all of the hope has been sucked right out of those communities.  If you live in one of those American hellholes you know what I am talking about.  Sadly, it is not just a few cities that are becoming hellholes.  This is happening in the east, in the west, in the north and in the south.  America is literally being transformed right in front of our eyes.

If you still live in an area of the United States that is prosperous, do not mock the cities that you are about to read about.  The cold, hard reality of the matter is that economic decline and economic despair are spreading rapidly and they will come to your area soon enough.  Right now we are still talking about “American hellholes”, but if the long-term economic trends that are destroying this nation are not turned around eventually we will just be talking about one gigantic “American hellhole”.  In the end, no area of the country will completely escape the economic hell that is coming.

Let’s take a closer look at what is currently happening in some of the worst areas of the country….

Detroit, Michigan

In the city of Detroit today, there are over 33,000 abandoned houses, 70 schools are being permanently closed down, the mayor wants to bulldoze one-fourth of the city and you can literally buy a house for one dollar in the worst areas.

During the boom days of the 1950s, Detroit was a teeming metropolis of approximately 2 million people, but today the current population is less than half that.  The city of Detroit, once a shining example of middle class America, is now a rotting cesspool of economic decline and it actually saw its population decline by 25 percent during the decade that recently ended.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Detroit lost a resident every 22 minutes between the years of 2000 and 2010.

So why are people leaving Detroit so rapidly?

There simply are no jobs.

At the height of the economic downturn, the mayor of Detroit admitted that while the “official” unemployment rate in Detroit was about 27 percent, the “real” unemployment rate in his city was actually somewhere around 50 percent.

Since there are not enough jobs, that also means that not enough tax money is coming in.  Detroit is essentially insolvent at this point.

Detroit officials are trying to implement some austerity measures in a desperate attempt to get city finances under control.

For example, the state of Michigan recently granted approval to a plan that would shut down nearly half of the public schools in Detroit.  Under the plan, 70 schools will be closed and 72 will continue operating.

It has been estimated that the remaining public schools will have class sizes of up to 60 students.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing also wants to cut off 20 percent of the entire city from police and trash services in order to save money.

Essentially that would mean abandoning 20 percent of the city of Detroit to the gangs and to the homeless.

The mayor of Detroit has also discussed a plan in which authorities would bulldoze one-fourth of the city in order to save money on services.

So with all of this going on, is Detroit a pleasant place to live at this point?

No way.

Today, Detroit is considered to be the third most violent city in the United States.

In fact, crime has gotten so bad and the citizens are so frustrated by the lack of police assistance that they have resorted to forming their own organizations to fight back.  One group, known as “Detroit 300″, was formed after a 90-year-old woman on Detroit’s northwest side was brutally raped in August.

If you want to see what the future of America looks like, just take a few hours and go driving through Detroit some time.  But please only do this during the day.  Do not do this at night.  Detroit is not a safe place anymore, and you cannot count on the police to help you in a timely manner.

Detroit was once one of the greatest cities in the world.

But today it is an absolute hellhole.

Camden, New Jersey

So is there any place in America that is worse than Detroit?

Well, many would nominate Camden, New Jersey.

Many years ago, Camden was actually thriving and prosperous.  But today the city of Camden is known as “the second most dangerous city in America”.

In a recent article entitled “City of Ruins“, Chris Hedges did an amazing job of documenting the horrific decline of Camden.  Hedges estimates that the real rate of unemployment in Camden is somewhere around 30 to 40 percent, and he makes it sound like nobody in their right mind would want to live there now….

Camden is where those discarded as human refuse are dumped, along with the physical refuse of postindustrial America. A sprawling sewage treatment plant on forty acres of riverfront land processes 58 million gallons of wastewater a day for Camden County. The stench of sewage lingers in the streets. There is a huge trash-burning plant that releases noxious clouds, a prison, a massive cement plant and mountains of scrap metal feeding into a giant shredder. The city is scarred with several thousand decaying abandoned row houses; the skeletal remains of windowless brick factories and gutted gas stations; overgrown vacant lots filled with garbage and old tires; neglected, weed-filled cemeteries; and boarded-up store fronts.

Gangs have stepped into the gaping void left by industry.  In Camden today, drugs and prostitution are two of the only viable businesses left – especially for those who cannot find employment anywhere else.  The following is how Hedges describes the current state of affairs….

There are perhaps a hundred open-air drug markets, most run by gangs like the Bloods, the Latin Kings, Los Nietos and MS-13. Knots of young men in black leather jackets and baggy sweatshirts sell weed and crack to clients, many of whom drive in from the suburbs. The drug trade is one of the city’s few thriving businesses. A weapon, police say, is never more than a few feet away, usually stashed behind a trash can, in the grass or on a porch.

But before we all start judging Camden for being such a horrible place to live, it is important to realize that this is happening in communities from coast to coast.  All over the United States industries are leaving and deep social decay is setting in.

Even the criminals in Camden are struggling.  Things have gotten so bad in Camden, New Jersey that not even the drug dealers are spending their money anymore.

So where are the police?

Unfortunately, there is very little money for police.  Authorities in Camden recently decided to lay off half of the city police force.

So now the gangs and the drug dealers have more room to operate.

Sadly, this is not just happening in Camden.  It is happening all over New Jersey.

Of 315 municipalities the New Jersey State Police union recently surveyed,more than half indicated that they were planning to lay off police officers.

So why doesn’t the state government step in and help out?

Well, the state of New Jersey is in such bad shape that they still are facing a $10 billion budget deficit for this year even after cutting a billion dollars from the education budget and laying off thousands of teachers.

New Jersey also has $46 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and $65 billion in unfunded health care liabilities.  Nobody is quite sure how New Jersey is even going to come close to meeting those obligations.

Meanwhile, cities like Camden are rotting a little bit more every single day.

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans had a struggling economy even before Hurricane Katrina struck back in 2005.  But that event changed everything.  It is now almost 6 years later and virtually the entire region is still a disaster zone.

New Orleans permanently lost 29% of its population after Hurricane Katrina.  There are many areas of New Orleans that still look as if they have just been bombed.

21.5 percent of all houses in New Orleans, Louisiana are currently standing vacant.  Many of those homes will never be inhabited again.

What made things even worse for New Orleans (and for residents all along the Gulf coast) was the horrific BP oil spill last year.  The mainstream news does not talk about the oil spill much anymore, but those living in the area have to deal with the effects every single day.

Some of the industries in the Gulf region were really starting to recover from Hurricane Katrina but the BP oil spill put a stop to that.

Before the oil spill, Louisiana produced more fish and seafood than anywhere in the United States except for Alaska.  But now the seafood industry has been absolutely devastated.  It has been estimated that the cost of the BP oil spill to the fishing industry in Louisiana alone could top 3 billion dollars.

Some local shrimpers in the region are projecting that it will be about seven years before they can set to sea again.

New Orleans keeps trying to bounce back from all of these disasters, but times are tough down there.

Today, New Orleans is the 13th most violent city in America.  That is actually an improvement.  Before Katrina New Orleans had even more violent crime.

The truth is that other areas along the Gulf coast are doing a lot worse than New Orleans is doing.  A ton of big corporate money has flowed into New Orleans.  Officials are trying to clean up the city and make it a huge tourist destination once again.

But in the surrounding areas things are not looking so bright.  There are areas along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the panhandle of Florida that are some of the most depressing places in the nation.

It is almost as if there are hundreds of thousands of people that time forgot.  In some rural areas along the Gulf coast the poverty is absolutely mind blowing.  There are very few jobs and there is very little hope.  Meanwhile, large numbers of people in the region continue to get sick from the toxic dispersants used to clean up the oil spill.

Let us hope that we don’t see another major disaster in the Gulf of Mexico any time soon.  As it is, it is going to take decades for that region to fully recover.  There are a lot of really good people that live down there, and they deserve our prayers.

Vallejo, California (And Virtually The Rest Of The State Of California)

Almost the entire state of California is an economic disaster zone. Austerity measures are being implemented in city after city as tax revenues have nosedived.

The following is an excerpt from a recent New York Times article that describes the brutal austerity that has been implemented in Vallejo, California….

Vallejo is still in bankruptcy. The police force has shrunk from 153 officers to 92. Calls for any but the most serious crimes go unanswered. Residents who complain about prostitutes or vandals are told to fill out a form. Three of the city’s firehouses were closed. Last summer, a fire ravaged a house in one of the city’s better neighborhoods; one of the firetrucks came from another town, 15 miles away. Is this America’s future?

Sadly, that is what the future of America is going to look like.  Public services are being slashed all over the nation due to budget crunches.

Unless there is a major jobs recovery, the situation in California is going to continue to degenerate.  The truth is that the state of California needs millions and millions of new jobs just to get back to “normal”.  For example, near the end of last year it was reported that 24.3 percent of the residents of El Centro, California were unemployed.  Not only that, as of the end of last year the number of people unemployed in the state of California was approximately equivalent to the entire populations of Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermontcombined.

Businesses are closing in California at an astounding pace.  At one point last year it was reported that in the area around Sacramento, California there wasone closed business for every six that were still open.

As a result of all of this, home prices in many areas of California have completely fallen off a cliff.  For example, the average home in Merced, California has declined in value by 63 percent over the past four years.

California also had more foreclosure filings that any other U.S. state in 2010.  The 546,669 total foreclosure filings during the year means that over 4 percent of all the housing units in the state of California received a foreclosure filing at some point during 2010.

Sadly, things don’t look like they are going to turn around in California any time soon.  Forbes recently compiled a list entitled ““.

Six of the top seven spots were held by cities in California.

California is becoming a very frightening place.  When you combine high unemployment with unchecked illegal immigration what you get is rampant poverty.

20 percent of the residents of Los Angeles County are now receiving public aid of one form or another.

In particular, the number of children that are considered to be in need of public assistance is truly scary.

Incredibly, 60 percent of all the students attending California public schools now qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.

Poverty and illegal immigration have also caused a tremendous health care crisis in the state.  The hordes of illegal aliens taking advantage of “free” medical care at hospital emergency rooms have caused dozens of hospitals across the state of California to completely shut down.  As a result, the state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.

The bozos in Sacramento keep passing hundreds of new laws in an attempt to “fix” the state, but the truth is that for the poorest residents of the state all of those new laws don’t make a shred of difference.

The following is how Victor Davis Hansen describes what he saw during his recent tour of the “forgotten areas of central California”….

Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World . There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business – rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections – but apparently none of that applies out here.

Hansen also says that he observed that people in these areas are doing whatever they can to get by….

At crossroads, peddlers in a counter-California economy sell almost anything. Here is what I noticed at an intersection on the west side last week: shovels, rakes, hoes, gas pumps, lawnmowers, edgers, blowers, jackets, gloves, and caps. The merchandise was all new. I doubt whether in high-tax California sales taxes or income taxes were paid on any of these stop-and-go transactions.

In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when “food stamps” were embarrassing bulky coupons).

Are you frightened yet?

You know what they say – “as goes California, so goes the nation”.

What is happening in California now is eventually going to come to your area.

Right now California is also having a huge problem with gangs.  Gang violence in America is getting totally out of control.  According to authorities, there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs operating inside the country, and those gangs are responsible for up to 80% of the violent crimes committed in the U.S. each year.

But instead of ramping up to fight crime and fight illegal immigration, police forces all over California are being cut back.

For example, because of extreme budget cuts and police layoffs, Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts has announced that there are a number of crimes that his department simply will no longer respond to due to a lack of resources.  The following is a partial list of the crimes that police officers in Oakland will no longer be responding to….

• burglary
• theft
• embezzlement
• grand theft
• grand theft: dog
• identity theft
• false information to peace officer
• required to register as sex or arson offender
• dump waste or offensive matter
• loud music
• possess forged notes
• pass fictitious check
• obtain money by false voucher
• fraudulent use of access cards
• stolen license plate
• embezzlement by an employee
• extortion
• attempted extortion
• false personification of other
• injure telephone/power line
• interfere with power line
• unauthorized cable tv connection
• vandalism

Not that Oakland wasn’t already a mess before all this, but now how long do you think it will be before total chaos and anarchy reigns on the streets of Oakland?

Today, Oakland is considered the 5th most violent city in the United States.

Will it soon become the most violent?

But Oakland is not the only major California city that is facing these kinds of issues.

Things have gotten so bad in Stockton, California that the police union put up a billboard with the following message: “Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California. Stop laying off cops.”

Already the police force in Stockton has been stripped down to almost nothing.

A while back, the Stockton Police Department dropped this bombshell….

“We absolutely do not have any narcotics officers, narcotics sergeants working any kind of investigative narcotics type cases at this point in time.”

Do you think drug dealers will be flocking to Stockton after they hear that?

California was once the envy of the world.

Now it is becoming one gigantic hellhole.

During one recent 23 year period, the state of California built 23 prisons but just one university.

So is there any hope for California?

No, unfortunately there is not.

In another article, I wrote about some of the reasons why millions of peoplehave been leaving California for good….

Meanwhile, the standard of living in California is going right into the toilet.  Housing values are plummeting.  Unemployment has risen above 20 percent in many areas of the state.  Crime and gang activity is on the rise even as police budgets are being hacked to the bone.  The health care system is an absolute disaster.  At this point California has the fewest emergency rooms per million people out of all 50 states.   While all of this has been going on, the state legislature in Sacramento has been very busy passing hundreds of new laws that are mostly about promoting one radical agenda or another.  The state government has become so radically anti-business that it is a wonder that any businesses have remained in the state.  It seems like the moving vans never stop as an endless parade of businesses and families leave California as quickly as they can.

But this is not just a “California thing”.  The truth is that what is happening in California, in Detroit, in Camden and in hundreds of other communities is also going to happen where you live.

The U.S. economy is slowly dying. Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year.  That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in U.S. history.

People are getting desperate.  There are ten percent fewer middle class jobs than there were a decade ago and the competition for good jobs has become insane.  More than 44 million Americans are now on food stamps and that number grows every single month.  Millions more American families fall into poverty every single year.

It is time to face the truth about what is happening to America.  Our economy is not growing and becoming stronger.  Rather, the cold, hard reality of the matter is that our economy is very sick and it is dying.  The seemingly boundless prosperity that we have enjoyed for decade after decade is coming to an end.  Our communities are being transformed into absolute hellholes.

Those that are telling you that the U.S. economy will soon be better than ever are lying to you.  The U.S. economy is going to go down and it is going to go down hard.

You better get ready.

 

Forget about Libya: Let’s invade the Caymans!

If you were to look in the dictionary for a definition of the word “loot,” you would find the following: “Goods usually of considerable value taken in war”. But no matter how you get your hands on it, loot is still loot. According to Merriam-Webster, when nations seize loot, it is called war. However, when individuals seize loot, we call them pirates. But sometimes nations can act like pirates too.

Merriam-Webster also defines the word “loot” as “something appropriated illegally often by force or violence.” Even nations can do that! And if your nation is bound and determined to act like a pirate, then might I suggest that it follow Captain Jack Sparrow’s excellent example and go off to the Caribbean to do its plundering, right?

According to journalist Nicholas Shaxson, author of “Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens,” there are anywhere between ten and 20 trillion U.S. dollars sitting offshore at the moment. “Half of world trade is processed in one way or another through tax havens. It’s all around us, and it’s absolutely huge.” (an absolute Must-Read if you want to understand American politics and economics today). And many of these huge “offshore” holdings are located in the Caribbean. Good to know!

Of course plundering Libya does have its good points, I’ll be the first to admit. By sacking and pillaging its oil-producing cities for their loot, there is much swag to be had — especially if you are working for BP. However, dollar for dollar, the Cayman Islands have much more loot to offer than almost anywhere else in the world — and I’m not just talking about some eye-popping booty here either. Unlike Libya, the Cayman Islands are also offering a really first-class place to invade.

Just imagine all those billions and trillions of dollars stored in the bank vaults at Georgetown, just lying there waiting to be had. And them thar hearty treasures are easy pickings too — because the Caymans, unlike Libya, doesn’t even have an army to defend itself. No major guided missile systems, no nuclear weapons, not even very many tanks. Plus the hotels in the Caymans are much nicer than the ones in Libya, giving Anderson Cooper much more comfortable digs to report from than in the Middle East.

According to WhereToStay.com, you can get a suite at the Villa Bellagio in Georgetown for just $1,377 a night — including five bedrooms, four baths, easy golf course access, maid service and an in-suite jacuzzi. “Directly on the beach!” reads the brochure. Let’s see Gaddafi try to match that.

And, as the Caymans government itself brags on its website, “The Cayman Islands is one of the world’s leading providers of institutionally focused, specialized financial services and a preferred destination for the structuring and domiciling of sophisticated financial services products.” Yours for the picking! Why go to Libya for oil money when eventually all that oil money will end up coming to you anyway, here in the Caribbean.

Plus the Caymans have all kinds of cool beaches where you can bury your treasure once the plundering is over. X marks the spot.

If the United States is into the pirating game — and it surely appears to be, after having successfully looted Iraq’s oil, Afghanistan’s heroin trade, Vietnam’s central location and all that prime real estate in Palestine — then I would like to suggest that it’s time for America to GO BIG and loot the Cayman Islands too. Ah, the Caymans — where all America’s oligarchs’ vast pirate swag always ends up eventually anyway. So let’s eliminate the middleman here and go straight to the end of the booty rainbow itself.

“But America can’t invade the Caymans, Jane!” you might say. Why not? “Because that’s America’s money down there in those vaults.” Yep. My point exactly. Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. aren’t the only countries that have been looted by pirates. America has been looted too. And now it’s time to go and get it all back.

“Avast there, Mateys!” Hoist up the Jolly Roger. Set sail on the Black Pearl.

American taxpayers’ money is no longer stored in our treasury, at our mints, or in Fort Knox. Now it’s all down there in the Caymans in private senators’ and lobbyists’ and corporatists’ secret bank accounts. So let’s storm down there like Keira Knightly and get it all back. Or maybe we could spare ourselves all the bother of invading yet another sovereign country again — and just pass a few laws that will make it illegal for corporatist pirates to pillage America and send their loot off to the Caymans. Nah. Where would be all the “Talk like a Pirate Day” fun in that?

PS: I just checked with Expedia regarding the price of a trip to the Caymans and if you are willing to live on the cheap and forgo the whole oligarch experience, you can actually score a round-trip air fare from San Francisco and a minimalist hotel room for a week for less than $1,500. I should save up, go down there and pay a visit to what used to be America’s money sometime — since it is definitely not located up here any more, and it looks like us wimpy American taxpayers ain’t gonna invade the Caymans to get it back any time soon.

Next Page »