Fluoride – Killing Us Softly

There’s nothing like a glass of cool, clear water to quench one’s thirst. But the next time you or your child reaches for one, you might want to question whether that water is in fact, too toxic to drink. If your water is fluoridated, the answer may well be yes.

For decades, we have been told a lie, a lie that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans and the weakening of the immune systems of tens of millions more. This lie is called fluoridation. A process we were led to believe was a safe and effective method of protecting teeth from decay is in fact a fraud. For decades it’s been shown that fluoridation is neither essential for good health nor protective of teeth. What it does is poison the body. We should all at this point be asking how and why public health policy and the American media continue to live with and perpetuate this scientific sham.

The Latest in Fluoride News

Today more than ever, evidence of fluoride’s toxicity is entering the public sphere.The summer of 2012 saw the publication of a systematic review and meta-analysis by researchers at Harvard University that explored the link between exposure to fluoride and neurological and cognitive function among children. The report pooled data from over 27 studies- many of them from China- carried out over the course of 22 years. The results, which were published in the journal Environmental Health Sciencesshowed a strong connection between exposure to fluoride in drinking water and decreased IQ scores in children. The team concluded that “the results suggest that fluoride may be a developmental neurotoxicant that affects brain development at exposures much below those that can cause toxicity in adults.” ¹

The newest scientific data suggest that the damaging effects of fluoride extend to reproductive health as well. A 2013 study published in the journal Archives of Toxicology showed a link between fluoride exposure and male infertility in mice. The study’s findings suggest that sodium fluoride impairs the ability of sperm cells in mice to normally fertilize the egg through a process known as chemotaxis. ² This is the latest in more than 60 scientific studies on animals that have identified an association between male infertility and fluoride exposure.³

Adding more fuel to the fluoride controversy is a recent investigative report by NaturalNews exposing how the chemicals used to fluoridate United States’ water systems today are commonly purchased from Chinese chemical plants looking to discard surplus stores of this form of industrial waste. Disturbingly, the report details that some Chinese vendors of fluoride advertise on their website that their product can be used as an “adhesive preservative”, an “insecticide” as well as a” flux for soldering and welding”.⁴ One Chinese manufacturer, Shanghai Polymet Commodities Ltd,. which produces fluoride destined for municipal water reserves in the United States, notes on their website that their fluoride is “highly corrosive to human skin and harmful to people’s respiratory organs”. ⁵

The Fluoride Phase Out at Home and Abroad

There are many signs in recent years that indicate growing skepticism over fluoridation. The New York Times reported in October 2011 that in the previous four years, about 200 jurisdictions across the USA moved to cease water fluoridation. A panel composed of scientists and health professionals in Fairbanks, Alaska recently recommended ceasing fluoridation of the county water supply after concluding that the addition of fluoride to already naturally-fluoridated reserves could pose health risks to 700,000 residents. The move to end fluoridation would save the county an estimated $205,000 annually. ⁶

The city of Portland made headlines in 2013 when it voted down a measure to fluoridate its water supply. The citizens of Portland have rejected introducing the chemical to drinking water on three separate occasions since the 1950’s. Portland remains the largest city in the United States to shun fluoridation.⁷

The movement against fluoridation has gained traction overseas as well. In 2013, Israel’s Ministry of Health committed to a countrywide phase-out of fluoridation. The decision came after Israel’s Supreme Court deemed the existing health regulations requiring fluoridation to be based on science that is “outdated” and “no longer widely accepted.”⁸

Also this year, the government of the Australian state of Queensland eliminated $14 million in funding for its state-wide fluoridation campaign. The decision, which was executed by the Liberal National Party (LNP) government, forced local councils to vote on whether or not to introduce fluoride to their water supplies. Less than two months after the decision came down, several communities including the town of Cairns halted fluoridation. As a result, nearly 200,000 Australians will no longer be exposed to fluoride in their drinking water.⁹

An ever-growing number of institutions and individuals are questioning the wisdom of fluoridation. At the fore of the movement are thousands of scientific authorities and health care professionals who are speaking out about the hazards of this damaging additive. As of November 2013, a group of over 4549 professionals including 361 dentists and 562 medical doctors have added their names to a petition aimed at ending fluoridation started by the Fluoride Action Network.  Among the prominent signatories are Nobel Laureate Arvid Carlsson and William Marcus, PhD who served as the chief toxicologist of the EPA Water Division.¹⁰

The above sampling of recent news items on fluoride brings into sharp focus just how urgent it is to carry out a critical reassessment of the mass fluoridation campaign that currently affects hundreds of millions of Americans. In order to better understand the massive deception surrounding this toxic chemical, we must look back to the sordid history of how fluoride was first introduced.

How to Market a Toxic Waste

“We would not purposely add arsenic to the water supply. And we would not purposely add lead. But we do add fluoride. The fact is that fluoride is more toxic than lead and just slightly less toxic than arsenic.” ¹¹

These words of Dr. John Yiamouyiannis may come as a shock to you because, if you’re like most Americans, you have positive associations with fluoride. You may envision tooth protection, strong bones, and a government that cares about your dental needs. What you’ve probably never been told is that the fluoride added to drinking water and toothpaste is a crude industrial waste product of the aluminum and fertilizer industries, and a substance toxic enough to be used as rat poison. How is it that Americans have learned to love an environmental hazard? This phenomenon can be attributed to a carefully planned marketing program begun even before Grand Rapids, Michigan, became the first community to officially fluoridate its drinking water in 1945. ¹²   As a result of this ongoing campaign, nearly two-thirds of the nation has enthusiastically followed Grand Rapids’ example. But this push for fluoridation has less to do with a concern for America’s health than with industry’s penchant to expand at the expense of our nation’s well-being.

The first thing you have to understand about fluoride is that it’s the problem child of industry. Its toxicity was recognized at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, when, in the 1850s iron and copper factories discharged it into the air and poisoned plants, animals, and people.¹³   The problem was exacerbated in the 1920s when rapid industrial growth meant massive pollution. Medical writer Joel Griffiths explains that “it was abundantly clear to both industry and government that spectacular U.S. industrial expansion ­ and the economic and military power and vast profits it promised ­ would necessitate releasing millions of tons of waste fluoride into the environment.”¹⁴  Their biggest fear was that “if serious injury to people were established, lawsuits alone could prove devastating to companies, while public outcry could force industry-wide government regulations, billions in pollution-control costs, and even mandatory changes in high-fluoride raw materials and profitable technologies.” ¹⁵

At first, industry could dispose of fluoride legally only in small amounts by selling it to insecticide and rat poison manufacturers. ¹⁶   Then a commercial outlet was devised in the 1930s when a connection was made between water supplies bearing traces of fluoride and lower rates of tooth decay. Griffiths writes that this was not a scientific breakthrough, but rather part of a “public disinformation campaign” by the aluminum industry “to convince the public that fluoride was safe and good.” Industry’s need prompted Alcoa-funded scientist Gerald J. Cox to announce that “The present trend toward complete removal of fluoride from water may need some reversal.” ¹⁷   Griffiths writes:

“The big news in Cox’s announcement was that this ‘apparently worthless by-product’ had not only been proved safe (in low doses), but actually beneficial; it might reduce cavities in children. A proposal was in the air to add fluoride to the entire nation’s drinking water. While the dose to each individual would be low, ‘fluoridation’ on a national scale would require the annual addition of hundreds of thousands of tons of fluoride to the country’s drinking water.

“Government and industry ­ especially Alcoa ­ strongly supported intentional water fluoridation… [it] made possible a master public relations stroke ­ one that could keep scientists and the public off fluoride’s case for years to come. If the leaders of dentistry, medicine, and public health could be persuaded to endorse fluoride in the public’s drinking water, proclaiming to the nation that there was a ‘wide margin of safety,’ how were they going to turn around later and say industry’s fluoride pollution was dangerous?

“As for the public, if fluoride could be introduced as a health enhancing substance that should be added to the environment for the children’s sake, those opposing it would look like quacks and lunatics….

“Back at the Mellon Institute, Alcoa’s Pittsburgh Industrial research lab, this news was galvanic. Alcoa-sponsored biochemist Gerald J. Cox immediately fluoridated some lab rats in a study and concluded that fluoride reduced cavities and that ‘The case should be regarded as proved.’ In a historic moment in 1939, the first public proposal that the U.S. should fluoridate its water supplies was made ­ not by a doctor, or dentist, but by Cox, an industry scientist working for a company threatened by fluoride damage claims.” ¹⁸

Once the plan was put into action, industry was buoyant. They had finally found the channel for fluoride that they were looking for, and they were even cheered on by dentists, government agencies, and the public. Chemical Week, a publication for the chemical industry, described the tenor of the times: “All over the country, slide rules are getting warm as waterworks engineers figure the cost of adding fluoride to their water supplies.” They are riding a trend urged upon them, by the U.S. Public Health Service, the American Dental Association, the State Dental Health Directors, various state and local health bodies, and vocal women’s clubs from coast to coast. It adds up to a nice piece of business on all sides and many firms are cheering the PHS and similar groups as they plump for increasing adoption of fluoridation.” ¹⁹

Such overwhelming acceptance allowed government and industry to proceed hastily, albeit irresponsibly. The Grand Rapids experiment was supposed to take 15 years, during which time health benefits and hazards were to be studied. In 1946, however, just one year into the experiment, six more U.S. cities adopted the process. By 1947, 87 more communities were treated; popular demand was the official reason for this unscientific haste.

The general public and its leaders did support the cause, but only after a massive government public relations campaign spearheaded by Edward L. Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud. Bernays, a public relations pioneer who has been called “the original spin doctor,” ²⁰  was a masterful PR strategist. As a result of his influence, Griffiths writes, “Almost overnight…the popular image of fluoride ­ which at the time was being widely sold as rat and bug poison ­ became that of a beneficial provider of gleaming smiles, absolutely safe, and good for children, bestowed by a benevolent paternal government. Its opponents were permanently engraved on the public mind as crackpots and right-wing loonies.” ²¹

Griffiths explains that while opposition to fluoridation is usually associated with right-wingers, this picture is not totally accurate. He provides an interesting historical perspective on the anti-fluoridation stance:

“Fluoridation attracted opponents from every point on the continuum of politics and sanity. The prospect of the government mass-medicating the water supplies with a well-known rat poison to prevent a nonlethal disease flipped the switches of delusionals across the country ­ as well as generating concern among responsible scientists, doctors, and citizens.

“Moreover, by a fortuitous twist of circumstances, fluoride’s natural opponents on the left were alienated from the rest of the opposition. Oscar Ewing, a Federal Security Agency administrator, was a Truman “fair dealer” who pushed many progressive programs such as nationalized medicine. Fluoridation was lumped with his proposals. Inevitably, it was attacked by conservatives as a manifestation of “creeping socialism,” while the left rallied to its support. Later during the McCarthy era, the left was further alienated from the opposition when extreme right-wing groups, including the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan, raved that fluoridation was a plot by the Soviet Union and/or communists in the government to poison America’s brain cells.

“It was a simple task for promoters, under the guidance of the ‘original spin doctor,’ to paint all opponents as deranged ­ and they played this angle to the hilt….

“Actually, many of the strongest opponents originally started out as proponents, but changed their minds after a close look at the evidence. And many opponents came to view fluoridation not as a communist plot, but simply as a capitalist-style con job of epic proportions. Some could be termed early environmentalists, such as the physicians George L. Waldbott and Frederick B. Exner, who first documented government-industry complicity in hiding the hazards of fluoride pollution from the public. Waldbott and Exner risked their careers in a clash with fluoride defenders, only to see their cause buried in toothpaste ads.” ²²

By 1950, fluoridation’s image was a sterling one, and there was not much science could do at this point. The Public Health Service was fluoridation’s main source of funding as well as its promoter, and therefore caught in a fundamental conflict of interest. ¹²   If fluoridation were found to be unsafe and ineffective, and laws were repealed, the organization feared a loss of face, since scientists, politicians, dental groups, and physicians unanimously supported it. ²³  For this reason, studies concerning its effects were not undertaken. The Oakland Tribune noted this when it stated that “public health officials have often suppressed scientific doubts” about fluoridation.²⁴ Waldbott sums up the situation when he says that from the beginning, the controversy over fluoridating water supplies was “a political, not a scientific health issue.”²⁵

The marketing of fluoride continues. In a 1983 letter from the Environmental Protection Agency, then Deputy Assistant Administrator for Water, Rebecca Hammer, writes that the EPA “regards [fluoridation] as an ideal environmental solution to a long-standing problem. By recovering by-product fluosilicic acid from fertilizer manufacturing, water and air pollution are minimized and water utilities have a low-cost source of fluoride available to them.” ²⁶    A 1992 policy statement from the Department of Health and Human Services says, “A recent comprehensive PHS review of the benefits and potential health risks of fluoride has concluded that the practice of fluoridating community water supplies is safe and effective.” ²⁷

According to the CDC website, about 200 million Americans in 16,500 communities are exposed to fluoridated water. Out of the 50 largest cities in the US, 43 have fluoridated water. ²⁸

To help celebrate fluoride’s widespread use, the media recently reported on the 50th anniversary of fluoridation in Grand Rapids. Newspaper articles titled “Fluoridation: a shining public health success” ²⁹  and “After 50 years, fluoride still works with a smile”  ³⁰  painted glowing pictures of the practice. Had investigators looked more closely, though, they might have learned that children in Muskegon, Michigan, an unfluoridated “control” city, had equal drops in dental decay. They might also have learned of the other studies that dispute the supposed wonders of fluoride.

The Fluoride Myth Doesn’t Hold Water

The big hope for fluoride was its ability to immunize children’s developing teeth against cavities. Rates of dental caries were supposed to plummet in areas where water was treated. Yet decades of experience and worldwide research have contradicted this expectation numerous times. Here are just a few examples:

In British Columbia, only 11% of the population drinks fluoridated water, as opposed to 40-70% in other Canadian regions. Yet British Columbia has the lowest rate of tooth decay in Canada. In addition, the lowest rates of dental caries within the province are found in areas that do not have their water supplies fluoridated. ³¹

According to a Sierra Club study, people in unfluoridated developing nations have fewer dental caries than those living in industrialized nations. As a result, they conclude that “fluoride is not essential to dental health.” ³²

In 1986-87, the largest study on fluoridation and tooth decay ever was performed. The subjects were 39,000 school children between 5 and 17 living in 84 areas around the country. A third of the places were fluoridated, a third were partially fluoridated, and a third were not. Results indicate no statistically significant differences in dental decay between fluoridated and unfluoridated cities. ³³

A World Health Organization survey reports a decline of dental decay in western Europe, which is 98% unfluoridated. They state that western Europe’s declining dental decay rates are equal to and sometimes better than those in the U.S. ³⁴

A 1992 University of Arizona study yielded surprising results when they found that “the more fluoride a child drinks, the more cavities appear in the teeth.” ³⁵

Although all Native American reservations are fluoridated, children living there have much higher incidences of dental decay and other oral health problems than do children living in other U.S. communities. ³⁶

In light of all the evidence, fluoride proponents now make more modest claims. For example, in 1988, the ADA professed that a 40- to 60% cavity reduction could be achieved with the help of fluoride. Now they claim an 18- to 25% reduction. Other promoters mention a 12% decline in tooth decay.

And some former supporters are even beginning to question the need for fluoridation altogether. In 1990, a National Institute for Dental Research report stated that “it is likely that if caries in children remain at low levels or decline further, the necessity of continuing the current variety and extent of fluoride-based prevention programs will be questioned.” ³⁷

Most government agencies, however, continue to ignore the scientific evidence and to market fluoridation by making fictional claims about its benefits and pushing for its expansion. For instance, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “National surveys of oral health dating back several decades document continuing decreases in tooth decay in children, adults and senior citizens. Nevertheless, there are parts of the country and particular populations that remain without protection. For these reasons, the U.S. PHS…has set a national goal for the year 2000 that 75% of persons served by community water systems will have access to optimally fluoridated drinking water; currently this figure is just about 60%. The year 2000 target goal is both desirable and yet challenging, based on past progress and continuing evidence of effectiveness and safety of this public health measure.” ³⁸

This statement is flawed on several accounts. First, as we’ve seen, research does not support the effectiveness of fluoridation for preventing tooth disease. Second, purported benefits are supposedly for children, not adults and senior citizens. At about age 13, any advantage fluoridation might offer comes to an end, and less than 1% of the fluoridated water supply reaches this population.  And third, fluoridation has never been proven safe. On the contrary, several studies directly link fluoridation to skeletal fluorosis, dental fluorosis, and several rare forms of cancer. This alone should frighten us away from its use.

Biological Safety Concerns

Only a small margin separates supposedly beneficial fluoride levels from amounts that are known to cause adverse effects. Dr. James Patrick, a former antibiotics research scientist at the National Institutes of Health, describes the predicament:

“[There is] a very low margin of safety involved in fluoridating water. A concentration of about 1 ppm is recommended…in several countries, severe fluorosis has been documented from water supplies containing only 2 or 3 ppm. In the development of drugs…we generally insist on a therapeutic index (margin of safety) of the order of 100; a therapeutic index of 2 or 3 is totally unacceptable, yet that is what has been proposed for public water supplies.”³⁹ 

Other countries argue that even 1 ppm is not a safe concentration. Canadian studies, for example, imply that children under three should have no fluoride whatsoever. The Journal of the Canadian Dental Association states that “Fluoride supplements should not be recommended for children less than 3 years old.” ⁴⁰   Since these supplements contain the same amount of fluoride as water does, they are basically saying that children under the age of three shouldn’t be drinking fluoridated water at all, under any circumstances. Japan has reduced the amount of fluoride in their drinking water to one-eighth of what is recommended in the U.S. Instead of 1 milligram per liter, they use less than 15 hundredths of a milligram per liter as the upper limit allowed. ⁴¹

Even supposing that low concentrations are safe, there is no way to control how much fluoride different people consume, as some take in a lot more than others. For example, laborers, athletes, diabetics, and those living in hot or dry regions can all be expected to drink more water, and therefore more fluoride (in fluoridated areas) than others. ⁴²   Due to such wide variations in water consumption, it is impossible to scientifically control what dosage of fluoride a person receives via the water supply.⁴³

Another concern is that fluoride is not found only in drinking water; it is everywhere. Fluoride is found in foods that are processed with it, which, in the United States, include nearly all bottled drinks and canned foods. ⁴⁴  Researchers writing in The Journal of Clinical Pediatric Dentistry have found that fruit juices, in particular, contain significant amounts of fluoride. In one study, a variety of popular juices and juice blends were analyzed and it was discovered that 42% of the samples examined had more than l ppm of fluoride, with some brands of grape juice containing much higher levels ­ up to 6.8 ppm! The authors cite the common practice of using fluoride-containing insecticide in growing grapes as a factor in these high levels, and they suggest that the fluoride content of beverages be printed on their labels, as is other nutritional information. ⁴⁵  Considering how much juice some children ingest, and the fact that youngsters often insist on particular brands that they consume day after day, labeling seems like a prudent idea. But beyond this is the larger issue that this study brings up: Is it wise to subject children and others who are heavy juice drinkers to additional fluoride in their water?

Here’s a little-publicized reality: Cooking can greatly increase a food’s fluoride content. Peas, for example, contain 12 micrograms of fluoride when raw and 1500 micrograms after they are cooked in fluoridated water, which is a tremendous difference. Also, we should keep in mind that fluoride is an ingredient in pharmaceuticals, aerosols, insecticides, and pesticides.

And of course, toothpastes. It’s interesting to note that in the 1950s, fluoridated toothpastes were required to carry warnings on their labels saying that they were not to be used in areas where water was already fluoridated. Crest toothpaste went so far as to write: “Caution: Children under 6 should not use Crest.” These regulations were dropped in 1958, although no new research was available to prove that the overdose hazard no longer existed. ⁴⁶

Today, common fluoride levels in toothpaste are 1000 ppm. Research chemist Woodfun Ligon notes that swallowing a small amount adds substantially to fluoride intake. ⁴⁷ Dentists say that children commonly ingest up to 0.5 mg of fluoride a day from toothpaste. ⁴⁸

This inevitably raises another issue: How safe is all this fluoride? According to scientists and informed doctors, such as Dr. John Lee, it is not safe at all. Dr. Lee first took an anti-fluoridation stance back in 1972, when as chairman of an environmental health committee for a local medical society, he was asked to state their position on the subject. He stated that after investigating the references given by both pro- and anti-fluoridationists, the group discovered three important things:

“One, the claims of benefit of fluoride, the 60% reduction of cavities, was not established by any of these studies. Two, we found that the investigations into the toxic side effects of fluoride have not been done in any way that was acceptable. And three, we discovered that the estimate of the amount of fluoride in the food chain, in the total daily fluoride intake, had been measured in 1943, and not since then. By adding the amount of fluoride that we now have in the food chain, which comes from food processing with fluoridated water, plus all the fluoridated toothpaste that was not present in 1943, we found that the daily intake of fluoride was far in excess of what was considered optimal.” ⁴⁹

What happens when fluoride intake exceeds the optimal? The inescapable fact is that this substance has been associated with severe health problems, ranging from skeletal and dental fluorosis to bone fractures, to fluoride poisoning, and even to cancer.

Skeletal Fluorosis

When fluoride is ingested, approximately 93% of it is absorbed into the bloodstream. A good part of the material is excreted, but the rest is deposited in the bones and teeth, and is capable of causing a crippling skeletal fluorosis. This is a condition that can damage the musculoskeletal and nervous systems and result in muscle wasting, limited joint motion, spine deformities, and calcification of the ligaments, as well as neurological deficits.

Large numbers of people in Japan, China, India, the Middle East, and Africa have been diagnosed with skeletal fluorosis from drinking naturally fluoridated water. In India alone, nearly a million people suffer from the affliction. ³⁹   While only a dozen cases of skeletal fluorosis have been reported in the United States, Chemical and Engineering News states that “critics of the EPA standard speculate that there probably have been many more cases of fluorosis ­ even crippling fluorosis ­ than the few reported in the literature because most doctors in the U.S. have not studied the disease and do not know how to diagnose it.” ⁵⁰

Radiologic changes in bone occur when fluoride exposure is 5 mg/day, according to the late Dr. George Waldbott, author of Fluoridation: The Great Dilemma. While this 5 mg/day level is the amount of fluoride ingested by most people living in fluoridated areas, ⁵¹   the number increases for diabetics and laborers, who can ingest up to 20 mg of fluoride daily. In addition, a survey conducted by the Department of Agriculture shows that 3% of the U.S. population drinks 4 liters or more of water every day. If these individuals live in areas where the water contains a fluoride level of 4 ppm, allowed by the EPA, they are ingesting 16 mg/day from the consumption of water alone, and are thus at greater risk for getting skeletal fluorosis. ⁵²

Dental Fluorosis

According to a 1989 National Institute for Dental Research study, 1-2% of children living in areas fluoridated at 1 ppm develop dental fluorosis, that is, permanently stained, brown mottled teeth. Up to 23% of children living in areas naturally fluoridated at 4 ppm develop severe dental fluorosis. ⁵³  Other research gives higher figures. The publication Health Effects of Ingested Fluoride, put out by the National Academy of Sciences, reports that in areas with optimally fluoridated water (1 ppm, either natural or added), dental fluorosis levels in recent years ranged from 8 to 51%. Recently, a prevalence of slightly over 80% was reported in children 12-14 years old in Augusta, Georgia.

Fluoride is a noteworthy chemical additive in that its officially acknowledged benefit and damage levels are about the same. Writing in The Progressive, science journalist Daniel Grossman elucidates this point: “Though many beneficial chemicals are dangerous when consumed at excessive levels, fluoride is unique because the amount that dentists recommend to prevent cavities is about the same as the amount that causes dental fluorosis.” ⁵⁴   Although the American Dental Association and the government consider dental fluorosis only a cosmetic problem, the American Journal of Public Health says that “…brittleness of moderately and severely mottled teeth may be associated with elevated caries levels.” ⁴⁵   In other words, in these cases the fluoride is causing the exact problem that it’s supposed to prevent. Yiamouyiannis adds, “In highly naturally-fluoridated areas, the teeth actually crumble as a result. These are the first visible symptoms of fluoride poisoning.” ⁵⁵

Also, when considering dental fluorosis, there are factors beyond the physical that you can’t ignore ­ the negative psychological effects of having moderately to severely mottled teeth. These were recognized in a 1984 National Institute of Mental Health panel that looked into this problem. 

A telling trend is that TV commercials for toothpaste, and toothpaste tubes themselves, are now downplaying fluoride content as a virtue. This was noted in an article in the Sarasota/Florida ECO Report, ⁵⁶ whose author, George Glasser, feels that manufacturers are distancing themselves from the additive because of fears of lawsuits. The climate is ripe for these, and Glasser points out that such a class action suit has already been filed in England against the manufacturers of fluoride-containing products on behalf of children suffering from dental fluorosis.

Bone Fractures

At one time, fluoride therapy was recommended for building denser bones and preventing fractures associated with osteoporosis. Now several articles in peer-reviewed journals suggest that fluoride actually causes more harm than good, as it is associated with bone breakage. Three studies reported in The Journal of the American Medical Association showed links between hip fractures and fluoride. ⁵⁷⁵⁸⁵⁹ Findings here were, for instance, that there is “a small but significant increase in the risk of hip fractures in both men and women exposed to artificial fluoridation at 1 ppm.”   In addition, the New England Journal of Medicine reports that people given fluoride to cure their osteoporosis actually wound up with an increased nonvertebral fracture rate. ⁶⁰  Austrian researchers have also found that fluoride tablets make bones more susceptible to fractures.⁶¹ The U.S. National Research Council states that the U.S. hip fracture rate is now the highest in the world. ⁶²

Louis V. Avioli, professor at the Washington University School of Medicine, says in a 1987 review of the subject: “Sodium fluoride therapy is accompanied by so many medical complications and side effects that it is hardly worth exploring in depth as a therapeutic mode for postmenopausal osteoporosis, since it fails to decrease the propensity for hip fractures and increases the incidence of stress fractures in the extremities.” ⁶³

Fluoride Poisoning

In May 1992, 260 people were poisoned, and one man died, in Hooper Bay, Alaska, after drinking water contaminated with 150 ppm of fluoride. The accident was attributed to poor equipment and an unqualified operator. ⁵⁵   Was this a fluke? Not at all. Over the years, the CDC has recorded several incidents of excessive fluoride permeating the water supply and sickening or killing people. We don’t usually hear about these occurrences in news reports, but interested citizens have learned the truth from data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Here is a partial list of toxic spills we have not been told about:

July 1993 ­ Chicago, Illinois: Three dialysis patients died and five experienced toxic reactions to the fluoridated water used in the treatment process. The CDC was asked to investigate, but to date there have been no press releases.

May 1993 ­ Kodiak, Alaska (Old Harbor): The population was warned not to consume water due to high fluoride levels. They were also cautioned against boiling the water, since this concentrates the substance and worsens the danger. Although equipment appeared to be functioning normally, 22-24 ppm of fluoride was found in a sample.

July 1992 ­ Marin County, California: A pump malfunction allowed too much fluoride into the Bon Tempe treatment plant. Two million gallons of fluoridated water were diverted to Phoenix Lake, elevating the lake surface by more than two inches and forcing some water over the spillway.

December 1991 ­ Benton Harbor, Michigan: A faulty pump allowed approximately 900 gallons of hydrofluosilicic acid to leak into a chemical storage building at the water plant. City engineer Roland Klockow stated, “The concentrated hydrofluosilicic acid was so corrosive that it ate through more than two inches of concrete in the storage building.” This water did not reach water consumers, but fluoridation was stopped until June 1993. The original equipment was only two years old.

July 1991 ­ Porgate, Michigan: After a fluoride injector pump failed, fluoride levels reached 92 ppm and resulted in approximately 40 children developing abdominal pains, sickness, vomiting, and diarrhea at a school arts and crafts show.

November 1979 ­ Annapolis, Maryland: One patient died and eight became ill after renal dialysis treatment. Symptoms included cardiac arrest (resuscitated), hypotension, chest pain, difficulty breathing, and a whole gamut of intestinal problems. Patients not on dialysis also reported nausea, headaches, cramps, diarrhea, and dizziness. The fluoride level was later found to be 35 ppm; the problem was traced to a valve at a water plant that had been left open all night. ⁶⁴

Instead of addressing fluoridation’s problematic safety record, officials have chosen to cover it up. For example, the ADA says in one booklet distributed to health agencies that “Fluoride feeders are designed to stop operating when a malfunction occurs… so prolonged over-fluoridation becomes a mechanical impossibility.”    In addition, the information that does reach the population after an accident is woefully inaccurate. A spill in Annapolis, Maryland, placed thousands at risk, but official reports reduced the number to eight. ⁶⁵  Perhaps officials are afraid they will invite more lawsuits like the one for $480 million by the wife of a dialysis patient who became brain-injured as the result of fluoride poisoning.

Not all fluoride poisoning is accidental. For decades, industry has knowingly released massive quantities of fluoride into the air and water. Disenfranchised communities, with people least able to fight back, are often the victims. Medical writer Joel Griffiths relays this description of what industrial pollution can do, in this case to a devastatingly poisoned Indian reservation:

“Cows crawled around the pasture on their bellies, inching along like giant snails. So crippled by bone disease they could not stand up, this was the only way they could graze. Some died kneeling, after giving birth to stunted calves. Others kept on crawling until, no longer able to chew because their teeth had crumbled down to the nerves, they began to starve….” They were the cattle of the Mohawk Indians on the New York-Canadian St. Regis Reservation during the period 1960-1975, when industrial pollution devastated the herd ­ and along with it, the Mohawks’ way of life….Mohawk children, too, have shown signs of damage to bones and teeth.” ⁶⁶

Mohawks filed suit against the Reynolds Metals Company and the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) in 1960, but ended up settling out of court, where they received $650,000 for their cows. ⁶⁷

Fluoride is one of industry’s major pollutants, and no one remains immune to its effects. In 1989, 155,000 tons were being released annually into the air,    and 500,000 tons a year were disposed of in our lakes, rivers, and oceans. ⁶⁸

Cancer

Numerous studies demonstrate links between fluoridation and cancer; however, agencies promoting fluoride consistently refute or cover up these findings.

In 1977, Dr. John Yiamouyiannis and Dr. Dean Burk, former chief chemist at the National Cancer Institute, released a study that linked fluoridation to 10,000 cancer deaths per year in the U.S. Their inquiry, which compared cancer deaths in the ten largest fluoridated American cities to those in the ten largest unfluoridated cities between 1940 and 1950, discovered a 5% greater rate in the fluoridated areas. ⁶⁹  The NCI disputed these findings, since an earlier analysis of theirs apparently failed to pick up these extra deaths. Federal authorities claimed that Yiamouyiannis and Burk were in error, and that any increase was caused by statistical changes over the years in age, gender, and racial composition. ⁷⁰

In order to settle the question of whether or not fluoride is a carcinogen, a Congressional subcommittee instructed the National Toxicology Program (NTP) to perform another investigation. ⁷¹  That study, due in 1980, was not released until 1990. However, in 1986, while the study was delayed, the EPA raised the standard fluoride level in drinking water from 2.4 to 4 ppm. ⁷²   After this step, some of the government’s own employees in NFFE Local 2050 took what the Oakland Tribune termed the “remarkable step of denouncing that action as political.” ⁷³

When the NTP study results became known in early 1990, union president Dr. Robert Carton, who works in the EPA’s Toxic Substances Division, published a statement. It read, in part: “Four years ago, NFFE Local 2050, which represents all 1100 professionals at EPA headquarters, alerted then Administrator Lee Thomas to the fact that the scientific support documents for the fluoride in drinking water standard were fatally flawed. The fluoride juggernaut proceeded as it apparently had for the last 40 years ­ without any regard for the facts or concern for public health.

“EPA raised the allowed level of fluoride before the results of the rat/mouse study ordered by Congress in 1977 was complete. Today, we find out how irresponsible that decision was. The results reported by NTP, and explained today by Dr. Yiamouyiannis, are, as he notes, not surprising considering the vast amount of data that caused the animal study to be conducted in the first place. The results are not surprising to NFFE Local 2050 either. Four years ago we realized that the claim that there was no evidence that fluoride could cause genetic effects or cancer could not be supported by the shoddy document thrown together by the EPA contractor.

“It was apparent to us that EPA bowed to political pressure without having done an in-depth, independent analysis, using in-house experts, of the currently existing data that show fluoride causes genetic effects, promotes the growth of cancerous tissue, and is likely to cause cancer in humans. If EPA had done so, it would have been readily apparent ­ as it was to Congress in 1977 ­ that there were serious reasons to believe in a cancer threat.

“The behavior by EPA in this affair raises questions about the integrity of science at EPA and the role of professional scientists, lawyers and engineers who provide the interpretation of the available data and the judgements necessary to protect the public health and the environment. Are scientists at EPA there to arrange facts to fit preconceived conclusions? Does the Agency have a responsibility to develop world-class experts in the risks posed by chemicals we are exposed to every day, or is it permissible for EPA to cynically shop around for contractors who will provide them the ‘correct’ answers?” ⁷⁴
What were the NTP study results? Out of 130 male rats that ingested 45 to 79 ppm of fluoride, 5 developed osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer. There were cases, in both males and females at those doses, of squamous cell carcinoma in the mouth. ⁷⁵  Both rats and mice had dose-related fluorosis of the teeth, and female rats suffered osteosclerosis of the long bones.⁷⁶

When Yiamouyiannis analyzed the same data, he found mice with a particularly rare form of liver cancer, known as hepatocholangiocarcinoma. This cancer is so rare, according to Yiamouyiannis, that the odds of its appearance in this study by chance are 1 in 2 million in male mice and l in 100,000 in female mice.    He also found precancerous changes in oral squamous cells, an increase in squamous cell tumors and cancers, and thyroid follicular cell tumors as a result of increasing levels of fluoride in drinking water. ⁷⁷

A March 13, 1990, New York Times article commented on the NTP findings: “Previous animal tests suggesting that water fluoridation might pose risks to humans have been widely discounted as technically flawed, but the latest investigation carefully weeded out sources of experimental or statistical error, many scientists say, and cannot be discounted.” ⁷⁸  In the same article, biologist Dr. Edward Groth notes: “The importance of this study…is that it is the first fluoride bioassay giving positive results in which the latest state-of-the-art procedures have been rigorously applied. It has to be taken seriously.” ⁷¹

On February 22, 1990, the Medical Tribune, an international medical news weekly received by 125,000 doctors, offered the opinion of a federal scientist who preferred to remain anonymous:

“It is difficult to see how EPA can fail to regulate fluoride as a carcinogen in light of what NTP has found. Osteosarcomas are an extremely unusual result in rat carcinogenicity tests. Toxicologists tell me that the only other substance that has produced this is radium….The fact that this is a highly atypical form of cancer implicates fluoride as the cause. Also, the osteosarcomas appeared to be dose-related, and did not occur in controls, making it a clean study.” ⁷⁹

Public health officials were quick to assure a concerned public that there was nothing to worry about! The ADA said the occurrence of cancers in the lab may not be relevant to humans since the level of fluoridation in the experimental animals’ water was so high. ⁸⁰   But the Federal Register, which is the handbook of government practices, disagrees: “The high exposure of experimental animals to toxic agents is a necessary and valid method of discovering possible carcinogenic hazards in man. To disavow the findings of this test would be to disavow those of all such tests, since they are all conducted according to this standard.” ⁷³   As a February 5, 1990, Newsweek article pointed out, “such megadosing is standard toxicological practice. It’s the only way to detect an effect without using an impossibly large number of test animals to stand in for the humans exposed to the substance.” ⁸¹ And as the Safer Water Foundation explains, higher doses are generally administered to test animals to compensate for the animals’ shorter life span and because humans are generally more vulnerable than test animals on a body-weight basis. ⁸²

Several other studies link fluoride to genetic damage and cancer. An article in Mutation Research says that a study by Proctor and Gamble, the very company that makes Crest toothpaste, did research showing that 1 ppm fluoride causes genetic damage.⁸³ Results were never published but Proctor and Gamble called them “clean,” meaning animals were supposedly free of malignant tumors. Not so, according to scientists who believe some of the changes observed in test animals could be interpreted as precancerous. ⁸⁴   Yiamouyiannis says the Public Health Service sat on the data, which were finally released via a Freedom of Information Act request in 1989. “Since they are biased, they have tried to cover up harmful effects,” he says. “But the data speaks for itself. Half the amount of fluoride that is found in the New York City drinking water causes genetic damage.” ⁴⁶

A National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences publication, Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis, also linked fluoride to genetic toxicity when it stated that “in cultured human and rodent cells, the weight of evidence leads to the conclusion that fluoride exposure results in increased chromosome aberrations.” ⁸⁵ The result of this is not only birth defects but the mutation of normal cells into cancer cells. The Journal of Carcinogenesis further states that “fluoride not only has the ability to transform normal cells into cancer cells but also to enhance the cancer-causing properties of other chemicals.” ⁸⁶

Surprisingly, the PHS put out a report called Review of fluoride: benefits and risks, in which they showed a substantially higher incidence of bone cancer in young men exposed to fluoridated water compared to those who were not. The New Jersey Department of Health also found that the risk of bone cancer was about three times as high in fluoridated areas as in nonfluoridated areas. ⁸⁷

Despite cover-up attempts, the light of knowledge is filtering through to some enlightened scientists. Regarding animal test results, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, James Huff, does say that “the reason these animals got a few osteosarcomas was because they were given fluoride…Bone is the target organ for fluoride.”  Toxicologist William Marcus adds that “fluoride is a carcinogen by any standard we use. I believe EPA should act immediately to protect the public, not just on the cancer data, but on the evidence of bone fractures, arthritis, mutagenicity, and other effects.” ⁸⁸

The Challenge of Eliminating Fluoride

Given all the scientific challenges to the idea of the safety of fluoride, why does it remain a protected contaminant? As Susan Pare of the Center for Health Action asks, “…even if fluoride in the water did reduce tooth decay, which it does not, how can the EPA allow a substance more toxic than Alar, red dye #3, and vinyl chloride to be injected purposely into drinking water?” ⁸⁹

This is certainly a logical question and, with all the good science that seems to exist on the subject, you would think that there would be a great deal of interest in getting fluoride out of our water supply. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. As Dr. William Marcus, a senior science advisor in the EPA’s Office of Drinking Water, has found, the top governmental priority has been to sweep the facts under the rug and, if need be, to suppress truth-tellers. Marcus explains ⁹⁰  that fluoride is one of the chemicals the EPA specifically regulates, and that he was following the data coming in on fluoride very carefully when a determination was going to be made on whether the levels should be changed. He discovered that the data were not being heeded. But that was only the beginning of the story for him. Marcus recounts what happened:

“The studies that were done by Botel Northwest showed that there was an increased level of bone cancer and other types of cancer in animals….in that same study, there were very rare liver cancers, according to the board-certified veterinary pathologists at the contractor, Botel. Those really were very upsetting because they were hepatocholangeal carcinomas, very rare liver cancers….Then there were several other kinds of cancers that were found in the jaw and other places.

“I felt at that time that the reports were alarming. They showed that the levels of fluoride that can cause cancers in animals are actually lower than those levels ingested in people (who take lower amounts but for longer periods of time).

“I went to a meeting that was held in Research Triangle Park, in April 1990, in which the National Toxicology Program was presenting their review of the study. I went with several colleagues of mine, one of whom was a board-certified veterinary pathologist who originally reported hepatocholangeal carcinoma as a separate entity in rats and mice. I asked him if he would look at the slides to see if that really was a tumor or if the pathologists at Botel had made an error. He told me after looking at the slides that, in fact, it was correct.

“At the meeting, every one of the cancers reported by the contractor had been downgraded by the National Toxicology Program. I have been in the toxicology business looking at studies of this nature for nearly 25 years and I have never before seen every single cancer endpoint downgraded…. I found that very suspicious and went to see an investigator in the Congress at the suggestion of my friend, Bob Carton. This gentleman and his staff investigated very thoroughly and found out that the scientists at the National Toxicology Program down at Research Triangle Park had been coerced by their superiors to change their findings.”⁹¹

Once Dr. Marcus acted on his findings, something ominous started to happen in his life: “…I wrote an internal memorandum and gave it to my supervisors. I waited for a month without hearing anything. Usually, you get a feedback in a week or so. I wrote another memorandum to a person who was my second-line supervisor explaining that if there was even a slight chance of increased cancer in the general population, since 140 million people were potentially ingesting this material, that the deaths could be in the many thousands. Then I gave a copy of the memorandum to the Fluoride Work Group, who waited some time and then released it to the press.

“Once it got into the press all sorts of things started happening at EPA. I was getting disciplinary threats, being isolated, and all kinds of things which ultimately resulted in them firing me on March 15, 1992.” 

In order to be reinstated at work, Dr. Marcus took his case to court. In the process, he learned that the government had engaged in various illegal activities, including 70 felony counts, in order to get him fired. At the same time, those who committed perjury were not held accountable for it. In fact, they were rewarded for their efforts:

“When we finally got the EPA to the courtroom…they admitted to doing several things to get me fired. We had notes of a meeting…that showed that fluoride was one of the main topics discussed and that it was agreed that they would fire me with the help of the Inspector General. When we got them on the stand and showed them the memoranda, they finally remembered and said, oh yes, we lied about that in our previous statements.

“Then…they admitted to shredding more than 70 documents that they had in hand ­ Freedom of Information requests. That’s a felony…. In addition, they charged me with stealing time from the government. They…tried to show…that I had been doing private work on government time and getting paid for it. When we came to court, I was able to show that the time cards they produced were forged, and forged by the Inspector General’s staff….” 

For all his efforts, Dr. Marcus was rehired, but nothing else has changed: “The EPA was ordered to rehire me, which they did. They were given a whole series of requirements to be met, such as paying me my back pay, restoring my leave, privileges, and sick leave and annual leave. The only thing they’ve done is put me back to work. They haven’t given me any of those things that they were required to do.”⁹²

What is at the core of such ruthless tactics? John Yiamouyiannis feels that the central concern of government is to protect industry, and that the motivating force behind fluoride use is the need of certain businesses to dump their toxic waste products somewhere. They try to be inconspicuous in the disposal process and not make waves. “As is normal, the solution to pollution is dilution. You poison everyone a little bit rather than poison a few people a lot. This way, people don’t know what’s going on.”

Since the Public Health Service has promoted the fluoride myth for over 50 years, they’re concerned about protecting their reputation. So scientists like Dr. Marcus, who know about the dangers, are intimidated into keeping silent. Otherwise, they jeopardize their careers. Dr. John Lee elaborates: “Back in 1943, the PHS staked their professional careers on the benefits and safety of fluoride. It has since become bureaucratized. Any public health official who criticizes fluoride, or even hints that perhaps it was an unwise decision, is at risk of losing his career entirely. This has happened time and time again. Public health officials such as Dr. Gray in British Columbia and Dr. Colquhoun in New Zealand found no benefit from fluoridation. When they reported these results, they immediately lost their careers…. This is what happens ­ the public health officials who speak out against fluoride are at great risk of losing their careers on the spot.” 

Yiamouyiannis adds that for the authorities to admit that they’re wrong would be devastating. “It would show that their reputations really don’t mean that much…. They don’t have the scientific background. As Ralph Nader once said, if they admit they’re wrong on fluoridation, people would ask, and legitimately so, what else have they not told us right?” 

Accompanying a loss in status would be a tremendous loss in revenue. Yiamouyiannis points out that “the indiscriminate careless handling of fluoride has a lot of companies, such as Exxon, U.S. Steel, and Alcoa, making tens of billions of dollars in extra profits at our expense…. For them to go ahead now and admit that this is bad, this presents a problem, a threat, would mean tens of billions of dollars in lost profit because they would have to handle fluoride properly. Fluoride is present in everything from phosphate fertilizers to cracking agents for the petroleum industry.” 

Fluoride could only be legally disposed of at a great cost to industry. As Dr. Bill Marcus explains, “There are prescribed methods for disposal and they’re very expensive. Fluoride is a very potent poison. It’s a registered pesticide, used for killing rats or mice…. If it were to be disposed of, it would require a class-one landfill. That would cost the people who are producing aluminum or fertilizer about $7000+ per 5000- to 6000-gallon truckload to dispose of it. It’s highly corrosive.” 

Another problem is that the U.S. judicial system, even when convinced of the dangers, is powerless to change policy. Yiamouyiannis tells of his involvement in court cases in Pennsylvania and Texas in which, while the judges were convinced that fluoride was a health hazard, they did not have the jurisdiction to grant relief from fluoridation. That would have to be done, it was ultimately found, through the legislative process.    Interestingly, the judiciary seems to have more power to effect change in other countries. Yiamouyiannis states that when he presented the same technical evidence in Scotland, the Scottish court outlawed fluoridation based on the evidence.

Indeed, most of Western Europe has rejected fluoridation on the grounds that it is unsafe. In 1971, after 11 years of testing, Sweden’s Nobel Medical Institute recommended against fluoridation, and the process was banned.⁹³ The Netherlands outlawed the practice in 1976, after 23 years of tests. France decided against it after consulting with its Pasteur Institute⁶⁴   and West Germany, now Germany, rejected the practice because the recommended dosage of 1 ppm was “too close to the dose at which long-term damage to the human body is to be expected.” ⁸⁴   Dr. Lee sums it up: “All of western Europe, except one or two test towns in Spain, has abandoned fluoride as a public health plan. It is not put in the water anywhere. They all established test cities and found that the benefits did not occur and the toxicity was evident.”⁹⁴

Isn’t it time the United States followed Western Europe’s example? While the answer is obvious, it is also apparent that government policy is unlikely to change without public support. We therefore must communicate with legislators, and insist on one of our most precious resources ­ pure, unadulterated drinking water. Yiamouyiannis urges all American people to do so, pointing out that public pressure has gotten fluoride out of the water in places like Los Angeles; Newark and Jersey City in New Jersey; and ⁹⁵Bedford, Massachusetts. ⁴⁶   He emphasizes the immediacy of the problem: “There is no question with regard to fluoridation of public water supplies. It is absolutely unsafe…and should be stopped immediately. This is causing more destruction to human health than any other single substance added purposely or inadvertently to the water supply. We’re talking about 35,000 excess deaths a year…10,000 cancer deaths a year…130 million people who are being chronically poisoned. We’re not talking about dropping dead after drinking a glass of fluoridated water…. It takes its toll on human health and life, glass after glass.” ⁹⁶

There is also a moral issue in the debate that has largely escaped notice. According to columnist James Kilpatrick, it is “the right of each person to control the drugs he or she takes.” Kilpatrick calls fluoridation compulsory mass medication, a procedure that violates the principles of medical ethics. ⁹⁷   A New York Times editorial agrees:

“In light of the uncertainty, critics [of fluoridation] argue that administrative bodies are unjustified in imposing fluoridation on communities without obtaining public consent…. The real issue here is not just the scientific debate. The question is whether any establishment has the right to decide that benefits outweigh risks and impose involuntary medication on an entire population. In the case of fluoridation, the dental establishment has made opposition to fluoridation seem intellectually disreputable. Some people regard that as tyranny.” ⁹⁸

Source: Dr. Gary Null, PhD

Expect Devastating Global Economic Changes In 2014

By any reasonable measure, I think it is safe to say that the last quarter of 2013 has been an insane game of economic Russian Roulette.  Even more unsettling is the fact that most of the American population still has little to no clue that the U.S. was on the verge of a catastrophic catalyst event at least three times in the past three months alone, and that we face an even greater acceleration next year.

The first near miss was the Federal Reserve’s announcement of a possible “taper” of QE stimulus in early fall, which sent shivers through stock markets and proved what we have been saying all along – that the entire recovery is a facade built on an ever thinning balloon of fiat money.  Today, markets function entirely on the expectation that the Fed will continue stimulus forever.  If the Fed does cut QE in any way, the frail psychology of the markets will shatter, and the country will come crashing down with it.

The second near miss was the possible unilateral invasion of Syria demanded by the Obama Administration.  As we have discussed here at Alt-Market for years, any invasion of Syria or Iran will bring detrimental consequences to the U.S. economy and energy markets, not to mention draw heavy opposition from Russia and China.  Though the naïve shrug it off as a minor foreign policy bungle, Syria could have easily become WWIII, and I believe the only reason the establishment has not yet followed through with a strike in the region is because the alternative media has been so effective in warning the masses.  The elites need a certain percentage of support from the general public and the military for any war action to be effective, which they did not receive.  After all, no one wants to fight and die in support of CIA funded Al Qaeda terrorist cells on the other side of the world.  The establishment tried to hide who the rebels were, and failed.

The third near miss was, of course, the debt ceiling debate, which has been extended to next spring.  America came within a razor’s edge of debt default, which many people rightly fear.  What some do not yet grasp, though, is that debt default of the U.S. was NOT avoided last month, it is INEVITABLE.  Debt default will ultimately result in the death of the dollar as the world reserve currency, and the petro-currency.  This final gasp will lead to hyperstagflation within our financial system, and third world status for most of the citizenry.  It is only a matter of time, and timing.

“Timing” is truly what we are all concerned about.  Those of us in the field of alternative media and economics understand well that the U.S. is on a collision course with disaster; it is a mathematical certainty.  We no longer think in terms of “if” it happens – we only question “when” it will happen.  Our fiscal structure now hangs by the thinnest of threads, a thread which for all we know could be cut at a moments notice.  However, economic and political storms appear to be brewing with the year 2014 as a target.

Globalists have been openly seeking the destabilization of U.S. sovereignty, and they have openly admitted that the destruction of the dollar and our economic foundations will aid them in their goal.  It is important to never forget that international financiers WANT to absorb America into a new global economic structure, and that the U.S. must be debased before this can be accomplished.   Here are a few reasons why I believe 2014 may be the year they make their final move…

Debt Debate On Steroids

Nothing concrete was decided during the highly publicized “battle” between Democrats and the GOP on what would be done to solve the U.S. debt addiction.  Some people might assume that the fight will go on indefinitely, and that the “can” will be kicked down the road for years to come.  This assumption is a dangerous one.  If you thought the last debt debate was hair raising, the next is likely to give you a coronary.  Think of 2013 as a practice run, a warm up to the main event in 2014.  Why will next year be different?  Because the motivations behind a debt ceiling freeze (and thus debt default) are now supported by the obvious failure of Obamacare.

Funding for Obamacare was the underlying issue that gave strength to the push for new debt ceiling extensions.  The U.S. government has overreached financially in ever way imaginable.  We have long running entitlement programs that have been technically bankrupt for years.  But, Obamacare was so pervasive during the debt debate that we heard nothing of these existing liabilities.  Ultimately, Obamacare is the primary reason why so many Americans on the “left” want unlimited spending and inflation, and why so many Americans on the “right” are actually seeking debt default.

We all know that at the top of the pyramid the debt debate itself is false left/right theater, but it is still theater with a purpose.

In my articles ‘The Socialization Of America Is Economically Impossible’ and ‘Obamacare: Is It A Divide And Conquer Distraction’, I discussed why universal healthcare could not be implemented in America, and I predicted in advance that Obamacare was actually a farce that was designed to fail.  The program’s only purpose is to provide a vehicle by which divisions between the fake left and the fake right could be solidified in the minds of the common populace.  A lot of cynicism was directed at the notion that the government might create a socialized healthcare initiative and then allow it to fail.  Of course, we now know that is exactly what they had in mind.

During the last debt debate, Obamacare was just a policy waiting to be implemented; next debate, that policy will be rightly labeled a train wreck.  Obamacare is falling apart at it’s very inception, and evidence makes clear that the White House KNEW in advance that this would occur.  In the days before it’s launch, performance tests on the Obamacare website showed conclusively that the system could not handle more than 500 users.

Obama promised that preexisting healthcare plans would be retained by Americans and that the Affordable Care Act would not do damage to established insurance models.  He made this promise knowing full well that he could not or would not keep it.  This dishonesty has resulted in rebellion by Democrats who have sided with Republicans to pass a bill which obstructs the erasure of existing health coverage.

States once disturbingly loyal to the White House are now moving to limit the application of the Obamacare structure.

The White House had foreknowledge that the program was nowhere near ready, yet, they moved forward anyway.  Why wouldn’t they stall?  Why would Obama knowingly unleash his “opus” before it was finished?  He had it in the bag, right?  He won, right?  All he had to do was build a functioning website and keep his promises at least long enough to sucker the majority of Americans into the system.  Instead, he throws the fight and hits the canvas before he’s even punched?  Why?

It all sounds rather insane if you aren’t aware of the bigger picture, and I’m sure the average Democrat out there is wide-eyed and bewildered.  Some might blame it on “ego”, or “hubris”, but this makes little sense.  Obamacare is an American socialist’s dream.  With a simple working public interaction model, Obama would be worshiped by leftists for decades to come as the next Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Hubris should have ENSURED that the White House launch of Obamacare would be flawless.

Once you realize that this is not about Obama, and that Obama is nothing but a middle-man for the globalists, and that the actual implementation of Obamacare never mattered to the establishment, the fog begins to clear.

With Obamacare in shambles, the dynamic of the debt debate theater changes completely.  Some Democrats may well show support for a hold on the debt ceiling, for, what reason do they have to champion more spending?  Obama has already made fools of them all, and the Obamacare motivator is essentially out of the picture.  The GOP will be energized and more unified than the last debate, giving more momentum to a debt ceiling lock.  The argument will be made that a resulting debt default will not be harmful, and that the U.S. can carry the weight of existing liabilities until the budget is balanced.
This is certainly a lie, but it is a fashionable lie that Americans will want to hear.

Americans do not want to hear that our economy is too far gone and that any motion, to spend, or to cut, will have the same result – currency collapse and fiscal implosion.  They do not want to hear that pain must be suffered before a realistic solution can be applied.  They do not want to hear the the system will have to be brought down before it can be rebuilt.  And, they definitely do not want to hear that the system will be deliberately brought down and replaced with something even worse.

Will the next debt debate in Spring 2014 end in debt default and the collapse that globalists desire so much?  It’s hard to say, but many insiders appear to be preparing for just such a scenario…

The Fed’s Buzz Kill 

No one, and I mean no one, believes the private Federal Reserve will ever commit to a taper of fiat stimulus.  Hell, I barely believe it’s possible, and I’m open to just about any scenario.  That said, I have to ask a question which few analysts seem to be asking – why does the Fed keep pre-injecting the concept of taper into the mainstream if they never intend to implement it?  When has the Fed ever pre-injected a plan into the MSM which it did not eventually implement?

The banksters have the markets in the palm of their hand, or at least they seem to.  Stocks now rise and fall according to whatever meaningless press release the central bank happens to put out on any given morning.  What do they have to gain by consistently shaking the confidence of investors around the world by suggesting that the fiat party they created will abruptly end?

The impending approval by the Senate of Janet Yellen, a champion of the printing press, would suggest to many that QE-infinity is assured.  We know that the black hole generated by the derivatives implosion cannot be filled (debts still exist in the quadrillions of dollars), and that the Fed will have to print endlessly in order to slow the deterioration of the the banking sector.  We know that none of the currency flows created by the Fed are trickling down to main street, which is why credit remains mostly frozen,  real unemployment counting U-6 measurements remains at around 25%, food stamp recipients have risen to around 50 million, and the only sales boosts to property markets are those caused by big banks buying bankrupt houses and then reissuing them as rentals.

We know that it makes sense for the central bank to continue QE, if only to continue pumping up banks and the stock market and hide the truly dismal state of the overall system.  But let’s forget about what we think “makes sense” for just a moment…

What if the Fed no longer WANTS to hide the true state of the system anymore?  What if QE is now giving back diminishing returns, and will soon be no longer effective at hiding economic weakness?Central bankers surely don’t want to take the blame for a collapse, but what if the perfect patsy is already lined up?  A patsy so hated and despised that no one would think twice about their guilt?  I am, of course, talking about the Federal Government itself.

Think about it; the failure of Obamacare promises a debt debate in the Spring of 2014 that will rock the very foundations of the global economy.  Both sides, Democrat and Republican, are ready to blame the other fully for any disastrous outcome, though “Tea Party” conservatives have been painted by the mainstream media as the lead culprits behind a financial catastrophe that began before the Tea Party was born.  The idea of “gridlock” leading to impasse and calamity is already built into the country’s consciousness.  The general public’s opinion of all areas of government has recently hit all time lows.  In fact, our opinion of government could scarcely go any lower than it already has.  Everyone HATES what government is, or what they think it is.  Most Americans would be happy to place the brunt of the blame for an economic disaster on the shoulders of Washington DC.

The genius of it is, they deserve a large part of the blame.  They helped to make possible all of the horrors the citizenry will face in the coming years.  The problem is, the public may become so blinded with rage over the failure of the political system, that they may completely forget about the role of international and central banks and turn on each other instead.

Why is the Fed now discussing, just before the possible confirmation of Janet Yellen, a stimulus dove, the need for taper measures by 2014? 

Is it just coincidence that the taper discussion is taking place parallel to the debt ceiling battle, or are these two things related?  What if the Fed plans to apply QE cuts during or after the renewed debt debate in order to make the market effects even more negative?  What if the Fed is timing the taper to give energy to a debt default?  What if the Fed wants to reduce support, so that later, when all hell breaks loose, we’ll come begging them for support?

Whether you believe a debt default will be deliberately induced or not, certain foreign investors have been preparing for such a U.S. breakdown for years, and once again, the apex investor, China, has made plans for dramatic economic policy changes to take place in 2014…

China Is Ready To File For Divorce 

The economic marriage between China and the U.S. has been touted Ad nauseum as an invincible relationship chained in eternity by unassailable interdependency.  I’ve just never bought this fanciful tale.  For years I’ve written about the likelihood that China will decouple from the American dollar apparatus, and so far, most of my warnings have come to pass.

China has pushed forward with massive physical gold purchases despite all arguments by skeptics that gold is no longer necessary or prudent as a safe haven investment.  Apparently, the Chinese know something they do not.  China is on pace to become the largest holder of gold in the world as early as 2014.

China has now issued Yuan denominated bonds and other assets around the globe, and its central bank has expanded its total balance sheet to at least $24 Trillion, outmatching the reported increased balance sheets of all other central banks:

Now, some feel that this Chinese liquidity should be considered a massive bubble on the verge of exploding, and that it will be Chinese instability, not U.S. instability, that triggers renewed crisis.  I would like to offer an alternative view…

I am not shocked at all by this incredible spike in Yuan circulation.  In fact, I expected it.  The fall back argument against China dumping the dollar as the world reserve has always been that there is no alternative currency that boasts as much liquidity as the dollar.  Well, as we now know, China has been raining Yuan down on every continent.  International banks like JP Morgan have been HELPING them do it.

China is not desperately attempting to prop up its own markets like we are in the U.S.  China is DELIBERATELY generating massive liquidity because they seek to aid the IMF in its longtime plan to replace the greenback as the world reserve currency.  These are not the activities of an investor that wants to stick with the U.S. or the dollar.  These are not the activities of a nation that wishes to continue its limited role as a source of cheap industrial labor.

China, being the largest importer of petroleum surpassing the U.S., is now planning to price its crude oil futures in Yuan, instead of the dollar.

And, the Chinese central bank has announced that it now plans to stop all purchases of U.S. dollars for its reserves.

These decisions are part of a precision strategy, a formula which was finalized during a little discussed and very secretive economic policy meeting which took place in China this past month.

While much of the media was focused on China’s call for softer restrictions on its one-child policy, they ignored the thrust of the meeting, which was to establish Chinese consumption over exports, and internationalize the Yuan.  All that is left is for China to “float” the Yuan’s value on the open market, which is an action the head of the PBOC, Zhou Xiaochuan, says he plans to expedite.

All of the reforms discussed at China’s Third Plenum meeting are supposed to begin taking shape in…that’s right…2014.

A Storm Of Septic Proportions

As I have always pointed out, economic collapse is not necessarily an event, it is a process.  The most frightening elements of this process usually do not become visible until it is too late for common people to react in a productive way.  All of the dangers covered in this article could very well set fires tomorrow, that is how close our nation is to the edge.  However, the culmination of events so far seems to be setting the stage for something, an important something, in 2014.  If the worst is possible, assume the worst is probable.  The next leg down, or the next economic carpet bombing.  Maybe slightly painful, maybe mortal.  Sadly, as long as Americans continue to remain dependent on the existing corrupt system, global bankers can pull the plug at their leisure, and determine the depth of the wound with scientific precision.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

Do You Even Want Freedom?

The most precious gift given to humanity besides its very existence and innate connectivity to universal Source is the gift of free will. We can choose. We ultimately have the power to make decisions for ourselves. Unfortunately this concept is buried under the rubble of ignorance and social engineering and of course becomes a very complex matter as life’s input and experiences complicate our entire decision-making process.

And freedom and free will? They’re generally relegated to philosophical treatises and ideological tugs of war in the political arena. Nicely sectored off to where they can’t touch our consciousness and every day living.

Many argue that in today’s circumstance we are not free to make our own decisions, that in effect we often don’t even have free will as evidenced by history. This strikes at the root of the problem. Disempowerment via thinking we need permission versus knowledge of our inborn nature of pure freedom. It may appear that it’s been deprived at times. Free will seems to be often negated or seriously limited under certain circumstances, either by choice, coercion or collusion.

But is it really, no matter how draconian? After all, much of humanity seems to not even know that it is inherently free, never mind does it appear to even want to fully exercise such a sense of inborn freedom.

The Majesty of Choice

We are crowned with the ultimate gift: a completely autonomous conscious will. We can choose what we say, what we do, what we respond to, what we give our attention and energy to. Again, it may not appear so with the way society is structured and judging by the very bound condition and behavior of mankind. While the idea of freedom still distantly rings in the hearts of men, it has taken on many severely compromised meanings. On purpose.

In addition, for some reason it appears we’ve given up our freedom to varying degrees in exchange for something. But in exchange for what? Security? Acceptance? Ease?

It sure appears that way. But how did this come about? And who said we had to trade anything? Was it a deliberately designed trade off to keep humanity in servitude with an illusion of choice? Looking at the contrived and extremely controlling political and economic structure of our planet’s various societies and the miserable state of most of its inhabitants, it’s clear something is seriously wrong. Especially with a clearly ruthless ruling class of uber-privileged riding the backs of the oppressed who are the ones producing the goods.

Throw Off the Shackles

Is our lost sense of true unshakable spiritual freedom exactly that which would empower humanity to throw off the shackles of a system built on carefully manipulated voluntary slavery? Is this what the war on the human body, mind and spirit is all about? To block our remembrance?

When someone has come to an awakening of true consciousness, or should I say to consciousness since it in itself was never asleep, something profound happens. And continues to unfold. We tap into Source — unadulterated, unfiltered, unlimited, infinite creative Source, or whatever you want to call It. This is where the spiritual and the metaphysical meet the mental and psychological, where true science and knowledge meet the great synchronous Universal life force.

It’s all essentially One. The compartments are gone. There are no divisions in the essential Oneness and everything makes sense. And it’s because you inherently let go into an experiential perspective where you realize it’s not important to know everything or be anything. You just are and everything is wonderful at that level. A great clarity comes over you.

Of course there are differences in manifestations and there are apparent conflicts on many levels brought on by a variety of influences, but in the context of freedom this is where you find its true reality and definition. The sovereignty of spirit that is the inherent right of everything. And man does it blow away any and all man-made structures of any sort in a hurry!

The False Game of False Choice

Herein lies one of mankind’s dominators’ most effective tools for manipulation. This understanding was documented over the past and previous century, realizing people work harder and better and are more complacent if they feel they have a say so about their captivity. It’s quite remarkable. We’re still a feudal society, they just figured out how to make us build our own prisons while thinking we’re free.

Besides the most obvious example of phony democracy and the easily manipulated voting scheme, glaring assumptions are deliberately embedded into society via religion, false science, hobbling education, social pressure, the media, etc. We’re handed platitudes about hope, change and security while the media pumps amusement, materialism, fashion and other forms of acceptance conditioning to keep the populace totally preoccupied with a comatose state of self indulgence.

And as for capitalism (which all forms of government espouse) that’s the end goal. Your personal satisfaction, at whatever cost to others who weren’t as savvy as you in learning to get what they want.

Fear — The Enemy of Freedom

Why do people cling to corrupt, limiting systems even to their own hurt? Fear of the unknown is very powerful, especially amongst the ignorant. Just fear of not having your next meal can trap you. Fear of being without, fear of being alone, fear of being attacked, fear of dying.

All extremely powerful.

And afraid people will not make conscious decisions, but survival instinct based decisions. Of course there’s a time for that as in the fight or flight response to a very real attack from something, but this response can be very easily triggered just by words and bury any chance of conscious living.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a concept that’s always fascinated me. There’s so much truth in the idea that if your basic needs aren’t met first, how can you think about the more erudite and spiritual notions of our existence? Well, easily. It was a way of life for indigenous cultures for millennia. It was incorporated, and without which the culture based on spiritual connectivity would have collapsed. This is why indigenous peoples have been marked for genocide by these parasitic controllers.

They represent living wisdom. The knowledge of how things naturally work using conscious awareness and the underlying principles of love, sharing, giving and cooperation. Diametrically opposed to the abusive farming techniques of today’s controllers.

Control is the issue, nothing else. Personal empowerment beyond their set boundaries is not an option.

The Enemy Within — Those Who Choose Slavery

This begs a huge question. Would you fight for someone’s freedom who doesn’t even want it? Is it worth so-called liberating someone who chooses to remain bound — and may even prove to be a liability for what you’re trying to do?

There are several famous analogies about this phenomenon. Elephants for example are tied to a stake in the ground with little to circumscribe their maneuverability. They learn their “limitations” well. Later on the rope is removed, but the elephant will stay in the same circumscribed limits. The same has been told of many animals.

It works.

It works on humans as well. Scientists have been capitalizing on this behavioral tendency for a long time, the most famous of which is Pavlov and his salivating dogs. Closely watching those experiments from the start were military personnel. I wonder why. Remember your school period bells ringing like fire alarms between classes? You can thank Pavlov’s work and the implementation of the social engineers.

Entrained response. Same dynamic at work in advertising, politics, religion and any aspect of social engineering.

But can those in such a deep coma awake to realize their innate freedom and thus activate? Who’s to say. It’s a phenomenon to be well aware of. Just remember, groomed dependence is tough to shake for anyone. But anyone can wake up at any time, never ever forget that.

Conclusion — Does Knowledge of Its Innate Freedom Freak Humanity Out?

As Yogi Berra allegedly said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” While funny, there’s some good advice there — get the hell going and stop worrying about it all so much.

We’re all up against the wall when it comes to responding to this assault on humanity we’re experiencing. It’s more serious by the day politically, materially, socially, physically, spiritually. It’s a planet gone wild due to the cumulative efforts of manipulating influences that seem to have full sway without anyone knowing how it got that way. We’re seemingly relegated to the observer’s seat, awaiting the decision of some hidden tribunal what shall be our fate.

It’s time to wake the hell up.

It’s bullshit to think humanity has to sit and take this. What’s being perpetrated, no matter how cunning, is a rounding up of the drugged and dazed herd. So many of us can see it clearly for what it is yet seem to be screaming into the ether.

My impetus? The more clearly our challenge and situation is articulated the more conscious activists keep on with their efforts, and on it rolls. We do need to reach a greater audience than those awakening but with the recent setback regarding Syria as well as many other instances that seem to point to our efficacy, we’re on the right track.

And if there’s a better one, well doing what we can now will lead us there in a heartbeat!

Much love, keep on with all your heart,

Zen

Source:  Zen Gardner  |  Just Wondering  | War Is Crime

By 2042: New Latino-Hispanic Majority US Population Demographic

In 1965, the United States demographic consisted of 90 percent European-Americans, 7 percent African-Americans and 3 percent Latino-Hispanic-Americans.

At that time, everyone considered themselves “Americans” in the “Melting Pot” of the great American experiment of a constitutional republic.

As with every mixed racial and ethnic country in the world—racism, discrimination and prejudice flourished.  ML King, Rodney King riots in LA, Detroit riots in 1968, Selma to Montgomery Freedom March, KKK and hundreds of other events took place.

Racial issues command front-page stories in 2013 with “Black Flash Mobs” forming and attacking white Americans.  A Latino-American killed a black American in Florida that caused tremendous unrest and demonstrations against “white” racism. (Trayvon Martin vs. George Zimmerman)  Mexican immigrants push African-Americans out of Los Angeles.  “White flight” from rapidly advancing minority populations provides TV talking heads with endless fodder for their take on racism and inequality in America.

White liberals with bumper stickers “Celebrate Diversity and Multiculturalism” carted their kids away from inner city schools with 20 different languages in Boulder, Colorado last fall to all white charter schools.

Not mentioned in the USA media: racism flourishes all over the world where different racial groups co-exist.  Mexico supports entrenched racism. Japan manifests racism by its non-immigration stance and sense of superiority over most other races.  Racism abounds in the Middle East.  Same in Africa and South America!

In the final analysis, racism stems from tribal-racial-cultural differences. It’s more biological than most people realize.  It flourishes in highly educated societies and expands in uneducated countries.

While unpleasant for decades, racism and racial inequality stand front and center in the political-public eye in America.  Racism hasn’t been stamped out no matter how many laws, forced integration, bussing, quotas, affirmative action and the like.

In all of this grand march, something historic happened to America in 1965 with Senator Teddy Kennedy’s Immigration Reform Act.  That single act dramatically changed America’s future from a dominant European tribe to a new majority that will become the new dominant ethnic group by 2042: Mexican-Latino-Hispanic.  (Source: PEW Research Center)

Within a 45-year span, Latino-Americans jumped from three percent of the population to 35 percent of the population on their way to 51 percent of the American population by 2042.  They will dominate in the four southern Border States.  They will make enormous ethnic, religious and cultural impact on all of America.

Today, virtually every business phone answering service offers: press “1” for Spanish, press “2” for English.  Another language expects to make its presence known as millions upon millions of Muslims enter America and force their language upon the landscape. Press “3” for Arabic already manifests in Detroit, Michigan also known as “Dearbornistan.”

“Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”
? 

In other words, Americans allowed themselves to be transformed into another culture, language and ethos. Or, with the next 100 million immigrants arriving by 2050—a polyglot society.

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.”   , 

Because conquered people don’t forget, the Mexicans now migrated into America at well over 15 million in 2013, expect to enforce their language and customs onto the American landscape.  They succeed daily.  Classrooms in southern California feature Spanish as the only spoken language.

As this phenomenon advances, European-Americans flee areas that become dominated by minorities.  Reverse racism advances into the workplace dominated by Mexican-Americans.  If you can’t speak Spanish, you cannot secure a job.  Where Mexican-Americans dominate in America in 2013, flunkout/dropout rates skyrocket.  Why?  Average Mexican citizens quit school by the 6^th grade.  In America, their minds quit even if they must attend school to age 16.

Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall, and that, “An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.”

Americans stand by while their country disintegrates into an entirely different ethnic tribe(s)

Former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm spelled out in his famous speech—How to Destroy America: “Here is how they destroyed their countries.  First, turn America into a bilingual or multi lingual and bicultural country.  History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures.  It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual.  The historical scholar Seymour Lipset put it this way, “The histories of bilingual and bicultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension and tragedy.  Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, and Lebanon—all face crises of national existence in which minorities press for autonomy, if not independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. Nigeria suppressed an ethnic rebellion. France faces difficulties with Basques, Bretons and Corsicans.”

As America launches on changing its ethnic identity, culture and language—does anyone understand the new reverse racism and how it will affect blacks and whites in America?

Does anyone understand the ramifications of adding 100 million immigrants in three decades?   Does anyone understand what it will take to keep this civilization running with accelerating illiteracy from the new Latino-Mexican dominating tribe?  Is anyone asking how we plan to water, feed and house that 100 million new immigrants that land on America?

Finally, are Americans ready for a complete change in language to many languages?  Are Americans ready to become a polyglot nation that fails on multiple levels today in endless countries around the world as witnessed in Governor Lamm’s speech?

“It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.”  ? 

With the passage of the S744 amnesty bill that will add two million legal immigrants annually, we remain on course to prove historian Arnold Toynbee correct, “I have observed that all great civilizations rise and fall, and that, an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.”

How Many Lies Can The White House Tell Before Walls Collapse?

Obama has no one to blame but himself:

He was the one who campaigned, in 2008, on Hope and Change. He was the one who deployed high-flying rhetoric to promise a new day in Washington politics.

He was the one who said he was going elevate the level of discourse and make government transparent. He positioned himself as a new kind of leader. He was the one who turned his candidacy into a religious experience.

He was the one who convinced voters he stood above the fray, as a man and as a symbol, and on that basis they boarded his train and rode it all the way.

He was the one who, inheriting a desperate economy, made his signature move upon gaining office:

Obamacare.

Not jobs. Not prosecutions of corporate and banking criminals.

He made devastating choices for all Americans.

He was and is the one who has presided over a sinking economic ship.

Given his proclivity for big and bigger government, he could have launched a serious public program, one which really put people back to work, repairing the infrastructure of the nation. But even this was beyond him.

And getting out of the way and letting Americans expand their small businesses, and supporting them with the same intensity of rhetoric he used to win his election? Out of the question. Not in the playbook. Not for a second.

His big play out of the gate, Obamacare, shocked his closest advisers. They assumed jobs would be his number-one priority. They were dead wrong.

And what about “post-racial” America? That was not only a dud, it was a disaster. Division and polarization are the order of the day.

How about dependence, and government as the solver of all problems, as the beneficent giver? How has that worked out? How can it possibly work out? America is going to become one big Sweden? Really?

It’s one thing for a Clinton or a Bush to lie and skate and divert and play the usual horrific games. But Obama set himself up as a man who was fundamentally different. That was his ace. That was how he won the Presidency. That was what people bought into.

So he falls further, even as his media supporters keep launching blizzards of lies to prop him up.

Many of his loyal followers believe “powerful forces” have fenced Obama in and sabotaged his efforts to work positive transformations. If so, then as a transcendent figure, he should step forward and use his oratorical powers to expose the criminal enterprise that surrounds the Presidency. He should speak directly to the American people and lay it on the line.

Or else he confesses that he is, in fact, another Clinton, another Bush.

The public loves fairy tales and myths, but considering the shape this country is in, that fascination is wearing very thin. It isn’t going to sustain the next three years of Obama in the White House.

The Matrix Revealed

90 million people are out of the work force. 50 million are on food stamps. Recovery? Is the President really going to keep pushing that narrative?

Admitting the truth might, as a long shot, create a platform from which Obama could launch a real campaign to restore jobs…but faking the unemployment crisis has been his chosen path.

The government Obamacare website is a shambles. It doesn’t appear that a simple fix is possible, which means chaos will continue for many months, perhaps longer. Private insurance companies are canceling hundreds of thousands of policies.

The last seven years of American political life have added up to a disaster. Blaming it all on Congressional gridlock, on delaying the ability of the White House to invent trillions more in debt at the drop of a hat, isn’t working.

So many actions and omissions of madness…it leaves us with the reasonable conclusion that Obama’s Presidency was designed from the outset to flame out and fail.

And the principal target was the economy.

The President, fresh off an election victory in 2008, and in that glow, could have used his monumental leverage to put people back to work. He could have hammered on it day and night. He could have rallied support and energized the country.

But now…what do we have? Welfare America to the nth degree. Beyond what anyone thought was possible. And media traitors are backing it.

For decades, for more than a hundred years, power has been in the wrong place.

It belongs with you and with me.

Source: Jon Rappoport

Immigration Policy And America’s Suzerain

While shopping in a local grocery store my wife asked a nearby gentleman a question; he did not speak English.  Our local Mall has lost several upscale stores; they are quickly replaced but often with unfamiliar businesses.  We now have a Chinese Massage business in our Simon Mall.  The Chinese masseuses can say hello in English but little else.  Together they chatter away in Chinese.  At WalMart in the late afternoon a gaggle of different languages come from an equal number of unassimilated individuals and families.

It is pleasant to be in the company of familiar, like-minded people.   Disagreement destroys peace and causes strife while an inability to communicate isolates. Unfamiliar cultures are interesting to visit but vexing to live in.  Unity produces civic power; diversity is anarchic and feeble. 

Minority cultures tend to lose many of their distinctive qualities in a couple of generations, multi-culturalism is self destructive.

As settlers flooded into the New World, America’s United States displaced the indigenous population and expanded across the continent of North America.  Its occupants were diverse within a limited range.  Most were Europeans seeking the freedom, wealth, and adventure of a new land.  They were a rugged and independent people willing to endure unlimited toil for the reward of self sufficiency.  Denominational divisions set them apart but most were European Christians.

In the early years of the new Republic care was taken in the numbers and roots of new immigrants. Originally the qualifications were European heritage, White skin, and a willingness to assimilate.  The need for industrial workers gradually relaxed Immigration laws expanding the ethnicity of new citizens; but the gates remained well guarded until 1965.

The Immigration Act of 1965 permanently changed the character of the United States.  It removed the nationality based quota system and expanded the eligibility scope to include all nationalities plus their extended families.  Contrary to most recorded history freshman Senator Ted Kennedy had very little to do with the new law; his contribution was mostly verbal. The law itself was written by Norbert Schlei, an assistant Attorney General during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations.  Schlei was Jewish as were New York Represenative Emanuel Cellar and New York Senator Jacob Javits, the primary powers behind this disastrous legislation.  By the year 2050 it is expected that White Christian citizens of European extraction will be a minority in the nation they founded.   .

Multiculturalism has Jewish roots. Stephen Steinlight, an eloquent spokesman for Jewish policy, confirms this historic immigration policy and in 2004 urged a startling change:  “For Jews, the immigration debate pits the heart against the head. In their gut, many feel that substantially reducing immigration betrays the legacy of their parents and grandparents. But a growing number believes that maintaining this policy betrays their children and grandchildren. The danger arises because mass immigration means importing mass anti-Semitism. The upsurge of violent anti-Semitism in Western Europe tracks perfectly with mass immigration, especially of Muslims. Mass immigration is also the generator of Balkanizing notions of extreme multiculturalism. Having worked for nearly a century through communal organizations, the courts, and interfaith dialogue to achieve a tolerant and cohesive society largely free of anti-Semitism, it’s anguishing for American Jews to watch current immigration erase this outcome. However uncomfortable, American Jews must grapple with the issue: they have a greater stake than other Americans in how this policy plays out.” 

Jewish leadership doggedly conspires to enact policies that benefit Jews.  That these policies are inimical to the inhabitants of the nations they live in is of little concern.  This exclusive agenda has resulted in a litany of historic expulsions.  They were gradually expelled from Europe and England in 1290, France in 1306, Spain and Portugal in 1492, Hungry in 1376, Sicily in the 1400s, Bavaria in 1470, Bohemia in 1542, and Russia in 1881, 1891, 1897 and 1903.

Definitive success is part of their undoing.  As a race they are smart, persistently industrious, dominant, clannish, and supportive of each other.  They are social but they do not assimilate.  The Talmud has more influence on their behavior than the Ten Commandments.  Their work ethic and their clever, amoral wisdom make them invaluable in intellectual circles.  They are unusually successful in climbing the ladders of influence and power.  In the United States they make up less than 3 percent of the population but they exert frightening control over money, government, media, education, and much of industry.

Professor Kevin MacDonald contends that a high IQ allowed Jews to gain wealth and social status which they used to manipulate immigration policy. He writes, “Jewish organizations have been able to have a vastly disproportionate effect on U.S. immigration policy because Jews as a group are highly organized, highly intelligent and politically astute, and they were able to command a high level of financial, political, and intellectual resources in pursuing their political aims.”  (“The Culture of Critique”)

Their successful rise to power in the United States has been skillfully orchestrated by exploiting the Holocaust and controlling information.  Major assistance has come from starry eyed Evangelical Christians who with euphoric ignorance blindly support anything Jewish.  Control of the press has allowed manipulative Jewish interests to control the government and control of the government has allowed those same individuals to kidnap and use our nation for their own nefarious ends.     

American Jews are primarily i. They came to the United States in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century from Eastern Europe.  Since Communism was considered beneficial to Jews many of these immigrants were Marxists.  For a number of years in the early and mid-Twentieth Century the United States Communist Party was Kosher.

In a recent article entitled “Illegals Swarm in – Dallas Transformed”  Libertarian Nelson Hultberg writes,: “No country in the history of the world has ever survived multiculturalism. America will be no exception. All great nations protect their borders. They abide by the requisites for stability and ‘ordered freedom.’ Their intellectuals peruse history rigorously and learn from it. They respect the ethnic majority of their country. They do not malign its traditions and smear its heroes in the schools.”

Hultberg tells of efforts by Texas communities to stem the flow of immigrants and how those efforts were countered by the ACLU and other pro-immigration organizations.   He breaks with the Libertarian tenet of open borders but makes a serious strategic error by failing to mention the tremendous influence of powerful pro-immigration Jewish interests.  Substantial Jewish financial support sustains the ACLU which in addition to supporting open borders has been a major force in wiping Christianity from the public arena.

Jewish society is not homogeneous.  Jewishness is itself a form of religion but there are several different factions within Judaism. There is stronger diverse opinion in neo-Israel than in the United States.  Some Jews are Christians and some industriously expose the Satanic nature of Zionist leadership.  The Jewish population in general is to some extent a victim of the policies of their leaders.

The Jewish push for massive alien influxes is still in full swing.  If it becomes law Immigration bill S744 will add millions of new voters to the Democratic roster. The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that current immigration volume plus S744 would create 32 million potential voters by 2036  The bill is being sponsored by radically Jewish New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer and supported by “The Gang of Eight” (Bennet, Durbin, Flake, Graham, McCain, Menendez, and Rubio) a gang that knows who butters their bread. 

For many years United States citizens have displayed a dangerous ignorance of political reality.  Political parties create a wedge between party interests and the good of the nation and a Jewish  controlled press censors important news. Many of our citizens are intentionally stupid, they ignore impending danger seeking solace while it is available.  H. L. Mencken, the acerbic Baltimore pundit, called U. S. voters “Boobus Americanus” and the New York Post has confirmed the assumption with an article informing us that not only are our school children dumb by international standards but so is our adult population.   .  The United States of America has become an imperialistic power being controlled like a puppet by people much smarter than its’ voting adults.  We deserve the tyranny we are getting; we voted for the people who brought it to us.

Syria’s Violent Stalemate

The international crisis may be over, but the multisided war in Syria is continuing. On Friday government planes bombarded rebel positions in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor after heavy clashes claimed the life of one of President Bashar al-Assad’s top military intelligence officers. In the long-contested city of Aleppo, a renewed rebel assault on the city’s central prison has run out of steam. The Syrian Army is preparing an offensive in the Qalamoun region east of Damascus and secure the key road connecting the capital with Homs, near the border with Lebanon. Last Wednesday dozens of fighters were reported killed in clashes between the Kurdish YPG militia and al-Nusra Front jihadists in the oil-rich Hasake province in northeastern Syria.

The fighting will continue, but no strategically decisive event is on the horizon. A military stalemate is taking shape. The rebels are controlling large areas in the north and east of the country, while government forces have extended control over their strongholds in Damascus, the coastal strip, and the areas along the border with Lebanon. The capture of the town of Qusair in June and the failure of the U.S. military intervention to materialize in September have given the government a major boost, while accentuating political divisions among the rebels.

On October 16 dozens of rebel groups in southern Syria announced that they have severed links with the Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition, the political arm of the Free Syrian Army. Only weeks earlier several powerful rebel factions in the north of the country broke with the Coalition and declared support for the introduction of Sharia in the country. The rebels’ foreign backers are increasingly exasperated at the fighting groups’ failure to conceal their Jihadist agenda and their inability to present a coherent front. A major snag for the Obama Administration is the opposition’s reluctance to attend a peace conference in Geneva, tentatively scheduled for November 23-24 and jointly sponsored by the U.S. and Russia. The discord in opposition ranks casts serious doubts over whether any credible representatives will turn up. The Western powers and the Arab Gulf states are promising fresh assistance if they do attend, but no opposition leader seems willing to allow the possibility of a transitional government in which President Bashar al-Assad would play a role.

The rebels’ insistence on Bashar’s exclusion is unrealistic, now that the American military intervention is no longer on the cards and the Syrian government’s cooperation is essential in the process of dismantling the country’s chemical weapons arsenal. Unfortunately for the rebels, the program is proceeding smoothly and Washington is not interested in jeopardizing its success by supporting the rebels’ unreasonable demands. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced last Wednesday that its inspectors have so far visited 11 of more than 20 sites linked to the chemical weapons program. The team destroyed “critical equipment” at six sites as well as unloaded chemical weapons munitions, said the OPCW. At the same time there have been fresh calls on the rebels to provide inspectors with unhindered access. On Friday The New York Times quoted a Western diplomat as saying that “however divided the opposition might be, it would look very bad if the government was seen to be cooperating fully, while inspections were held up because of problems with the opposition.”

The U.N. peace envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, insists that the Geneva conference is needed because everyone in Syria is at military and political dead-end. “Geneva is a way out for everyone: the Americans, Russia, the Syrian regime and the opposition,” he said in a veiled warning to Bashar’s foes to get their act together. “Whoever realizes this first will benefit. Whoever does not realize it will find himself overboard, outside the political process.” The International Crisis Group (ICG), which has advocated robust U.S. engagement in the past, now says that the Syrian opposition “should develop a realistic strategy towards what remains the best hope for ending the war,” including “reaching internal consensus on workable negotiation parameters.” The Guardian, long an advocate of Western intervention, now notes that “mainstream opposition figures are alarmed at the growing success of the Syrian government’s argument that the country now faces a stark choice between Assad and al-Qaida.”

The rebels’ behavior in those areas they control has given ample credence to that argument. Cold-blooded executions of captured government soldiers have been going on for months, but the mass murder of unarmed villagers is a novelty. Proportionate to their numbers, the Christians are the main victims, as we have repeatedly warned they would be. According to Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregorios III, more than 450,000 Christians out of a total population of 1.75 million had been displaced or left the country. Similar warnings came from Archbishop Cyril Karim of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch in the United States, who last summer led protests against the possibility of an American military strike on Syria.

Feeling abandoned by the West, Syria’s Christians are turning to Russia for protection. Tens of thousands want to apply for Russian citizenship, not in order to flee Syria but to be “under the protection of Russia if we face the threat of being physically eliminated by terrorists.” Over 50,000 Syrian Christians signed the address, including doctors, engineers, lawyers and businessmen from the Kalamoun area near Damascus. Their appeal follows President Vladimir Putin’s strong attack last July on the infringement of the rights of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world.

The United States, in the meantime, continues to supply the rebels with arms and training, directly or by proxy. The Administration is also preparing a new massive arms shipment to our good friends in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—$13 billion worth of “various munitions and associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support.” This comes at a time of ongoing sabre-rattling from Gulf leaders who “threaten to stand steadfast to the cause—in spite of US ‘weakness’—determined to remake the Middle East in their authoritarian image.”

Obamacare: Is It A Divide-And-Conquer Distraction?

In March of 2010, Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as “Obamacare”) into law amid a host of economic uncertainties and unwanted Federal Reserve bailouts. Two years before, Washington had confirmed the passage of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) measures that had already met with disapproval from, according to some polls, more than 80 percent of Americans. In the meantime, the Occupy Wall Street movement was gaining momentum, involving elements of both traditionally Republican and traditionally Democratic organizations. Self-proclaimed “conservatives” and “liberals” were beginning to find common ground on issues ranging from the overall fiscal system to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The consensus was clear: Government had grown corrupt, power-hungry, and ultimately destructive to every citizen regardless of his political affiliation.

However, certain hot-button issues always seem to flood government rhetoric and the mainstream media whenever the U.S. citizenry begins to unify, causing renewed rifts and luring Americans to fight among themselves while the cruise ship on which we are floating sinks into the abyss. Those on the left believe Obamacare is a genuine attempt to institute socialized medicine, and they love it. Those on the right believe Obamacare is a genuine attempt to institute socialized medicine, and they despise it. But what if Obamacare’s government-controlled healthcare plan is only a secondary pursuit, while cutting America down the middle is the first goal?

Consider this: The launch of Obamacare comes at a time when the official national debt of the United States is about $17 trillion and the national deficit is some $1 trillion per year. Keep in mind that when Obama was elected in 2008, the official national debt stood at only $10 trillion. That means the Obama Administration has added more than $7 trillion in debt in only five years, and I can barley fathom how much more damage he can do in the time he has left as president.

While mainstream talking heads with low IQs proclaim victory for the Obama camp because of a supposedly “shrinking” deficit, what they either fail to mention or are too stupid to understand is that the official reporting of the deficit DOES NOT account for real deficit expenditures each year. The official deficit does not include what government number crunchers call “unfunded liabilities,” like Social Security and Medicare, or off-book agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The average taxpayer suffers the costs of such expenditures yet they are never counted in official statistics. If one were to tally our true national debt, including “unfunded liabilities,” it would stand anywhere from $120 trillion to more than $200 trillion. The true deficit skyrockets to more than $5 trillion per year (and growing) when such programs are included.

It is hard to say whether Obamacare costs will be openly included in official debt numbers or hidden like most entitlement programs. The point is, the government has been lying for quite some time, under multiple Presidents, about the real state of the U.S. economy.

When the White House claims in its talking points that government-assisted healthcare will require a net payment of only $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years, what method of accounting is used? Is this the total cost or just the “official cost” minus off-book liabilities? Even if this ends up being the full and complete spending required, how can Washington afford to burn another $1.1 trillion on top of $5 trillion a year already in the red?

If our national debt continues to climb exponentially, as it has in the wake of the Administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Obama, will we see another $7 trillion or more added to the “official” number in the next five years, and can our country sustain such debt levels without imploding in on itself like a fashion model?

According to The Washington Post, Obamacare is now a fact of life, even in the face of agovernment shutdown.

But is this claim really true, or is it just empty posturing? You may like Obamacare, or you may hate Obamacare; but the fact remains that we CANNOT AFFORD Obamacare at this time. So my first question to proponents of socialized medicine would be:

Where is the money going to come from?

More taxes? How can Obamacare be funded by increased taxes, when the average median household income has fallen every year for five years in a row.

How about more taxes for the super rich? Four hundred of America’s top earners brought in an average adjusted gross income of $202 million in 2009. If each of these people were taxed 100 percent of their annual taxable income in act of total criminal disregard for free markets, the resulting $80 billion in revenue would still not be enough to fund Obamacare, let alone our already existing massive debts.

If taxes won’t do the job, what about foreign treasury investment?

U.S. Treasury holdings by foreign creditors witnessed a record sell-off in June of this year, and subsequent purchases have not covered the loss in recent months.

The majority of all recent Treasury purchases by foreign investors are short-term bonds, meaning international faith in America’s ability to cover its debts has fallen considerably. Creditors now want only bonds that mature quickly, so that they can be liquidated at a moment’s notice. Foreign investment in the United States is currently either static or dropping, depending on the country, meaning no extra cash flow for Obamacare.

At bottom, Obamacare is doomed to failure. The money simply does not exist in order to cover the cost. The math does not add up. Period.

Now, I can understand hard-core socialists being too dim-witted to wrap their heads around this problem. After all, the average socialist thinks government funds will infinitely expand to meet the needs of infinite demand, as long as public wealth is “harmonized” in the process. Socialists are utterly unable to imagine that the money may run out one day, thus decimating the economy.

But what about the establishment? Are the central banking elite and their minions really unaware that Obamacare is unsustainable? I think not.

Government bureaucrats and central bankers carefully create our false economic reality on a daily basis. They receive hard financial data and then spin it to suit very particular needs. Each statistic is crafted and manipulated to elicit a specific public response.  Those who dominate the establishment hierarchy are exposed regularly to our dire fiscal position, hide the information and its consequences, yet, we are supposed to believe that they are “not aware” of the eventual result?  Obama and the elites who pull his strings are fully conscious that our economy is on the verge of complete collapse, and they are aware that Obamacare in its current form will never survive. So why continue with the charade if there is no mathematical possibility that the program will succeed?

Social division is the only plausible answer.

Universal healthcare has been a longtime pursuit of the left, and many Democrats are willing to forgo or completely ignore other dangerous political developments surrounding the White House as long as they finally attain socialized medicine. I have personally engaged in numerous debates with Obama supporters, pointing out his transgressions against the Constitution and the Mideast, his close relationships with the banking elite, and his willingness to throw aside his own promises. Amazingly, some of his supporters admit that Obama is monstrous in many respects, but they STILL defend him on the basis that “at least he’s going to give us free healthcare.”  Kill children in foreign lands, trample the Constitution, but fill their prescription for free, and they’ll call you Papa Obama!

In this way, the establishment has retained about 30 percent of the American population as political cannon fodder to be exploited at will by the Obama Administration. And if a government shutdown takes place over Obamacare measures, that percentage may climb as citizens are duped into believing that Tea Party Republicans and their “unwillingness to compromise” are to blame for the situation.  In fact, the entire thrust of the mainstream media’s approach to the government shutdown has been to point out the legitimate consequences in the wake of a default (to which there are many), then proceed to outline how all of these horrors will be the result of conservative “brinksmanship”.

If you understand that both major parties are nothing but two sides to the same globalist coin, then the idea of “brinksmanship” one way or the other becomes ridiculous.  The Republican leadership plays the role of the staunch limited spending watchdog, but usually rolls over because secretly they are just as fond of centralization and debt creation as the Democrats.  But what if this time, the script says they aren’t supposed to roll over?  What if this time, traditional conservatives are meant to take the blame for throwing the American economy into disrepute, all over Obamacare?

What the Liberty Movement needs to keep in mind during the chaos of the debt debate is that it may not ultimately be about Obamacare at all.  Instead, the debt debate may be about drawing artificial lines between the American people and letting us tear each others’ throats out.  In the meantime, fingers may point to OUR defining principles as the trigger to the madness.  Only time will tell, and the consensus holds that there is “no way” the Republicans will stand fast or that the debt ceiling will remain stationary.  But, questions need to be asked here.  Does the shutdown and the illusion of Obamacare serve a greater purpose?

The establishment knows that a financial crisis is upon us.  The establishment essentially engineered this crisis through artificially low interest rates and the deliberate spread of toxic derivatives.  But, it wants YOU to believe that the inevitable collapse was caused by something or someone else.  By “political gridlock,” foreign fiscal schemes or “conservative hubris.” It does not want members of the public to draw any connections between their suffering and the international banking elite behind the greater catastrophe. Obamacare is a red herring.  It’s smoke and mirrors.  It’s a distraction. And, while we battle over a program that will never find adequate funding anyway, the rest of the economic system crumbles.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

The Rapture Problem

In this column last week, I stated the salient reasons why pastors will not take a public stand on issues regarded as controversial or political. I believe every point I made are the real reasons pastors refuse to stand for much of anything–or even objectively study anything outside their comfort zone. To read this column, go to:

Why Pastors Won’t Take A Stand

To review, most pastors refuse to take a stand because:

1. They are success oriented and have an innate aversion to anything that is considered to be controversial. And, to them, there is nothing more controversial than politics.

2. They are afraid that if they take a controversial stand, they will lose members–and more importantly, tithes and offerings. Most churches are neck-deep in debt and are heavy-laden with staff and overhead. The thought of losing even a few giving families is enough intimidation to make sure that they do nothing to offend the people of the congregation. And since the pastor never addresses controversial issues or preaches “hard” sermons, his congregation is filled with people who harbor myriads of big-government, socialist ideas and would immediately bolt at any mention of Biblical Natural Law principles that ran counter to their leftist ideologies.

3. They have an erroneous interpretation of Romans 13 that civil government must be submitted to regardless of how evil or immoral its laws might be. This fallacious interpretation of Romans 13 (which is taught in practically every Christian school and college in America) has made them de facto slaves and worshippers of the state. As did Germany’s pastors and Christians in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, America’s pastors and Christians suffer from national “exceptionalism.” This fallacy leads them to believe that by serving the state, they are serving God. In their minds, one cannot be “right with God” if they are not totally submissive to the state.

4. The 501c3 non-profit corporation status of the Internal Revenue Code under which the vast majority of churches throughout America operate has intimidated pastors and church leaders to the point that they will do–or not do–almost anything to stay in the good graces of the IRS. To most pastors, this means staying absolutely as far away from political issues as possible–even if those issues were moral and spiritual in nature a long time before they were considered political.

5. Most pastors are ignorant of the Biblical Natural Law principles of liberty. In the same way that many attorneys are completely ignorant of constitutional government, pastors are completely ignorant of Biblical Natural Law principles. Attorneys are not taught constitutional principles in law school, and pastors are not taught Biblical Natural Law principles in Bible school.

But there is one more reason why many pastors will not take a stand that I did not address in the aforementioned column: their belief in a pre-tribulation rapture.

The word “rapture” does not appear in the Bible. The English word “rapture” is taken from the Latin word “rapere” and means to “catch away.” Theologically, it means that Christians will be caught away or taken to Heaven while they are still alive. There are several scriptural passages that Christians believe relate to this event, but the most cited is I Thessalonians 4:16, 17: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up (Greek word “harpazo”) together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Of course, Christians throughout the centuries have taught and believed a variety of nuances of eschatology. The various interpretations of The Second Coming of Christ are almost limitless. There are pre-tribulational, pre-millennialists; mid-tribulational, pre-millennialists; post-tribulational, pre-millennialists; partial-rapture, pre-tribulational, pre-millennialists; post-millennialists; pre-wrath, (almost) post-millennialists; amillennialists, etc. And to each of these interpretations there is a plethora of sub-divisions and schisms.

Christians have historically believed that they will be resurrected to be with Christ. However, that conviction–historically and by itself–did not prevent Christians from being engaged in whatever the political, social, or cultural battles of the time might have been. From the earliest days of Christianity, believers were politically and socially engaged in their communities and countries. During the Roman Empire, a baby was not protected by law until the father granted it official human status. Until then, babies could be legally killed or allowed to die. Christians by the thousands would go out into the streets at night and rescue babies that had been “thrown away” and left to die. During the Dark Ages, when the Bible was banned, Christians continued to widely copy and distribute the scriptures. Reformers such as Ulrich Zwingli died defending Switzerland’s Protestant Reformation on the battlefield. Colonial Christians (including pastors) in great numbers participated in America’s War for Independence. The great German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, joined a Nazi resistance movement. Each of these Christian believers held their individual, respective views of the Lord’s coming and personal resurrection, but this did not keep them from being politically, socially, and culturally–and sometimes militarily–involved in their communities and countries.

However, with the broad acceptance of what has become known as Dispensationalism, many pastors and churches in America have almost totally removed themselves from political affairs. Except for voting (which is mostly kept private), pastors avoid politics like the plague. A few will talk in very broad and general terms about America “turning back to God,” etc., but what that means specifically is seldom addressed. And if pressed for an explanation, most pastors will piously say, “God has not called me to get involved in politics.” I’m not sure that God has called them to play golf either, but that doesn’t prevent a host of them from engaging regularly in that worldly activity.

Dispensationalism, as it is called today, was popularized by John Darby, C. I. Scofield, and Lewis Sperry Chafer. In more modern times, John Walvoord, J. Dwight Pentecost, Charles Ryrie, Tim LaHaye, and Hal Lindsey contributed immensely to Dispensationalism’s theological acceptance. The key element of Dispensationalism, as it relates to eschatology, is the doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture of Christians. The idea is that the world is going to continue to get worse and worse until finally the Anti-Christ will arise as a global leader and will usher in seven years of “Great Tribulation,” wherein a sizeable portion of the world’s population will be destroyed. But before “The Great Tribulation” begins, Christian believers will be raptured into Heaven. Dispensationalists further believe that following the seven year Tribulation period, Christ will physically return to Jerusalem and establish a 1,000 year reign (called The Millennium) in which the Davidic Kingdom will be restored to Israel.

Now, let me state plainly that it is not my intention at this point to disparage the sincerity of faith and belief of the vast numbers of pastors and Christians who subscribe to Dispensationalism. Whether the pre-tribulation rapture is a correct Biblical interpretation or not is NOT the focus of this discussion. I find a sizeable number of pastors and Christians who subscribe to post-millennialism and other forms of eschatology to be just as disengaged from speaking out and engaging the political process as pre-tribulationists.

That being said, I believe it is an absolute fact that many pastors and Christians are using the doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture to justify sitting back and doing nothing to actively resist evil and wickedness. In their minds, there is no need to be politically involved because everything is going to get worse anyway–but they are going to be raptured to Heaven before it all falls apart. I have actually had pastors say to me, “Chuck, by resisting evil government, you are fighting against God, because it is God’s will that government gets worse and worse so that Jesus can come back.”

The wretchedness of this kind of thinking should be obvious to any rational person. In the first place, how arrogant are these American Christians to think that they are so special that God would have to rapture them before any real tribulation began? Think of the millions of Christians in oppressed nations throughout history–and even today–who have already been, and continue to be, IN GREAT TRIBULATION. The tribulation of Christian martyrs throughout church history is legendary. Have they never read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs? Do they not know what has taken place in southern Sudan over the last 20 years? Have they not read the history of Christians in Mao’s China, Amin’s Uganda, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, etc. Who do they think they are? Why should Christians in America be spared what Christians throughout the world have endured and are enduring? Even if their interpretation of a pre-tribulation rapture is correct, that doesn’t mean for one moment that Christians in America would not be called on to suffer great tribulation at the hands of a wicked and oppressive government–especially considering that the vast majority of pastors are doing almost nothing to resist our government from becoming wicked and oppressive. For the doctrine of a pre-tribulation rapture to be used as some kind of sit-back-and-do-nothing-because-a-divine-Seventh-Cavalry-is-coming-to-rescue-us attitude is the height of absurdity. Dare I say it borders on blasphemy?

Secondly, people who use the pre-tribulation rapture doctrine as an excuse to justify being disconnected from political involvement by saying things like, “Jesus is coming soon, so it doesn’t matter!” are demonstrating either acute cowardice or immeasurable ignorance.”

Christians throughout the millennia have looked for the return of Jesus. The doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ has been held sacred by Christians of every generation for over two thousand years. That Jesus is coming soon doesn’t stop us from going to school and getting an education; it doesn’t stop us from going to work every day to earn a living; it doesn’t stop us from planning our financial futures or saving for retirement; it doesn’t stop us from teaching and training our children; it doesn’t stop us from learning and exercising personal skills; it doesn’t stop us from locking our doors or buying expensive alarm systems to protect us from the bad guys; and it doesn’t stop these disconnected pastors from spending years trying to perfect their golf game. Neither should it stop us from preserving the liberties and freedoms of our nation.

I am reminded of the Old Testament king of Judah, Hezekiah. He was told by the prophet that God was going to judge his country with great oppression, but that it would not happen until after he expired, some 15 years later. Hearing that, Hezekiah said (paraphrase), “Oh goodie! At least it won’t happen while I’m alive.”

I ask you, what kind of father and grandfather would rather see his own children and grandchildren endure persecution and oppression than him do something in his lifetime to prevent it? What kind of uncaring, hard-hearted, pleasure-mad sorry-excuses-for-manhood are we that we would not want to sacrifice our own comfort, our own possessions, our own lives, in order to provide something better for our children and grandchildren?

These stand-for-nothing pastors do NOT know when Jesus is coming. And they do not know what kind of tribulation their children and grandchildren are going to endure at the hands of future tyrants and despots because they refused to do something that could have prevented it.

Our Christian forebears believed in the return of Christ and in personal resurrection. Whether they were pre-millennial, post-millennial, pre-tribulational, mid-tribulational, post-tribulational, etc., they didn’t allow their personal interpretation of Bible prophecy keep them from doing what was the right thing to do when it was in their power to do it. They were statesmen, leaders, and even warriors. They worked; they dug; they studied; they taught; they led; and they fought. And when needed, they risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

Are we really more spiritual than were they? Are we really more studied? More intelligent? More dedicated? More sincere? More courageous? Or more Christ-like?

How dare this generation of spoiled, lazy, comfort-laden, cowardly, sheepish, success-motivated, passive pulpits sit in judgment on the Christian men and women of history who, regardless of their personal interpretation of eschatology, actively engaged in the social, cultural, and, yes, political affairs of their countries–and helped bequeath to us, their posterity, a free and independent land? How dare they use the doctrine of the rapture as an excuse to justify their own indifference? And more importantly, how dare Christians tolerate such cowardice and carnality?

Thirdly, Dispensationalists allow their interpretation of Bible prophecy relating to future Israel to obfuscate the divine principles of liberty as it relates to present America. Preachers such as John Hagee have twisted the scriptures to support almost unlimited wars of aggression against Middle Eastern countries in the name of befriending Israel. In reality, unconstitutional war, nation-building, foreign interventionism, etc., is no friend to Israel, the United States, or any other country.

America’s foreign policy is a global nightmare. It has made enemies where none existed. It has made it increasingly difficult for American missionaries to give the Gospel to people in foreign countries. In many countries, it has inflamed the persecution of Christians. It has greatly contributed to the economic bankruptcy of the United States. It has turned the affections of the world against us. It has turned many American Christians from peacemakers to warmongers. Under the rubric of the “war on terror,” America is being turned into a giant police state. In truth, the Warfare State that has been created in this country is not a blessing to Israel (or any other country), but a curse. But the Dispensationalists’ interpretation of prophecy tends to blind them to these maladies.

Yes, many pastors and Christians have a rapture problem. But the problem is not really the doctrine itself but the way it is misapplied. I know pastors of all theological and eschatological backgrounds who are actively engaged in the freedom fight; and I know pastors of all theological and eschatological backgrounds who are disengaged from the freedom fight. It’s up to the man. If men want to, they can hide behind anything. And when pastors choose to hide behind the rapture, it becomes a problem for all of us.

Mind Control And The New World Order

On 28 November 1953, at 2 am, a man crashed through a closed window and fell to his death from the 10th floor of the Statler Hotel in New York City. He was identified as Frank Olson, a bacteriologist with the US Army Research Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland. He had fallen from a room he shared with another scientist, Robert Lashbrook. It was ruled a suicide.

Twenty-two years later, in 1975, William Colby, then CIA director, declassified documents that changed the complexion of the case. It was revealed that Olson had actually been an undercover CIA operative at Fort Detrick, and that one week prior to his death, he had been drinking Cointreau at a high-level meeting with scientists at Deep Creek Lodge in rural Maryland. The Cointreau was laced with a large dose of LSD administered by his CIA boss, Sidney Gottlieb. He was then sent to New York with Lashbrook, also with the CIA, to see a psychiatrist because the LSD had induced a psychosis.

It was also revealed that Olson had been part of the top secret CIA program that was known as Project MK-ULTRA, exploring the use of chemicals and drugs for purposes of mind control, and bacteriological agents for covert assassination. Olson had been working on ways to deliver anthrax in aerosol form, for use as a weapon. New evidence that came to light, through the persistent efforts of Olson’s son Eric, made the suicide ruling highly suspect.

It turned out that Olson had been labelled a security risk by British intelligence after getting upset witnessing human experimentation on a trip to Frankfurt, Germany the previous summer. Eric Olson now believes that his father was drugged and then murdered to make sure that he didn’t reveal the secrets of the . Following the 1975 revelations, the government must have felt more than a little guilt about the affair because Olson’s family was given a 17 minute audience with US President Ford, who apologised to them, and they were awarded damages in the amount of $750,000.

Controlling Human Behaviour

The MK-ULTRA program was instituted on 13 April 1953 by CIA Director Allen Dulles, ostensibly to counter the brainwashing techniques of American prisoners being held by the North Koreans during the Korean War, and to duplicate those techniques on enemy prisoners, i.e. the creation of “Manchurian Candidates.” This was the claim used to obtain funding for the project. However, the Prisoner of War brainwashing program was just the tip of the iceberg, and the CIA-sponsored experiments ventured far and wide into areas of Mind Control under the aegis of MK-ULTRA that had little or nothing to do with methods of interrogation.

The Colby revelations were part of a sweeping investigation of the CIA in January 1975 by the “Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States,” chaired by Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller. The subsequent June 1975 Report to the President said: “The drug program was part of a much larger CIA program to study possible means for controlling human behaviour. Other studies explored the effects of radiation, electric-shock, psychology, psychiatry, sociology and harassment substances.”

Even though the program got off to a rocky start with the Olson affair, it recovered quickly and became an umbrella project with 149 sub-projects. The overall guiding principal was succinctly stated in an internal CIA memo dated January 1952: “Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature such as self-preservation?” 

The drug program came under the aegis of the Chemical Division of the Technical Services Staff headed up by Sidney Gottlieb from 1951 to 1956. Gottlieb was a highly intelligent eccentric who drank goat’s milk, enjoyed folk-dancing, and raised Christmas trees on his farm outside Washington.

The Agency funded LSD research programs at major medical centres and universities including Boston Psychopathic, Mt. Sinai Hospital at Columbia University, University of Illinois Medical School, University of Oklahoma and others. The funding was carried out secretly through the Josiah Macy Foundation, and the Geschickter Fund for Medical Research in Washington, D.C. The CIA claimed the secrecy was necessary to keep it from the Russians, but we have already seen that it was part of much larger project to learn how to control human behaviour in general, so this is not credible.

Gottlieb told Dr. Harold Abramson at Mt. Sinai (who just happened to be the psychiatrist that Olson was supposed to see!) that he wanted “operationally pertinent materials [about]: a. Disturbance of Memory; b. Discrediting by Aberrant Behaviour; c. Alteration of Sex Patterns; d. Eliciting of Information; e. Suggestibility; f. Creation of Dependence.” That sounds like pretty deep stuff for the spy game. They were really afraid of public reaction and congressional condemnation, especially since the CIA charter did not allow domestic operations, and certainly prohibited experimentation on US citizens.

The callousness of the research is best exemplified by the CIA-funded work of Dr. Harris Isbell, the Director of the Addiction Research Center in Lexington, Kentucky. The drug addict hospital inmates, who were mostly black, were encouraged to volunteer for LSD research in return for hard drugs of their choice or time off their sentences. In most cases, they were given pure morphine or heroin. At one point Isbell kept seven men on LSD for 77 straight days. Many others were on it for up to 42 days.

Concerning extended LSD usage, John Marks in his landmark book  says about writer Hunter S. Thompson (recently deceased) that he “frightened his readers with accounts of drug (LSD) binges lasting a few days, during which Thompson felt his brain boiling away in the sun, his nerves wrapping around enormous barbed wire forts, and his remaining faculties reduced to their reptilian antecedents.” The recent movie , starring Johnny Depp, based on the autobiographical book by Hunter S. Thompson, presents an imaginative re-enactment of his LSD adventures.

The CIA Turns On the Counter-Culture

Not satisfied with university research, Gottlieb recruited New York narcotics agent George White to distribute LSD surreptitiously to the “borderline underworld.” Operating through safe houses in Greenwich Village, Haight-Ashbury and Marin County, White gave doses to prostitutes, pimps, drug addicts and other “marginal people” and then observed the results and reported to Gottlieb.

John Marks says they were people “who would be powerless to seek any sort of revenge if they ever found out what the CIA had done to them. In addition to their being unlikely whistle-blowers, such people lived in a world where an unwitting dose of some drug… was an occupational hazard anyway.”

Eventually, White started using it randomly all over New York and San Francisco. Regarding the results, Marks says, “The MKULTRA scientists reaped little but disaster, mischief, and disappointment from their efforts to use LSD as a miracle weapon against the minds of their opponents.” Yet, they continued this program for 10 years until 1963.

Ironically, since the CIA had pretty much cornered the market on LSD internationally, buying up all the product of Sandoz and Eli Lilly, the spread of the drug to the counter-culture was through the Agency., Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsburg and Tom Wolfe were first “turned on” thanks to the CIA, and that’s how the “flower children” became psychedelic.

But, the LSD experiments may have been more successful than Marks realised. They were carefully noting the precise effects on brain chemistry, and in the six areas that Gottlieb was concerned with: memory disturbance, aberrant behaviour, altered sexual patterns, eliciting information, suggestibility and creation of dependence. This became evident when they started using LSD as an adjunct in hypnotic and electronic experiments.

Re-Patterning the Brain

Perhaps the most notorious and nefarious MK-ULTRA sub-project was carried out at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal, Canada under the directorship of Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron, an American from Albany, New York. Cameron had trained at the Royal Mental Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, under eugenicist Sir David Henderson, and founded the Canadian branch of the World Federation for Mental Health. At various times, he was elected president of the Canadian, American, and World psychiatric associations. In other words, Cameron was no renegade but had the full faith and endorsement of the world psychiatric establishment.

The CIA wanted Cameron to “depattern” the contents of the brain to make it receptive to new patterning.  in a Washington Post article on 28 July 1985 said:

“The…. heart of the laboratory was the Grid Room…. The subject was strapped into a chair involuntarily, by force, his head bristling with electrodes and transducers. Any resistance was met with a paralysing dose of curare. The subject’s brainwaves were beamed to a nearby reception room crammed with voice analysers, a wire recorder and radio receivers cobbled together… The systematic annihilation or ‘depatterning’ of a subject’s mind and memory was accomplished with overdoses of LSD, barbiturate sleep for 65 days at a stretch and ECT shocks at 75 times the recommended dosage. Psychic driving, the repetition of a recorded message for 16 hours a day, programmed the empty mind. Fragile patients referred to Allan Memorial for help were thus turned into carbuncular jellyfish.”

 in his essay, ‘British Psychiatry: From Eugenics to Assassination’, says:

“Patients lost all or part of their memories, and some lost the ability to control their bodily functions and to speak. At least one patient was reduced almost to a vegetable; then Cameron had the cognitive centres of her brain surgically cut apart, while keeping her alive. Some subjects were deposited permanently in institutions for the hopelessly insane.”

The CIA funded these horrors through a front called “The Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology.” Other supporters of the Allan Institute were the Rockefeller Foundation, the Geschickter Foundation, and the Canadian government.

About Cameron’s work, Wikipedia says: “Naomi Klein states, in her book , that Cameron’s research and his contribution to the MKUltra project was actually not about mind control and brainwashing, but ‘to design a scientifically based system for extracting information from “resistant sources.” In other words, torture’. And citing a book from  it further says that ‘Stripped of its bizarre excesses, Cameron’s experiments, building upon Donald O. Hebb’s earlier breakthrough, laid the scientific foundation for the CIA’s two-stage psychological torture method’.” This method was codified in the infamous “KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual” published by the CIA in July 1963, and in the Human Resources Exploitation Training Manual – 1983 that was used in CIA training courses in Latin American countries up until 1987. These manuals describe methods of psychological torture, far more potent than physical torture, to elicit information from “resistant sources.”

An Orwellian Nightmare

As one would expect, the technologies now available to the mind-controllers have zoomed off the chart to the point where George Orwell’s world of omni-surveillance now seems almost quaint. Of course, it is true that 1984 was 28 years ago. But even as far back as 1970, US congressman James Scheur was able to say:

“As a result of spinoffs from medical, military aerospace and industrial research, we are now in the process of developing devices and products capable of controlling violent mobs without injury. We can tranquillise, impede, immobilise, harass, shock, upset, stupefy, nauseate, chill, temporarily blind, deafen or just plain scare the wits out of anyone the police have a proper need to control and restrain.”

A brief survey of some of the scariest products known to be in the arsenal of the secretive alphabet agencies arrayed against John Q. Public are such devices as the Neurophone, patented by Dr. Patrick Flanagan in 1968. It converts sound to electrical impulses which can be delivered from satellites. When aimed at individuals, the impulses travel directly to the brain where the sounds are re-assembled and appear to be voices inside the head, which can be perceived as coming from God, or telepathic aliens, or whatever. Or the sounds can come out of a turned-off TV or radio. Through software, the device can mimic anyone’s voice and translate into any language.

It is believed that the CIA, DIA, NSA et al use the Neurophone to deliver threats and propaganda to selected targets, or just to torment someone they don’t like. One can imagine the possibilities. Could this explain some of the killings by “psychopaths” who say they were instructed by God, such as Mark David Chapman, David Berkowitz, or Sirhan Sirhan? If they had been previously evaluated through sophisticated personality assessments and groomed by LSD or hypnosis, such voices could easily tip the balance and convince them to kill.

We’ve all heard about the “Thought Police” and laughed because it seemed so implausible. Well, the joke is on us. Brain scanning technology is now well-advanced. In 1974, Lawrence Pinneo, a neurophysiologist and electronic engineer with the Stanford Research Institute succeeded in correlating brain wave patterns from EEGs with specific words. In 1994, the brain wave patterns of 40 subjects were officially correlated with both spoken words and silent thought at the University of Missouri. It is believed that US intelligence agencies now have a brain wave vocabulary of over 60,000 words in most common languages.

Brain waves constitute a magnetic field around the head (the aura), each person having a unique, identifiable electromagnetic signature which becomes visible through Kirlian photography, and these fields can be monitored by satellites. The translated results are then fed back to ground-side super computers at speeds of up to 20 gigabytes/second. Neurophone messages can then be beamed to selected individuals based on their thoughts. It is believed that about one million people around the globe are now monitored on a regular basis. As these numbers increase, as they certainly will, to include most educated and important people in the world, the New World Order will definitely have arrived.

As Australian writer Paul Baird has observed, “no-one will ever be able to even think about expressing an opinion contrary to those forced on us by the New World Order. There will literally be no intellectual property that cannot be stolen, no writing that cannot be censored, no thought that cannot be suppressed (by the most oppressive/invasive means).” Baird also claims that ex-military/intelligence whistle-blowers have reported that experiments in controlling voters with these techniques have been tried in several foreign countries. So much for democracy.

Other technologies, such as microwave bombardment to confuse and disorient field personnel, microchip implantation, silently delivered acoustical subliminal messages, widespread population control through psychiatric drugs, and extreme close-up satellite-based viewing able to read documents indoors, are all well-developed and in use by military and intelligence agencies. This doesn’t even address the monitoring of overt spoken and written material. Under Project ECHELON, the NSA monitors every call, fax, e-mail and computer data message in and out of the US, Canada and several other countries. Their computers then search for key words and phrases. Anything or anyone of interest draws the attention of agency operatives, who can then commence surveillance operations by the NSA or other intelligence agencies.

Novel Capabilities

We conclude with a chilling vision of the future from the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board. It is from .

“Prior to the mid-21st century, there will be a virtual explosion of knowledge in the field of neuroscience. We will have achieved a clear understanding of how the human brain works, how it really controls the various functions of the body, and how it can be manipulated (both positively and negatively). One can envision the development of electromagnetic energy sources, the output of which can be pulsed, shaped, and focused, that can couple with the human body in a fashion that will allow one to prevent voluntary muscular movements, control emotions (and thus actions), produce sleep, transmit suggestions, interfere with both short-term and long-term memory, produce an experience set, and delete an experience set. This will open the door for the development of some novel capabilities that can be used in armed conflict, in terrorist/hostage situations, and in training…”

And based on the past clandestine abuses of MK-ULTRA reviewed above, one can predict with relative certainty that these capabilities will be used on civilians, with or without their knowledge or acquiescence, in the service of the New World Order.

If you appreciated this article, please consider a digital subscription to New Dawn.

About the Author

LEN KASTEN has been involved in metaphysical and UFO/ET studies, research and writing for over thirty years. A graduate of Cornell University, he is a former member of NICAP and MUFON. He has written over fifty published articles for Atlantis Rising magazine. His book,The Secret History of Extraterrestrials, published by Inner Traditions, went to number sixteen on the publisher’s Top Fifty list, in four months.

The above article appeared in New Dawn Special Issue Vol 6 No 3.

© New Dawn Magazine and the respective author.

© Copyright New Dawn Magazine, http://www.newdawnmagazine.com. Permission granted to freely distribute this article for non-commercial purposes if unedited and copied in full, including this notice.

© Copyright New Dawn Magazine, http://www.newdawnmagazine.com. Permission to re-send, post and place on web sites for non-commercial purposes, and if shown only in its entirety with no changes or additions. This notice must accompany all re-posting.

Obama’s Friends In Low Places

That Barack Obama is such a kidder. No matter how awkward the moment, he’s got just the right quip to purchase some wiggle room. Remember when his old Chicago banking buddy Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, first ran into that bit of trouble over his bank’s “London Whale” derivative scam? That scheme has already lost $6 billion with close to another $1 billion piled on by the SEC in fines last week after JPMorgan admitted it broke the law.

Well of course, being Obama, when the scandal first broke last year, the president picked a women’s daytime talk show, ABC’s “The View,” to deal with the scams of his leading Wall Street backer. “JPMorgan is one of the best-managed banks there is,” he told the “View” audience. “Jamie Dimon, the head of it, is one of the smartest bankers we got, and they still lost $2 billion and counting.”

Yes, counting; that $2 billion is now likely to end up around $16 billion given the future legal fees and possible payouts allotted to countering the myriad lawsuits connected with this admission of illegal activity. That’s aside from the mortgage fraud, Libor rate rigging and energy manipulation cases still confronting the beleaguered bank. Thursday, on the same day that Dimon’s bank got slapped with the SEC fine, federal regulators revealed that JPMorgan had agreed to pay $389 million in penalties and refunds to compensate for a credit card identity theft protection scam after $309 million already paid out in that case.

It should be remembered that this same Dimon, who appeared before a Senate committee wearing presidential cufflinks, once worked with Sanford Weill in engineering the reversal of the Glass-Steagall law to make Citigroup, a previously illegal merger of investment and commercial banks, possible. But despite his record as a leader in the radical deregulation of banking that caused all of the trouble, Obama turned to Dimon for direction on fixing the economy.

If you still require to be disabused of Obama’s pretend populism, consider his decision to select William M. Daley, JPMorgan’s representative in Washington, to be his White House chief of staff. It gave Dimon the key White House connection to accompany the passkey he already had at Treasury with his pal Timothy Geithner as secretary.

It was a real cozy arrangement; Dimon was still a governor of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, where he had served during Geithner’s presidency overseeing the banking meltdown. Geithner had been instrumental in arranging Fed financing for JPMorgan’s acquisition of troubled Bear Stearns through a $55 billion loan and later an additional $25 billion in TARP funds.

Once appointed Treasury secretary, Geithner made himself very accessible to Dimon. As an Associated Press investigation reported, Dimon had numerous personal meetings and phone calls with Geithner while the White House was calibrating its response to the Wall Street crisis.

Why are we not surprised that Obama has done nothing to break up the too-big-to-fail banks, the biggest now being Dimon’s? Don’t be fooled by the occasional fines; the banks have used the interest-free money to grow ever larger and more unaccountable in their behavior.

Even the recent SEC settlement, while mentioning the despicable behavior of JPMorgan’s chief executive, fails to utter Dimon’s name, and as Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who did much to unravel this scam, noted, “the whole issue of misinforming investors and the public is conspicuously absent from the SEC findings and settlement.”

After the SEC condemnation of JPMorgan’s “egregious breakdowns in controls” and conclusion that “senior management broke a cardinal rule of corporate management” to honestly inform the board of directors, top senior manager Dimon made all the right noises. JPMorgan announced that $4 billion and a staff of 5,000 employees would be devoted to compliance with the law.

This was just the sort of commitment Dimon made in 2006 when he hired Stephen M. Cutler, who had been head of the SEC Division of Enforcement, to be JPMorgan’s general counsel. Once a committed regulator who urged corporations “to create a culture of compliance,” Cutler clearly drank the Kool-Aid at JPMorgan, for he was in charge of legal and compliance activities worldwide at the time of the London Whale fiasco. So much for trusting corporate compliance.

As Donald Langevoort, an expert on compliance issues at Georgetown University School of Law, told The New York Times on Friday, “JPMorgan is by no means unique. None of these big banks really want compliance people causing traders and investment bankers to second-guess themselves too much because that gets in the way of making money. No one will say this, but it’s more effective to run the risk of noncompliance and pay a few fines, which is just a cost of doing business.”

Exactly the reason that too-big-to-fail banks can’t be trusted to do the right thing and why Obama shouldn’t have been guided by Dimon in the first place.

Source: Press TV

Is The Housing Recovery Over?

Mortgage rates are rising and the housing market is getting weaker.  In May of 2013, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage was 3.59%. Today it is 4.71%, more than a full percentage point higher. That means that the payment on a $200,000 loan is 15 percent more than it would have been just two months ago. The higher rates mean that would-be homebuyers are getting less bang for their buck and might not be able to afford their dream home.  It means that housing sales will fall and prices will drop. Higher rates are poison for housing.

Last week, the Mortgage Bankers’ Association (MBA) announced that mortgage purchase applications had dropped 3 percent from the week before following a downward trajectory that has persisted for the last two months. At the same time, new home sales plummeted 13.4 percent in July to 394,000 less than a third of their total in July 2005 when sales tipped 1,200,000 per year. The impact on existing home sales is still unknown because the  data from June will not be released until late September, but given the uptick in rates, we can assume that sales will be well-below expectations. The housing market is cooling, sales are sluggish, and prices are flattening out. The recovery is over.

The big banks can see the handwriting on the wall and are making the adjustments they think will maintain profitability in a tighter rate environment. This is from an article by Christopher Whalen at Zero Hedge:

“Wells Fargo and Chase…. both told the industry yesterday that things might become grim in their mortgage divisions. Wells told investors at a conference that it expects mortgage originations to drop nearly 30% in the third quarter to roughly $80 billion, down from $112 billion in the second quarter……Wells has already cut 3,000 jobs in the mortgage business since July (roughly 1% of the bank’s total workforce). Mortgage-banking income dropped 3% at Wells Fargo and 14% at J.P. Morgan in the second quarter from a year earlier. At Bank of America, which announced 2,100 job cuts on 8/29, the decline was 22% from the year-ago period.” (“Mortgage Market Slump: Is it Interest Rates or Jobs and Consumer Income?“, Zero Hedge)

It doesn’t matter that rates are still low by historic standards. What matters is that the Fed’s unprecedented rate stimulus vanished overnight severely dampening the demand for housing. That’s why mortgage applications and new home sales are cratering, and that is why existing home sales will fall sharply. Because what matters is rates, rates, rates; the cost of money. Borrowers don’t buy a house, they buy a mortgage, and the price of that mortgage is what counts. When Bernanke started talking about “tapering” his asset purchases (QE) in May, he pulled the rug out from under housing leaving the market vulnerable to a sales shock. Now traditional buyers are putting off their home purchases for a later date while investors are headed for the exits. Check this out from Reuters:

 ”A recent survey by polling firm ORC International found that about 48 percent of investors surveyed planned to curtail home purchases over the next year…. Only 20 percent expect to buy more homes, down from 39 percent….

The softening of investor demand has also coincided with a drop in sales of so-called distressed properties, whether foreclosures or short sales. These homes usually sell for less than others and had been the focus of investor interest.

In July, distressed homes made up only 15 percent of sales, according to the National Association of Realtors. That matched June’s reading, which was the lowest since the group started monitoring distressed sales in October 2008…..” (“Analysis: Waning investor demand opens door for first-time U.S. home buyers”, Reuters)

As we’ve been saying for months, Bernanke’s Potemkin housing market is built on four very shaky pillars– (Low rates, suppressed inventory, excessive speculation, and Obama’s bogus mortgage modification programs) Significant change to any of these props will lead to a market stall and a sharp dropoff in sales. Here’s how housing analyst Mark Hanson puts it:

“All it will take is the wave of “cash-money” buyers ‘easing off” a bit; “some” of the organic first-time and repeat buyer cohort stepping away due to the sudden lack of “affordability”; and/or a wave of supply from “panic sellers” hitting the market to send sales volume and prices down sharply, over a very short period of time.”

Hanson is the second best housing analyst in the country (Robert Shiller still holds the top-spot) and his latest blog post is a “must read” for anyone who wants to know what is going on in housing. Here’s an excerpt from the post titled “Housing…Where we sit“:

 ”Starting in Q4 2011 “housing” was injected with arguably the greatest stimulus of all time; a 2% “permanent mortgage rate buy down” gift from the Fed.  As a result of rates plunging over a very short period of time in 2011 from the 5%’s to the low-to-mid 3%’s an instant 15% to 20% “purchasing power” was created out of thin air. In other words…somebody could buy a house that cost 15% to 20% more…ca-ching.”….

Some think the rate “surge” will have little impact… while the bears …. think the rate surge was a rare and powerful “catalyst” only rivaled two times in the last seven years.  The first, when the housing market lost all it’s high-leverage loan programs all at once in 2007/2008; and the second, on the sunset of the Homebuyer Tax Credit in 2010.

In both these previous instances …. when the leverage/stimulus went away … housing “reset” to the current supply/demand/lending guideline/interest rate environment, which in 2008 resulted in the “great housing crash”, and in 2010 the “double-dip”. Here we sit in a eerily similar situation.” (“Housing…Where we sit“, Mark Hanson)

The media has tried to downplay the importance of the spike in rates pointing to the fact that rates are still very low by historical standards. But Hanson disagrees. He thinks that the “the greatest stimulus of all time” has just been removed leaving the market exposed to a catastrophe similar to the downturn in 2008 or 2010. If he’s right, then September existing homes sales (which will be reported in late October) should fall precipitously, which they should since the fundamentals –wage growth and employment– are still weak.

Eventually the abysmal condition of the underlying economy will resurface. Bernanke’s smoke and mirrors can’t last forever. Keep an eye out for September’s existing homes sales.

Top 9 Real Reasons To Go To War In Syria

In no particular order:

One: Give the appearance of unifying the country behind the President, who “did his job the right way,” by going to Congress for approval. This elevates Obama’s ratings and, by inference, suggests that his other programs should be accorded more merit. A wartime president always gains more support.

Two: Give the people an adrenaline rush. The effect should never be underestimated. Cleanses the pores, cleans the slate, and relieves frustration by proxy, temporarily…if you have very little access to your cerebral functions.

Three: In this case, winning Congressional approval reinstates the illusion, for a few moments, that we are a Constitutional Republic, with a government dedicated to justice.

Four: Help fulfill the long-planned US-Israeli agenda of destabilizing Syria and causing it to partition into warring and chaotic ethnic factions.

Five: Stop the construction of a natural gas pipeline across Syria, which would boost Iran’s economy by sending Iranian gas to Europe. Iran’s economy must be torpedoed.

Six: Send a message throughout the Middle East that the US is all-powerful and the dollar must remain the reserve currency in all oil transactions.

Seven: Feed the US military-industrial complex, which demands wars.

Eight: Aid the long-term goal of Globalism/Free Trade, which involves putting the entire Middle East into unresolvable debt and suffering…and then coming in with outside elite bankster financing, to rebuild the entire region and own it, lock, stock, and barrel.

Nine: Distract Americans from a number of scandals, including: Benghazi, Fast&Furious, IRS non-profit division crimes, NSA spying, the continuing failed war in Afghanistan, and a tanking domestic economy with more and more people living below the poverty line.

None of these reasons has anything to do with “punishing Assad for using chemical weapons.” In any case, that whole scenario has been thrown into extreme doubt.

Your government at work.

Source: Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News

Syria: Another Zionist War For Suckers

Just like a broken clock, it tells correct time twice a day. Barack Hussein Obama’s promise to have Congress vote upon his Syria’s strike force plans is a first since the historic constitutional betrayal in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Even the feeble attempt in The War Powers Act of 1973, to place accountability on Imperial Presidents, routinely ignored by other POTUS, struck new heights of arrogance and abuses under this infamous Nobel Peace Prize President.The War Powers Resolution, generally known as the War Powers Act, was passed by Congress over President Nixon’s veto to increase congressional control over the executive branch in foreign policy matters, specifically in regard to military actions short of formally declared war. Its central provision prohibited the President from engaging in military actions for more than sixty days, unless Congress voted approval.

The key Section 1541(c) reads:

(c) Presidential Executive Power as Commander-in-Chief; Limitation The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.

The proposed authorization approval in both bodies of Congress on extending permission for unwarranted aggression against Syria promises to be the most significant vote on foreign policy in the last half century. How many false flag cons can a war weary public endure from the neoconservatives and liberal interventionists? The answer becomes clear, every measure of pain and suffering that the fifth column Zionists can extract.

From Before It is News, the Hacked Email of US Intelligence Colonel Shows Pentagon’s Involvement In Chemical Attack In Syria article concludes that this documentation proves that the chemical attack was indeed a false flag operation.

 

James Corbett provides a compelling summary in the YouTube video,  He references an even more alarming analysis of the “Oded Yinon Plan” from Global Research. Their report “Greater Israel”: The Zionist Plan for the Middle East, by Michel Chossudovsky is a most significant account.

“Greater Israel” requires the breaking up of the existing Arab states into small states.

“The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation… This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme.” (Yinon Plan, see below)

Viewed in this context, the war on Syria is part of the process of Israeli territorial expansion. Israeli intelligence working hand in glove with the US, Turkey and NATO is directly supportive of the Al Qaeda terrorist mercenaries inside Syria.

The Zionist Project also requires the destabilization of Egypt, the creation of factional divisions within Egypt as instrumented by the “Arab Spring” leading to the formation of a sectarian based State dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The rabid sociopathic jingoism of the NeoCons is not in defense of the United States or the American people. No, their allegiance is to Zionism. The destructive foreign policy of the last four administrations is a strategic departure from post World War II objectives. Since an open debate about the harmful consequences, stemming out of a blind support for Israel is nearly nonexistent on Capital Hill, the task of setting the record straight falls upon a Canadian journalist, Joshua Blakeney to explain why Israel and client states want nobody to rule Syria.

“It ought to be kept in mind that the post-WWII US military doctrine for the Middle East was the Eisenhower Doctrine which promoted the fomentation of stability in the region to facilitate the flow of oil to Americans. This was fine if you were safely ensconced in Houston or Dallas with your oil companies raking in profits from Middle East oil fields but for Israel this policy was disastrous. The funneling of petro-dollars to Israel’s adversaries like Saddam Hussein, who fired scud missiles at Israel in 1991, and to the likes of President Assad was intolerable. Therefore a schism in the Empire soon emerged and two distinct US-Zionist visions for the Middle East crystallized.

From the perspective of anti-neocon Realists, such as Walt (Stephen Walt, professor of International Relations at Harvard), the US has a vested interest in propping up Arab strongmen (like President Assad) who can create stability in their countries thus making them potentially hospitable for US corporations. For Zionist-neocons and their evil twin brothers, Liberal Interventionists, it is Israel’s regional dominance rather than US commerce which is of primary importance.”

The prevailing attitude out of Israel regarding Syria is most revealing. The Jerusalem Post reports, Israelis want US, Europe to attack Syria, but against IDF intervention. “The US and European countries should attack Syria, but Israel should not be involved in the assault, two polls in weekend Hebrew newspapers found.”

When Congress voices their will, their true colors will show. Mournfully, most beltway tools are dual loyalists, no matter what their heritage. Just who will be making the decision? AIPAC must be burning up multi IOU’s. When representative “pols” see only white and blue in their flag and forget the red tint that stands for the sacrifice of patriotic blood on foreign soil, the country is betrayed.

Mr. Blakeney continues on the danger of relinquishing a pro America First foreign policy:

“The Israeli-neocon 9/11 coup d’état allowed the pro-destabilization, Zionist faction of the US elite to seize the reins of power. Since then we’ve seen the implementation of the Destabilization Doctrine, which, as stated, is the polar opposite of the less malignant post-WWII Eisenhower Doctrine. The now notorious Oded Yinon plan, authored by the Israeli geostrategic analyst in 1982, offers the clearest manifesto for the Israeli destabilization of the Middle East. Yinon argued the following:

“Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shia Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.”

Many Americans are chumps when they think Israel is our ally. When will the anti-war progressives mount an Occupy Wall Street style effort to avoid another dangerous and avoidable involvement? Norman Solomon writing in antiwar.com warns. “The administration is about to launch a ferocious propaganda blitz that will engulf a wide range of U.S. media. And as a fallback, the president is reserving the option of attacking Syria no matter what Congress does.”

Pat Buchanan has it correct as usual. “The idea that we would launch unilaterally a war against a country that has not attacked us or threatened us without the authorization of the Congress, which has the power to declare war — it seems to me is an act of almost insanity.”

A record of indisputable conduct proves that the foreign policy establishment routinely operates against the best interests of the nation. Just how many citizens realize that the Yinon Plan is actually the operational context under which stratagem functions?

It is certainly likely that the puppet president will just lie his way out of another box of his own creation. However, what is it gonna take for the public to break with the incompetent buffoon, who sits on the nuclear codes?

Syria is a target for the reason Buchanan cites. “The neocons realize that if they can get us to attack Syria and there’s a real possibility that there will be retaliatory attacks on Americans or attacks on Israel which will then cause the Israelis or the Americans to attack Syria’s allies in Iran — Syria is the backdoor to war with Iran.”

Almost sounds like the Yinon Plan is following the script that the Zionists provided to their U.S. benefactors.

Chemical Hallucinations

I think it’s true to say that the days of creating ‘dodgy dossiers‘(pdf)[1] are now over, at least if the latest ‘dodgy report’ is anything to go by. Put out by the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee, it purports to offer proof that Assad gassed his own people. But aside from the fact that it offers not a shred of proof, it’s also amateurish and clearly put together in a panic.

We…have a limited but growing body of intelligence which supports the judgement that the regime was responsible for the attacks and that they were conducted to help clear the Opposition from strategic parts of Damascus. Some of this intelligence is highly sensitive but you have had access to it all. – UK Joint Intelligence Organisation, 29 August 2013

The ‘intelligence’ report (pdf) is short, barely two pages of text and short not only in size, it’s also short of any real content that backs up the mantra,’Assad, the brutal dictator did it’. Not a single fact is presented. Here are are the relevant ‘proofs’ offered by the JIC’s report:

JIC assessment of 27 August on Reported Chemical Weapons use in DamascusIt is not possible for the opposition to have carried out a CW attack on this scale. The regime has used CW on a smaller scale on at least 14 occasions in the past. There is some intelligence to suggest regime culpability in this attack.

Run this past me again? “It is not possible for the opposition to have carried out a CW attack on this scale”, ergo, it must have been Assad. This is evidence? It’s a pathetic, not to say ludicrous attempt and obviously hastily assembled from thin air. Aside from anything else, it’s just not true, there is definitive proof that the ‘rebels’ had sarin gas.

RT, 31 May 2013

Then the ‘report’ resorts to using the numerous videos to be found on Youtube as somehow proof that Assad used toxic gas on its citizens but again the videos don’t show who did it, how could they?

Extensive video footage attributed to the attack in eastern Damascus (which we assess would be very difficult to falsify) is consistent with the use of a nerve agent, such as sarin, and is not consistent with the use of blister or riot control agents. – JIC Report

This ‘report’ is pure hokum. After you take away all the padding which constitutes 90% of the document, there’s nothing left except the allegation that because the ‘rebels’ couldn’t have done it, it had to be Assad.

I suspect that the political class here (and in the US) really didn’t expect to have so much trouble convincing people to support more Anglo-Saxon slaughter and got caught off-guard as it were, hence the paucity of the document, rushed out in a few days and aside from an alleged Syrian Army conversation (see below), nothing at all to work with.

Ok, I think I’ve dispensed with the disinfo put out by the UK Cabinet Office, it doesn’t amount to much. But I suppose the time constraints imposed by Cameron jumping the gun, all gung ho to kill some more ‘rag-heads’, forced the Empire’s hand.

The Israeli connection

To understand how this false flag operation got started we need to go back to the first article published on the debkafile website 21 August 2013.

Syrian opposition activists report between 200 and 650 dead and hundreds more wounded in a poison gas strike by Bashar Assad’s forces on rebel-held areas of eastern Damascus. They claim nerve gas canisters were dropped by Syrian Air Force fighter planes which were seen flying over the area after the attack, the most extensive reported till now. Their claim has not been verified. The regime denied the accusation, saying there was “no truth whatsoever” in reports that chemical gas was used near Damascus, and maintaining over state television that the Syrian army was conducting a conventional attack on rebel positions south and east of Damascus. –  ’Reported Syrian gas attack killing hundreds after first US-trained rebel incursion from Jordan‘, debkafile, 21 August 2013 (my emph. WB)

The gas attack, according to debka was actually just part of a three-pronged attack (masterminded in Tehran), carried out to counter a major incursion from Jordan, commanded by US personnel, into Syria, in order to extend the Israeli-imposed ‘buffer zone’ between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights.[2]

debkafile reports exclusively that Assad is acting to counter the first organized incursion of US-trained Syrian rebels from Jordan into southern Syria. The first group of 250 rebels, trained in special operations tactics by US and Jordanian instructors, entered Syria Saturday, Aug. 17, armed with weapons of Russian provenance supplied by the US and Saudi Arabia.

They are fighting under US and Jordanian commanders based in the Hashemite Kingdom.
A second group of 300 fighters crossed into Syria from Jordan Monday.

They are linking up with local rebel groups chosen from amongst those with no ties with the jihadist Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria).

According to our military sources, the rebel units are advancing at speed along the Syrian-Israeli border. They have forced the Syrian brigades posted there into retreating from positions inside a strip of 1-25 kilometers from the border, and captured the villages of Raihaniya, Breiqa and Beer Ajam.

This tactic has moved the Syrian army back from the area opposite the Israeli Golan, and started marking out a buffer zone between Israeli and Syrian forces in the Horan province.
/../

This Jordan-based rebel offensive was launched shortly after Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, visited US forces in Jordan and inaugurated the underground US war room near Amman for commanding the operation in Syria.

Syrian ruler Bashar Assad has more than once declared that if the Syrian capital Damascus came under threat, he would resort to chemical warfare and the entire Middle East including Israel would go up in flames. For now, his army is fighting to keep the rebels from taking control of southern Syria. -ibid

Enter the Dragon – sorry Tehran

But by 24 August, the situation had changed and so had debka’s story. Now the poison gas shells were,

…fired from the big Mount Kalmun army base south of Damascus, one of the three repositories of Syria’s chemical weapons. In response to a demand from Moscow last December, Assad collected his chemical assets in three depots. The other two are Dummar, a suburb 5 kilometers outside Damascus, and the Al-Safira air base, west of Aleppo. – ‘The sarin shells fired on Damascus – by Syrian 4th Division’s 155th Brigade – were followed by rockets on Israel and car bombings in Lebanon‘, debkafile, 24 August 2013

And here comes the alleged Iranian connection,

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu commented Thursday, Aug. 22 that Iran is using Syria as its testing ground while closely monitoring international responses to its actions [like gassing hundreds of people?].

The debka piece continues,

debkafile’s military sources affirm that, just as the Assad brothers orchestrated the chemical shell attack on Syrian civilians, so too did Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah set in motion the rocket attack on Israel.

/../

Then, on Friday night, two car bombs blew up outside Sunni mosques in the northern Lebanese town of Tripoli, killing 42 people and injuring 500.

The triple coordinated outrages added up to a dire warning from Tehran and Damascus about what they have in store for the region, and especially Syria’s neighbors, as payback for foreign intervention in the Syrian civil war. – ibid

Then there’s that conversation…

Then we have the ‘evidence’ leaked separately to Focus magazine in Germany, also from Mossad which I’ve dealt with elsewhere, concerning the alleged Israeli monitoring of Syrian communications. Remember all of this ‘intelligence’ originates with Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, no matter that it’s repeated by other, Western governments as ‘their’ intelligence.

As I noted before, this monitored communication is interesting because apparently, the Israeli 8200 intelligence unit only started listening after the bombs/missiles had been launched. And why wait three days to inform the world (Focus published the story on the 24 August)? And given that Syria is on a knife edge, why not release these recordings now? (And we are still waiting for the US’ declassified report that we should have had yesterday, the 29 August, why the delay?)

It’s all hearsay; talk of a panicked army officer, the implication being that it was a ‘rogue’ soldier wot did it? No identities, it’s all conveniently left vague. Not exactly a smoking gun. And I think it explains why the political class on both sides of the (polluted) pond are all stirred up and agitated.For once, they’ve not been able to to get their way, yet…

So there we have it, all the essential elements of a false flag operation, initiated by Mossad but with the obvious collusion of the US and possibly even the UK, that used the media to insert the story ‘sideways’, first via debka and Focus, followed by Ynet, the Times of Israel and then the leap across to the UK Guardian and all points West.

But clearly, what started as a military/psyops campaign centred around the Golan Heights and designed to drag Iran into it, rapidly morphed into something far larger, perhaps because whoever was responsible for the carnage, ‘overcooked’ it and killed far too many people?[3] But the change does explain much about the nature of the propaganda campaign and how the story has ‘evolved’.

But the fact that the Empire is not lobbing cruise missiles in Syria’s direction just yet is a temporary victory for the forces of progress. Moreover, I think independent journalism is starting to have some impact on events, perhaps at last we can begin to think about neutralising or effectively countering the MSM and the state’s massive propaganda onslaught, especially if it’s as badly managed as this one has been.

Notes

1. It was more than ten years ago when Tony Blair, his spin doctor and MI5 cooked up the Dodgy Dossier that formed the basis for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

2. Could this have anything to do with extending the occupied Golan Heights, the illegal drilling for oil by Israel on Syrian territory?

Genie Energy (NYSE: GNE, GNEPRA), said today that the government of Israel has awarded its subsidiary, Genie Israel Oil and Gas, Ltd., an exclusive petroleum exploration license covering 396.5 square kilometers in the Southern portion of the Golan Heights, and look who at who are on the board: Dick Cheney, Rupert Murdoch, and Lord Jacob Rothschild. See: ‘Israel has granted oil exploration rights inside Syria, in the occupied Golan Heights‘ by Craig Murray, Global Research, 21 February 2013

3. There are reports that allude to this here, and here.

Source: William Bowles

NSA Domestic Spying “Built On Lies”

Kit Daniels recently wrote a brief but very enlightening news story on InfoWars.com:

“On the August 6 edition of the Alex Jones Show, Dr. Ron Paul responded to this very straightforward statement which appeared in a recent New York Times article:

“‘Some analysts and Congressional officials suggested Friday that emphasizing a terrorist threat now was a good way to divert attention from the uproar over the N.S.A.’s data-collection programs, and that if it showed the intercepts had uncovered a possible plot, even better.’

“‘Well, it’s not amazing that this is the truth,’ Paul said in response. ‘It’s amazing, I think, that the New York Times would admit it.’

“Paul went on to say that the NSA’s claim of saving Americans from dozens of terrorist attacks is simply rhetoric to prove that the agency’s massive spying on Americans is a good thing.

“‘Their (the NSA officials) claimed successes are all built on lies,’ Paul said.

Paul referred to NSA Deputy Director John Inglis’ admission that the agency’s warrantless wiretapping only prevented maybe one terrorist plot and even that one is questionable, which contradicts the NSA’s earlier claim of 54 thwarted plots.

“‘It’s all based on lies and I think this is probably a benefit to us because most Americans now are being very, very leery of what our government tells us,’ Paul continued. ‘This is a terrible thing to have to go through… who wants to have to give up on their country?’

“‘We don’t want to give up on our country but I think it’s high time we gave up on a lot of our politicians and the way our government is being run.’”

See the report at:

Ron Paul Calls NSA’s Alexander and Clapper Liars

What is even more amazing than the New York Times reporting such a story is the fact that some of Barack Obama’s biggest Hollywood supporters are beginning to recognize the evil machinations of Obama’s domestic spying.

Breitbart.com covered the following story:

“Actor Matt Damon told Black Entertainment Television (BET) that President Barack Obama ‘has some explaining to do:’

“‘There are a lot of things that I really question–the legality of the drone strikes, these NSA revelations. Jimmy Carter came out and said we don’t live in a democracy. That’s a little intense when an ex-president says that. So you know, he’s got some explaining to do, particularly for a constitutional law professor.’

“When asked his opinion of the President’s second term, Damon chuckled and said, ‘He broke up with me.’

See the report here:

Damon: Obama Broke Up With Me

Damon is not the only one in Hollywood angry over the NSA’s domestic spying. Included in the list are Alec Baldwin, Judd Apatow, Steve Martin, Rob Schneider, Patton Oswalt, John Cusack, Janine Turner, and even (Egad!) Michael Moore.

To read the actors comments, go here:

More Celebs Slam NSA

Here is my problem: how is it that liberal actors in Hollywood can see, and are willing to speak out against, the unconstitutional citizen spying apparatus that Barack Obama is implementing against the American people and our country’s pastors and Christian leaders neither see it nor have spoken out against it? What the heck is going on? You mean to tell me that actors in Hollywood care more about freedom than the men standing behind America’s pulpits? Creepers, Batman!

Plus, neither let us forget that it was George W. Bush who put all of the infrastructure, policies, and laws in place which created the machinery for everything that Obama’s NSA is currently using against the American citizenry. This is NOT a political issue. Both Republican and Democrat administrations and congresses have collaborated to eviscerate the Bill of Rights and turn America into a giant surveillance society.

What is it about people (including Christians and Republicans) that cause them to be infatuated with a police state? All one has to do is say that some law, no matter how egregiously oppressive it might be, is in the interest of “national security,” and, presto, everyone blindly supports it. Yes, yes, I realize that not everyone supports it. Ron Paul and a few others oppose this slippery slope; but the vast majority of Republicans and Democrats, pastors and Christians, liberals and conservatives, the media elite and journalists, do support it.

With all of this love and infatuation that so many people have with the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the NDAA, the NSA, etc., why don’t these same people love Nazi Socialism? After all, the surveillance society created by G.W. Bush and Barack Obama makes Hitler’s spy apparatus look amateurish by comparison.

Does anyone really not know that the NSA is lying to us? Does anyone really believe that the surveillance society is about protecting the American people from a few thousand Sand People?

The last report I read on the topic said that the TSA now has almost ONE MILLION people on the no-fly watch list. Almost one million! Al Qaeda has never numbered more than a few thousand people (not to mention that Al Qaeda is a contrivance of our own CIA). And at the rate we keep killing their “number two” guys, it is questionable just how many of them are truly left. Let’s put it this way: there are far more people on the TSA watch list than there are Al Qaeda members worldwide. But it really doesn’t matter how many or few of them there are; they justify America’s politicians turning the United States into a giant police state–for our own protection, or course. BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!

Researcher Joel Skousen quotes a Reuters news report saying, “Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigation trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years.

“A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manuel instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA’s Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007. The IRS is among two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Reuters broke another report about the way the government lies to us entitled, “U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans.” From the report: “‘I have never heard of anything like this at all,’ said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.

“‘It is one thing to create special rules for national security,’ Gertner said. ‘Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations.’”

See the report at:

U.S. Directs Agents To Cover Up Program Used To Investigate Americans

Ron Paul knows the NSA is lying to us; Alex Jones knows they are lying to us; Stewart Rhodes knows they are lying to us; Joel Skousen knows they are lying to us; Matt Damon knows they are lying to us; Alec Baldwin knows they are lying to us; the New York Times knows they are lying to us; Reuters news knows they are lying to us; even Michael Moore knows they are lying to us. So, why don’t America’s pastors and Christian leaders know they are lying to us?

« Previous Page — Next Page »