'Twas the month before Christmas and all through the land, all the people worried about 401K plans. The stock market volatile, the rogues still in charge, the congress in session, the consequence large. Giveaways to banking had been tied to no string. The unionized workers would enjoy no such thing.
"They're evil I tell you," Corker of Tennessee exclaimed, "those unionized workers are the source of this pain. We'll give them no comfort in this hour of their need unless they agree to work for birdseed."
"Retirement package for those who have worked, I smell bacon cooking, this is nothing but pork. What nonsense is this," said Corker with glee, "that unionized workers have health care for free? Look at me," he said with delight, "I work for my free health care all through the night."
Corker was not alone in those feelings, I'm afraid there are others who conspire in these dealings.
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a right to work state, there the people earn less than the going union rate. Kentucky, where Toyota received a big slice of tax pie, $371 Million in the blink of an eye.
Mitch McConnell is married to Labor Queen Chao a dubious match for those yoked to plow.
Richard Shelby of Alabama added to the refrain, "Those unionized workers, they carry the blame. The ills of the country squarely be laid at the feet of the workers in the land of the brave."
Alabama, another right to work state, bribed Honda to make their cars there of late. The workers of Alabama know how to behave; they take what they're given and go to their grave.
All was lost on that bleak winter night, the senators held their fists nice and tight. As the senators talked, yes those birdbrains did squawk, the workers were left with no choice but to walk - Away from the table, away from the room, out in the night, into the gloom.
As they left the room on that late winter night, the air it was chilly, hard feelings were rife. "Breaking unions is what we do, if you stand in our way, we'll do the same to you. How dare those unions back Democrats? Can't you see the monkeys on OUR backs? We have bills to pay and lobbyists to please, we have corporations who've come to depend on our greed. Get out our way you lowly union workers we can use the media to convince the world you're all simply shirkers."
The stain of big money controls Media Land too, they'll tell a big lie and convince you it's true.
Workers in Alabama can be taught to hate the workers of Ohio who share their same fate.
North can hate South and East can hate West. Women are nags and men are the best. Gay versus straight is another divide "you stay on your street or risk losing your hide". A whole list of deceptions to separate me from you, we share the same genes we're all used as tools.
If they keep us from thinking we all are the same ,THEY can be heroes and we are to blame. Poverty, pollution, war waged in our name, offenses against everything hallowed, that's insane!
Who is this THEY, this illustrious group, read on, my sweet, and I'll give you the scoop. Why they're me and they're you this is sad but so true, they've been warped in their thinking trained to believe a grand ruse. The truth is so simple, there's no difference in fact, those who think they are better, it's all just an act. Like slight of hand they've pulled wool o'r their own eyes, they say they know best, we see that's a lie.
Hire the students straight out of the schools, buy them or ply them, you see they're no fools. Train them to think, with nary a thought for the pain that is caused, by the laws that are bought. If they play well they're given a room with a view, expense account, a car, other benefits too.
Have them work corporate for a day or a year, send them to DC with hardy good cheer. They'll write the laws that determine the fate of just how fast the Treasury is raped. Their loyalties lie with their sponsors you see, their loyalties are not to you and to me. Public servants they're not, they're all only the tools. Let us damn with faint praise, those who play by these rules.
Our problems stem not from fair union wage, instead these are problems as old as the age.
Capital crimes and faults also named, greed, envy, lust and hubris are the rules in this game. "Indulge all you want, enjoy and imbibe, don't worry my dear, there's nothing to hide. Play the game as we tell you, play the game as you must or we'll bend you and break you and leave you to rust."
Words all these words, oh what do they mean? If we look underneath what can be seen?
Free trade is not about freedom at all, in another day, slaves we were called. Free trade kills off culture, robs labor and land, it makes rust of cities that were once grand. Profit as always, the name of the game, it's those unions, they tell you who are always to blame. "If we pay less in wages, if we pay less in fees, we can make more money," say those Simon Legrees.
World bank steps in "I have a loan up my sleeve, the terms they are bad I think you'll agree. We'll build you a perfect capitalist paradise, no taxes, no unions, lots of government vice. You take your cut, and we'll take the pie, no one will notice when poor people die."
Green zones and brown zones, there's really no difference. One delivered with bombs the other with fences.
Take away education, destroy our health care, strip out the tax base to improve market share. "We're important" say moguls to their pawns in congress, "Pass laws to protect us, you'll enjoy our largess. "
"Campaign contributions? A job for your wife? Well certainly, surely that's the joy of our life."
Suits talks to suits, they conspire in the night, forgetting their pledges, their course and our plight.
Toxic mimics of culture sold each night on TV, keep all of us frightened, make none of us free. Where, oh where, do our priorities lie, that we subsidize rich folks and let poor folks die.
Question the reasons if only you dare, all this talk about terror abroad in the air. Hide in your bedroom, hide under the covers, use duct tape on the windows, on doors and on shutters.
Terror oh terror what message it sends, be afraid of your neighbor and question your friends. What weapon could possibly stop all this strain a nuclear option is a right wing refrain.
Think for a moment, forget what you're told. Think for yourself, an act that is bold.
Follow the money, follow the plan, use common sense be aware of the scam. Who profits? Who gains? Are the clues of this game, pay attention, my children, to see who's to blame.
Privatize, privatize water and rain, privatize, privatize war for their gain. Privatize the genome for all of the seeds, Privatize even the air that you breathe. Destroy the land and make taxpayers pay. "Thank you so much you've just made our day." Internalize profit; externalize cost, politicians for hire. You guessed it; greed's boss.
Deregulate power, deregulate banks, deregulate everything, they give you their thanks. They'll take all the wealth, take the fruits of the labor, All carried away, there's really no savior. A nation of laws, bought and paid for, of course. A people stripped of their history there's no need for force.
Why kill off a soul and cause all that pain? Are you anxious and sad? It's all done for gain. Take a small pill, wash it down with a drink, there now my dear, you don't have to think. Buy this and buy that, put it all in a drawer, look in the mirror, isn't there more?
Go to a church, a synagogue or a mosque; kneel before another, but non-earthly boss. Pray for yourself, pray for forgiveness, get up on Monday and get back to business.
The greed's been so great, the crimes are so large, the question at present, who's really in charge?
What will it take to mend this excess? Common sense from the many restraint on the rest?
The workers, of course, as always to blame. Happy holidays an affront to God's holy name. Gays and straight called into a familiar old fight. Guns, let's have guns, you know it's our right. Children we love them until they are born. Build prisons not schools this is the norm.
There'll be pardons aplenty, pardons anew, pardons granted as always to those who have ruled. Class is the only divide that we know. Class is the line through which people go, to learn how to think naught of the world as whole but only as parts to be bought and be sold.
The world is watching, the world wants to know – - oh my God, think about it, what do we owe?
While American TV News is calling the terrorism in Mumbia "India's 9/11" and blaming radical Islamic terrorists as the culprits, some foreign news is beginning to trickle in with a different story: that perhaps the real culprits behind the terrorism where in fact Hindu and white extremists pretending to be Muslims, a classic false flag tactic.
In an article dated November 23, 2008, just a few days before the recent events in Mumbai, India police exposed how Hindu terrorists with close ties to the leading opposition party carried off a series of deadly bombings with the intent of blaming them on Muslims. From the Belfast Telegraph:
"India is in something of a state of shock after learning from official sources that its first Hindu terror cell may have carried out a series of deadly bombings that were initially blamed on militant Muslims. The revelation is forcing the country to consider some difficult questions.
At least 10 people have been arrested in connection with several bomb blasts in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in the western state of Maharashtra in September, which left six people dead. But reports suggest that police believe the cell may also have carried out a number of previous attacks, including last year's notorious bombing of a cross-border train en route to Pakistan, which killed 68 people. Among the alleged members of the cell are a serving army officer and a Hindu monk." -- India uncovers Hindu terror group that carried out bombings blamed on Islamists, Belfast Telegraph
The man responsible for the investigation into these secret links between Hindu extremists and corrupt elements in the India government, Hemant Karkare, India's chief antiterrorism officer, was one of the first casualties in the Mumbai attack. According to Somini Sengupta writing for the New York Times, "...in a bizarre twist, the head of the police antiterrorism unit, Hemant Karkare, killed in the Mumbai strikes, had been in the midst of a high-profile investigation of a suspected Hindu terrorist cell. Mr. Karkare’s inquiry had netted nine suspects in connection with a bombing in September of a Muslim-majority area in Malegaon, a small town not far from Mumbai." (see Crisis May Shift India’s Political Landscape, and Signs Of An Attempted Coup In New Delhi
With these recent revelations of Hindu violence being blamed on Muslims can we be so sure that India's 9/11 was really the work of Muslims as the western media portrays? Here are just a few of the discrepancies with the Mumbai story that need to be highlighted.
A cameraman caught up in the melee in Mumbai caught this picture of a young terrorist wearing a nada chhadi bracelet on his wrist. These threads, consider auspicious, are given by Hindu priests as a symbol of protection in religious ceremonies, and would seem to be highly improbably attire for a hard core fanatical Muslim.
Also, there are reports that a number of the gunmen were white:
""They did not look Indian, they looked foreign. One of them, I thought, had blonde hair. The other had a punkish hairstyle. They were neatly dressed."-- Minister 'quits' over Mumbai attack,BBC
And, from the UK Guardian:
"One police officer who encountered the gunmen as they entered the Jewish centre told the Guardian the attackers were "white", although this could mean they were paler-skinned Indians from the country's north.
"I went into the building late last night," he said. "I got a shock because they were white. I was expecting them to look like us. They fired three shots. I fired 10 back." -- --Indian commandos storm Mumbai hotels, Guardian
Another interesting angle that the U.S. media has been pushing is that the terrorists were after foreigners; however, If that were the case, why not attack the hotels with a preponderance of American, British and Israeli foreigners, hotels like the Hilton, Four Seasons and the Sheraton which are in Mumbai, instead of the India-owned ones like the Taj and the Oberoi. No wonder the incidence of foreign causalities were so small for the number of people killed that day.
It looks very much like a false flag event indeed. But, for what purpose? Cui Bono? Could it be because the Hindu Nationalist Party BJP has been using terrorism, especially Muslim-inspired terrorism, as part of the campaign strategy.
According to a Newsweek:
"The recent violence is a boon to the right-wing Hindu dominated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Even before the latest violence, a series of blasts across the country claiming at least 200 lives this year had already helped the BJP, which has flagged terrorism as an issue in the campaign. Even as the security forces battled the terrorists holed in Mumbai, the BJP had begun to use the opportunity to point to a weak government "soft" on terrorism. Frontpage newspaper adverts in Delhi on Friday, the day before the city goes to the polls, said the incident shows that the ruling Congress-led government is "unwilling and incapable" of dealing with terrorism. BJP leaders on the stump seized the opportunity. "There's an immediate reaction from people on the Mumbai siege, and the feedback has been very positive for the party," said a senior BJP member in Delhi to the Times of India. "Our challenge will be to convert this outrage into votes for the BJP." --Right Tilt: The Mumbai attacks have given India's Hindu right-wing opposition a boost ahead of upcoming elections, Newsweek
Terrorism has been "Very positive for the party," say the BJP party member. And it will be "very positive" too for the U.S. and Israel who have been supporting the right-wing Hindu party both militarily and financially over the years.
In the article India and Israel: an unholy alliance by Faisal Kutty, a columnist for the Washington Report on Middle East Affair, explains the close relationship between Israel and the radical Hindu-firsters.
"More recently, the two countries have moved quickly to develop cooperation in the economic, political, and military and intelligence areas. The burst of activity in these fields over the last few years is phenomenal.
Since 1992, the trade between the two countries has grown from $200 million to $1 billion and there are more than 150 joint ventures.
Israel´s two national air carriers, Zim and El- Al, are active throughout India. Zim has fifteen offices and El-Al operates three flights a week from Mumbai. Much of the economic activity evolved from a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed in 1992 covering cooperation in trade, agriculture, solar energy, natural resources, tourism, and most importantly, research and development (read defense industry). During Singh´s recent visit, an Indo-Israeli Joint Commission was set up to advance cooperation in the economic, scientific, energy and cultural spheres.
In terms of military, a number of commentators expect that Israel will become the largest source of military hardware in the next few years. In addition to the millions of dollars in advanced equipment which India expects to purchase from Israel, India is also hoping to benefit from technical know-how from the Israeli defense industry, considered to be among the world´s best."
Beside the boon in selling military hardware and surveillance equipment to India, Israel and the United States will also firmly hold a powerful influence in India politics should the BJP win in the upcoming election. And, by blaming Pakistan and Islamic terrorism for the recent events it will but pressure on India and its military to be used as another proxy army to fight the Israel's enemies in the area.
"By way of deception thou shall do war" is the Mossad's operational motto, and I hope indians learn that their close connections to Israel can be their undoing. Unfortunately, we have learned that lesson all too well here in the United States.
Recently some ominous statements by two very big political insiders has been making the buzz on certain blogs. It turns out that both Colin Powell and Senator Joe Biden have publicly stated that Obama will see a major international crisis early on in his presidency. According to Biden this crisis will test Obama's "mettle," and according to Powell, will "come along in the 21st or 22nd of January that we don’t even know about right now."
With these bizarre statements by two establishment insiders one can understand why the blogs are buzzing with rumor and innuendo. Many are wondering if we are getting advance warnings about another 9/11 or perhaps a global financial meltdown?
The comment about testing the mettle of Obama came from future VP and "War on Terror" snake-oil salesman Joe Biden, who neglected to say how this "crisis" will test him in his role as future VP. Here's his comment at an October 19, 2008, 25K, Seattle fundraiser:
"Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
You must read this transcript to get the full nebulous scope of the crisis coming our way. Biden, the consummate politician, knows some "generated" crisis is coming and he implores the audience to just go along with the unpopular decisions that Obama (and he) will have to make:
"I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you. I think I can be value added, but this guy has it. This guy has it. But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going 'oh my God, why are they there in the polls, why is the polling so down, why is this thing so tough? We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us."
This call to faith gets even stranger when Biden gets biblical with a strange reference to Obama as a messiah figure: "Let's not be, for those of a different faith remember St. Peter denied Christ thrice, you know? We don't need anybody denying us, this is gonna be tough."
No denying that Joe catches himself and admits he said too much. "I probably shouldn't have said all this because it dawned on me that the press is here."
Say it ain't so, Joe.
On the same day that Biden made his ominous forecast, Colin Powell also claimed on Meet the Press that a "crisis" is on the way and even gave specific dates: January 21st or 22nd of 2009, the day after the Bush administration is scheduled to leave the White House.
Powell: "I would start with talking to the American people and talking to the world, and conveying a new image of American leadership, a new image of America’s role in the world.
The problems will always be there, and there’s going to be a crisis come along in the 21st or 22nd of January that we don’t even know about right now." Meet the Press transcript
What's is more telling about these comments is not immediately obvious to the causal observer: it is not the debate about whether or not Powell and Biden have committed Fraudian slips, or were trying to warn the American people about some new imminent attack -- both Biden and Powell have resigned themselves to this inevitability and have accepted it because it is being dictated by more powerful people than themselves, people they work for who are entrenched in the top echelons of the state. The real message is that Obama will be tested to see if he will uphold the mandates of this elite while mollifying the mob.
Contrary to popular opinion, the President of the United States of America does not actually run the state on its deepest level, which would explain why no major contender for the presidency would ever seriously look into 9/11 or, most recently, challenge the 800 billion dollar bankers' bail out. To do so would be political suicide.
In Peter Dale Scott latest book "The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire and the Future of America," he writes of a cabal which he collectively terms the "deep state," which is highly secretive and has increasingly committed itself to global dominance at any price. State department officials and even Presidents have been powerless to stop these covert operatives as they are entrenched in the most powerful segments of the state, and, according to Scott, their career success is based on their commitment to worst-case scenarios, or a "paranoid style in American politics." He argues that the paranoid bureaucratic style of the deep state, undisciplined by the wisdom of the public state, was a major cause of 9/11 and is a formula for more 9/11s. It helped create al Qaeda and the circumstances which unleashed al Qaeda against the United States.
Scott continues: "I have observed that bureaucratic debate where power is involved tends to favor paranoid or worst-case analyses, especially those that justify budget and bureaucratic growth. Today's bureaucratic paranoia has indeed been institutionalized by what has been popularized as Vice President Cheney's "one percent doctrine": "Even if there's a just a one percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it is a certainty....This doctrine is a license for untrammeled expansion of the secret deep state."
This one percent doctrine has allowed the deep state to become even more powerful and secretive and it has used fear and threats to get its way time and time again. It can certainly use the universal boogieman al Qaeda, a global financial crisis, or a plague to expand it's empire even further. With Obama's presidency the deep state may have bought itself more time and the legitimacy it sorely needed. Although the Bush administration allowed this cabal to expand dramatically in the last 8 years, today Bush's unpopularity is a liability for them. A fresh, popular, messiah-type figure that Americans trust is a perfect foil for the real operatives that run the government.
So, what is this crisis that Obama is going to be tested on? Will he be expected to calm the world down after some devastating plague breaks out? Will he be expected to look sincerely and passionately in the camera to implore the citizens of the world that their best hope for survival is to take the government's new vaccine? Will he sign the executive order calling for mass quarantining of people in Halliburton prison camps? Will he go along with the Pentagon and declare martial law when massive protests erupt on the streets over Israel's preemptive nuclear attack on Iran, or a massive run on the banks? Will he utilize Blackwater and other military contractors to subdue the citizenry in the event of a natural or man-made disaster like New Orleans after Katrina? And, most importantly, will he ignore the real culprits of a major crime for his own political expediency?
This last one will tell more about his character than anything else.
(Carol Brouillet is a mother, a 9/11 Truth and Peace activist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. This courageous woman is running as the Green party candidate in the 14th congressional district in California. You can hear her platform and read her running statement here: www.carol4congress.org. In the article below Carol describes how we are now experiencing a truly transformable moment in history, one in which the veil of deception and myths that hold the facade of the global power structure together is beginning to unravel. With this unraveling a new consciousness based on truth, love and compassion can be the motivator for empowering people to reform the outmoded structures of oppression.)
Evolution of the Apocalypse Empire's Demise- Human Renaissance
Apocalypse (Greek for "lifting of the veil") is a term applied to the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the majority of humankind. Today the term is often used to refer to the end of the world, which may be a shortening of the phrase apokalupsis eschaton, which literally means "revelation at the end of the aeon, or age.(1) "
The unraveling of the US and global financial system should not be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention, doubted the news headlines over the past decade, or plunged into an odyssey of self- and world-discovery by reading books, studying history, or seeking the truth behind the cultural myths that cocoon Americans into the notion that they live in the world's beacon of democracy and freedom. The most surprising factor is that people who have created the crisis think that they can continue the scam by stealing another $850,000,000,000 overtly through the bailout, and even larger amounts covertly, to keep the game going for the world's wealthiest people at the expense of everyone else.
In the past, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and Rome fell when a small percentage of the population controlled nearly all of the wealth.(2) Today, the rich have never been richer nor the poor poorer. The concentration of wealth has been achieved by conquest, as well as by one of the most powerful tools of empire--money.
Debt-based monetary systems are the building blocks of empires, and generally empires collapse or topple when they have destroyed their ecological base. The current global empire severely threatens the forests, the oceans, the climate, the fertility of the soil, the aquifers, the bees, and innumerable other species, including humanity.
There is a Cree prophecy that goes as follows(3):
"When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money."
Caught up in the empire game, many have forgotten the difference between money and real wealth. Money is a human invention. It is not neutral. Who creates it, how it flows in a society, a nation, and the world is important and subject to change. Money is an agreement that can be backed either by force or by a spirit of cooperation.(4)
Bankers, like magicians, do not want to reveal their secrets. Able to create money out of thin air, they have learned that belief in the value of money is the key to their success. When people begin to doubt the purchasing power of money, banks fail and currencies collapse.
The "modern" fractional reserve banking system has evolved over centuries.(5) "Mortgage" literally means "death-gamble." When mortgages were first introduced, those who risked their land to borrow money were literally risking the lives of their families, their liberty, and their hopes for the future. Only gradually, over eons of time, did the idea of a "mortgage" become more commonplace, acceptable, and even encouraged. Mortgages became attached to the "dream of home ownership" and provided the liquid currency to fuel "national economies."
The origins of paper money can be traced to receipts that goldsmiths provided to their customers, who would leave their gold with a goldsmith for safekeeping. Centuries ago goldsmiths began giving out receipts for the gold that they safeguarded, and people soon learned that the receipts were more useful for business transactions than heavy amounts of gold. Some enterprising goldsmith figured out that it was not necessary to maintain a supply of gold equal to all the receipts issued, because all the customers would never come to claim their gold at the same time. Because large amounts of gold weren't necessary to ensure the utility of receipts, the goldsmith was able to issue many times as many receipts as he had gold in his vault, and the fractional reserve system was born. Since goldsmiths began to loan gold and receipts at interest, the system of "debt money" was born in which customers had to pay back more money (receipts) than were in circulation--thus ensuring that the community as a whole would always be in debt to the goldsmith.
When money is created by the banks and loaned to governments or business at interest, it is mathematically impossible to pay back all the money with interest. Not all debts can be repaid, so foreclosures occur. In this way wealth is continually transferred from the poor to the rich.
Kings, queens, and nations have succumbed to the power of those who lend them money, finance their wars, pay their armed forces--and own the means of communication, which either provide rulers their aura of legitimacy or can just as easily demonize and dethrone them.
Over a hundred years ago, the populist movement in the United States rose up in the wake of the collapse of agricultural prices that threatened farmers and enriched bankers. The farmers pushed for monetary reform, including the demand that dollars be backed by silver rather than gold. The populists also argued that money should be created by the government for the benefit of the people, rather than by banks for the benefit of the bankers.
In 1890 the German economist Silvio Gesell formulated a theory of money that was as revolutionary as the notion that the earth circles the sun, rather than the other way around--despite appearances. Gesell suggested securing the money flow by making money a governmental service subject to a use fee. Instead of paying interest to those who have more money than they need, people would pay a small fee if they kept money out of circulation. The fee would serve as income to the government and would reduce the amount of taxes needed to carry out public tasks.
Gesell's ideas were tested by the mayor of Worgl, Austria, in 1932 when economic conditions were deplorable. The mayor proposed to substitute a local currency for the national currency--which he called "work certificates." On the first of every month the holder had to affix a 1 percent stamp of the face value of the certificate. The "taxes" went into the community chest, to provide a relief fund for the invalids or elderly who were unable to work. Because of the stamp tax, taxes were paid quickly, accounts were settled without the usual delays, and even the bank became eager to loan out money, as fast as it received it.
The mayor then embarked upon a public works program "to alleviate want, give work and bread," which exceeded his highest hopes. The conditions of the streets of Worgl had been a standing joke to the people in the surrounding countryside. In less than four months, sewers and improvements were completed. Later, other streets were paved, and even streets outside of Worgl were repaired. Prosperity blossomed throughout Worgl.
Inspired by Worgl's success, a meeting of 200 Austrian mayors decided unanimously to follow the Worgl example in their impoverished communities. At this point, fearful of losing its power, the private Austrian National Bank protested against the shattering of its money-making monopoly. After a legal fight, the Austrian Supreme Court sided with the bank, as might be expected. Although this experiment was abruptly terminated in Austria, the Worgl experience inspired three or four hundred scrips in circulation in the United States, Canada, and Mexico during the Great Depression.(6)
If the Federal Reserve were actually a part of the US government, would the US government need to borrow money? Wouldn't it be able to just print its own? In 1913 the Federal Reserve Act took away Congress's Constitutional power of regulating the value of money and bequeathed it to private banks.(7) Since then the financial plight of the US government has been dire and under pressure from the very rich, who choose which candidates and politicians will serve their interests and oust those who threaten them.
In recent times there have been numerous communications revolutions, including radio, television, and the Internet, and social movements have also arisen. At the same time there has also been the consolidation and expansion of corporate power served by new centers of supranational power, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. Alex Carey said:
"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.''(8)
During this time money and resources have flowed from poor countries to rich industrialized nations. The Structural Adjustment Programs forced upon nations by the World Bank and the IMF have meant shifting food production from domestic needs to export crops, devaluing local currency to encourage exports, cutting social spending on health and education, reducing wages, privatizing national industries, selling off natural resources, and removing tariff protections for local industries. Hunger, unemployment, hardship and inequality are the direct and calculated results of these World Bank policies.
The vertical integration of entire industries has taken place with the rise of giant transnational corporations whose economies are larger than that of many countries.
At the end of World War II, when the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed, the dollar became the de facto "world currency" and was backed by American gold reserves. In 1972, in the midst of the Vietnam War, when President Nixon detached the dollar from the gold standard, he detached the dollar from anything of real tangible value and basically allowed the currency rates of every nation to fluctuate in relationship to one another's currencies. The dollar was then backed by oil and American military might.
In those days 98 percent of foreign exchange transactions had to do with the exchange of goods and services and only 2 percent were speculative. Today the vast majority of foreign exchange transactions have been speculative and less than 2 percent are for the exchange of real goods and services.
Measurements have inherent limitations and biases. The family existed before money did. Villages grew out of interdependent relationships between families. As societies have grown more complex, hierarchies have developed and the "public family" or the state has created institutions that have taken over many of the functions once met within the household, such as educating children and caring for the sick.(9)
In urban environments, basic living skills have been lost, people are more dependent than ever on the state or a monetized economy to meet their basic needs. In order to get slaves or labor to serve industries, people had to be forced away from the land where they once were able to sustain themselves.
In the film "Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics," Marilyn unravels many of the problems in the global system. The IMF and the World Bank were created to maintain certain power relations and exercise control over the world's resources. The U.N. System of National Accounts was based upon a pamphlet entitled "How to Pay for the War." That system, imposed upon every country that joins the U.N., enables the global elite to finance their militaries, to engage in conflicts with other nations, and to build internal security forces to control populations who might not agree with the expropriation of their country's resources.
The system assumes that the unpaid work of women--who are bearing children, raising them, feeding them, carrying for the sick and aged, and maintaining a home or garden--is of little or no importance. Nor does the system recognize the value of forests or the natural world unless they can be chopped down and sold or monetized in some way. Monetary transactions are measured, no matter how devastating their effects are on the environment. The arms industry is the most lucrative of all industries. It is in the economic interest of the major powers that there always be a war going on somewhere. This pathological system does not recognize the inherent value of life, peace, or the earth itself. It does not even notice anything of unquantifiable value; it only sees that which it measures--money.(10)
Maximizing profits is the primary value in modern economics. The economic measure of monetary flow is directly related to the rape of the earth, the amount of exploitation occurring within a country, and how effectively the world's parasites are expropriating the labor of others and the natural world.
The global economy is a war economy. While the importance of oil for both energy and military purposes is enormous, dwarfing the oil industry in monetary terms is the illegal trafficking in drugs. Laundered drug money in enormous quantities has always found its way into the large financial centers and into key industries.
In criminal law, fraud is the crime or offense of deliberately deceiving another in order to damage them - usually, to obtain property or services unjustly ...
Fraud for profit is often perpetrated by industry professionals. There are generally multiple loan transactions with several financial institutions involved. These frauds include misrepresentations including the following: Income is overstated, assets are overstated, collateral is overstated, the length of employment is overstated (or fictitious employment is reported), and employment is backstopped by conspirators. The property value is inflated (faulty appraisal) to increase the sales value to make up for their being no down payment and to generate cash proceeds in fraud for profit.(11)
In the 80s, Congress paved the way for the savings and loan scandal by loosening regulations, which cost taxpayers $160.1 billion. John McCain was one of the "Keating Five" rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment" for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, who was at the center of the scandal and convicted of fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy.
The history of the stock market reveals a transition from investments in real companies producing tangible, measurable products and services toward "financial instruments" of an increasingly speculative nature. Electronic money, borrowed and loaned into existence, flowing through cyberspace, can wreak havoc and collapse entire nations' economies. In the 90s the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) was devised to ensure the ability of speculators and multinational corporations to move capital in and out of countries without governmental involvement or public interest safeguards.(12) Recognizing the dangers of this agreement to the interests of people everywhere, civil society organized global resistance via the Internet to defeat the MAI.
The 90s also witnessed major consolidation of the mass media, the frenzy of speculation in the high-tech industry, and the development and expansion of Internet commerce. New technologies permitted local, national, and international communications and organizing to occur, which profoundly challenged the credibility and legitimacy of established governments, corporations, and the corporate press.
Global resistance to corporate globalization broke through the mainstream media barrier in the US in 1999 in Seattle, Washington, when tens of thousands of protestors tried to peacefully shut down a World Trade Organization meeting. The first Indymedia.org website was created specifically for that protest to share information from the point of view of activists. Since then the Indymedia network has grown to span the globe--particularly in those cities where international protests have been organized, the main website is accessible in eight languages.
Under President Clinton in 1999 and the leadership of Senator Phil Gramm (now co-chair of the McCain campaign), Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which removed Depression-era laws separating banking, insurance, and brokerage activities and helped pave the way for the next wave of financial integration and fraud. In late 2000 when Gramm chaired the Senate Banking Committee, he pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act--which prohibited federal agencies from regulating financial products called credit default swaps, which have been used to back up the mortgage-based securities. The credit default swaps are the major reason for the 54 trillion dollar liabilities that are threatening financial institutions worldwide. (After the legislation passed, the Swiss bank UBS purchased American institutions. UBS then hired Gramm as a lobbyist and paid him over $750,000. UBS alone issues over $18 billion in subprime mortgages.)(14)
Throughout history there has been a struggle in all societies between a ruling class and the many who are not so privileged. Toynbee noted that the world struggle takes place between a few vested interests and social justice. There has always been a struggle between tyrants and ordinary people, where the people have made some gains and have also had setbacks.
Social movements are born when public myths are shattered, societal secrets are revealed, and people realize that powerholders are acting in violation of deeply held values. In the current era, the Internet has allowed for the increasingly rapid transmission of information challenging powerholders, institutions, and cultural myths.
Social movements are collective actions that alert, educate, and mobilize the public to redress social problems or grievances. With all the problems confronting humanity there are innumerable social movements, which have evolved and learned from one another. At times they have come together in increasingly powerful coalitions. Professor and author Anthony Hall has called them "the fourth world,"(15) and others refer to them as the "anti-corporate globalization movement" or the "global justice movement."
In January of 2001 while the World Economic Forum was meeting in Switzerland, thousands of people from hundreds of countries met at the first World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Brazil, a convergence of social movements. Their points of agreement included opposition to the policies of the IMF, World Bank, and WTO; opposition to militarism, corporate globalization, and environmental destruction; and support for public participation in decision-making processes, and for the respect for people and life over profits. Social movements are an evolutionary force that pushes people to live up to their ideals and values and enables people to exercise their collective power.
When people believe that power flows downward from those at the top of institutions towards the helpless at the bottom of the pyramid, tyranny rules. Most people believe in this model. Under this model, change can be achieved only by appealing to elites, using persuasion. However, when people discover their own power and belief in democracy--that government should be "of, by, and for the people"--power flows from them through institutions to powerholders and public servants. True democratic power comes from the bottom, results in social progress, and powerholders and policies are changed to meet popular social demands.(16)
The strategy of the powerholders is not to broadcast the truth about their beliefs, actions, policies, and programs. They know who benefits from the unfair distribution of benefits and costs within the existing system. They must keep their actual policies hidden from the public, because they rightly fear that the majority would rebel if they knew the truth. Powerholders habitually use myths, slogans, and rhetoric to sell their policies and programs to the public.
One of the great American myths that is promulgated by powerholders is the idea that we have a watchdog press. Over 3,000 people attended the last two National Conferences on Media Reform, primarily because of their deep concern about the failure of the traditional media. Lord Northcliffe said, "News is something that someone wants suppressed; all the rest is advertising."
Colossal crimes have been committed and then masked by the media for centuries. But the larger pattern in this era of information--including names, dates, evidence, and various kinds of documentation--is coming to light at a staggering rate, beyond the capacity of any one individual to absorb, read, process, and disseminate all the details. In turn the information is gradually reaching the most heavily propagandized target audience--the American public, who are increasingly losing faith in their government, the war, the Congress, and the financial system.
As Aung San Suu Kyi wrote, "It is not power that corrupts, but fear--fear of losing power and fear of the scourge of those who wield it."
Fear, war, and terror are routinely used to shut down rational thinking processes--a tactic that Naomi Klein outlines in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism(17) (as well as in the video(18) ). Klein fails to recognize, however, that 9/11 was designed to terrorize Americans and the world into going along with the bogus "War on Terror," to forget about the missing $2.3 trillion on the Department of Defense books(19), the stolen election(20) , the evidence destroyed in the Securities and Exchange Commission's offices in World Trade Center 7(21), to not even notice the massive insider trading(22), and then to permit a giant escalation in the military budget and the construction of the surveillance industry. The plunge in the stock market and the "apparent attack" on America's financial center also prompted the Fed to lower interest rates, which helped the housing market--and Bush encouraged folks to "go shopping."
The best historical parallel to 9/11 would be the Reichstag fire, which Hitler used to vilify and target "communists" and pass the Enabling Act (similar to the PATRIOT Act), before launching wars of aggression. The PATRIOT Act was mirrored by legislation passed in Canada, Australia, and the UK, severely eroding civil rights and granting more power to governments to chill dissent--to monitor and crack down on those they considered a threat.
With the bust of the dot com bubble, speculative money went into real estate, housing, and derivatives(23) . Congress and the Bush administration changed laws and regulations to lure people into borrowing money, purchasing homes, and investing their savings in the 21st century Ponzi schemes. Elliot Spitzer was vilified by the press the day before he wrote an article naming Bush as the "Predator Lenders' Partner in Crime," saying
"In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act pre-empting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. ...
"Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye."(24)
Close scrutiny of powerholders running the government, institutions, and corporations reveals conflicting loyalties and economic interests. Legislators in fact represent the millionaires and billionaires who fund them and who continually rewrite the rules in their own favor and have decided that the Constitution is obsolete.
The unfolding financial crisis has been arriving in wave after destructive wave. People have lost their homes, their jobs, their savings, their health, their marriages, their kids, and finally their hope.
The housing bubble began to burst when home prices in the US began to decline in March and April of 2007. The IMF warned of risks to global financial markets. Bear Stearns was in trouble in June 2007 because of its mortgage-backed securities. In the summer of 2007 German banks were in trouble and foreclosures in the US almost doubled. In September 2007 there was a run on Northern Rock, which the British government nationalized, and the Fed began to drop interest rates to help the housing market. In January 2008, UBS reported $18 billion in write-downs due to US real estate exposure. In February, Fannie Mae reported a $3.55 billion loss.(25)
In March, however, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department directed money towards the 85-year-old investment bank Bear Stearns, via JP Morgan(26) and $200 billion went to prop up Fannie Mae. By April the IMF projected $945 billion in losses. In June housing possessions doubled again, and the FBI announced the arrest of over 400 people charged with mortgage fraud, including two senior managers of the failed Bear Stearns Hedge Funds.(27) In July Congress passed the Foreclosures Prevention Act, which was a $33 billion hand-out to those who helped create the problem, according to a report by the Laborers' International Union of North America. Under the bill's little-publicized "carry-back" provision, builders would get billions in tax breaks and the 15 largest corporate homebuilders, who made $16 billion in profits on $100 billion in revenues, would receive a third of the benefits.(28)
In September 2008, the Fed, in an unprecedented move, lent $85 billion to the American International Group (AIG), the nation's largest insurance company, which also handled credit default swaps and suffered losses from its subprime mortgage-backed securities holdings.(29) Then Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, and Bank of America devoured Merrill Lynch. Soon there was a run on money market funds, and short selling of financial stocks was suspended globally. Bush made a speech acknowledging that there was a serious crisis, and backed Paulson's bailout plea.
There were only a few voices in Congress that dared to challenge the current bailout of the speculators so intimately involved in created the current financial crisis. Anyone could look up Henry Paulson on the internet to discover his ties to Goldman Sachs, but these ties were not emphasized in the mainstream media. According to Wikipedia notes:
"Paulson was Staff Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon from 1970 to 1972... He joined Goldman Sachs in 1974... He became a partner in 1982. From 1983 until 1988, Paulson led the Investment Banking group for the Midwest Region, and became managing partner of the Chicago office in 1988. From 1990 to November 1994, he was co-head of Investment Banking, then, Chief Operating Officer from December 1994 to June 1998; eventually succeeding Jon Corzine (now Governor of New Jersey) as its chief executive. His compensation package, according to reports, was US$37 million in 2005, and US$16.4 million projected for 2006. His net worth has been estimated at over US$700 million. Paulson has personally built close relations with China during his career. In July 2008 it was reported by The Daily Telegraph that: "Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations with the Chinese elite, dating from his days at Goldman Sachs when he visited the country more than 70 times. ...
"There is increasing evidence that Paulson was influential with two U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairmen, William H. Donaldson and Christopher Cox, in receiving restraint in the Commission's exercise of oversight requirements. In 2004...the Commission agreed unanimously to release the major investment houses from the net capital rule, the requirement that their brokerages hold reserve capital that limited their leverage and risk exposure. The complaint that was put forth by the investment banks was of increasingly onerous regulatory requirements--in this case, not U.S. regulator oversight, but European Union regulation of the foreign operations of US investment groups. In the immediate lead-up to the decision, EU regulators also acceded to US pressure, and agreed not to scrutinize foreign firms' reserve holdings if the SEC agreed to do so instead. The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, however, put the parent holding company of each of the big American brokerages beyond SEC oversight. In order for the agreement to go ahead, the investment banks lobbied for a decision that would allow "voluntary" inspection of their parent and subsidiary holdings by the SEC.
"During this repeal of the net capital rule, SEC Chairman Donaldson agreed to the establishment of a risk management office that would monitor signs of future problems. This office was eventually dismantled by Chairman Cox, after discussions with Paulson. According to the New York Times, 'While other financial regulatory agencies criticized a blueprint by Mr. Paulson, the [new] Treasury secretary, that proposed to reduce their stature -- and that of the S.E.C. -- Mr. Cox did not challenge the plan, leaving it to three former Democratic and Republican commission chairmen to complain that the blueprint would neuter the agency.' Only in late September 2008, Chairman Cox and the other Commissioners agreed to end the 2004 program of voluntary regulation."
With the unregulated credit default swaps posing enormous liabilities to the financial institutions that dwarf the global economy, Paulson's allegiances to Goldman Sachs and AIG will help determine which institutions will fail--or escape, survive, and profit--in the current turmoil.(30)
Henry Paulson asked for and received over $700 billion in taxpayer money with little or no oversight as to who will actually get the money. It is clear that it won't be going to Main Street, and it is more than likely to go to Paulson's Wall Street and foreign friends.
Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur spoke out bravely against the bill, explaining precisely how it was being rushed through Congress(31) , and Dennis Kucinich condemned it as well. Their token resistance was swept aside, even as Representative Brad Sherman pointed out the fear mongering and panic pressure placed on Congress to push it through.(32) The fear that was generated by insiders and the media, as well as some token pork, helped to get the bill passed on Friday, October 3, 2008. Democrats, Republicans, and both presidential hopefuls were behind the bailout.
Amongst Obama's advisers are Franklin Raines, who was a chairman and chief executive officer at Fannie Mae; and Tim Howard, who was the chief financial officer of Fannie Mae; and Jim Johnson, who was an executive at Lehman Brothers and later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. Howard was forced to retire when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. The books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years, and Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion. The Government filed suit against Raines and Howard when the scandal became clear(33). The court ordered Raines to return $50 million he received in bonuses based on the misstated Fannie Mae profits. The government investigation determined that "Chief Financial Officer Tim Howard failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae." Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004. Howard's golden parachute was estimated at $20 million. Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 million in benefits. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae reveals that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million." Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae. Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.(34)
Any close scrutiny of the financial ties of major politicians--particularly those in office such as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Pelosi, and Feinstein--reveal major conflicts of interest between the politicians and the military, oil, and pharmaceutical industries. At the highest levels, however, there is no accountability. Laws are meaningless to these people. They have the power and influence to pass murderous legislation that enriches and empowers them and their cronies and threatens and impoverishes the rest of us, all of this veiled by a subservient corporate press that bestows upon them an aura of legitimacy. Within government agencies there is corruption, fraud, and the persecution--rather than protection--of whistle-blowers.
When Congress voted $87 billion to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, some of that money was earmarked to suppress dissent in the US. In 2003, thousands of protestors gathered in Miami to oppose the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Pre-emptive arrests, violent violation of civil rights, brutal treatment of innocent medics, and criminalization of dissent became known as "the Miami model." The militarization of the police and Homeland Security's targeting of anti-war and peace activists have continued and expanded since then--as seen most recently in the protests at the Democratic and Republican Conventions where even the regular press was arrested, and organizers were arrested and charged with "terrorism."
There is a battle going on--a clash of worldviews over what is true, legal, and moral; over who is a terrorist, and who is serving humanity; over who has the right to live, and who has the right or duty to jail, kill, or torture anyone. Every individual will have to decide for themselves what is true and what is legitimate--what is best for themselves, their families, their country, and the whole planet.
The strategy of all social movements is to convince the public that a problem exists and that policies must be changed, and to exercise the people power that resides within themselves into a force that finds solutions to commonly recognized problems.
The perpetrators of 9/11 had a different strategy. Their strategy was to terrify the American people into silence and submission, then bully the Congress into nearly unlimited funding for war and a greatly expanded surveillance industry. The perpetrators of 9/11 used a BIG LIE to sell a "bogus protection racket" to their victims--to institutionalize under the guise of "National/Homeland Security" a greater concentration of wealth and power into fewer hands. Their tools were violence, fear, criminal fraud, manipulating the financial markets, and selling it all to the American people through the megaphone of the mainstream media.
Cheney, like Napoleon, believes that you don't have to suppress a truth--just delay it until it no longer matters. There are a growing number of people who are challenging the lies, especially through the Internet. It is apparent that those in power are very much afraid of the Internet, of people's ability to share information and communicate so that they can organize in unprecedented ways using emerging technologies, or simply gather together in a public space where free speech is still possible.
The deeply held values, symbols, beliefs, sensibilities and traditions that are important to the public are being violated today by the power elite. The majority of people are against the war, torture, and the bailout of Wall Street. Those in power depend on the public to be stupid, uninformed, disengaged, apathetic, cynical, powerless, and silent. Social movements are dependent on empowered, engaged, informed people at every level of society to uphold the values and principles that are being violated by powerholders and their policies. Will the American people continue to wake up and begin to exercise more control over the US government to force changes in policy?
A major cause of social problems is the concentration of political, economic, and military power in the hands of relatively few people. An informed, empowered, and politicized population is required to resolve today's problems and to establish a just, peaceful, sustainable world for all. Political and economic power ultimately rests with the majority population; rulers can only rule with the consent and acquiescence of the people. Where people put their time, energy, and money has a greater impact on society and the world than who they vote for. Elections have been stolen for decades; only an awakened citizenry can oversee and ensure honest elections.
The most important issue is the age-old struggle between the majority of people and the individual and institutional powerholders to determine whether society will be based on the authoritarian model--where power flows from the top down--or the "people power" model of genuine participatory democracy.
Kevin Barrett expressed the following in a talk entitled "A Folklorist Looks at 9/11 'Conspiracy Theories'" (folk meaning "the people," as opposed to the "rulers and the press" who in the past have authoritatively defined "event/reality"):
"Marshall McLuhan's famous line "the medium is the message" could describe the way the 9/11 Truth movement is an artifact of the Internet, and the radically-enhanced folk-communications it has brought. Thanks to digital audiovisuals, email and the world-wide web, the folk are now a leg up on their would-be manipulators, those well-paid professionals in corporate media, public relations, marketing, and psychological warfare or psy-ops, whose collective job is to reify and manipulate their fellow human beings.
"It is one thing for the content of informal, non-institutional, "folk" communication to subvert institutional authority. It is another and more significant thing for the very medium of folk communication to radically shift in a way that empowers the folk and disempowers the institutions. And that is what has happened. The world has been turned upside-down as the old oral-transmission grapevine has gone digital...
"Today's digitally-enhanced subversives and skeptics can spread large numbers of copies of audio, video and photographic evidence, along with an unlimited amount of writing, for pennies. This digital awakening may turn out to be our second post-Gutenberg revolution in half a century. Its importance may rival the emergence of writing, which created hierarchical societies of kings, priests and scribes; with the invention of the printing press, which created the kind of mass-literate societies we call "democratic"; and with the invention of television, which McLuhan suggests created a global village of creeping Orwellian fascism. 9/11, in this view, was the last gasp of television as a means of mind-control via mass hypnosis, while the 9/11 Truth controversies may represent the birth pangs of the new, digitally-enhanced democracy."
It is sobering to know that if the world's population was reduced to 100 representatives, only 1 would have a computer, or have attended college, and he would have more wealth than all the others and be from the United States. While 70 percent of American homes may have access to the Internet, they are not representative of the world. However, an enlightened American people would be a grave danger to the advancement of the American Empire. We are uniquely responsible and able to thwart or advance the aspirations of the US oligarchy. We are also directly under attack by that oligarchy, who view us as a threat and are trying to criminalize dissent.
The financial crisis that faces America and the world today was as orchestrated as the events of 9/11. Similar to what transpired after 9/11, it is likely that the financial crisis will be used to further concentrate wealth and power, crush dissent, criminalize larger and larger numbers of people, trash civil liberties, and generally replace the "rule of law" with the "rule of fear."
There is another possibility, however, which we the people can promote. We can join together to speak up, organize, and challenge the lies, crimes, and illegitimacy of the powerholders and corporations that threaten the well-being of the people of the world. We can create and nurture new organizations to fulfill real needs and aspirations. This is already taking place and can be seen in the rise of nonprofit organizations over the past decade. Ignored by the corporate media, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader have raised key issues that the corporate-anointed candidates won't discuss. The public must search the Internet for the statements of these courageous challengers to the oligarchy, because their views are ignored, marginalized, or dismissed in the corporate press--but they nonetheless provide a rallying cry for people looking for true change. At a recent press conference, the third-party candidates clearly represented majority opinions and interests, far better than McCain or Obama.(35)
Repression, reform, revolution or renaissance?
When revolutions occur simultaneously in many different areas, the transformation of society can be called a renaissance. We are witnessing changes happening at a rapid pace in a multitude of areas, and few can begin to keep up with the new technologies and research. As traditional power structures are threatened, new possibilities and synergies are emerging. If the traditional banking system or the dollar collapses, money will be reinvented at the local, regional, national, and probably international levels.
Mike Nickerson, author of Life, Money, & Illusion: Living on Earth as If We Want to Stay, wrote:
"An alternative to panicking when GDP stops growing is to view it as a sign of maturity. Human activity cannot expand forever on our finite planet. Fuel prices, climate change and the sub-prime mortgage crisis are all symptoms of one cause. When we stopped growing as individuals, it was not the end of the world. Indeed, for most of us, life had scarcely begun before physical maturity. Even as physical growth ended, we became better informed, more comfortable in ourselves and we developed the skills and relationships that define our lives. The same can be true for civilization."
The convergence of various crises--including the financial system, peak oil, climate change, population growth, resource depletion, and mass extinctions--is forcing humanity to collectively recognize its limits and mature as a species, simply to survive.(37)
In order to behave maturely, wisely, and responsibly--and to make wise rational decisions--people need to know what is true, what is real.
Mike Nickerson has been championing the Genuine Progress Index to provide more accurate information about how people are affecting the planet and one another. If economic indicators were aligned with universal values such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, economists would ignore the marketplace and concern themselves with the health and well-being of the environment, the health and well-being of every person, and whether the basic human needs for food, water, shelter, clothing, and education were being met.
One of the heftiest charges against members of the Bush Administration is their attack upon science.(38) There is ample evidence that they have ordered agencies to be silent about their findings, or to fudge data to suit political purposes and shape public opinion. Only Bush science, as exemplified in the NIST report, could explain the collapse of all three World Trade Center buildings at free-fall speed as due to fire alone. Hundreds of independent scientists, architects, and engineers have rejected the conclusions of the NIST report. The scientific evidence indicates that two planes could not have shredded three steel-framed buildings, but that controlled demolition does explain their rapid disintegration.
It is increasingly challenging to evaluate scientific studies without knowing who has funded them, and for what particular purpose. Researchers whose findings challenge government or corporate objectives are vilified and lose their funding. Citizen-supported scientific research and data collection whose intention and purpose is clearly in the interests of the health and well-being of people and their environment--whose data can be shared, checked, verified, and corroborated by others in a transparent manner--will ultimately gain the widest acceptance.
Satyagraha, "soul force" or "the force of truth," pioneered by Gandhi, has inspired the social movements of today. According to Schopenhauer, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
The individual and human journey also passes through stages. As proposed by Abraham Maslow in his classic study Toward a Psychology of Being, healthy people outgrow the self-centered need for material acquisition and find greater joy and purpose in more expansive activities--such as developing friendships, being of service to others, expressing creativity, and joining together with others to solve problems.
The deliberate infantilization of the public and the manipulation of the public mind has contributed to the current crisis in values, where people seem to be concerned only for themselves and are cynical about what is happening in the world.
The cure lies in the maturation of our species. The times that we live in are calling to us to grow up, individually and collectively. We need to develop a greater understanding of ourselves and our world, to develop our talents and skills to make this a better world. Despite the dangers and challenges of the time we live in, we can find meaning and joy through joining together in the search for truth, peace, justice, and, freedom.
As Gandhi and others have demonstrated, the truth, combined with love and compassion, will set us free. As we work together to pursue the truth and expand our awareness, we are lifting the veil and awakening from a media-induced trance so that we can more clearly see how we have allowed our power to be taken from us. This knowledge will empower us to reform the outmoded structures that are so oppressive and to create new systems that truly serve the needs of the people and the planet for current and future generations.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse [2] Debt Virus: A Compelling Solution to the World's Debt Problems, 1995 by Jacques S. Jaikaran [3] http://www.unahi.org/quotes/native-american-quotes.htm [4] Bernard Lietaer, ex-central banker, author of The Future of Money: Creating New Wealth, Work, and a Wiser World, 2001, http://www.transaction.net/money/bio/lietaer.html [5] Money as Debt, Paul Grignon's video production, available at http://www.moneyasdebt.net/ and viewable online at http://tiny.cc/z30uD [6] Interest and Inflation Free Money, 1995 by Margrit Kennedy, http://tiny.cc/FQtb3 [7] Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace Mullins, http://www.whale.to/b/mullins5.html [8] How Corporations Destroyed US Democracy by Propaganda, http://tiny.cc/UCT9Q [9] Hilkka Pietila, The triangle of the human economy: household - cultivation - industrial production, http://www.kasakobiet.ngo.org.pl/teksty/hilkka_pietila_eng.html [10] Whose Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies and Global Economics, http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/whoo.html [11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud [12] http://www.citizen.org/trade/issues/mai/ [13] http://www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?p=608 [14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm [15] http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=1628 [16] Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organising Social Movements, by Bill Moyer, http://tiny.cc/KB6W9 [17] http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine [18] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc [19] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml [20] http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=248 [21] http://www.wtc7.net/articles/kimball/thirdskyscraper.html [22] http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/stockputs.html [23] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8634 [24] http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8376 [25] http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3689713,00.html [26] http://tiny.cc/dYeSJ [27] http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june08/malicious_mortgage061908.html [28] http://tiny.cc/1dQZI [29] http://tiny.cc/0WX1c [30] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/business/27charts.html, http://www.crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/60-minutes-wall-streets-shadow-market [31] http://tiny.cc/kRIcq [32] http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/h-r-1424-brad-sherman-one-minute-speech/11766853/ [33] http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/ [34] http://tiny.cc/E3K4h [35] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1LMoWqXrE4 [36] http://www.shanejolley.com/2008/09/05/silver-lining-economic-downturn [37] http://www.chrismartenson.com/peak-oil-b [38] http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/02/62339 [39] Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 - 1860)
Recently I happened to see an amazing interview with Afshin Rattansi of Press TV and journalist Max Kieser. In this broadcast (see below) Kieser compares the Wall Street bailout with the "controlled demolition" of World Trade Center Building 7 and the twin towers on 9/11.
Although the commentary by Keiser was brilliant and provocative, what truly amazed me was not so much what he said, but the very fact that it was said at all on television.
This led me to read up on Press TV. I wanted to know who they are and why would they allow such incendiary commentary on their broadcast, and, where were the O'Reillys and Becks to beat Max to a pulp with verbal threats for even daring to mention the fraud of 9/11? What could explain this free, unfettered commentary when our Western media -- both mainstream and alternative -- are so controlled?
Here's what I found out about Press TV from Wikipedia:
"Press TV is an English language international television news channel which is funded by the Iranian government, based in Tehran and broadcasts in English on a round-the-clock schedule. With 26 international correspondents and more than 400 staff around the world, its stated mission is to offer a different view of the world events.
Press TV has stated its intention to cover world news differently from the Anglophone channels BBC World News, and CNN International. Press TV states that it is not beholden to any commercial or governmental entity, nor internally constrained to deviate from its editorial independence. Press TV seeks to compete, inter alia, with the past-launched Al Jazeera English and France 24 in 2006 and Russia Today in December 2005.
Press TV has three mission statements; to break the global media stranglehold of western outlets; to bridge cultural divisions pragmatically; and to highlight the versatility and vitality of political and cultural differences, making up the human condition."
Okay, Press TV is state sponsored by Iran, so undoubtedly we are going to get some pro-Iranian, anti-Western propaganda. That's a given. However, by allowing commentary by the likes of Max Keiser, George Galloway and Gore Vidal -- major Western critics of the "War on Terror" and the government conspiracy theory of 9/11, the channel is willing to portray a side of the debate most Americans will never get to see on Western media channel.
Once again the alchemists at the Federal Reserve and Treasury are busily in the process of creating gold from lead (the American taxpayer). And, while they work feverously in their gold-shrouded labs mixing up fanciful financial formulas and solvency solutions for black holes on balance sheets, the spineless Gollums in Congress, driven by their own fear and greed, are selling the American people and their children's children's children on the futures market for perpetuity. Does it get anymore depraved that this?
And, if you thought the looting over the last few years by the war profiteers in the fraudulent "War on Terror"™ was bad enough, the audacity and vulgarity of this new megalithic looting leaves one totally breathless and searching for impossible answers to questions of why Uncle Sam has gone to the insane asylum.
One thing I have learned is that if you are attempting to make sense of this madness, whatever you do, absolutely, unambiguously DO NOT listen to ex- Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson or Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, or any other of the high priests of finance explain the problem as you will go insane with the inanities of their obtuse, convoluted language called "Financese" -- a lexicon in which only the Druids of Mammon understand and which they deftly used to hypnotize the rest of us. If you do fall in the trap of trying to understand them, beware that you can spend hours upon hours attempting to figure out a logic that is only designed to confuse and to incapacitate mere mortals. As Alan Greenspan once said, "I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you've probably misunderstood what I've said.”
Not only do these wizards take pride in their ability to confound and mesmerize, but as magicians they also create illusions that are as convincing and awe inspiring as any Chris Angel trick on the Vegas strip; and like Angel only they know how the dollar bill got suspended in the glass pane after being thrown to the wind, and only they know who to get it back out again -- or so they want us to believe.
However, though language can also be used for deceit and deception, it can also be used for truth and clarity, and professor Michel Chossudovsky enunciates one of the best explanations as to why we are in this economic Hades floating down the river of Shit. In his latest article "Global Financial Meltdown," we read about the destruction of laws that were designed to protect "we the people" from such predatory, criminal behavior -- behavior our politicians, the media and economists have vigorously been promoting over the last few years by touting free trade policies, deficit spending and deregulation of the financial markets.
For instance, in 1999 the Clinton administration effectively repealed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, a law was put in place to protect the American people from rampant corruption, financial manipulation and "insider trading" that resulted in more that 5,000 bank failures following the 1929 Wall Street crash. With Clinton and congress signing the Financial Services Modernization Act (Gramm-Leach Bliley Act) a new era of rampant looting the American people could began in earnest.
Chossudovsky also connects the dots by connecting the War on Terror to what is happening to our markets today. To quote:
"powerful financial groups which routinely manipulate stock markets, currency and commodity markets, are also promoting the continuation and escalation of the Middle East war. The financial crisis is related to the structure of US public investment in the war economy versus the funding, through tax dollars, of civilian social programs. "More broadly, this also raises the issue of the role of the US Treasury and the US monetary system, in relentlessly financing the military industrial complex and the Middle East war at the expense of most sectors of civilian economic activity." (See Michel Chossudovsky, The Democrats endorse the "Global War on Terrorism": Obama "goes after" Osama, Global Research, August 29, 2008)."
So, while the Democrats get all misty-eyed over a Obama victory, Obama is urging the Congress to bail out the banksters and allow our children to be wage slaves for the filthy rich private owners of the Fed. He is also a supporter of the phony War on Terror™ which is nothing more than globalization by violence by these same elites who want to control everybody and everything everywhere around the world.
Ironically, Democrats and Obama will accuse McCain of supporting the policies that have gotten us in this economic mess. Maybe Democrats should reflect back a few years to when President Clinton actually signed the Financial Services Modernization Act and realize that both the Democrats and the Republi-cons have no problem using your children as a hedge fund instruments for the ultra wealthy elite and fodder for their illegal wars.
Bush is threatening that Congress must act immediately to bailout Wall Street by signing the administration's new legislation to allow the Treasury to buy "suspect" U.S. mortgage loans from U.S. and foreign-owned banks, at a possible cost of as much a $700 billion (all backed by U.S. Taxpayer dollars of course.) Expect the Gulloms of congress to cower even further then their twisted backbone would normally allow, mumbling out "precious...precious" over and over again while kissing the banking elites' ring.
The upshot of this is that Congress and the owners of the Fed believe you are too stupid to figure out that they have been robbing you blind for years and purposely enslaving you to the Fed's debt/interest-based economic system. By deregulating the financial markets, creating massive deficit spending and now fully transferring over the keys of the financial system to the foxes in the Fed house, you and your kids are certain to end up on the dinner plate of the black hats with the red coats.
A lesson can be learned from this debacle. Not only has the fascist state firmly embedded itself in government but the only way to extract ourselves from this evil system is, to quote a republican, is to "just say no."
Time to wean ourselves off of the grid.
(If you still think Congress listens to you, here's an e-letter that you can send to your Gollum (I mean representative) requesting that they vote no on the bailout. www.votenobailout.org. )
Sham 1. To trick; to cheat; to deceive or delude with false pretenses.
Chun·der –verb (used without object), verb (used with object) 1. to vomit.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has finally given the world the much sought-after explanation for why Building 7 collapsed into its own footprint in less than 7 seconds on September 11, 2001. According to NIST we now have a newly discovered phenomenon called "Thermal Expansion." Here's what they say about it on their website:
"Determining the probable collapse sequence for WTC 7, NIST found that the impact of debris from the collapse of WTC 1 ignited fires on at least 10 floors of WTC 7, and the fires burned out of control on six lower floors. The heat from these uncontrolled fires caused thermal expansion of the steel beams on the lower floors of the east side of WTC 7, damaging the floor framing on multiple floors. Eventually, a girder on Floor 13 lost its connection to a critical interior column that provided support for the long floor spans on the east side of the building. The displaced girder and other local fire-induced damage caused Floor 13 to collapse, beginning a cascade of floor failures down to the fifth floor. Many of these floors had already been at least partially weakened by the fires in the vicinity of the critical column. This collapse of floors left the critical column unsupported over nine stories.
“When this critical column buckled due to lack of floor supports, it was the first domino in the chain,” Sunder explained. “What followed in rapid succession was a progression of structural failures. Failure first occurred all the way to the roof line—involving all three interior columns on the most eastern side of the building. Then, progressing from east to west across WTC 7, all of the columns in the core of the building failed. Finally, the entire façade collapsed.”(See NIST WTC 7 Investigation Finds Building Fires Caused Collapse)
Well, now we skeptics can take off our aluminum-foil hats and get a good night's sleep because we now know that steel buildings can collapse on our heads due to "thermal expansion" and not because of our wild imaginings of shadowy men in elevator maintenance uniforms surreptitiously planting bombs. What a fucked up thought to have anyway. Thermal heat bubbles causing spontaneous building collapse is much, much more palatable.
And, while we are in the process of suspending our disbelief for federal flights of fancy (yes, NIST is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, which is under the aegis of the executive branch of government) let's not worry about all that physical evidence like the iron-aluminum-sulfur microspheres found all over in the World Trade Center dust, or the molten iron burning for weeks in the rubble, indicative of thermite/thermate explosions, or eyewitness testimony for that matter. We can now dismiss such bogus evidence because according to NIST this is just not plausible because it doesn't fit their hypothesis. From Syham Sunder, NIST's lead investigator into the collapse:
"In order for the thermate reaction to melt steel to take place, there has to be materials. If you look at the amount needed—at least 100 pounds for one column—you need someone to get that amount in the building, and place it, and for the reaction to take place. It is unlikely."
According to NIST's logic, it is unlikely that al Queda would have access to a building full of personnel from federal agencies like the CIA, the DoD and the Office of Emergency Management, so the physical evidence of thermite must be moot. Right?
Kevin Ryan doesn't think so. Ryan was an Underwriters Laboratory scientist who was fired from his management position when he questioned the fire-induced collapse explanation for WTC. He thinks thermite should be the central focus of study as this would explain the "substantial evidence that aluminothermic (thermite) materials were present at the WTC (Jones 2007), and the presense of such materials can explain the existence of intense fire where it would not otherwise have existed."
In an article titled, "The Top Ten Connections Between NIST and Nano-Thermites," Ryan writes:
"Regardless of how thermite materials were installed in the WTC, it is strange that NIST has been so blind to any such possibility. In fact, when reading NIST's reports on the WTC, and its periodic responses to FAQs from the public, one might get the idea that no one in the NIST organization had ever heard of nano-thermites before. But the truth is, many of the scientists and organizations involved in the NIST WTC investigation were not only well aware of nano-thermites they actually had considerable connection to, and some cases expertise in, this exact technology." (see The Top Ten Connections Between NIST and Nano-Thermites, by Kevin R. Ryan)
The article by Ryan goes into further depth of NIST's extensive ties to people and companies associated with this high explosive nano-technology, as well as the department's own research into the subject.
This reluctance by NIST to talk about thermite was highlighted last week during their press conference when Shane Geiger from infowars.com asks Dr. Sunder about the presence of these microspheres in all the samples of WTC dust. Dr. Sunder's response was to tell the reporter to go on NIST's website and read the thousands of pages of material and when the reporter has fully understood it to get back to NIST in writing "and we will look at what you have to say." Amazing.
Here's the video of this exchange:
Beside evidence of thermite being dismissed by NIST as evidence of controlled demolition, so is eyewitness testimony. Dr. Sunder states: "We asked ourselves what is the minimum amount of charge we could use to bring the building down, and we found that even the smallest charge would release an extremely loud sound heard half a mile away. There were no reports of such a sound; numerous observers and video recordings found the collapse to be relatively quiet."
Since Dr. Sunder has told us that explosives should be heard a half a mile away we can only speculate about what these people heard:
"Yeah I was just standing there, ya know... we were watching the building [WTC 7] actually 'cuz it was on fire... the bottom floors of the building were on fire and... we heard this sound that sounded like a clap of thunder... turned around - we were shocked to see that the building was, ah well it looked like there was a shockwave ripping through the building and the windows all busted out... it was horrifying... about a second later the bottom floor caved out and the building followed after that... we saw the building crash down all the way to the ground... we were in shock." - Darryl: 1010 WINS NYC News Radio (09/11/01)GZ Rescuer: ‘WTC 7 about to blow up’
... and this comment by NYPD officer Craig Bartmer who was in the immediate vicinity of Building 7 before and during its collapse at 5:30:
"I walked around it (Building 7). I saw a hole. I didn't see a hole bad enough to knock a building down, though. Yeah there was definitely fire in the building, but I didn't hear any... I didn't hear any creaking, or... I didn't hear any indication that it was going to come down. And all of a sudden the radios exploded and everyone started screaming 'get away, get away, get away from it!'... It was at that moment... I looked up, and it was nothing I would ever imagine seeing in my life. The thing started pealing in on itself... Somebody grabbed my shoulder and I started running, and the shit's hitting the ground behind me, and the whole time you're hearing "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom." I think I know an explosion when I hear it... Yeah it had some damage to it, but nothing like what they're saying... Nothing to account for what we saw... I m shocked at the story we've heard about it to be quite honest." NYPD Officer Heard Building 7 Bombs, Prison Planet
Obviously, there is a discrepancy in the historical record. So who are we to believe? The eyewitnesses on the ground? or a government spokesperson who was not there and doesn't even acknowledge these eyewitnesses' testimonies nor the physical evidence?
So, what conclusions can we come up with with this new report? I have to confess that I have not read the thousands of pages nor do I intend to. After a few assertions from Dr. Sunder like the ones above, I've concluded that it would be a huge exercise in futility to attempt to debunk the government's smoke screen any further because they are working under the principle of "If it doesn't fit (our hypothesis), than you must acquit."
"It's simple, it's straight forward, it's elegent" to quote Syham at the press conference.
(Suffice it to say, the 9/11 Truth community will once again shred up this report like so much falling paper flying from the twin towers.)
****
[A RP8 Comment regarding postings: I had to delete a few comments due to the racist remarks of certain anonymous individuals. It is one thing to criticize a country that may have been involved in a false flag event, it is another thing to condemn its people as a race, ethnicity or religion. I do not tolerate that on my blog, so please do not submit comments with such language or they will be deleted.]
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. "
– Noam Chomsky
''That's not the way the world really works anymore. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
– Sr. White House Advisor, as reported by Ron Suskind
by Arial C. Engrey
