Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who has called for an end to the Federal Reserve, said legislation he introduced to audit monetary policy has been “gutted” while moving toward a possible vote in the Democratic-controlled House.

The bill, with 308 co-sponsors, has been stripped of provisions that would remove Fed exemptions from audits of transactions with foreign central banks, monetary policy deliberations, transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee and communications between the Board, the reserve banks and staff, Paul said today.

“There’s nothing left, it’s been gutted,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is not a partisan issue. People all over the country want to know what the Fed is up to, and this legislation was supposed to help them do that.”

The Fed, led by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, has come under greater congressional scrutiny while attempting to end the financial crisis by bailing out financial firms and more than doubling its balance sheet to $2.16 trillion in the past year. The central bank is also buying $1.25 trillion of securities tied to home loans.

Paul, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, has eliminated “just about everything” while preparing the legislation for formal consideration. Watt is chairman of the panel’s domestic monetary policy and technology subcommittee.

Keith Kelly, a spokesman for Watt, declined to comment and said Watt wasn’t immediately available for an interview. Watt’s district includes Charlotte, headquarters of Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender.

Original Language

Paul said he intends to introduce an amendment to the bill when it comes to the House floor for a vote restoring the legislation’s original language.

Representative Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts and chairman of the committee, said in interview that he intends to ensure legislation would provide a time lag between FOMC actions and the reporting of them.

Such a provision would “lessen the market impact,” he said on Oct. 20. “The importance is to see that there are no abuses and to judge what they did.”

The legislation will probably be included in a broader Democratic package of financial-regulation changes in the House, Frank said.

Ron Paul wrote an editorial for CNN.com today, detailing the role of the Fed's policy in the economic crisis, how it is an unconstitutional institution, and why needs it be audited by the Congress for the first time in its near hundred-year history. More than 75% of Americans are in favor of Paul's 1207 transparency bill, which has gotten over 300 co-sponsors in the Congress, thanks to Paul's relentless pursuit and democratic newcomer Alan Grayson's support.

Washington, D.C. (CNN) -- A growing number of Americans are becoming aware of the Federal Reserve System, what it is, how it has precipitated our financial crisis, and how it continues to pursue policies that delay economic recovery and weaken the dollar.

The Fed's actions, combined with the federal government's bailout bills and stimulus packages, have struck a nerve in the American people.

Recent polls have shown that more than 75 percent of Americans support efforts to audit the Fed, something which my bill, HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, aims to do. HR 1207 has the support of 304 members of Congress, and the Senate version of the bill, S. 604, is supported by 31 U.S. senators.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has embarked on an ambitious program of monetary expansion, more than doubling the monetary base to almost $1.9 trillion and doubling the size of its balance sheet to over $2 trillion, placing the American economy in a precarious position.

If all this excess money begins to be loaned out, the Fed risks creating a hyperinflationary crisis similar to 1920s Germany. If the Fed contracts this money, it risks harming the banks it desperately wants to see bailed out.

It is imperative that the American people know what the Fed is up to, how much money it loans to banks and what types of agreements it enters into with foreign banks and governments. Just about all of this information is exempt from audit or oversight. The Fed's actions directly affect the value of the dollar, which is coming under increasing pressure from our foreign creditors. If we do not wish to see a complete collapse of the dollar, the Fed needs to be subject to a strict audit of its actions, if not an outright abolition of its charter.

The time for civil disobedience has arrived. Previous leaders have called for civil disobedience at similar critical times. MLK Jr led marches. He mobilized a nation's will in his great effort. We are at that point again in American history. Dr. Paul, whether he likes it or not, is a leader now, and he must heed this calling. Nobody else in America has the same qualifications as him. From the streets to D.C., Dr. Paul must lead!

Ron Paul is, without a doubt, an American hero, and he will be the country's greatest president, if we are fortunate.

In the piece Silber makes a great point about the fallacy that a military draft would end the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which has been made by numerous anti-war commentators over the last eight years, and most recently by Matthew How, a top military official who resigned from his position in Afghanistan last month.

The same factors that ultimately led those who determine U.S. foreign policy to abandon Vietnam ensure that the U.S. will not leave the CENTCOM area of operations for decades, if ever.

On the same point, I also note this statement from Barbara Tuchman, which is the sentence immediately following the paragraph set forth above: "The purpose of the war [in Vietnam] was not gain or national defense." By the early 1970s, both parts of that truth began to penetrate minds that had earlier been resistant to them. During this same period, another event occurred, one of immense importance historically and to the U.S. ruling class in particular.

Remember the year of Nixon's historic trip to China: 1972. As their previous justifications for the Vietnam catastrophe began to fall away, the ruling class realized that another route was advisable not only for strategic reasons concerning national defense, but because it would be hugely profitable for the ruling class, including many multinational corporations: engagement. We must recognize these truths about the ruling class: it is undeniably insatiable in its thirst for power and wealth and in its willingness to commit any acts to satisfy that desire, including the murder of vast numbers of innocent human beings, and it is ruthlessly determined -- and it also is not stupid. Nixon himself, as deeply damaged an individual as he was and as thoroughly detestable in countless ways, was similarly not remotely dumb by any measure, certainly not when it came to calculations of this kind. Peaceful engagement with China held the promise of many benefits, not least among them immense wealth for the ruling class, an obvious truth that events have borne out.

In the early 1970s, all of these factors came together in a way that recommended a different course of action altogether, and that was the course the U.S. finally followed. We can thus see that neither the beginning of U.S. involvement in Vietnam following World War II, nor the increasing intensity of that involvement throughout the next two decades, nor the decision to finally abandon Vietnam in the 1970s, connected in any major way to opposition to the draft or to this particular war in the manner suggested by Hoh. The initiation of U.S. involvement and its growth occurred with the draft in place throughout that period, and the U.S. left Vietnam for very different reasons. If anything, the draft made possible the U.S. presence in Vietnam for 30 years. So the truth on this question is precisely the opposite of what Hoh suggests, at least insofar as this very significant historical example would indicate.

As to Hoh's contention that "a draft would engage our population in the debate," I can only say that I view this as approaching the delusional. If anything, a draft makes any government's decision and ability to engage in destructive "wars of choice" more likely, not less (and Vietnam is but one example of that principle). Moreover, the American public's astonishing, even sickening, ability to remain apathetic and immovable even when heinous crimes are committed by their government has almost certainly increased immeasurably in recent decades. If the endless crimes committed by the Bush administration demonstrated nothing else, they surely demonstrated that. As the Bush administration launched two wars, were there massive, ongoing demonstrations, protests or, most importantly, systematic acts of civil disobedience? There were a few large protests before the Iraq invasion (which were almost entirely ignored), but otherwise, there was nothing. As the Bush administration tortured, brutalized and regularly set aside the most basic protections of individual liberty, and did all this in broad daylight, did outraged citizens bring government to a standstill, demanding that these depredations cease? They did not.

October 28, 2009

Conservation of the environment is a sacred and important goal for humanity in the 21st century, and it is a goal I not only support but will fight aggressively to make it happen. Man has a responsibility to treat nature less violently than it has in the previous century, but it is not our role to rehabilitate nature. Man cannot be a murderer in one century, and then play the superhero in the next. It is best to leave nature alone. She will do fine without our help, besides, I'm sure we will screw up the effort, no matter how good our intentions are.

If nature could talk, she'd say: leave me the hell alone! That is not to say we should be mindless in developing our cities, parks, and highways. There is a responsibility to protect the environment, ensuring that it is clean and beautiful, and planning must take Man's ultimate neighbor, nature, into consideration. But there has to be a limit to our efforts. Indeed, the governments and corporations of the world have had a great deal of negative influence on the natural environment, and we must change our behavior for the better. But weather patterns and the climate is a different matter, and in those areas, the Sun is, for a lack of a better word, the scapegoat.

It seems that saving the planet has become an unusual mantra and a false outlet for a higher calling. In previous eras idealists dedicated themselves to improving the conditions of the poor, today, they are attaching themselves to an environmental ethic that says the poor are the problem, and that their pursuit for material well being is a burden on the planet. What nonsense!

Preserving natural space for wildlife is no doubt a noble project, but tampering too with natural laws brings unwanted consequences, that are unseen by infatuated eyes. To put it bluntly, nature is smarter than us, and we risk completing changing her completely if we believe our scientific civilization will restore her to good health. Her inborn resurgence against decay is always kicking, so there's no need to worry, she will spontaneously regrow- if left alone.

I make these remarks because man-made global warming deniers are put down as oil freaks, rich fat cats, and cold-hearted Neanderthals, but that is not true. The new campaign to save the Earth, sponsored by corporate globalism and what looks like an organized world dictatorship, is a tragic farce. It is not the Earth that needs saving, but humanity.

His article below, entitled "Distrusting Climate Change Globalism," reminds us why we should doubt global warming proponents, who use religious language to convert unthoughtful minds to a cause that is founded on a few half-truths. These new popes of the environment are trying to convince us that activity on the Sun has little to none influence on our planet. To believe them is foolish, and will guarantee slavery for the mass of humanity.

This December, leaders of the industrialized world will gather in Copenhagen to frame an international strategy against "climate change" to take the place of Kyoto.

Many in the mainstream media would have you believe that someone must be crazy to voice skepticism toward the idea that human carbon emissions cause significant and disastrous global warming.

They don't usually call it "global warming" anymore. The lingo for a few years has been "climate change," since it provides a much more rhetorically strong ground from which to deride skeptics. Lambasting those who "deny climate change" is more compelling than to scoff, "how could you deny the earth is warming?" Especially now that we know it has been cooling for a decade.

So it's cooling now, but the real problem, we are told, is climate change -- as caused by human emissions of carbon -- particularly with an alleged long-term trend toward warming. Real and alleged cataclysms of nature -- everything from Katrina to spiders getting bigger -- has been blamed on our greenhouse gases.

Merely to express doubt of this theory has been called "treason against the planet" by Paul Krugman, who probably speaks for a large segment of left-liberals. It is seen as unseemly, unpatriotic and hysterical to wonder if humans are causing the earth to warm in unsustainable and disastrous ways. Another Nobel Prize winner, Al Gore, even said a year ago that businesses (conveniently ones that compete with his own favored industrial interests) should be censored for voicing doubt on climate change:

"I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting a material fact," he said. "I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that."

Scientists who question the common wisdom are marginalized and silenced. It is considered beyond the pale to suggest, for example, that the sun -- that big ball of gas that supports the life of the planet, constituting more than 99% of the solar system's mass -- has much more effect on idiosyncratic temperature changes than human-emitted greenhouse gasses. And the fact that the carbon emissions theory was first seriously advanced by the Margaret Thatcher regime to bolster the case for nuclear power, back when the environmentalists had been worried about a "new ice age"? That's ancient history, and only a loon would bring it up.

The scientific method relies on doubt and the idea of a settled "consensus" is anathema -- although many would have us believe it's unscientific to harbor doubts. But even putting aside the question of scientific fact, there is the policy discussion, and here it makes even more sense that some of us would be skeptical. The extent to which many Americans and people in the developed world are willing to part with their liberty in the hopes that national and global bureaucracies can fine-tune the planet's weather is staggering.

At home the immediate threat is so-called "cap and trade," a scam to legalize and normalize pollution, regulate industry and impose massive costs onto the American people.

Frighteningly, the opinion that dramatic government intervention is needed to combat the alleged epidemic of human carbon emissions has become prevalent throughout much of political life. Most of the energy and auto industry is behind government action. Its necessity is professed on both sides of the aisle. Mainstream Republicans and, tragically, even personalities in the Religious Right have been echoing the establishment hysteria.

It was long assumed industry would resist regulation, but the corporatism here is clear. Just as Kyoto was backed by Enron, today's stampede toward climate change collectivism is being hailed by corporate America. Businesses get government privileges, allocated perfectly fairly I'm sure, that allow them to emit carbon. This is inherently unjust. Either carbon emissions are dangerous pollution, and such grants are a permission to commit trespass, or they're not, and it's an obscenity that government would restrict them at all. In any event, such programs are uneconomical and counterproductive.

The bureaucracy, the connected businesses, the political class, the state itself and much of the establishment stands to gain.

The American people will lose. "Cap and trade" is an effective tax hike on the middle class, and threatens to diminish our economic progress severely. Furthermore, if human carbon emissions are the nuisance that is claimed, warranting the type of worldwide governmental response as is suggested, the consequence would be a wholesale attack on individual liberty in virtually every area. Since carbon is the essence of life, simply being alive would be framed as a "cost" to the "greater good." Restrictions on consumption, home energy usage, diet, transportation choices, and even family planning could follow. This would require a growing surveillance state and central administration of American life. Already many misanthropes argue that having too many children is an irresponsible and selfish imposition upon the rest of the world. Will families suffer a one-car policy? A one-child policy? Humanity depends on carbon - a politicized war on carbon emissions will prove to be a war on human life.

On the international scene, the U.S. used to be the dissenter, heroically refusing to ratify Kyoto during the Clinton administration, but with Obama in power, we may have to hope other nations lead the resistance. It is good news that even in the EU things are not running as smoothly as some would hope. Václav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, has been one of the world's highest-profile skeptics, for which he's been lambasted in the popular press.

But perhaps those who suffer the most will be the Third World. It has long been fashionable for a dominant political faction -- in this international context, the industrialized nations -- to suddenly discover a moral code that they had long neglected but are no longer constrained by practical concerns to flout, only to inflict it upon those who can not as easily afford it. The West got rich through an industrial revolution, and yet now many of its celebrated thinkers would deprive these blessings from those just getting started on the path out of ubiquitous and abject poverty. This makes it all the more arrogant and imperialistic for the U.S. to be pressuring China and poorer countries to cut back their own industrial progress in hopes of altering temperatures marginally over the next century.

The popular theory about anthropogenic climate change, when coupled with the policy recommendations currently being contemplated in seriousness, has broad implications for the future of humanity. Taking the steps being proposed could deepen the recession, impoverish millions of Americans, erode our personal liberty, erode the sovereignty of all nations, and deprive nearly half the world's population of its best shot out of the worst kind of poverty. It is a matter of life and death for so many. And this is all in hopes that a theory which hasn't produced any accurate models is correct that drastic action, over a hundred years, conducted and coordinated by politicians and major industry worldwide, could spare the earth about a degree less in warming - and that degree will make all the difference to the whole planet.

It would seem to me that people should find it natural, not heretical, that many people would look upon all of this with doubt.

October 27, 2009

It is rare for an established military man to resign from his post, and decide to actively critique his country's war policy. Especially a young military man, such as 36 year old Matthew Hoh, a Foreign Service officer, who was based out of Zabul province in Afghanistan before he handed in his papers last month. Senior officials of the Obama administration took notice of Hoh's resignation because of the high acclaim he received as a Marine captain in Iraq, and for his service in the Pentagon. In a four-page letter published a day before the eight anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Hoh declared:

"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."

Hoh's makes the point that he's not terminating his duties, but that his duties are counter-productive, and so he is righting a wrong. He still has practical advice for the Armed Forces, and believes pursuing terrorists in Afghanistan in some fashion is consistent with the original mission. But in his opinion the United States should limit its role in the region.

Karen DeYoung of The Washington Postdescribes Hoh's initial doubts upon arriving in Zabul province this year and his final disconnection with the United States' military and political approach in the fight against terrorism. DeYoung writes:

Hoh was assigned to research the response to a question asked by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during an April visit. Mullen wanted to know why the U.S. military had been operating for years in the Korengal Valley, an isolated spot near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan where a number of Americans had been killed. Hoh concluded that there was no good reason. The people of Korengal didn't want them; the insurgency appeared to have arrived in strength only after the Americans did, and the battle between the two forces had achieved only a bloody stalemate.

Korengal and other areas, he said, taught him "how localized the insurgency was. I didn't realize that a group in this valley here has no connection with an insurgent group two kilometers away." Hundreds, maybe thousands, of groups across Afghanistan, he decided, had few ideological ties to the Taliban but took its money to fight the foreign intruders and maintain their own local power bases.

"That's really what kind of shook me," he said. "I thought it was more nationalistic. But it's localism. I would call it valley-ism."

Zabul is "one of the five or six provinces always vying for the most difficult and neglected," a State Department official said. Kandahar, the Taliban homeland, is to the southwest and Pakistan to the south. Highway 1, the main link between Kandahar and Kabul and the only paved road in Zabul, bisects the province. Over the past year, the official said, security has become increasingly difficult.

By the time Hoh arrived at the U.S. military-run provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in the Zabul capital of Qalat, he said, "I already had a lot of frustration. But I knew at that point, the new administration was . . . going to do things differently. So I thought I'd give it another chance." He read all the books he could get his hands on, from ancient Afghan history, to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, through Taliban rule in the 1990s and the eight years of U.S. military involvement.

Frank Ruggiero, the Kandahar-based regional head of the U.S. PRTs in the south, considered Hoh "very capable" and appointed him the senior official among the three U.S. civilians in the province. "I always thought very highly of Matt," he said in a telephone interview.

In accordance with administration policy of decentralizing power in Afghanistan, Hoh worked to increase the political capabilities and clout of Naseri, the provincial governor, and other local officials. "Materially, I don't think we accomplished much," he said in retrospect, but "I think I did represent our government well."

In these remarks Hoh seems like an honorable man, who genuinely tried to aid the people of Afghanistan and make US policy work for all friendly parties involved. His uncommon interest in the history of Afghanistan, and the complexities of the people living in that ancient land, makes his conclusions that much more convincing. The quality of his character is evident, and makes it clear once more that the Military produces good men in spite of its horrible brainwashing and lack of ethics for anyone that is not an American, or a Russian, Israeli, German, Iranian, etc. But, leaving that aside for a moment, the value of Hoh's opposition is lackluster because it is critically unimaginative. As Arthur Silber says in a highly informed statement:

Hoh offers no principled opposition to wars of aggression: he approves of a criminal war in Iraq, but opposes it in Afghanistan. And he opposes it in Afghanistan not because it's a crime and morally abhorrent -- which it is -- but because it's not "working." It's "ineffective." This perfectly mirrors the typical liberal criticism of the Iraq crime: that it was executed "incompetently." Opposition of this kind finally reduces to no opposition at all, except on specifics. Such opposition is futile, inconsistent and contradictory, and ultimately worthless. It fails to challenge U.S. policy on the critical, more fundamental level -- and it invites a future catastrophe on an equal or, which is horrifying to contemplate, an even greater scale.

There is very little to add to what Silber said. Hoh has not yet taken that final plunge and unequivocally renounce the modern military crusade in the Middle East, otherwise known as the 'War on Terror.' Also, I'm afraid that Hoh's judgment on the war in Afghanistan will gain little attraction, apart from a few rumblings by the press here and there. A more striking war resister would have been former football player Pat Tillman, had he not been shot in the back by the country he swore to defend and then glorified as a hero to stir the passions of fat football fans.

Hoh may have it in him to one day be an influential veteran/war critic in the anti-war movement like Adam Kokesh, Matthis Chiroux, Ehren Watada, Geoff Millard, and others, but as of right now, he is a tiger without any teeth. Hoh needs to take a page from Sgt. Chiroux, who in a recent interview with Russia Today, eloquently refuted the claims made by the US government that the war in Afghanistan is a 'good' war, and that to leave would be irresponsible. As Chiroux says, it is hard to imagine that the wars in the Middle East are anything other than immoral, racist, and illegal. In his words, the US military "spreads death," and nothing but.

So far, Hoh is still under the belief that the War on Terror is legally and morally justifiable. His assessment of the facts on the ground in Afghanistan, however, is based on a great deception, which is certainly not unique to the War on Terror, and that is; there exists an external enemy to defeat. The truth is that no such enemy exists. If anything, the enemy is 'us', - meaning the American government, and the compliance of American people.

To briefly reaffirm my views on the War on Terror, I believe that it is, at bottom, an imperial invasion of Central Asia and the Middle East, and will prove to be America's greatest folly. And until the real actors behind 9/11 are addressed by a true anti-war coalition, then the death and destruction will continue. Any criticism of American wars in the Middle East that avoids the body of evidence that suggests Al Qaeda and the Muslim World was not responsible for 9/11, is meaningless, ineffective, and tragically dishonest. The greatest resource to stop the madness of war is the truth, and the truth in our day is, indeed, horrific, but we risk losing everything if we don't speak it. Glenn Greenwald in his commentary on Hoh's resignation shows himself to be still unready to face the whole truth of what he rightly calls our "orwellian wars." For all his good qualities, Greenwald has yet to be 'truth excavator' certified. Although I admire his dissection of the censorship of the corporate media and his stalemate defense of constitutional principles, I cannot fully embrace a man who does not give voice to all the inconsistencies and lies about 9/11 that have piled up from every direction.

The official narrative of that crucial event can be completely ripped apart as a one big lie. A rational analysis of 9/11 in a new criminal investigation will clear up these questions and end the ongoing farce that is called the War on the Terror. First, let us briefly look at the mythic event from the scientific perspective. How can you ignore the discoveries made by American physicist Steven Jones, and Danish scientist Niels Harrit, that there was nano-termite, an explosive device, in the WTC dust. Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, and the Taliban are incapable to produce such high-level technology. Also, if you examine the video footage and apply the basic rules of physical dynamics then you'll realize a building can't fall at free fall speed without being propelled downwards by high explosives implanted in their structure. The many witnesses at Ground Zero testify to this account of destruction by demolition. Fire-fighters, first responders, and office workers running out of WTC all asserted that they heard a combination of explosions coming from the Two Towers. And, of course, there is WTC 7, which was attacked by zero airplanes, but still crumbled to dust at the end of the day.

Second, from the circumstantial side, who made the decision to make NORAD conduct a terrorism drill on 9/11? America's guard was let down, and it was done beforehand. Cheney is certainly a guilty individual in this respect because he took over command of America's air defense, and served as the last stand. Also, the insider trading of United Airlines stock suggests there was foreknowledge in high corridors of power. This is just a small recap of the indisputable evidence gathered by bright engineers like Richard Gage, and professionals from other fields.

The most highlighting fact of the real criminal nature of 9/11 is the preparations made by the US military for potential wars in the Middle East. It turned out that the standing army on 9/11 was more like an itching army. And it makes sense. The high output of military equipment and technology means that they will be put to use by ambitious men at some point. And if we look at the policy side both before and after 9/11, then we can see the extreme willingness of influential policy makers to take America to war. The Project for a New American Century, a neoconservative document, highlighted a required justification for a new invasion of the Middle East, a new "Pearl Harbor" as they called it, to win over the American people. The implications of a new war with Iraq were clear even before the attacks on 9/11, and the administration of Bush and Cheney. In 1990, during the first Gulf War, Gen. David C. Jones, who was head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Carter and the first two years of the Reagan presidency, announced his concerns about the increasing hostilities between America and the Islamic world. In his remarks in the Senate Armed Services Committee, and published by the LA Times, Gen Jones compared the antagonistic situation with all the war measures made in 1914, when the European imperial powers were facing up for an inevitable conflict:

"Each side's reaction to the other's growing force levels and troop movements became in itself the rationale for a war and a terrible slaughter that followed. There are disturbing parallels as we escalate our force levels in the Middle East," Jones said.

"My main concern with this latest scheduled reinforcement isn't that we might choose to fight but rather that the deployment might cause us to fight, perhaps prematurely and perhaps unnecessarily," he concluded.

Gen. Jones hit it on the spot; the basic fact of troop presence in the Middle East creates and perpetuates conflict. Terrorism is not a chicken and egg argument, but a bomb and bomb argument. What came first was the bomb, which was given to tyrants, and used on innocent civilians, and what came later were more bombs, given to new tyrants, and used on new innocent civilians, because the old innocent civilians are the new terrorist insurgents, who will become the newer tyrants, and will get the latest bomb, which is all handed out by the original tyrants. So, to repeat; bomb, bomb, bomb, tyrants, civilians, terrorists, bomb, bomb, bomb, civilians, terrorists, tyrants.

Bombing from the air is the most despicable instrument of war ever created. It is utter cowardice. Professor Marc W. Herold of the University of New Hampshire, explains the motives and effects of aerial strikes in his article called: Killing the Innocents to Save 'Our Troops.' In it he describes how the dehumanization of the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, made possible by endless propaganda, leads to indiscriminate killing on a scale that most Americans, if the same actions were committed to them, would find outrageously criminal, even Hitlerian. Herold writes:

U.S aerial strikes were a chosen way of minimizing U.S casualties at the expense of Afghan civilian deaths and injured. In other words, a conscious self-serving U.S decision was made to impose undue harm upon Afghan civilians. That is a war crime.

Losing a war in the twentieth-first century is simple; if you bomb, you lose. But, of course, it is wrong to assume that winning and losing is what strategic military planners at the pentagon, and war corporations have in mind when they decide to go to war. They could care less. The target is not the Taliban, or other Islamic extremists, but profit and control, endless profit overseas, and endless control at home. Terrorism is a side-product, an endlessly profitable side-product.Eight years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the nature of the crimes being committed in the American people's name are still avoided, even by the most critical commentators among us. Soon, it will be found out that war resistance is impossible without full admission of the real truth. Soon, the stakes will rise, and the wars America is currently engaged in will produce grimmer effects. Maybe only then will an active and unapologetic resistance finally make its voice heard.

The media, in all of it’s apathetic glory, has impaled truth and justice while spreading confusion and unsubstantiated disdain against people many of us do not even know.This is all about winning to you people – waging and winning wars, killing and capturing hearts, bombing and breaking spirits. Imperialistic endeavors hell-bent on dividing and conquering peoples and places with no defined reason; general calls to end ‘terrorism’ with no validation.

We are all programmed to fear them, but who are they?

Muslims, Arabs, Headscarved women, bearded men, Muhammad’s, Hassan’s and Husseins. Xenophobic revulsion and cowardly abhorrence all in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’.

The ‘war on terror’ is nothing more than war on your mind- You all sit and nod in agreement with tight lipped politicians who wag their tongues on occasion when the timing is convenient for them to induce hysteria.

The Arabs are out to get us. The Iraqi’s are envious of our ‘freedoms’. The Afghan women don’t mind us killing their children because they are ‘oppressed’. The Palestinians hate the Jews. We’re killing them to save you.

You did this to these people.

You willingly pay for the massacres, the bombings, the artillery, the ammunition, the tanks, the helicopters [...] and you make yourself feel better by putting a flag on everything.

The massacres:An American flag held high above sites attacked by United States Occupation Forces; another prick in the arm of alleged terrorism. The civilians that die are only ‘collateral damage’. The hundreds you kill are swept under events branded incidental while you knowingly understand that there is no such thing as a ‘collateral’ attack on schools, governmental buildings and civilian homes.

The weapons:You have a right to arm yourself but the citizens of third world countries have no such right as long as you are in charge. You have managed to create an imaginative display out of breathing human beings – turning them into savages and barbarians while they do nothing less than defend their lives against imperialistic aggression.Splashing pictures of armed Iraqi’s with masks on sends the Conservative populace of America reeling while pictures of American soldiers in tanks,donning their uniforms makes them proud.

The American flag makes everything pretty and easier to swallow. Flags on your cars, on your cups, on your pens and pencils, on your shirts, on your body, on your caskets [...]

You even make death as nationalistic and patriotic as possible in order to lessen the sting and repulsive stench of burning flesh and torn body parts.

You want to blame the government for these imperialistic wars yet cannot deny that they have come to power through help from none other than you.

You are a selfish member of society who refuses to act when you see no immediate benefit for yourself. You have aided in causing the destruction of civilizations which go beyond the history of your very own nation. You have promoted the genocide and ethnic cleansing of people who do not look, speak or believe as you do.

You are a fool who demands that the government stay out of your life while encouraging the United States oligarchy to loot and pillage the lives of others. It hurts your tiny brains to think outside the box, thus you let the government do the thinking for you – let them tell you who your enemy is.

As long as you get to suppress your perverted lust for sustenance and shop on the weekends it doesn’t matter where your money goes. Let’s all drink and be merry,and leave counting the dead until morning.

You are to blame for every screaming babe who cannot eat in Afghanistan, you are to blame for every widow who has lost her husband, you are to blame for every raped Iraqi girl who returns to her family in charred and broken bits.

You are all accessories to war crimes because you have willingly paid for all of this.

You are working for the imperialist machine.

You have brought the immorality of your culture and pressured your governing bodies into have it devour theirs: drugs, prostitution, alcohol, sectarianism, nationalism, sexism, racism …

You cannot tolerate a revolutionary idea that screams for justice and refuses to bow to your flag and your elitist mentality. The world must be witness to what you assume is a ‘lucid’ and shining fact – you are number one.

Occupation and invasion. Desecration and defilement. Yes,you’re number one in those areas.

Americans are sleeping on a bed of graves and they rock one another to sleep through a lullaby of carnage and mass murder.

A simpleton solely blames the government for all actions and inactions while refusing to acknowledge the fact that these men and women who promote wholesale murder are in power with their help.

The United States has managed to annihilate thousands of innocent people yet the citizens cannot change their governing bodies? This is either blatant asininity or you seemingly do not want the change you are seen harping about.

The idea is to keep off guard terrorists and others who mean harm, thereby improving safety for passengers and workers. There was no specific threat to the bus station on John Young Parkway south of Colonial Drive.

Although the TSA is best known for its agents at airports, the agency’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response, or VIPR, teams stage periodic operations at bus and train stations, ports and other transportation centers. They began work in December 2006.

Police are gathering the personal details of thousands of activists who attend political meetings and protests, and storing their data on a network of nationwide intelligence databases.

The hidden apparatus has been constructed to monitor "domestic extremists", the Guardian can reveal in the first of a three-day series into the policing of protests. Detailed information about the political activities of campaigners is being stored on a number of overlapping IT systems, even if they have not committed a crime.

Senior officers say domestic extremism, a term coined by police that has no legal basis, can include activists suspected of minor public order offences such as peaceful direct action and civil disobedience.

October 25, 2009

Gustav Metzger, an artist and political activist, created the term "Auto-Destructive Art" to refer to this work against nuclear weapons and industrial wastage. Metzger is an 83-years old artist-political activist. I see him as an archaeologist of the constructions of the modern world, from cultural safe houses to environmental battlefields. He is the original truth excavator, seeping through the media dirt to present the key ingredients of a common, continual story.

Metzger's artistic carvings serve as an antithesis to the mindless media world. His exhibition of his newspaper stockpile, accumulated since 1995, can be viewed below. In a recent interview he said;

"What we plan to do here will be the biggest demonstration of newspapers. We started collecting in 1995. The visitor will be invited to go to the pile, take out a single paper, and, if they see a page relating to the credit crunch or extinction, they are asked to put it on a stand. At the end, the selected pieces of newspaper will be returned to the original newspaper. So we are using the content of this archive without destroying it. It should not be defaced by tearing pages out. Nothing will be torn; everything will be maintained. "

October 24, 2009

Obama to Stephanopoulos: "I don't believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward, as opposed to looking backwards." Hmm..? Both statements can't be true.

October 23, 2009

Douglas Rushkoff, author of "Life, Inc.: How the World Became A Corporation and How To Take It Back" breaks down down the history of modern corporate culture, how we got from monarchies to corporations, and explains the possibilities that exist in the world to create a humanist golden age, if we are vigilant enough. He also traces the usurpation of central banks and corporations over governments, and offers up new solutions to fixing the economic crisis, such as innovations in money currencies and exchange certificates for retail purposes.

I think this is a time to not just think outside the box, but throw away the box altogether. We should think about implementing a range of currencies, some that are strictly for medical purposes, some for buying consumer products, and currencies for entertainment, and other activities/interests. If this idea is impossible to work out then we should examine other solutions. This is a time to embrace trial and error. Different communities should take part in competition with each other on how to solve their economic problems. We need to rethink the types of jobs we value in society, how much time we dedicate to work, and other important matters concerning life.

The US government’s current operating budget is dependent on foreign financing and money creation.

Too politically weak to be able to advance its interests through diplomacy, the US relies on terrorism and military aggression.

Costs are out of control, and priorities are skewed in the interest of rich organized interest groups at the expense of the vast majority of citizens. For example, war at all cost, which enriches the armaments industry, the officer corps and the financial firms that handle the war’s financing, takes precedence over the needs of American citizens. There is no money to provide the uninsured with health care, but Pentagon officials have told the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House that every gallon of gasoline delivered to US troops in Afghanistan costs American taxpayers $400.

“It is a number that we were not aware of and it is worrisome,” said Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the subcommittee.

According to reports, the US Marines in Afghanistan use 800,000 gallons of gasoline per day. At $400 per gallon, that comes to a $320,000,000 daily fuel bill for the Marines alone. Only a country totally out of control would squander resources in this way.

While the US government squanders $400 per gallon of gasoline in order to kill women and children in Afghanistan, many millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their homes and are experiencing the kind of misery that is the daily life of poor third world peoples. Americans are living in their cars and in public parks. America’s cities, towns, and states are suffering from the costs of economic dislocations and the reduction in tax revenues from the economy’s decline. Yet, Obama has sent more troops to Afghanistan, a country half way around the world that is not a threat to America.

It costs $750,000 per year for each soldier we have in Afghanistan. The soldiers, who are at risk of life and limb, are paid a pittance, but all of the privatized services to the military are rolling in excess profits. One of the great frauds perpetuated on the American people was the privatization of services that the US military traditionally performed for itself. “Our” elected leaders could not resist any opportunity to create at taxpayers’ expense private wealth that could be recycled to politicians in campaign contributions.

Republicans and Democrats on the take from the private insurance companies maintain that the US cannot afford to provide Americans with health care and that cuts must be made even in Social Security and Medicare. So how can the US afford bankrupting wars, much less totally pointless wars that serve no American interest?

The enormous scale of foreign borrowing and money creation necessary to finance Washington’s wars are sending the dollar to historic lows. The dollar has even experienced large declines relative to currencies of third world countries such as Botswana and Brazil. The decline in the dollar’s value reduces the purchasing power of Americans’ already declining incomes.

Despite the lowest level of housing starts in 64 years, the US housing market is flooded with unsold homes, and financial institutions have a huge and rising inventory of foreclosed homes not yet on the market.

Industrial production has collapsed to the level of 1999, wiping out a decade of growth in industrial output.

The enormous bank reserves created by the Federal Reserve are not finding their way into the economy. Instead, the banks are hoarding the reserves as insurance against the fraudulent derivatives that they purchased from the gangster Wall Street investment banks.

The regulatory agencies have been corrupted by private interests. Frontline reports that Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers blocked Brooksley Born, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating derivatives. President Obama rewarded Larry Summers for his idiocy by appointing him Director of the National Economic Council. What this means is that profits for Wall Street will continue to be leeched from the diminishing blood supply of the American economy.

An unmistakable sign of third world despotism is a police force that sees the pubic as the enemy. Thanks to the federal government, our local police forces are now militarized and imbued with hostile attitudes toward the public. SWAT teams have proliferated, and even small towns now have police forces with the firepower of US Special Forces. Summons are increasingly delivered by SWAT teams that tyrannize citizens with broken down doors, a $400 or $500 repair born by the tyrannized resident. Recently a mayor and his family were the recipients of incompetence by the town’s local SWAT team, which mistakenly wrecked the mayor’s home, terrorized his family, and killed the family’s two friendly Labrador dogs.

If a town’s mayor can be treated in this way, what do you think is the fate of the poor white or black? Or the idealistic student who protests his government’s inhumanity?

In any failed state, the greatest threat to the population comes from the government and the police. That is certainly the situation today in the USA. Americans have no greater enemy than their own government. Washington is controlled by interest groups that enrich themselves at the expense of the American people.

The one percent that comprise the superrich are laughing as they say, “let them eat cake.”

In 2000, America was described as the sole remaining superpower - or even the world's "hyperpower". Now we're in real trouble (at the very least, you have to admit that we're losing power and wealth in comparison with China).

How did it happen so fast?

As everyone knows, the war in Iraq - which will end up costing $3-5 trillion dollars - was launched based upon false justifications. Indeed, the government apparently planned both the Afghanistan war (see this and this) and the Iraq warbefore 9/11.

And the financial system collapsed last year due to looting and fraud.

Diamond's book 's, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, studies the collapse of civilizations throughout history, and finds:

Civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society's demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power...

One of the choices has depended on the courage to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they reach crisis proportions

And PhD economist Faber states:

How [am I] so sure about this final collapse?

Of all the questions I have about the future, this is the easiest one to answer. Once a society becomes successful it becomes arrogant, righteous, overconfident, corrupt, and decadent ... overspends ... costly wars ... wealth inequity and social tensions increase; and society enters a secular decline.

[Quoting 18th century Scottish historian Alexander Fraser Tytler:] The average life span of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years progressing from "bondage to spiritual faith ... to great courage ... to liberty ... to abundance ... to selfishness ... to complacency ... to apathy ... to dependence and ... back into bondage"

[Where is America in the cycle?] It is most unlikely that Western societies, and especially the U.S., will be an exception to this typical "society cycle." ... The U.S. is somewhere between the phase where it moves "from complacency to apathy" and "from apathy to dependence."

In other words, America's rapid fall is not really that novel after all.

How Consumers, Politicians and Wall Street All Contributed to the Fall

On the individual level, people became "fat and happy", the abundance led to selfishness ("greed is good"), and then complacency, and then apathy.

Indeed, if you think back about tv and radio ads over the last couple of decades, you can trace the tone of voice of the characters from Gordon Gecko-like, to complacent, to apathetic and know-nothing.

On the political level, there was no courage in the White House or Congress "to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions". Of course, the bucket loads of donations from Wall Street didn't hurt, but there was also a religion of deregulation promoted by Greenspan, Rubin, Gensler and others which preached that the economy was self-stabilizing and self-sustaining. This type of false ideology only can spread during times of abundance and complacency, when an empire is at its peak and people can fool themselves into thinking "the empire has always been prosperous, we've solved all of the problems, and we will always prosper" (incidentally, this type of false thinking was also common in the 1920's, when government and financial leaders said that the "modern banking system" - overseen by the Federal Reserve - had destroyed instability once and for all).

And as for Wall Street, the best possible time to pillage is when your victim is at the peak of wealth. With America in a huge bubble phase of wealth and power, the Wall Street looters sucked out vast sums through fraudulent subprime loans, derivatives and securitization schemes, Ponzi schemes and high frequency trading and dark pools and all of the rest.

Like the mugger who waits until his victim has made a withdrawal from the ATM, the white collar criminals pounced when America's economy was booming (at least on paper).

Given that the people were in a contented stupor of consumption, and the politicians were flush with cash and feel-good platitudes, the job of the criminals became easier.

A study of the crash of the Roman - or almost any other - empire would show something very similar.

October 22, 2009

October 20, 2009

Political Ponerology is a phenomenal book written in 1984 by Andrew M. Lobaczewski, a clinical psychologist, and it has been on my excavation-radar time ever since I came across the interview below by funneling through one of my favorite blogs, "Ask But Why?." I've been reluctant to get into the book because of school work, and side studies, but I will immerse myself totally in its analysis of psychopaths, the nature of evil, and political power. I will have to get over my aversion to pdf files because this is a timely book, and the fact that it has been censored by powerful and active men makes it even more necessary to begin reading it immediately.

It can be found online for free here. Or, if you can afford the luxuries of paper then you can buy a paperback copy here.

Harrison Koehli is an editor of Red Pill Press, which publishes the book, and owner of "The Rabbit Hole," which, as pointed out by the interviewer, is a terrific name for a bookstore.

I am outraged and not just about Goldman Sachs, but about a process that allows, even encourages political pandering, by time and time again rewarding leveraged riverboat gamblers and failed institutions and at taxpayer expense.

I am outraged that real people are suffering massively while the influence peddlers have stolen the country for their own personal benefit.

I am outraged at a political system that is totally unresponsive to the American people.

I am outraged by campaign contribution and lobbying processes that allows corporations to buy votes with donations.

I am outraged how legislators ignored the wishes of the people who clearly did not want these bailouts in the first place.

I am outraged that very little of this is in mainstream media. Why is this stuff not on the frontpage of every newspaper in the country or at least in the editorial pages?

I am outraged that the average US citizen is not aware of any of this, instead depending on CNBC, or "The View" for their interpretation of the world.

I am outraged how special interest groups have exercised their power to monopolize the economy for the benefit of themselves, US citizens be damned.

I am outraged that all these bailout programs are doing nothing to alleviate the massive consumer debt problems. Every program, virtually every program was designed to bailout lending institutions, not consumers.

I am outraged at fees charged by banks receiving bailouts.

I am outraged over government pension plans and government pay scales massively out of line with the private sector.

I am outraged that Congress and this administration thinks the solution to massive budget deficits are still higher budget deficits in excess of a trillion dollars.

I am outraged that US citizens are not concerned enough and not educated enough to demand change.

I am outraged that the two party system has failed. Neither party has delivered meaningful change on budgets, on taxes, on social security, on deficit spending, on the size of government, on military spending, or fighting needless wars.

I am outraged at a Fed that purports to be "inflation fighters" when the only source of inflation in the word are central bankers, and their fractional reserve lending policies.

I am outraged that Greenspan and Bernanke could not see a housing bubble that 1000 bloggers could see.

I am outraged at the selective memory of Bernanke when speaking to Congress about these problems.

I am outraged that Bernanke's one sided response to asset bubbles, letting them grow without end, then bailing out the financial institutions that cause them.

I am outraged the Fed exists at all. It is a useless organization that cannot see bubbles, that panders to banks, that supports inflationary policies that are tantamount to theft by fraud.

I am outraged that the Obama Administration promised changed and did not deliver. "Yes We Can" was a lie. The reality is "It's Business As Usual, Only Worse, With Higher Deficits".

October 17, 2009

October 16, 2009

Rising blog star, Steven Horwitz, over at PBS's XChange blog, explains very forcefully why keeping a central bank in operation is a bad gamble for conservatives and liberals alike. Massive private profits and public loss would be unimaginable if not for the political reach of Federal Reserve Bank, which is owned wholesale by private banking oligarchs.

One of the more interesting developments during the current recession is a small but growing drumbeat of criticism of the Federal Reserve System. No longer the exclusive province of the anti-Semitic, nationalist hard right, Fed criticism has become both serious scholarly business for a number of economists and historians as well as part of the Washington political dialogue thanks to Ron Paul's presidential campaign and two follow up bills to audit the Fed.

The historical myth is that the Fed was created because laissez-faire in banking produced the periodic panics and crises of the late 19th century. In fact, banking during that period was heavily regulated, particuarly with respect to the production of currency. The National Banking System regulations made it very expensive for banks to provide additional currency when the public demanded it, especially during harvest season. Small events in the economy could quickly turn into panics and recessions if the demand for currency jumped. Limits on interstate branching also prevented the banking system from integrating and reducing its exposure to risk. The problems of that era were ones created by existing government regulation, not laissez-faire.

The Fed is better seen as a typical creature of the Progressive Era. Reformers' beliefs in the power of state-sponsored experts meshed with the self-interest of big bankers who saw a closer relationship with the federal government as a way to enhance their profits, with a central bank as an agreed-upon technocratic solution.

The unsurprising result has been more, not less, volatility in the macroeconomy than before the Fed's creation in 1913. We've had one Great Depression, several nasty recessions, decades worth of inflation, and billions wasted interpreting the latest from the Oracle of Greenspan or Bernanke. The late 19th century, even with its flaws, was a period of long-term monetary stability and had no recession that was even close to that of the 1930s.

The inflationary powers of the Fed have also enabled the federal government to run decades of deficits, which have funded American imperialism among other things. The anti-war crowd should consider more seriously the way central banks provide resources for imperialism. Increasing government control over banking has almost always been the result of the state's need for resources, particularly for wars.

With more economic historians rightly blaming the Fed for the Great Depression and many current observers rightly noting that its responsibility for the housing bubble and the current recession, it is not surprising that more people are wondering just why we need a central bank. The histories of countries with a strong degree of monetary freedom at various times demonstrate that a central bank is not necessary for a stable economy.

Pro-market arguments for the power of decentralized competition and market learning should be merging with left-wing skepticism about the desirability of the special privileges, and now bailouts, that the Fed gives to already powerful private bankers. Together, both sides can make for a powerful criticism of an institution that we would be better off without.

October 14, 2009

Former BBC Director General, Greg Dyke, On The Media-Political Opposition To Radical Change

Last month, Greg Dyke, who was the BBC's director general from 2000-2004, described the BBC as part of a "conspiracy" preventing the "radical changes" needed to UK democracy. Speaking at the Liberal Democrat party's conference, Dyke said:

"The evidence that our democracy is failing is overwhelming and yet those with the biggest interest in sustaining the current system - the Westminster village, the media and particularly the political parties, including this one - are the groups most in denial about what is really happening to our democracy." (Brian Wheeler, 'Dyke in BBC "conspiracy" claim,' BBC website, September 20, 2009; http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8265628.stm)

Dyke argued there had never been a greater separation between the "political class" and the public:

"I tried and failed to get the problem properly discussed when I was at the BBC and I was stopped, interestingly, by a combination of the politicos on the board of governors, one of whom [Baroness Sarah Hogg] was married to the man who claimed for cleaning his moat, the cabinet interestingly - the Labour cabinet - who decided to have a meeting, only about what we were trying to discuss, and the political journalists at the BBC.

"Why? Because, collectively, they are all part of the problem. They are part of one Westminster conspiracy. They don't want anything to change. It's not in their interests."

Dyke said the MPs' expenses scandal had been "British democracy's Berlin Wall moment" but the opportunity to change the system was fading. He added:

"It's time to be radical. Our current model was designed for the 18th Century. It doesn't fit 21st Century Britain."

Dyke was also candid about political interference with the BBC. He discussed an internal review of the BBC's political coverage carried out at the beginning of the decade, to which all political parties were asked to contribute. He said: "there was a lot of pressure from the government of the day not to change anything... A lot of the governors were what I call semi-politicians and they liked the present system and.... maybe they were right - it's not the job of the BBC to change the political system and to start questioning the political system. I happen to not agree with that but, you know, we didn't get anywhere."

October 13, 2009

The war baby isn't sound asleep. But I won't advise you to rock him awake. Any sudden move you make and the Middle Eastern lovechild will go back to the 'crying pains' and 'birthpangs' of Condi Rice's 21st century democracy.

In Washington's war room, where all talks of babies are banned, The Mad President's advisers have decided to send another 13,000 troops to Afghanistan, on top of the 21,000 assigned earlier in the year.

Talk about bad timing. The White House wanted this development to go under the radar, but unfortunately for Obama, the international doves made their way above the blue-sly. But it makes synchronous sense, since in this upside-down world, you first get the peace prize, and then you send babies off to die.

By giving Obama a superficial pat on the back, the Committee is really endorsing Obama's Nobel War efforts in Afghanistan. Obama is essentially being given a free pass for more air strikes. A good name for a good war. And he's intending on using this opportunity before Ahmadinejad is awarded with the prize next year.

The whole thing is an example of putting the cart before the trojan horse. And the same phenomenon is true in the economy, people are demanding financial reform without knowing what the real problems are. This is not 2 + 2 = 5., people are even too stupid, or lazy, to do the math, so they take it to be five on faith alone.

Fuck. We're Screwed.

The only hope we have left is a revolution carried out by conscientious objectors inside the American military, with top level generals as well as infantrymen refusing to carry out anymore unlawful and immoral orders. Because the larger public is too distracted, disconnected, and disengaged, to solve this perpetual war problem in American society. Plus, smaller groups have a better chance of conducting a successful revolution than large ones, so all my hopes are on the American military to come through for the Constitution, and Peace. It is unlikely, since I'm asking these men and women to give up their job security, but what other option do we have left? The larger public just doesn't have what it takes. It's not their fault that it's not in the cards for slaves to rebel when everything right and pure is on the line. People only rise up once their out of food or their life is personally threatened. And really, can you say people deserve freedom when the majority of them are so small minded and possess such feeble natures? Maybe the elite got it right. I may start to flip the bird to both sides now, and take this whole thing as an adventure, or a poetic drama to be enjoyed by future slaves. Maybe it is the fate of peasants, or the natural order of things for the existence of slaves. Freedom lovers can try arguing with nature, but I'm going to sit out on this debate.

October 12, 2009

The battle to reform the American banking system needs to include reimposing the barrier between investment banking and depository banking (Glass-Steagall), pay incentives based on what is best for Americans and not just the top executives, the end of too big to fail, and other changes which are frequently discussed by financial writers. These are vital issues.

But there is more to the battle for reform than you might know.

New York Versus the Rest of the CountryIf you are happy with the banking system, and don't think it needs to be reformed, then you probably work for one of the banks headquartered in New York.

Indeed, the banks outside of New York have acted much more conservatively, used more conservative capital ratios and less leverage and gotten less involved in credit derivatives and other speculative investments.

Buy a banker in the Midwest a drink, and he will probably rail against the giant New York banks for causing the financial crisis, costing the smaller, better run banks a lot of money and huge fees, and driving many smaller banks out of business.

And even within the Federal Reserve, what the New York Fed and Bernanke are saying is wholly different from what the heads of the regional Fed banks are saying. The Fed banks in Philadelphia and Kansas City and Dallas and elsewhere disagree with what the New York Fed and Fed's Open Market Committee are doing. See this and this.

So the battle isn't between bankers versus outsiders. It is between the giant New York money-centered banks and the rest of the country.

October 11, 2009

Instead of chastising America's acts of terrorin the world, the international community has legitimized them by granting their leader a peace prize. Honoring a president of a state that has committed war crimes, murdered over a million lives, and squandered entire regions, will have lasting, negative effects for the Nobel Committee, as well as the rest of the world. Their arrogance, or perhaps their ignorance, knows no bounds. Imagine awarding the Nazis with a peace prize in 1938.

When those who resist the US-NATO led invasion of their homeland are categorized as "insurgents" or "terrorists".

When preemptive nuclear war is upheld as self defense.

When advanced torture and "interrogation" techniques are routinely used to "protect peacekeeping operations",

When tactical nuclear weapons are heralded by the Pentagon as "harmless to the surrounding civilian population"

When three quarters of US personal federal income tax revenues are allocated to financing what is euphemistically referred to as "national defense"

When the Commander in Chief of the largest military force on planet earth is presented as a global peace-maker,

When the Lie becomes the Truth.

Obama's "War Without Borders"

We are the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US in partnership with NATO and Israel has launched a global military adventure which, in a very real sense, threatens the future of humanity.

At this critical juncture in our history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President and Commander in Chief Barack Obama constitutes an unmitigated tool of propaganda and distortion, which unreservedly supports the Pentagon's "Long War": "A War without Borders" in the true sense of the word, characterised by the Worlwide deployment of US military might.

Apart from the diplomatic rhetoric, there has been no meaningful reversal of US foreign policy in relation to the George W. Bush presidency, which might have remotely justified the granting of the Nobel Prize to Obama. In fact quite the opposite. The Obama military agenda has sought to extend the war into new frontiers. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, the Obama war agenda has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than that formulated by the NeoCons.

Since the very outset of the Obama presidency, this global military project has become increasingly pervasive, with the reinforcement of US military presence in all major regions of the World and the development of new advanced weapons systems on an unprecdented scale.

Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama provides legitimacy to the illegal practices of war, to the military occupation of foreign lands, to the relentless killings of civilians in the name of "democracy".