Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Guantanamo In West Chicago...
A Secret "Black Site" Revealed In Chicago: "When You Go In, You Just Disappear"
Located in a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side is where, according to the Guardian, one can find the domestic equivalent of a CIA "black site" - an illegal, off-the-books interrogation compound used by Chicago special police units, one which renders "Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside"; a place whose former occupants say is where you end up when you are "disappeared"; a place which confirms that when it comes to the eternal "who is better - us or them" debate, there really is no difference: "It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.” It's a Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib rolled into one. In short: it is a place where the US constitution and basic human rights have absolutely no access.
And it may be located in a building just down your street.
According to an exclusive piece by the Guardian that is sure to send not only shivers down the spine of those who are still paying attention, but ripples across the "land of the free", not least because if there is one dark site on US soil, there are countless more - places where every single constitutional right of US citizens is trampled on - the secretive warehouse known as Homan Square is the latest example of Chicago police practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the US war on terrorism. However, there is one huge difference: while those abuses impacted people overseas, Homan Square – said to house military-style vehicles, interrogation cells and even a cage – trains its focus on Americans, most often poor, black and brown...
Read the rest here:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-24/secret-black-site-revealed-chicago-when-you-go-you-just-disappear
Located in a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side is where, according to the Guardian, one can find the domestic equivalent of a CIA "black site" - an illegal, off-the-books interrogation compound used by Chicago special police units, one which renders "Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside"; a place whose former occupants say is where you end up when you are "disappeared"; a place which confirms that when it comes to the eternal "who is better - us or them" debate, there really is no difference: "It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.” It's a Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib rolled into one. In short: it is a place where the US constitution and basic human rights have absolutely no access.
And it may be located in a building just down your street.
According to an exclusive piece by the Guardian that is sure to send not only shivers down the spine of those who are still paying attention, but ripples across the "land of the free", not least because if there is one dark site on US soil, there are countless more - places where every single constitutional right of US citizens is trampled on - the secretive warehouse known as Homan Square is the latest example of Chicago police practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the US war on terrorism. However, there is one huge difference: while those abuses impacted people overseas, Homan Square – said to house military-style vehicles, interrogation cells and even a cage – trains its focus on Americans, most often poor, black and brown...
Read the rest here:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-24/secret-black-site-revealed-chicago-when-you-go-you-just-disappear
OOPS!!!
Global Warming Can Still Burn a Heretic or Two
by John Hayward
To appreciate the psychology of the global-warming cult, one must understand a few contextual details. Most importantly, these are times of panic for the Church of Global Warming. Science has failed them. The global warming they predicted is going into its third decade of not happening. Polar ice and sea levels aren’t doing what they predicted. Much of their seminal research has been exposed as academic fraud, based on cute little games like ignoring large periods of history that don’t conform to their man-made climate change models, fudging temperature measurements, and changing the methodology for recording and estimating global temperatures at during different historical periods. Their recent attempts to scare up a few headlines favorable to the movement, such as the big media fuss about 2014 being the “hottest year in history,” have collapsed under scrutiny as exaggerations or outright falsifications.
Secondly, this is a movement about social status and pseudo-intellectual culture, as much as it’s ever been about science. That’s why so much of Big Climate’s behavior is cultish in nature, including its conspiracy-theory paranoia, and its savage treatment of heretics and blasphemers — they’re not shy about comparing skeptics to Holocaust deniers or 9/11 truthers, as seen in the Daily Beast’s hyperventilation over the story of skeptic Wei-Hock Soon’s corporate funding. Belief in global warming is a cultural marker, an aspect of the same vapid credentialism that gives leftists the vapors when someone who doesn’t have an Ivy League degree considers running for President.
Of course, this obsession with credentials evaporates when it comes to global-warming believers. From the Daily Beast:
Willie Soon, for example, should never have been given much credence in the first place. Like nearly all of the Climate Truthers’ scientists, he is not a climate expert. He’s not even an astrophysicist, as he is often presented. As The New York Times revealed, “He is a part-time employee of the Smithsonian Institution with a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering.”
This is par for the course. The Heartland Institute, one of the leading Climate Truther think-tanks, put together a poster of “58 experts [who] don’t believe global warming is a crisis.”
But a review of those “experts” by The Daily Beast found that only three of the 58 actually have any credentials in climatology or atmospheric science. (16 are conservative political pundits, 11 are meteorologists, six are conservative economists, and the rest a hodgepodge.)
What’s not par for the course is Soon’s history of non-disclosure regarding his funding from the fossil-fuel industry, which was only revealed because, as an employee of the Smithsonian, the funding documents were covered by the Freedom of Information Act. Greenpeace obtained those documents and made them public.
To his funders, Soon called his scientific papers “deliverables.” To the scientific community, in violation of professional standards, he said nothing about having been paid to produce the “deliverables” by fossil-fuel interests, including the Southern Company (a utility holding company) and the Charles G. Koch Foundation.
Also not “climatologists:” Leonardo di Caprio, Robert Kennedy Jr., Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Rajenda Pachauri, the U.N. climate honcho currently sliding down the global-warmist memory hole due to sexual harassment allegations. Before that, Pachauri was noted for straight-up science denialism and making hilariously inaccurate doomsday predictions, but nobody in the Church of Global Warming seemed concerned about his lack of climatology credentials. Incidentally, Pachauri described climate change as his “religion” on his way out the door.
Finally, there’s the intimate connection between the global-warming cult and its patrons in collectivist politics, who view climate change as an indispensable opportunity to seize money and power — a claim in which politicians get to represent the Earth itself against the grubby little people they’re not terribly fond of, even when they’re not trying to promote a scary story about aerosol deodorant, cow farts, air conditioners, and automobiles unleashing the apocalypse.
This is reflected in the climate-change movement’s belief that their money is clean and pure, while the funding of skeptics is pure concentrated evil, especially if it comes from the hated fossil-fuel profiteers. A dollar from environmental activist Tom Steyer is as sacred as a communion wafer, while a buck from the (gasp!) Koch Brothers is supercharged with world-destroying menace, like the little piece of David Warner sitting in the microwave at the end of “Time Bandits.” Don’t you dare even ask about how much money Al Gore has made off climate alarmism.
Most pure and luminous of all are compulsory tax dollars extracted from the rubes and poured into Big Climate, a funding stream so transcendent that it’s supposed to be invisible – that’s how climate change, one of the biggest industries on the planet, pretends to be an order of selfless monks living hand-to-mouth while they mount a brave resistance against the well-tailored minions of Big Oil.
Disclosure standards are matters of fact, set by each publication and made known to its contributors; it is fair enough to complain about violations, as Soon is accused of doing in at least 11 cases over the past six years, according to the New York Times. Of course, the Church of Global Warming gives itself unlimited discretion to violate academic standards, and has been known to endorse all sorts of hoopla (such as Hollywood fantasies about climate apocalypse) that it knows are ridiculous, because it’s considered worthwhile to “raise public awareness” by any means necessary. It’s also interesting to note how the Times tap-dances around the fact that everyone in the climate change movement knew perfectly well where Dr. Soon got his money from, and incessantly complained about it. The amount in question, $1.2 million, is chump change by the standards of Big Climate. There seems to be a good deal of revulsion about how he viewed himself as a contractor with a job to do.
While we enjoy the spectacle of those who blew off the Climategate revelations of academic fraud shrieking that Soon didn’t properly disclose the corporate funding they always knew he had, we might reflect on the funny thing about actual science: it doesn’t really care who funds you, or how noble your intentions supposedly are. Science welcomes skepticism from all sources; what does not kill a good theory makes it stronger. The Church of Global Warming is reduced to blaming corporate saboteurs for tricking the public into doubting a sacred “scientific consensus” that was never even remotely true, because that illusion of faith is all they have left. But then, faith in collective judgment — and submission to collectivist politics — is what this was always about. Meanwhile, climate change still isn’t happening, and the true believers still can’t explain why it’s not.
Link:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/24/betrayed-by-science-the-church-of-global-warming-can-still-burn-a-heretic-or-two/
by John Hayward
To appreciate the psychology of the global-warming cult, one must understand a few contextual details. Most importantly, these are times of panic for the Church of Global Warming. Science has failed them. The global warming they predicted is going into its third decade of not happening. Polar ice and sea levels aren’t doing what they predicted. Much of their seminal research has been exposed as academic fraud, based on cute little games like ignoring large periods of history that don’t conform to their man-made climate change models, fudging temperature measurements, and changing the methodology for recording and estimating global temperatures at during different historical periods. Their recent attempts to scare up a few headlines favorable to the movement, such as the big media fuss about 2014 being the “hottest year in history,” have collapsed under scrutiny as exaggerations or outright falsifications.
Secondly, this is a movement about social status and pseudo-intellectual culture, as much as it’s ever been about science. That’s why so much of Big Climate’s behavior is cultish in nature, including its conspiracy-theory paranoia, and its savage treatment of heretics and blasphemers — they’re not shy about comparing skeptics to Holocaust deniers or 9/11 truthers, as seen in the Daily Beast’s hyperventilation over the story of skeptic Wei-Hock Soon’s corporate funding. Belief in global warming is a cultural marker, an aspect of the same vapid credentialism that gives leftists the vapors when someone who doesn’t have an Ivy League degree considers running for President.
Of course, this obsession with credentials evaporates when it comes to global-warming believers. From the Daily Beast:
Willie Soon, for example, should never have been given much credence in the first place. Like nearly all of the Climate Truthers’ scientists, he is not a climate expert. He’s not even an astrophysicist, as he is often presented. As The New York Times revealed, “He is a part-time employee of the Smithsonian Institution with a doctoral degree in aerospace engineering.”
This is par for the course. The Heartland Institute, one of the leading Climate Truther think-tanks, put together a poster of “58 experts [who] don’t believe global warming is a crisis.”
But a review of those “experts” by The Daily Beast found that only three of the 58 actually have any credentials in climatology or atmospheric science. (16 are conservative political pundits, 11 are meteorologists, six are conservative economists, and the rest a hodgepodge.)
What’s not par for the course is Soon’s history of non-disclosure regarding his funding from the fossil-fuel industry, which was only revealed because, as an employee of the Smithsonian, the funding documents were covered by the Freedom of Information Act. Greenpeace obtained those documents and made them public.
To his funders, Soon called his scientific papers “deliverables.” To the scientific community, in violation of professional standards, he said nothing about having been paid to produce the “deliverables” by fossil-fuel interests, including the Southern Company (a utility holding company) and the Charles G. Koch Foundation.
Also not “climatologists:” Leonardo di Caprio, Robert Kennedy Jr., Al Gore, Barack Obama, and Rajenda Pachauri, the U.N. climate honcho currently sliding down the global-warmist memory hole due to sexual harassment allegations. Before that, Pachauri was noted for straight-up science denialism and making hilariously inaccurate doomsday predictions, but nobody in the Church of Global Warming seemed concerned about his lack of climatology credentials. Incidentally, Pachauri described climate change as his “religion” on his way out the door.
Finally, there’s the intimate connection between the global-warming cult and its patrons in collectivist politics, who view climate change as an indispensable opportunity to seize money and power — a claim in which politicians get to represent the Earth itself against the grubby little people they’re not terribly fond of, even when they’re not trying to promote a scary story about aerosol deodorant, cow farts, air conditioners, and automobiles unleashing the apocalypse.
This is reflected in the climate-change movement’s belief that their money is clean and pure, while the funding of skeptics is pure concentrated evil, especially if it comes from the hated fossil-fuel profiteers. A dollar from environmental activist Tom Steyer is as sacred as a communion wafer, while a buck from the (gasp!) Koch Brothers is supercharged with world-destroying menace, like the little piece of David Warner sitting in the microwave at the end of “Time Bandits.” Don’t you dare even ask about how much money Al Gore has made off climate alarmism.
Most pure and luminous of all are compulsory tax dollars extracted from the rubes and poured into Big Climate, a funding stream so transcendent that it’s supposed to be invisible – that’s how climate change, one of the biggest industries on the planet, pretends to be an order of selfless monks living hand-to-mouth while they mount a brave resistance against the well-tailored minions of Big Oil.
Disclosure standards are matters of fact, set by each publication and made known to its contributors; it is fair enough to complain about violations, as Soon is accused of doing in at least 11 cases over the past six years, according to the New York Times. Of course, the Church of Global Warming gives itself unlimited discretion to violate academic standards, and has been known to endorse all sorts of hoopla (such as Hollywood fantasies about climate apocalypse) that it knows are ridiculous, because it’s considered worthwhile to “raise public awareness” by any means necessary. It’s also interesting to note how the Times tap-dances around the fact that everyone in the climate change movement knew perfectly well where Dr. Soon got his money from, and incessantly complained about it. The amount in question, $1.2 million, is chump change by the standards of Big Climate. There seems to be a good deal of revulsion about how he viewed himself as a contractor with a job to do.
While we enjoy the spectacle of those who blew off the Climategate revelations of academic fraud shrieking that Soon didn’t properly disclose the corporate funding they always knew he had, we might reflect on the funny thing about actual science: it doesn’t really care who funds you, or how noble your intentions supposedly are. Science welcomes skepticism from all sources; what does not kill a good theory makes it stronger. The Church of Global Warming is reduced to blaming corporate saboteurs for tricking the public into doubting a sacred “scientific consensus” that was never even remotely true, because that illusion of faith is all they have left. But then, faith in collective judgment — and submission to collectivist politics — is what this was always about. Meanwhile, climate change still isn’t happening, and the true believers still can’t explain why it’s not.
Link:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/24/betrayed-by-science-the-church-of-global-warming-can-still-burn-a-heretic-or-two/
"Decades of D.C. and globalist meddling in education have turned American schools — and students — into a national crisis of epic proportions."
Citing Federal Control, Critics Slam Education Bill in Congress
Written by Alex Newman
Rather than abolishing harmful and unconstitutional federal involvement in education, Congress is considering passage of the “Student Success Act” that would, among other provisions, re-authorize much of the No Child Left Behind and Elementary and Secondary Education boondoggles until 2021. While some conservative organizations have highlighted portions of the legislation that would supposedly diminish the giant Washington, D.C., boot print on government schools, critics are warning that other elements of the bill essentially represent a further takeover of education by the federal government. Several other education-related bills that would not end unconstitutional federal involvement into state and local education are also being considered by lawmakers.
With public outrage against the Obama administration-backed Common Core (basically a plan to nationalize K-12 schooling) reaching a fever pitch across the political spectrum, the GOP-led Congress is under tremendous public pressure to rein in the White House and its radical education plans. However, critics warn that none of the education bills currently being considered would do away with the unconstitutional and dangerous takeover of education standards. Making matters worse, a broad range of education experts and policy analysts are warning that the 600-plus pages of legislation keep many of the worst elements of unconstitutional federal meddling — along with creating new dangers.
The Student Success Act, which passed out of House committee without any Democrat support on February 11, is expected to be voted on soon by the full House of Representatives. If approved, it will cost taxpayers over $23 billion per year.
However, analysts say the worst amendments to the bill were successfully defeated, and that there may be some positive elements to the legislation. For example, according to an analysis of the bill by Dr. Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch, which opposes it, the legislation prohibits the secretary of education from “incentivizing” or “coercing” states into adopting standards or tests. “It is important for preventing future disasters like Common Core,” Effrem said.
Another provision of the bill would reportedly prevent D.C. from vacuuming up private data on students if it is “personally identifiable” — something that was already illegal but which the Obama administration did anyway by lawlessly re-writing privacy protection laws and bribing states.
Separately, one section of the Student Success Act (HR5) would apparently attempt to quash a broad array of intrusive schemes from No Child Left Behind such as “early childhood mental health programs” and funding for propaganda TV programs aimed at manipulating children. The new bill also eliminates requirements on “yearly progress” for schools — impossible requirements that were exploited by the Obama administration to impose Common Core through the issuance of lawless “waivers” from compliance with NCLB to states that imposed Obama’s agenda.
“The Student Success Act helps provide American families the education system they deserve, not the one Washington wants,” argued sponsor Representative John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of the education committee. “I want to thank all my colleagues for engaging in a robust debate and offering their ideas to improve education. We have a lot of work ahead, and we will continue to move forward in a manner that is open, transparent, and fair. America’s parents, teachers, and students have waited long enough for a new law that helps every child in every school receive an excellent education. This important bill will move us closer toward that goal, and I look forward to continuing the debate in the weeks ahead.”
But praise for the bills is far from across the conservative board. Critics contend that the lawless federal data-gathering and data-mining schemes will continue unabated, including “research on social and emotional learning.”
Education Liberty Watch and a broad coalition of other organizations are also sounding alarm bells about HR5 and urging a “no” vote by the full House. Among other concerns, critics say the bill continues to unconstitutionally mandate that states use dubious “cookie cutter standards” and assessments that bypass the authority of local officials elected by parents and communities. The legislation also purports to continue ordering states to test students every year as part of what is almost universally acknowledged to be a failed federal accountability scheme — in reality, a scheme to usurp control over education by dictating what is on tests, and thereby what is taught.
One of the most alarming new developments in the bill is the “portability” provision. That provision is one that on the surface would seem to provide parents with the ability to send their children to high-performing schools by providing school choice.
"Portability" refers to the portability of federal funding. Under the Republicans' system, federal funding would “follow” individual students and could be used to put students in “charter schools” or other government schools. (The money could not be used to send children to private schools — yet.) While there are plenty of well-meaning conservatives and libertarians who support the “school choice” mantra, experts warn that there are numerous severe dangers associated with it. Among the chief concerns: The federal government eventually could expand the “portability” scheme to include private schools and then foist Common Core or something similar on private and religious schools by tying the money to adherence to government programs. As well, when it comes to charter schools, education experts warn that they lack accountability to the voters who fund them through their taxes.
Another provision that has generated widespread alarm appears on page 552 of the bill. While marketed as a tool to restore state sovereignty, critics say it may do just the opposite, outlining the process in which states explicitly surrender their constitutional authority over education to the federal government in exchange for U.S. taxpayer funding and grants. The legislation does note the obvious: No state can be obligated to submit to Washington, D.C.’s demands on education. However, it also explains that to receive certain assistance from the U.S. Department of Education with strings attached, the state legislature must approve the program, “waiving the State’s rights and authorities to act inconsistently with any requirement that might be imposed by the Secretary as a condition of receiving that assistance.”
The outcry against the bill is growing across the political spectrum. A coalition of prominent education experts including Lindsey Burke, Williamson Evers, Theodor Rebarber, Sandra Stotsky, and Ze’ev Wurman, for example, released a recent statement arguing that the bill did not return control over education policy to where it belongs. “The current drafts, both the Senate and the House versions, do not return authority to the states and localities or empower parents,” they said. “The ESEA has evolved from what was described at the outset in 1965 as a measure to help children from low-income families into an instrument of testing mandates and federal control of public K-12 education and, increasingly, of private education as well. The road to effective education is paved with local control and parent power.”
In an analysis of the legislation dubbed “No Program Left Behind,” Lindsey Burke, an education policy fellow at the Heritage Foundation, blasted the fact that virtually every federal education scheme remains alive in the bill. “The 616-page proposal that is now under consideration fails to take the necessary steps to genuinely limit federal intervention in education,” she wrote. “In fact, it’s difficult to square that circle: that a bill as long as the existing No Child Left Behind Act somehow reduces federal intervention in education. Beyond simple page count, the House proposal maintains elevated levels of spending, while doing little to actually eliminate programs.... Policymakers should empower states to completely exit the 600-page law in order to begin the process of devolving education authority back to states and localities, and, ultimately, families.”
Also coming out against the bill were the Obama administration and its allies, although for different reasons. Notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. government is loading more than $18 trillion in debt on taxpayers and even unborn Americans, they argue that the federal government must continue to fund and control education policy. The White House and globalist Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who boasted to the United Nations and others of using U.S. schools to mass produce “green citizens,” were particularly outraged about the “portability” scheme. They argue that it would reduce the flow of federal funds to schools with more poor students by allowing them to leave the failing schools and take the federal tax dollars elsewhere. Another sticking point is that Congress did not fully fund Obama’s demands for federally managed “early education” schemes to capture the minds of the very youngest Americans.
Late last year, Obama hosted a summit on “early education” at the White House bringing together a vast array of organizations hoping to further super-size the federal government’s gigantic role in molding (and tracking) the minds of the Americans from birth. Among other schemes being pushed by the administration, according to the announcement on the White House website, was “extending and expanding evidence-based, voluntary home visiting.” As it did to impose Common Core on state governments, the administration used various slush funds to bribe state officials into expanding what top Obama officials regularly describe as their “cradle-to-career” education agenda — with special emphasis on the “cradle” component, as D.C. works hard to prod as many parents as possible into handing over their young children to government for “early education.” It remains unclear whether Congress truly intends to rein in the administration’s “cradle” scheming.
Another education bill in Congress, the “A-PLUS Act,” would reportedly seek to curtail the failed “No Child Left Behind,” which is almost universally loathed and acknowledged to have been a miserable failure. “As a former teacher I can attest to the fact that No Child Left Behind is the wrong approach to improving education standards in this country,” said Representative Rob Bishop (R–Utah), who introduced the proposal in the House. “This nation is simply too great, too broad, and too diverse for one set of ideas to rule from coast to coast.”
The real solution to America’s very real education crisis, though, is to get the federal government completely out of schools, as the U.S. Constitution and the 10th Amendment require. That means no more federal funding or mandates on education, permanently shutting down the unconstitutional U.S. Department of Education, ending all federal bribes and the strings they come with, and allowing local communities to make decisions again. It also means getting rid of the half-baked Common Core scheme financed by billionaire population-control zealot Bill Gates and foisted on states by the Obama administration. Several states are in the process of ending Common Core, but the threat to America’s future from the radical scheme remains.
Decades of D.C. and globalist meddling in education have turned American schools — and students — into a national crisis of epic proportions. The disaster will continue to grow more severe if left unchecked. The best and simplest solution is to just end federal involvement in education once and for all — the only constitutional solution. None of the bills in Congress would do that, but with enough public pressure, Americans can still restore proper education and constitutional government by getting the feds out of schools. In fact, doing so will be essential to the future of liberty, real education, and prosperity in America.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/20185-citing-federal-control-critics-slam-education-bill-in-congress
Written by Alex Newman
Rather than abolishing harmful and unconstitutional federal involvement in education, Congress is considering passage of the “Student Success Act” that would, among other provisions, re-authorize much of the No Child Left Behind and Elementary and Secondary Education boondoggles until 2021. While some conservative organizations have highlighted portions of the legislation that would supposedly diminish the giant Washington, D.C., boot print on government schools, critics are warning that other elements of the bill essentially represent a further takeover of education by the federal government. Several other education-related bills that would not end unconstitutional federal involvement into state and local education are also being considered by lawmakers.
With public outrage against the Obama administration-backed Common Core (basically a plan to nationalize K-12 schooling) reaching a fever pitch across the political spectrum, the GOP-led Congress is under tremendous public pressure to rein in the White House and its radical education plans. However, critics warn that none of the education bills currently being considered would do away with the unconstitutional and dangerous takeover of education standards. Making matters worse, a broad range of education experts and policy analysts are warning that the 600-plus pages of legislation keep many of the worst elements of unconstitutional federal meddling — along with creating new dangers.
The Student Success Act, which passed out of House committee without any Democrat support on February 11, is expected to be voted on soon by the full House of Representatives. If approved, it will cost taxpayers over $23 billion per year.
However, analysts say the worst amendments to the bill were successfully defeated, and that there may be some positive elements to the legislation. For example, according to an analysis of the bill by Dr. Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch, which opposes it, the legislation prohibits the secretary of education from “incentivizing” or “coercing” states into adopting standards or tests. “It is important for preventing future disasters like Common Core,” Effrem said.
Another provision of the bill would reportedly prevent D.C. from vacuuming up private data on students if it is “personally identifiable” — something that was already illegal but which the Obama administration did anyway by lawlessly re-writing privacy protection laws and bribing states.
Separately, one section of the Student Success Act (HR5) would apparently attempt to quash a broad array of intrusive schemes from No Child Left Behind such as “early childhood mental health programs” and funding for propaganda TV programs aimed at manipulating children. The new bill also eliminates requirements on “yearly progress” for schools — impossible requirements that were exploited by the Obama administration to impose Common Core through the issuance of lawless “waivers” from compliance with NCLB to states that imposed Obama’s agenda.
“The Student Success Act helps provide American families the education system they deserve, not the one Washington wants,” argued sponsor Representative John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of the education committee. “I want to thank all my colleagues for engaging in a robust debate and offering their ideas to improve education. We have a lot of work ahead, and we will continue to move forward in a manner that is open, transparent, and fair. America’s parents, teachers, and students have waited long enough for a new law that helps every child in every school receive an excellent education. This important bill will move us closer toward that goal, and I look forward to continuing the debate in the weeks ahead.”
But praise for the bills is far from across the conservative board. Critics contend that the lawless federal data-gathering and data-mining schemes will continue unabated, including “research on social and emotional learning.”
Education Liberty Watch and a broad coalition of other organizations are also sounding alarm bells about HR5 and urging a “no” vote by the full House. Among other concerns, critics say the bill continues to unconstitutionally mandate that states use dubious “cookie cutter standards” and assessments that bypass the authority of local officials elected by parents and communities. The legislation also purports to continue ordering states to test students every year as part of what is almost universally acknowledged to be a failed federal accountability scheme — in reality, a scheme to usurp control over education by dictating what is on tests, and thereby what is taught.
One of the most alarming new developments in the bill is the “portability” provision. That provision is one that on the surface would seem to provide parents with the ability to send their children to high-performing schools by providing school choice.
"Portability" refers to the portability of federal funding. Under the Republicans' system, federal funding would “follow” individual students and could be used to put students in “charter schools” or other government schools. (The money could not be used to send children to private schools — yet.) While there are plenty of well-meaning conservatives and libertarians who support the “school choice” mantra, experts warn that there are numerous severe dangers associated with it. Among the chief concerns: The federal government eventually could expand the “portability” scheme to include private schools and then foist Common Core or something similar on private and religious schools by tying the money to adherence to government programs. As well, when it comes to charter schools, education experts warn that they lack accountability to the voters who fund them through their taxes.
Another provision that has generated widespread alarm appears on page 552 of the bill. While marketed as a tool to restore state sovereignty, critics say it may do just the opposite, outlining the process in which states explicitly surrender their constitutional authority over education to the federal government in exchange for U.S. taxpayer funding and grants. The legislation does note the obvious: No state can be obligated to submit to Washington, D.C.’s demands on education. However, it also explains that to receive certain assistance from the U.S. Department of Education with strings attached, the state legislature must approve the program, “waiving the State’s rights and authorities to act inconsistently with any requirement that might be imposed by the Secretary as a condition of receiving that assistance.”
The outcry against the bill is growing across the political spectrum. A coalition of prominent education experts including Lindsey Burke, Williamson Evers, Theodor Rebarber, Sandra Stotsky, and Ze’ev Wurman, for example, released a recent statement arguing that the bill did not return control over education policy to where it belongs. “The current drafts, both the Senate and the House versions, do not return authority to the states and localities or empower parents,” they said. “The ESEA has evolved from what was described at the outset in 1965 as a measure to help children from low-income families into an instrument of testing mandates and federal control of public K-12 education and, increasingly, of private education as well. The road to effective education is paved with local control and parent power.”
In an analysis of the legislation dubbed “No Program Left Behind,” Lindsey Burke, an education policy fellow at the Heritage Foundation, blasted the fact that virtually every federal education scheme remains alive in the bill. “The 616-page proposal that is now under consideration fails to take the necessary steps to genuinely limit federal intervention in education,” she wrote. “In fact, it’s difficult to square that circle: that a bill as long as the existing No Child Left Behind Act somehow reduces federal intervention in education. Beyond simple page count, the House proposal maintains elevated levels of spending, while doing little to actually eliminate programs.... Policymakers should empower states to completely exit the 600-page law in order to begin the process of devolving education authority back to states and localities, and, ultimately, families.”
Also coming out against the bill were the Obama administration and its allies, although for different reasons. Notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. government is loading more than $18 trillion in debt on taxpayers and even unborn Americans, they argue that the federal government must continue to fund and control education policy. The White House and globalist Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who boasted to the United Nations and others of using U.S. schools to mass produce “green citizens,” were particularly outraged about the “portability” scheme. They argue that it would reduce the flow of federal funds to schools with more poor students by allowing them to leave the failing schools and take the federal tax dollars elsewhere. Another sticking point is that Congress did not fully fund Obama’s demands for federally managed “early education” schemes to capture the minds of the very youngest Americans.
Late last year, Obama hosted a summit on “early education” at the White House bringing together a vast array of organizations hoping to further super-size the federal government’s gigantic role in molding (and tracking) the minds of the Americans from birth. Among other schemes being pushed by the administration, according to the announcement on the White House website, was “extending and expanding evidence-based, voluntary home visiting.” As it did to impose Common Core on state governments, the administration used various slush funds to bribe state officials into expanding what top Obama officials regularly describe as their “cradle-to-career” education agenda — with special emphasis on the “cradle” component, as D.C. works hard to prod as many parents as possible into handing over their young children to government for “early education.” It remains unclear whether Congress truly intends to rein in the administration’s “cradle” scheming.
Another education bill in Congress, the “A-PLUS Act,” would reportedly seek to curtail the failed “No Child Left Behind,” which is almost universally loathed and acknowledged to have been a miserable failure. “As a former teacher I can attest to the fact that No Child Left Behind is the wrong approach to improving education standards in this country,” said Representative Rob Bishop (R–Utah), who introduced the proposal in the House. “This nation is simply too great, too broad, and too diverse for one set of ideas to rule from coast to coast.”
The real solution to America’s very real education crisis, though, is to get the federal government completely out of schools, as the U.S. Constitution and the 10th Amendment require. That means no more federal funding or mandates on education, permanently shutting down the unconstitutional U.S. Department of Education, ending all federal bribes and the strings they come with, and allowing local communities to make decisions again. It also means getting rid of the half-baked Common Core scheme financed by billionaire population-control zealot Bill Gates and foisted on states by the Obama administration. Several states are in the process of ending Common Core, but the threat to America’s future from the radical scheme remains.
Decades of D.C. and globalist meddling in education have turned American schools — and students — into a national crisis of epic proportions. The disaster will continue to grow more severe if left unchecked. The best and simplest solution is to just end federal involvement in education once and for all — the only constitutional solution. None of the bills in Congress would do that, but with enough public pressure, Americans can still restore proper education and constitutional government by getting the feds out of schools. In fact, doing so will be essential to the future of liberty, real education, and prosperity in America.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/20185-citing-federal-control-critics-slam-education-bill-in-congress
Got fluoride???
New Research Underscores the Dangers of Fluoride
Written by Raven Clabough
Scientists in England have found that fluoride could be causing depression and weight gain and have urged councils to stop adding it to the drinking water. The new findings directly contradict a report released by Public Health England last year that called fluoride a “safe and effective” way of improving dental health.
According to a study of 98 percent of GP practices in England, high rates of underactive thyroid were 30 percent more likely in areas of the greatest fluoridation. The Telegraph reports that up to 15,000 people are needlessly experiencing thyroid problems, which include depression, weight gain, pain, and fatigue.
Approximately 10 percent of the population in England live in areas with a naturally or artificially fluoridated water supply, according to the Telegraph. Researchers from the University of Kent suggest that the number of cases of underactive thyroid was higher in areas such as the West Midlands and the North East of England. Professor Stephen Peckham of the Centre for Health Service Studies, lead author of the study, asserts that the findings should be particularly disconcerting for those who reside in those regions.
“The difference between the West Midlands, which fluoridates, and Manchester, which doesn’t was particularly striking,” Peckham noted. “There were nearly double the number of cases in Manchester.”
Advocates of fluoridation contend it helps to fight tooth decay by making enamel more resistant to bacteria; however, studies have shown that the adverse effects of fluoridation far outweigh any purported good it does.
The University of Kent study found that fluoride inhibits the production of iodine, which is necessary for the health of the thyroid gland, resulting in an underactive thyroid, or hypothyroidism.
“Underactive thyroid is a particularly nasty thing to have and it can lead to other long term health problems," stated Professor Peckham. He added, "I do think councils need to think again about putting fluoride in the water. There are far safer ways to improve dental health.”
And other studies have found the effects of fluoridation to be equally troublesome for differing reasons.
A 2014 study at Harvard suggested that fluoride can be connected to reductions in the IQ of children.
“A meta-analysis of 27 cross-sectional studies of children exposed to fluoride in drinking water, mainly from China, suggests an average IQ decrement of about seven points in children exposed to raised fluoride concentrations,” noted the authors, Dr. Philippe Grandjean of the Harvard School of Public Health and Dr. Philip Landrigan of New York’s Icahn School of Medicine.
What’s worse is that the levels of fluoride analyzed in that study were less than four milligrams per liter, less than the amounts permitted to be used in water fluoridation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“Our very great concern is that children worldwide are being exposed to unrecognized toxic chemicals that are silently eroding intelligence, disrupting behaviors, truncating future achievements and damaging societies, perhaps most seriously in developing countries,” added the authors, who also warned of additional problems associated with exposure to these kinds of substances, including autism.
As a result of those findings, a 2014 report in the medical journal The Lancet labelled fluoride a dangerous developmental neurotoxicant, placing it alongside other toxins such as lead, mercury, and arsenic.
Critics have seized upon the various findings against fluoride to call for a complete end to water fluoridation.
“In light of the new classification of fluoride as a dangerous neurotoxin, adding more fluoride to Americans’ already excessive intake no longer has any conceivable justification,” declared Fluoride Action Network Executive Director and retired chemistry professor Dr. Paul Connett in a statement. “We should follow the evidence and try to reduce fluoride intake, not increase it.”
The John Birch Society has opposed fluoridation of the water supply for more than half a century. In addition to health concerns, the Society has stood against the forced-medication implications of the practice, noting that fluoride is added to the water supply to treat people, not make the water safer, and warning many decades ago that some environmentalists supported putting sterilants in the water supply (with the government rationing the anttidote) to regulate the desired population size.
And now President Obama’s own “Science” Czar John Holdren has proposed that very thing: adding birth control to the water supply for the purpose of regulating population size.
In 1992, libertarian icon Murray Rothbard wrote a scathing critique of the practice that appeared in The New American, questioning the reasoning behind fluoridation.
Rothbard explained that the case for fluoridation rests wholly on the assertion that it reduces cavities in children aged five to nine, and that there are no claimed benefits for anyone over the age of nine. What’s more, studies reveal that the same children aged nine to 12 have more cavities, revealing that the cavity benefits disappear at the age of 12.
Meanwhile, as fluoridation advocates embraced studies that revealed fluoride reduced cavities among children aged five through nine, those same advocates ignored indications that fluoride also created even more significant health concerns. Rothbard wrote:
During the 1940s and '50s, when the successful push for fluoridation was underway, fluoridation proponents touted the controlled experiment of Newburgh and Kingston, two neighboring small cities in upstate New York, with much the same demographics. Newburgh had been fluoridated and Kingston had not, and the powerful pro-fluoridation establishment trumpeted the fact that ten years later, dental cavities in five- to nine-year-old kids in Newburgh were considerably lower than in Kingston (originally, the rates of every disease had been about the same in the two places).
OK, but fluoride opponents raised the disquieting fact that, after ten years, both the cancer and the heart disease rates were now significantly higher in Newburgh. How did the Establishment treat this criticism? By dismissing it as irrelevant, as kooky scare tactics.
Later studies also found correlations between a fluoridated water supply and cancer rates. In the 1970s, Dr. Dean Burk, former chief of cytochemistry at the National Cancer Institute for 30 years, reported that fluoride increases the cancer death rate based on a study that compared the 10 largest U.S. cities with fluoridation and the 10 largest without.
Ultimately, Rothbard concluded, “Compulsory mass medication is medically evil, as well as socialistic.”
Despite evidence to the contrary, advocates for fluoridation continue to claim that it is safe.
Dr Sandra White, director of dental public health at Public Health England, has said, “Public Health England regularly reviews the evidence base for water fluoridation. The totality of evidence, accumulated over decades of research, tells us that water fluoridation is a safe and effective public health measure, and shows no association with reduced thyroid function.”
But now, the latest findings out of the University of Kent should provide cause to reconsider these statements.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/20186-new-research-underscores-the-dangers-of-fluoride
Written by Raven Clabough
Scientists in England have found that fluoride could be causing depression and weight gain and have urged councils to stop adding it to the drinking water. The new findings directly contradict a report released by Public Health England last year that called fluoride a “safe and effective” way of improving dental health.
According to a study of 98 percent of GP practices in England, high rates of underactive thyroid were 30 percent more likely in areas of the greatest fluoridation. The Telegraph reports that up to 15,000 people are needlessly experiencing thyroid problems, which include depression, weight gain, pain, and fatigue.
Approximately 10 percent of the population in England live in areas with a naturally or artificially fluoridated water supply, according to the Telegraph. Researchers from the University of Kent suggest that the number of cases of underactive thyroid was higher in areas such as the West Midlands and the North East of England. Professor Stephen Peckham of the Centre for Health Service Studies, lead author of the study, asserts that the findings should be particularly disconcerting for those who reside in those regions.
“The difference between the West Midlands, which fluoridates, and Manchester, which doesn’t was particularly striking,” Peckham noted. “There were nearly double the number of cases in Manchester.”
Advocates of fluoridation contend it helps to fight tooth decay by making enamel more resistant to bacteria; however, studies have shown that the adverse effects of fluoridation far outweigh any purported good it does.
The University of Kent study found that fluoride inhibits the production of iodine, which is necessary for the health of the thyroid gland, resulting in an underactive thyroid, or hypothyroidism.
“Underactive thyroid is a particularly nasty thing to have and it can lead to other long term health problems," stated Professor Peckham. He added, "I do think councils need to think again about putting fluoride in the water. There are far safer ways to improve dental health.”
And other studies have found the effects of fluoridation to be equally troublesome for differing reasons.
A 2014 study at Harvard suggested that fluoride can be connected to reductions in the IQ of children.
“A meta-analysis of 27 cross-sectional studies of children exposed to fluoride in drinking water, mainly from China, suggests an average IQ decrement of about seven points in children exposed to raised fluoride concentrations,” noted the authors, Dr. Philippe Grandjean of the Harvard School of Public Health and Dr. Philip Landrigan of New York’s Icahn School of Medicine.
What’s worse is that the levels of fluoride analyzed in that study were less than four milligrams per liter, less than the amounts permitted to be used in water fluoridation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“Our very great concern is that children worldwide are being exposed to unrecognized toxic chemicals that are silently eroding intelligence, disrupting behaviors, truncating future achievements and damaging societies, perhaps most seriously in developing countries,” added the authors, who also warned of additional problems associated with exposure to these kinds of substances, including autism.
As a result of those findings, a 2014 report in the medical journal The Lancet labelled fluoride a dangerous developmental neurotoxicant, placing it alongside other toxins such as lead, mercury, and arsenic.
Critics have seized upon the various findings against fluoride to call for a complete end to water fluoridation.
“In light of the new classification of fluoride as a dangerous neurotoxin, adding more fluoride to Americans’ already excessive intake no longer has any conceivable justification,” declared Fluoride Action Network Executive Director and retired chemistry professor Dr. Paul Connett in a statement. “We should follow the evidence and try to reduce fluoride intake, not increase it.”
The John Birch Society has opposed fluoridation of the water supply for more than half a century. In addition to health concerns, the Society has stood against the forced-medication implications of the practice, noting that fluoride is added to the water supply to treat people, not make the water safer, and warning many decades ago that some environmentalists supported putting sterilants in the water supply (with the government rationing the anttidote) to regulate the desired population size.
And now President Obama’s own “Science” Czar John Holdren has proposed that very thing: adding birth control to the water supply for the purpose of regulating population size.
In 1992, libertarian icon Murray Rothbard wrote a scathing critique of the practice that appeared in The New American, questioning the reasoning behind fluoridation.
Rothbard explained that the case for fluoridation rests wholly on the assertion that it reduces cavities in children aged five to nine, and that there are no claimed benefits for anyone over the age of nine. What’s more, studies reveal that the same children aged nine to 12 have more cavities, revealing that the cavity benefits disappear at the age of 12.
Meanwhile, as fluoridation advocates embraced studies that revealed fluoride reduced cavities among children aged five through nine, those same advocates ignored indications that fluoride also created even more significant health concerns. Rothbard wrote:
During the 1940s and '50s, when the successful push for fluoridation was underway, fluoridation proponents touted the controlled experiment of Newburgh and Kingston, two neighboring small cities in upstate New York, with much the same demographics. Newburgh had been fluoridated and Kingston had not, and the powerful pro-fluoridation establishment trumpeted the fact that ten years later, dental cavities in five- to nine-year-old kids in Newburgh were considerably lower than in Kingston (originally, the rates of every disease had been about the same in the two places).
OK, but fluoride opponents raised the disquieting fact that, after ten years, both the cancer and the heart disease rates were now significantly higher in Newburgh. How did the Establishment treat this criticism? By dismissing it as irrelevant, as kooky scare tactics.
Later studies also found correlations between a fluoridated water supply and cancer rates. In the 1970s, Dr. Dean Burk, former chief of cytochemistry at the National Cancer Institute for 30 years, reported that fluoride increases the cancer death rate based on a study that compared the 10 largest U.S. cities with fluoridation and the 10 largest without.
Ultimately, Rothbard concluded, “Compulsory mass medication is medically evil, as well as socialistic.”
Despite evidence to the contrary, advocates for fluoridation continue to claim that it is safe.
Dr Sandra White, director of dental public health at Public Health England, has said, “Public Health England regularly reviews the evidence base for water fluoridation. The totality of evidence, accumulated over decades of research, tells us that water fluoridation is a safe and effective public health measure, and shows no association with reduced thyroid function.”
But now, the latest findings out of the University of Kent should provide cause to reconsider these statements.
Link:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/europe/item/20186-new-research-underscores-the-dangers-of-fluoride
Mainstream media lapdogs...
Obama’s lapdog media is a pack of cowards
by John Myers
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire
Last week, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the following:
I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.
As if to prove Giuliani correct, President Obama went on another one of his “let us all embrace Islam” rants during his three-day Summit on Countering Violent Extremism. Meanwhile, Congress is debating whether to send more American combat troops back to the Middle East to engage the Islamic State (ISIS).
Yet if you listen to Obama, Islam has absolutely nothing to do with ISIS regardless of its name. We can only wonder if the Islamic State is just a cover for those murderous Catholics.
Last Thursday, Obama declared:
[T]he notion that the West is at war with Islam is an ugly lie. And all of us, regardless of our faith, have a responsibility to reject it.
According to the Obama administration, the enemy is not the tens of millions of Muslims who cheered the falling of New York’s Twin Towers and whose terrorists we have battled for the past 13 years. Obama believes something far more sinister is afoot. His new intelligence assessment by his Department of Homeland Security reports that the real threat to America is from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists.
Obama’s terror war is against Americans, not Islamists
As Personal Liberty reported, the Obama administration believes the real threat to the nation is, “(American) extremists who believe that they can ignore laws and that their individual rights are under attack in routine daily instances such as a traffic stop or being required to obey a court order.”
Obama’s Department of Homeland Security cites a three-year-old incident in which a father and son shot and killed two police officers in Louisiana after being pulled over for a traffic violation. Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at the “anything except Islam” summit, railed against right-wing extremists and militias who commit violence “in the name of the Bible.”
Thankfully, not everyone is buying Obama’s propaganda, including a hardcore progressive, Bill Maher. Last Friday on his HBO show, Maher said, “This idea that we cannot even call it Islamic terrorism seems Orwellian to me.”
Not only to you, Bill, but also to Giuliani. But you have to admit it is a sad day when one of Obama’s harshest critics is Maher. Then again, what can we expect from the left-wing media?
Love him or hate him, what Giuliani said last week — that Obama does not love America — doesn’t really matter. He is a retired politician; he isn’t running for office.
What Obama says regarding terrorists and how the real threat is Americans and not Muslims matters a great deal. He is the president of the United States. He is the leader of the free world — a world that is conspicuously less free today than it was when he took office six years ago.
Yet Obama backers, big business, the Democrats in Congress and those who control the mass media are salivating over what Giuliani said at a private dinner to 60 people.
This reminds me of Joseph Goebbels itching to point out that Franklin D. Roosevelt was a Jew every time his Führer mismanaged the army, beginning with the disastrous defeat of the 9th Army in the Battle of Stalingrad. In a couple of years, tens of millions of Germans came to realize that the real enemy was not the Allies but Adolf Hitler. As for all those liberal sycophants who rush to point out that Obama was elected twice, it should be pointed out that Hitler was democratically elected once.
But today, Giuliani, an American leader in the days following 9/11, is a scapegoat. The media have decided to keep the ruckus going on about Giuliani so Americans won’t question Obama’s lies about Islam and will instead focus their attention on homebred terrorists.
But it wasn’t Americans who executed the Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris. It was Islamists. And it wasn’t American extremists who launched the terror attack in Denmark five weeks later. You can tell because American extremists don’t wear robes, pack the Koran in one hand and carry an AK-47 in the other. Those were Islamists, who are fighting their holy jihad backed by Arab money from the Gulf States, which are in turn backed by Obama.
Obama is a loyal Muslim until our bitter end
What were the events that led Islamists to attack newspapers in Paris and in Copenhagen? Simple, they had the audacity to draw cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad! And while Obama didn’t send a representative to Paris for the vigil of those victims, his administration did tell them beforehand they might have it coming.
In January 2012, the Obama administration criticized Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons of Muhammad, a position that the White House has steadfastly stood by.
PJ Media reported on Jan. 12:
White House press secretary Josh Earnest turned a question about the judgment of Charlie Hebdo in publishing Muhammad cartoons to a chiding about the “responsibilities” that come with free speech.
Earnest was asked if, in the wake of last week’s brutal terrorist attack on the satirical magazine’s French headquarters, the administration stood by Jay Carney’s 2012 comments: “We are aware that a French magazine published cartoons featuring a figure resembling the Prophet Muhammad. And, obviously, we have questions about the judgment of publishing something like this. We know that these images will be deeply offensive to many and have the potential to be inflammatory.
“At the same time, you know, it would not be the first time that there has been a discussion in this country about the kinds of responsibilities that go along with exercising the right to freedom of speech.”
The question Earnest should be asking and what all Americans should be asking is: What are the responsibilities of the president of the United States and what are the responsibilities of the fourth estate?
Why not have a Muhammad Cartoon Day?
CNN interviewed Lars Vilks on Feb. 15. Vilks is the Danish cartoonist and the target for the attack in Denmark. In that interview CNN almost blamed him for not doing the right thing and going into hiding, thus preventing the attack.
Vilks said:
This should be a small thing really, to insult a religion. You cannot make exceptions for religion. I mean that’s the point. I mean this should be the same rules as we have for Christianity or the Jewish religion or whatsoever, that we should make an exception. Islam is not more holy than the other ones.
CNN reported:
Vilks did not start this latest round of controversy. In 2005, the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, sparking protests from Muslim communities across the world. For many Muslims, any images of the Prophet Muhammad are seen as blasphemous. Even worse were depictions that deliberately insulted the prophet. CNN has decided not to show any of these images.
Of course not! Why would CNN or any news media or publication publish a cartoon? Good God, that could make them targets. Instead they report in detail, loop upon loop, on the beheadings carried out by ISIS, replete with victims dressed in orange jumpsuits moments before their executions.
If the media really wanted to stand up for free speech and stop cowering in fear, they would pick out one day and call it Muhammad Cartoon Day. Deal with it, you whacked-out crazy Muslims. You can’t kill us all for our right to free speech. But that would take courage, and that is something that is in short supply when we have a president who acts more like a loyal Muslim than a good American.
Perhaps it would help for news executives to watch the movie “Spartacus,” the 1960 American epic starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. In it the Romans try to locate the rebel leader for special punishment. Every surviving man protects him by shouting: “I’m Spartacus!”
If we don’t want to die like slaves we need to all stand up and yell, “I’m Charlie Hebdo!”
Yours in good times and bad,
–John Myers
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/obamas-lapdog-media-pack-cowards/
by John Myers
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” — Voltaire
Last week, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the following:
I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America. He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.
As if to prove Giuliani correct, President Obama went on another one of his “let us all embrace Islam” rants during his three-day Summit on Countering Violent Extremism. Meanwhile, Congress is debating whether to send more American combat troops back to the Middle East to engage the Islamic State (ISIS).
Yet if you listen to Obama, Islam has absolutely nothing to do with ISIS regardless of its name. We can only wonder if the Islamic State is just a cover for those murderous Catholics.
Last Thursday, Obama declared:
[T]he notion that the West is at war with Islam is an ugly lie. And all of us, regardless of our faith, have a responsibility to reject it.
According to the Obama administration, the enemy is not the tens of millions of Muslims who cheered the falling of New York’s Twin Towers and whose terrorists we have battled for the past 13 years. Obama believes something far more sinister is afoot. His new intelligence assessment by his Department of Homeland Security reports that the real threat to America is from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists.
Obama’s terror war is against Americans, not Islamists
As Personal Liberty reported, the Obama administration believes the real threat to the nation is, “(American) extremists who believe that they can ignore laws and that their individual rights are under attack in routine daily instances such as a traffic stop or being required to obey a court order.”
Obama’s Department of Homeland Security cites a three-year-old incident in which a father and son shot and killed two police officers in Louisiana after being pulled over for a traffic violation. Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at the “anything except Islam” summit, railed against right-wing extremists and militias who commit violence “in the name of the Bible.”
Thankfully, not everyone is buying Obama’s propaganda, including a hardcore progressive, Bill Maher. Last Friday on his HBO show, Maher said, “This idea that we cannot even call it Islamic terrorism seems Orwellian to me.”
Not only to you, Bill, but also to Giuliani. But you have to admit it is a sad day when one of Obama’s harshest critics is Maher. Then again, what can we expect from the left-wing media?
Love him or hate him, what Giuliani said last week — that Obama does not love America — doesn’t really matter. He is a retired politician; he isn’t running for office.
What Obama says regarding terrorists and how the real threat is Americans and not Muslims matters a great deal. He is the president of the United States. He is the leader of the free world — a world that is conspicuously less free today than it was when he took office six years ago.
Yet Obama backers, big business, the Democrats in Congress and those who control the mass media are salivating over what Giuliani said at a private dinner to 60 people.
This reminds me of Joseph Goebbels itching to point out that Franklin D. Roosevelt was a Jew every time his Führer mismanaged the army, beginning with the disastrous defeat of the 9th Army in the Battle of Stalingrad. In a couple of years, tens of millions of Germans came to realize that the real enemy was not the Allies but Adolf Hitler. As for all those liberal sycophants who rush to point out that Obama was elected twice, it should be pointed out that Hitler was democratically elected once.
But today, Giuliani, an American leader in the days following 9/11, is a scapegoat. The media have decided to keep the ruckus going on about Giuliani so Americans won’t question Obama’s lies about Islam and will instead focus their attention on homebred terrorists.
But it wasn’t Americans who executed the Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris. It was Islamists. And it wasn’t American extremists who launched the terror attack in Denmark five weeks later. You can tell because American extremists don’t wear robes, pack the Koran in one hand and carry an AK-47 in the other. Those were Islamists, who are fighting their holy jihad backed by Arab money from the Gulf States, which are in turn backed by Obama.
Obama is a loyal Muslim until our bitter end
What were the events that led Islamists to attack newspapers in Paris and in Copenhagen? Simple, they had the audacity to draw cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad! And while Obama didn’t send a representative to Paris for the vigil of those victims, his administration did tell them beforehand they might have it coming.
In January 2012, the Obama administration criticized Charlie Hebdo for publishing cartoons of Muhammad, a position that the White House has steadfastly stood by.
PJ Media reported on Jan. 12:
White House press secretary Josh Earnest turned a question about the judgment of Charlie Hebdo in publishing Muhammad cartoons to a chiding about the “responsibilities” that come with free speech.
Earnest was asked if, in the wake of last week’s brutal terrorist attack on the satirical magazine’s French headquarters, the administration stood by Jay Carney’s 2012 comments: “We are aware that a French magazine published cartoons featuring a figure resembling the Prophet Muhammad. And, obviously, we have questions about the judgment of publishing something like this. We know that these images will be deeply offensive to many and have the potential to be inflammatory.
“At the same time, you know, it would not be the first time that there has been a discussion in this country about the kinds of responsibilities that go along with exercising the right to freedom of speech.”
The question Earnest should be asking and what all Americans should be asking is: What are the responsibilities of the president of the United States and what are the responsibilities of the fourth estate?
Why not have a Muhammad Cartoon Day?
CNN interviewed Lars Vilks on Feb. 15. Vilks is the Danish cartoonist and the target for the attack in Denmark. In that interview CNN almost blamed him for not doing the right thing and going into hiding, thus preventing the attack.
Vilks said:
This should be a small thing really, to insult a religion. You cannot make exceptions for religion. I mean that’s the point. I mean this should be the same rules as we have for Christianity or the Jewish religion or whatsoever, that we should make an exception. Islam is not more holy than the other ones.
CNN reported:
Vilks did not start this latest round of controversy. In 2005, the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, sparking protests from Muslim communities across the world. For many Muslims, any images of the Prophet Muhammad are seen as blasphemous. Even worse were depictions that deliberately insulted the prophet. CNN has decided not to show any of these images.
Of course not! Why would CNN or any news media or publication publish a cartoon? Good God, that could make them targets. Instead they report in detail, loop upon loop, on the beheadings carried out by ISIS, replete with victims dressed in orange jumpsuits moments before their executions.
If the media really wanted to stand up for free speech and stop cowering in fear, they would pick out one day and call it Muhammad Cartoon Day. Deal with it, you whacked-out crazy Muslims. You can’t kill us all for our right to free speech. But that would take courage, and that is something that is in short supply when we have a president who acts more like a loyal Muslim than a good American.
Perhaps it would help for news executives to watch the movie “Spartacus,” the 1960 American epic starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. In it the Romans try to locate the rebel leader for special punishment. Every surviving man protects him by shouting: “I’m Spartacus!”
If we don’t want to die like slaves we need to all stand up and yell, “I’m Charlie Hebdo!”
Yours in good times and bad,
–John Myers
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/obamas-lapdog-media-pack-cowards/
Good...
The Military Can’t Find Enough Good Men Dumb Enough To Join
Laurence M. Vance
“The majority of potential Army reservists are either hooked on prescription drugs, have too many tattoos, are overweight or have mental conditions that prohibit them from joining the military.” This is not my opinion. This is what recruiters say. I say that this is a good thing. The fewer Americans who are qualified to join the military the better.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/the-military-cant-find-enough-good-men-dumb-enough-to-join/
Laurence M. Vance
“The majority of potential Army reservists are either hooked on prescription drugs, have too many tattoos, are overweight or have mental conditions that prohibit them from joining the military.” This is not my opinion. This is what recruiters say. I say that this is a good thing. The fewer Americans who are qualified to join the military the better.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/the-military-cant-find-enough-good-men-dumb-enough-to-join/
"Conspiracy Theorists USED TO Be Accepted As Normal"
Are Conspiracy Theorists Nuts?
Washington's Blog
Conspiracy Theorists USED TO Be Accepted As Normal
Democracy and free market capitalism were founded on conspiracy theories.
The Magna Carta, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and other founding Western documents were based on conspiracy theories. Greek democracy and free market capitalism were also based on conspiracy theories.
But those were the bad old days …Things have now changed.
The CIA Coined the Term Conspiracy Theorist In 1967
That all changed in the 1960s.
Specifically, in April 1967, the CIA wrote a dispatch which coined the term “conspiracy theories” … and recommended methods for discrediting such theories. The dispatch was marked “psych” – short for “psychological operations” or disinformation – and “CS” for the CIA’s “Clandestine Services” unit.
The dispatch was produced in responses to a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times in 1976.
The dispatch states:
2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization.
***
The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.
3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the [conspiracy] question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active addresses are requested:
a. To discuss the publicity problem with and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors) , pointing out that the [official investigation of the relevant event] made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by … propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.
b. To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories.
***
4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:
a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider.
***
b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent–and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) …
***
c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc.
***
d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other.
***
f. As to charges that the Commission’s report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.
g. Such vague accusations as that “more than ten people have died mysteriously” can always be explained in some natural way ….
5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission’s Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics...
Read the rest here:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/con.html
Washington's Blog
Conspiracy Theorists USED TO Be Accepted As Normal
Democracy and free market capitalism were founded on conspiracy theories.
The Magna Carta, the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and other founding Western documents were based on conspiracy theories. Greek democracy and free market capitalism were also based on conspiracy theories.
But those were the bad old days …Things have now changed.
The CIA Coined the Term Conspiracy Theorist In 1967
That all changed in the 1960s.
Specifically, in April 1967, the CIA wrote a dispatch which coined the term “conspiracy theories” … and recommended methods for discrediting such theories. The dispatch was marked “psych” – short for “psychological operations” or disinformation – and “CS” for the CIA’s “Clandestine Services” unit.
The dispatch was produced in responses to a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times in 1976.
The dispatch states:
2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization.
***
The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.
3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the [conspiracy] question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active addresses are requested:
a. To discuss the publicity problem with and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors) , pointing out that the [official investigation of the relevant event] made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by … propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.
b. To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories.
***
4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:
a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider.
***
b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent–and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) …
***
c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc.
***
d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other.
***
f. As to charges that the Commission’s report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.
g. Such vague accusations as that “more than ten people have died mysteriously” can always be explained in some natural way ….
5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission’s Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics...
Read the rest here:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/con.html
"Washington’s foreign policy, Matlock says, is autistic, which he defines as impaired social interaction, failed communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior."
Washington Has Resurrected The Threat Of Nuclear War
By Paul Craig Roberts
Foreign Affairs is the publication of the elitist Council on Foreign Relations, a collection of former and current government officials, academics, and corporate and financial executives who regard themselves as the custodian and formulator of US foreign policy. The publication of the council carries the heavy weight of authority. One doesn’t expect to find humor in it, but I found myself roaring with laughter while reading an article in the February 5 online issue by Alexander J. Motyl, “Goodbye, Putin: Why the President’s Days Are Numbered.”
I assumed I was reading a clever parody of Washington’s anti-Putin propaganda. Absurd statement followed absurd statement. It was better than Colbert. I couldn’t stop laughing.
To my dismay I discovered that the absolute gibberish wasn’t a parody of Washington’s propaganda. Motyl, an ardent Ukrainian nationalist, is a professor at Rugers University and was not joking when he wrote that Putin had stolen $45 billion, that Putin was resurrecting the Soviet Empire, that Putin had troops and tanks in Ukraine and had started the war in Ukraine, that Putin is an authoritarian whose regime is “exceedingly brittle” and subject to being overthrown at any time by the people Putin has bought off with revenues from the former high oil price, or by “an Orange Revolution in Moscow” in which Putin is overthrown by Washington orchestrated demonstrations by US financed NGOs as in Ukraine, or by a coup d’etat by Putin’s Praetorial guards. And if none of this sends Putin goodbye, the North Caucasus, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, and the Crimean Tarters are spinning out of control and will do Washington’s will by unseating Putin. Only the West’s friendly relationship with Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan can shield “the rest of the world from Putin’s disastrous legacy of ruin.”
When confronted with this level of ignorant nonsense in what is alleged to be a respectable publication, we experience the degradation of the Western political and media elite. To argue with nonsense is pointless.
What we see here with Motyl is the purest expression of the blatant propagandistic lies that flow continually from the likes of Fox “News,” Sean Hannity, the neocon warmongers, the White House, and executive branch and congressional personnel beholden to the military/security complex.
The lies are too much even for Henry Kissinger.
As Stephen Lendman, who documents the ever growing anti-Russian propaganda, honestly states: “America’s war on the world rages. Humanity’s greatest challenge is stopping this monster before it destroys everyone.”
The absurdity of it all! Even a moron knows that if Russia is going to put tanks and troops into Ukraine, Russia will put in enough to do the job. The war would be over in a few days if not in a few hours. As Putin himself said some months ago, if the Russian military enters Ukraine, the news will not be the fate of Donetsk or Mauriupol, but the fall of Kiev and Lviv.
Former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1987-91) Jack Matlock cautioned against the crazed propagandistic attack against Russia in his speech at the National Press Club on February 11. Matlock is astonished by the dismissal of Russia as merely “a regional power” of little consequence to the powerful US military. No country, Matlock says, armed with numerous, accurate, and mobile ICBMs is limited to regional power. This is the kind of hubristic miscalculation that ends in world destruction.
Matlock also notes that the entirely of Ukraine, like Crimea, has been part of Russia for centuries and that Washington and NATO have no business being in Ukraine.
He also points out the violations of promises made to Russia not to expand NATO eastward and how this and other acts of US aggression toward Russia have recreated the lack of trust between the two powers that Reagan worked successfully to overcome.
Reagan’s politeness toward the Soviet leadership and refusal to personalize differences created an era of cooperation that the morons who are Reagan’s successors have thrown away, thus renewing the threat of nuclear war that Reagan and Gorbachev had ended.
Washington’s foreign policy, Matlock says, is autistic, which he defines as impaired social interaction, failed communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior.
Read Matlock here.
Don’t bother with the utter fool Motyl read here.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/02/paul-craig-roberts/will-america-blow-up-the-world/
By Paul Craig Roberts
Foreign Affairs is the publication of the elitist Council on Foreign Relations, a collection of former and current government officials, academics, and corporate and financial executives who regard themselves as the custodian and formulator of US foreign policy. The publication of the council carries the heavy weight of authority. One doesn’t expect to find humor in it, but I found myself roaring with laughter while reading an article in the February 5 online issue by Alexander J. Motyl, “Goodbye, Putin: Why the President’s Days Are Numbered.”
I assumed I was reading a clever parody of Washington’s anti-Putin propaganda. Absurd statement followed absurd statement. It was better than Colbert. I couldn’t stop laughing.
To my dismay I discovered that the absolute gibberish wasn’t a parody of Washington’s propaganda. Motyl, an ardent Ukrainian nationalist, is a professor at Rugers University and was not joking when he wrote that Putin had stolen $45 billion, that Putin was resurrecting the Soviet Empire, that Putin had troops and tanks in Ukraine and had started the war in Ukraine, that Putin is an authoritarian whose regime is “exceedingly brittle” and subject to being overthrown at any time by the people Putin has bought off with revenues from the former high oil price, or by “an Orange Revolution in Moscow” in which Putin is overthrown by Washington orchestrated demonstrations by US financed NGOs as in Ukraine, or by a coup d’etat by Putin’s Praetorial guards. And if none of this sends Putin goodbye, the North Caucasus, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, and the Crimean Tarters are spinning out of control and will do Washington’s will by unseating Putin. Only the West’s friendly relationship with Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan can shield “the rest of the world from Putin’s disastrous legacy of ruin.”
When confronted with this level of ignorant nonsense in what is alleged to be a respectable publication, we experience the degradation of the Western political and media elite. To argue with nonsense is pointless.
What we see here with Motyl is the purest expression of the blatant propagandistic lies that flow continually from the likes of Fox “News,” Sean Hannity, the neocon warmongers, the White House, and executive branch and congressional personnel beholden to the military/security complex.
The lies are too much even for Henry Kissinger.
As Stephen Lendman, who documents the ever growing anti-Russian propaganda, honestly states: “America’s war on the world rages. Humanity’s greatest challenge is stopping this monster before it destroys everyone.”
The absurdity of it all! Even a moron knows that if Russia is going to put tanks and troops into Ukraine, Russia will put in enough to do the job. The war would be over in a few days if not in a few hours. As Putin himself said some months ago, if the Russian military enters Ukraine, the news will not be the fate of Donetsk or Mauriupol, but the fall of Kiev and Lviv.
Former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1987-91) Jack Matlock cautioned against the crazed propagandistic attack against Russia in his speech at the National Press Club on February 11. Matlock is astonished by the dismissal of Russia as merely “a regional power” of little consequence to the powerful US military. No country, Matlock says, armed with numerous, accurate, and mobile ICBMs is limited to regional power. This is the kind of hubristic miscalculation that ends in world destruction.
Matlock also notes that the entirely of Ukraine, like Crimea, has been part of Russia for centuries and that Washington and NATO have no business being in Ukraine.
He also points out the violations of promises made to Russia not to expand NATO eastward and how this and other acts of US aggression toward Russia have recreated the lack of trust between the two powers that Reagan worked successfully to overcome.
Reagan’s politeness toward the Soviet leadership and refusal to personalize differences created an era of cooperation that the morons who are Reagan’s successors have thrown away, thus renewing the threat of nuclear war that Reagan and Gorbachev had ended.
Washington’s foreign policy, Matlock says, is autistic, which he defines as impaired social interaction, failed communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior.
Read Matlock here.
Don’t bother with the utter fool Motyl read here.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/02/paul-craig-roberts/will-america-blow-up-the-world/
Edward Snowden and Libertarians...
Edward Snowden's Libertarian Moment: We "will remove from governments the ability to interfere with [our] rights"
Nick Gillespie
Via Mark Sletten comes this thread from yesterday's Ask Me Anything session at Reddit that featured Edward Snowden, Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras, and journalist Glenn Greenwald.
The question posed to Snowden:
What's the best way to make NSA spying an issue in the 2016 Presidential Election? It seems like while it was a big deal in 2013, ISIS and other events have put it on the back burner for now in the media and general public. What are your ideas for how to bring it back to the forefront?
His answer is well worth reading in full (I've posted it after the jump), but its essence is a full-throated defense of classical liberal and libertarian theorizing not just about the consent of the governed but the right to work around the government when it focuses on social order over legitimacy. And, as important, a recognition that this is what we at Reason and others call "the Libertarian Moment," or a technologically empowered drive toward greater and greater control over more and more aspects of our lives. While the Libertarian Moment is enabled by technological innovations and generally increasing levels of wealth and education, it's ultimately proceeds from a mind-set as much as anything else: We have the right to live peacefully any way we choose as long as we are not infringing on other people's rights to do the same. Our politics and our laws should reflect this emphasis on pluralism, tolerance, and persuasion (as opposed to coercion) across social, economic, and intellectual spheres of activity.
As Snowden emphasizes, it's not simply that governments (thankfully) fail at attempts for perfect surveillance and law enforcement. It's that technologically empowered people are actively worked to route around government attempts to fence us in. "We the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights," he writes (emphasis in original). "we can find ways to reduce or remove their powers on a new—and permanent—basis."
Reading throught the Reddit exchange, it's easy to see why Snowden recently brought the 1,000-plus attendees of the International Students for Liberty Conference to their feet multiple times. He isn's some kind of pie-eyed nihilist, hell-bent on destroying the red, white, and blue for personal fame or out of ideological fervor. At 31 years old, he is an exceptionally well-spoken, thoughtful critic of the abuse of power that has become endemic to modern American governance. At the ISFLC, he said his one regret is that he didn't expose systemic infringement on citizens' constitutional rights sooner than he did.
If people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our agency in determing thour futures.
How does this relate to politics? Well, I suspect that governments today are more concerned with the loss of their ability to control and regulate the behavior of their citizens than they are with their citizens' discontent.
How do we make that work for us? We can devise means, through the application and sophistication of science, to remind governments that if they will not be responsible stewards of our rights, we the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights.
You can see the beginnings of this dynamic today in the statements of government officials complaining about the adoption of encryption by major technology providers. The idea here isn't to fling ourselves into anarchy and do away with government, but to remind the government that there must always be a balance of power between the governing and the governed, and that as the progress of science increasingly empowers communities and individuals, there will be more and more areas of our lives where—if government insists on behaving poorly and with a callous disregard for the citizen—we can find ways to reduce or remove their powers on a new—and permanent—basis.
Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.
Emphasis in original.
Snowden ends by noting that "when [the law] becomes contrary to our morals, we have both the right and the responsibility to rebalance it toward just ends."
Here's his full answer:
This is a good question, and there are some good traditional answers here. Organizing is important. Activism is important.
At the same time, we should remember that governments don't often reform themselves. One of the arguments in a book I read recently (Bruce Schneier, "Data and Goliath"), is that perfect enforcement of the law sounds like a good thing, but that may not always be the case. The end of crime sounds pretty compelling, right, so how can that be?
Well, when we look back on history, the progress of Western civilization and human rights is actually founded on the violation of law. America was of course born out of a violent revolution that was an outrageous treason against the crown and established order of the day. History shows that the righting of historical wrongs is often born from acts of unrepentant criminality. Slavery. The protection of persecuted Jews.
But even on less extremist topics, we can find similar examples. How about the prohibition of alcohol? Gay marriage? Marijuana?
Where would we be today if the government, enjoying powers of perfect surveillance and enforcement, had -- entirely within the law -- rounded up, imprisoned, and shamed all of these lawbreakers?
Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our agency in determing thour futures.
How does this relate to politics? Well, I suspect that governments today are more concerned with the loss of their ability to control and regulate the behavior of their citizens than they are with their citizens' discontent.
How do we make that work for us? We can devise means, through the application and sophistication of science, to remind governments that if they will not be responsible stewards of our rights, we the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights.
You can see the beginnings of this dynamic today in the statements of government officials complaining about the adoption of encryption by major technology providers. The idea here isn't to fling ourselves into anarchy and do away with government, but to remind the government that there must always be a balance of power between the governing and the governed, and that as the progress of science increasingly empowers communities and individuals, there will be more and more areas of our lives where -- if government insists on behaving poorly and with a callous disregard for the citizen -- we can find ways to reduce or remove their powers on a new -- and permanent -- basis.
Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.
We haven't had to think about that much in the last few decades because quality of life has been increasing across almost all measures in a significant way, and that has led to a comfortable complacency. But here and there throughout history, we'll occasionally come across these periods where governments think more about what they "can" do rather than what they "should" do, and what is lawful will become increasingly distinct from what is moral.
In such times, we'd do well to remember that at the end of the day, the law doesn't defend us; we defend the law. And when it becomes contrary to our morals, we have both the right and the responsibility to rebalance it toward just ends.
Nick Gillespie
Via Mark Sletten comes this thread from yesterday's Ask Me Anything session at Reddit that featured Edward Snowden, Oscar-winning documentarian Laura Poitras, and journalist Glenn Greenwald.
The question posed to Snowden:
What's the best way to make NSA spying an issue in the 2016 Presidential Election? It seems like while it was a big deal in 2013, ISIS and other events have put it on the back burner for now in the media and general public. What are your ideas for how to bring it back to the forefront?
His answer is well worth reading in full (I've posted it after the jump), but its essence is a full-throated defense of classical liberal and libertarian theorizing not just about the consent of the governed but the right to work around the government when it focuses on social order over legitimacy. And, as important, a recognition that this is what we at Reason and others call "the Libertarian Moment," or a technologically empowered drive toward greater and greater control over more and more aspects of our lives. While the Libertarian Moment is enabled by technological innovations and generally increasing levels of wealth and education, it's ultimately proceeds from a mind-set as much as anything else: We have the right to live peacefully any way we choose as long as we are not infringing on other people's rights to do the same. Our politics and our laws should reflect this emphasis on pluralism, tolerance, and persuasion (as opposed to coercion) across social, economic, and intellectual spheres of activity.
As Snowden emphasizes, it's not simply that governments (thankfully) fail at attempts for perfect surveillance and law enforcement. It's that technologically empowered people are actively worked to route around government attempts to fence us in. "We the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights," he writes (emphasis in original). "we can find ways to reduce or remove their powers on a new—and permanent—basis."
Reading throught the Reddit exchange, it's easy to see why Snowden recently brought the 1,000-plus attendees of the International Students for Liberty Conference to their feet multiple times. He isn's some kind of pie-eyed nihilist, hell-bent on destroying the red, white, and blue for personal fame or out of ideological fervor. At 31 years old, he is an exceptionally well-spoken, thoughtful critic of the abuse of power that has become endemic to modern American governance. At the ISFLC, he said his one regret is that he didn't expose systemic infringement on citizens' constitutional rights sooner than he did.
If people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our agency in determing thour futures.
How does this relate to politics? Well, I suspect that governments today are more concerned with the loss of their ability to control and regulate the behavior of their citizens than they are with their citizens' discontent.
How do we make that work for us? We can devise means, through the application and sophistication of science, to remind governments that if they will not be responsible stewards of our rights, we the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights.
You can see the beginnings of this dynamic today in the statements of government officials complaining about the adoption of encryption by major technology providers. The idea here isn't to fling ourselves into anarchy and do away with government, but to remind the government that there must always be a balance of power between the governing and the governed, and that as the progress of science increasingly empowers communities and individuals, there will be more and more areas of our lives where—if government insists on behaving poorly and with a callous disregard for the citizen—we can find ways to reduce or remove their powers on a new—and permanent—basis.
Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.
Emphasis in original.
Snowden ends by noting that "when [the law] becomes contrary to our morals, we have both the right and the responsibility to rebalance it toward just ends."
Here's his full answer:
This is a good question, and there are some good traditional answers here. Organizing is important. Activism is important.
At the same time, we should remember that governments don't often reform themselves. One of the arguments in a book I read recently (Bruce Schneier, "Data and Goliath"), is that perfect enforcement of the law sounds like a good thing, but that may not always be the case. The end of crime sounds pretty compelling, right, so how can that be?
Well, when we look back on history, the progress of Western civilization and human rights is actually founded on the violation of law. America was of course born out of a violent revolution that was an outrageous treason against the crown and established order of the day. History shows that the righting of historical wrongs is often born from acts of unrepentant criminality. Slavery. The protection of persecuted Jews.
But even on less extremist topics, we can find similar examples. How about the prohibition of alcohol? Gay marriage? Marijuana?
Where would we be today if the government, enjoying powers of perfect surveillance and enforcement, had -- entirely within the law -- rounded up, imprisoned, and shamed all of these lawbreakers?
Ultimately, if people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our agency in determing thour futures.
How does this relate to politics? Well, I suspect that governments today are more concerned with the loss of their ability to control and regulate the behavior of their citizens than they are with their citizens' discontent.
How do we make that work for us? We can devise means, through the application and sophistication of science, to remind governments that if they will not be responsible stewards of our rights, we the people will implement systems that provide for a means of not just enforcing our rights, but removing from governments the ability to interfere with those rights.
You can see the beginnings of this dynamic today in the statements of government officials complaining about the adoption of encryption by major technology providers. The idea here isn't to fling ourselves into anarchy and do away with government, but to remind the government that there must always be a balance of power between the governing and the governed, and that as the progress of science increasingly empowers communities and individuals, there will be more and more areas of our lives where -- if government insists on behaving poorly and with a callous disregard for the citizen -- we can find ways to reduce or remove their powers on a new -- and permanent -- basis.
Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.
We haven't had to think about that much in the last few decades because quality of life has been increasing across almost all measures in a significant way, and that has led to a comfortable complacency. But here and there throughout history, we'll occasionally come across these periods where governments think more about what they "can" do rather than what they "should" do, and what is lawful will become increasingly distinct from what is moral.
In such times, we'd do well to remember that at the end of the day, the law doesn't defend us; we defend the law. And when it becomes contrary to our morals, we have both the right and the responsibility to rebalance it toward just ends.
Cognitive dissonance...
The News: mind control through “cognitive dissonance”
by Jon Rappoport
“When professionals broadcast one absurdity after another, they begin to see the effects are actually strengthening their own position of authority. It’s a revelation. It’s also a continuation of the tradition of the Trickster archetype. For example, with just a few minor adjustments, Brian Williams can be seen as the sly Reynard the Fox…”(The Underground, Jon Rappoport)
From the viewpoint of elite television news, controlling the minds of its audience depends on what’s politely called “cognitive dissonance”:
As the anchor recites a news story, the viewer sees an obvious hole through which he could drive a truck.
The story makes no sense, yet it’s being presented as bland fact. The trusted anchor clearly has no problem with it.
What’s the viewer to do? He experiences a contradiction, a “dissonance.”
For example, this year’s flu vaccine. The US government has admitted the vaccine is geared to a flu virus that isn’t circulating in the population. Therefore, even by conventional standards, the vaccine is useless. But the kicker is, the CDC says people should take the vaccine anyway.
The anchor relays all this information—and never seriously questions the situation, never torpedoes the government for recommending the vaccine.
The average viewer feels a tug, a pulse of discomfort, a push-pull. The vaccine story is idiocy (side one), but the trusted anchor accepts it (side two).
Dissonance.
The top chiefs of news—and top propaganda operatives—anticipate cognitive dissonance. In a real sense, they want it to happen. They make it happen. Over and over.
Why?
Because it throws the viewer into a tailspin. And in that mental state, in his effort to resolve the contradiction, he will normally choose to…give in. Surrender. Believe in the anchor. It’s the easier path.
The viewer will even doubt his own perception. “I see no good reason for Building 7 to collapse, but the news doesn’t bring that up, so…it must be me.”
This is the power of the news. It presents absurdities and then moves right along, as if nothing has happened.
For the viewer, it’s the equivalent of: “Don’t you see that pile-up of smashed cars on the freeway, and the smoke? No? Oh well, it must be me. I guess I was wrong. There isn’t any pile-up.”
The introduction of contradiction, dissonance, and absurdity parading as ordinary reality is an intentional feature of brainwashing.
On the nightly news, the anchor reports that US government debt has risen by another three trillion dollars. He then cuts to a statement from a Federal Reserve spokesman: the new debt level isn’t a problem; in fact, it’s sound monetary policy; it strengthens the economy.
The viewer, caught up in this absurdity, tries to make sense of it, then gives up and passively accepts it. Brainwashing.
Smoothly transitioning from this story, the anchor relays information from the CDC: vaccination rates must achieve 90% in the population, in order to protect people from dangerous viruses. The viewer thinks, “Well, my daughter is already vaccinated, so if she comes into contact with a child who isn’t vaccinated, why would that be a problem for her? Why does 90% of the population have to be vaccinated to keep her safe? She’s already vaccinated.”
The viewer wrestles with this absurdity for a moment, then gives in and accepts what the CDC and the anchor are saying. More passivity. More brainwashing.
The anchor moves right along to the next story: “The US is experiencing one of the coldest winters in history, further evidence of the effects of global warming, according to scientists at the United Nations.”
The viewer shakes his head, tries to deal with this dissonance, surrenders, and accepts what he is hearing. Deeper passivity is the result. Deeper brainwashing.
On and on it goes, day after day, month after month, year after year, on the news.
Contradiction, absurdity, dissonance; acceptance, surrender, passivity.
The same general formula is used in interrogations and formal mind control. It adds up to disorientation of the target.
Most disoriented people opt for the lowest- common-denominator solution: give in; accept the power of the person of authority.
When it comes to the news, that person is the anchor, the narrator, the presenter of reality.
He sows the ground with seeds of dissonance. That is how he gains compliance from the viewer.
Link:
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/the-news-mind-control-through-cognitive-dissonance/
by Jon Rappoport
“When professionals broadcast one absurdity after another, they begin to see the effects are actually strengthening their own position of authority. It’s a revelation. It’s also a continuation of the tradition of the Trickster archetype. For example, with just a few minor adjustments, Brian Williams can be seen as the sly Reynard the Fox…”(The Underground, Jon Rappoport)
From the viewpoint of elite television news, controlling the minds of its audience depends on what’s politely called “cognitive dissonance”:
As the anchor recites a news story, the viewer sees an obvious hole through which he could drive a truck.
The story makes no sense, yet it’s being presented as bland fact. The trusted anchor clearly has no problem with it.
What’s the viewer to do? He experiences a contradiction, a “dissonance.”
For example, this year’s flu vaccine. The US government has admitted the vaccine is geared to a flu virus that isn’t circulating in the population. Therefore, even by conventional standards, the vaccine is useless. But the kicker is, the CDC says people should take the vaccine anyway.
The anchor relays all this information—and never seriously questions the situation, never torpedoes the government for recommending the vaccine.
The average viewer feels a tug, a pulse of discomfort, a push-pull. The vaccine story is idiocy (side one), but the trusted anchor accepts it (side two).
Dissonance.
The top chiefs of news—and top propaganda operatives—anticipate cognitive dissonance. In a real sense, they want it to happen. They make it happen. Over and over.
Why?
Because it throws the viewer into a tailspin. And in that mental state, in his effort to resolve the contradiction, he will normally choose to…give in. Surrender. Believe in the anchor. It’s the easier path.
The viewer will even doubt his own perception. “I see no good reason for Building 7 to collapse, but the news doesn’t bring that up, so…it must be me.”
This is the power of the news. It presents absurdities and then moves right along, as if nothing has happened.
For the viewer, it’s the equivalent of: “Don’t you see that pile-up of smashed cars on the freeway, and the smoke? No? Oh well, it must be me. I guess I was wrong. There isn’t any pile-up.”
The introduction of contradiction, dissonance, and absurdity parading as ordinary reality is an intentional feature of brainwashing.
On the nightly news, the anchor reports that US government debt has risen by another three trillion dollars. He then cuts to a statement from a Federal Reserve spokesman: the new debt level isn’t a problem; in fact, it’s sound monetary policy; it strengthens the economy.
The viewer, caught up in this absurdity, tries to make sense of it, then gives up and passively accepts it. Brainwashing.
Smoothly transitioning from this story, the anchor relays information from the CDC: vaccination rates must achieve 90% in the population, in order to protect people from dangerous viruses. The viewer thinks, “Well, my daughter is already vaccinated, so if she comes into contact with a child who isn’t vaccinated, why would that be a problem for her? Why does 90% of the population have to be vaccinated to keep her safe? She’s already vaccinated.”
The viewer wrestles with this absurdity for a moment, then gives in and accepts what the CDC and the anchor are saying. More passivity. More brainwashing.
The anchor moves right along to the next story: “The US is experiencing one of the coldest winters in history, further evidence of the effects of global warming, according to scientists at the United Nations.”
The viewer shakes his head, tries to deal with this dissonance, surrenders, and accepts what he is hearing. Deeper passivity is the result. Deeper brainwashing.
On and on it goes, day after day, month after month, year after year, on the news.
Contradiction, absurdity, dissonance; acceptance, surrender, passivity.
The same general formula is used in interrogations and formal mind control. It adds up to disorientation of the target.
Most disoriented people opt for the lowest- common-denominator solution: give in; accept the power of the person of authority.
When it comes to the news, that person is the anchor, the narrator, the presenter of reality.
He sows the ground with seeds of dissonance. That is how he gains compliance from the viewer.
Link:
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/the-news-mind-control-through-cognitive-dissonance/
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
And you thought slavery ended in 1865...
Most Americans Are Slaves And They Don’t Even Know It
By Michael Snyder
Most Americans spend their lives working for others, paying off debts to others and performing tasks that others tell them that they “must” do. These days, we don’t like to think of ourselves as “servants” or “slaves”, but that is what the vast majority of us are. It is just that the mechanisms of our enslavement have become much more sophisticated over time. It has been said that the borrower is the servant of the lender, and most of us start going into debt very early into our adult years. In fact, those that go to college to “get an education” are likely to enter the “real world” with a staggering amount of debt. And of course that is just the beginning of the debt accumulation. Today, when you add up all mortgage debt, all credit card debt and all student loan debt, the average American household is carrying a grand total of 203,163 dollars of debt. Overall, American households are more than 11 trillion dollars in debt at this point. And even though most Americans don’t realize this, over the course of our lifetimes the amount of money that we will repay on our debts is far greater than the amount that we originally borrowed. In fact, when it comes to credit card debt you can easily end up repaying several times the amount of money that you originally borrowed. So we work our fingers to the bone to pay off these debts, and the vast majority of us are not even working for ourselves. Instead, our work makes the businesses that other people own more profitable. So if we spend the best years of our lives building businesses for others, servicing debts that we owe to others and making others wealthier, what does that make us?
In 2015, the words “servant” and “slave” have very negative connotations, and we typically don’t use them very much.
Instead, we use words like “employee” because they make us feel so much better.
But is there really that much of a difference?
This is how Google defines “servant”…
“a person who performs duties for others, especially a person employed in a house on domestic duties or as a personal attendant.”
This is how Google defines “slave”…
“a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.”
This is how Google defines “employee”…
“a person employed for wages or salary, especially at nonexecutive level.”
Yes, most of us might not be “legal property” of someone else in a very narrow sense, but in a broader sense we all have to answer to someone.
We all have someone that we must obey.
And we all have obligations that we must meet or else face the consequences.
At this point, Americans are more dependent on the system than ever before. Small business ownership in the U.S. is at a record low, and the percentage of Americans that are self-employed has fallen to unprecedented levels in recent years. From a very early age, we are trained to study hard so that we can get a good “job” (“just over broke”) and be good cogs in the system.
But is that what life is about?
Is it about being a cog in a system that ultimately benefits others?
Perhaps you don’t think that any of this applies to you personally.
Well, if someone came up to you and asked you what you truly own, what would you say?
Do you own your vehicle?
Most Americans don’t.
In fact, today the average auto loan at signing is approximately $27,000, and many of them stretch on for six or seven years.
What about your home?
Do you own it?
Most Americans don’t.
In fact, overall the banks have a much greater “ownership” interest in our homes and our land than we do.
But even if you have your home totally “paid off”, does that mean that you actually “own” it?
Well, no, not really.
Just see what happens if you quit paying your property taxes (rent) to the proper authorities.
So if they can take your home away from you for not paying rent (property taxes), do you really own it?
That is something to think about it.
What about all of your stuff?
Do you own it?
Perhaps.
But a very large percentage of us have willingly enslaved ourselves in order to acquire all of that stuff.
Today, the typical U.S. household that has at least one credit card has approximately $15,950 in credit card debt.
And if you do not pay off those credit card balances, the credit card companies will unleash the hounds on you.
Have you ever had an encounter with a debt collector?
They can be absolutely brutal. And they use those tactics because they work. In fact, they are so good at what they do that many of those that own debt collection companies have become exceedingly wealthy. The following is from a recent CNN article…
Yachts. Mansions. Extravagant dinner parties. Life is good for the founders of one of the nation’s biggest government debt collectors.
That firm, Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, rakes in big money from government contracts that allow it to pursue debtors over toll violations, taxes and parking tickets. While the debts often start small, the Austin-based firm charges high fees, which can add hundreds or even thousands of dollars to the bill.
After growing this business from a small Texas law firm in the late 1970’s to a nationwide debt collection powerhouse, the firm’s founders and top brass have walked away with millions of dollars.
And I haven’t even mentioned our collective debts yet.
We have willingly chosen to collectively enslave ourselves on a local, a state and a national level.
It is bad enough that we are doing this to ourselves. But we are also cruelly saddling future generations of Americans with the largest mountain of debt in the history of the planet. The following is from my previous article entitled “Barack Obama Says That What America Really Needs Is Lots More Debt“…
When Barack Obama took the oath of office, the U.S. national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars. Today, it has surpassed the 18 trillion dollar mark. And even though we are being told that “deficits are going down”, the truth is that the U.S. national debt increased by more than a trillion dollars in fiscal 2014. But that isn’t good enough for Obama. He says that we need to come out of this period of “mindless austerity” and steal money from our children and our grandchildren even faster. In addition, Obama wants to raise taxes again. His budget calls for 2 trillion dollars in tax increases over the next decade. He always touts these tax increases as “tax hikes on the rich”, but somehow they almost always seem to end up hitting the middle class too. But whether or not Congress ever adopts Obama’s new budget is not really the issue. The reality of the matter is that the “tax and spend Democrats” and the “tax and spend Republicans” are both responsible for getting us into this mess. Future generations of Americans are already facing the largest mountain of debt in the history of the planet, and both parties want to make this mountain of debt even higher. The only disagreement is about how fast it should happen. It is a national disgrace, but most Americans have come to accept this as “normal”. If our children and our grandchildren get the opportunity, they will curse us for what we have done to them.
So can we really call ourselves the “home of the brave and the land of the free”?
Isn’t the truth that the vast majority of us are actually deeply enslaved?
Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/americans-slaves-dont-even-know
By Michael Snyder
Most Americans spend their lives working for others, paying off debts to others and performing tasks that others tell them that they “must” do. These days, we don’t like to think of ourselves as “servants” or “slaves”, but that is what the vast majority of us are. It is just that the mechanisms of our enslavement have become much more sophisticated over time. It has been said that the borrower is the servant of the lender, and most of us start going into debt very early into our adult years. In fact, those that go to college to “get an education” are likely to enter the “real world” with a staggering amount of debt. And of course that is just the beginning of the debt accumulation. Today, when you add up all mortgage debt, all credit card debt and all student loan debt, the average American household is carrying a grand total of 203,163 dollars of debt. Overall, American households are more than 11 trillion dollars in debt at this point. And even though most Americans don’t realize this, over the course of our lifetimes the amount of money that we will repay on our debts is far greater than the amount that we originally borrowed. In fact, when it comes to credit card debt you can easily end up repaying several times the amount of money that you originally borrowed. So we work our fingers to the bone to pay off these debts, and the vast majority of us are not even working for ourselves. Instead, our work makes the businesses that other people own more profitable. So if we spend the best years of our lives building businesses for others, servicing debts that we owe to others and making others wealthier, what does that make us?
In 2015, the words “servant” and “slave” have very negative connotations, and we typically don’t use them very much.
Instead, we use words like “employee” because they make us feel so much better.
But is there really that much of a difference?
This is how Google defines “servant”…
“a person who performs duties for others, especially a person employed in a house on domestic duties or as a personal attendant.”
This is how Google defines “slave”…
“a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.”
This is how Google defines “employee”…
“a person employed for wages or salary, especially at nonexecutive level.”
Yes, most of us might not be “legal property” of someone else in a very narrow sense, but in a broader sense we all have to answer to someone.
We all have someone that we must obey.
And we all have obligations that we must meet or else face the consequences.
At this point, Americans are more dependent on the system than ever before. Small business ownership in the U.S. is at a record low, and the percentage of Americans that are self-employed has fallen to unprecedented levels in recent years. From a very early age, we are trained to study hard so that we can get a good “job” (“just over broke”) and be good cogs in the system.
But is that what life is about?
Is it about being a cog in a system that ultimately benefits others?
Perhaps you don’t think that any of this applies to you personally.
Well, if someone came up to you and asked you what you truly own, what would you say?
Do you own your vehicle?
Most Americans don’t.
In fact, today the average auto loan at signing is approximately $27,000, and many of them stretch on for six or seven years.
What about your home?
Do you own it?
Most Americans don’t.
In fact, overall the banks have a much greater “ownership” interest in our homes and our land than we do.
But even if you have your home totally “paid off”, does that mean that you actually “own” it?
Well, no, not really.
Just see what happens if you quit paying your property taxes (rent) to the proper authorities.
So if they can take your home away from you for not paying rent (property taxes), do you really own it?
That is something to think about it.
What about all of your stuff?
Do you own it?
Perhaps.
But a very large percentage of us have willingly enslaved ourselves in order to acquire all of that stuff.
Today, the typical U.S. household that has at least one credit card has approximately $15,950 in credit card debt.
And if you do not pay off those credit card balances, the credit card companies will unleash the hounds on you.
Have you ever had an encounter with a debt collector?
They can be absolutely brutal. And they use those tactics because they work. In fact, they are so good at what they do that many of those that own debt collection companies have become exceedingly wealthy. The following is from a recent CNN article…
Yachts. Mansions. Extravagant dinner parties. Life is good for the founders of one of the nation’s biggest government debt collectors.
That firm, Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson, rakes in big money from government contracts that allow it to pursue debtors over toll violations, taxes and parking tickets. While the debts often start small, the Austin-based firm charges high fees, which can add hundreds or even thousands of dollars to the bill.
After growing this business from a small Texas law firm in the late 1970’s to a nationwide debt collection powerhouse, the firm’s founders and top brass have walked away with millions of dollars.
And I haven’t even mentioned our collective debts yet.
We have willingly chosen to collectively enslave ourselves on a local, a state and a national level.
It is bad enough that we are doing this to ourselves. But we are also cruelly saddling future generations of Americans with the largest mountain of debt in the history of the planet. The following is from my previous article entitled “Barack Obama Says That What America Really Needs Is Lots More Debt“…
When Barack Obama took the oath of office, the U.S. national debt was 10.6 trillion dollars. Today, it has surpassed the 18 trillion dollar mark. And even though we are being told that “deficits are going down”, the truth is that the U.S. national debt increased by more than a trillion dollars in fiscal 2014. But that isn’t good enough for Obama. He says that we need to come out of this period of “mindless austerity” and steal money from our children and our grandchildren even faster. In addition, Obama wants to raise taxes again. His budget calls for 2 trillion dollars in tax increases over the next decade. He always touts these tax increases as “tax hikes on the rich”, but somehow they almost always seem to end up hitting the middle class too. But whether or not Congress ever adopts Obama’s new budget is not really the issue. The reality of the matter is that the “tax and spend Democrats” and the “tax and spend Republicans” are both responsible for getting us into this mess. Future generations of Americans are already facing the largest mountain of debt in the history of the planet, and both parties want to make this mountain of debt even higher. The only disagreement is about how fast it should happen. It is a national disgrace, but most Americans have come to accept this as “normal”. If our children and our grandchildren get the opportunity, they will curse us for what we have done to them.
So can we really call ourselves the “home of the brave and the land of the free”?
Isn’t the truth that the vast majority of us are actually deeply enslaved?
Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/americans-slaves-dont-even-know
"Globalism, like neoliberal economics, is an instrument of economic imperialism. Labor is exploited, while peoples, cultures, and environments are destroyed. Yet the propaganda is so powerful that people partake of their own destruction."
Whatever Became of Economists
and the American economy
Paul Craig Roberts
According to the official economic fairy tale, the US economy has been in recovery since June 2009.
This fairy tale supports America’s image as the safe haven, an image that keeps the dollar up, the stock market up, and interest rates down. It is an image that causes the massive numbers of unemployed Americans to blame themselves and not the mishandled economy.
This fairy tale survives despite the fact that there is no economic information whatsoever that supports it.
Real median household income has not grown for years and is below the levels of the early 1970s.
There has been no growth in real retail sales for six years.
How does an economy dependent on consumer demand grow when real consumer incomes and real retail sales do not grow?
Not from business investment. Why invest when there is no sales growth? Industrial production, properly deflated, remains well below the pre-recession level.
Not from construction. The real value of total construction put in place declined sharply from 2006 through 2011 and has bounced around the 2011 bottom for the past three years.
How does an economy grow when the labor force is shrinking? The labor force participation rate has declined since 2007 as has the civilian employment to population ratio.
How can there be a recovery when nothing has recovered?
Do economists believe that the entire corpus of macroeconomics taught since the 1940s is simply incorrect? If not, how can economists possibly support the recovery fairy tale?
We see the same absence of economics in the policy response to the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. First of all, the only reason that there is a crisis is because instead of writing off that part of the debt that cannot be paid, as in the past, so that the rest of the debt could be paid, creditors have demanded the impossible–that all the debt be paid.
In an attempt to achieve the impossible, heavily indebted countries, such as Greece, have been forced to reduce old age pensions, fire government employees, reduce social services such as health care and education, reduce wages, and sell-off public property such as ports, municipal water companies, and the state lottery. These austerity packages deprive the government of revenues and the population of spending power. Consequently, consumption, investment, and government spending all fall, and the economy sinks lower. As the economy sinks, the existing debt becomes a larger percentage of the GDP and becomes even more unserviceable.
Economists have known this ever since John Maynard Keynes taught it to them in the 1930s. Yet there is no sign of this foundational economics in the policy approach to the sovereign debt crisis.
Economists it appears have simply vanished from the earth. Or, if some are still present, they have lost their voices and do not speak.
Consider “globalism.” Every country has been convinced that globalism is imperative and that not to be part of the “global economy” means economic death. In fact, to be part of the global economy means death.
Understand the economic destruction that globalism has wreaked on the United States. Millions of middle class factory jobs and professional skill jobs such as software engineering and Information Technology have been taken away from the American middle class and given to people in Asia. In the short-run this drops labor costs and benefits the profits of the US corporations that offshore the jobs, but the consequence is to destroy the domestic consumer market as jobs that permit the formation of households are replaced with lowly paid part-time jobs that do not.
If households cannot form, the demand for housing, home appliances and furnishings declines. College graduates return home to live with their parents.
Part-time jobs hurt the ability to save. People are only able to purchase cars because they can get 100 percent financing, and more in order to pay off an existing car loan that exceeds the vehicle’s trade-in value, in a six-year loan. These loans are possible, because those who make the loans sell them. The loans are then securitized and sold as investments to those desperate for yield in a zero interest rate world. Derivatives are spun off these “investments,” and a new bubble is put in place.
When manufacturing jobs are offshored, the US plants are closed, and the tax base of state and local governments declines. When the governments have trouble servicing their accumulated debt, the tendency is not to meet their pension obligations. This reduces retiree incomes, incomes already reduced by zero or negative interest rates.
This unraveling of consumer demand, the basis for our economy, was entirely obvious at the very beginning. Yet junk economists or hired corporate mouthpieces promised Americans a “New Economy” that would provide them with better, higher paying, cleaner jobs to take the place of the jobs moved abroad. As I have pointed out for more than a decade, there is no sign of these jobs anywhere in the economy.
Why did economists make no protest as the US economy was shipped abroad and deep-sixed at home?
Globalism also devastates “emerging economies.” Self-sufficient agricultural communities are destroyed by the introduction of large-scale monoculture agriculture. The uprooted peoples relocate to cities where they become a drain on social services and a source of political instability.
Globalism, like neoliberal economics, is an instrument of economic imperialism. Labor is exploited, while peoples, cultures, and environments are destroyed. Yet the propaganda is so powerful that people partake of their own destruction.
Link:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/02/23/whatever-became-economists-american-economy-paul-craig-roberts/
and the American economy
Paul Craig Roberts
According to the official economic fairy tale, the US economy has been in recovery since June 2009.
This fairy tale supports America’s image as the safe haven, an image that keeps the dollar up, the stock market up, and interest rates down. It is an image that causes the massive numbers of unemployed Americans to blame themselves and not the mishandled economy.
This fairy tale survives despite the fact that there is no economic information whatsoever that supports it.
Real median household income has not grown for years and is below the levels of the early 1970s.
There has been no growth in real retail sales for six years.
How does an economy dependent on consumer demand grow when real consumer incomes and real retail sales do not grow?
Not from business investment. Why invest when there is no sales growth? Industrial production, properly deflated, remains well below the pre-recession level.
Not from construction. The real value of total construction put in place declined sharply from 2006 through 2011 and has bounced around the 2011 bottom for the past three years.
How does an economy grow when the labor force is shrinking? The labor force participation rate has declined since 2007 as has the civilian employment to population ratio.
How can there be a recovery when nothing has recovered?
Do economists believe that the entire corpus of macroeconomics taught since the 1940s is simply incorrect? If not, how can economists possibly support the recovery fairy tale?
We see the same absence of economics in the policy response to the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. First of all, the only reason that there is a crisis is because instead of writing off that part of the debt that cannot be paid, as in the past, so that the rest of the debt could be paid, creditors have demanded the impossible–that all the debt be paid.
In an attempt to achieve the impossible, heavily indebted countries, such as Greece, have been forced to reduce old age pensions, fire government employees, reduce social services such as health care and education, reduce wages, and sell-off public property such as ports, municipal water companies, and the state lottery. These austerity packages deprive the government of revenues and the population of spending power. Consequently, consumption, investment, and government spending all fall, and the economy sinks lower. As the economy sinks, the existing debt becomes a larger percentage of the GDP and becomes even more unserviceable.
Economists have known this ever since John Maynard Keynes taught it to them in the 1930s. Yet there is no sign of this foundational economics in the policy approach to the sovereign debt crisis.
Economists it appears have simply vanished from the earth. Or, if some are still present, they have lost their voices and do not speak.
Consider “globalism.” Every country has been convinced that globalism is imperative and that not to be part of the “global economy” means economic death. In fact, to be part of the global economy means death.
Understand the economic destruction that globalism has wreaked on the United States. Millions of middle class factory jobs and professional skill jobs such as software engineering and Information Technology have been taken away from the American middle class and given to people in Asia. In the short-run this drops labor costs and benefits the profits of the US corporations that offshore the jobs, but the consequence is to destroy the domestic consumer market as jobs that permit the formation of households are replaced with lowly paid part-time jobs that do not.
If households cannot form, the demand for housing, home appliances and furnishings declines. College graduates return home to live with their parents.
Part-time jobs hurt the ability to save. People are only able to purchase cars because they can get 100 percent financing, and more in order to pay off an existing car loan that exceeds the vehicle’s trade-in value, in a six-year loan. These loans are possible, because those who make the loans sell them. The loans are then securitized and sold as investments to those desperate for yield in a zero interest rate world. Derivatives are spun off these “investments,” and a new bubble is put in place.
When manufacturing jobs are offshored, the US plants are closed, and the tax base of state and local governments declines. When the governments have trouble servicing their accumulated debt, the tendency is not to meet their pension obligations. This reduces retiree incomes, incomes already reduced by zero or negative interest rates.
This unraveling of consumer demand, the basis for our economy, was entirely obvious at the very beginning. Yet junk economists or hired corporate mouthpieces promised Americans a “New Economy” that would provide them with better, higher paying, cleaner jobs to take the place of the jobs moved abroad. As I have pointed out for more than a decade, there is no sign of these jobs anywhere in the economy.
Why did economists make no protest as the US economy was shipped abroad and deep-sixed at home?
Globalism also devastates “emerging economies.” Self-sufficient agricultural communities are destroyed by the introduction of large-scale monoculture agriculture. The uprooted peoples relocate to cities where they become a drain on social services and a source of political instability.
Globalism, like neoliberal economics, is an instrument of economic imperialism. Labor is exploited, while peoples, cultures, and environments are destroyed. Yet the propaganda is so powerful that people partake of their own destruction.
Link:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/02/23/whatever-became-economists-american-economy-paul-craig-roberts/
What economic crisis???
14 Signs That Most Americans Are Flat Broke And Totally Unprepared For The Coming Economic Crisis
By Michael Snyder
When the coming economic crisis strikes, more than half the country is going to be financially wiped out within weeks. At this point, more than 60 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and a whopping 24 percent of the country has more credit card debt than emergency savings. One of the primary principles that any of these “financial experts” that you see on television will teach you is to have a cushion to fall back on. At the very least, you never know when unexpected expenses like major car repairs or medical bills will come along. And in the event of a major economic collapse, if you do not have any financial cushion at all you will be a sitting duck. Yes, I know that there are millions upon millions of families out there that are just trying to scrape by from month to month at this point. I hear from people that are deeply struggling in this economy all the time. So I don’t blame them for not being able to save lots of money. But if you are in a position to build up an emergency fund, you need to do so. We have been experiencing an extended period of relative economic stability, but it will not last. In fact, the time for getting prepared for the next great economic downturn is rapidly running out, and most Americans are not ready for it at all. The following are 14 signs that most Americans are flat broke and totally unprepared for the coming economic crisis…
#1 According to a survey that was just released, 24 percent of all Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings.
#2 That same survey discovered that an additional 13 percent of all Americans do not have any credit card debt, but they do not have a single penny of emergency savings either.
#3 At this point, approximately 62 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
#4 Adults under the age of 35 in the United States currently have a savings rate of negative 2 percent.
#5 More than half of all students in U.S. public schools come from families that are poor enough to qualify for school lunch subsidies.
#6 A study that was conducted last year found that more than one out of every three adults in the United States has an unpaid debt that is “in collections“.
#7 One survey discovered that 52 percent of all Americans really cannot even financially afford the homes that they are living in right now.
#8 According to research conducted by Atif Mian of Princeton University and Amir Sufi of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 40 percent of Americans could not come up with $2000 right now without borrowing it.
#9 That same study found that 60 percent of Americans could not say yes to the following question…
“Do you have 3 months emergency funds to cover expenses in case of sickness, job loss, economic downturn?”
#10 A different study discovered that less than one out of every four Americans has enough money stored away to cover six months of expenses.
#11 Today, the average American household is carrying a grand total of 203,163 dollars of debt.
#12 It is estimated that less than 10 percent of the entire U.S. population owns any gold or silver for investment purposes.
#13 48 percent of all Americans do not have any emergency supplies in their homes whatsoever.
#14 53 percent of all Americans do not even have a minimum three day supply of nonperishable food and water in their homes.
Perhaps none of this concerns you.
Perhaps you think that this bubble economy can persist indefinitely.
Well, if you won’t listen to the more than 1200 articles that set out the case for the coming economic collapse on my website, perhaps you will listen to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. The following is what he recently told one interviewer…
We asked him where he thought the gold price will be in five years and he said “measurably higher.”
In private conversation I asked him about the outstanding debts… and that the debt load in the U.S. had gotten so great that there has to be some monetary depreciation. Specially he said that the era of quantitative easing and zero-interest rate policies by the Fed… we really cannot exit this without some significant market event… By that I interpret it being either a stock market crash or a prolonged recession, which would then engender another round of monetary reflation by the Fed.
He thinks something big is going to happen that we can’t get out of this era of money printing without some repercussions – and pretty severe ones – that gold will benefit from.
And as I have stressed so frequently, the signs that the next crisis is almost here are all around us.
For example, the Baltic Dry Index has just plunged to a fresh record low, and things have already gotten so bad that some global shippers are now filing for bankruptcy…
The unintended consequences of a money-printed, credit-fueled, mal-investment-boom in commodities (prices – as opposed to physical demand per se) and the downstream signals that sent to any and all industries are starting to bite. The Baltic Dry Index has plunged once again to new record lows and the collapse of the non-financialized ‘clean’ indicator of the imbalances between global trade demand and freight transport supply has the real-world effects are starting to be felt, as Reuters reports the third dry-bulk shipper this month has filed for bankruptcy… in what shippers call “the worst market conditions since the ’80s.”
Perhaps you do see things coming.
Perhaps you do want to get prepared.
If you are new to all of this, and you don’t quite know how to get started preparing, please see my previous article entitled “89 Tips That Will Help You Prepare For The Coming Economic Depression“. It will give you some basic tips that you can start implementing right away.
And of course one of the most important things is something that I talked about at the top of this article.
If at all possible, you have got to have an emergency fund. When the coming economic storm strikes, your family is going to need something to fall back on.
If you are trusting in the government to save you when things fall apart, you will be severely disappointed.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/14-signs-americans-flat-broke-totally-unprepared-coming-economic-crisis
By Michael Snyder
When the coming economic crisis strikes, more than half the country is going to be financially wiped out within weeks. At this point, more than 60 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and a whopping 24 percent of the country has more credit card debt than emergency savings. One of the primary principles that any of these “financial experts” that you see on television will teach you is to have a cushion to fall back on. At the very least, you never know when unexpected expenses like major car repairs or medical bills will come along. And in the event of a major economic collapse, if you do not have any financial cushion at all you will be a sitting duck. Yes, I know that there are millions upon millions of families out there that are just trying to scrape by from month to month at this point. I hear from people that are deeply struggling in this economy all the time. So I don’t blame them for not being able to save lots of money. But if you are in a position to build up an emergency fund, you need to do so. We have been experiencing an extended period of relative economic stability, but it will not last. In fact, the time for getting prepared for the next great economic downturn is rapidly running out, and most Americans are not ready for it at all. The following are 14 signs that most Americans are flat broke and totally unprepared for the coming economic crisis…
#1 According to a survey that was just released, 24 percent of all Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings.
#2 That same survey discovered that an additional 13 percent of all Americans do not have any credit card debt, but they do not have a single penny of emergency savings either.
#3 At this point, approximately 62 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.
#4 Adults under the age of 35 in the United States currently have a savings rate of negative 2 percent.
#5 More than half of all students in U.S. public schools come from families that are poor enough to qualify for school lunch subsidies.
#6 A study that was conducted last year found that more than one out of every three adults in the United States has an unpaid debt that is “in collections“.
#7 One survey discovered that 52 percent of all Americans really cannot even financially afford the homes that they are living in right now.
#8 According to research conducted by Atif Mian of Princeton University and Amir Sufi of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 40 percent of Americans could not come up with $2000 right now without borrowing it.
#9 That same study found that 60 percent of Americans could not say yes to the following question…
“Do you have 3 months emergency funds to cover expenses in case of sickness, job loss, economic downturn?”
#10 A different study discovered that less than one out of every four Americans has enough money stored away to cover six months of expenses.
#11 Today, the average American household is carrying a grand total of 203,163 dollars of debt.
#12 It is estimated that less than 10 percent of the entire U.S. population owns any gold or silver for investment purposes.
#13 48 percent of all Americans do not have any emergency supplies in their homes whatsoever.
#14 53 percent of all Americans do not even have a minimum three day supply of nonperishable food and water in their homes.
Perhaps none of this concerns you.
Perhaps you think that this bubble economy can persist indefinitely.
Well, if you won’t listen to the more than 1200 articles that set out the case for the coming economic collapse on my website, perhaps you will listen to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. The following is what he recently told one interviewer…
We asked him where he thought the gold price will be in five years and he said “measurably higher.”
In private conversation I asked him about the outstanding debts… and that the debt load in the U.S. had gotten so great that there has to be some monetary depreciation. Specially he said that the era of quantitative easing and zero-interest rate policies by the Fed… we really cannot exit this without some significant market event… By that I interpret it being either a stock market crash or a prolonged recession, which would then engender another round of monetary reflation by the Fed.
He thinks something big is going to happen that we can’t get out of this era of money printing without some repercussions – and pretty severe ones – that gold will benefit from.
And as I have stressed so frequently, the signs that the next crisis is almost here are all around us.
For example, the Baltic Dry Index has just plunged to a fresh record low, and things have already gotten so bad that some global shippers are now filing for bankruptcy…
The unintended consequences of a money-printed, credit-fueled, mal-investment-boom in commodities (prices – as opposed to physical demand per se) and the downstream signals that sent to any and all industries are starting to bite. The Baltic Dry Index has plunged once again to new record lows and the collapse of the non-financialized ‘clean’ indicator of the imbalances between global trade demand and freight transport supply has the real-world effects are starting to be felt, as Reuters reports the third dry-bulk shipper this month has filed for bankruptcy… in what shippers call “the worst market conditions since the ’80s.”
Perhaps you do see things coming.
Perhaps you do want to get prepared.
If you are new to all of this, and you don’t quite know how to get started preparing, please see my previous article entitled “89 Tips That Will Help You Prepare For The Coming Economic Depression“. It will give you some basic tips that you can start implementing right away.
And of course one of the most important things is something that I talked about at the top of this article.
If at all possible, you have got to have an emergency fund. When the coming economic storm strikes, your family is going to need something to fall back on.
If you are trusting in the government to save you when things fall apart, you will be severely disappointed.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/14-signs-americans-flat-broke-totally-unprepared-coming-economic-crisis
DHS scare tactics...
“Scare Tactics or Possible Threat?” Last Time Homeland Security Was Threatened with Budget Cuts, America Suffered a Terror Attack
Mac Slavo
Threat advisories have been circulated about a possible terror attack on the Mall of America in Minnesota.
And now the Somali-based al-Shabaab has announced plans to target shopping centers in the UK, Canada and the United States.
Is there something in the works? Who knows…
Secretary of the Deparment of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, has admitted that there actually is no specific threat concerning malls anywhere in the nation, but yet the fear has been sown.
Nevertheless, there may be a threat to America.
Before dispelling that threat, Johnson was actually playing it up:
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson urged mall visitors to be careful and said he was “very concerned” about the threat.
Johnson said on CNN:
“If anyone is planning to go to the Mall of America today, they’ve got to be particularly careful. And as the statement you read indicates, there will be enhanced security there that will be apparent… And it’s the environment we’re in, frankly. And it’s all the more reason why I need a budget.“
See more here:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/scare-tactics-or-possible-threat-last-time-homeland-security-was-threatened-with-budget-cuts-america-suffered-a-terror-attack_02232015
Mac Slavo
Threat advisories have been circulated about a possible terror attack on the Mall of America in Minnesota.
And now the Somali-based al-Shabaab has announced plans to target shopping centers in the UK, Canada and the United States.
Is there something in the works? Who knows…
Secretary of the Deparment of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, has admitted that there actually is no specific threat concerning malls anywhere in the nation, but yet the fear has been sown.
Nevertheless, there may be a threat to America.
Before dispelling that threat, Johnson was actually playing it up:
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson urged mall visitors to be careful and said he was “very concerned” about the threat.
Johnson said on CNN:
“If anyone is planning to go to the Mall of America today, they’ve got to be particularly careful. And as the statement you read indicates, there will be enhanced security there that will be apparent… And it’s the environment we’re in, frankly. And it’s all the more reason why I need a budget.“
See more here:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/scare-tactics-or-possible-threat-last-time-homeland-security-was-threatened-with-budget-cuts-america-suffered-a-terror-attack_02232015
Capitalist China??? Fascist America???
Are the Ruling Elites in China Now More Pro-Market than the Ruling Elites in the USA?
By Robert Higgs
The current issue of the Cato Policy Report (January/February 2015) contains a short article about a book by Zhang Weiying called The Logic of the Market: An Insider’s View of Chinese Economic Reform, which was originally published in Chinese (and said to be a best-seller in China in that form) and was recently translated into English. The author is the director of Peking University’s Center for Market and Network Economy and is described as a leader among pro-market economists in China, a description that accords well with the quotations given from his writings. In the article, a quotation from a recent Wall Street Journal interview with him states: “He [Zhang] says that when he recently wrote an article praising the late Austrian economist Murray Rothbard, the Communist Party secretary of Shanghai—a fairly high-level apparatchik—told him he liked it.”
I ask you: Has anyone high in the U.S. government ever praised any writing that lauds Rothbard’s views, not to mention Rothbard’s writings themselves? To me it is inconceivable that any such figure would do so. Moreover, is anyone in U.S. academia with a position comparable to Zhang’s position in Chinese academia likely to praise Rothbard’s views? To me it is inconceivable that any such figure would do so.
Once upon a time, the Chinese were the enemies of private property rights and free markets, and the Americans were the enemies of the Chinese and purported to cherish the institutions that the Chinese hated. Today no such clear-cut difference exists. If anything, today’s Chinese in high places seem to be more inclined to say kind words about private property rights and the free market than are comparably placed Americans. And when such Americans do speak favorably of these institutions, they do not really mean what they say, as their actions consistently attest.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/02/are-ruling-elites-in-china-now-more-pro.html
By Robert Higgs
The current issue of the Cato Policy Report (January/February 2015) contains a short article about a book by Zhang Weiying called The Logic of the Market: An Insider’s View of Chinese Economic Reform, which was originally published in Chinese (and said to be a best-seller in China in that form) and was recently translated into English. The author is the director of Peking University’s Center for Market and Network Economy and is described as a leader among pro-market economists in China, a description that accords well with the quotations given from his writings. In the article, a quotation from a recent Wall Street Journal interview with him states: “He [Zhang] says that when he recently wrote an article praising the late Austrian economist Murray Rothbard, the Communist Party secretary of Shanghai—a fairly high-level apparatchik—told him he liked it.”
I ask you: Has anyone high in the U.S. government ever praised any writing that lauds Rothbard’s views, not to mention Rothbard’s writings themselves? To me it is inconceivable that any such figure would do so. Moreover, is anyone in U.S. academia with a position comparable to Zhang’s position in Chinese academia likely to praise Rothbard’s views? To me it is inconceivable that any such figure would do so.
Once upon a time, the Chinese were the enemies of private property rights and free markets, and the Americans were the enemies of the Chinese and purported to cherish the institutions that the Chinese hated. Today no such clear-cut difference exists. If anything, today’s Chinese in high places seem to be more inclined to say kind words about private property rights and the free market than are comparably placed Americans. And when such Americans do speak favorably of these institutions, they do not really mean what they say, as their actions consistently attest.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2015/02/are-ruling-elites-in-china-now-more-pro.html
Minimized traffic control...
A Different Kind Of Distracted Driving
Last week’s email newsletter touched on the much-discussed issue of distracted driving. The meteoric rise in cell phone use, particularly with texting, has brought renewed focus on inattentive driving. The Christian Science Monitor published an article in June 2008 which points to a more pervasive cause of distracted driving – the over-regulation of U.S. traffic through roadway signs. Per the article, British behavioral psychologist John Staddon believes traffic signs actually make streets more dangerous for motorists and pedestrians. He believes that traffic signs condition drivers to be less observant. Drivers trained to rely on instructional signs, rather than their own judgment, can create an “inattentional blindness.” Staddon noted that while highways in the U.S. are wider, better marked, and less crowded than England, the minor accidents he comes across every day or two in the U.S. are rare occurrences in the U.K. Per Staddon, “The American system of traffic control, with its many signs and stops, and with its specific rules tailored to every bend in the road, has had the unintended consequence of causing more accidents than it prevents. Paradoxically, almost every new sign put up in the U.S. probably makes drivers a little safer on the stretch of road it guards. But collectively, the forests of signs along American roadways, and the multitude of rules to look out for, are quite deadly.” This is more than just an anecdotal observation. A few years ago, all regulatory traffic signs were removed from the city center of Drachten, a Dutch city with a population of about 50,000. Demarcations between roads and sidewalks were also stripped. Despite the free-for-all design, the steady stream of vehicular traffic flowed smoothly, and pedestrians walked the streets safely. “Right of way” became an instinctual process between motorists. Their collective sense of responsibility and consideration created a safe environment. Der Speigel noted in 2006 that the number of accidents in Drachten “declined dramatically” after the open traffic design was implemented. Other European cities similarly minimized their traffic control systems with positive results. The goal of U.S. traffic management should be to rely more on the inherent responsibleness of drivers, and less on micromanaging every movement and behavior by its motorists.
See more at: http://alerts.motorists.org/nma-email-newsletter-issue-32/#sthash.3J0cfBNw.dpuf
Last week’s email newsletter touched on the much-discussed issue of distracted driving. The meteoric rise in cell phone use, particularly with texting, has brought renewed focus on inattentive driving. The Christian Science Monitor published an article in June 2008 which points to a more pervasive cause of distracted driving – the over-regulation of U.S. traffic through roadway signs. Per the article, British behavioral psychologist John Staddon believes traffic signs actually make streets more dangerous for motorists and pedestrians. He believes that traffic signs condition drivers to be less observant. Drivers trained to rely on instructional signs, rather than their own judgment, can create an “inattentional blindness.” Staddon noted that while highways in the U.S. are wider, better marked, and less crowded than England, the minor accidents he comes across every day or two in the U.S. are rare occurrences in the U.K. Per Staddon, “The American system of traffic control, with its many signs and stops, and with its specific rules tailored to every bend in the road, has had the unintended consequence of causing more accidents than it prevents. Paradoxically, almost every new sign put up in the U.S. probably makes drivers a little safer on the stretch of road it guards. But collectively, the forests of signs along American roadways, and the multitude of rules to look out for, are quite deadly.” This is more than just an anecdotal observation. A few years ago, all regulatory traffic signs were removed from the city center of Drachten, a Dutch city with a population of about 50,000. Demarcations between roads and sidewalks were also stripped. Despite the free-for-all design, the steady stream of vehicular traffic flowed smoothly, and pedestrians walked the streets safely. “Right of way” became an instinctual process between motorists. Their collective sense of responsibility and consideration created a safe environment. Der Speigel noted in 2006 that the number of accidents in Drachten “declined dramatically” after the open traffic design was implemented. Other European cities similarly minimized their traffic control systems with positive results. The goal of U.S. traffic management should be to rely more on the inherent responsibleness of drivers, and less on micromanaging every movement and behavior by its motorists.
See more at: http://alerts.motorists.org/nma-email-newsletter-issue-32/#sthash.3J0cfBNw.dpuf
The day that cash disappears...
The Day the ATMs Run Out…
By Bill Bonner
Dear Diary,
Please remember this warning when you go to the ATM to get cash… and there is none!
While we were thinking about what was really going on with today’s strange new money system, a startling thought occurred to us.
Our financial system could take a surprising and catastrophic twist that almost nobody imagines, let alone anticipates.
Do you remember when a lethal tsunami hit the beaches of Southeast Asia, killing thousands of people and causing billions of dollars of damage?
Well, just before the 80-foot wall of water slammed into the coast an odd thing happened: The water disappeared.
The tide went out farther than anyone had ever seen before. Local fishermen headed for high ground immediately. They knew what it meant. But the tourists went out onto the beach looking for shells!
The same thing could happen to the money supply: Cash could evaporate suddenly and disastrously – just before we drown in it.
Credit Money
Here’s how… and why:
If you look at M2 money supply – which measures coins and notes in circulation as well as bank deposits and money market accounts – America’s money stock amounted to $11.7 trillion as of last month.
But there was just $1.3 trillion of physical currency in circulation – about only half of which is in the US. (Nobody knows for sure.)
What we use as money today is mostly credit. It exists as zeros and ones in electronic bank accounts. We never see it. Touch it. Feel it. Count it out. Or lose it behind seat cushions.
Banks profit – handsomely – by creating this credit. And as long as banks have sufficient capital, they are happy to create as much credit as we are willing to pay for.
After all, it costs the banks almost nothing to create new credit. That’s why we have so much of it.
A monetary system like this has never before existed. And this one has existed only during a time when credit was undergoing an epic expansion.
So our monetary system has never been thoroughly tested. How will it hold up in a deep or prolonged credit contraction? Can it survive an extended bear market in bonds or stocks? What would happen if consumer prices were out of control?
Less Than Zero
Our current money system began in 1971.
It survived consumer price inflation of almost 14% a year in 1980. But Paul Volcker was already on the job, raising interest rates to bring inflation under control.
And it survived the “credit crunch” of 2008-09. Ben Bernanke dropped the price of credit to almost zero, by slashing short-term interest rates and buying trillions of dollars of government bonds.
But the next crisis could be very different…
Short-term interest rates are already close to zero in the US (and less than zero in Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden). And according to a recent study by McKinsey, the world’s total debt (at least as officially recorded) now stands at $200 trillion – up $57 trillion since 2007. That’s 286% of global GDP… and far in excess of what the real economy can support.
At some point, a debt correction is inevitable. Debt expansions are always –always– followed by debt contractions. There is no other way. Debt cannot increase forever.
And when it happens, ZIRP and QE will not be enough to reverse the process, because they are already running at open throttle.
What then?
The value of debt drops sharply and fast. Creditors look to their borrowers… traders look at their counterparties… bankers look at each other…
…and suddenly, no one wants to part with a penny, for fear he may never see it again. Credit stops.
It’s not just that no one wants to lend, no one wants to borrow either – except for desperate people with no choice, usually those who have no hope of paying their debts.
Just like we saw after the 2008 crisis, we can expect a quick response from the feds.
The Fed will announce unlimited new borrowing facilities. But it won’t matter….
House prices will be crashing. (Who will lend against the value of a house?) Stock prices will be crashing. (Who will be able to borrow against his stocks?) Art, collectibles and resources – all will be in free fall.
The NEXT Crisis
In the last crisis, every major bank and investment firm on Wall Street would have gone broke had the feds not intervened. Next time it may not be so easy to save them.
The next crisis is likely to be across ALL asset classes. And with $57 trillion more in global debt than in 2007, it is likely to be much harder to stop.
Are you with us so far?
Because here is where it gets interesting…
In a gold-backed monetary system prices fall. But the money is still there. Money becomes more valuable. It doesn’t disappear. It is more valuable because you can use it to buy more stuff.
Naturally, people hold on to it. Of course, the velocity of money – the frequency at which each unit of currency is used to buy something – falls. And this makes it appear that the supply of money is falling too.
But imagine what happens to credit money. The money doesn’t just stop circulating. It vanishes.
A bank that had an “asset” (in the form of a loan to a customer) of $100,000 in June may have zilch by July. A corporation that splurged on share buybacks one week could find those shares cut in half two weeks later. A person with a $100,000 stock market portfolio one day, could find his portfolio has no value at all a few days later.
All of this is standard fare for a credit crisis. The new wrinkle – a devastating one – is that people now do what they always do, but they are forced to do it in a radically different way.
They stop spending. They hoard cash. But what cash do you hoard when most transactions are done on credit? Do you hoard a line of credit? Do you put your credit card in your vault?
No. People will hoard the kind of cash they understand… something they can put their hands on… something that is gaining value – rapidly. They’ll want dollar bills.
Also, following a well-known pattern, these paper dollars will quickly disappear. People drain cash machines. They drain credit facilities. They ask for “cash back” when they use their credit cards. They want real money – old-fashioned money that they can put in their pockets and their home safes…
Dollar Panic
Let us stop here and remind readers that we’re talking about a short timeframe – days… maybe weeks… a couple of months at most. That’s all. It’s the period after the credit crisis has sucked the cash out of the system… and before the government’s inflation tsunami has hit.
As Ben Bernanke put it, “a determined central bank can always create positive consumer price inflation.” But it takes time!
And during that interval, panic will set in. A dollar panic – with people desperate to put their hands on dollars… to pay for food… for fuel…and for everything else they need.
Credit may still be available. But it will be useless. No one will want it. ATMs and banks will run out of cash. Credit facilities will be drained of real cash. Banks will put up signs, first: “Cash withdrawals limited to $500.” And then: “No Cash Withdrawals.”
You will have a credit card with a $10,000 line of credit. You have $5,000 in your debit account. But all financial institutions are staggering. And in the news you will read that your bank has defaulted and been placed in receivership. What would you rather have? Your $10,000 line of credit or a stack of $50 bills?
You will go to buy gasoline. You will take out your credit card to pay.
“Cash Only,” the sign will say. Because the machinery of the credit economy will be breaking down. The gas station… its suppliers… and its financiers do not want to get stuck with a “credit” from your bankrupt lender!
Whose lines of credit are still valuable? Whose bank is ready to fail? Who can pay his mortgage? Who will honor his credit card debt? In a crisis, those questions will be as common as “Who will win an Oscar?” is today.
But no one will know the answers. Quickly, they will stop guessing… and turn to cash.
Our advice: Keep some on hand. You may need it.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/02/bill-bonner/the-day-the-atms-run-out/
By Bill Bonner
Dear Diary,
Please remember this warning when you go to the ATM to get cash… and there is none!
While we were thinking about what was really going on with today’s strange new money system, a startling thought occurred to us.
Our financial system could take a surprising and catastrophic twist that almost nobody imagines, let alone anticipates.
Do you remember when a lethal tsunami hit the beaches of Southeast Asia, killing thousands of people and causing billions of dollars of damage?
Well, just before the 80-foot wall of water slammed into the coast an odd thing happened: The water disappeared.
The tide went out farther than anyone had ever seen before. Local fishermen headed for high ground immediately. They knew what it meant. But the tourists went out onto the beach looking for shells!
The same thing could happen to the money supply: Cash could evaporate suddenly and disastrously – just before we drown in it.
Credit Money
Here’s how… and why:
If you look at M2 money supply – which measures coins and notes in circulation as well as bank deposits and money market accounts – America’s money stock amounted to $11.7 trillion as of last month.
But there was just $1.3 trillion of physical currency in circulation – about only half of which is in the US. (Nobody knows for sure.)
What we use as money today is mostly credit. It exists as zeros and ones in electronic bank accounts. We never see it. Touch it. Feel it. Count it out. Or lose it behind seat cushions.
Banks profit – handsomely – by creating this credit. And as long as banks have sufficient capital, they are happy to create as much credit as we are willing to pay for.
After all, it costs the banks almost nothing to create new credit. That’s why we have so much of it.
A monetary system like this has never before existed. And this one has existed only during a time when credit was undergoing an epic expansion.
So our monetary system has never been thoroughly tested. How will it hold up in a deep or prolonged credit contraction? Can it survive an extended bear market in bonds or stocks? What would happen if consumer prices were out of control?
Less Than Zero
Our current money system began in 1971.
It survived consumer price inflation of almost 14% a year in 1980. But Paul Volcker was already on the job, raising interest rates to bring inflation under control.
And it survived the “credit crunch” of 2008-09. Ben Bernanke dropped the price of credit to almost zero, by slashing short-term interest rates and buying trillions of dollars of government bonds.
But the next crisis could be very different…
Short-term interest rates are already close to zero in the US (and less than zero in Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden). And according to a recent study by McKinsey, the world’s total debt (at least as officially recorded) now stands at $200 trillion – up $57 trillion since 2007. That’s 286% of global GDP… and far in excess of what the real economy can support.
At some point, a debt correction is inevitable. Debt expansions are always –always– followed by debt contractions. There is no other way. Debt cannot increase forever.
And when it happens, ZIRP and QE will not be enough to reverse the process, because they are already running at open throttle.
What then?
The value of debt drops sharply and fast. Creditors look to their borrowers… traders look at their counterparties… bankers look at each other…
…and suddenly, no one wants to part with a penny, for fear he may never see it again. Credit stops.
It’s not just that no one wants to lend, no one wants to borrow either – except for desperate people with no choice, usually those who have no hope of paying their debts.
Just like we saw after the 2008 crisis, we can expect a quick response from the feds.
The Fed will announce unlimited new borrowing facilities. But it won’t matter….
House prices will be crashing. (Who will lend against the value of a house?) Stock prices will be crashing. (Who will be able to borrow against his stocks?) Art, collectibles and resources – all will be in free fall.
The NEXT Crisis
In the last crisis, every major bank and investment firm on Wall Street would have gone broke had the feds not intervened. Next time it may not be so easy to save them.
The next crisis is likely to be across ALL asset classes. And with $57 trillion more in global debt than in 2007, it is likely to be much harder to stop.
Are you with us so far?
Because here is where it gets interesting…
In a gold-backed monetary system prices fall. But the money is still there. Money becomes more valuable. It doesn’t disappear. It is more valuable because you can use it to buy more stuff.
Naturally, people hold on to it. Of course, the velocity of money – the frequency at which each unit of currency is used to buy something – falls. And this makes it appear that the supply of money is falling too.
But imagine what happens to credit money. The money doesn’t just stop circulating. It vanishes.
A bank that had an “asset” (in the form of a loan to a customer) of $100,000 in June may have zilch by July. A corporation that splurged on share buybacks one week could find those shares cut in half two weeks later. A person with a $100,000 stock market portfolio one day, could find his portfolio has no value at all a few days later.
All of this is standard fare for a credit crisis. The new wrinkle – a devastating one – is that people now do what they always do, but they are forced to do it in a radically different way.
They stop spending. They hoard cash. But what cash do you hoard when most transactions are done on credit? Do you hoard a line of credit? Do you put your credit card in your vault?
No. People will hoard the kind of cash they understand… something they can put their hands on… something that is gaining value – rapidly. They’ll want dollar bills.
Also, following a well-known pattern, these paper dollars will quickly disappear. People drain cash machines. They drain credit facilities. They ask for “cash back” when they use their credit cards. They want real money – old-fashioned money that they can put in their pockets and their home safes…
Dollar Panic
Let us stop here and remind readers that we’re talking about a short timeframe – days… maybe weeks… a couple of months at most. That’s all. It’s the period after the credit crisis has sucked the cash out of the system… and before the government’s inflation tsunami has hit.
As Ben Bernanke put it, “a determined central bank can always create positive consumer price inflation.” But it takes time!
And during that interval, panic will set in. A dollar panic – with people desperate to put their hands on dollars… to pay for food… for fuel…and for everything else they need.
Credit may still be available. But it will be useless. No one will want it. ATMs and banks will run out of cash. Credit facilities will be drained of real cash. Banks will put up signs, first: “Cash withdrawals limited to $500.” And then: “No Cash Withdrawals.”
You will have a credit card with a $10,000 line of credit. You have $5,000 in your debit account. But all financial institutions are staggering. And in the news you will read that your bank has defaulted and been placed in receivership. What would you rather have? Your $10,000 line of credit or a stack of $50 bills?
You will go to buy gasoline. You will take out your credit card to pay.
“Cash Only,” the sign will say. Because the machinery of the credit economy will be breaking down. The gas station… its suppliers… and its financiers do not want to get stuck with a “credit” from your bankrupt lender!
Whose lines of credit are still valuable? Whose bank is ready to fail? Who can pay his mortgage? Who will honor his credit card debt? In a crisis, those questions will be as common as “Who will win an Oscar?” is today.
But no one will know the answers. Quickly, they will stop guessing… and turn to cash.
Our advice: Keep some on hand. You may need it.
Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/02/bill-bonner/the-day-the-atms-run-out/
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