Many were roundly criticized for daring to say that the Cyprus thefts could visit our shores. If Treasury Secretary Jack Lew gets his way, Cyprus will look like a walk in the park compared to what’s coming because Cyprus was a beta test for the massive theft of private wealth which is on the horizon.
In fact, I would say to my fellow countrymen who don’t think the government would ever perpetrate a fraud against the American people in which the government would oversee the outright theft of personal assets of American citizens, you might want to jog your memory and look about to a period of time going back four to five years in this country.
Short Term Memory Loss
I, too, was roundly criticized three months ago when I said the Cyprus scenario is coming here. I was told there would be a revolution if this happened and the government would be to afraid to try such a thing. I marvel at people who hold to such naive beliefs. Listening to these people is like listening to a country song played backwards. You know the wife does not leave, the truck still runs and the guy stops drinking. Maybe it is all the fluoride in the water that is causing such widespread ignorance and apathy.
First of all, our government is not the enemy. This is not the government we are dealing with. We are battling organized crime in the form of corporations like Goldman Sachs who have hijacked our government. They are lining up for the last great garage sale before they collapse the economy and roll out martial law. There are forces lining up to steal everything that you and I own. It has already begun but this country is so dumbed down, we do not see that it has already started.
The Greatest Wealth Transfer In History
Hank Paulson Architect of the Bailouts
I am still haunted by the image of former head of the Goldman Sachs crime syndicate and former Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, telling a closed session of Congress that if they did not grant Wall Street “bailouts” there will be martial law in the streets as a result of the economy collapsing. Ask yourself, if almost five years later and three bailouts later, are Americans better off having sacrificed the bailout money in lieu of maintaining roads, improving schools as well as running the national debt through the ceiling and destroying the financial heritage of our children?
History has spoken and our economy is spark away from a total melt down. Well at least, our dumbed down neighbors are right about one thing, there will be a revolution, but it will not be on our terms. It will take the form of a purge and a boot stomping on the collective necks of America. What the hell do all of you think the Boston martial law event was about? They wanted to see how all of you would respond to total tyranny.
Who are the bullets for?
Besides having a few cameras pointed at them by a few Bostonians, DHS completed shut down and intimidated a major American city. Remember, that is why our Stasi friends over at DHS have bought 2.2 billion rounds of ammunition and 2700 armored personnel carriers.
And while America is recovering from its collective short term memory issues, let me ask the readers if anyone else remembers MERS and the millions of homes they have stolen through mortgage fraud and nobody, despite being caught in city after city, has gone to jail? Do you remember hearing the stories where Mr. and Mrs. America would pay cash for their home and own clearly own the title only to have the bank show up with a fraudulent title and seize the home?Has ANYONE gone to jail for these crimes?
Who could ever forget, John “the Don” Corzine and his former company, MF Global? MF Global, a shell corporation beholding to Goldman Sachs, was led to the slaughter by the former Goldman Sachs executive and former New Jersey Governor and senator, John Corzine. Corzine’s criminal actions have directly victimized 150,000 Americans by stealing an estimated $900 million dollars of his clients’ money from their supposedly secure private account. There is also another $600 million missing dollars from MF Global. Meanwhile, Corzine avoids sharing a prison cell with Bernie Madoff by purchasing a “get-out-of-jail card” through the sponsorship of a $35,000 per plate fundraiser for that great Wall Street puppet and Criminal-In-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama.
What are the government watch dogs doing to protect our money from this new generation of robber barons? The short answer is that the feds are partners with Goldman Sachs in this monumental violation of the public trust. In fact, Goldman Sachs and friends have taken over the government.
Take Gary Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs executive partner, who like so many other Goldman Sachs gangsters, have been placed into key governmental oversight positions in order to protect the Goldman Sachs co-conspirators, from prosecution, as they continue their reign of terror upon the global economy. Gary “the gangster” Gensler is the former Undersecretary of the Treasury (1999-2001) and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (1997-1999) and the current director of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In his present position, Gensler had the authority to go after Corzine for his role in the MF Global debacle and order restitution. However, Gensler has decided to protect a fellow member of the Goldman Sachs Mafia by not looking into the massive fraud and theft by Corzine and his cronies. Your tax dollars, paying the salary of federal officials who are overseeing the most massive illegal private transfer of wealth, in the history of the planet, payable to Goldman Sachs and their criminal enterprise partners on Wall Street.
You may not be one of the 150,000 Goldman Sachs/MF Global victims. However, this Robin Hood-in-reverse-scenario, in which the criminal super rich are plundering what’s left of the middle class, will soon be visited upon your bank account , your home mortgages and your pensions. These criminal banksters are in the process of stealing it all and what are you going to do about it? Our nation of entrenched sheeple will do nothing as most have not even heard about it. And the fun is just beginning.
The Latest In Stealing From the American People
The Treasury Department once again is taking federal retirement programs to buy the government more time to increase the nation’s debt ceiling. And why does the government need to raise the debt ceiling? The debt ceiling must be raised for two reasons, (1) in order to fund the banker-inspired wars of occupation and, (2) to continue to fund the largest wealth transfer in history, the bailouts. And just who is behind this nonsense? The very close friends of Goldman Sachs over at Citigroup and they have their henchman in charge of the continuing rape of America by Wall Street, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. Let me be clear, and Lew you can sue me if this not true, that it is a fact that Obama appointed one of the criminals who had a major hand in bringing down the economy to run the country’s finances.
While at Citigroup, Lew oversaw 113 tax evading accounts in Cayman Island banks. Based upon Lew’s resume, hedge funds for Citigroup where he lost almost 600 million dollars, one can only assume that is why Obama has appointed Lew to finish the job which will leave you and I with nothing.
Oh, I know there would be a revolution if the government ever dared take our retirements. At least the citizens of Greece rioted because they understand what happened. Our sheeple still hide behind the security blanket belief that “they would never do that,” just like they did in Boston and just investors tolerated theft by MF Global on behalf of JP Morgan.
Jack’s Very Lewd Background
Lew, from Citigroup, as I stated, was an overseer of hedge funds. You know, the hedge funds originating from the actual criminals that collapsed the economy in 2008. This is who Obama selected to run the economy. So, why does this bear repeating?
Last Friday, Lew announced that the government was taking the unprecedented action of avoiding governmental default through this summer by including tapping into and suspending investments into the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund and halting the daily reinvestment of the government securities (G) fund, the most stable offering in the Thrift Savings Plan‘s portfolio.
We have long heard that bankers that have hijacked the government would commence stealing our private wealth through the pension funds and this is exactly what the chief bankster, Jack Lew, is implementing. The next step will be to seize bank accounts, like they did in Cyprus and then step up the MERS mortgage fraud as as the Federal Reserve continues to purchase $40 billion dollars in Mortgage Backed Securities every month.
The G Fund is invested in interest-bearing Treasury securities (i.e. bonds) that make up the public debt. The Civil Service Retirement Fund finances benefit payments under the Civil Service Retirement System and the basic retirement annuity of the Federal Employees’ Retirement System, and those investments are made up of securities also considered part of the public debt. In other words, for you people who have cushy federal government jobs, Lew is telling you that the government controls your retirement. They own it and they own you. And you people who thought serving the New World Order was a such a good idea, are you reconsidering your loyalties now?
Military and law enforcement personnel take note on how you will be treated for your subjugation of the American people, followed by the total obliteration of the Constitution.
The government says they are just borrowing the money. How much of the bailout money has been paid back by the banks? Is MERS still in existence? Does Corzine occupy a cell next to Bernie “Madoff with all of your money”?
Iceland Had a Better Idea
Iceland had the right idea when they threw bankers like Gensler, Corzine and Lew in prison for their crimes against their fellow citizens. Iceland struggled for five years and is back stronger than ever. We should have told Wall Street to go to hell in 2008. We should have already arrested the CEO’s of the six megabanks which created MERS.
The aforementioned bankers should already be in prison. However, people in Iceland have a better awareness of how the world works.
America knows how American Idol works.
Martial Law Will Commence When the Banksters Are Done Stealing
There are two parallel paths which are predictive as to when martial law will commence in the United States. First, the right political climate must exist and this administration obviously feels that the use of false flags is the most efficient method of achieving the proper pretext for martial law. Also, martial law will commence when the banksters are done looting America. When they have seized your bank accounts, your social security funds, your home mortgages, your pensions and your 401K’s, then, and only then will they roll out martial law.
Conclusion
I know there are some readers who are two steps ahead of me on where this is going and what we should do. The resistance needs to start right now. America needs to totally withdraw from their financial and corporate entities in strategies which I will discuss in future articles.
The FBI has apparently killed Ibragim Todashev, a man with close ties to one of the Boston Bombing suspects who feared for his own life shortly before he supposedly went crazy and had to be taken down.
According to local reports that quoted officials, Todashev was being interviewed for possible connections to a triple murder that police suspect the Tsarnaev brothers were also involved in. As Todashev went to sign a confession, he instead lunged at the FBI agent who then had to shoot and kill him.
A special agent and two Massachusetts State Police troopers were interviewing the suspect regarding his connections to bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and other extremists. The suspect, identified by the FBI as Ibragim Todashev, was originally cooperative, but he was shot after attacking the agent, the FBI said.
Investigators said Todashev confessed to the FBI that he played a role in a triple murder in 2011 in which three men were murdered in an apartment in Waltham, Mass. Their throats had been cut, and their bodies were covered with marijuana, authorities said. No suspects had been arrested in that case, but officials were investigating whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who knew at least one of the victims, was involved.
Investigators said Todashev attacked the agent with a knife as he was about to sign the confession.
Interestingly enough, another person who was also interviewed by the FBI that same day claims that Todashev had feared that the FBI was going to shoot him.
A friend of Todashev, Khusn Taramiv, said Todashev, 27, was being investigated for his connection to Tsarnaev because both had lived in Boston and were MMA fighters.
Taramiv claims he and Todashev were interviewed by the FBI for nearly three hours on Tuesday.
“(The FBI) took me and my friend, (Ibragim Todashev). They were talking to us, both of us, right? And they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they’re going to bring him back. They never brought him back,” Taramiv said.
“He felt inside he was going to get shot,” Taramiv said about Todashev. “I told him, ‘Everything is going to be fine, don’t worry about it.’ He said, ‘I have a really bad feeling.’”
Taramiv said he left the interview, and when he came back to the apartments, he found that there had been a shooting.
“I was completely shocked. I still can’t believe it, you know what I mean?” he said.
Although it is to early to tell whether or not this was the FBI once again tying up loose ends, this case remains very suspicious and will be under investigation in the days ahead.
Daniel Jackson is a seasoned journalist with a passion for exposing corruption and the lies of the global elite. DJ has a passion for truth and liberty that is shown through his extensive reporting on numerous globally significant topics not normally covered by the corporate controlled media. He is is a writer, researcher and editor for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up!
The Democrat controlled Senate Judiciary Committee passed what is being described as a landmark immigration reform bill yesterday, paving the way for a fight on the Senate floor over legislation that many believe provides amnesty for people who have entered the country illegally.
After an amendment by Senator Patrick Leahy almost derailed the bill and despite an attempt to stop it by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, the “reform” passed on a 13-5 vote with ten Democrats and three Republicans voting for the 844 page (with an additional 300 amendments) bill.
The action sparked rejoicing from immigration activists who crowded into a Senate committee room to witness the proceedings. “Yes, we can! Si, se puede” they shouted, reprising the campaign cry from Obama’s first run for the White House in 2008.
In addition to creating a pathway to citizenship for 11.5 million immigrants, the legislation creates a new program for low-skilled foreign labor and would permit highly skilled workers into the country at far higher levels than is currently the case.
At the same time, it requires the government to take costly new steps to guard against future illegal immigration.
In a statement, Obama said the measure is “largely consistent with the principles of common-sense reform I have proposed and meets the challenge of fixing our broken immigration system.”
There were those that fought against the bill, most notably the above mentioned Sen. Cruz as well as Sen. Charles Grassley who spoke about his support for the 1986 bill and how the obviously broken promise to seal the border back then leads him to distrust them doing so now.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, recalled that he had voted to give “amnesty” to those in the country illegally in 1986, the last time Congress passed major immigration legislation. He said that bill, like the current one, promised to crack down on illegal immigration, but said it had failed to do so.
“No one disputes that this bill is legalization first, enforcement later. And, that’s just unacceptable to me and to the American people,” he said shortly before the vote.
Many opponents of the immigration bill (even some who actually do support some sort of immigration reform just not this one) have claimed that the bill will provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.
Whats worse, those that have already been convicted of a crime here in America may also be granted amnesty.
A recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies claimed that the current bill would literally legalize up to 45 perfect of the ICE caseload, essentially allowing tens of thousands of criminals to be let off free on crimes American citizens are currently imprisoned for.
One of the most alarming effects of the Schumer-Rubio amnesty, if enacted in anything close to its current form, would be the legalization of tens of thousands of illegal aliens who have already been a public safety threat in their community.
The eligibility criteria established for the amnesty and most of the new guestworker provisions excuse a wide variety of criminal behavior, including gang membership, drunk driving, vehicular manslaughter, identity theft, and immigration fraud (see this analysis).
In addition, the bill offers amnesty to those who have repeatedly and flagrantly violated immigration laws.
The Center decided to take a closer look at the numbers by examining recent date from ICE’s Secure Communities Program. What was found was absolutely shocking to say the least.
To get a sense of how significant these provisions would be, I examined the most recent data from ICE’s Secure Communities program. This program, now activated in the entire country, alerts ICE when a non-citizen with a record in DHS databases is arrested by a local or federal law enforcement agency.
I found that nearly half of the criminal aliens who were removed under this program in the last six months are offenders who would qualify for legal status under the terms of the Schumer-Rubio bill. This amnesty would significantly curtail ICE’s interior enforcement programs, benefiting tens of thousands of criminal aliens.
In the most recent six-month reporting period (October 1, 2012, to March 31, 2013), ICE removed 38,547 aliens who had been identified as a result of an arrest by another agency. Of these, 45 percent (17,208) were lesser offenders who would be eligible for legalization under the Schumer-Rubio amnesty.
These were classified as Level 3 offenders in ICE parlance (convicted of fewer than three misdemeanors on separate occasions), fugitives, prior removals and returns, illegal border crossers, and over-stayers and visa violators.
Another analysis documented each and every problem with the bill, ranging from public safety concerns to national security to concerns over widespread fraud. A table was put together to extensively document these problems.
Clearly this Gang of Eight Immigration Reform Bill has, at the very least, serious problems that need to be fixed before it moves forward any further. At the worst, this plan is simply a continued push towards a North American Union and by granting illegal immigrants in America amnesty that union would be one step closer.
Daniel Jackson is a seasoned journalist with a passion for exposing corruption and the lies of the global elite. DJ has a passion for truth and liberty that is shown through his extensive reporting on numerous globally significant topics not normally covered by the corporate controlled media. He is is a writer, researcher and editor for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up!
Speaking at the Sovereign Man: Offshore Tactics Workshop in Santiago, Chile, Ron Paul made clear his belief that financial chaos and possible collapse is on the horizon and that the government will do everything in its power to force Americans to comply.
“I expect there is a lot more chaos yet to come and it will not be limited to Europe, I think it will be a worldwide phenomenon and the states wont escape it either because there is so many gross distortions throughout the world because we disobeyed economic law.”
Daniel Jackson is a seasoned journalist with a passion for exposing corruption and the lies of the global elite. DJ has a passion for truth and liberty that is shown through his extensive reporting on numerous globally significant topics not normally covered by the corporate controlled media. He is is a writer, researcher and editor for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up!
The Monsanto Company likes to proclaim that they are the good guys, here to selflessly feed the world, help with sustainable agriculture, and, as if those lofty goals are not enough, champion human rights across the globe. All you have to do is look at their commitments page to see how worthy they are of a shiny corporate halo:
At the heart of Monsanto is a very clear and principled code of conduct – one we expect all employees, contractors and management to live by every day. We operate under a genuine value system—our pledge—that demonstrates integrity, respect, ethical behavior, perspective and honesty as a foundation for everything we do.
A key part of fulfilling the promise of our value system is by engaging our communities in a significant and positive manner. Not only do we work hard to support the family farmer in a variety of ways, but we also:
provide extensive educational programs – particularly in science and agriculture – for students around the world
fund numerous research grants for graduate students
work in partnership with government bodies, non-profit agencies and advocacy groups to make agriculture more sustainable
If you happen to have your hip-wader boots on, you can delve even further into their purported goodness by reading, in it’s entirety, The Monsanto Pledge:
The Monsanto Pledge is our commitment to how we do business. It is a declaration that compels us to listen more, to consider our actions and their impact broadly, and to lead responsibly. It helps us to convert our values into actions, and to make clear who we are and what we champion.
At the risk of your breakfast, click HERE to learn more about Monsanto’s commitment to integrity, dialogue, transparency, sharing, benefits, respect, acting as owners to achieve results, and creating a great place to work.
Monsanto’s CEO, Hugh Grant, has long been of the opinion that the company is deeply misunderstood.
“From his point of view, the company is working on the side of angels, helping to create commodity crops to feed today’s population and the 2 billion more people who might occupy the planet by 2030. He is proud that Monsanto scientists were among the first to have a patented genetically modified plant on the market—Roundup Ready soybeans were introduced in 1996—and he is excited about new efforts to bioengineer wheat and vegetables, too, as well as the next generation of super beans and corn.” (source)
So why does such a noble, benevolent company require the services of the most notorious mercenary army of modern times? Why did Monsanto dish out half a million dollars to an arm of Blackwater called Total Intelligence (which now operates under the acronym OODA)?
What is Blackwater?
Blackwater is now known as Academi. According to Wikipedia, the company:
“…previously known as Xe Services LLC, Blackwater USA and Blackwater Worldwide—is a private military company founded in 1997 by Erik Prince and Al Clark. Academi is currently the largest of the U.S. State Department’s three private security contractors. Academi provided diplomatic security services in Iraq to the United States federal government on a contractual basis. Academi also has a research and development wing that was responsible for developing the Grizzly APC along with other military technology. The company’s headquarters is located in Arlington County, Virginia.”
They have made numerous attempts to rebrand their hit squads, changing the company name (Xe and Academi) and creating subsidiaries (Total Intelligence, The Terrorism Research Center, and Greystone, to name a few). They have reportedly done business under the names of at least 30 shell companies.Because of Despite their tarnished reputation gained from, for one example, gunning down civilians, in 2010, CIA head Leon Panetta awarded them a classified $100 million dollar security contract.
How are Blackwater and Monsanto connected?
While rumor had it that Monsanto had actually purchased Blackwater, that is not the case. Monsanto contracted with the mercenary group for “security services”. In 2010, an illuminating report called Blackwater’s Black Ops, written by Jeremy Scahill, of The Nation, revealed that Monsanto had given a contract worth up to half a million dollars to Blackwater.
According to internal Total Intelligence communications, biotech giant Monsanto—the world’s largest supplier of genetically modified seeds—hired the firm in 2008–09. The relationship between the two companies appears to have been solidified in January 2008 when Total Intelligence chair Cofer Black traveled to Zurich to meet with Kevin Wilson, Monsanto’s security manager for global issues.
After the meeting in Zurich, Black sent an e-mail to other Blackwater executives, including to Prince and Prado at their Blackwater e-mail addresses. Black wrote that Wilson “understands that we can span collection from internet, to reach out, to boots on the ground on legit basis protecting the Monsanto [brand] name…. Ahead of the curve info and insight/heads up is what he is looking for.” Black added that Total Intelligence “would develop into acting as intel arm of Monsanto.” Black also noted that Monsanto was concerned about animal rights activists and that they discussed how Blackwater “could have our person(s) actually join [activist] group(s) legally.” Black wrote that initial payments to Total Intelligence would be paid out of Monsanto’s “generous protection budget” but would eventually become a line item in the company’s annual budget. He estimated the potential payments to Total Intelligence at between $100,000 and $500,000. According to documents, Monsanto paid Total Intelligence $127,000 in 2008 and $105,000 in 2009.
Reached by telephone and asked about the meeting with Black in Zurich, Monsanto’s Wilson initially said, “I’m not going to discuss it with you.” In a subsequent e-mail to The Nation, Wilson confirmed he met Black in Zurich and that Monsanto hired Total Intelligence in 2008 and worked with the company until early 2010. He denied that he and Black discussed infiltrating animal rights groups, stating “there was no such discussion.” He claimed that Total Intelligence only provided Monsanto “with reports about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information. The subject matter ranged from information regarding terrorist incidents in Asia or kidnappings in Central America to scanning the content of activist blogs and websites.” Wilson asserted that Black told him Total Intelligence was “a completely separate entity from Blackwater.”
How does this affect the current wave of activism against Monsanto?
Although there is no clear evidence that Monsanto and Blackwater are working together against current activists, a recent spate of odd activity indicates that Monsanto is taking surreptitious action against the movement, whether on their own or through the use of “contractors”. They have engaged in a social media war against activists. Mysterious things have been occurring on the social networks: posts have disappeared, some posts are hidden from the timelines of readers, and trolls abound on pages promoting this weekend’s March Against Monsanto, happening worldwide on May 25.
After I wrote the article yesterday regarding the odd issues with social media, I was flooded with emails and comments from readers, verifying they, too, had difficulty sharing information related to the March. Accounts had been banned and blocked by Facebook. Videos had vanished from Youtube. I even heard from the editor of From the Trenches World Report, who had intercepted a comment that was allegedly from me, saying that the March had been cancelled.
Monsanto has a history of hiring an unscrupulous mercenary army. Be aware during this weekend’s activism that agent provocateurs may be afoot, particularly at the larger events. Don’t rise to the bait of those who would try to deflect protesters from their goal. The goal remains clear – we are there to peacefully spread awareness about Monsanto and about the health and environmental hazards of GMOs. Around the world, the movement for real food has created an enormous global awakening. Through the power of social media and alternative news, we are cresting a wave with this event. We must maintain our unity and momentum, and stay focused on the goal, because with every attack made against us, we may be reassured that Monsanto is on the run.
Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca
Activist James Kaleda was giving testimony when state legislators did not agree with what he was stating and claimed that Mr. Kaleda was “Out of Order”, requesting that he be forcefully removed from the hearing on a new gun control bill in NJ.
Mr. Kaleda receives a standing ovation from the spectators as he is removed by NJ state troopers.
Everyone is entitled under the 1st Amendment to express criticism of the government but when Big Brother doesn’t like what you have to say, the Constitution is thrown out the window.
Survival in extreme situations often depends on an individuals ability to respond to the threat they are faced with. The stress response in humans has for decades been referred to as the ‘fight or flight’ response.
When faced with a sudden or extreme threat, two body systems act together to give you the best possible chance of survival. The reaction is for the most part not under your control. Your brain and your body decide what happens, the biggest toughest guy in the bar may turn and run, the tiny young bar tender may not, 90% of what happens is decided by chemistry.
The sympathetic nervous system and the adrenal-cortical system get together at the first sign of a serious threat and if the threat persists for longer than a few more seconds both systems kick into high gear and adrenaline (epinepherine) noradrenaline (norepinepherine) and a couple of dozen other hormones flood the body and the fight or flight response is triggered.
• Pupils dilate to take in as much light as possible
• Blood-glucose levels increase
• Veins in the skin contract allowing extra blood flow to the muscles
• Smooth muscle relaxes to allow extra oxygen for the lungs
• Heart rate increases
• Blood pressure increases
• Non-essential systems shut down (digestion for example)
• The only focus is the task in hand
It is your reaction to this flood of chemicals that decides what happens next. The first, often vital seconds can be wasted whilst your body decides what to do, which option will give you the best chance of survival. Your brain is processing information much faster than usual and increasing or decreasing the levels as the situation dictates. Running for your life or staying to fight is not at this point entirely under your own control, though the 10% of you not being guided by this chemical battle will have a bearing on the final outcome.
Highly trained individuals are much more able to overcome the flight part of the response and stand their ground and fight. Equally, in a hopeless situation their training allows them to make the decision to retreat faster than the average person would. Sadly though, many of those that will form part of ‘The Golden Hoarde’ in a collapse situation are also able to process the information faster than average people can. Many of the people that will be a threat to you are used to handling weapons and there is a good chance they have used those weapons on live targets. They are more used to violence and bloodshed than you are and this, like it or not, gives them the edge over you.
So what happens when you are in a situation where you can’t flee regardless of the fact that your brain is urging you to do so? Maybe your home is surrounded and there is physically nowhere to go. Maybe a child is seriously ill and cannot be moved…there are many reasons that could warrant staying put.
Your physiological response to the stress will be exactly the same as it would be if you actually had the option of fleeing and this is where the problem arises. Your brain will be working overtime to come up with a scenario that will allow you to leave the situation in safety. It will take it a few seconds to catch up to the fact that you can’t leave, and to adjust the flow of chemicals accordingly.
At this point you will start to become calmer, your breathing will slow a little, your heart rate will drop slightly but you will still be on heightened alert. This resolution phase enables you to think logically and clearly about the situation you find yourself in.
As I mentioned previously, those vital first few seconds can make or break a situation and at that point any advantage you can give yourself is worth exploring. The optimum is to give yourself some breathing space, literally, but to put the opposition into a state of stress, to switch places with them if you like. To put them into a stressful state gives you the upper hand, it buys you time and can even the playing field considerably.
Guerrilla warfare tactics have had a massive effect on regular, highly trained forces around the world for centuries. Those tactics have included leaving dead bodies lying around, a human skull standing on a pole, IED’s, unexpected loud alarms going off, stepping into a quagmire of human excrement…practically anything that is totally unexpected can have the desired effect. It’s a physiological response…those seeking to do you harm may be better at shooting another human without compunction but they are no better than you at not reacting to an entirely unexpected stressor.
I appreciate putting a couple of skulls on six feet poles is most likely not possible but anything from fishing hooks to barbed wire, chemical smells to tanglefoot can have an effect on those who are hellbent on doing you harm.
As an example: A 14 year old boy was accosted in London recently by a group of four youths. He saw them approaching and decided he didn’t like the odds and being close to his home he ran. His would be attackers followed. He reached his home and is fumbling with his key. The attacker leading the group slipped in dog waste, the others laughed. The kid covered in dog shit was disgusted and complaining loudly, the would-be victim opened the door and went inside. A very simple case of the unexpected, and in this case a totally unplanned distraction buying time.
Look at your situation, see what you can do to make the aggressors stressed, what surprises you can arrange that can put them into a state of confusion, what can you do to give you those vital seconds back? Use your understanding of how the human body works to give you a better chance when you have few other options.
Lizzie Bennett retired from her job as a senior operating department practitioner in the UK earlier this year. Her field was trauma and accident and emergency and she has served on major catastrophe teams around the UK. Lizzie publishes Medically Speaking on the topic of preparedness.
The foundation of the Soviet model of trade and investment was centralization under the guise of “universal public ownership”. The entire goal of communism in general was not to give more social and political power to the people, but to extinguish alternative options and focus power into the hands of a select few. The process used to reach this end result can vary, but the goal always remains the same. In most cases, such centralization begins with economic hegemony, and it is in our fiscal structure that we have the means to see the future. Sovietization in our financial life will inevitably lead to sovietization in our political life.
Does the U.S. economy’s path resemble the Soviet template exactly? No. And I’m sure the very suggestion will make the average unaware free market evangelical froth at the mouth. However, as I plan to show, the parallels in our fundamentals are disturbing; the reality is that true free markets in America died a long time ago.
The Tyranny Of Planned Economy
The characteristics of a free market society defy the use of centralized planning. Adam Smith’s original concept of free market trade stood as an antithesis to what was then referred to as “mercantilism,” a select few “joint stock companies” (corporations) monopolizing production while using government ties to destroy any new competition. Unfortunately, there are to this day economists and politicians who believe that corporate centralization is a “natural” function of a free market. In reality, corporate monopolies are an unnatural creation of collusion between governments and big-money interests designed to suffocate any entrepreneurship outside of their sphere of influence. Over time, as we now see in the United States today, government power and corporate power begin to hybridize, until one can barely be distinguished from the other.
The bottom line is that you cannot have planned structures, monopolized production or controlled capital flow within an economy and still claim it to be a “free market. There are no exceptions to this rule.
The Soviet system was the ultimate in centralization. Every aspect of financial life was dictated by the communist government, from industrial input and output to investment to food production and rationing to wages and retail prices. Some people might argue that this structure is a far cry from what we now have in the United States, but let’s look at the fundamentals.
Controlled Money Creation
One of the primary tenets of The Communist Manifesto was the creation of a central bank meant to keep tight controls over currency issuance. The existence of a central bank immediately disrupts any chance of a true free market. Central banking without competition allows an oligarchy, whether corporate or political or a meshing of the two, to manipulate interest rates as well as adjust prices through inflation. Lending standards (which the central bank determines arbitrarily) built on fractional reserve banking opens the door to murky debt instruments and toxic financial products that are further used to either fabricate a “high” standard of living (as we saw in the U.S. in the 90s and early 2000s) or execute a bubble implosion causing a lower standard of living (as the U.S. is experiencing today).
Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve through subversive collusion between banking interests and corrupt politicians in 1913, America has not had a free market system. From that point forward, every boom and bust, every interest rate disaster, every inflationary increase in prices has been scientifically engineered.
Dominance Of Industry
Soviet controls on industrial output are legendary. Every part of the resource allocation process became subject to bureaucracy, and this led to stunted manufacturing growth as well as a culture of misrepresented economic data. In the United States, the establishment has taken a slightly different approach but with the same end result.
Heavy taxation on business ventures within the U.S. against entrepreneurs not lucky enough to run in elitists circles has erased incentives for manufacturing experiments within our borders. In the meantime, members of the corporate glee club receive government subsidization while they simultaneously outsource industrial projects to Third World nations. Controlled industry within communist Russia was meant to force the population to depend upon the government for every means of survival. In the United States, dependency on government has been replaced by interdependency on the globalized model in general. Necessities are now compartmentalized, and only select international businesses with cooperation from government have the ability to bring all the pieces together to keep our domestic economy running smoothly. Our society has been so distanced from self-sufficiency that many people now consider the globalist dynamic indispensable.
The next step in this degradation of free market industry is the introduction of “public works projects” by the federal government, which gives the illusion that job creation through centralization is possible. This is the same strategy used in the Soviet Union and to this day, socialists still argue that the communist design for industrial expansion was “effective”. In truth, the soviet public works plan with all its trains and transits and bridges and buildings was an absolute failure, as the collapse of the country made clear. Tax funded infrastructure is no replacement for free market invention, and at bottom, no public works enterprise can be undertaken without the government first stealing capital from one area in order to fund another. Governments can never and will never create wealth or jobs. They can only present the semblance of economic progress while siphoning wealth away from private citizens.
Bureaucracy And Food Production
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations, based on dubious junk science and often instituted on high without congressional oversight, further erode business possibilities, especially for young companies as well as private agriculture, while giving free reign to elitist entities like Monsanto, an organization the government actually PROTECTS through specialized legislation making it nearly immune to civil litigation.
While farms in the United States are not exactly “controlled” by the Federal government in the Soviet sense, many of them are subsidized through welfare on the condition that they grow only particular kinds of crops, raise particular animals or grow nothing at all. This subsidization is an indirect form of price control, creating engineered scarcity or abundance. At the same time, agricultural empires like Monsanto make private farm ownership increasingly difficult by using their government protection to harass and squeeze out independent food producers.
This destabilization of private resource management by common citizens has culminated in the passage of President Barack Obama’s executive order National Defense Resource Preparedness, which allows under a “national emergency” (which the President can declare for any reason) the confiscation of any and all private resources, including farms and businesses, to be redistributed by the government to ensure security conditions. This is the Stalinist model, pure and simple.
Centralized Control Of Investment
We now know that since at least 2008, the U.S. stock market, often presented by the mainstream as a paragon of free market prowess, has actually been propped up and inflated by Federal Reserve fiat. Both former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and current branch head Richard Fisher have openly admitted in separate news interviews that the central bank spends considerable energy in “artificially sustaining” equity markets. This has been done, I suspect, with full knowledge of the U.S. Treasury and the Obama Administration.
The Soviet model for investment was to remove all uncertainties from their domestic markets, often in the name of preventing manipulation by “speculators.” The speculator rationale was generally a distraction away from the attempt to dictate the natural forces of supply and demand. The idea was that if the government could dismiss legitimate demand or lack of demand or hide excess supply or lack of supply, the perception of a balanced economy could be conjured for the population. This led to strict redirection of capital to areas where manipulation was needed to artificially pump up (or deflate) a particular part of the economy. The government became the sole investor of the Soviet system and, thus, the sole determinant of the success or failure of any particular market.
This is EXACTLY what is going on in America today, in what mainstream economists now call “the new normal”. Federal Reserve fiat is being printed and dumped into every financial mechanism that supposedly maintains our country’s fiscal health, including stocks, Treasuries and municipals, while trade volume remains low and private investment disappears. The Federal government now owes its very existence to the continued support of central bank dollars, and the Dow Jones does as well. If this is not the Soviet ideal, then I don’t know what is.
Labor Oppression, Dismal Living Standards And Government Dependency
Poverty levels within the United States are at record highs. Nearly 50 million Americans are now dependent on government-subsidized food stamps for their survival. Nearly 100 million Americans receive welfare (or Social Security) in one form or another from the establishment. That is almost one-third of our entire population that relies on the system for at least a part of their sustainment. If Obamacare is fully realized, millions more Americans will also be conditioned to become dependent on government-designated healthcare providers. The point is not to pass judgment on those people who get money or services from the government, only to make clear our progression away from freedom and into centralized servitude.
For a Soviet structure to thrive, poverty among common citizens has to be institutionalized. Dependency requires a constant state of desperation. In America, this has been accomplished through a combination of inflated prices and reduced wages in conjunction with the destruction of labor options.
At the height of the communist machine in Russia, employment was ample; but the kind of employment one could apply for was dependent on bureaucratic red tape and availability based on a worker’s record. Only the academic “elite” within the government-run cesspools of Soviet universities and military schools had their choice of employment; even then, they were often pressured into particular specialized fields, depending on the kind of labor the state needed done at that particular time.
In the United States anyone can certainly aspire to do whatever job he hopes to do. But again, options have been removed economically; and the same academic elitism pervasive in Soviet Union labor markets exists in America today. In a recent installment of his weekly radio show, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was better for “so-so” high school students to pursue a career in plumbing rather than go to college.
Though I rarely agree with Bloomberg on anything, my initial reaction was surprise at his willingness to steer American youth away from university indoctrination centers. However, upon further examination, it became clear that Bloomberg was not trying to save the next generation time and money. Instead, he is promoting a shift in the labor dynamic of the U.S. economy toward a Soviet-style foundation. Bloomberg knows well that the U.S. labor market will never return to its former glory, partly because he is a supporter of the globalist policies that ruined our economy in the first place. Instead of suggesting ways to reverse the trend of progressive poverty and the lack of high-end jobs that engender ingenuity and invention, elitists like Bloomberg are saying “forget your dreams and get used to being a drone.”
In a 70% service and retail economy, where job availability is increasingly degraded and independent business is discouraged, Americans will have two choices: Excel in the world of federally funded and propagandized education and sell your soul just for a chance at obtaining a professional career in a field of influence, or, settle for the leftovers. Modern socialists often sing the praises of the soviet educational model for raising the literacy rates of once agricultural and isolated people to 98%, but what they fail to mention is that this literacy was only encouraged in order to create a more efficient servant class that was easier to propagandize. The U.S. is moving into a similar paradigm. For some people, being a plumber is a fine thing; but it should not be the only thing. In a true free market, a smart man can make his own way, even if he does not conform to the ideologies of the educational racket. In a Sovietized market, a smart man is prohibited from accomplishing anything unless he conforms to the ideologies of the educational racket.
Some people may respond that the centralization conspiracy within the American economy is an obvious thing today, and that there is little need to expose it any further. I would point out that centralization is not the only issue here; the guidebook by which that centralization is being implemented is also important. This has all been done before on the other side of the world only decades ago, and the end result was a horrifying cascade of social enslavement and mechanically inclined death.
In the end, the Soviet economy was so utterly fraudulent that the final breakdown of the system came as a complete surprise to many in political and economic fields of the era. This is what happens when governments control all source data for financial statistics; transparency dies and collapse creeps in. Centralization is an absolute affront to the natural laws of supply and demand and an oppressive hindrance to the innovation that humanity thrives on. Such systems require constant theft from the populace in the form of reduced employment, reduced wages, reduced resources, increased taxes, increased price controls and a highly ignorant citizenry in order to function even for a short time. Sadly, the United States is well on its way in all of these areas, emulating a poisonous fiscal system and lending itself to a global economic tyranny in which all of us work much harder, for much less, and all for a government that seeks to use our very labor against us.
You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com
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Weather patterns are becoming increasingly erratic and the ground under our feet is becoming extremely unstable. So precisely what in the world is going on here? Is this the beginning of a trend? Could it be possible that we are entering the worst period for natural disasters in U.S. history? The tornado that just hit the town of Moore, Oklahoma is already being called one of the most destructive tornadoes that America has ever seen. That tornado came almost two years to the day after the deadliest tornado in U.S. history hit Joplin, Missouri. But of course it is not just tornadoes that seem to be getting more powerful. Giant sinkholes are appearing at an unprecedented rate, earthquakes are becoming more frequent and more powerful, 6 of the 10 worst years for wildfires ever recorded in the United States have all come since the year 2000, and the western part of the country is experiencing the worst stretch of drought since the days of the Great Depression. Is all of this just some sort of a giant coincidence? If not, what is causing these changes?
The giant F4 tornado that absolutely devastated Moore, Oklahoma had winds of up to 200 mph. It was estimated to be at least two miles wide at one point, and what made it especially destructive was the fact that it sat on the ground for 40 minutes. Most tornadoes only reach the ground for a couple of minutes. According to the latest reports, the tornado resulted in 24 deaths and hundreds of others were seriously injured.
Meanwhile, other parts of Oklahoma experienced very unusual weather as well. In fact, hail the size of grapefruits was falling in one area near Oklahoma City.
Personally, I sure am glad that I don’t live in tornado alley. I don’t know if I could handle hail the size of grapefruits and tornadoes that are two miles wide.
But despite the fact that we have seen such destructive tornadoes in recent years, constructing storm shelters has very much gone out of style. This is very unfortunate, because as Mike Adams of Natural News has pointed out, even a very small storm shelter can save your life…
Storm shelters offer almost 100% survivability against tornados. Tornados cannot penetrate underground, after all. If YOU are underground, even in a small, cramped storm shelter that’s just two meters wide and two meters tall, you have an almost 100% chance of emerging from the storm completely unhurt.
Most fatalities in tornados happen because people are killed from flying debris. You might even call it “wind shrapnel.” Take a bunch of lumber, aluminum siding, bricks and roof trusses and accelerate them to 200 mph and you have a deadly weapon that will kill almost anyone it touches. But put your body just three feet underground — in a tornado shelter — and all that debris flies right past you, harmlessly above your shelter.
Another huge concern is the epidemic of sinkholes that we have seen all over the United States over the past few years.
Some cities are actually being eaten alive by these things. For example, just check out what is happening to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania…
Pennsylvania’s state capital is suffering from a rash of monster sinkholes, but city officials are too broke to do anything about it.
Loose soil and leaky, century-old underground water pipes are to blame for the municipal nightmare, which came to a head on the New Year’s Eve when a 50-foot sinkhole yawned open along Fourth Street, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The eight-foot deep crater — one of at least 41 in the city — is so large, locals made it a “check-in” site on the social media site Four Square.
Some cheeky residents and the media nicknamed the hole “Super Sinkhole Walter.”
And check out what is happening in one housing division out in California…
Scott and Robin Spivey had a sinking feeling that something was wrong with their home when cracks began snaking across their walls in March.
The cracks soon turned into gaping fractures, and within two weeks their 600-square-foot garage broke from the house and the entire property — manicured lawn and all — dropped 10 feet below the street.
It wasn’t long before the houses on both sides collapsed as the ground gave way in the Spivey’s neighborhood in Lake County, about 100 miles north of San Francisco.
It’s a bleak scenario. A massive earthquake along the New Madrid fault kills or injures 60,000 people in Tennessee. A quarter of a million people are homeless. The Memphis airport – the country’s biggest air terminal for packages – goes off-line. Major oil and gas pipelines across Tennessee rupture, causing shortages in the Northeast. In Missouri, another 15,000 people are hurt or dead. Cities and towns throughout the central U.S. lose power and water for months. Losses stack up to hundreds of billions of dollars.
Fortunately, this magnitude 7.7 temblor is not real but rather a scenario imagined by the Mid-America Earthquake Center and the Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management at George Washington University. The goal of their 2008 analysis was to plan for a modern recurrence of quakes that happened along the New Madrid fault more than 200 years ago, in 1811 and 1812.
And remember, the scenario discussed above is just for a 7.7 earthquake. Much more powerful earthquakes have happened in the New Madrid fault zone in the past, and that is exactly what many are expecting to happen in the years ahead.
Meanwhile, the “Ring of Fire” continues to heat up. Over the past few years, there have been major earthquakes in almost every area along the Pacific rim except for the west coast of the United States. We should be very thankful for that, but that good fortune will not last indefinitely.
Personally, I would not want to be living anywhere along the Pacific coast in the coming years.
And it is not just earthquakes that we need to be concerned about along the Ring of Fire. We are also seeing a significant increase in volcanic activity.
Most Americans don’t realize it, but a major volcanic eruption is going on up in Alaska right now. The following is from Yahoo News…
One of Alaska’s most active volcanoes, which has been belching ash and spewing lava since last week, has forced regional flight cancellations and dusted some nearby communities with ash, scientists and local officials said on Monday.
Pavlof Volcano has sent up ash as high as 22,000 feet, with the cloud blowing eastward and the eruption showing no signs of abating, according to the federal-state Alaska Volcano Observatory.
The lava from its 8,261-foot (2,518-metre) peak has also created huge steam clouds on meeting the mountain’s snow.
And there are several volcanoes along the west coast of the United States that people should be keeping their eyes on as well. One of them is Mt. Saint Helens. The following is what one scientist recently said about Mt. Saint Helens…
We know magma is forming, we see little earthquakes, and we know it is reloading. We know it will erupt again and we know we may have as little as a week’s notice.
Personally, I am even more concerned about Mt. Rainier. That is one of the reasons why I included an eruption of Mt. Rainier in my new novel. Mt. Rainier has started to become unstable, and a full-blown eruption would be absolutely catastrophic.
In addition to everything else that I have discussed above, we have also been witnessing an increase in the intensity of hurricanes, wildfires, drought and dust storms over the past decade.
So what is causing all of this?
Do you have any idea?
Please feel free to post a comment with your opinion below…
Asteroid 1998QE2 will reach its nearest point to Earth on May 31st. The rock which is 1.7 miles wide will fly by at a distance of 3.6 million miles, but even at that distance it should be visible to backyard astronomers. During the first week of June it will reach a brightness of 11th magnitude.
The sunspot number today is 119. Sunspot AR1748 has substantially decayed and is less likely to throw off X-class flares but M-class are still possible with NOAA estimating the chances of such an event at 50% during the next 24 hours, with a 20% chance of an X-class during the same period.
The coronal wind blowing from the coronal holes that appeared at the bottom centre and bottom west of the sun disc are still set to reach Earth on May 23-24th and there is a 30% chance of polar geomagnetic storms at that time.
Over the next few days Venus, Jupiter and Mercury will be visible and will come together forming a triangle in the western sky. Their closest approach will be May 26th. They should be visible to the naked eye in clear conditions.
Chris Carrington is a writer, researcher and lecturer with a background in science, technology and environmental studies. Chris is an editor for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up!
It is a sure sign of the systemic breakdown of the global capitalist system that the very measures put in place to try to prevent a crisis are creating the conditions for a financial meltdown beyond even the scale of 2008.
For almost five years the world’s major central banks have pumped an estimated $7 trillion into financial markets with the stated aim of trying to spark an economic recovery. Economic data from around the world indicate that it has been a manifest failure.
The statistics on price levels are among the most significant. These show that rather than prices increasing—a sign of recovery in so-called “normal” conditions—deflationary pressures are intensifying.
In the US, consumer prices fell by 0.4 percent in May, the biggest decline since late 2008, following a 0.2 percent decline in April. In Europe, excluding food and energy costs, consumer prices in the 17-member euro zone rose by just 1 percent in April from a year earlier.
The downtrend has far-reaching implications. Confronted with falling prices for their products, major firms and corporations seek to make profits not by investing and expanding production, as they would seek to do if a recovery were underway, but by savage cost-cutting coupled with financial speculation. The consequent cuts in pay and jobs lead to a reduction in consumer demand, further fueling the deflationary trend.
Other economic data highlight this process. Last month, US industrial production fell by 0.5 percent, compared to a projected decline of 0.2 percent, prompting predictions that results for the second quarter would be even worse than the last quarter of 2012, when the US economy showed virtually no expansion.
In the euro zone, unemployment has risen for the 23rd consecutive month and now stands at 12.1 per cent, a 1.1 percent increase over the level a year ago. The euro zone economy contracted by 0.2 percent in the first quarter, meaning the current contraction has lasted longer than that experienced in 2008-2009.
Since the onset of the breakdown in 2008, the prospect has been held out that China could provide the basis for the long-term expansion of the global economy. But while industrial production and retail sales both showed a significant rise last month, pointing to economic growth of about 7.5 percent this year, these hopes are being dashed.
In a recent article pointing to the absence of “a strong source of demand growth” anywhere in the global economy, the Financial Times noted that “worries” about the Chinese economy were “widespread.” In the long term it was clear that the double-digit growth of the past decade was a thing of the past, while in the short term, despite an expansion of credit the rise in GDP produced by this lending was near its lowest level for a decade.
In contrast to the trends in the real economy, financial markets are experiencing an unprecedented boom. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up by 15 percent since the Fed launched its third round of quantitative easing last September. In Japan, the Nikkei index has climbed 44 percent since last December and the election of the Abe government, which demanded that the Bank of Japan boost the money supply. In the UK, the FTSE index has gained 20 percent in the last six months on the back of quantitative easing by the Bank of England, despite the fact that the British “recovery” is weaker even than that experienced in the Great Depression, while European stock markets have gained 30 percent since last July.
These increases are being fuelled entirely by the trillions of dollars being pumped into the financial system by the major central banks.
But rather than expressing a “recovery,” the booming share markets are a fever chart of the deepening crisis of the capitalist system. Never in the history of world capitalism has there been such a divergence of financial markets from underlying economic processes.
The unprecedented rise in global markets has sparked concerns that the conditions are being created for a crash. As Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett noted, “[W]hile the flood of central bank liquidity is enabling the system to absorb small shocks, it is also masking a host of internal contradictions and fragilities that could surface if a shock hits” with the “potential for… future violent instability rising apace.”
While any rational analysis points to the fact that the present conditions are preparing the way for a disaster, the frenzy of speculation continues according to its own mad logic. As the then-chief executive of the US banking giant Citigroup, Chuck Prince, famously remarked in July 2007: “As long as the music is playing, though, you’ve got to get up and dance.” Little more than a year later, the global financial system plunged into its worst crisis since the 1930s.
Today the situation is potentially even more explosive than five years ago. This is because, unlike 2008, the central banks, having bought up trillions of dollars worth of government and other financial assets, are key market players themselves, and so will be directly impacted by a collapse of financial markets.
Increasingly, they are being caught in a trap of their own making. Withdrawal of the financial stimulus measures threatens to collapse the bubble. At the same time, the pumping out of still more money draws them deeper into the mire.
Last week, economists at the International Monetary Fund published an analysis warning that ending easy money policies could result in the central banks suffering severe losses as interest rates spiked and bond prices fell. The Federal Reserve could experience a loss equivalent to as much as 4 percent of GDP ($628 billion), the Bank of Japan could lose 7.5 percent of GDP, and the Bank of England almost 6 percent.
In other words, a new financial shock could call the stability of the central banks themselves into question. Unlike the situation in 2008-2009, they would be unable to mount a rescue operation.
The deepening global crisis of capitalism has the most far-reaching political implications.
The past five years have seen the pumping of hundreds of billions of dollars into the coffers of the banks and speculators, and the financial elite that benefits from their activities, while the impoverishment of ever broader sections of the population has continued unabated.
These measures, far from producing an economic “recovery,” have prepared the way for even bigger disasters.
The international working class must prepare its own independent response: the political struggle for the overthrow of the failed capitalist system through a revolutionary struggle for political power and the reconstruction of society on socialist foundations.
The streets are so much darker now, since money for streetlights is rarely available to municipal governments. The national parks began closing down years ago. Some are already being subdivided and sold to the highest bidder. Reports on bridges crumbling or even collapsing are commonplace. The air in city after city hangs brown and heavy (and rates of childhood asthma and other lung diseases have shot up), because funding that would allow the enforcement of clean air standards by the Environmental Protection Agency is a distant memory. Public education has been cut to the bone, making good schools a luxury and, according to the Department of Education, two of every five students won’t graduate from high school.
It’s 2023 — and this is America 10 years after the first across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration went into effect. They went on for a decade, making no exception for effective programs vital to America’s economic health that were already underfunded, like job training and infrastructure repairs. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.
Traveling back in time to 2013 — at the moment the sequester cuts began — no one knew what their impact would be, although nearly everyone across the political spectrum agreed that it would be bad. As it happened, the first signs of the unraveling which would, a decade later, leave the United States a third-world country, could be detected surprisingly quickly, only three months after the cuts began. In that brief time, a few government agencies, like the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), after an uproar over flight delays, requested — and won — special relief. Naturally, the Department of Defense, with a mere $568 billion to burn in its 2013 budget, also joined this elite list. On the other hand, critical spending for education, environmental protection, and scientific research was not spared, and in many communities the effect was felt remarkably soon.
Robust public investment had been a key to U.S. prosperity in the previous century. It was then considered a basic part of the social contract as well as of Economics 101. As just about everyone knew in those days, citizens paid taxes to fund worthy initiatives that the private sector wouldn’t adequately or efficiently supply. Roadways and scientific research were examples. In the post-World War II years, the country invested great sums of money in its interstate highways and what were widely considered the best education systems in the world, while research in well-funded government labs led to inventions like the Internet. The resulting world-class infrastructure, educated workforce, and technological revolution fed a robust private sector.
Austerity Fever
In the early years of the twenty-first century, however, a set of manufactured arguments for “austerity,” which had been gaining traction for decades, captured the national imagination. In 2011-2012, a Congress that seemed capable of doing little else passed trillions of dollars of what was then called “deficit reduction.” Sequestration was a strange and special case of this particular disease. These across-the-board cuts, instituted in August 2011 and set to kick in on January 2, 2013, were meant to be a storm cloud hanging over Congress. Sequestration was never intended to take effect, but only to force lawmakers to listen to reason — to craft a less terrible plan to reduce deficits by a wholly arbitrary $1.2 trillion over 10 years. As is now common knowledge, they didn’t come to their senses and sequestration did go into effect. Then, although Congress could have cancelled the cuts at any moment, the country never turned back.
It wasn’t that cutting federal spending at those levels would necessarily have been devastating in 2013, though in an already weakened economy any cutbacks would have hurt. Rather, sequestration proved particularly corrosive from the start because all types of public spending — from grants for renewable energy research and disadvantaged public schools to HIV testing — were to be gutted equally, as if all of it were just fat to be trimmed. Even monitoring systems for possible natural disasters like river flooding or an imminent volcanic eruption began to be shut down. Over time the cuts would be vast: $85 billion in the first year and $110 billion in each year after that, for more than $1 trillion in cuts over a decade on top of other reductions already in place.
Once lawmakers wrote sequestration into law they had more than a year to wise up. Yet they did nothing to draft an alternate plan and didn’t even start pointing out the havoc-to-come until just weeks before the deadline. Then they gave themselves a couple more months — until March 1, 2013 — to work out a deal, which they didn’t. All this is, of course, ancient history, but even a decade later, the record of folly is worth reviewing.
If you remember, they tweeted while Rome burned. Speaker of the House John Boehner, for instance, sent out dozens of tweets to say Democrats were responsible: “The president proposed sequester, had 18 mo. to prioritize cuts, and did nothing,” he typically wrote, while he no less typically did nothing. For his part, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tweeted back: “It’s not too late to avert the damaging #sequester cuts, for which an overwhelming majority of Republicans voted.” And that became the pattern for a decade of American political gridlock, still not broken today.
Destruction Begins
March 1st came and went, so the budgetary axe began to fall.
At first, it didn’t seem so bad. Yes, the cuts weren’t quite as across the board as expected. The meat industry, for example, protested because health inspector furloughs would slow its production lines, so Congress patched the problem and spared those inspectors. But meat production aside, there was a sense that the cuts might not be so bad after all.
They were to be doled out based on a formula for meeting the arbitrary target of $85 billion in reductions in 2013, and no one knew precisely what would happen to any given program. In April, more than a month after the cuts had begun, the White House issued the president’s budget proposal for the following year, an annual milestone that typically included detailed information about federal spending in the current year. But across thousands of pages of documents and tables, the new budget ignored sequestration, and so reported meaningless 2013 numbers, because even the White House couldn’t say exactly what impact these cuts would have on programs and public investment across the country.
As it happened, they didn’t have to wait long to find out. The first ripples of impact began to spread quickly indeed. Losing some government funding, cancer clinics in New Mexico and Connecticut turned away patients. In Kentucky, Oregon, and Montana, shelters for victims of domestic violence cut services. In New York, Maryland, and Alabama, public defenders were furloughed, limiting access to justice for low-income people. In Illinois and Minnesota, public school teachers were laid off. In Florida, Michigan, and Mississippi, Head Start shortened the school year, while in Kansas and Indiana, some low-income children simply lost access to the program entirely. In Alaska, a substance abuse clinic shut down. Across the country, Meals on Wheels cut four million meals for seniors in need.
Only when the FAA imposed furloughs on its air traffic controllers did public irritation threaten to boil over. Long lines and airport delays ensued, and people were angry. And not just any people — people who had access to members of Congress. In a Washington that has gridlocked the most routine business, lawmakers moved at a breakneck pace, taking just five days to pass special legislation to solve the problem. To avoid furloughs and shorten waits for airline passengers, they allowed the FAA to spend funds that had been intended for long-term airport repairs and improvements.
Flights would leave on time — at least until runways cracked and crumbled. (You undoubtedly remember the scandal of 2019 at Cincinnati International Airport, when a bright young candidate for Senate met her demise in a tragic landing mishap.)
And then, of course, the Pentagon asked for an exemption, too. We’re talking about the military behemoth of planet Earth, which in 2013 accounted for 40% of military spending globally, its outlays exceeding the next 10 largest militaries combined. It, too wanted a special exemption for some of its share of the cutbacks.
Meat inspectors, the FAA, and the Department of Defense enjoyed special treatment, but the rest of the nation was, as the history books recount, not so lucky. Children from middle-class and low-income families saw ever fewer resources at school, closing doors of opportunity. The young, old, and infirm found themselves with dwindling access to basic resources such as health care or even a hot dinner. Federal grants to the states dried up, and there was less money in state budgets for local priorities, from police officers to lowly streetlights.
And remember that, just as the sequestration cuts began, carbon concentration in the atmosphere breached 400 parts per million. (Climate scientists had long been warning that the level should be kept below 350 for human security.) Unfortunately, as with the groundbreaking research that led to the Internet, it takes money to do big things, and the long-term effects of cutting environmental protection, general research, and basic infrastructure meant that the U.S. government would do little to stem the extreme weather that has, in 2023, become such a part of our world and our lives.
Looking back from a country now eternally in crisis, it’s clear that a Rubicon was crossed back in 2013. There was then still a chance to reject across-the-board budget cuts that would undermine a nation built on sound public investment and shared prosperity. At that crossroads, some fought against austerity. Losing that battle, others argued for a smarter approach: close tax loopholes to raise new revenue, or reduce waste in health care, or place a tax on carbon, or cut excessive spending at the Pentagon. But too few Americans — with too little influence — spoke up, and Washington didn’t listen. The rest of the story, as you well know, is history.
Defense Distributed’s Liberator was printed using an $8,000 secondhand Stratasys Dimension SST. At the time of writing, a used 2004 Stratasys Dimension SST is being sold on eBay for $9,999.
The Lulz Liberator, on the other hand, was printed on a $1,725 Lulzbot AO-101 3D printer by a Wisconsin engineer calling himself “Joe,” who asked Andy Greenberg of Forbes not to reveal his name.
Joe successfully fired the Lulz Liberator nine times using .380 caliber rounds and a string for safety purposes, vastly beating out the durability of the Defense Distributed Liberator.
While the original Liberator was generally only fired once per printed barrel in testing, Joe’s model successfully fired eight rounds on one barrel before a new barrel was swapped out for the ninth round.
“The only reason we stopped firing is because the sun went down,” Joe said.
Aside from the improved durability, the Lulz Liberator is a significant step forward because it was printed over only 48 hours with just $25 of plastic on a desktop 3D printer available for consumer use.
“People think this takes an $8,000 machine and that it blows up on the first shot. I want to dispel that,” Joe said. “This does work, and I want that to be known.”
See the Lulz Liberator being tested below via Andy Greenberg:
Joe used generic Polylac PA-747 ABS plastic, the same type used in most consumer 3D printers, for the gun. He maintains that the plastic he used is actually stronger than the more costly ABS plastic used in the Stratasys printer employed by Defense Distributed.
However, Joe’s design also has more metal hardware than the original Liberator. For instance, Joe used hardware store screws to hold the hammer in the body instead of the printed plastic pins used in the original design.
The Lulz Liberator, like the original, uses a metal nail for a firing pin and according to Greenberg “includes a chunk of non-functional steel designed to make it detectable with a metal detector so that it complies with the Undetectable Firearms Act.”
Furthermore, Joe added rifling to the barrel in order to avoid falling under the National Firearms Act, which regulates weapons with smooth-bore barrels among other improvised weapons.
The rifling may also be a first in firearms manufacturing.
“I may be the first person in the history of mankind to fire a bullet through a plastic rifled barrel. It’s an interesting feeling,” Joe said. “I feel like Samuel Colt.”
Joe’s model still presented problems, according to Joe and Michael Guslick, a Wisonconsin engineer known for printing one of the first working lower receivers for an AR-15.
They said that during their testing the weapon misfired several times. Some screws and its firing pin had to be replaced during the test firing as well.
The ammunition cartridges also expanded enough that they needed to be pounded out with a hammer, according to the engineers.
“Other than that, it’s pretty much confirming that yes, Defense Distributed is correct that this functions,” Guslick said. “And it’s possible to make one on a much lower cost printer.”
Since the Liberator’s blueprints were put online this month, this much progress is indeed impressive, bugs included.
“It’s not yet clear if or when Joe or Guslick plans to release their modified blueprint for the Liberator online,” according to Greenberg.
If they do, they might get the same kind of treatment from the State Department enjoyed by Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson, a man who calls himself a crypto-anarchist and market anarchist.
“I’m trying to do the same thing Cody wants to do,” Joe said. “I’m not an anarchist, but I don’t like the idea that the government is telling us ‘You can’t have that.’ I agree with Cody’s idea that this is a perfect fusion of the first and second amendments.”
It will be fascinating to see if Joe puts the plans online and how the State Department reacts to that decision.
Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on UCY.TV from 7 pm — 10 pm Pacific, which you can find HERE. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com
It’s not a stretch to suggest that Americans are over medicated. In 2011 doctors across the nation wrote an astounding four billion medical prescriptions, amounting to an average of 13 prescriptions for every man, woman and child in the United States.
In the next few weeks the American Psychiatric Associations is releasing their updated fifth version their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5); the so-called ‘bible’ of psychiatric diagnoses. The new manual promises to take mental illness and the use of prescription drugs to a whole new level.
You may not be considered “crazy” or “mentally ill” today, but under the new guidelines experts say half of uswill be diagnosed with a psychiatric condition in the future.
The odds will probably be greater than 50 percent, according to the new manual, that you’ll have a mental disorder in your lifetime.
…
The increasing number of disorders comes about because some “problems” that were not previously considered to be mental illness were reclassified as such by their inclusion in the DSM—and it is the DSM that functionally defines mental illness in the United States.
You see, in the DSM-5 the definitions for mental illness have been expanded to include a whole host of new symptoms and conditions.
For example, under the new guidelines if your 6 to 18 year-old child throws a temper tantrum from time to time or has a mood swing, a psychiatrist could diagnose the condition as a “Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder” requiring professional treatment. Keep in mind that in psychiatry “professional treatment” almost always means prescription drugs.
Are you over the age of 55 and have “senior moments” like forgetting where you put your keys? If so, then in all likelihood you have a neurocognitive disorder.
Do you stockpile food, supplies or other items in anticipation of a disaster? If so, you may have what’s called an obsessive compulsive hoarding disorder.
“The reality shows have raised awareness, but they tend to sensationalize the patients, and they rarely talk about treatment.”
“The big change,” Dr. Saxena said, “will be an official recognition of hoarding as an important neuropsychic disorder that will increase screening, increase detection and diagnosis, and refer patients in for treatment.”
While the new hoarding guidelines don’t specifically target “preparedness,” the fact is that some ‘professionals’ have already suggested that if you have any level of anxiety about the possibility of a major catastrophe, or your motivation for preparing for unforeseen events includes a distrust of the government, then you’ve got psychological problems.
Now, with the DSM-5, they can officially diagnose you as crazy.
Dr. Allen Frances, the author of Saving Normal, says that the new requirements will, ”turn everyday anxiety, eccentricity, forgetting and bad eating habits into mental disorders.”
The changes being introduced by the DSM-5 are nothing short of a sweeping overhaul of our mental health care system, and they will have effects that many experts can’t even fathom. But those behind the DSM, who work very closely with government experts, know exactly what they’re doing.
Let’s connect the dots a little bit to get an idea of how this is going to have a direct impact on your life in the very near future.
Under the new regulations set forth by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, certain groups of Americans like school children, seniors, those on government health plans, active-duty military personnel, and veterans will be required to submit to mental health screenings.
Page 1137 of the The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides grants for the operation of school-based health centers required to include “mental health and substance abuse disorder assessments” for children and adolescents.
On page 1191 is found a section on Mental Health Screening that refers to a program called “Healthy Aging, Living Well”. Persons ages 55-64 are being targeted for screening activities that can include “mental health/behavioral health and substance use disorders.”
Obamacare requires mental health services for many other groups.
These include Medicaid recipients, addicts, mothers with postpartum depression, the elderly, and soldiers. There’s even has a section called “Mental Health in Small Businesses” which awards grants to small businesses willing to provide workplace wellness programs that encourage “healthy lifestyles, healthy eating, increased physical activity and improved mental health.”
Are you starting to see where this is going?
You’ll be forced by your child’s school, by the government, and even your private employer to be involuntarily screened. And the psychiatrists who’ll be performing the diagnoses will be utilizing the criteria outlined in the DSM-5.
According to the afforementioned statistics, there’s a 50% chance that those being screened will be found to have some type of mental health condition.
But that’s just the beginning.
As we know, once diagnosed, failure to take the treatment (e.g. medication) prescribed could then be deemed unlawful behavior, especially in the case of children.
Earlier this year, administrators from the Berne-Knox-Westerlo school district called Albany County Child Protective Services, alleging child abuse when the Carrolls said they wanted to take Kyle off the drug.
As a result, the Carrolls are now on a statewide list of alleged child abusers, and they have been thrust into an Orwellian family court battle to clear their name and to ensure their child isn’t removed from their home. “It’s beyond the point of whether he should be on it. Now it’s the point of them telling us what we’re going to do,” said Michael Carroll. “They’re telling me how to raise my child.”
…
“The schools are now using child protective services to enforce their own desires and their own policies,” said David Lansner, a New York City lawyer who has seen cases similar to the Carrolls’. “The parents’ authority is being undermined when people have to do what some public official wants,” Lansner added. “This thing is so scary,”
It’s already happening, and with nearly 4 million children every year being (mis)diagnosed with ADHD, we can expect the numbers to rise significantly under the new DSM guidelines.
It’s important to understand, however, that they’re not just targeting our children. They’re coming after all of us.
The DSM-5, coupled with Obama Care legislation, will allow the government unprecedented control over lives.
One such example is the targeting of America’s gun owners. Legislation is in the works in many states, as well as the U.S. Congress, that would require mental health screenings for firearms ownership. Should these bills pass, then about half of America’s gun owners would immediately lose their right to bear arms for any manner of “disorders” that could include stress, anxiety, depressed mood or even poor eating habits!
And while gun control proponents would applaud the victory, what they fail to understand is that by green-lighting such a government intrusion, they are setting themselves up for future legislation that may restrict their own rights for activities that may include maintaining employment or caring for their children.
Once a diagnoses is made the government will then have the ability to enforce it at the barrel of a gun.
If your child is diagnosed with ADHD or separation anxiety disorder, and you refuse to feed them their prescription cocktail, then the government will step in and take your children under the guise of protecting them… from you!
Likewise, you may one day be forced to be screened by your employer and found to be mentally ill (remember, 50/50 shot!). If you refuse the professional treatment that’s recommended, you could lose your job as a result. And because the Department of Homeland Security has been busy creating a Domestic No-Work List all prospective employers will know of your condition and your refusal to seek professional treatment.
The possibilities, now that the door has been opened, are endless.
When it hits the fan, don’t say we didn’t warn you. Mac Slavo is the editor of SHTFplan.com, a resource hub for alternative news, contrarian commentary and strategies that you can take to protect yourself from the coming global paradigm shift.
One of the four State Department employees, who was recently disciplined by their former boss Hillary Clinton, has broken his silence concerning Benghazi and has leveled some very big charges at the former Secretary of State. He is now indicating that the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her staff were the ones that led the review of the Benghazi attacks by perpetrating the flaws in the process of the review, not an independent board.
Raymond Maxwell was placed on forced “administrative leave” after the State Department’s own internal investigation, conducted by an Administrative Review Board (ARB) led by former State Department official Tom Pickering. Five months after he was told to clean out his desk and leave the building, Maxwell remains in professional and legal limbo, having been associated publicly with the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American for reasons that remain unclear.
Maxwell, who served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from August 2011 until his removal last December, following tours in Iraq and Syria, spoke publicly for the first time in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast.
“The overall goal is to restore my honor,” said Maxwell, who has filed grievances regarding his treatment with the State Department’s Human Resources Bureau and the American Foreign Service Association, which represents the interests of foreign-service officers. The other three officials placed on leave were in the Diplomatic Security Bureau, leaving Maxwell as the only official in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), which had responsibility for Libya, to lose his job.
“I had no involvement to any degree with decisions on security and the funding of security at our diplomatic mission in Benghazi,” he said.
While he was removed from his position on December 18, 2012, the day following the ARB’s report, no reason was given him and the others being place on administrative leave. Jne Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said, “”As a matter of policy, we don’t speak to specific personnel matters.”
However, now he is coming out and has stated that not only did he didn’t have anything to do with Benghazi, but that Clinton made him the Benghazi scapegoat.
“The overall goal is to restore my honor,” Maxwell told the Daily Beast.
Maxwell is the former deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs has filed legal grievances because of the treatment he received from the State Department, as well as the American Foreign Service Association. He is also the only official in the bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to lose his job over the September 11, 2012 attacks.
Although Maxwell had planned to retire in September 2012, he stayed on to assist the department in responding to the attacks in Benghazi, he says that he has never had an explanation given to him as to why he was put on leave and that he has never seen the classified sections of the ARB report.
“They just wanted me to go away but I wouldn’t just go away,” he said. “I knew Chris [Stevens]. Chris was a friend of mine.”
The Daily Beast continued to report that “He is seeking a restoration of his previous position, a public statement of apology from State, reimbursement for his legal fees, and an extension of his time in service to equal the time he has spent at home on administrative leave.”
“For any FSO being at work is the essence of everything and being deprived of that and being cast out was devastating,” he said.
Maxwell even said that a State Department official came to his home, following his removal and wanted him to sign a letter that acknowledged his removal and forfeiting his right to enter the State Department building. He refused, claiming that it would have been an admission of guilt.
However, the question lingers; who put Maxwell and the others on leave?
“The decision to place Maxwell on administrative leave was made by Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills, according to three State Department officials with direct knowledge of the events,” according to the report. “On the day after the unclassified version of the ARB’s report was released in December, Mills called Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones and directed her to have Maxwell leave his job immediately.”
Josh Rogin then points out why Mr. Maxwell, of all people, was removed following the release of the ARB report. He writes, “One person who reviewed the classified portion of the ARB report told The Daily Beast that it called out Maxwell for the specific infraction of not reading his daily classified briefings, something that person said Maxwell admitted to the ARB panel during his interview.”
The person spoken of went on to say, “The crime that he is being punished for is not reading his intel.”
Maxwell denies that charge stating that he has not been “officially counseled” about any wrongdoing on his part. However, he lands a serious blow to Clinton and her staff claiming that they were the ones heading the review of the Benghazi attack, not an independent review board.
“He believes that Clinton’s staff, not the ARB, was in charge of the review of the attack that took place during her watch,” the report said.
Maxwell said, “The flaws in the process were perpetrated by the political leadership at State with the complicity of the senior career leadership. They should be called to account.”
Is anyone surprised by this? I’m not. I’m just wondering how Hillary and company are planning on silencing this guy now.
Some people still might be unaware of just how long the reach of Homeland Security has become. How about counterfeit goods as possible terrorism? That is what has been suggested fairly recently as DHS has begun to conduct an increasing number of raids in several states over the past few years aimed at rooting out this “threat to our liberty and economy.”
Operations such as 2012′s “Operation Fashion Faux Pas” was part of a six-month crackdown that closed 20 businesses. As the video below illustrates, hundreds of others have been swept up in similar raids, many of which began by scouring the Internet for key words and indicators of illegal activity.
The latest example of connecting counterfeit goods to possible acts of terrorism comes out of Amherst, New York where a group of kiosks in the Walden Galleria and Boulevard Mall were shut down. Statements by Homeland Security raise a few questions about their role in this type of crime, which is also mirrored in cybersecurity directives.
According to local CBS news affiliate, WIBV4, agents descended upon two shopping malls, seizing merchandise and closing five kiosks.
Disturbingly, WIBV4 provides a link in their article to “report a business for selling goods you believe to be counterfeit.” However, as we learned in the video above, most people can’t tell what is real or not, hence the alleged problem. And, according to Orange County News reporting on Operation Fashion Faux Pas:
It’s become progressively harder to tell what’s fake and what’s real that agents say they now rely on experts. (Source)
So, even though it is admitted that experts have to be called in for examination, the untrained public is being further encouraged to become involved in the snitch culture continuously promoted by Homeland Security in cooperation with media and other private companies.
Furthermore, as we learned from Operation In Our Sites, which led to the seizing of 150 domains on Cyber Monday in 2011, the sweep resulted in a guilty-until-proven-innocent framework where even linking to copyrighted material became part of the counterfeit-intellectual property dragnet. This was in addition to 82 sites seized in the first year of the Operation.
However, Homeland Security is apparently hell-bent upon bringing down its literal and virtual boot wherever it sees fit … naturally, all in the name of security:
Jim Spero, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Buffalo office of Homeland Security, says the sale of counterfeit goods – in Buffalo and beyond – poses a major security threat.
“When you purchase counterfeit goods, when you sell counterfeit goods, you don’t know who you’re dealing with. You don’t know what kind of criminal activity you’re supporting,” Spero said. “It’s actually organized crime that is behind the distribution of these goods. It could be terrorists as well.” (Source)
Other reports have cited cosmetics and suspicious chemicals as part of the justification for Homeland Security’s intervention, in addition to their argument that this type of activity is essentially economic terrorism.
Counterfeiting is a problem, true, but to the level of national security? The real threat to liberty and economic security on a national level more closely comes from the DHS itself and other dangerous agencies of the U.S. government which far outweigh the threat of getting ripped off at the mall.
Furthermore, in a time where the mere accusation of terrorism can get someone locked away indefinitely, it is troubling to see the term being used in such a flippant way.
What is your opinion? Should Homeland Security be devoted to this type of crime? Or is this just one more example of DHS asserting their right to intervene so that it can reach in and examine anyone, anywhere, anytime, and for any reason?
What is going to happen when the greatest economic bubble in the history of the world pops? The mainstream media never talks about that. They are much too busy covering the latest dogfights in Washington and what Justin Bieber has been up to. And most Americans seem to think that if the Dow keeps setting new all-time highs that everything must be okay.
Sadly, that is not the case at all. Right now, the U.S. economy is exhibiting all of the classic symptoms of a bubble economy. You can see this when you step back and take a longer-term view of things. Over the past decade, we have added more than 10 trillion dollars to the national debt. But most Americans have shown very little concern as the balance on our national credit card has soared from 6 trillion dollars to nearly 17 trillion dollars.
Meanwhile, Wall Street has been transformed into the biggest casino on the planet, and much of the new money that the Federal Reserve has been recklessly printing up has gone into stocks. But the Dow does not keep setting new records because the underlying economic fundamentals are good. Rather, the reckless euphoria that we are seeing in the financial markets right now reminds me very much of 1929.
Margin debt is absolutely soaring, and every time that happens a crash rapidly follows. But this time when a crash happens it could very well be unlike anything that we have ever seen before. The top 25 U.S. banks have more than 212 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives combined, and when that house of cards comes crashing down there is no way that anyone will be able to prop it back up. After all, U.S. GDP for an entire year is only a bit more than 15 trillion dollars.
But most Americans are only focused on the short-term because the mainstream media is only focused on the short-term. Things are good this week and things were good last week, so there is nothing to worry about, right?
Unfortunately, economic reality is not going to change even if all of us try to ignore it. Those that are willing to take an honest look at what is coming down the road are very troubled. For example, Bill Gross of PIMCO says that his firm sees “bubbles everywhere”…
We see bubbles everywhere, and that is not to be dramatic and not to suggest they will pop immediately. I just suggested in the bond market with a bubble in treasuries and bubble in narrow credit spreads and high-yield prices, that perhaps there is a significant distortion there. Having said that, it suggests that as long as the FED and Bank of Japan and other Central Banks keep writing checks and do not withdraw, then the bubble can be supported as in blowing bubbles. They are blowing bubbles. When that stops there will be repercussions.
And unfortunately, it is not just the United States that has a bubble economy. In fact, the gigantic financial bubble over in Japan may burst before our own financial bubble does. The following is from a recent article by Graham Summers…
First and foremost, Japan is the second largest bond market in the world. If Japan’s sovereign bonds continue to fall, pushing rates higher, then there has been a tectonic shift in the global financial system. Remember the impact that Greece had on asset prices? Greece’s bond market is less than 3% of Japan’s in size.
For multiple decades, Japanese bonds have been considered “risk free.” As a result of this, investors have been willing to lend money to Japan at extremely low rates. This has allowed Japan’s economy, the second largest in the world, to putter along marginally.
So if Japanese bonds begin to implode, this means that:
1) The second largest bond market in the world is entering a bear market (along with commensurate liquidations and redemptions by institutional investors around the globe).
2) The second largest economy in the world will collapse (along with the impact on global exports).
Both of these are truly epic problems for the financial system.
And of course the entire global financial system is a giant bundle of debt, risk and leverage at this point. We have never seen anything like this in world history. When you step back and take a good, hard look at the numbers, they truly are staggering. The following statistics are from one of my previous articles entitled “Why Is The World Economy Doomed? The Global Financial Pyramid Scheme By The Numbers“…
-$190,000,000,000,000 - The approximate size of the total amount of debt in the entire world. It has nearly doubled in size over the past decade.
-$212,525,587,000,000 - According to the U.S. government, this is the notional value of the derivatives that are being held by the top 25 banks in the United States. But those banks only have total assets of about 8.9 trillion dollars combined. In other words, the exposure of our largest banks to derivatives outweighs their total assets by a ratio of about 24 to 1.
-$600,000,000,000,000 to $1,500,000,000,000,000 - The estimates of the total notional value of all global derivatives generally fall within this range. At the high end of the range, the ratio of derivatives to global GDP is more than 21 to 1.
The financial meltdown that happened back in 2008 should have been a wake up call for the nations of the world. They should have corrected the mistakes that happened so that nothing like that would ever happen again. Unfortunately, nothing was fixed. Instead, our politicians and the central bankers became obsessed with reinflating the system. They piled up even more debt, recklessly printed tons of money and kicked the can down the road for a few years. In the process, they made our long-term problems even worse. The following is a recent quote from John Williams of shadowstats.com…
The economic and systemic solvency crises of the last eight years continue. There never was an actual recovery following the economic downturn that began in 2006 and collapsed into 2008 and 2009. What followed was a protracted period of business stagnation that began to turn down anew in second- and third-quarter 2012. The official recovery seen in GDP has been a statistical illusion generated by the use of understated inflation in calculating key economic series (see Public Comment on Inflation). Nonetheless, given the nature of official reporting, the renewed downturn likely will gain recognition as the second-dip in a double- or multiple-dip recession.
What continues to unfold in the systemic and economic crises is just an ongoing part of the 2008 turmoil. All the extraordinary actions and interventions bought a little time, but they did not resolve the various crises. That the crises continue can be seen in deteriorating economic activity and in the panicked actions by the Federal Reserve, where it proactively is monetizing U.S. Treasury debt at a pace suggestive of a Treasury that is unable to borrow otherwise.
And there are already lots of signs that the next economic downturn is rapidly approaching.
Would revenues at Wal-Mart be falling if the economy was getting better?
U.S. jobless claims hit a six week high last week. We aren’t in the danger zone yet, but once they hit 400,000 that will be a major red flag.
And even though we are still in the “good times” relatively speaking, the federal government is already talking about tightening welfare programs. In fact, there are proposals in Congress right now to make significant cuts to the food stamp program.
If food stamps and other welfare programs get cut, that is going to make a lot of people very, very angry. And that anger and frustration will get even worse when the next economic downturn strikes and millions of people start losing their jobs and their homes.
What we are witnessing right now is the calm before the storm. Let us hope that it lasts for as long as possible so that we can have more time to prepare.
Unfortunately, this bubble of false hope will not last forever. At some point it will end, and then the pain will begin.
Famed Wikileaks whistleblower Bradley Manning had his last pre-trial hearing today before his case goes to trial in early June.
The hearing revolved around classified information and the fact that much of the court martial will be conducted in closed door sessions, a fact many believe will be used to hide abuse Manning has suffered since his arrest.
A post on BradleyManning.org covered the pretrial which has been largely ignored by the corporate and alternative media alike.
Judge Denise Lind made two rulings based on the previous closed session, on May 8, when Ambassador Don Yamamoto testified in a ‘dry run.’
In that session, she found that the defense’s proposed alternatives to closing trial during testimony that will elicit classified information – such as using code words, redactions, or substitutions – were inadequate, and therefore the court will be closed for the classified portions of 24 more government witnesses. The government is ordered to speedily provide a (likely heavily redacted) transcript of those closed sessions.
Judge Lind also ruled to narrow what the government will be allowed to present when it attempts to prove that Bradley had reason to believe certain classified information could be used to harm the United States if made public.
The government can show more than that the documents in question were merely classified, and it can provide some context for the documents’ content and hypothetical damage it could cause.
But it can’t delve too deeply into that context, because the defense will be allowed to challenge that context in court, and Judge Lind doesn’t want the court martial to “devolve into many trials regarding international politics in many regions of world.”
One of the topics that seems highly unlikely to be covered in the trial is the abuse and possible torture Manning has endured since his arrest for apparently releasing classified documents to Wikileaks.
An article published by the Daily Kos in December 2012 outlined the facts that lead many to believe that Manning has indeed been tortured.
List of Torture Techniques Applied to Pfc. Bradley Manning:
1. Solitary Confinement/Isolation
Solitary confinement is strictly prohibited under international law. It is a cruel practice which causes permanent psychological damage. The impacts can range from hallucinations, emotional damage, delusions and impaired cognitive functioning to anxiety and depression. Solitary confinement is outlawed under the Convention Against Torture, ICCPR and the Geneva Conventions.
Manning was in solitary confinement in Kuwait and Quantico for nine months. He was in a cage (Kuwait) or a small, windowless cell for 23 hours a day. He was given 20 minutes of “sunshine call” each day, during which he could “walk” figure eights in restraints with guards holding him up. Eventually, he received 1 hour of recreation per day–still woefully below legal standards. His treating military psychologist, Col. Rick Malone, much to his credit, testified that
The ways he was being held was detrimental to his physical and mental health. His custody status was a stressor . . . He was taken of medications after several weeks because he was symptom-free. . .in complete remission . . .and posed no harm to himself or others.2. Humiliation Techniques
Bradley Manning, being held alternatively in “suicide risk” and “prevention of injury” status (despite military psychologists testifying that he posed no risk of injury to himself or others) pointed out that
If I really wanted to kill myself, I could use my underwear.Even though he was under 24/7 observation, the military took his underpants. At the routine count the next morning, he covered himself with the prevention-of-injury sandpaper blanket. An officer asked,
Detainee Manning, Is that how you stand at parade rest?Manning requested clarification. He was soon standing completely naked for morning count. Forced nudity is used to induce feelings of humiliation and fear. Manning also had to request toilet paper any time he needed to relieve himself. This was supposedly an anti-suicide measure, which is belied by the fact that he was under constant surveillance.
3. Sleep Deprivation
Upon his initial confinement in Kuwait, Manning’s days and nights were reversed, being awoken in the evening and kept up all night. Sleep deprivation is a very effective torture technique used by torturers because it makes a person more suggestible, reduces psychological resistance and it reduces the body’s capacity to resist pain. It had this very effect on Manning, causing him to have what has been described as an “anxiety attack” and “nervous breakdown.” Once he was moved to Quantico, guards awakened Manning multiple times on multiple nights each week, and a flourescent light was always visible from his cell. The Committee against Torture (CAT) has noted that sleep deprivation used for prolonged periods constitutes a breach of the CAT, and is primarily used to break down the will of the detainee. Sleep deprivation can cause impaired memory and cognitive functioning, decreased short term memory, speech impairment, hallucinations, psychosis, lowered immunity, headaches, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stress, anxiety and depression…even though Manning was supposedly in restricted custodial status due to anxiety and depression.
4. Sensory Deprivation
Sensory deprivation is used to instil a sense of fear, disorientation and cause dependency on their captor. Sensory deprivation has also been attributed to increased pain sensitivity and increased psychological stress. The military confiscated Manning’s glasses, without which he cannot see. So all of the isolation he endured, he did so while essentially blind.
5. Stress Positions
Manning was kept shackled in his cell. He was told he had to stand because he was still “on duty.” If he sat, he was not allowed to lean against the wall or lie down. The strangest thing was the “tear-proof smock,” which was really a nearly floor-length, rigid, abrasive rubber-and-foam straight jacket. Manning donned this restraint, which he often had to wear with nothing on beneath. Manning got stuck in this device, which was supposedly for his protection, and had to be extracted by guards.
These physically and psychologically abusive techniques were used to disorient Manning and induce regression, psychic disintegration, and feelings of helplessness that lowered his defenses. He would routinely go through perfunctory “wellness checklists,” and didn’t start advocating for himself until his amazing attorney, David Coombs, told him to start filing formal grievances contesting his conditions of confinement so he could exhaust his administrative remedies. (These formal grievances led to 3 sham “Classified & Assignment Board” hearing, which Manning testified had already decided to keep him on restricted status.)
These techniques were used not by rogue CIA thugs, but by the military–on someone in pre-trial detention, not found guilty to have done anything.
In June we will be covering whatever information on the trial is actually released as this case is not only about justice for one man but about the future treatment of whistleblowers throughout the country.
Daniel Jackson is a seasoned journalist with a passion for exposing corruption and the lies of the global elite. DJ has a passion for truth and liberty that is shown through his extensive reporting on numerous globally significant topics not normally covered by the corporate controlled media. He is is a writer, researcher and editor for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up!
Lizz Winstead, the co creator of the popular Daily Show, is facing a massive backlash after she sent out an insensitive tweet that joked about the horrific Oklahoma tornado’s possible political motivations.
The tweet, sent before much of the devastation in Oklahoma was revealed, has lead to outrage from many of her followers as well as numerous bloggers throughout the internet.
In attempting to use the Oklahoma tornado to comment on the IRS scandal that has rocked the White House in recent weeks, Winstead came off looking insensitive to the thousands of people who have been devastated by the super tornado.
She thought she was making a topical political joke, but a co-creator of ‘The Daily Show’ managed to enrage many of her followers after tweeting joke about the Oklahoma tornado’s political motivations.
‘This tornado is in Oklahoma so clearly it has been ordered to only target conservatives,’ wrote comedian Lizz Winstead, in a tweet, around 3:30 Monday afternoon.
The tweet was an apparent attempt at using the occasion of the May 20 twister to comment on the scandal currently plaguing the IRS and Obama administration.
After arguing with followers who were angry with her tweet, Winstead finally realized the horrific damage that Oklahoma had just suffered.
But then gravity of the tornado’s impact became clear. Winstead’s joke suddenly wasn’t so humorous and the normally funny lady was all red.
‘Made a political joke, Twas before devastation revealed. In hindsight, had I understood, I would have refrained. Beyond sorry. #LetMeHaveIt’ she tweeted about three and a half hours after her original joke.
News of her faux pas had spread by then, however.
She deleted the tweet, but the ire continued flowing into her Twitter page.
‘Hey Lizz, you’re clearly a numbskull,’ wrote Twitter user @catpooper.
Winstead agreed. ‘Worse thing is I am from MN! I know this!! Bad joke. Bad Timing. Just bad.’
{…..}
Winstead continued to apologize and then began trying to rebuild her karma.
‘Im recommending Make a donation now. Text REDCROSS to 90999. If any Oklahomans have a charity that they love, hit me up I’ll tweet it out,’ she wrote at 9pm.
The fact of the matter is that a prominent and rich Obama supporter thought they would use the tornado to make the IRS scandal look ridiculous and one sided. Instead, she was outed as an insensitive political hack.
Daniel Jackson is a seasoned journalist with a passion for exposing corruption and the lies of the global elite. DJ has a passion for truth and liberty that is shown through his extensive reporting on numerous globally significant topics not normally covered by the corporate controlled media. He is is a writer, researcher and editor for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up!
One of the most powerful tools in the arsenal of the grass roots food freedom fight is social media. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and many more networks allow people to instantly connect and provide a platform for information to be passed on exponentially. Facebook and Google are the two biggest websites in the entire world, and their reach is nearly unlimited.
Last week, the Monsanto Company made it very clear that they were under the gun via social media, and they went on the defense, weakly claiming that those who object with their toxic seeds and deadly farming methods were “elitist,” thereby attempting to undermine us as snobbish people who don’t see the big picture and who don’t care about world hunger.
This week, they’ve upped their game. Mysterious things have been occurring on the social networks: posts have disappeared, some posts are hidden from the timelines of readers, and trolls abound on pages promoting this weekend’s March Against Monsanto, happening worldwide on May 25.
Like any cornered rat, the leviathan seed company can see the very large threat coming their way, and it appears that they are pulling out all the stops to fight as dirty as they can. But the movement against the company is so powerful, that despite paid-off politicians and billions of dollars in the war chest, Monsanto knows that they’ve been outmatched. What we’re seeing now are the last, desperate attempts to keep the general public from learning about the man-made global disaster that was created by Monsanto.
On my own page, I found an interesting anomaly. I posted this yesterday:
My children’s first protest march!!! Any ideas for our signs?
Everything you need to know and more about the March Against Monsanto. Don’t forget to subscribe to our email updates while you’re there: http://bit.ly/106qja2
The thing that was very strange about this is that, at the bottom, you can see, it only got 67 views nearly 14 hours after I posted it. The posts that I shared above and below it all had hundreds of views. I asked some friends to check their timelines, and this particular post did not show up. They had to actually go to the page and look for it to find it tucked in near the bottom.
If I hadn’t heard from Tami Canal, the driving force behind the March Against Monsanto’s Facebook page, I would have thought it was merely a fluke. But mysterious things have been happening there as well.
“Events are disappearing, posts are being put on city event pages that say events are cancelled. In no way, shape or form, has ANY event been cancelled. I believe Monsanto is behind this. Some of the people on the page that are commenting have newly made profiles and seemingly these profiles were made strictly to cause problems and get a rise out of our participants on the page.”
Monsanto has openly carried on an internet war with anti-GMO activists for years. Back in 2002, Jay Byrne, the former director of Monsanto’s Internet outreach, had some advice for colleagues:
“…’think of the Internet as a weapon on the table. Either you pick it up or your competitor does, but somebody is going to get killed.’
While he was working for Monsanto, Byrne told the internet newsletter Wow that he “spends his time and effort participating” in web discussions about biotech. He singled out the site AgBioWorld, where he “ensures his company gets proper play”. AgBioWorld is the site on which “Andura Smetacek” launched her campaign.
The biotech companies know that they will never conquer new markets while activists are able to expose the way their operations damage food security and consumer choice. ” (source)
The Monsanto Company’s current overt tactics are to try and polish their very tarnished image by portraying themselves as do-gooders set on feeding the world, while painting anti-GMO protesters as uncaring, selfish individuals that haven’t given hungry Third World residents a passing thought. Less overt are these guerrilla internet shills, causing divisiveness in the movement by starting arguments on forums and in comment threads on social media, and outright passing on misinformation.
Unfortunately, Facebook seems to have the back of the trolls. Occupy Monsanto‘s page was actually banned for three days when the owner publicly outed an abusive PM from a troll. The person who wrote the letter faced no repercussions from Facebook. Other anti-GMO activists have announced that their posts have been hidden or otherwise censored, just like mine was.
Despite the rumors started that events for this Saturday’s March Against Monsanto have been cancelled, or that times have been changed, this is absolutely untrue. Canal reiterated, “In no way, shape or form, has ANY event been cancelled.” If you are planning to go to an event, rest assured, the events will go on as planned, despite the sneaky tactics of a desperate company.
Keep calm and don’t allow yourself to be provoked on Saturday. Anti-GMO activists are on the side of “good” in this battle, so it’s important to keep to the high road. Expect the presence of agent provocateurs, lots of law enforcement, and devious tactics to try to discredit the movement. The keys to successful resistance are unity, information, and public perception.
According to an article on Natural Society, Monsanto has allied with the notorious mercenary security group, Blackwater (now known as Academi) in the fight against anti-GMO protesters:
Monsanto and Blackwater are indeed working together to target anti-Monsanto activists and organizations. Known as far back as 2010, it was unveiled that Blackwater’s client list included Monsanto, Chevron, Walt Disney and many more. According to documents obtained by Scahill, it was also revealed that Monsanto was willing to pay upwards of $500,000 in order for Blackwater to join anti-Monsanto activist groups and infiltrate the ranks. Furthermore, a number of internet-based tactics could be utilized as incognito PR for Monsanto, who undoubtedly knew opposition would mount against their GMO crops as more individuals became aware of the dangers.
Don’t expect Monsanto to play fair. Tami Canal doesn’t.
“I’m not really surprised by Monsanto and their tactics….their bottom line is at stake and as they have demonstrated time and again, profit is their main objective at any expense, whether it be humanity or the environment. I encourage our participants to remain peaceful on Saturday. Do not let the paid shills entice you to violence. March Against Monsanto is a peaceful campaign and our voices will resonate much more loudly if we remain calm.”
Saturday promises to be one of the biggest worldwide protests that has ever taken place, with over two million people signed up to attend marches all over the globe. My children and I will absolutely be taking part in the historic event. Make a sign and join in – there is sure to be a March near you!
Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca
“Your megaphone might be a weapon,” says the arresting officer to liberty activist and former Marine Kyle Prouty when he asked why he was being detained.
Five members of The Panic Hour were followed into the City Hall rail station in Center City Philadelphia after attending an arraignment hearing for Adam Kokesh and Nikki Allen Poe who were kidnapped from a peaceful marijuana rally on 5/18/13.
While quietly waiting for a train, Kyle Prouty was illegally searched and detained by SEPTA police officer Nicole Lawson at 3:20pm on 5/20/13 after refusing to show ID. You can hear Kyle screaming “I do not consent to a search” while they search him.
Kyle was charged with “disorderly conduct” “obstructing a highway and other public passage” and “resisting arrest”. Can we call it a Police State yet?
The question what exactly is discussed at Bilderberg should be a concern to both the left and the right
Member of the European parliament Gerard Batten has raised the alarm on Bilderberg, stating he has written all major mainstream media outlets in the UK as well as submitting a freedom of information request for the Hertfordshire police commissioner asking who is paying for the expenses of all this policing.
“The next meeting of the Bilderberg group is to be held in England. The location is thought to be the Grove Hotel Watford from the 6th to the 9th of June.”, Batten stated, continuing to point out that there is in place a code of silence in regards to the annual confab. Batten:
“These annual meetings are summits of the most wealthy, powerful and influential people in the world of politics, finance and business. The biggest mystery surrounding them is why the mainstream newspapers and broadcasters have chosen not to report on them since 1954. However in the internet-age there existence can no longer be kept secret. I’ve written to all the mainstream press and TV in the UK, asking them if they intend to report on this meeting- and if not, why not.”
Batten’s point is well-placed. There has indeed been a deafening silence on the part of the mainstream press when it comes to the most secretive of summits. He rightly pointed out that the alternative media is reluctantly doing the mainstream media’s job- the first increasingly reporting on Bilderberg where the latter remains silent.
Under Nigel Farage’s leadership the UK Independence Party has recently won an enormous victory in the British 2013 local election, coming in fourth in the number of council seats won, and third in projected nationwide votes. This latest victory for the party adds additional weight to Batten’s words, making it harder for the mainstream media in the UK to persist in their stalwart silence. In adition to questioning the mainstream media, Batten also announced submitting a freedom of information request directed at the Hertfordshire police:
“I’ve also submitted a freedom of information request to the Hertfordshire police commissioner, asking on what basis the policing is being provided, and who is paying the bill. I very much look forward to their responses.”
As do I, as my request directed at the Hertfordshire police commissioner is still pending under log number 2013/000159, although on April 16 I was told my information request was “currently receiving our attention”.
On the other end of the British political spectrum, Respect MP George Galloway has also commented on the coming conference, rather loosely asking himself “What did Watford do to deserve the descent of the Bilderberg ghouls amongst them?”
The question what exactly is discussed at Bilderberg should indeed be a concern to both the left and the right. Although the Bilderberg group itself claims “no resolutions are proposed, no votes taken, and no policy statements issued”, former Secretary General of NATO and two-time Bilderberg participant Willy Claes admitted in 2010 the participants are expected to implement conclusions that come out of every conference. After every sub-conference at Bilderberg a report is compiled, after which “the participants are then obviously considered to use this report in setting their policies in the environments in which they affect,” Claes stated. Bilderberg founder prince Bernhard even stated in the following interview (3 minutes onward)): “there could be issued an idea… that everybody liked, and that idea is then launched.”
As UKIP’s representative in the European Parliament stressed, the most worrisome aspect of Bilderberg is that the mainstream media has up to today uniformly kept silent about it.
With the AP wiretapping scandal still unfolding, it has emerged that a US search warrant has been issued against a Fox News journalist to go through his emails – in a case the DOJ described as spying. Fox maintains the reporter was “simply doing his job.”
James Rosen, Fox News’s chief Washington correspondent, had a 44-page application for a search warrant filed against him, including for his personal emails, after publishing a report based on leaked security information in June 2009. The report revealed North Korea’s intention to conduct a nuclear test despite the US imposition of sanctions on the country.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) described Rosen “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.” The accusation appears in a court affidavit first reported by the Washington Post on Monday.
The officials digging up the case were revealed to have been tracking the journalist’s trips to and from the State Department as well as monitoring his communications, as a search warrant was obtained for the reporter’s personal e-mails.
Rosen’s case has been linked with charges filed previously against a security adviser with the US State Department Stephen Jin-woo Kim for his role in leaking the classified information that appeared in the article. The search warrant application also revealed that investigators catalogued the number of times the password and profile affiliated with Kim had accessed intelligence reports.
The investigation into Rosen was described as “downright chilling” by Fox executive vice president of news Michael Clemente in a statement. He added the company was “outraged” to learn that he had been named a criminal co-conspirator for “simply doing his job as a reporter.”
“We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press,” Clemente said.
The scandal comes on the heels of the exposure of a US government investigation into the Associated Press, in which it was acknowledged that over the course of two months, over 20 phone lines of journalists were tapped, prompting AP President Gary Pruitt to call the ongoing monitoring a “massive and unprecedented intrusion.”
The AP believes that overall, more than 100 journalists are under the DOJ’s phone surveillance, which would have involved a wide variety of stories regarding government and other topics.
The Obama administration’s crackdown on journalists has roused concern across the media.
“The government is obviously stepping way outside of that balance. You’re talking about reporting news information that is critical for an informed populace,” Wide Awake News founder Charlie McGrath told RT.
“Yes, there’s going to be things that can’t be reported; that shouldn’t be leaked. But you’re going to go after the journalist who’s doing his job, and not the ineffective dysfunctional government that leaked the info in the first place,” he continued.
McGrath went on to predict that eventually news would be composed solely of government press releases, adding that inside sources are already very much less inclined to share any real information with the press.
The crackdown is intended to “scare… anybody who dares to stand up to the party line, to the agenda line. And this isn’t just the Obama administration. It was the previous administration, and it will be the next administration it’s out of control government. It’s hubris at its worst. And it’s going continue to erode the freedom of this country,” McGrath concluded.
You know that gold bear market that the financial press keeps touting? The one George Soros keeps proclaiming? Well, it is not there. The gold bear market is disinformation that is helping elites acquire the gold.
Certainly, Soros himself doesn’t believe it, as the 13-F release issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15 proves. George Soros has significantly increased his gold holding by purchasing $25.2 million of call options on the GDXJ Junior Gold Miners Index.
In addition the Soros Fund maintains a $32 million stake in individual mines; added 1.1 million shares of GDX (a gold miners ETF) to its holdings which now stand at 2,666,000 shares valued at $70,400,000; has 1,100,000 shares in GDXJ valued at $11,506,000; and 530,000 shares in the GLD gold fund valued at $69,467,000. [values as of May 17]
The 13-F release shows the Soros Fund with $239,200,000 in gold investments. If this is bearish sentiment, what would it take to be bullish?
The misinformation that Soros had sold his gold holdings came from misinterpreting the reason Soros’ holdings in the GLD gold trust declined. Soros did not sell the shares; he redeemed the paper claims for physical gold. Watching the gold ETFs, such as GLD, being looted by banksters, Soros cashed in some of his own paper gold for the real stuff.
The giveaway that Soros is extremely bullish on gold comes not only from his extensive holdings, but also from his $25.2 million call option on junior gold stocks. This is a highly leveraged bet on the weakest gold mines. With high production costs and falling gold price from constant short selling in the paper market, Soros’ bet makes no sense unless he thinks gold is heading up as the short raids concentrate gold in elite possession.
In previous articles I have explained how heavy short-selling triggers stop-loss orders and margin calls on investors in gold ETFs. Scared out of their shares or forced out by margin calls, investors’ add to the downward price pressure caused by the shorts. Bullion banks and prominent investors such as Soros are the only ones who can redeem GLD shares for physical metal. They purchase the shares that are sold in response to the falling gold price, and present the shares for redemption in gold metal.
Insiders familiar with the process describe it as looting the ETFs of their gold basis.
In my last column I described how the orchestration of a falling gold price in the paper market protects the dollar’s value from the Federal Reserve’s policy of printing 1,000 billion new ones annually. The other beneficiary of the operation is the financial elite who buy up at low prices the ETF shares sold into a falling market and redeem them for gold. Like all other forms of wealth in the West, gold is being concentrated in fewer hands, while the elite shout “bear market, get out of gold.”
The orchestrated decline in gold and silver prices is apparent from the fact that the demand for bullion in the physical market has increased while short sales in the paper market imply a flight from bullion. As a hedge fund manager told me, it is a Wall Street axiom that volume follows price. Bull markets are characterized by rising prices on high volume. Conversely bear markets feature declining prices on low volume. The current bear market in gold consists of paper gold declining steadily while demand has escalated rapidly for physical metal. This strongly indicates that demand for physical gold continues to be in a bull market despite the savage attacks on paper gold.
If the orchestration is apparent to me, a person with no experience as a gold trader, it certainly must be apparent to federal regulators. But don’t expect any action from the Commodities Future Trading Corporation. It is headed by a former Goldman Sachs executive.
And don’t expect any investigation from the financial press. The financial press sees a bear market while supplies of bullion decline, premiums over spot rise, and even publicly declared bears such as George Soros make highly leveraged bets that will fail in the absence of a bull market in gold.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Visit his web site at the Institute for Political Economy.
This article has been posted with permission from Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.
Permanent war is longstanding policy. America deplores peace. Throughout its history, it’s waged war annually at home and/or abroad. Today it does so globally.
Giving peace a chance is loathed. Direct or proxy wars rage in multiple countries.
“Yes we can” reflects Obama’s pro-war, pro-imperial, pro-ravage, plunder and dominate agenda. He prioritizes it. He abhors human rights, equity, justice, and other democratic values. Rogue leaders operate that way.
Rule of law principles are spurned. Constitutional protections no longer apply. Any nation, organization or person designated a state enemy is targeted.
“Change you can believe in” is polar opposite of what most people expected. America’s empire of bases is global. US special forces operate in over 120 countries. Proxy death squads supplement them. CIA agents and assets are everywhere.
Washington’s Blog said America’s waging 74 wars. It’s “fighting or ‘helping’ some force in some proxy struggle that has been deemed beneficial by the nation’s masters of war.”
At the same time, it’s waging “many more covert wars.” It bears repeating, the very notion of peace is abhorrent. Waging war is prioritized.
Paul Craig Roberts calls America a “gangster state.” He does so for good reason. Its domestic and foreign policies reflect it. No nation ever harmed more people in more ways globally. None ever spurned rule of law principles more egregiously.
Waging war on terror’s a ruse. It’s duplicitous subterfuge. America’s had no enemies since Japan surrendered in August 1945. Manufactured ones substitute.
They’re easy to create. Media scoundrels convince people. Repeating Big Lies ad nauseam works. No terror threat whatever exists.
Polls show the power of mind manipulation. In late April, a New York Times/CBS News poll showed an astonishing 90% of Americans believe they’ll “always have to live with the risk of terrorism.”
An equally astonishing 75% believe restricting civil liberties is OK. Over one-fourth said existing policy measures aren’t enough. Another near 50% said they’re about right.
Only 20% said government went too far. Nearly 80% accept mass surveillance. People believe it reduces the threat of terrorism.
No wonder America wages war on humanity easily. It does so at home and abroad. Domestic opposition barely exists. It bodes ill for what’s likely coming.
Most people are mindless of what threatens their security, welfare and futures. They’re comfortable with what’s destroying them in plain sight. They can’t see the forest through the trees.
They’re oblivious to a clear, present and ominous danger. It may end up destroying them. Extrajudicial, unchecked, imperial carte blanche war on the world is policy. There’s no place to hide. No one’s immune. Peace doesn’t stand a chance.
Bashar al-Assad understands. He’s struggling to let Syria survive. The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) published his interview with Argentina’s Clarin newspaper and Telam news agency. His comments were candid and forthright.
He blamed “foreign interference” for Syria’s conflict. Most Syrians “reject all forms of external intervention. For us, it is a matter of safeguarding Syria.”
(O)ur level of force relate to the types of weapons and terrorism techniques we are dealing with as well as our ultimate goal of protecting the lives of civilians and the country as a whole.
Terrorism can never be the instrument to achieve reforms. What interest does an internationally listed terrorist from Chechnya or Afghanistan have with the internal political reform process in Syria?
How is the legitimate demand for reform linked with terrorist activities adopted by radicalized foreign fighters?
Recent credible reports show that there are approximately 29 nationalities of foreign fighters engaged in terrorism activities within Syria’s borders.
He stressed his commitment to political reforms. Many have been implemented, he said.
“The essence of any political solution is the aspirations of the Syrian people, decided by the ballot boxes.” Syrians alone must decide. No outside interference is justified. International law prohibits it.
Asked his view on the US/Russian proposed peace conference, he reiterated support for all ways to end violence diplomatically. A political settlement depends on it, he stressed.
At the same time, he’s justifiably “skeptical of the genuine intentions of certain western administrations towards seeking a realistic political solution.”
This caution is based on their continued support of terrorist groups in Syria. We are dedicated to pursuing a political solution, yet there are powers who are pressing for the failure of such a solution. This is a two-way process; it needs commitment from all sides.
(F)oreign-based opposition elements (are) far from autonomous independent decision makers. Their policies are crafted by the countries that give them leverage.
(They) survive on the aid given to them by their patron states, in essence manipulated by the nations that provide their flow of finance.
They live under the auspice and control of their intelligence agencies and thus submit to what is imposed upon them.
Therefore their decisions are not self-governing; most significantly, they lack a popular base in Syria.
It’s well-documented¦that they have until last week clearly and repeatedly rejected political dialogue.
He stressed his commitment “to a comprehensive national dialogue (with) all who have a genuine desire to participate, with no exclusions.”
He rejects doing so with terrorists. “There is no state that would ever negotiate with terrorists. However, we welcome those who lay down their weapons and engage in constructive political dialogue.”
Peaceful conflict resolution’s impossible when external forces support terrorism, he stressed. “Guns and dialogue are clearly incompatible.”
Our assumption is that these countries would not cease this policy as their main goal is to undermine and thus weaken the Syrian state.
Even when we succeed in reaching a Syrian-led political agreement, certain countries such as Qatar, Turkey and others will continue to work to fuel violence and terrorism in Syria.
Therefore, our main precedence from an international conference is an immediate cessation of finance and weapons that are regularly streamed into Syria, placing emphasis on preventing the terrorists and fighters from being flooded into Syria principally through Turkey, with financial support primarily from Qatar and also from other Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia.
He understands “major international powers” are involved. So is Israel.
Asked if he’d step down, he said “Syrian people will decide whether I remain in office or not.Through the constitution and the presidential elections in 2014, the people will decide.”
He rejects Obama, Kerry or other external figures interfering in Syria’s internal affairs. They have no mandate to speak for Syrians.
To be even more concise and clear, we are an independent state, we are a people who respect ourselves and our right to self-determination.
We do not accept for anyone to dictate to us how to act, whether it is the United States or any other country.
Syria’s in crisis, he stressed. “Any abandonment of my duties now is an attempt to escape from responsibility and I’m not the type of person who runs away from his responsibilities.”
He categorically denied repeated allegations that Syria used chemical weapons. They’re “a clear pretext for military intervention. It is common knowledge that western administrations lie continuously and manufacture stories as a pretext for war.”
Washington and other major powers “delegated Israel to commit its aggression in order to improve the morale of the terrorist groups.”
They did so because Syrian forces “shift(ed) the balance of power on the ground. (They want) to prolong the violence and bloodshed (to) significantly weaken the Syrian state.” He believes “military action” may be forthcoming.
The primary aim of the West is to ensure that they have ‘loyal’ governments at their disposal, similar to those administrations that existed previously in Latin America, which facilitate the exploitation and consumption of a country’s national resources.
A country like Syria is not by any means a satellite state to the West. Syria is an independent state working for the interests of its people, rather than making the Syrian people work for the interests of the West.
It is only normal that they would not want us to play a role, preferring instead a puppet government serving their interests and creating projects that would benefit their peoples and economies.
Syria is strategically placed not just for oil and gas projects, but also to shift the balance of power between the major players.
Previous peace initiatives failed. Another won’t fare better. Washington prioritizes failure. War is longstanding policy.
America’s a worldwide belligerent. Unchallenged global dominance matters most. Independent governments aren’t tolerated.
All means are employed to oust them. Pro-Western satellite regimes are sought. Iran’s America’s principal regional target. War plans were readied years ago.
Replacing Assad’s government makes them easier to implement. So does eliminating Lebanon’s Hezbollah. America’s coalition partners include key NATO allies, Israel, and regional rogue states.
They’re committed to war. They abhor peace. They menace humanity. They may end up destroying it. Their arsenals make it easy. Don’t bet against their use full force.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/
Todays sunspot number is 113. Sunspot AR1748 which is square on to Earth at this point in its journey across the nearside of the Sun, still has the delta class magnetic field that enable it to produce both M and X-Class flares. NOAA estimate there is a 65% chance of an M-Class flare during the next 24 hours and a 25% chance of an X-Class during the same period.
There is a coronal hole low down on the suns eastern side and the solar winds from the hole are predicted to reach Earth on 23-24th May.
A new sunspot, currently on the far side of the Sun and at this point not numbered is crackling with energy and has already thrown off an M1 flare. It will rotate onto the Suns far eastern side over the next few days. At that point scientists will assess and number it.
Chris Carrington is a writer, researcher and lecturer with a background in science, technology and environmental studies. Chris is an editor for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up!
Washington has suspended the debt ceiling, setting a date, and not a concrete dollar sum as a deadline, an unprecedented first in US history.
Citing ‘extraordinary measures’, the US Treasury has further delayed tackling America’s debt, and will wait until Labor Day, September 2nd, to revisit the burgeoning crisis. The ceiling has been lifted, and the Treasury has promised it will keep cash pumping into government spending programs beyond the debt limit through a series of emergency cash tools.
Until then, the Treasury will borrow money to mend any gaps between government spending and revenues, adding to the already $16.7 trillion debt.
On Friday, the Treasury Department announced it will suspend sales of State and Local Government Series loans (SLGS) until further notice. The suspension applies to demand deposit and time deposit securities.
In the last four months, the US has accumulated $300 billion in debt. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that the federal deficit will be $642 billion in FY13.
The US economy has shown some promising signs of recovery. US consumer sentiment rose to its highest level in almost six years, jumping from 89.9 to 97.5, the highest post-recession consumer condition, the University of Michigan study found.
“The global economic leadership position enjoyed by the United States rests on the confidence of Americans and people around the world that we are a nation that keeps its promises and pays all of its bills, in full and on time,” said Lew.
US lawmakers first agreed to raise the debt ceiling two years ago, following a long, drawn out stand-off between Republicans and Democrats, which prompted Standard & Poor to strip the US of their AAA rating. The failed super committee ushered in sequestration,
This time around, Lew has urged lawmakers to act more swiftly to not tarnish the reputation of the US economy.
“Congress should deal with this right away. The fact that they have more time should not put off dealing with this,” he said. “I don’t think that it’s in the interests of the U.S. or the world economy for Congress to wait until the last minute and create a sense of anxiety,” said Lew.
Lew hinted the debt ceiling is not up for negotiation, and that Obama would not bow to Republicans increase the debt ceiling but he does remain open for talks about a deficit deal.
Lew was sworn in as Treasury Secretary on February 28th, 2013, after Congress voted in favor of raising the debt ceiling in January to avoid a default on the debt.
Chris Carrington is a writer, researcher and lecturer with a background in science, technology and environmental studies. Chris is an editor for The Daily Sheeple. Wake the flock up!
Urban explorers are hobbyists who – you guessed it – explore urban areas to find little-seen or ignored areas of the man-made landscape, some abandoned and some not, often documenting their travels and discoveries and posting images or other information online.
While it might seem somewhat absurd that the NCTC would put out a report (embedded below or available here) telling law enforcement that, “Any suspicious UE activity should be reported to the nearest State and Major Area Fusion Center and to the local FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force,” it really shouldn’t be surprising.
Now the government thinks urban explorers are actually aiding terrorists by posting photos,videos and diagrams online.
This is noteworthy because urban exploration has become a surprisingly popular activity. So popular, in fact, that a 2007 San Francisco Chronicle article noted, “Urban exploration is a worldwide phenomenon with its own fanzines, conventions, culture, ethics, periodicals, books, movies, MTV specials and clubs from Russia to Australia, Canada to Chile. And it’s growing.”
That means all of those people, especially those in the United States, could arguably be seen as “aiding the enemy” by helping terrorists “remotely identify and surveil potential targets.”
“Advanced navigation and mapping technologies, including three dimensional modeling and geo-tagging, could aid terrorists in pinpointing locations in dense urban environments,” according to the report, originally released on November 19, 2012 according to Public Intelligence and marked “For Official Use Only.”
Interestingly, the Chronicle article paints a completely different picture of how urban explorers work.
“Discoveries are no longer openly shared online, but handled like carefully guarded secrets among a small network of trusted cronies,” James Nestor wrote for the Chronicle.
“Company websites often provide information about buildings; social media postings of explorers’ activity often identify access points and security flaws,” the report claims.
Perhaps most interesting of all is that the report tells readers to report suspicious activity to “the nearest State and Major Area Fusion Center and to the local FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.”
Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on UCY.TV from 7 pm — 10 pm Pacific, which you can find HERE. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com
The Center for Economic and Policy Research co-director Dean Baker calls poverty America’s “new growth industry.” The state of today’s America is deplorable.
In his latest May 3 analysis, economist John Williams said “April “employment and unemployment data were nonsense: the economy remains in serious trouble.”
About 23% of Americans wanting work can’t find it. Most jobs are temp or part-time low pay/poor or no benefit service ones with no futures. Conditions are getting worse, not better.
Federal, state and local government jobs were lost. Construction shed 6,000 jobs. Zero manufacturing jobs were created. Most good ones are overseas. They’ve been offshored to low-wage countries.
Economist David Rosenberg called April a “potemkin payroll report. Where’s the income hiding,” he asked? Average wage-based income declined 0.4%. It was the biggest drop since last October.
Market analyst Graham Summers discussed “a truly horrible economic reality” beneath April’s headline job numbers. The average workweek declined by 0.2 hours. The average manufacturing workweek was down 0.3%.
Fewer overall hours worked subtracts 15 minutes per week. Applied to private sector employment, it’s “the equivalent of over 21 million work hours lost in one month.”
It’s the biggest decline since April 2009. At that time, the economy was “absolutely imploding. It’s numerical equivalent of firing 718,000+ people.”
It’s how companies begin dealing with downturns. “They don’t start laying people off en masse….they start cutting work hours bit by bit.”
Mass layoffs arrive during “full-blown recessions. The first stage “is already happening.” Clear signs show it.
Markets are euphoric. They’re hitting new highs. Economic contraction is ignored. It happened in 2000 and 2008. Warning signs look ominously like earlier.
Peter B. Edelman co-directs Georgetown University’s Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy. He calls “low-wage work” in America “pandemic.”
America “descended into poverty,” said Paul Craig Roberts. Growing millions struggle to get by. Many are “one medical problem or lost job away from homelessness.”
Some colleges and universities offer adjunct professorships. They pay “$10,000 per year or less.” Education was once “touted as the way out of poverty.” Increasingly it reflects it. So do military enlistments. They’re a desperate way to find work.
America’s wealth disparity is deplorable. The top 1% owns over half the nation’s wealth. The bottom 90% has a decreasing share. Social inequality defines today’s America. It’s unprecedented or close to it.
It matches or exceeds 19th century harshness. Protracted Depression conditions affect growing millions. Poverty, unemployment, homelessness and hunger approach record levels.
Socially destructive government policies bear full responsibility. Wealth and privilege alone matter. Ordinary households are sacrificed. Popular needs go begging.
Inequality is institutionalized. Around 100 million working age Americans are jobless. Most others are underemployed. Millions struggle to pay rent, service mortgages, cover medical bills, heat homes, and manage other daily expenses.
America’s 1% has more wealth than the bottom 95%. Income inequality is greater than in all other developed countries. Over three-fourths of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck.
Neoliberal harshness is policy. Bipartisan complicity force-feeds it. It’s institutionalized when vital aid is needed. Doing so wages financial war on millions.
Obama exceeds the worst of George Bush. He’s wrecking growing millions of households. He’s doing so to serve monied interests. They own him. Whatever they want they get.
Obama’s thirdworldizing America. He’s ideologically over-the-top. He’s waging war living standards. He’s targeting the nation’s social contract.
He’s dismissive of growing needs. He’s heading America for tyranny and ruin. He’s banana republicanizing it.
It’s already a kleptocracy. It’s run by corporate crooks. Bipartisan complicity lets them have things their way. Profits are privatized. Losses are socialized. Bankers are at the top of the pecking order.
Ordinary people are exploited. A democratic facade masks New World Order harshness. Its holy trinity is eliminating public services, predatory capitalism writ large, and cracking down hard on non-believers.
Freedom’s fast disappearing. Inside the bubble, it’s paradise. Outside it’s dystopian hell. America never was beautiful. It’s worse than ever now in modern times.
Monied interests run things. Electoral politics doesn’t work. Washington is too pernicious, corrupt and dysfunctional to fix. Privilege is institutionalized. Beneficial social change isn’t tolerated. Police state harshness prevents it.
Force-feeding inequality defines immorality. It’s also destructive economics. America’s been declining for years. Private wealth is pitted against popular interests. It’s been winning for decades.
Younger generations are worse off than older ones financially. Wages haven’t kept up in real terms. High-paying jobs disappeared. Low-paying ones replaced them.
Deplorable social inequality exists. A race to the bottom continues. Future prospects look grim. America appears headed for what most of humanity faces.
At least 80% live on less than $10 a day. Over three billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 80% live in countries where income disparity is increasing.
The poorest 40% of world population has 5% of global income. The bottom fifth has $1.5%. The top 20% has 75%.
According to UNICEF, 22,000 impoverished children die daily. They “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”
An estimated 28% of children in developing countries are underweight, malnourished and/or stunted.
Tens of millions of impoverished children aren’t in school. At the start of the new millennium, nearly a billion people were illiterate.
Less than 1% of what’s spent on weapons globally can provide universal primary education.
Preventable infectious diseases claim millions of lives annually. Unsanitary water and lack of basic sanitation affect half the world’s population.
Diarrhea and other water-related illnesses claim at least 1.8 million child deaths annually.
Nearly half the population in developing countries, at any given time, experience water and/or sanitation related health problems.
Around one-third of children in developing countries have inadequate shelter. One in seven have no access to health care. Most with it get too little.
In 2003, 10.6 million children died before age five.
Rural areas account for 75% of people living on less than $1 dollar a day. About half the world’s population live in urban communities. In 2005, about one-third lived in slum conditions.
Around 1.6 billion people have no electricity. Billions lack basic necessities overall. It’s reflected in lower than average life expectancy, as well as high infant and child mortality rates.
America’s future may resemble what most of the world now faces. Its race to the bottom assures it for growing millions.
Force-fed austerity increases their numbers annually. Things keep getting worse, not better.
Luis R. Miranda is the Founder and Editor of The Real Agenda. His 16 years of experience in Journalism include television, radio, print and Internet news. Luis obtained his Journalism degree from Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, where he graduated in Mass Media Communication in 1998. He also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcasting from Montclair State University in New Jersey. Among his most distinguished interviews are: Costa Rican President Jose Maria Figueres and James Hansen from NASA Space Goddard Institute.
When I first began learning about the worst case scenarios associated with emergencies and disasters, I have to admit there was a part of me terrified of waves of crime and gangs attacking our home and injuring my family. I knew that when the needs of the unprepared are not met, they are more likely to participate in breakdowns of society that eventually lead to them taking matters into their own hands.
Essentially, I believed my future would be a life living in fear. What if my husband was injured? How would I protect my family alone? I had tunnel vision and was not looking at the greater picture. Admitting to having fear is perfectly normal when we’re talking about an SHTF scenario. This feare helps us to better prepare our families to take better care of them. Once we remove the goggles for tunnel vision, only then can we realize we have a great opportunity at our disposal. If we want to thrive – we need our communities to thrive as well.
The resilience of our communities is solely dependent on how prepared each of its members are. A prepared community can prevent, protect against, mitigate the effects of, respond to, and assist in recovery from threats that pose the greatest risk.
To make this happen, our efforts must lie in readying our entire community through preparedness-based education and actively putting preparedness measures and supplies in each household. But first, you must ensure that your own home is prepared before you can branch out into preparing a community. Each household should look into creating a preparedness plan, securing preparedness measures of their own and also actively creating security layers outside and inside the home to defend against vulnerabilities.
The Pros to a Prepared Community
In an extended emergency, a prepared community can bind together to share responsibilities and distribute tasks such as gardening, hunting, cooking, purifying water, gathering essential supplies and protecting the community. Knowing what your neighbor’s strengths are will help create a more prepared community.
We are all aware of the strength in numbers, and our odds of survival rest partly in those we can rely on. Having a large group of prepared individuals will help the community thrive for longer amounts of time because multiple parties will have preparedness supplies to draw from. Along those lines, a large group of preppers can diversify themselves through cross training in various essential skills. Individuals bringing a variety of skills binds the group further to create a solid, well-functioning team.
In all honesty, you must realize that not everyone in the community will be on board toward getting supplies in place. Keep in mind that all you can do is prepare the ones who are on board and who see the bigger picture of getting a community prepared.
How To Create a Preparedness Plan for Your Community
It is more worthwhile to teach someone to do something, than to do something for them. The quote, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” comes to mind when the discussion of community-based preparedness is addressed. Rather than relying on the government to take care of our needs, we need the entire community to be well informed as well as self sufficient. We have seen first hand how inundated police and other emergency personnel become during and after a disaster – we are essentially left on our own until the recovery efforts begin. In an extended emergency, a prepared community can bind together to weather the storm. As a whole, a community should understand the importance of making preparedness a priority. This concept comes down to education.
Educating the masses on emergency preparedness will keep a community level headed as well as be more accepting at what needs to happen in order for the greater community to survive. They will understand what is to be expected during and after a disaster, what their duties are as citizens and how to better protect their community. This proactive mindset will trickle down to younger generations thus creating a more preparedness based mindset for future generations.
1. Make a plan. Similar to creating your own family’s preparedness plan, ask similar questions to begin the task of community wide education on preparedness. Ask your neighborhood and other members of the community for input on how a community can be more prepared. This will help you find out what your community believes its vulnerabilities and concerns are. Create a questionnaire that lists multiple preparedness-based questions such as:
What do you believe the most likely disasters to prepare for are?
What do you believe the biggest concerns are during and after a disaster?
Do you believe the community is prepared enough to thrive during a disaster? If not, what ways can we make it so?
What skills do you possess that could benefit the community in a disaster?
Further, find out about the disaster plans at your workplace, your children’s school or daycare center, and other places where your family spends time. Once you have an understanding of what your community’s concerns and strengths are, establish close relationships with local community organizations. Seeing that you are willing to volunteer your time and services to this cause will help them be more willing to make this a priority. Further, getting to know what your local organizations’ protocols are toward emergencies will help your community better understand how to develop action plans, and guidelines for procedures and communication during a crisis. Some questions to ask community leaders and emergency organizations are:
Should the public become involved in the response? If so, in what way(s)?
What public or community function(s) has been or may be adversely impacted?
What geographical area(s) has been or may be adversely impacted if a disaster occurs?
How many people could be threatened, affected, exposed, injured, or dead?
How will the community help elderly or disabled persons, if needed?
If critical infrastructures have been affected (e.g., electrical power, water
supplies, sanitation, telecommunications, transportation, etc.), in what ways can the community thrive?
If the medical and healthcare facilities have been affected, what protocols can be taken to ensure the community has medical care?
Are escape routes open and accessible during disasters?
What other agencies and organizations will respond to an incident?
How can information be communicated to responders and the public to protect itself?
Does your community have existing mutual-aid agreements with other agencies,organizations, or jurisdictions?
Has an Incident Command Post (ICP) been established? If so, where is it?
Who is the Incident Commander (IC)? How can the IC be contacted?
If the local or state government is not operating, who is next in line?
What are your community’s warning signals: what they sound like and what you should do when you hear them?
How will animals be cared for after a disaster?
Some organizations that have mutual- aid agreements would be beneficial to your endeavors. Some organizations to contact could be:
Emergency Management Agencies (EMAs)
Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
Medical/health/behavioral care providers
Fire, law enforcement, and other federal,
State, local, and tribal response organizations
Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPCs)
State, regional, and tribal public health response coordinators
Academic institutions (schools of public health, medicine, nursing, etc.)
Other pertinent agencies/organizations such as churches, meet up groups or already existing prepper groups
2. Make it public. With the information you have accrued, you can report back the findings to your community and begin developing protocols and action plans. At the meetings, have all pertinent information and lists available for the public. I have found that checklists help a lot in organizing information that can easily be read. Meanwhile, keep providing information to local leaders and interested community members. You can do this by:
Creating a monthly meeting with free preparedness training provided.
A website with a newsletter to get information out to the masses.
Participating in public service announcements or putting notices on local cable television are other ways to keep the community informed.
Forming a partnership with local media outlets can be invaluable for promoting your program and recognizing contributions from presenters and others.
You can also advertise your page in the free classified sections of local newspapers.
Start a face book page for local residents to post preparedness and prepper deals.
Further, setting up activities outdoors such as a barbecue or outdoor preparedness fair to meet the community will also assist in getting your message across. To show your passion for this cause, take photographs of preparedness sessions to promote future sessions or add them to your website and social media platforms. Note: Remember to get releases from individuals before publishing the photographs.
3. Educate the masses. Take a lesson from the major emergency organizations out there – educate, train and implement strategies to help the community feel comfortable about the emergency protocols in place. In a disaster situation, when a community understands what is happening and what to expect, they are more responsive to the situation itself and can easily adapt to their environment. Provide orientation and training to the public on the emergency operations plans, procedures, guidelines, command and management systems, and incident management systems used by your community.
4. Practice makes perfect. Participate in the planning, design, and conduct of routine exercises to evaluate the public’s knowledge on emergency preparedness and response. A critical component to survival is having the right frame of mind to handle the stresses before and after a disaster. Teach a community the importance of mental preparedness and help simulate real disaster scenarios so they are less apt to panic during an actual disaster.
Together We Stand
You have a unique opportunity to share your knowledge and your skills with your community. We want our communities to be safer, stronger, and better prepared to withstand emergencies. Preparedness efforts should start with your household and expand into the greater community.
Educating the masses on the importance of emergency preparedness, setting up protocols, and cooperating with existing disaster organization’s procedures will help the community as a whole pool resources and sustain themselves in times of long-term recovery.
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The Treasury Department once again is taking federal retirement programs to buy the government more time to increase the nation’s debt ceiling. And why does the government need to raise the debt ceiling? The debt ceiling must be raised for two reasons, (1) in order to fund the banker-inspired wars of occupation and, (2) to continue to fund the largest wealth transfer in history, the bailouts. And just who is behind this nonsense? The very close friends of Goldman Sachs over at Citigroup and they have their henchman in charge of the continuing rape of America by Wall Street, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. Let me be clear, and Lew you can sue me if this not true, that it is a fact that Obama appointed one of the criminals who had a major hand in bringing down the economy to run the country’s finances.
Any ideas for our signs?
