It's no secret that many of the world's largest industrialized nations are somewhat eager to ease their reliance on the U.S. dollar. For months China and Russia have pushed ever subtly, for a new "global reserve currency," to give governments around the world enhanced economic stability in the event of greater fluctuations in the dollar's value.
But what wasn't known, until recently, is how far along the International Monetary Fund was in the planning of elevating its so-called "special drawing rights" from mere international agreement to an actual, legitimate global currency.
The report examines what it calls the "imperfections" of the global reserve banking structures, and how hoarding of reserves by sovereign nations can subject the system to risk and occasional shocks.
In 35 pages of extrapolation and footnotes, the IMF's Strategy, Policy and Review Department lays out the how and why of a global currency, which would move from an "inside money" as the SDR to an "outside money" that is traded by governments.
Friday, August 6, 2010
What You Need To Know About What Happened To Mexico
Before you read the second article below , every American -- Anglo, Latino, Black and Asian needs to know what is really behind the monster that has taken slavemaster's control in Mexico and is bringing dire misery to both Mexican and US citizens. Let this information drive home the point that it is not Mexican peasants coming here to work that is our problem as the Tea Party organizers, Beck, Palin and other phony and/or totally uninformed patriots will tell you. This is what we all have to know to really solve the deadly situation we are facing.
In the 1990's while Jewish Mafia "Russian" Oligarchs with the help of Harvard economists were cherry picking all of Russia's privatized wealth from an internally sabotaged socialist goverment that owned all of the means of production, the man who is today counted the world's richest, Carlos Helu, was doing the same thing in Mexico, forced into privitization/liquidation by the contrived peso/debt crisis and under pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to liberalize its country's economy. A massive giveaway of privatization began, with the government selling off the hundreds of companies that were state-owned assets.
Favored insider Carlos Helu was the appointed cherrypicker. Of course the biggest cherry of all was Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex), the Mexican national telephone company and Carlos got it.
Helu is not simply a speculator. Helu runs his aquisitions according to policy set by City of London globalists -- a crime syndicate for those who don't like to mince words. As soon as Helu was firmly in control of Mexico -- the Mexican drug cartels were replaced with bigger, badder and better armed competitors who always managed to be at the bottom of any list of drug-fighting attention by Mexican authorities.
In the 1990's while Jewish Mafia "Russian" Oligarchs with the help of Harvard economists were cherry picking all of Russia's privatized wealth from an internally sabotaged socialist goverment that owned all of the means of production, the man who is today counted the world's richest, Carlos Helu, was doing the same thing in Mexico, forced into privitization/liquidation by the contrived peso/debt crisis and under pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to liberalize its country's economy. A massive giveaway of privatization began, with the government selling off the hundreds of companies that were state-owned assets.
Favored insider Carlos Helu was the appointed cherrypicker. Of course the biggest cherry of all was Telefonos de Mexico (Telmex), the Mexican national telephone company and Carlos got it.
Helu is not simply a speculator. Helu runs his aquisitions according to policy set by City of London globalists -- a crime syndicate for those who don't like to mince words. As soon as Helu was firmly in control of Mexico -- the Mexican drug cartels were replaced with bigger, badder and better armed competitors who always managed to be at the bottom of any list of drug-fighting attention by Mexican authorities.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Hawks for Peace
Roughly speaking, these groups can be described as the Jeffersonians, the Wilsonians, and the Jacksonians. Among rank-and-file conservatives, the Jacksonians are by far the largest group. In the postwar era, the Jacksonians have tended to align with the Wilsonians. But there is no reason why that conjunction is inevitable.
With the exception of Ron Paul and some Ron Paul Republicans, the Jeffersonians have no major political figure to speak for them. Yet the popularity of the Wilsonians was always greatly exaggerated. The invasion of Iraq and the mass conservative acceptance of the Bush Doctrine were made possible by al-Qaeda’s act of mass murder on 9/11.
Throughout the 1990s, Wilsonian neoconservatives called for regime change in Iraq, but they did not succeed in rallying the grassroots Right to the cause. The conservative base tuned out the PNAC crowd. Millions of conservatives voted for Pat Buchanan, who opposed even the first war with Iraq, in the 1992 and 1996 Republican presidential primaries—even as neoconservative commentators were writing essays attempting to purge Buchanan from conservative movement.
First: the United States is seldom going to pursue regime change without at least some form of nation-building. If you oppose the latter, you must be extremely reluctant to engage in the former.
Second: just as Islam cannot be reformed from the outside, the ancient religion of a billion people cannot be “rolled back” in the same sense as Soviet Communism — and rollback was not the main strategy employed in winning the Cold War. Militant Islam must be contained. A viable containment strategy cannot be sustained through prolonged occupations of Muslim lands.
Third: while U.S. support of dissidents in Muslim countries is to the good, we must proceed cautiously. We do not have the same level of knowledge about the internal politics of the Middle East as we did about Eastern Europe during the Cold War. We do not always know who our friends and allies are. There will also be cases where we discredit reformers by being associated with them.
With the exception of Ron Paul and some Ron Paul Republicans, the Jeffersonians have no major political figure to speak for them. Yet the popularity of the Wilsonians was always greatly exaggerated. The invasion of Iraq and the mass conservative acceptance of the Bush Doctrine were made possible by al-Qaeda’s act of mass murder on 9/11.
Throughout the 1990s, Wilsonian neoconservatives called for regime change in Iraq, but they did not succeed in rallying the grassroots Right to the cause. The conservative base tuned out the PNAC crowd. Millions of conservatives voted for Pat Buchanan, who opposed even the first war with Iraq, in the 1992 and 1996 Republican presidential primaries—even as neoconservative commentators were writing essays attempting to purge Buchanan from conservative movement.
First: the United States is seldom going to pursue regime change without at least some form of nation-building. If you oppose the latter, you must be extremely reluctant to engage in the former.
Second: just as Islam cannot be reformed from the outside, the ancient religion of a billion people cannot be “rolled back” in the same sense as Soviet Communism — and rollback was not the main strategy employed in winning the Cold War. Militant Islam must be contained. A viable containment strategy cannot be sustained through prolonged occupations of Muslim lands.
Third: while U.S. support of dissidents in Muslim countries is to the good, we must proceed cautiously. We do not have the same level of knowledge about the internal politics of the Middle East as we did about Eastern Europe during the Cold War. We do not always know who our friends and allies are. There will also be cases where we discredit reformers by being associated with them.
The New Push for a Global Currency
You surely didn't think that the governing elites would let this economic crisis pass without pushing some cockamamie scheme for control. Well, here is the cloud no bigger than a man's hand, a revival of a 60-year-old idea of a global paper currency to fix what ails us.
The IMF study that calls for this is by Reza Moghadam of the Strategy, Policy, and Review Department, "in collaboration with the Finance, Legal, Monetary and Capital Markets, Research and Statistics Departments, and consultation with the Area Departments." In other words, this paper shouldn't be ignored.
It's a long-term plan, but the plan has the unmistakable stamp of Keynes: "A global currency, bancor, issued by a global central bank would be designed as a stable store of value that is not tied exclusively to the conditions of any particular economy.... The global central bank could serve as a lender of last resort, providing needed systemic liquidity in the event of adverse shocks and more automatically than at present."
But, the paper points out, many people wonder whether "good alternatives to the dollar exist." And for this reason, it might be a good idea to cobble together such an alternative sooner rather than later.
There is probably more truth in that statement than most people want to grant. But the right alternative is not yet another and more global experiment in paper money inflation. God forbid. If we want an alternative to the dollar, there is one that could appear before our eyes if only we would let it happen. Private currencies traders the world over could, on their own, give rise to a new currency rooted in gold and traded by means of digital media. On many occasions over the last 20 years, such a system nearly came to be. But guess what? The government cracked down and stopped it. The governing elites have decided that there will be no currency reform unless it comes from the marble palaces of the monetary elites.
The IMF study that calls for this is by Reza Moghadam of the Strategy, Policy, and Review Department, "in collaboration with the Finance, Legal, Monetary and Capital Markets, Research and Statistics Departments, and consultation with the Area Departments." In other words, this paper shouldn't be ignored.
It's a long-term plan, but the plan has the unmistakable stamp of Keynes: "A global currency, bancor, issued by a global central bank would be designed as a stable store of value that is not tied exclusively to the conditions of any particular economy.... The global central bank could serve as a lender of last resort, providing needed systemic liquidity in the event of adverse shocks and more automatically than at present."
But, the paper points out, many people wonder whether "good alternatives to the dollar exist." And for this reason, it might be a good idea to cobble together such an alternative sooner rather than later.
There is probably more truth in that statement than most people want to grant. But the right alternative is not yet another and more global experiment in paper money inflation. God forbid. If we want an alternative to the dollar, there is one that could appear before our eyes if only we would let it happen. Private currencies traders the world over could, on their own, give rise to a new currency rooted in gold and traded by means of digital media. On many occasions over the last 20 years, such a system nearly came to be. But guess what? The government cracked down and stopped it. The governing elites have decided that there will be no currency reform unless it comes from the marble palaces of the monetary elites.
A Full-Service Bank: R. Allen Stanford and the CIA
One possible answer may revolve around charges that SIB's Venezuela branch was a conduit for laundered CIA funds.
If true, then the Agency would be dead set against trial disclosures that revealed the bank had been involved in laundering drug money, particularly if narcotics syndicates are playing a role in U.S. destabilization efforts there.
Months before Stanford's empire collapsed, Venezuela's socialist government launched a raid on SIB offices in Caracas.
The Daily Telegraph reported that "Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire ... is now at the centre of an international spying row."
The conservative British newspaper disclosed that "officials from Venezuelan military intelligence raided a branch of his offshore bank over claims that its employees were paid by the CIA to spy on the south American country."
If true, then the Agency would be dead set against trial disclosures that revealed the bank had been involved in laundering drug money, particularly if narcotics syndicates are playing a role in U.S. destabilization efforts there.
Months before Stanford's empire collapsed, Venezuela's socialist government launched a raid on SIB offices in Caracas.
The Daily Telegraph reported that "Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire ... is now at the centre of an international spying row."
The conservative British newspaper disclosed that "officials from Venezuelan military intelligence raided a branch of his offshore bank over claims that its employees were paid by the CIA to spy on the south American country."
The New World of ObamaCare
Among the obscure but dangerous provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the official — and disingenuous — name for ObamaCare) are numerous provisions that, said Art Thompson, CEO of The John Birch Society, “will intrude on every aspect of life in America, from cradle to grave.” They include everything from a national healthcare strategy to home visitations by government agents, possibly including forced immunizations, to “Community Transformation Grants” — all designed to alter Americans’ lifestyles to conform to the whims of bureaucrats in Washington.
In other words, ObamaCare has just turned the United States into one giant psychiatric laboratory, and Americans are the rats stuck inside and subjected to “behavior modification” until we stop smoking (wonder if this applies to the President, who still hasn’t kicked the habit), take our vaccines and stop eating Twinkies, take up jogging, quit ingesting substances that the big pharmaceutical companies can’t patent, and tell Uncle Sam when we stopped beating our wives. Is this really what all those folks clamoring for healthcare reform wanted? If so, it serves as further proof of H.L. Mencken’s maxim that “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
From page 1 to page 906, ObamaCare is chock full of expensive, intrusive, and downright scary programs such as these. The law gives the federal and state governments virtually unlimited power to interfere in Americans’ lives, even within the confines of our own homes. (Hession noted that the act “is marbled with requirements that can be accomplished only by entry into private family homes.”) It destroys individual self-reliance and, through a variety of provisions such as school-based health clinics and home visitation programs, the family unit. These are the foundations of the American Republic; without them the United States will become a society of helpless, dependent sheep with neither the desire nor the will to resist the state’s relentless encroachments on our liberties.
These problems cannot be fixed merely by modifying a clause here and a proviso there. ObamaCare needs to be repealed in full before it can metastasize into a full-blown single-payer system. State-by-state nullification should also be undertaken. Then we can work on dismantling the rest of the federal healthcare behemoth. These are the only cures for what ails the American healthcare system.
In other words, ObamaCare has just turned the United States into one giant psychiatric laboratory, and Americans are the rats stuck inside and subjected to “behavior modification” until we stop smoking (wonder if this applies to the President, who still hasn’t kicked the habit), take our vaccines and stop eating Twinkies, take up jogging, quit ingesting substances that the big pharmaceutical companies can’t patent, and tell Uncle Sam when we stopped beating our wives. Is this really what all those folks clamoring for healthcare reform wanted? If so, it serves as further proof of H.L. Mencken’s maxim that “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
From page 1 to page 906, ObamaCare is chock full of expensive, intrusive, and downright scary programs such as these. The law gives the federal and state governments virtually unlimited power to interfere in Americans’ lives, even within the confines of our own homes. (Hession noted that the act “is marbled with requirements that can be accomplished only by entry into private family homes.”) It destroys individual self-reliance and, through a variety of provisions such as school-based health clinics and home visitation programs, the family unit. These are the foundations of the American Republic; without them the United States will become a society of helpless, dependent sheep with neither the desire nor the will to resist the state’s relentless encroachments on our liberties.
These problems cannot be fixed merely by modifying a clause here and a proviso there. ObamaCare needs to be repealed in full before it can metastasize into a full-blown single-payer system. State-by-state nullification should also be undertaken. Then we can work on dismantling the rest of the federal healthcare behemoth. These are the only cures for what ails the American healthcare system.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
We’ve Said it Before
So now we are told that at least 92,000 documents bearing on America’s morbid Afghanistan adventure have been put on the Internet by people who have the strange idea that as taxpayers and blood donors they should know what their alien federal government is doing to them.
What’s that? Do you believe America’s controlled media keep you up to date on what’s happening in Afghanistan—or anywhere else in the world, for that matter? If you do, you can’t be a reader of AFP. Because our record shows that right from the start— even before—we have nailed our government’s invasion of that sovereign country as another no-win loser, and our intervention as being propelled by shadowy forces very much behind the scenes—and not apt to be mentioned by any of those wise-guy talking heads on television or political actors in Congress, the White House or anywhere else.
As of July 29—the latest date for which figures are available—1,196 American men and boys and girls have been killed in this stinking, needless carnage plus many thousands more who will bear psychological or physical scars for the rest of their lives. And if that’s not bad enough, Congress just passed by a vote of 308 to 114 a war spending bill totaling nearly $59 billion. The press characterized this last-minute measure as a “major funding increase” to pay for, among other things, the 30,000 additional U.S. troops Obama is sending to the mountainous country.
What is truly hard to understand is that no one besides us and a few other relatively small outlets ever looks at what is happening with serious thoughts about the wisdom of it all. No one of importance or serious influence stands back and evaluates what is happening in a broad context. We hear a lot of detail about Afghanistan but nothing else.
Isn’t it about time that we, the people, stop this criminal madness? Isn’t it time to arrest these profiteers and hang them? If not, how bad will it get before the fed-up taxpayers and potential cannon fodder do just that?
What’s that? Do you believe America’s controlled media keep you up to date on what’s happening in Afghanistan—or anywhere else in the world, for that matter? If you do, you can’t be a reader of AFP. Because our record shows that right from the start— even before—we have nailed our government’s invasion of that sovereign country as another no-win loser, and our intervention as being propelled by shadowy forces very much behind the scenes—and not apt to be mentioned by any of those wise-guy talking heads on television or political actors in Congress, the White House or anywhere else.
As of July 29—the latest date for which figures are available—1,196 American men and boys and girls have been killed in this stinking, needless carnage plus many thousands more who will bear psychological or physical scars for the rest of their lives. And if that’s not bad enough, Congress just passed by a vote of 308 to 114 a war spending bill totaling nearly $59 billion. The press characterized this last-minute measure as a “major funding increase” to pay for, among other things, the 30,000 additional U.S. troops Obama is sending to the mountainous country.
What is truly hard to understand is that no one besides us and a few other relatively small outlets ever looks at what is happening with serious thoughts about the wisdom of it all. No one of importance or serious influence stands back and evaluates what is happening in a broad context. We hear a lot of detail about Afghanistan but nothing else.
Isn’t it about time that we, the people, stop this criminal madness? Isn’t it time to arrest these profiteers and hang them? If not, how bad will it get before the fed-up taxpayers and potential cannon fodder do just that?
LEAGUE OF THE SOUTH STATEMENT
Imagine that! A federal judge ruling in favor of the federal government in a case against a State! But that’s what you can expect when there is no impartial arbiter to determine matters of constitutionality.
The League of the South, the premier Southern nationalist organization, encourages the sovereign State of Arizona to either 1) nullify the decision of U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton that removed the teeth from Arizona’s immigration law, or 2) begin immediately to prepare the State for secession from a union in which the compact has been broken by the general (federal) government. Anything less will not be sufficient to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the citizens of Arizona.
The League also encourages Southern Patriots (and those elsewhere of goodwill) to give aid and comfort to the beleaguered citizens of Arizona and their elected representatives and conversely to oppose the federal government and its minions by refusing the same.
For too long the federal government has shown itself to be an organized, criminal enterprise that defines the extent of it own power and rules for the benefit of the elite. This is but the latest example. Such criminal behavior must be stopped by the citizens of the sovereign States acting in concert with each other. We have the legal and moral authority to do so; but do we have the will?
While it might seem meet and right for supporters of Arizona to make the trek to that State to provide aid and comfort, we in the League suggest you focus your efforts against the feds at home. It is more difficult to extinguish a thousand brushfires than one larger conflagration. Be bold and creative in your dissent.
The League of the South, the premier Southern nationalist organization, encourages the sovereign State of Arizona to either 1) nullify the decision of U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton that removed the teeth from Arizona’s immigration law, or 2) begin immediately to prepare the State for secession from a union in which the compact has been broken by the general (federal) government. Anything less will not be sufficient to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the citizens of Arizona.
The League also encourages Southern Patriots (and those elsewhere of goodwill) to give aid and comfort to the beleaguered citizens of Arizona and their elected representatives and conversely to oppose the federal government and its minions by refusing the same.
For too long the federal government has shown itself to be an organized, criminal enterprise that defines the extent of it own power and rules for the benefit of the elite. This is but the latest example. Such criminal behavior must be stopped by the citizens of the sovereign States acting in concert with each other. We have the legal and moral authority to do so; but do we have the will?
While it might seem meet and right for supporters of Arizona to make the trek to that State to provide aid and comfort, we in the League suggest you focus your efforts against the feds at home. It is more difficult to extinguish a thousand brushfires than one larger conflagration. Be bold and creative in your dissent.
Senators Call for Hearings on 14th Amendment Citizenship Clause
Several key GOP senators are calling for congressional hearings into the 14th Amendment’s supposed grant of citizenship to children born in the United States whose parents are illegal aliens.
A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters that his boss supports the idea of a congressional inquiry into the matter. McConnell himself said in an interview with The Hill: “I think we ought to take a look at it — hold hearings, listen to the experts on it. I haven’t made a final decision about it, but that’s something that we clearly need to look at. Regardless of how you feel about the various aspects of immigration reform, I don’t think anybody thinks that’s something they’re comfortable with.”
McConnell, while the highest-ranking Republican lawmaker to advocate investigation into what is and is not granted by the 14th Amendment, is not the first. Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona has spoken out against the notion that the 14th Amendment casts a blanket of citizenship over all babies born in the United States to parents illegally present in the country.
“The question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for that?” Kyle asked during an interview on CBS’s Sunday morning Face the Nation program.
Kyl claims to have broached the subject of hearings on the citizenship of children of illegal immigrants with fellow Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a proponent of “comprehensive immigration reform.”
A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters that his boss supports the idea of a congressional inquiry into the matter. McConnell himself said in an interview with The Hill: “I think we ought to take a look at it — hold hearings, listen to the experts on it. I haven’t made a final decision about it, but that’s something that we clearly need to look at. Regardless of how you feel about the various aspects of immigration reform, I don’t think anybody thinks that’s something they’re comfortable with.”
McConnell, while the highest-ranking Republican lawmaker to advocate investigation into what is and is not granted by the 14th Amendment, is not the first. Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona has spoken out against the notion that the 14th Amendment casts a blanket of citizenship over all babies born in the United States to parents illegally present in the country.
“The question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for that?” Kyle asked during an interview on CBS’s Sunday morning Face the Nation program.
Kyl claims to have broached the subject of hearings on the citizenship of children of illegal immigrants with fellow Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a proponent of “comprehensive immigration reform.”
The War Party
I often make reference to “the War Party” in this space: it’s a convenient shorthand, one that evokes an image of something sinister, even Satanic, and this serves my rhetorical purposes well. But if we unpack the concept, and look for examples in real life, what we find is a little more prosaic than Satan with a sword.
Speaking of real life, I’ve been on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch show twice, of late (the second show has yet to be aired), and in both cases I was matched up with someone we might reasonably describe as a charter member of the War Party.
The first was Wayne Simmons, who argued that WikiLeaks is a “terrorist organization,” that only “our leaders” have the right to information about the war in Afghanistan – or any other war – and that the legal ruling that freed Daniel Ellsberg from the clutches of the federal government was a “bad decision.” Simmons is a former CIA analyst whose heroics supposedly include “fighting cyberterrorists” and “narco-terrorists,” and whose biography [.pdf] includes a stint as “President and CEO of WSS International, Ltd, a Maryland company formed to arrange loans for multinational companies in Europe, Hong Kong, and Macau. He was also involved in working with American Fortune 500 companies and providing introductions to the various foreign ministers of Kazakhstan.”
In short, Senor Simmons is using his government connections to profit from “introductions” to the kleptocrats of Kazakhstan, an oil-rich Central Asian country where the Absolute Ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, presides over one of the most repressive and corrupt regimes in the world. In Nazarbayev, Simmons – who claims waterboarding isn’t torture – has found a kindred soul.
These men and women are the enemies of our republic: they pose a deadly danger to the survival of the republican tradition. When I heard Simmons state – without emotion – that only “our leaders” have the right to know what WikiLeaks has revealed about the Afghan conflict, I shuddered from head to foot, as if hearing the death knell of all that America was, and, to some extent, still is.
Speaking of real life, I’ve been on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch show twice, of late (the second show has yet to be aired), and in both cases I was matched up with someone we might reasonably describe as a charter member of the War Party.
The first was Wayne Simmons, who argued that WikiLeaks is a “terrorist organization,” that only “our leaders” have the right to information about the war in Afghanistan – or any other war – and that the legal ruling that freed Daniel Ellsberg from the clutches of the federal government was a “bad decision.” Simmons is a former CIA analyst whose heroics supposedly include “fighting cyberterrorists” and “narco-terrorists,” and whose biography [.pdf] includes a stint as “President and CEO of WSS International, Ltd, a Maryland company formed to arrange loans for multinational companies in Europe, Hong Kong, and Macau. He was also involved in working with American Fortune 500 companies and providing introductions to the various foreign ministers of Kazakhstan.”
In short, Senor Simmons is using his government connections to profit from “introductions” to the kleptocrats of Kazakhstan, an oil-rich Central Asian country where the Absolute Ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, presides over one of the most repressive and corrupt regimes in the world. In Nazarbayev, Simmons – who claims waterboarding isn’t torture – has found a kindred soul.
These men and women are the enemies of our republic: they pose a deadly danger to the survival of the republican tradition. When I heard Simmons state – without emotion – that only “our leaders” have the right to know what WikiLeaks has revealed about the Afghan conflict, I shuddered from head to foot, as if hearing the death knell of all that America was, and, to some extent, still is.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Obamacare Supporter Stark: Feds Can Do Anything
Pro-Obamacare Congressman Pete Stark outraged attendees at a town hall meeting in Hayward California recently when he responded to criticism surrounding the constitutional basis of government run health care by claiming that the federal government had the power to do anything.
An attendee asked Stark to explain his claim that health care was now a right rather than a privilege in light of the fact that government imposed Obamacare “infringes the inalienable rights of other people” under the Constitution. The attendee pointed out that to mandate others to provide a service was a form of slavery and therefore violated the 13th amendment to the Constitution.
If Obamacare was constitutional, added the attendee, then there was no foreseeable limit on what the federal government could do to dictate to Americans how to run their private lives.
Stark responded by claiming the Constitution didn’t stop the federal government from creating “rules” that could affect the private lives of Americans, despite the fact that this is explicitly what the Constitution was created to restrict.
The Constitution, “specifically prohibits slavery and when you tell somebody you have a right to get a service from another that’s essentially saying you get to make that person do something for you and that is a form of slavery,” stated the attendee, adding that if the feds could do this then they could do anything.
“The federal government – yes – can do most anything in this country,” responded Stark, a statement that prompted a loud chorus of dissent from the crowd.
An attendee asked Stark to explain his claim that health care was now a right rather than a privilege in light of the fact that government imposed Obamacare “infringes the inalienable rights of other people” under the Constitution. The attendee pointed out that to mandate others to provide a service was a form of slavery and therefore violated the 13th amendment to the Constitution.
If Obamacare was constitutional, added the attendee, then there was no foreseeable limit on what the federal government could do to dictate to Americans how to run their private lives.
Stark responded by claiming the Constitution didn’t stop the federal government from creating “rules” that could affect the private lives of Americans, despite the fact that this is explicitly what the Constitution was created to restrict.
The Constitution, “specifically prohibits slavery and when you tell somebody you have a right to get a service from another that’s essentially saying you get to make that person do something for you and that is a form of slavery,” stated the attendee, adding that if the feds could do this then they could do anything.
“The federal government – yes – can do most anything in this country,” responded Stark, a statement that prompted a loud chorus of dissent from the crowd.
"OUR OWN GOVERNMENT HAS BECOME OUR ENEMY"
The federal government has become a monstrous leech that has affixed itself to the underbelly of the American republic and is sucking its lifeblood out with a vengeance. It has increased its surveillance of the American citizenry to the point that--for all intents and purposes--we now live in a Soviet-style, East Bloc society: our phone calls, emails, cellular transmissions, etc., are being feverishly monitored; our financial transactions are scrutinized; this new national (socialist) healthcare system is nothing more than modern-day slavery; our manufacturing jobs have been deliberately outsourced to the point that America's real unemployment numbers are around 20% (Source: economist Donald McAlvany); the international bankers and their collaborators in DC could be described as the ultimate crime syndicate without much fear of hyperbole; the federal government's control and manipulation of our public schools has resulted in the fact that the United States now has the most expensive and least productive education system in the industrialized world; and now it is teaming up with the ACLU (not to mention thousands of Mexican gang members, drug dealers, human traffickers, rapists, and murderers) to fight the State of Arizona for its attempt to simply enforce the law. Yes, I would say that should classify the federal government as our enemy, all right.
If you doubt DC's arrogance, I challenge you to watch the following video of Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA), who said, "The federal government, yes, can do most anything." With congressmen such as this, does anyone wonder why the federal government has grown into such a monster?
Christian and Robbins could be right when they suggest that it might be time for a second American revolution! I might even argue, in many respects, that revolution has already begun. State governors and legislators across the country are increasingly frustrated with DC's arrogance and bullying, and are pushing back. Jan Brewer and her brave Arizonans are not the only State to start drawing a line in the sand. Millions of freedom-loving citizens in these states have about reached the boiling point. I really don't think it would take much of a spark to set this country ablaze with the "Spirit of '76" all over again.
Remember, it was the states that created the federal government--not the other way around. And the states never surrendered their authority or autonomy, not to Washington, D.C., or to any other power. I don't care what anyone says to the contrary; the states retained their Declaration status, that they were "Free and Independent" AFTER the US Constitution was enacted and the federal government formed in 1787. If the framers intended to make America "one nation," meaning one national government absent the features of federalism requiring State independence and power to serve as a check and balance against the imperialist tendencies of a central government, why were the states not dissolved when the Constitution was adopted? The states maintained independence for the very reason that Arizona and other states today are resisting federal encroachment, or in the case of illegal immigration, inaction: to arrest federal failure!
If you doubt DC's arrogance, I challenge you to watch the following video of Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA), who said, "The federal government, yes, can do most anything." With congressmen such as this, does anyone wonder why the federal government has grown into such a monster?
Christian and Robbins could be right when they suggest that it might be time for a second American revolution! I might even argue, in many respects, that revolution has already begun. State governors and legislators across the country are increasingly frustrated with DC's arrogance and bullying, and are pushing back. Jan Brewer and her brave Arizonans are not the only State to start drawing a line in the sand. Millions of freedom-loving citizens in these states have about reached the boiling point. I really don't think it would take much of a spark to set this country ablaze with the "Spirit of '76" all over again.
Remember, it was the states that created the federal government--not the other way around. And the states never surrendered their authority or autonomy, not to Washington, D.C., or to any other power. I don't care what anyone says to the contrary; the states retained their Declaration status, that they were "Free and Independent" AFTER the US Constitution was enacted and the federal government formed in 1787. If the framers intended to make America "one nation," meaning one national government absent the features of federalism requiring State independence and power to serve as a check and balance against the imperialist tendencies of a central government, why were the states not dissolved when the Constitution was adopted? The states maintained independence for the very reason that Arizona and other states today are resisting federal encroachment, or in the case of illegal immigration, inaction: to arrest federal failure!
The Myth of Technological Progress
Many of you will still be alive in 50 years. It’s interesting to think about what life will be like in 50 years technologically and otherwise. Predictions are risky, especially when they’re about the future, but I believe we can make some pretty good guesses. To predict a predictable future, you need to look at the past. What was technological life like 50 years ago? 50 years ago was 1959. The world of 1959 is pretty much the same world we live in today technologically speaking. This is a vaguely horrifying fact which is little appreciated. In 1959, we had computers, international telephony, advanced programming languages like Lisp, which remains the most advanced programming language, routine commercial jet flight, atomic power, internal combustion engines about the same as modern ones, supersonic fighter planes, television and the transistor.
The rate of change between 1959 and 1909 is nothing short of spectacular. In that 50 years, humanity invented jet aircraft, supersonic flight, fuel-injected internal-combustion engines, the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, space flight, gas warfare, nuclear power, the tank, antibiotics, the polio vaccine, radio; and these are just a few items off the top of my head. You might try to assert that this was a particularly good era for technological progress, but the era between 1859 and 1909 was a similar explosion in creativity and progress, as was the 50 years before that, at the dawn of the Industrial revolution. You can read all about it in Charles Murray’s Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950, though I warn you, if you’re in a creative or technical profession Murray’s widely ignored book is even more depressing than this essay. Murray didn’t restrict his attentions to technological progress: across the entire panoply of human endeavor (art, science, literature, philosophy, Mathematics) the indications are grim. You may disagree with the statistical technique he used (I don’t), but you can’t escape the conclusion—things are slowing down.
We are not living in a time of technical decline exactly, but we are also not living in a time of great progress. As such, I don’t think the world of 50 years hence will look very technologically different from the world now. Our rate of progress is fairly small, and I’m not the only one to notice. This is despite the fact that there are more technologists alive now than ever lived in human history before. Some people argue that this is because prior generations did, “the easy stuff,” leaving nothing for modern people to do. I think this is untrue. None of it was easy; it only looks that way after it is done. I could come up with all kinds of reasons why modern technologists aren’t as good as they were: rotten educational facilities, modern tort law, endless bureaucracy, the death of the lone inventor. But in the end, a Kipling couplet will suffice:
None too learned, but nobly bold,
Into the fight went our fathers of old.
The rate of change between 1959 and 1909 is nothing short of spectacular. In that 50 years, humanity invented jet aircraft, supersonic flight, fuel-injected internal-combustion engines, the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, space flight, gas warfare, nuclear power, the tank, antibiotics, the polio vaccine, radio; and these are just a few items off the top of my head. You might try to assert that this was a particularly good era for technological progress, but the era between 1859 and 1909 was a similar explosion in creativity and progress, as was the 50 years before that, at the dawn of the Industrial revolution. You can read all about it in Charles Murray’s Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950, though I warn you, if you’re in a creative or technical profession Murray’s widely ignored book is even more depressing than this essay. Murray didn’t restrict his attentions to technological progress: across the entire panoply of human endeavor (art, science, literature, philosophy, Mathematics) the indications are grim. You may disagree with the statistical technique he used (I don’t), but you can’t escape the conclusion—things are slowing down.
We are not living in a time of technical decline exactly, but we are also not living in a time of great progress. As such, I don’t think the world of 50 years hence will look very technologically different from the world now. Our rate of progress is fairly small, and I’m not the only one to notice. This is despite the fact that there are more technologists alive now than ever lived in human history before. Some people argue that this is because prior generations did, “the easy stuff,” leaving nothing for modern people to do. I think this is untrue. None of it was easy; it only looks that way after it is done. I could come up with all kinds of reasons why modern technologists aren’t as good as they were: rotten educational facilities, modern tort law, endless bureaucracy, the death of the lone inventor. But in the end, a Kipling couplet will suffice:
None too learned, but nobly bold,
Into the fight went our fathers of old.
The Southern Poverty Law Center - An Introduction
Contrary to the organization’s cultivated image as a “civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society,” Harper’s magazine notes that SPLC’s “entire legal staff quit in protest of Dees’ refusal to address issues—such as homelessness, voter registration, and affirmative action—that they considered far more pertinent to poor minorities [because they are] far less marketable to affluent benefactors.” Harper’s also reported that another lawyer, Gloria Browne, who resigned a few years later, stated that SPLC’s programs were calculated to cash in on “black pain and white guilt.” Commentator Don Feder, in an article that appeared in Front Page magazine, wrote:
What makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odious is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to make it appear that there’s a logical relationship between say opposing affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants. The late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called this “the broad-brush smear.”
The SPLC has earned critics from the left, right, and center. Cornell University Professor William A. Jacobson has observed: “I regularly donated to the SPLC. I stopped those donations long ago, as the SPLC drifted from its original mission into left-wing politics.”5 Across the political spectrum there are sources who have investigated and refuted SPLC’s claims: The Humanist magazine asserts
The SPLC campaigns for laws that will effectively deny free speech and freedom of association to certain groups of Americans on the basis of their beliefs. Six times a year, the SPLC’s letter boasts, the center reports its findings to over 6,000 law-enforcement agencies; then, with no discernible irony, it goes on to justify its Big Brother methods in the name of tolerance.
What makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odious is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to make it appear that there’s a logical relationship between say opposing affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants. The late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called this “the broad-brush smear.”
The SPLC has earned critics from the left, right, and center. Cornell University Professor William A. Jacobson has observed: “I regularly donated to the SPLC. I stopped those donations long ago, as the SPLC drifted from its original mission into left-wing politics.”5 Across the political spectrum there are sources who have investigated and refuted SPLC’s claims: The Humanist magazine asserts
The SPLC campaigns for laws that will effectively deny free speech and freedom of association to certain groups of Americans on the basis of their beliefs. Six times a year, the SPLC’s letter boasts, the center reports its findings to over 6,000 law-enforcement agencies; then, with no discernible irony, it goes on to justify its Big Brother methods in the name of tolerance.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Government Securities
Those who lend money to the government participate in a fraud, for all of them know that it has only one way ultimately to pay either interest or principal: by stealing it. So if they ever lose it (and they will, as below) there will be no sympathy from this quarter.
They do the lending by purchasing municipal bonds and Treasury Bills, Notes and Bonds, and lenders come in two flavors: (a) real investors and foreign governments, and (b) the Federal Reserve Bank, or the Fed. As far as I've been able to find out, the current $13 trillion total US government debt (often but wrongly called the "national" debt) splits about half and half between the two, meaning that the Fed holds around $6.5 trillion in government paper. But for some reason they are very shy about publishing accounts, so we can't be sure.
All buyers of such instruments know quite well that it's a big pretense. The Feds are not going to return the promised money from their own resources, because they have no resources whatever and everybody knows it. If government (at any level) were an incorporated company with limited liability, its share capital (funds voluntarily placed with the enterprise in expectation of gain) would be zero--not even a nominal $100. That being so, nobody in his right mind would deal with it except on a strictly cash basis--and for sure, nobody would lend it a billion bucks for ten years. Why, then, does this happen? Because of its monopoly on force. Government does have that single "asset": the ability (though not the right, by any measure or definition) to extract money and other property by the threat of force from real people in its domain. So there's a paradox: at one and the same time, government is always bankrupt (there are no true financial assets in its ownership), yet it can never go bankrupt, for as long as it exists, it can always steal what it needs by taxation. Those who lend it money are therefore betting that it will continue to be able to steal enough to repay the loan with interest, and are electing to join the heist. They are staking their fortunes on the power of government guns and the thugs who wield them.
That is why all who hold some of their assets in "government securities" so readily support continuing taxation. If that tax machine ever broke down, they would lose the lot.
They do the lending by purchasing municipal bonds and Treasury Bills, Notes and Bonds, and lenders come in two flavors: (a) real investors and foreign governments, and (b) the Federal Reserve Bank, or the Fed. As far as I've been able to find out, the current $13 trillion total US government debt (often but wrongly called the "national" debt) splits about half and half between the two, meaning that the Fed holds around $6.5 trillion in government paper. But for some reason they are very shy about publishing accounts, so we can't be sure.
All buyers of such instruments know quite well that it's a big pretense. The Feds are not going to return the promised money from their own resources, because they have no resources whatever and everybody knows it. If government (at any level) were an incorporated company with limited liability, its share capital (funds voluntarily placed with the enterprise in expectation of gain) would be zero--not even a nominal $100. That being so, nobody in his right mind would deal with it except on a strictly cash basis--and for sure, nobody would lend it a billion bucks for ten years. Why, then, does this happen? Because of its monopoly on force. Government does have that single "asset": the ability (though not the right, by any measure or definition) to extract money and other property by the threat of force from real people in its domain. So there's a paradox: at one and the same time, government is always bankrupt (there are no true financial assets in its ownership), yet it can never go bankrupt, for as long as it exists, it can always steal what it needs by taxation. Those who lend it money are therefore betting that it will continue to be able to steal enough to repay the loan with interest, and are electing to join the heist. They are staking their fortunes on the power of government guns and the thugs who wield them.
That is why all who hold some of their assets in "government securities" so readily support continuing taxation. If that tax machine ever broke down, they would lose the lot.
Four Deformations of the Apocalypse
The first of these started when the Nixon administration defaulted on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world. Now, since we have lived beyond our means as a nation for nearly 40 years, our cumulative current-account deficit — the combined shortfall on our trade in goods, services and income — has reached nearly $8 trillion. That’s borrowed prosperity on an epic scale.
The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.
The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector. Here, Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation. As a result, the combined assets of conventional banks and the so-called shadow banking system (including investment banks and finance companies) grew from a mere $500 billion in 1970 to $30 trillion by September 2008.
The fourth destructive change has been the hollowing out of the larger American economy. Having lived beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we have steadily sent jobs and production offshore. In the past decade, the number of high-value jobs in goods production and in service categories like trade, transportation, information technology and the professions has shrunk by 12 percent, to 68 million from 77 million. The only reason we have not experienced a severe reduction in nonfarm payrolls since 2000 is that there has been a gain in low-paying, often part-time positions in places like bars, hotels and nursing homes.
The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.
The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector. Here, Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation. As a result, the combined assets of conventional banks and the so-called shadow banking system (including investment banks and finance companies) grew from a mere $500 billion in 1970 to $30 trillion by September 2008.
The fourth destructive change has been the hollowing out of the larger American economy. Having lived beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we have steadily sent jobs and production offshore. In the past decade, the number of high-value jobs in goods production and in service categories like trade, transportation, information technology and the professions has shrunk by 12 percent, to 68 million from 77 million. The only reason we have not experienced a severe reduction in nonfarm payrolls since 2000 is that there has been a gain in low-paying, often part-time positions in places like bars, hotels and nursing homes.
Preparing for World War III, Targeting Iran
In chorus, the Western media has branded Iran as a threat to global security in view of its alleged (non-existent) nuclear weapons program. Echoing official statements, the media is now demanding the implementation of punitive bombings directed against Iran so as to safeguard Israel's security.
The Western media is beating the drums of war. The purpose is to tacitly instil, through repeated media reports, ad nauseam, within people's inner consciousness, the notion that the Iranian threat is real and that the Islamic Republic should be "taken out".
A consensus building process to wage war is similar to the Spanish inquisition. It requires and demands submission to the notion that war is a humanitarian endeavor.
Known and documented, the real threat to global security emanates from the US-NATO-Israel alliance, yet realities in an inquisitorial environment are turned upside down: the warmongers are committed to peace, the victims of war are presented as the protagonists of war. Whereas in 2006, almost two thirds of Americans were opposed to military action against Iran, a recent Reuter-Zogby February 2010 poll suggests that 56 % of Americans favor a US-NATO military action against Iran.
Building a political consensus which is based on an outright lie cannot, however, rely solely on the official position of those who are the source of the lie.
The Western media is beating the drums of war. The purpose is to tacitly instil, through repeated media reports, ad nauseam, within people's inner consciousness, the notion that the Iranian threat is real and that the Islamic Republic should be "taken out".
A consensus building process to wage war is similar to the Spanish inquisition. It requires and demands submission to the notion that war is a humanitarian endeavor.
Known and documented, the real threat to global security emanates from the US-NATO-Israel alliance, yet realities in an inquisitorial environment are turned upside down: the warmongers are committed to peace, the victims of war are presented as the protagonists of war. Whereas in 2006, almost two thirds of Americans were opposed to military action against Iran, a recent Reuter-Zogby February 2010 poll suggests that 56 % of Americans favor a US-NATO military action against Iran.
Building a political consensus which is based on an outright lie cannot, however, rely solely on the official position of those who are the source of the lie.
The Myths That Made an Empire
The idealistic motives expressed by American presidents during the Cold War were incoherent, and so were the economic arguments they made to justify the quest for global power. The claim that American prosperity pivots on the maintenance of peace and stability abroad—so trade routes and access to strategic economic resources will remain secure—is another Cold War fallacy that is still with us. President Eisenhower once stated it plainly:
From my viewpoint, foreign policy is, or should be, based primarily upon one consideration. That consideration is the need for the U.S. to obtain certain raw materials to sustain its economy and, when possible, to preserve profitable foreign markets for our surpluses. Out of this need grows the necessity for making certain that those areas of the world in which essential raw materials are produced are not only accessible to us, but their populations and governments are willing to trade with us on a friendly basis.
Neither the United States nor any other nation has ever been deprived of essential goods and brought down by economic warfare. Smuggling, bribery, and middlemen eager to make money invariably evade the tightest embargoes. The Soviet Union effortlessly outfoxed the U.S. wheat embargo following the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 by purchasing greater quantities from middlemen like Spain or Argentina. Penurious North Korea, with its millions of starving citizens, remains defiant in the face of massive international sanctions. Fidel Castro’s Cuba has circumvented more than 50 years of a United States embargo. Despite the expenditure of $44 billion dollars annually and the employment of the world’s most proficient military and law enforcement assets, the United States has been unable to staunch the flow of narcotics flooding across its borders to satisfy millions of American consumers.
American liberty does not depend upon other nations embracing democracy—and never has, even during the Cold War. Nor does American prosperity require bases around the world and military leverage over friend and foe alike. Yet despite their patent falsity, these political orthodoxies continue to be invoked by the American empire to justify its global force projection, endless wars, and national security state.
From my viewpoint, foreign policy is, or should be, based primarily upon one consideration. That consideration is the need for the U.S. to obtain certain raw materials to sustain its economy and, when possible, to preserve profitable foreign markets for our surpluses. Out of this need grows the necessity for making certain that those areas of the world in which essential raw materials are produced are not only accessible to us, but their populations and governments are willing to trade with us on a friendly basis.
Neither the United States nor any other nation has ever been deprived of essential goods and brought down by economic warfare. Smuggling, bribery, and middlemen eager to make money invariably evade the tightest embargoes. The Soviet Union effortlessly outfoxed the U.S. wheat embargo following the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 by purchasing greater quantities from middlemen like Spain or Argentina. Penurious North Korea, with its millions of starving citizens, remains defiant in the face of massive international sanctions. Fidel Castro’s Cuba has circumvented more than 50 years of a United States embargo. Despite the expenditure of $44 billion dollars annually and the employment of the world’s most proficient military and law enforcement assets, the United States has been unable to staunch the flow of narcotics flooding across its borders to satisfy millions of American consumers.
American liberty does not depend upon other nations embracing democracy—and never has, even during the Cold War. Nor does American prosperity require bases around the world and military leverage over friend and foe alike. Yet despite their patent falsity, these political orthodoxies continue to be invoked by the American empire to justify its global force projection, endless wars, and national security state.
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