Cracking the Code Film - Peter Eric Hendrickson

I wanted to make a post before people start to wonder if I will ever post again.

I want to share with you, the reader of this blog, some information that the Internal Revenue Service does not want you to know. Why? Because the people working for the government have benefitted from the IRS convincing people something that isn't true.

I don't want this post to be construed as legal advice (as in, "here's what you should do to solve the problem."). This blog is for educational purposes only.

new tag for a new author

Shredded Tuna

Are we a fascist country?

These are some of the binding ties that hold many infamous fascist regimes together. I read this first in Free Inquiry, and just found it again on their website. It's a bit disconcerting at how well our country lines up so neatly with so many of these common attributes of fascism.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite “spontaneous” acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and “terrorists.” Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.

5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.

7. Obsession with national security. Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting “national security,” and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.

9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. “Normal” and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or “traitors” was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.

14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.

I can't tell which way this country will eventually tilt, full on fascism or communism, but it appears that much of the groundwork has been laid for either outcome.

Regarding slavery

After watching the cringe inducing(at least for me) video on slavery that was posted a while back, I figure this story deserves some light. Found at projectcensored.org there is a short piece that explains the current situation with regards to forced labor. It's a sad situation that humans can still be bought and sold like any other commodity. That the slave trade can create revenues of somewhere between $9.5 billion and $32 billion is absolutely astounding. The clever way that debt slave's are created draws uncomfortable parallels to our own credit industry. I don't say that to diminish the actual abuse of real debt slaves, but when adults spend a significant portion of their lives paying off school, home, car and whatever else loans, it seems only a few steps away from forced labor, especially when the interest rates are absurdly high. In reluctant agreement with the video mentioned before, I do wish more attention was paid to current modern day slaves, and less focus and energy wasted on the former slaves of our country. With more slaves in bondage today, 27 million, than at any other time in human history, it's time to end this cruelty once and for all.

Ron Paul on martial law

Kind of blurry video, and not sure of the date, but yay merry christmas, this should cheer you up.

Paul Krugman on the economic turmoil ahead

"Whatever the new administration does, we're in for months, perhaps even a year, of economic hell. After that, things should get better, as President Obama's stimulus plan -- O.K., I'm told that the politically correct term is now "economic recovery plan" -- begins to gain traction. Late next year the economy should begin to stabilize, and I'm fairly optimistic about 2010."

Found at Alternet. Not exactly a rosy forecast, but sounds reasonable to me. Also makes a good point about how China may struggle without being able to export as much crap to out shores. And I like useless gadgets as much as anyone, but we probably do need to reduce our trade deficits by a large measure. We basically don't make anything anymore and are obsessed with buying shit, doesn't seem to be a sustainable position for an economy. Maybe if we can get everyone to stay sick and in poor health we can all get jobs in health care.

Pastor Sam Kinison

FED lowers rates to nothing

Over at the MarketBeat blog on the Wall Street Journal, the news is the FED, for the first time in history, has a zero-interest rate policy. The first line of the article is some what disconcerting. "No more messing around". Certainly they weren't messing around prior to the drop to zero. "The Fed’s efforts include lots of purchases of agency debt, mortgage-backed securities and other types of debt as well" , well that doesn't seem good. All of that debt is bad debt, insolvent and toxic, can the FED absorb those kinds of losses. Oh, yeah, forgot, they can just invent more money to take care of any losses. "But investors are likely to pile into more esoteric debt securities following the unexpected aggressiveness from the central bank." Cause that worked last time around, when the housing market imploded. I have heard calls for the abolishing of the FED on grounds that it might not even be a legal operation constitutionally, I think I'll call for it's demise on grounds of idiocy at this point. They are going to pump shitloads of money into the system and further erode my buying power just so Wall Street can be comfortable taking risks again. I don't know enough about economics and the FED to be truly righteous in my anger, but damn, between the bailouts and stock market collapse and foreclosures and automaker implosions and whatever else decides to hit the shitfan, I feel like we're being taken for a ride here, and it's not much fun.

Crimes Against Humanity: Israel

I came upon this article by Chris Hedges on Alternet, on the ongoing atrocities of Israel against the Palestinians living in the Gaza strip. I've decided to post it here in its entirety.

Israel's 'Crime Against Humanity'

by Chris Hedges

Israel’s siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It comes close to the horrors visited on Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs. It has disturbing echoes of the Nazi ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw.

“This is a stain on what is left of Israeli morality,” I was told by Richard N. Veits, the former U.S. ambassador to Jordan who led a delegation from the Council on Foreign Relations to Gaza to meet Hamas leaders this past summer. “I am almost breathless discussing this subject. It is so myopic. Washington, of course, is a handmaiden to all this. The Israeli manipulation of a population in this manner is comparable to some of the crimes that took place against civilian populations fifty years ago.”

The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, calls what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza “a crime against humanity.” Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as “a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.” He has asked for “the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.”

Falk, while condemning the rocket attacks by the militant group Hamas, which he points out are also criminal violations of international law, goes on to say that “such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel’s imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people.”

“It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health,” Falk said when I reached him by phone in California shortly before he left for Israel. “This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live.”

Gaza now spends 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza’s three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on children—half of Gaza’s population is under the age of 17—are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.

“It is macabre,” Falk said. “I don’t know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times.”

“There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances,” the rapporteur added. “The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable.”

The point of this Israeli siege, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel. Palestinians have launched more than 200 rockets on Israel since the latest round of violence began. There have been no Israeli casualties.

“This is a crime of survival,” Falk said of the rocket attacks. “Israel has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances.”

Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. There are now dozens of tunnels, the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel permits the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel.

“Israel, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state,” Falk said. “They [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge.”

The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a “martyr”?

The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.

Welcome to the USSA

In this country called America, Americans like to think of themselves as practitioners of Capitalism, "the unknown ideal" as Ayn Rand called it; that reachable dream of luxurious laziness achieveable through the discipline of hard work and lofty ambitions where everyone is given a fair chance and competition rewards the most talented of respective trades.

George Carlin said it best: It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

But are we truly operating in a capitalistic system? Nope. Stick with me, I'm going to prove my point.

What follows are the Ten Planks of Communism and how they have been implemented in American society.

1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rents of land to public purposes.

14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868), Bureau of Land Management (and various zoning laws), school and property taxes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

The misapplication of the 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1913), The Social Security Act of 1936; Joint House Resolution 192 of 1933; various State "income" taxes. Bill Clinton called it "paying your fair share"

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritence.

Federal & State estate Tax (1916); reformed Probate Laws, limited inheritance by arbitrary inheritance tax statutes

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

Government seizures, tax liens, Public "law" 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of "terrorists" and those who speak out or write against the "government" (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); the IRS confiscation of property without due process. Asset forfeiture laws are used by DEA, IRS, ATF etc...)

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

The Federal Reserve Act (1913); The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; the Exchange Stablization Fund; the President's Working Group on Financial Markets.

6. Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State.

The Federal Communication Commission and the Department of Transportation mandated through the ICC Act of 1887, the Commissions Act of 1934, the Insterstate Commerce Commission of 1938, The Federal Aviation Administration, Executive Orders 11490, 10999, State-issued driver's licenses and DOT regulations.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

"Corporate capacity", The Desert Entry Act and the Department of Agriculture, read "controlled or subsidized" rather than "owned", Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of corporations through government regulation.

8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

Americans call it Minimum Wage and slave labor like dealing with our Most Favored Nation trade partner; i.e. Communist China. We see it in practice through the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two "income" family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920's, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action (a program of racial hatred against white people), the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of
the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country.

Americans call it the Planning Reorganization act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public "law" 89-136. These provide for forced relocations and forced sterilization programs, like in China.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.

Children are indoctrinated with state propaganda through the public school system, inculcating in the children a sense of complacency towards the communal debt system which they are brought up through the state to recognize as their sole provider and savior. This is affected through the Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Outcome Based "Education".

Does changing the words of these programs change their meaning and affect the outcome differently? Or is it because we live in America and that we have the most uniquely inspired political document written that we believe we aren't communists?

http://www.libertyzone.com/Communist-Manifesto-Planks.html

No Apologies for Slavery

My sentiments exactly.



BTW, this is an old video.

Calling out the ruling class

Over at Alternet, David Sirota calls out the ruling class for being, yet again, wrong on nearly everything, this time regarding the bailouts. Highlights include criticism for passing a credit-card industry written bankruptcy law, the 'trust us' attitude for passing the bailout bill, and the outright falsehoods that business to bank lending, inter-bank lending, and commercial paper had frozen. Plus it's just nice to see some one calling the ruling class what it is, and not dancing around the myth that we are an egalitarian society and that everyone gets a fair shake.

funny

boingboing.

Merry X-mas, chiptune style

Doctor Octoroc has created the best x-mas music I have heard in quite some time. You can download all the tracks in a zip or just one at a time, and it's great, plus it's called 8 bit jesus. I recommend We Three Konami, my personal favorite. Came across this at Kotaku.

Amazing ants doing amazing things then flooded with concrete for the win

Really excellent video showing the inner workings of a giant ant colony. Looks very sci-fi to me. Found at BoingBoing.

The Fed continues to evade transparency

From Bloomberg . The Fed just will not tell us where our money went. Secrecy is obviously essential when it comes to throwing away taxpayer money. Why all the opacity? I'm sure some of us have a few theories on that question. The Fed says that it's allowed to withhold internal memos, trade secrets and commercial information. Because you can do something is a good enough reason to do it. A secretary for the Fed sent an email to Bloomberg saying “In its considered judgment and in view of current circumstances, it would be a dangerous step to release this otherwise confidential information,”. The most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the great depression; That's a phrase that pops up a few times in the article, some what worryingly. The Fed may be right in not wanting to disclose this information, it could very well be harmful, but the longer they stick with this refusual to cooperate with FOIA requests the more they deteriorate what little sheen may have been on their operation. Maybe it will do some good to get more people interested in what exactly they are and how they can skirt legal requests for information regarding taxpayer money.

Future cyborg now, eventual robot overlords in infancy

This lady's prosthetic arm attaches directly to the bone. The skin has grown around and fused to the bone and metal. Heartwarming and creepy. She lost her arm during the train bombings in London in 2005. She was sitting directly across from one of the bombers. Found on BoingBoing gadgets via the BBC.




And also from BoingBoing gadgets is this. I'm not entirely sure as to what this thing is doing, and from the commenter's on boingboing, they don't seem to have a consensus either, but goddamn that's terrifying. If its doing what I suspect that it is, shooting innocent civilians trapped under that net, then it must be stopped. Or purchased. Either way, I suspect we're doomed to servitude to mechanical masters before any other cataclysmic event destroys our lives.

Rep. Ron Paul in Congress 12/10/2008

Thank you, Dr. Paul.

Excuse the Matrix footage, please. I couldn't find another video with both speeches in it.

Guns N Roses - Civil War

I'm going to do something that has been so far uncharacteristic of me. I'm going to post a music video. Why when all of my posts have been about politics and economic philosophy? It's simple. I'm not straying that far off base.

I'm posting a Guns N Roses song called Civil War. This is possibly my favorite anti-war song because of two verses that Axl Rose wrote that for me encapsulates how the welfare-warfare state works. Much like the way you cannot get rid of the IRS without getting rid of the Federal Reserve, you also cannot rid the warfare state without getting rid of the welfare state. Below the video are, I think, some of the most important anti-war lyrics written.



My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars

My hands are tied
For all I've seen has changed my mind
But still the wars go on as the years go by
With no love of God or human rights
'Cause all these dreams are swept aside
By bloody hands of the hypnotized
Who carry the cross of homicide
And history bears the scars of our civil wars

I don't need your civil war
It feeds the rich while it buries the poor
Your power hungry sellin' soldiers
In a human grocery store

The Calamity of Bush's Conservatism

I've been meaning to post this for a while now and haven't gotten around to it. This is a video of Lew Rockwell's Speech made at the Ron Paul Rally in Minnesota.

9/11/2001 Is A Conspiracy Theory No Matter How One Looks At It

Whether one believes that the United States Government had foreknowledge of the attack and allowed it to happen to be used as a pretext for President Bush's personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein for making an attempt on Daddy's life or whether one believes as the official story goes that al Qaeda is the guilty party, it is a conspiracy theory regardless of who believes what.

From the back of Jim Marrs' book The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11 and the Loss of Liberty:

According to the U.S. Government's official conspiracy theory, nineteen suicidal Middle Eastern Muslim hijackers, their hearts full of hatred for American freedom and democracy, hijacked four airliners. Reportedly, two planes were crashed into the Twin Towers of New York City's World Trade Center, a third into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed in rural western Pennsylvania after its passengers fought with the hijackers. This whole "Misson: Impossible" operation, able to defeat the United States' four-hundred-billion-dollar defense system, reportedly was under the total control of a zealous Muslim cleric using a computer while hiding in a cave in Afghanistan.

According to http://www.dictionary.com/, a conspiracy is "an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons". Conspiracy is a derivative of the Latin word conspirare, literally translated into "to breathe together". In our culture it is taboo to believe in a conspiracy theory. This is a culturally fascist attitude never more strongly represented than by those who "debunk" conspiracy theories. These attitudes wreak of state worship and arise from a sense that our elected officials couldn't or wouldn't act against the interests of the people with deliberate intention. This is a false philosophy. I understand that quotes are quotes and are only good to the extent of their usefulness but I'd like to quote Frederic Bastiat and say that government is the great fiction by which everyone endeavors to live at the expensive of everybody else. Government from its inception is evil incarnate because for it to function it has to rely on thievery.

That's what these Stalinists and Trotskyites, or more commonly referred to as the Democrats and the Republicans (respectively), don't understand.

No matter what one believes, the events of 9/11/2001 were the result of a group conspiring together. This fact is not up for debate.

These People Shouldn't be Voting Part III

More racist sciolism from the McCain- Palin cohort.

The Moment I Said It- Imogen Heap

Easy listening for the heavyhearted.

Chalmers Johnson and the Decay of the American Empire

Chomsky on the ADL (Anti-Defamation Leauge)

An excerpt from Noam Chomsky's 1989 book Necessary Illusions.

"The ADL has virtually abandoned its earlier role as a civil rights organization, becoming 'one of the main pillars' of Israeli propaganda in the U.S.… These efforts, buttressed by insinuations of anti-Semitism or direct accusations, are intended to deflect or undermine opposition to Israeli policies, including Israel's refusal, with U.S. support, to move towards a general political settlement."

More to come on this issue.

The Toppling of Saddam Statue Propaganda?

The link below is an entry that I came across on The Tribal Messenger. The entry suggests that the toppling of the the Saddam statue in April of 2003, may have been a staged event by the U.S. and the U.S. tax dollar backed FIF (Free Iraqi Forces). The event, as suspected by the author, was a propaganda move orchestrated by the Bush administration to rally ongoing support for U.S. activities in Iraq.

http://www.tribalmessenger.org/t-media/saddam-statue.htm

Tainted Lunch Meat : I love the money fires

Everyone here thought the Onion video about the National Money Hole was hilarious. I think. Anyway, apparently other more serious people are coming around to the conclusion that setting the bail-out money on fire, in a hole or not, is a more sensible idea than using it to invest in continually falling bank stocks. No longer questioning the wisdom of bail-outs, they seem to benefit the people they were intended to benefit. Not me. Still wondering why we get suckered into going along with bail-outs. Capitalism at it's finest, unless the ruling class is in some way inconvenienced, then socialism for them, jack for everyone else. Fucking bizarre that we can't see how badly we're being fleeced.

Second link found on Alternet , and followed to Sadly, No!

Tainted Lunch Meat : could be worse

Inflation has been high this year, 5.6% in July and consistently above 4% most of the year, but it could be worse. Let's take a look at Zimbabwe. That country just issued $200,000,000 notes right on the heels of the $100,000,000 notes. A loaf of bread could cost you $35,000,000 in Zimbabwe. Of course $500,000 Zimbabwe is only worth about a quarter here, as in 25 cents. Their inflation rate, the highest in the world, is running at 231 million percent. Here's the full story on CNN.

As Per Requested - Jesus Was Not A Jew

I wouldn't normally post a blog like this so soon, because when I write my blogs I like to travel in a linear direction. Shane requested that I post this because I've brought this up in our varied discussions.

Jesus wasn't a Jew, wasn't of the bloodline, and there's no biblical evidence for the claim that he was a Jew.

Tainted Lunch Meat : Modern Money Mechanics

This may be of some interest for some of you. It was printed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and is out of print.

Tainted Lunch Meat : Chomsky

I'll just post the whole thing, it's what he said to the BBC back in September.

Markets have inherent and well-known inefficiencies. One factor is failure to calculate the costs to those who do not participate in transactions. These "externalities" can be huge. That is particularly true for financial institutions.

Their task is to take risks, calculating potential costs for themselves. But they do not take into account the consequences of their losses for the economy as a whole.

Hence the financial market "underprices risk" and is "systematically inefficient," as John Eatwell and Lance Taylor wrote a decade ago, warning of the extreme dangers of financial liberalization and reviewing the substantial costs already incurred - and also proposing solutions, which have been ignored.

The threat became more severe when the Clinton administration repealed the Glass-Steagall act of 1933, thus freeing financial institutions "to innovate in the new economy," in Clinton's words -- and also "to self-destruct, taking down with them the general economy and international confidence in the US banking system," financial analyst Nomi Prins adds.

The unprecedented intervention of the Fed may be justified or not in narrow terms, but it reveals, once again, the profoundly undemocratic character of state capitalist institutions, designed in large measure to socialise cost and risk and privatize profit, without a public voice.

That is, of course, not limited to financial markets. The advanced economy as a whole relies heavily on the dynamic state sector, with much the same consequences with regard to risk, cost, profit, and decisions, crucial features of the economy and political system.

Tainted Lunch Meat : mind, blown.

I picked this up over at BoingBoing. Wow, good video, really lays out how money is created and why debt is an absolute necessity for our current economic model to function. I feel incredibly stupid after watching the video. I had a lot of misconceptions on how this system actually worked. And I never realised how subversive the 'debt-free' people were. Some quality quotes from some major figures in history show up, pretty astounding stuff. A little conspiratorial, but it doesn't harp on that for very long, and the questions it raises in regards to conspiracy aren't beyond the realm of possibility. It's a long one, clocking in at 47 minutes, but well worth the time. The goofy graphics almost turned me off of it before it really got going, but give it about 10 minutes and you will probably watch the whole thing.

Tainted Lunch Meat : Not so Great Depression

Ben Bernanke seems to wish to make clear that the current economic disaster is completely different from the Great Depression. To his credit I think he is right, kind of. He's talking percentages and not volumes, so clearly we aren't in as bad of shape, yet. But if those percentages start creeping up to Great Depression levels, the volumes of loss today would be unimaginable. Plus he adds that the Fed did nothing but stand by in the Great Depression, and everything went to shit. So obviously if the Fed does things, you know, other than nothing, it couldn't possibly go to shit again, right. So far the bailout seems to be working, banks are lending and the stock market is rebounding, failing.

Tainted Lunch Meat : Big 3 just won't die

Black Friday is over, money was spent, people died and the economy still sucks, or so I'm told. Gas is cheap though, so that's a plus. Ford, Chevy and Chrysler are all still on the verge of extinction apparently. The AP has a news item about why the proposed bailout may not even save them. There's a lot of talk about 'reorganization' and union hurdles, which sounds to me like they're trying to find a way to get out of their pension obligations and not pay their employees as much. I'm generally not in favor of bailouts, especially as I see them as a form of corporate socialism where profits are privatised and risk is spread around, but I think anything that can keep the Big 3 out of bankruptcy is critical, just so they can't bilk all the people who worked their entire lives for those companies. Maybe they should just take the bailout money and pay the retirees until the fund runs out. The Big 3 automakers aren't likely to all survive, maybe 1 of the 3 could make it, but if the focus is on selling Hummers and not a more sane model, then maybe all 3 disappear. Maybe it's time for a Big 2, Toyota and Honda seem to be doing marginally better.

My Delegate Speech

While I'm still working on some of the blogs that I'm dedicating special attention to, in the meantime I figure I can pacify my expectant blog readers for a bit with this post.

I'd like to explain something first. I never made the speech that you're going to read. I was a Ron Paul Revolutionary from the very beginning and when I learned about the delegate system I felt this overwhelming compulsion to involve myself in this democratic process of getting the man I wanted for President past the primaries that are politically-biased towards the two-party system, as everything is rigged in this country of ours. I blame this on two things: the polarization of party politics and the mindlessness of America's brainwashed lemmings. I was very fortunate to be able to have my good friend, Levi, to participate in this historic moment.

There was a certain number of delegates who were to be elected to the state level and also a certain number to the national level. I wanted to get to the national level and if I couldn't then to the state level. Because I didn't file a declaration of intention out of ignorance on my part, I failed to satisfy party protocol.

So here follows a speech I prepared and was never allowed to deliver. I unabashedly stole a quote outright from Patrick Henry, but I felt the conditions were appropriate enough. Please forgive me.

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Republicans, honorable delegates; I come to you out of a sense of urgency. I have good news but first you must understand the bad news. We have arrived at a great crossroads in America’s history. We cannot afford to let a moment like this pass us by again. We now resemble Soviet Russia’s command economy. The only difference between Russia’s economy then and our economy now is that America doesn’t have a foreign government subsidizing her, so don’t expect current conditions to last very much longer.

In all likelihood, we’re heading towards an economic depression, the likes of which have not been seen since the Stock Market Crash of ‘29. There are multiple scenarios that could trigger the snowball. The potential exists for outstanding bank derivatives to destroy this economy before unfunded liabilities will wreak havoc. International animosity towards American imperialism could spark retaliation wherein foreign governments agree to option a run on the dollar. When this happens, not if, and the American Republic falls like the Roman Empire, it will not produce a great deal more sorrow than when the Soviet Union imploded from economic and domestic stress. Our economy will not so much collapse though as our debt-based fiat-currency will cause it to evaporate.

However, there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel and this is why I believe we are at a very important crossroads. There is a kind of candidate running for President our Republic hasn’t seen since Senator Barry Goldwater. To quote former Superior Court Judge Andrew P. Napolitano briefly, “There are 535 people on Capitol Hill whose job it is to write the laws that govern all of us and he is one of them. There are 535 people on Capitol Hill whose job it is to preserve the Constitution and he is one of them. There are 535 people on Capitol Hill whose job it is to preserve our liberties and he is one of them. But in his heart and in his head; in his character and in his intellect; in what he has done and what he will become, the Thomas Jefferson of our day, Ron Paul is one of us.”

His name is Ron Earnest Paul and after reviewing his constantly consistent voting record one may wonder if his middle name is more than just coincidence. The Republicans talk a lot about loyalty and fealty to the Constitution, but Paul is among a very few who seem to actually care about it enough to live by it. Recall, when Reagan ran for President he even had some Democrats voting for him. Paul has that same ability of uniting the country that Reagan had. The Democrats are now back in control in Washington, D.C. If we decide as a party to vote for McCain come November, the 2006 election could look like a prophetic declaration of things to come in 2008. Should we follow Mike Huckabee’s rhetoric of preserving our honor even if it means losing elections? Or should we perhaps enlighten ourselves to the Jeffersonian philosophy of limited government and sound monetary policy represented in the candidacy of Ron Paul? I beg those who plan on voting for McCain to reconsider the ramifications of your own actions. I ask you, honorable delegates, do you want to experience in your lifetime a catastrophic economic crisis worse than the one in the 30s? The passengers on the Titanic thought the ship wouldn’t sink even as it was going down, at least not until it became too late! There is no fate but what we make for ourselves! Don’t let Orwellian groupthink keep you from voting on principle. The capacity for things to get worse is limitless!

With Soviet Russia’s economy and Adolf Hitler’s surveillance state, our very Republic may indeed be coming to its end! There is no candidate running other than Paul that promises to reverse government largesse. How can the Republican Party endorse a candidate who was at one point considered by John Kerry as a running mate? We have the Federal Reserve, the IRS, the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, and the military-industrial complex… Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! Thomas Jefferson would vote for Ron Paul. Will you?

Tainted Lunch Meat : Shadow Government wtf?

In a fairly forgettable interview with Newsmax Jeb Bush rather disturbingly encourages the Republicans to establish a shadow government while they are on the short end of the political stick. He also comically repeats the nonsense that the US is a center right country, after two straight election cycles where the country has tilted hard left. I wish they would give up that lie, they keep repeating it but it doesn't seem to want to stick, unlike so many of the other lies they have spouted in the past eight years. I don't know if what he thinks of as a shadow government is the same as what I think it is, but his nonchalance in advocating it really creeps me out, like that's a natural thing to have in a functioning democracy. Here's a few bits from the piece.

“If you take the [last] two election cycles, there’s real cause for concern, no question about it,” he said.

There is good news for Republicans, Bush said: The United States remains “basically a center-right country.”

Bush’s other advice on where the GOP should go from here:

The party should establish a loyal opposition and “organize ourselves in the form of a shadow government” that would address key issues, providing the public with “a loftier debate about policy” rather than mere partisanship.

Slow Weekend Maintenance Post

maintenance post, adding all the bloggers names to labels so folks can search posts by blogger.

Metal

Somnambulist Pedophile by Sleep Terror

Tainted Lumch Meat : black friday

It seems every year some one gets trampled, stampeded or otherwise injured on the day after Thanksgiving at a mall or Walmart. What happened this year to the victim in New York is tragic, but not surprising. What is surprising is that more people aren't seriously injured during these shopping events. I was hoping to see Black Friday be just another Friday this year. With the economy in the shitter and people losing jobs and homes and cars and credit lines, I wasn't expecting to hear stories about 2,000 people being lined up in front of a Walmart to buy crap. I feel like those people are like the zombies in Dawn of the Dead, they don't know why they are there, they just know they should be there, there's no other place to be on that day. It's sad. Certainly there were better things to be doing at 5am, like sleeping, not being complicit in the death of another person, etc. I bought cigarettes and a soda on Black Friday, two things that may lead to an early death, two things that didn't significantly impact retail numbers for any major chain store, glad to be doing my part to not help our consumer economy. If shoppers still show up for nonsense like Black Friday deals in the midst of one of our biggest clusterfuck economic downturns, I can't wait to see what happens during a good economy, maybe we'll see a Blood Red Friday as the zombie shoppers battle for deals designed to separate them from their savings.

Wal Mart Worker Dies

I wouldn't normally post a story that's been published by the Associated Press, since they are the primary news source in America that all the other news outlets rely on. This confirms for me that there is no free media in America except the internet which the government hasn't been successful in regulating yet. Sure, the news outlets like CNN and FoxNews will of course write some of their own stories, but because the news reporters are employees to a corporation, and thus cannot go against the interests of such a corporation, we can never expect any of them to be telling us the truth. As long as these reporters work for these companies, they are compromised. Compromised, forever.

The reason I'm carrying this story on this blogsite, despite it being recorded by Associated Press, I wanted to submit my own commentary.

NEW YORK (AP) — A Wal-Mart worker was killed Friday when "out-of-control" shoppers desperate for bargains broke down the doors at a 5 a.m. sale. Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers shouted angrily and kept shopping when store officials said they were closing because of the death, police and witnesses said.

At least four other people, including a woman who was eight months pregnant, were taken to hospitals for observation or minor injuries, and the store in Valley Stream on Long Island closed for several hours before reopening.

Shoppers stepped over the man on the ground and streamed into the store. When told to leave, they complained that they had been in line since Thursday morning. Nassau County police said about 2,000 people were gathered outside the store doors at the mall about 20 miles east of Manhattan. The impatient crowd knocked the man, identified by police as Jdimytai Damour of Queens, to the ground as he opened the doors, leaving a metal portion of the frame crumpled like an accordion.

"This crowd was out of control," said Nassau police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming. He described the scene as "utter chaos."

Dozens of store employees trying to fight their way out to help Damour were also getting trampled by the crowd, Fleming said.

Items on sale at the store included a Samsung 50-inch Plasma HDTV for $798, a Bissel Compact Upright Vacuum for $28, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as "The Incredible Hulk" for $9. Damour, 34, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 6 a.m., police said. The exact cause of death has not been determined.

A 28-year-old pregnant woman was taken to a hospital, where she and the baby were reported to be OK, said police Sgt. Anthony Repalone.

Police said criminal charges were possible in the case, but Fleming said it would be difficult to identify individual shoppers. Authorities were reviewing surveillance video.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., called the incident a "tragic situation" and said the employee came from a temporary agency and was doing maintenance work at the store.

"The safety and security of our customers and associates is our top priority," said Dan Fogleman, a company spokesman. "At this point, facts are still being assembled and we are working closely with the Nassau County Police as they investigate what occurred."

Kimberly Cribbs, who witnessed the stampede, said shoppers were acting like "savages."

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling 'I've been on line since yesterday morning,'" she said. "They kept shopping."

A woman reported being trampled by overeager customers at a Wal-Mart opening Friday in Farmingdale, about 15 miles east of Valley Stream, Suffolk County police said. She suffered minor injuries, but finished shopping before filling the report, police said.

Shoppers around the country line up early outside stores on the day after Thanksgiving in the annual bargain-hunting ritual known as Black Friday. It got that name because it has historically been the day when stores broke into profitability for the full year.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iDXtETwP7G17BQsO07DecwxuziLgD94O9EAO3

It can be argued at what point materialism reached its cultural high point in America. This man died and all they could respond with is: "I've been on line since yesterday morning"? I don't blame this on the mass of people who shop. The minds of people are malleable. Corporations have been engaged in subliminal seducation advertisement as far back as the 70s; longer than that even. I blame this on the concept of the bargain deal window that gives Black Friday its name.

Ron Paul Warns of Secret Plans to Create International Central Bank

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has warned that international forces are planning the creation of a global central bank that will see a new fiat monetary system come to dominate the world economy.

The 2008 presidential candidate also warned that Barack Obama's administration will only represent a change in faces and not in policies. Speaking about the recent G20 meeting Paul told Russia Today:

"I think something will come of it but you probably didn't hear about it yet. There was some pomp and ceremony that the public knew about, but behind the scenes they were talking about the future and what they are going to do to try to internationalize all regulations, going in the opposite direction of free market and more towards international regulations. I'm sure they even talked about an international central bank."

Paul also pointed out that global bankers have been holding their own talks on the same matter:

"At the same time the G20 was meeting, we also had the central banks meeting in Europe. Bernanke was over there, and they are doing the same type of planning, so real planning will not be out in the open, until they want us to know about it." the Congressman said.

"The system that we have today where the fiat dollar is a reserve currency of the world, it's losing that status and they have to replace it. Hopefully they'll have enough sense to realise that another international agreement along the Bretton Woods will be no more successful than the last one." Paul continued.

The Congressman argued that more regulations administered by central banks, rather than placed on to central banks, represents a dangerous move away from the free market.

"We could restructure by getting rid of all the central banks, then you would have honest money come up because nobody could commit fraud. Governments get away with committing fraud - that's what fiat money is." Paul commented.

The Congressman warned that an Obama presidency offers no alternative to the economic policies that have led the U.S. and the world to the brink of economic meltdown. Paul Described the kind of change Obama offers as:

"Just change in faces and change in party labels. Both parties represent the same special interests, they both have to represent big business. Obama's supposed to be a man of the people, well he collected $750 million, more money than anybody else ever collected. Wall Street supported him, the media supported him, all the big money supported him, so his change is not going to be much change at all. He's not talking about changing monetary policy, the Federal Reserve or getting rid of the income tax or bringing our troops home."

Paul also commented that he does not believe Obama will withdraw troops from Iraq and pointed out that he has never said he will close down the military bases throughout the country and eliminate the huge embassy in Baghdad.

"Policy will remain interventionist," the Congressman warned. "We will remain in the middle east and we will not be coming home, we'll stay in Korea, we'll stay in Europe, we'll be in eastern Europe, we'll be doing all these things. Even though Obama benefited tremendously from 'change', all we are changing is the face of our government."

Paul also warned that the stage has been set for fresh terrorist attacks in the U.S. as a consequence of a sustained interventionist foreign policy.

Watch the entire interview here.

Ron Paul Warns of Secret Plans to Create International Central Bank

(blogger's note: the news never ends, and I'm still working on some blogs to be posted later on. I'd rather post my own news stories myself, but what happens so many times is that I begin writing something and end up worrying about grammer and word function.)

Tainted Lunch Meat : I'm a lead farmer motherfucker.

Just now got around to watching Tropic Thunder . I like war movies, always have. Not that big of a fan of war movie spoofs though. Hot Shots and it's sequel, kind of shit really. Tropic Thunder worked for me. It wasn't trying to be all the time over the top funny. Plus that line up there in the title of this post is my new favorite line of all time, it won't last so hopefully it enjoys itself while it's there. Although when Lincoln Osiris, Robert Downey Jr's character, says the line I kept wanting to see lightning bolts shoot from his fingertips. They shoved in just about every classic or cliche Vietnam war movie song into the soundtrack as possible, which I appreciated, and had The Crystal Method on for one track kind of oddly alone in the overall mix, but again appreciated nonetheless. There's a sweet toddler throwing scene, which seems to be greatly under utilized in most movies. Shit tons of explosions reside here, thankfully. The cinematography was excellent which is usually not the case in movies of this sort. A scene toward the end of the movie exemplifies how well the movie was shot. Ben Stiller's character is laying on the ground and the camera is grounded as well, and it's all slow motion and muted from the explosion and it almost feels serious and weighty until Jack Black starts screaming about his ass, which has apparently been injured during a fall. The special features on the DVD are OK. Fairly standard stuff, making of, trailers, commentary and so on. One unique item in the special features is a PSA for intellectually disabled persons. Apparently some people were upset with the film because of it's use of the word "retard", and presumably Stiller's depiction of a "retard" in a fictional film that his character had starred in. The PSA on the DVD is I guess a sort of apology to those people who were offended. I find this to be completely uneccessary. The fact that a significant role within the film was given to Jack Black should be more than enough to encourage all intellectually disabled persons worldwide that they too can lead normal, productive lives with dignity and respect. All in all not a bad way to waste an hour or two, I give it a B.

Tainted Lunch Meat : a few links

Some Chomsky, mercury laden tuna, and a smart guy.

Chomsky via Alternet regarding promises of change.

Oddly appropriate article regarding mercury levels in tuna, via Truthdig.

And a link to a blog that covers mainly news from the middle east, Informed Comment . It seems the Iraqi-American Security Pact was passed on Thursday. Sofa's are king, when dealing with occupations.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We do this every year. It's a ceremonial ritual and has become a vapid holiday because of sanctimonious commercialism that has bled into American culture. But as political as I have become over the years -- well, two years ago -- I'm thinking how the government figures to benefit every year in a way to garner more worship from its subjects.

From the following article, which you will be able to read in its entirety:

In a word, the reason for Thanksgiving Day is government. It is on this day that the government – specifically the President of the United States – orders us to be thankful. Since our government is secular in form and content, we really are supposed to be thankful to government for our bounty.

For example, I almost certainly will hear someone at church say that he or she is "thankful that we live in a country where we can freely worship God." Yet, people around the world have that freedom. One can put it another way, a way that is guaranteed to offend others: "I am thankful that the American state has not yet destroyed all of our freedoms, including the freedom to worship God."

While I write this, the U.S. Government actively is debasing the dollar, waging war against people who were not at war with us, arresting people and falsely charging them with crimes, blocking mutually beneficial economic exchanges, making it more difficult to produce and sell goods (and then condemning producers for not producing enough), and then propagandizing us in saying that the government is the only thing that gives our lives meaning.

While we think of the Pilgrims celebrating a successful harvest in 1621, Thanksgiving as an official government-sponsored holiday came to this country via the presidency of Abraham Lincoln in 1863. While armies under his command were destroying the harvests of the southern states, burning houses and forcing families to face the winter without food and shelter, and generally plundering and pillaging, he declared an official day of "Thanksgiving."

The next president to further make Thanksgiving a government-sponsored holiday was Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939. Thus, two of the presidents who were most active in destroying the liberties and social fabric of this country were at the forefront of telling everyone else how thankful they should be.

Bill Hicks: Outlaw Comic

"For all the talk about Bill being Hendrix or Dylan or Jim Morrison or Lenny Bruce, it was Jesus Bill wanted to be. He wanted to save us all. But Bill got freeze-framed in the scene where Jesus went through the temple and said 'this is my father's house and you have turned it into a den of thieves.' 'Cause that's what Bill always wanted to do. He wanted to be Christ at His angriest!" - comedian Brett Butler, documentary Bill Hicks: It's Just a Ride

When someone teaches me how to link all the videos together so they stream without interruption, I'll come back and edit this post so it doesn't take up so much space. Hopefully one of my fellow contraptionists can leave a comment below. That's a hint, guys!

Ron Paul Speech @ Houston - End the Fed

The Bailout Surge by Ron Paul

This week the bailout of the Big Three automakers was under heavy consideration in Congress’s lame duck session. I have always opposed government bailouts of private organizations. Back in 1979 Congress had hearings about bailing out Chrysler and I was on record pointing out that these types of policies are foolish and very damaging to the long term economic health of our country. They still are.

There was also renewed pressure this week to bailout homeowners and send another round of stimulus checks to “Main Street” to balance out all the handouts to big business. It seems that eventually the entire economy is going to be blanketed over with Federal Reserve notes. Most in Washington are completely oblivious as to why this model of money creation and spending is so dangerous.

We must remember that governments do not produce anything. Their only resources come from producers in the economy through such means as inflation and taxation. The government has an obligation to be good stewards of these resources. In bailing out failing companies, they are confiscating money from productive members of the economy and giving it to failing ones. By sustaining companies with obsolete or unsustainable business models, the government prevents their resources from being liquidated and made available to other companies that can put them to better, more productive use. An essential element of a healthy free market, is that both success and failure must be permitted to happen when they are earned. But instead with a bailout, the rewards are reversed – the proceeds from successful entities are given to failing ones. How this is supposed to be good for our economy is beyond me.

With each bailout we hear rhetoric that this is the mother of all bailouts. This will fix the problem once and for all, and that this is absolutely necessary to avert disaster. This sense of panic squeezes astonishing amounts of dollars out of reluctant but hopeful legislators, who hate the position they are being put in, but are relieved that it will be the last time. It is never the last time, and again and again we are faced with the same scenarios and the same fears. We are already in the bailout business for such a staggering amount that admitting it was wrong in the first place would be too embarrassing. So the commitment to this course of action is only irrationally escalated, in the hopes that somehow, someway eventually it will work and those in power won’t have to admit they were wrong.

It won’t work. It can’t work. We need to cut our losses and get back on course. There is too much at stake for too many people to continue down this road. The bailouts thus far to AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, and TARP funds amount to around $1.5 trillion. Considering our GDP is $14 trillion, and our Federal budget is already $3 trillion, this additional amount will significantly eat into our future lifestyles. That amounts to an extra $5,000 that every person in the country needs to somehow produce just to keep up. It is obvious to most Americans that we need to reject corporate cronyism, and allow the natural regulations and incentives of the free market to pick the winners and losers in our economy, not the whims of bureaucrats and politicians.

Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Offer Half of US GDP to Wall Street Banks

I've been deliberating about posting so soon again. The next few blogs I'd like to take my time in preparing for this blogspot. I don't want to reveal any of my ideas and I don't particularly care about reposting a blog from another blogspot site, but I felt compelled to post excerpts from this news article. This appears in Jesse's Café Américain.

Fed Pledges Top $7.4 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit
By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) - The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.

The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $2.8 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s.

When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. Now, as regulators commit far more money while refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return, some Congress members are calling for the Fed to be reined in.

The money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages.

Articulated Starfish: The Money Hole

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Tainted Lunch Meat : Alternative currency

I came across this over at The Consumerist . It's an article about the guy who created the Liberty Dollar. It's an alternative currency that was in direct competition with the US Dollar. It's also apparently illegal to mint and market competitive currencies in the US. Bernard von NotHaus runs or ran this enterprise had his offices raided a year ago. No one has been arrested or charged with anything, but all of the precious metal currency was confiscated along with computers and records. All around interesting read and some money quotes from some big economic talking heads. Bullion with a Mission give it a look, well worth the time.

Tainted Lunch Meat : wondering

This is likely not an informative post. However, after reading through many of the posts on here regarding monetary policy and so forth, I'm left wondering. Inflation is defined in a few different ways. Some say it's when prices rise, others say it's when the money supply increases, and still others say it's when currency becomes devalued. I don't know if there is a singular correct definition of inflation, but the devaluation view seems best to me. Also, I'm not entirely sure who or what causes inflation. I believe I read on here that the Fed has some direct control over that. Other factors are surely at play too, sometimes prices do, in fact, naturally rise, and purchasing power is dynamic. Now here is where I get stuck and can't make sense of things. Two thirds of our economy is based on consumer spending. We have to have a reasonable amount of purchasing power if we expect to continue a consumer economy. If my money continually buys less and less stuff, I will eventually quit buying stuff, it's just no longer a good value, I'm better off saving my money. If everyone follows that path, 2/3rds of our economy goes to shit. Since the mid 1980s personal savings has been in serious decline. I think this lines up well with our economy shifting to being consumer based. The question is, how does the Fed introducing inflation, our economic need for consumer spending and our refusal to save money all work together in a sustainable way. It seems to me that it can't work. Personal savings is now around or below zero. The only way to continue spending is by going into debt. With purchasing power likely to dive again with the introduction of a couple of trillion dollars by the Fed in the months or years to come via bailouts and such, seems like a downward spiral that we are trapped in. So exactly where does one get out of such a trap, and would a non-fiat asset or reserve backed currency alleviate this problem. I realise I may have some of this wrong in my head, but many of these parts seem to form a whole, and I can't quite get my head around it regarding some future solution. More on this to come if I can generate coherent thoughts based on the disparate details.

Cracking the Code: The Fascinating Truth About Taxation in America

All credit goes to Peter Eric Hendrickson. Everything that follows henceforth is not of my prose.



For the 64 years of its existence, the U. S. Internal Revenue Code has been ridiculed, feared and despised by virtually everyone. And why not? As presented by the Internal Revenue Service, the code appears illogical, inconsistent and incomprehensible. As presented, the code defies practically the entire Bill of Rights– requiring citizens to testify against themselves, allowing searches and seizures without warrants, levying fines and penalties without trials and imposing a tax on the basic right to earn a living. As presented, the IRC would appear to turn everything we all thought we had learned in grade school English and Civics on its head.

Is it possible that we all just misunderstood those simple lessons? Maybe. But researcher, analyst and scholar Peter E. Hendrickson believes that after Cracking the Code, you’ll agree that what has been misunderstood is the 3,413,780 word monstrosity itself– and how, and to whom, it applies.

Hendrickson delves deep into the history, statutes and case law behind the Code to reveal its startling and liberating secrets; and unless you live in a cave, you need to know what he’s uncovered.

Once you’ve finished “Cracking the Code”, the tax laws will never mean the same thing to you, or your bank account, again!

What You Will Learn in 'Cracking the Code':

• That the vast majority of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) is not the law itself, but is only evidence -- a representation -- of the actual statues in force, and like in the game of post-office, the real language has beena bit garbled in transmission.
• That "income", "wages", "self-employment income", "employee", "employer" and "trade or business" -- as these and certain other terms are used within, and in regard to, the tax law -- have narrow legal meanings exclusive involving, applying to, certain privileged activities, such as holding or administering a government office, or working in one.
• That altough the tax statutes make perfectly clear that, for instnace, language describing the obligations of "employees" -- and the taxes to which "employees" are subject -- only apply to a small minority of American workers, the distinction is artfully concealed int he IRC representation of the law, and is never forthrightly acknowledged in any IRS publication (although it is obliquely acknowledged whenever necessary for the avoidance of legal jeopardy).
• That an elaborate system has been created which causes some people to whom the tax laws do not otherwise apply (maybe including you) to inadvertently declare themselves to be among the poersons to whom those laws do apply.

"The revenue laws are a code or system in regulation of tax assessment and collection. They relate to taxpayers, and not to nontaxpayers. The latter are without their scope." United States Court of Claims, Economy Plumbing and Heating v. United States, 470 F.2nd 585, at 589 (1972)

From the Forward:

It was not until the late 1990's, when the Internal Revenue Code was digitized (and thus made searchable) that it became possible to decipher its deliberately confusing and misleading construction. Only then could complete searches be doen of all 3,413,780 or so words (not counting regulations!) for every incidence of "liable", "imposed", "income", "employee", and dozens of other key or misleading terms -- checking every reference, exception, definition and sources. Only then could it be established that, as written, the laws behind the code and the taxes that they impose technically comply with the Constitution, just as all the judges have said over the years.

But the same analysis also reveals that, as written, these laws don't apply to most of the receipts of most private citizens. Indeed, the two things are interdependent -- the former couldn't be true unless the latter was also true.

What you will learn as you read this book is that specific Constitutional limitations on the federal government’s power to tax do shape related law, and have generated a coherent Supreme Court doctrine which clearly and soundly answers the question of what is taxable "income”. Both the statutes and the doctrine acknowledge the exemption of the vast majority of private-sector receipts from that taxing power’s reach.

However, you will also learn about a complex combination of craft, routine bureaucratic incoherence, and casual-- and not-so-casual-- corruption by virtue of which many people are led to inadvertently allow, and even participate in, the legal transformation of their untaxable earnings into taxable "income”. Such people are tricked into voluntarily and utterly unnecessarily enabling the diversion of a river of wealth from their own hands, usually never to be seen again.

Thanks to an unhappy coincidence of reiterations and amendments of the law, a series of complicated judicial rulings, and the passage of time and memories, the details of American tax law-- and the principles upon which it is based-- have come to be widely misunderstood. The opportunities presented by that reality have been seized upon, by those paid to maximize revenue flow to the government, to successfully construct an elaborate and deceptive tax scheme rooted in today’s Internal Revenue Code.

This scheme capitalizes on widespread public ignorance of general legal doctrine and rules of statutory construction. It practices a careful gauging of extraction levels to the tolerance limits of key demographic segments. It relies upon the concealment of the underlying actual-law-in-force behind the misleading words of the code, which is legally no more than ‘evidence of the law’, and not the law itself.

Fundamental to the scheme is designing that code to be so dauntingly and profoundly confusing as to force the vast majority of those against whom it’s directed to abandon even a pretense of personal comprehension. These targets are thus compelled to surrender their decision-making to the code’s administrative bureaucracy or a professional class of fixers and go-betweens-- the members of either of which are dependent on the scheme for their own earnings.

Unsurprisingly, both assure any who ask that of course private-sector receipts are taxed under the law. If pressed, these experts will trot out carefully selected, out-of-context and ambiguous fragments of law calculated to convincingly suggest that what they claim must be in the law, somewhere. But somehow, they never manage to demonstrate exactly where. ‘Cracking the Code’ is going to provide that missing context, unravel the tangle of deceit and confusion, and make clear that not only is it not in there anywhere, what is in there is just the opposite.

http://www.losthorizons.com/

Articulated Starfish: Ayn Rand and The Moral Meaning of Capitalism

An excerpt from Ayn Rand's 1961 publication, For the New Intellectual, of an excerpt form her 1957 publication, Atlas Shrugged:

This is a statement made by Hank Rearden at his trial for and illegal sell of a metal alloy which he had created and which has been placed under government rationing and control.


"I do not want my attitude to be misunderstood. I shall be glad to state it for the record....I work for nothing but my own profit-which I make by selling a product they need to men who are willing and able to buy it. I do not produce it for their benefit at the expense of mine, and they do not buy it for my benefit at the expense of theirs; I do not sacrifice my interests to them nor do they sacrifice theirs to me; we deal as equals by mutual consent to mutual advantage-and I am proud of every penny that I have earned in this manner. I am rich and I am proud of every penny I own. I have made my money by my own effort, in free exchange and through the voluntary consent of every man I dealt with-the voluntary consent of those who employed me when I started, the voluntary consent of those who work for me now, the voluntary consent of those who buy my product. I shall answer all the questions you are afraid to ask me openly. Do I wish to pay my workers more than their services are worth to me? I do not. Do I wish to sell my product for less than my customers are willing to pay me? I do not. Do I wish to sell it at a loss or give it away? I do not. If this is evil, do whatever you please about me, according to whatever standards you hold. These are mine. I am earning my own living, as every honest man must. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact of my own existence and the fact that I must work to support it. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it and to do it well. I refuse to accept as guilt the fact that I am able to do it better than most people-the fact that my work is of greater value than that of my neighbors and that more men are willing to pay me. I refuse to apologize for my ability-I refuse to apologize for my success-I refuse to apologize for my money. If this is evil, make the most of it. If this is what the public finds harmful to its interests let the public destroy me. This is my code-and I will accept no other. I could say to you that I have done more good for my fellow man then you can ever hope to accomplish-but I will not say it, because I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life. I will not say that the good of others was the purpose of my work-my own good was my purpose, and I despise the man who surrenders his. I could say to you that you do not serve the public good-that nobody's good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices-that when you violate the rights of one man, you have violated the rights of all, and a public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction. I could say to you that you will and can achieve nothing but universal devastation-as any looters must, when he runs out of victims. I could say it, but I won't. It is not your particular policy that I challenge, but your moral premise. If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own-I would refuse, I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would fight it with every power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being's right to exist. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!"