Life Imitates “Black Mirror”

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Fans of the superb dystopian series “Black Mirror” (including myself) had our collective minds blown by recent claims (first widely reported by the Daily Mail) that British Prime Minister David Cameron performed a sexual act with a pig carcass as part of a depraved initiation ritual. The story would be very bizarre even had it not mirrored a key plot point of the premiere episode of Dark Mirror. No doubt besieged by questions about the recent news, Dark Mirror creator Charlie Brooker took to Twitter to state: “Just to clear it up: nope, I’d never heard anything about Cameron and a pig when coming up with that story. So this weirds me out.”

These are the most recent statements on the topic from Brooker’s Twitter feed (as of 9/21/15):

  1. Perhaps the least prescient line from the script.

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    I hope White Bear doesn’t come true next.

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    Just to clear it up: nope, I’d never heard anything about Cameron and a pig when coming up with that story. So this weirds me out.

 

Read more about David Cameron’s days of elitist debauchery at Oxford.

Was this a case of insider knowledge, extra sensory perception, retrocausality, premonition, intuition or coincidence? Watch the full episode and judge for yourself.

Historical cycles: are we doomed to repeat the past?

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By Stefan Verstappen

Source: Intrepid Report

“Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”—George Santayana

Few people have not heard the above quote, but is the reason history repeats itself because we fail to learn from it, or because history follows an unbreakable pattern we are doomed to repeat? The answer is crucial since, by all indicators, we are about to repeat the classic pattern of social collapse. This would explain why your government is preparing for the worst.

The theory of history repeating itself is as old as history itself. The earliest written account dates back 3,500 years to the Hindu writings known as the Vedas. Since then, many who studied history, from the Greek historian Polybius, to the father of modern history A. J. Toynbee, have formulated a theory of historical cycles.

The clearest example of repeating patterns can be seen in the Chinese Dynastic Cycle. China’s three-thousand-year unbroken history shows a repetitive rise and fall of dynasties. Historians divide this cycle into four parts; the founding of the dynasty, the flowering, the decline, and the period of chaos between dynasties.

This four stage pattern is common to most theories of historical cycles from the Roman poet Ovid, to Hindu philosopher P. J. Sarkar, and more recently in the Strauss–Howe generational theory. Although the titles of the four stages vary among the theories, their characteristics remain nearly identical. I have combined the most commonly used terms for each age as: Warrior, Intellectual, Merchant, and Chaos.

To better illustrate the four stages let us see how they compare to China’s rollercoaster of history.

Warrior

After the previous dynasty has collapsed and the country broken apart, a new warlord vanquishes his rivals, declares himself emperor, and founds the next dynasty.

This is the age of heroes with value placed on honor, strength, and courage. Notable activities include exploration, conquering, colonising, and building infrastructure. Crime is at its lowest, women’s equality at its highest. Wealth is distributed on a meritocratic basis and the population level recovers from previous lows.

Intellectual

Each new dynasty needs to establish its legitimacy through benevolent rule and so during the reigns of the next few emperors the living conditions of the common people begin to improve. This is often the dynasty’s ‘Golden Age.’

This is the age of arts and sciences valuing new ideas, inventions, and techniques. Notable activities include public art projects and the founding of libraries and universities. Crime is low, women’s equality remains high, and wealth begins accumulating towards administration. Population continues to increase.

Merchant

While the empire enjoys a period of peace and stability, merchants prosper and the standard of living continues to improve. However, the seeds of the dynasty’s decline are already being sown in the growth of a vast bureaucracy. Soon the government is controlling and taxing all facets of daily life.

This is the age when greed dominates the political system. Crime increases, women’s social status declines, wealth begins accumulating towards oligarchs. Population continues to increase.

Chaos

The dynasty is in decay and on the verge of collapse. The court and courtiers are corrupt and decadent. The emperor is effeminate, licentious, often an idiot.

Having pilfered the treasury, the empire raises taxes until the common people are reduced to poverty.

The country’s infrastructure falls into disrepair. Levies and irrigations systems fail, destroying farms and crops and causing famines. The people rise up.

This is the age where government is so corrupt that it is unable to effectively rule. There is a breakdown of law and order. Crime is rampant, women’s status reaches its lowest point, and because of disease, warfare, and natural disasters, population declines rapidly. Wealth is in the hands of criminals.

The country splits apart into warring factions each fighting for dominance through a series of civil wars. The fighting continues until a new ‘Hero’ takes control and founds the next dynasty.

This then is the Chinese Dynastic cycle based on a four stage pattern. Can the theory be applied to all civilizations and used to predict future trends? If you study various histories from ancient Egypt and Rome, to the Aztec and Inca you will find this four stage pattern, with slight variations, always discernible.

So what stage in this cycle is America in and where are we heading?

Comparing the characteristics of each stage to our current conditions we can quickly eliminate the Warrior and Intellectual ages. The days of heroic leaders and brilliant thinkers belong to an America long past.

Obviously we are in the Merchant stage, and as anyone who has tried to buy anything ‘Made in America’ can tell you, we are at the end of that stage. The destruction of America’s manufacturing base and devastation of its natural resources can only mean that the fat lady is about to take to the stage.

So is history doomed to repeat itself or can we learn from previous mistakes and avoid rushing headlong into chaos?

In the case of China, their history shows no dynasty was able to avoid this fate. Did they fail to learn from the past? Far from it, Chinese history is the most thoroughly documented of any civilization. China’s philosophers and historians were well aware of the mistakes made by the previous dynasties and ceaselessly warned the emperors of the perils of ignoring the past, all to no avail.

Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that civilizations are indeed doomed to repeat the past.

Whether warned by a predictive model based on historical cycles, or mindlessly playing out their villainous roles, there can be little doubt that the current elite are preparing for Chaos. How else to explain the militarization of domestic police, the massive purchase of arms, ammunition, and armored vehicles, the full spectrum domestic surveillance and the endless nibbling away at our rights and freedoms.

Obviously their plan, as was the plan of all despots before them, is to hole up behind a wall of security while the rest of us fight over the remaining scraps of our civilization.

What to expect

Of the four ages the easiest to predict is the age of Chaos. It seems every regime throughout history uses the same worn out playbook on how to self-destruct. So here is the future.

Widespread corruption drains the state of its treasury. To recover the losses, the state increases taxation driving businesses into bankruptcy and employees into poverty. Taxation quickly becomes forcible confiscation of property, precious metals, and food.

Food protests turn into riots. The state marches out their henchmen to ‘teach the rabble a lesson.’ Martial law is declared and the full array of terror tactics, from unreasonable search and seizure, to imprisonment and torture are used against ‘dissenters.’

Meanwhile, the lack of government funding leaves the infrastructure to crumble. In the past, this meant farmlands were either flooded, or dried up. Crops failed and starvation ensued. In our modern world we can add grid failure, no gas to heat your homes or run your vehicles, and no access to clean drinking water.

Starving people become desperate and crime increases. Poor nutrition and a lack of funding for hospitals or medical supplies contribute to an increase in epidemic diseases.

The state’s last play is to start a war to kill off a goodly number of ‘useless eaters’ and cower the survivors into submission.

So what did people in the past do to survive the age of Chaos? One strategy used in many civilizations is the monastic system. After the fall of Rome, monasteries served as centers of trade and produced much of the local wealth through farming, winemaking, and small industries. They were the only places where one could receive any sort of education, and if not for the books they preserved and copied, we would know nothing about ancient history.

In China, India, Japan, and the Middle East monasteries were able to survive relatively unscathed while their societies collapsed around them.

If we remove the religious aspect, what we have are autonomous communities that are self-sufficient, share knowledge and skills, and support each other during the bad times. A more recent and secular example of such communities can be found in the mutual aid societies of the 1800s. Learning basic disaster preparedness and working together in mutual support is the key survival strategy.

Despite the grim short-term forecast, the not too distant future will be brighter since the next stage is the Warrior age and a return to ethics, prosperity, and equality.

So what of the elite? Will they emerge from their bunkers to enslave and rule the world as their ultimate dream comes true? In this Chinese history is in accord with Karma. Every member of the aristocracy, of each failed dynasty, was hunted down and executed during the ages of Chaos. Only one emperor lived long enough to see the founding of the succeeding dynasty, and he did so by hiding for forty years—in a monastery.

Stefan H. Verstappen is a Canadian writer, and researcher and author of six books, including The Art of Urban Survival” and “The Thirty-Six Strategies of Ancient China.

Billionaire Fears The Poor RIsing Up Against The Rich

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Source: Popular Resistance

A billionaire finally had a epiphany and told all his wealthy friends about it.

Johann Rupert is the filthy rich owner of Richemont, a luxury goods company that serves as parent company to jeweler Cartier. His net worth tops out at nearly $8 billion making him part of the 1% of wealthy people who are greedily taking control of most of the world’s wealth to the detriment of poor people and the middle class.

According to Oxfam, an organization that fights poverty, the richest one percent are on pace to control more global wealth than the rest of the 99 percent combined by 2016. And it doesn’t show any signs of stopping.

Unsurprisingly, most of the billionaires in the world live in the United States, where they hire armies of lobbyists to influence the passage of government policies that help them keep their vast wealth and keep it growing. Meanwhile, other nations, despite having a few billionaires, have more regulations designed to narrow the income inequality gap.

Nevertheless, the system that allows the rich to keep getting richer isn’t doing anything for the rest of humanity as most people around the world continue to struggle to make ends meet. While the wealthy continue to make more money, everyone else is making less, which is starting to cause social unrest and upheaval that worries Johann Rupert.

Rupert now fears that the greed of the 1 percent has gone too far, and the thought that one day the rest of the world will grab their pitchforks and torches makes sleeping more difficult for him.

How is society going to cope with structural unemployment and the envy, hatred and the social warfare? We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us. It’s unfair. So that’s what keeps me awake at night.

Rupert revealed his terror at the Financial Times Business of Luxury Summit in Monaco, and frankly, he is right to fear this scenario.

There are 7 billion people in this world and only a few hundred grotesquely wealthy people. As people become more desperate to care for themselves and their struggling families in a world where rich people are making more money they don’t need off the backs of the working poor, it won’t be long before people get so fed up that they literally band together to bring down the greedy assholes who care more about owning the world than they do about everyone who lives in it.

That especially applies here in America as income inequality has cast millions of Americans into a never-ending cycle of poverty that becomes harder to escape year after year while the super-wealthy continually try to roll back policies such as minimum wage laws and other benefits in order to engineer a cheaper workforce through legislation. In other words, wealthy businessmen are treating the rest of the world as nothing more than slave labor put on this Earth to keep themselves rich.

Eventually, people will get sick and tired of the game that rich people are playing. They will rise up like Rupert fears and come for them. And then they will wish they had shared the wealth instead of hoarding it all for themselves.

“Breaking the Fear Factor”: Opposing War, Financial Fraud and State Terrorism, Dismantling Propaganda

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By Peter Koenig

Source: Global Research

We are living in a (western) world dominated by neoliberal dictators, criminals and crooks. And many of us, impregnated with the human idiocy, as so well described by  Andre Vltcheck (The West Spreads Intellectual Idiocy) are every day deeper and deeper immersed into fear – fear of action, fear of what’s next – fear of losing our comfort zone. The western propaganda machine paid for by the corporate and financial oligarchy through the presstitute media is constantly indoctrinating the little we have left of our free-thinking brains.

Fear is everywhere. People who are afraid can easily be manipulated. People who are afraid obey. The system needs people who don’t resist. Renegades are potential drone targets. The Big Constant that pervades our western world with ambitions to also infiltrate Asia – is terrorism. Man-made terrorism – or better – elite-made terrorism; George Orwell would have called it Big Brother-made terrorism; terrorism with a particular purpose: spreading fear and submission.

On Friday, 21 August 2015, on a train from Amsterdam to Paris, according to the New York Times, “a heavily armed gunman opened fire aboard a packed high-speed train, traveling from Amsterdam to Paris [….] wounding several passengers before he was tackled and subdued” by two American military servicemen (on leave), who were helped by a third American. According to French officials, they “averted a mass killing.”- The gunman was armed with an automatic pistol, an AK47 and a knife (NYT annotation: AK47 is Al Qaeda’s preferred weapon). The Americans were coincidentally and suitably near to subdue the shooting 26 year-old Moroccan, a convenient Arab, who was taken into custody when the train stopped in Arras, France, just beyond the French-Belgian border. No doubt, he will be squeezed for confession. He may try to escape – and then may be shot death. Amen.

The French anti-terrorist unit took immediately charge of the investigation. The unit is known to work in utmost secrecy. Whatever news comes out of it is most likely ‘cooked’ to suit the system.

The NYT proclaims that the three Americans saved the train from a massacre. Nobody was killed. Just one of the American heroes was injured. Hollande thanked Obama for the brave Americans’ exemplary behavior and for preventing a train carnage. Propaganda all over. In America we trust – is dogma number one; dogma number two is – there is no save place on earth.

Fear everywhere, but America is there to help. Danger lingers at every corner. A terrorist may be just next door. Just give yourself up to Big Brother and he won’t let you down.

The first step towards sub-doing fear is asking yourself: Who invented and fabricated terrorism in the first place? In countries and entire regions ravaged by Washington incited wars and conflicts, terrorism is the expression of hopelessness, of wrath – of fighting back, when there is nothing left to lose. Look at the Middle East. A battlefield of nations destroyed by years of war – people living in ruins, in miserable squalor; some escape – and become the endless and EU loathed stream of refugees. According to the UN High Commissioner, there are more than 50 million refugees worldwide.

People take-up arms in self-defense. The west calls them terrorists. A term popularized by the media. A term that instills fear. – Imagine a world where the Judeo-Christian aggressors would suddenly see the light and stop spreading wars and conflicts and subjugating the world – peace would break out and settle in – terrorism, one of the key reasons for fear, would have no purpose to persist – fear would die, trust and solidarity would grow. The empires worst enemy: solidarity, friendship, and trust among people.

All wars and conflicts are multi-purpose. They boost the elite-dominated war industry; in the US more than 50% of GDP; they help dominate and subjugate people, exploit their resources, and are trailblazing a path towards Full Spectrum Dominance – world hegemony. They also help one of the ‘elite’s’ key objective – depopulating the world, so the elite may live longer with the ever scarcer resources of our gradually depleted planet. Reducing world population is a key objective of the Bilderberg Society – voiced by Henry Kissinger already in the 1960s. Recently I overheard one buddy telling another: I hate wars; but the only good thing about wars is – they reduce world population.

That is the horrendous level of immorality and greed to which humanity has sunk. – We the over-fed west may not get enough in an ‘overpopulated world’ (sic), therefore let’s reduce the human stock by killing off the under-people.

According to FAO – the UN Food and Agriculture Organization – with the current available agricultural technology Mother Earth could aliment at least 12 billion people, almost double of today’s world population. Fear and greed decimate our rational thinking. The me-me-me of abject western consumerism – and the fear of losing it – overwhelms our innate sense of human solidarity.

Remember the infamous Christmas Day 2009 ‘underwear bomber’ on a Northwest Airliner approaching Detroit wanting to detonate a plastic bomb sewed into his undies? He was suitably identified as a Nigerian Al Qaeda fighter and also conveniently and par hazard filmed by a passenger in the back row — This was such an amateurish attempt to spread fear, that after a short while even the media didn’t want to lose their ‘credibility’ (sic) and shut up.

Is there ever a thought among the fearful that such terrorists might be ‘planted’ by those who are served by the fear they cause?

A former CIA official recently admitted that virtually all so-called terror acts in the US and most of those in other parts of the world since (and including – added by me) 9/11 are false flags. With every false flag, the system can tighten its grip on the population under the pretext of ‘protection and security’. The populace literally asks for it – please protect us, please come to our houses, put them upside down and see whether there are terrorists hiding in our closets… that’s how the Boston people reacted after the April 2013 false-flag Marathon bombing.

Since 9/11 US citizens have lost more than 90% of their civil rights; first through the Patriot Act, then by subsequent extensions of police ‘protective measures’. Most US citizens are not even aware of the power they gave up to the police which has now the authority to invade people’s homes at will, without search warrant or explanation and then find anything justifying the arrest and indefinite confinement without trial of an inconvenient person. The ‘suspects’ are mostly Muslims. These days it’s easy selling to the brainwashed western world a Muslim as a criminal or terrorist.

Yet, the Boston Marathon false flag was of such low grade that anybody with a little bit of reason left, could recognize that the bombs were detonated by special forces with the mere purpose of implanting the notion that even a relatively progressive thinking university town like Boston is in danger of terrorism. Therefore let’s control the people, let’s not this ‘intellectual Boston crowd’ choose its own ways, abandoning the sinking ship. All sheep must be kept together in false solidarity, of course.

The two Chechnyan brothers were pre-identified, they had no clue what may eventually happen to them. They conveniently had a police record, maybe fabricated, to also hurt Russia, hitting two flies with the same stone. The Chechnyan ‘malfeasance’ could easily be sold to the public. One of the two alleged suspects was killed – and silenced – in an artificially created ‘shootout’. The other one is in solidarity confinement and is not allowed to talk, not even in court – condemned to die – soon to be silenced too.

Public events henceforth project fear. – People, please stand up against police and state-sponsored violence and terrorism! – Analyze for yourselves! Don’t believe the lies spread by the mainstream media. Yes, it takes a little effort, seeking out the truth and reading the news on internet – Global Research, Information Clearing House, Sputnik News, VNN, RT, TeleSUR, PressTV, CounterPunch, New Easter Outlook, The Saker – and many more – but it is one of the few chances you have to see the light and stand up for your rights – and get rid of fear.

The Boston false flag bombing, was followed by a similar horror event in Paris, in January this year. The Hebdo Charlie and related supermarket assault killed 17 people. It was opportunely planned at a notoriously anti-Muslim cartoon magazine, executed by CIA-Mossad forces in full connivance with the French secret service

(see http://www.globalresearch.ca/paris-charlie-the-shock-doctrine-par-excellence/5424960).

Two plus one ‘suspects’ with previous police records, were pre-identified. One of them ‘forgets or loses’ casually his ID in the get-away car – the only link the police has to the ‘terrorists’ – they find two, kill them at sight – so they won’t talk anymore. – The third related alleged assassin of a Jewish supermarket at the outskirts of Paris awaited the same fate: death by a police barrage of bullets. A blurred amateur video (maybe by now taken off internet) shows how a hand-cuffed individual is thrown before the wolves outside of the supermarket, to be riddled mercilessly with bullets. Nobody to talk. The truth remains ugly propaganda – propaganda for the system – a system that prevails over and feeds on terrorism. Millions of people, dulled by the event, walked the streets of European cities, solemnly parading placards lettered with “I am Charlie” — millions of people submitted – and still do – to a miserable lie – spreading and perpetuating fear.

Hollande had a justification to tighten the grip around France and within Paris – police everywhere, reducing civil liberties just a tad more – orders from the Washington masters. Being a nominal ‘socialist’ (sic), the emperor doesn’t quite trust him – as he may resent having been forced by the White House to abrogate his country’s lucrative sale of two Mistral type amphibious assault ships to Russia. To dampen any lingering sympathy for Russian President Putin, Hollande had to be reined in; and the spineless French leader (sic) did indeed cave in.

Fear is everywhere. European politicians are all afraid they may be in the crosshairs of the CIA or Pentagon or other US mercenary hit men if they don’t behave. A couple of days ago it was reported that Hollande is now also planning preventive drone assassinations, mimicking his brother-in-crime, Peace Nobel Laureate, Barack Obama. Imagine! – How far can you sink to lick – ehhh – the naked toes of the naked emperor. How far has our western civilization sunk in only the last 30 years – the onset of neoliberalism!

Fear commands everyone – almost. Fear is the public enemy number One – but it can be overcome – with courage, an open mind and foremost an awakened consciousness.

People feel reasonably happy. They feel protected. They gladly trade their civil rights for police and military protection. Terrorism is horrible and it is so unpredictable. It lurks everywhere. And nobody dares to question these bloody fabricated horror events. Nobody dares ask: what motivates the terrorists? How come their number has increased exponentially in the last 15 years? Terror sows more terror. Fear disseminates more fear. More fear facilitates more oppression and manipulation of people – and eventually more terrorism.

Take the massive flood of refugees engulfing Europe. The EU laments the ‘refugee crisis; seemingly not realizing that they helped making it. The Eurocrats cannot deal with the overwhelming influx of refugees. They use the bought media to make people afraid of them. The refugees come from these Arab countries the west is fighting for ‘freedom and democracy’. They are dark-skinned, poor and no-good. They steal our jobs, food and women. The human touch and solidarity of westerners has been annihilated long ago – by the neoliberal doctrine – that knows no mercy, only profit and power. Western powers don’t want these poor homeless beggars within their frontiers. What to do with them? They are a costly nuisance. Most of them are Muslims anyway. There is no space for them.

Would it ever occur to one of those high-flying, arrogant never elected Maastricht politicians to ask ‘why is this onslaught of refugees increasing by the day?’ – They may find the answer in front of their nose, in case they still have some left-over ticking brains. We, Europeans, in full complicity with war-mongering hegemonic Washington have helped destroy their countries, their economies, their jobs, torn apart their families, killed their children, have bombed their very homes to ashes – now they come to seek help from us. These poor people have no choice but asking their hangmen for a bit of mercy, for some crumbs of bread, for some rudimentary shelter. The raped seeks alms from the rapist. It’s the Stockholm syndrome. – Its fear from dying. Maybe the criminals who almost killed them have some humanity left, a bit of mercy – please.

What makes them tick – these criminal hegemonic politicians? Why are they so inhumanly selfish, greedy and violent? The public at large is afraid to even ask. Asking could produce answers that may derange one’s comfort zone. Better don’t ask and follow the rules. Let fear continue to rule.

The NYT also reports, “Stock prices around the world continued to plunge on Friday, threatening to end one of the longest bull runs in the history of the United States stock market.” Fear of losing money is spread. Such ‘market’ fluctuations, as most of us know, have little to do with ‘markets’, be it share or money markets. Money is fabricated by a mouse-click of a bank dishing out debt. Markets are manipulated by banks and political powers for monetary profit and political gains – and to sow fear – fear that something horrendously drastic may happen, may affect our fragile economy – and may foremost affect our stolen well-being. Yes, stolen. Our western riches have been stolen during hundreds of years of abject, murderous colonization of the southern hemisphere. And we continue colonizing them with our modern weapon – MONEY. When banks spread fear, it is to steal the money, pension funds, social systems from us, their faithful clients. Stealing from abroad is not enough.

Rather than fearfully shutting up – wake up! Dare stand up fellow citizen – against the white collar onslaught of fraud and exploitation, against corruption of our elitist neoliberal system! Get rid of those deceiving politicians – the scum of greed and power. Expose them. Neutralize them.

The US as well as the European Commission just enacted laws, allowing banks, effective immediately – to ‘rescue’ themselves by so-called ‘bail-ins’ – meaning, a bank that has overstretched and over-speculated itself into bankruptcy may literally save itself by stealing the money from its depositors and shareholders. – Why does such an edict – not really a law because those who designed the rule are unelected Eurocrats – not prompt an immediate run on the banks? – Why does nobody even protest? – Because people don’t know? Maybe. But Fear – sheer fear from being punished for ‘disobedience’ – is a better explanation.

Instead, our fear makes us trust that such ‘bail-ins’ will always happen to others. We so easily forget what happened only two years ago, in March 2013 to the people of Cyprus, when their deposits were decimated by the infamous ‘haircut’, administered by the highly indebted Cypriot banks, by order of the BCE, with full complicity of the Cypriot elites, who first transferred their fortunes abroad. It was like a trial run. How much would the populace swallow without (too much) protesting? – It worked. The rule is now institutionalized – and nobody says beep. – For fear that worse may follow? – Or for sheer comfort of not moving our butts.

The famous late Howard Zinn said civil disobedience is our – as in ‘we the people’ – strongest weapon against corporate and state injustice and abuse. Today’s version of this wisdom might be for the 99.99% of us, the people, to organize and infiltrate the reigning criminal system and breaking it down from within. Much like did and do the State Department funded Washington-based thinktanks (sic) – initiating the deadly and destructive ‘Arab Spring’, intruding and subverting the European Parliament with bought proxies and fake NGOs – and what they attempt to do in Russia and China, albeit unsuccessfully.

Back to the NYT article on the plunge of the US stock exchange. Finger-pointing of the guilty is of the order. The fear factor has to be substantiated and enhanced by fault of an ‘outsider’ – in this case China – which according to the NYT has ‘unexpectedly’ devalued its currency, a sign of a troubled economy and a bleak outlook for the economy of other large ‘developing countries’.

Let’s fear the Evil East. – No good may come from the east. The NYT has of course no explanation of truth. Namely that the Chinese Yuan had been artificially over-valued under pressure of the US, and kept within a 2% band of fluctuation by the Chinese authorities. This was also in line with China’s huge dollar reserves, some 1.6 trillion dollars. Relaxation of the fluctuation – letting the rate slide naturally to an expected 3% margin, would not only make China more competitive, but might enhance the currency’s international standing to eventually becoming a new currency in the IMF’s basket constituting the SDRs, or Special Drawing Rights. The SDR is an international virtual money that may be lent to countries which so desire, hence, better balancing the currency exchange risk of the loan. The current SDR basket is composed of only four ‘world’ currencies; the US dollar, the British Pound, the Euro and the Japanese Yen.

If the Yuan can keep its own by floating against other major currencies, chances are it may be admitted by the west-dominated IMF as the fifth currency to the SDR basket, thereby opening the door for the Chinese Yuan to become a major official world reserve currency. Washington may not like it, but may have little choice preventing the currency of the world’s strongest economy to become an officially admitted reserve currency.

Fear may also be the main reason for the Greek Tsipras Government 180 degree U-turn after the 62% NO vote on July 5 – No to austerity, No to more strangulation by the infamous troika – European Central Bank (ECB), European Commission (EC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Not Germany, not the troika, are Greece’s strongest enemies; fear is. The Syriza government was pressured, blackmailed, coerced – and possibly even corrupted – into accepting an even more nefarious austerity package than the one against which Greeks voted with an overwhelming NO. If indeed enacted, the new debt commitment of € 86 billion will drive Greece’s debt to GDP ratio way above 200 % – and not one euro will flow into Greece’s economy, her social system, fighting unemployment, bringing back public hospitals, schools, water and electricity.

The Syriza Tsipras Government has committed an illegal act against Greece’s own Constitution which puts the people above parliament and above the executive – as a true democracy should. Tsipras’ anti-democratic act could be undone any time by a simple decision of the Supreme Court. According to international standards, Greece’s accumulated debt is fully illegal and could be erased by a mouse click, the same way it was created. Any contract – in this case debt – concluded under duress, coercion, corruption and / or blackmail does not stand up before an international court of law. This must have been known to the Tsipras government. Yet, Tsipras and his inner circle went to Brussels to ‘negotiate’ ignoring this chance. Instead they sold out their country to the banksters, let themselves be humiliated, ridiculed in the face of their own people, let alone the rest of the world.

Fear was most likely the engine for Tsipras’ behavior. Many of his Syriza colleagues left the government coalition. Ministers who didn’t agree with his politics were fired. He preferred succumbing to fear – fear of the potential wrath that might emanate from the corrupt and criminal EU; from greedy Germany whose neoliberalism is rapidly taking on the colors of Nazism. – German supremacy over Europe – again? – Maybe there were death-threats involved, who knows. It is common practice when power and resources are at stake.

However, a true leader has no fear. He or she stands tall with the moral and ethical obligation to defend the interests of the people who elected him or her. As did Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Rafael Correa, Evo Morales, Cristina Kirchner, Lula, Dilma Rousseff and many more.

Traveling recently all over Greece fear was visible everywhere. When asked, why their inaction in the face of this shameful treason of their PM – no protests, the streets remained calm – the answer was almost uniformly – we are afraid. Afraid of what? Of the police; they shoot at us with rubber bullets, with water cannons – and we don’t know when the military will intervene.

In Delphi, the very town where democracy was born some 2,500 years ago, a shop owner confessed, democracy is dead, not only in Greece – but in Europe, in the world. With this backdrop, a new military takeover was according to him not far-fetched. The Tsipras betrayal was a boon for the rightwing, the Nazi-like ‘Golden Dawn’ – a perfect backing for a new military regime.

After the 1967 US-supported so-called Coup of the Colonels, Greece suffered seven years of a most repressive right wing military dictatorship, where full obedience was of the order, where people disappeared, where the communist party was forbidden and communists were prosecuted and killed, where anything resembling left-wing literature was censured, during which miniskirts, pop-music, long hair, the peace sign and the like were prohibited. This repressive regime has deeply marked the Greek population. They are afraid it may return. They are aware of their country’s vulnerability due to its importance for Washington, hosting the southern-most strategic NATO base. Any deviation of the Washington made and EC imposed rule may bring back the military horror – reminiscent of Costa Cavras’ 1969 extraordinary docudrama “Z”.

Now, the Tsipras Government has resigned – for fear of the domestic consequences of its actions? – A new interim government is to be prepared before the announced 20 September election. Will the radical break-away Syriza faction, the new Unity Party, be able to form a viable coalition and gather the necessary trust to win the coming September elections?

Will Greece after all be able to break the paralyzing streak of fear?

Will Greece set the new standard of fearlessness for the rest of Europe to follow? – Will Greece dare to go the only practical way – exit the unviable euro – go back to her drachma and revamp their economy with public banking for the benefit of the Greek people? – I trust Greece will dare take back her sovereignty, breaking the all-permeating Fear Factor and become a flagship of courage for Europe and for the world.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik News, TeleSur, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance . 

Upside down economics of debt, poverty, unemployment: Ready to seize solutions now, or do you require more pain?

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By Carl Herman

Source: The Daily Censored

“If people were really self-interested, they would stop trying to be individualistic.” – John B. Cobb, founder of Seizing an Alternative conference (and here, videos here)

Economic Hitman John Perkins’ 2-minutes on today’s neo-colonialism capitalism:

Demonocracy’s 2-minutes on what the US national debt looks like if shown in actual amounts of $100 bills:

Earth economics is upside down.

Accelerating technology can and should provide:

  • more personal freedom from labor,
  • more beauty in infrastructure and nature,
  • greater joy in our freedom to create and explore our beautiful, powerful, and diverse virtues (something like “resource-based economics” as researched by The Venus Project).

We know what we have is in contrived Orwellian opposition of what leadership should create. We know that what we receive is literal criminal fraud:

I could go on to literally ~100 areas of crucial concern.

The first challenge for the 99.99% is to trust their own Emperor’s New Clothes observations that Earth is truly in this tragic-comedy rather than listen to the .01%’s lies attempting to cover naked facts anyone can see.

Please understand that I represent likely hundreds of thousands of professionals making factual claims with objective evidence anyone with a high school-level of education can verify. For example, the June 2015 Seizing an Alternative conference (and here, videos here) at the Claremont Colleges had hundreds of professionals presenting data and solutions in over 80 areas of speciality. My paper and videos for this conference is here.

The purpose of education since the “Age of Enlightenment” is to present facts for public verification, and to seize the victory of refuting lies by would-be dictators, especially when such lies are obvious and of crucial public importance.

The path forward as we build a critical mass of humans recognizing the Emperor’s New Clothes truth is to demand arrests and solutions, obviously:

  1. ARRESTS: the first responsible action upon recognizing massive crimes that annually kill millions, harm billions, and loot trillions is to demand that law enforcement and military enact arrests of criminal leaders to stop the crimes and begin unwinding the truth of what happened in Earth’s tragic-comedy (four-part article series with videos on arrests as the obvious citizen response).
  2. SOLUTIONS: the .01% with corporate media have suppressed solutions documented beginning with Benjamin Franklin how government can abundantly operate without taxes: monetary and credit reform allow the public to have near-instant prosperity: full-employment, zero public deficits and debt, the best infrastructure we can imagine, falling prices, and release of public TRILLIONS held in “rainy day” accounts. Full documentation here.

Humanity’s choices:

  1. Ongoing .01% Orwellian, upside-down, tragic-comic, Emperor’s New Clothes crimes with all the pain, fear, harm, death, debt, poverty, enslavement, crime, destruction, and despair.
  2. Arrests to stop the crimes of the present, and ready-to-start solutions to build a brighter future.

Be your brightest light as the person you’ve always wanted to be.

Former World Bank economist Herman Daly and co-author John B. Cobb of For the Common Good discuss our condition and pathways forward in this 40-minute interview:

Carl Herman is a National Board Certified Teacher of US Government, Economics, and History; also credentialed in Mathematics. He worked with both US political parties over 18 years and two UN Summits with the citizen’s lobby, RESULTS, for US domestic and foreign policy to end poverty. He can be reached at Carl_Herman@post.harvard.edu

Where is Neo When We Need Him — Paul Craig Roberts

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By Paul Craig Roberts

Source: PaulCraigRoberts.org

In The Matrix in which Americans live, nothing is ever their fault. For example, the current decline in the US stock market is not because years of excessive liquidity supplied by the Federal Reserve have created a bubble so overblown that a mere six stocks, some of which have no earnings commiserate with their price, accounted for more than all of the gain in market capitalization in the S&P 500 prior to the current disruption.

In our Matrix existence, the stock market decline is not due to corporations using their profits, and even taking out loans, to repurchase their shares, thus creating an artificial demand for their equity shares.

The decline is not due to the latest monthly reporting of durable goods orders falling on a year-to-year basis for the sixth consecutive month.

The stock market decline is not due to a week economy in which after a decade of alleged economy recovery, new and existing home sales are still down by 63% and 23% from the peak in July 2005.

The stock market decline is not due to the collapse in real median family income and, thereby, consumer demand, resulting from two decades of offshoring middle class jobs and partially replacing them with minimum wage part-time Walmart jobs without benefits that do not provide sufficient income to form a household.

No, none of these facts can be blamed. The decline in the US stock market is the fault of China.

What did China do? China is accused of devaluing by a small amount its currency.

Why would a slight adjustment in the yuan’s exchange value to the dollar cause the US and European stock markets to decline?

It wouldn’t. But facts don’t matter to the presstitute media. They lie for a living.

Moreover, it was not a devaluation.

When China began the transition from communism to capitalism, China pegged its currency to the US dollar in order to demonstrate that its currency was as good as the world’s reserve currency. Over time China has allowed its currency to appreciate relative to the dollar. For example, in 2006 one US dollar was worth 8.1 Chinese yuan. Recently, prior to the alleged “devaluation” one US dollar was worth 6.1 or 6.2 yuan. After China’s adjustment to its floating peg, one US dollar is worth 6.4 yuan. Clearly, a change in the value of the yuan from 6.1 or 6.2 to the dollar to 6.4 to the dollar did not collapse the US and European stock markets.

Furthermore, the change in the range of the floating peg to the US dollar did not devalue China’s currency with regard to its non-US trading partners. What had happened, and what China corrected, is that as a result of the QE money printing policies currently underway by the Japanese and European central banks, the dollar appreciated against other currencies. As China’s yuan is pegged to the dollar, China’s currency appreciated with regard to its Asian and European trading partners. The appreciation of China’s currency (due to its peg to the US dollar) is not a good thing for Chinese exports during a time of struggling economies. China merely altered its peg to the dollar in order to eliminate the appreciation of its currency against its other trading partners.

Why did not the financial press tell us this? Is the Western financial press so incompetent that they do not know this? Yes.

Or is it simply that America itself cannot possibly be responsible for anything that goes wrong. That’s it. Who, us?! We are innocent! It was those damn Chinese!

Look, for example, at the hordes of refugees from America’s invasions and bombings of seven countries who are currently overrunning Europe. The huge inflows of peoples from America’s massive slaughter of populations in seven countries, enabled by the Europeans themselves, is causing political consternation in Europe and the revival of far-right political parties. Today, for example, neo-nazis shouted down German Chancellor Merkel, who tried to make a speech asking for compassion for refugees.

But, of course, Merkel herself is responsible for the refugee problem that is destabilizing Europe. Without Germany as Washington’s two-bit punk puppet state, a non-entity devoid of sovereignty, a non-country, a mere vassal, an outpost of the Empire, ruled from Washington, America could not be conducting the illegal wars that are producing the hordes of refugees that are over-taxing Europe’s ability to accept refugees and encouraging neo-nazi parties.

The corrupt European and American press present the refugee problem as if it has nothing whatsoever to do with America’s war crimes against seven countries. I mean, really, why should peoples flee countries when America is bringing them “freedom and democracy?”

Nowhere in the Western media other than a few alternative media websites is there an ounce of integrity. The Western media is a Ministry of Truth that operates full-time in support of the artificial existence that Westerners live inside The Matrix where Westerners exist without thought. Considering their inaptitude and inaction, Western peoples might as well not exist.

More is going to collapse on the brainwashed Western fools than mere stock values.

The Nature of American Denial

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By SARTRE

Source: Waking Times

At the core of self delusion is the inability and/or the unwillingness of facing reality. While psychological disorders can often explain abnormal behavior in individuals, the exegesis for deviant social attitudes and accompanying conduct is reserved for society. Or so we are told! But does this make sense to you? As long as you accept that reality does exist and that it can be understood, it follows that we have the right, the ability and the obligation to comprehend it and adjust our actions accordingly.

Most Americans view, of their own personal identity, is inculcated by the political culture. Delmar England, in his provocative work – Mind and Matters, The World in a Mirror – offers this valuable insights into our mutual and shared condition: “In human affairs, as surely as effect is preceded by action, action is preceded by belief, and belief is preceded by thought and conclusions.”

Applying this standard to politics Mr England depicts government is this fashion:

“For all the sidestepping, dance arounds, word games, and confused rhetoric, the term government is easily defined; not by subjective agreement, but by reference to objective reality and the actual entities involved. First, we know that there is no such thing as an infinite entity and that the term, government, necessarily denotes a relationship. The actual entities involved are human individuals. The base options of relationships between individuals are non-initiation of force and non-coercion, or initiation of force and coercion. It makes no difference how many different subjective labels are put upon the situation, the objective fact remains that at the root of it all, these are the only two options. The former is in recognition of the individual as a self-owned entity. The latter is based on the idea of an individual being the property of an “infinite entity”; which is the “justification” for rule by the individuals who hide behind the abstracts and exercise their will to dominate and control all others.”

“The subjective and arbitrary labels arbitrarily associated with government such as democracy, socialism, communism, etc. are purely for the purpose of self-delusion. Although form of implementation may vary and some versions start closer to ultimate self-destruction than other versions, the common and identifying objective content of each and every one is initiation of force and coercion. Millions may volunteer for such an anti-social system and play self-deluding word games for the sake of preferred self-image, but all the pretense in the world and “definitions by agreement” will not erase the truth about government, nor prevent the certain violent consequences of initiation of force and coercion.”

No doubt, this is a correct assessment. Virtually every society and country operates with the implied and universal acceptance that government is natural and ordained. The individual accepts force and coercion as a substitute for avoiding the risk and responsibility of personal Freedom. MindMatters concludes with this point:

“Rather than freedom being the highest value sought by most, it is their deepest and most abiding fear. So much so that they can’t even envision it.”

American denial has caused an epidemic dysfunctional confusion. The delusion that our own self identify is equivalent with the “collective will” of society; which, in turn is synonymous with the government and its policies, is a sociopathic sickness. The antisocial behavior of the STATE demonstrates all the characteristics of a profile of a sociopath. Apply the top five to the demeanor of government: Glibness/Superficial Charm – Manipulative and Conning – Grandiose Sense of SelfPathological Lying – Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt. We are all taught what we should believe about government; but only the fool, the liar or the delusional accepts that our – self-owned entity – benefits from the force and coercion that the State demands upon us.

Robert L. Kocher has compiled a body of works far too numerous, on this topic to cite sufficiently. We urge you to review and absorb the wisdom in his insights. Most of the lessons detail the last administration, but are completely relevant to the current regime. One essay, especially compliments the Delmar England conclusion. Mr Kocher writes in American Mental Health and Politics:

“If some of us are appalled, frightened, and even driven half crazy by the maddeningly and complacently silly or psychotic levels of denial, by the superficiality, by the abysmal immaturity, by the primitive level of personality structure, by the too-easily employed distorted rationalizations, by the lack of contact with basic reality that we deal with in our daily lives, hear in our college faculties, and see on TV and in high political office, we can nevertheless know that the reality of our perceptions is validated by mental health figures as well as those patients being seen in therapist’s offices.”

Currently, the national mood is absorbed in the illusion that Americans are at risk and that they are in danger from terrorists abroad. While reality demonstrates that enemies of America are plentiful, the disconnect that their veridical hatred is focused upon the U.S. Government and its policies, is concealed. Vast numbers of Americans feed their denial that they are the target of madmen; while they seek comfort in the fallacy that support for the WAR Party will make them safe. The force and coercion that the government imposes upon you, under the pretext that it is necessary and protective, diminishes your safety as it destroys your Liberty. The utter fraud of national security policy, seeks only to preserve the government, no matter how much harm it inflicts upon citizens.

So why do so many misguided flag-waving zealots rally to a jingoistic cause? Kocher provides the answer: “We now live in a society where many people no longer want or value freedom. Personal freedom and the responsibility that goes with it are abrasive intrusions or demands upon a crippled self-absorbed internal state.”

“American Denial” prevents the admission that U.S. policies only benefit the government. Their own personal delusional perceptions are interchangeable with a phony litmus test, judged by their support for State illusions. The thought of exercising the Freedom to think, criticize, condemn and resist is far too disconcerting to the sheeple. They view their own self worth as an adjunct of an abstract deception; while, the true motives of the government are to control society and all individuals, using force and coercion. Both England and Kocher have it right. The association between an individual and an infinite entity denotes a relationship; and the reluctance or unwillingness to exercise freedom and responsibility, allows the government to implement force and coercion.

“Eternal Vigilance” is no longer enough to preserve Liberty. Sound mental health, appreciation for your own self worth, trust in the integrity of reality and the courage to do battle with the forces that seek to delude your own dignity are all necessary to win this struggle. America is NOT the Government. When policies are dishonest they must be opposed. When officials are depraved they need to be removed. And when your neighbor demands your allegiance to a corrupt government, it is your duty to confront his delusion.

We can no longer afford to be silent in the face of “American Denial”.

 

About the Author

SARTRE is the mind behind BATR. org (Breaking All The Rules), which documents the steady decline of American exceptionalism.

Systemic Corruption Has Destroyed America

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Source: Washington’s Blog

Preface: There’s always been some corruption in the United States … but it’s never been this bad before.

The Cop Is On the Take

Government corruption has become rampant:

  • Senior SEC employees spent up to 8 hours a day surfing porn sites instead of cracking down on financial crimes
  • NSA spies pass around homemade sexual videos and pictures they’ve collected from spying on the American people
  • Investigators from the Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General found that some of the regulator’s employees surfed erotic websites, hired prostitutes and accepted gifts from bank executives … instead of actually working to help the economy
  • The Minerals Management Service – the regulator charged with overseeing BP and other oil companies to ensure that oil spills don’t occur – was riddled with “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity”, which included “sex with industry contacts
  • Agents for the Drug Enforcement Agency had dozens of sex parties with prostitutes hired by the drug cartels they were supposed to stop (they also received money, gifts and weapons from drug cartel members)
  • The former chief accountant for the SEC says that Bernanke and Paulson broke the law and should be prosecuted
  • The government knew about mortgage fraud a long time ago. For example, the FBI warned of an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud in 2004. However, the FBI, DOJ and other government agencies then stood down and did nothing. See this and this. For example, the Federal Reserve turned its cheek and allowed massive fraud, and the SEC has repeatedly ignored accounting fraud (a whistleblower also “gift-wrapped and delivered” the Madoff scandal to the SEC, but they refused to take action). Indeed, Alan Greenspan took the position that fraud could never happen
  • Paulson and Bernanke falsely stated that the big banks receiving Tarp money were healthy, when they were not. The Treasury Secretary also falsely told Congress that the bailouts would be used to dispose of toxic assets … but then used the money for something else entirely
  • Congress has exempted itself from the healthcare rules it insists everyone else follow
  • Law enforcement also grabs massive amounts of people’s cash, cars and property … even when people aren’t CHARGED with – let alone convicted of – any crime
  • Private prisons are huge profit-making centers for giant companies, and private prison corporations obtain quotas from the government, where the government guarantees a certain number of prisoners at any given time
  • The government covered up the health risks to New Orleans residents associated with polluted water from hurricane Katrina, and FEMA covered up the cancer risk from the toxic trailers which it provided to refugees of the hurricane.  The Centers for Disease Control – the lead agency tasked with addressing disease in America – covered up lead poisoning in children in the Washington, D.C. area (the Centers for Disease Control has also been outed as receiving industry funding)
  • In response to new studies showing the substantial dangers of genetically modified foods, the government passed legislation more or less PUSHING IT onto our plates
  • The Bush White House worked hard to smear CIA officers, bloggers and anyone else who criticized the Iraq war
  • The FBI smeared top scientists who pointed out the numerous holes in its anthrax case. Indeed, the head of the FBI’s investigation agrees that corruption was rampant
  • The government has intentionally whipped up hysteria about terrorism for cynical political purposes.  For example, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge admitted that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help the president win reelection
  • When the American government got caught assassinating innocent civilians, it changed its definition of “enemy combatants” to include all young men – between the ages of say 15 and 35 – who happen to be in battle zones. When it got busted killing kids with drones, it changed the definition again to include kids as “enemy combatants”
  • The government treats journalists who report on government corruption as CRIMINALS OR TERRORISTS.  And it goes to great lengths to smear them. For example, when USA Today reporters busted the Pentagon for illegally targeting Americans with propaganda, the Pentagon launched a SMEAR CAMPAIGN against the reporters

The biggest companies own the D.C. politicians. Indeed, the head of the economics department at George Mason University has pointed out that it is unfair to call politicians “prostitutes”. They are in fact pimps … selling out the American people for a price.

Government regulators have become so corrupted and “captured” by those they regulate that Americans know that the cop is on the take. Institutional corruption is killing people’s trust in our government and our institutions.

Neither the Democratic or Republican parties represent the interests of the American people.  Elections have become nothing but scripted beauty contests, with both parties ignoring the desires of their own bases.

Indeed, America is no longer a democracy or republic … it’s officially an oligarchy. And the allowance of unlimited campaign spending allows the oligarchs to purchase politicians more directly than ever.

No wonder polls show that the American people say that the system is thoroughly corrupt.

Moreover, there are two systems of justice in Americaone for the big banks and other fatcats … and one for everyone else. Indeed, Americans have .

Big Corporations Are Also Thoroughly Corrupt

But the private sector is no better … for example, the big banks have literally turned into criminal syndicates engaged in systemic fraud.

Wall Street and giant corporations are literally manipulating every single market.

And the big corporations are cutting corners to make an extra penny … wreaking havoc with their carelessness. For example:

  • U.S. military contractors have pocketed huge sums of money earmarked for humanitarian and reconstruction aid. And see this (whistleblowers alerted the government about the looting of Iraq reconstruction funds, but nothing was done)
  • There is systemic corruption among drug companies, scientific journals, university medical departments, and medical groups which set the criteria for diagnosis and treatment

(Further examples here, here, here, here and here.)

We’ve Forgotten the Lessons of History

The real problem is that we need to learn a little history:

  • We’ve known for thousands of years that – when criminals are not punished – crime spreads
  • We’ve known for centuries that powerful people – unless held to account – will get together and steal from everyone else

Beyond Partisan Politics

Liberals and conservatives tend to blame our country’s problems on different factors … but they are all connected.

The real problem is the malignant, symbiotic relationship between big corporations and big government.