Crack Capitalism
We want to break. We want to create a different world. Now.
Nothing more common, nothing more obvious. Nothing more
simple. Nothing more difficult.
By John Holloway
Roar Magazine.org
December 30, 2012
Break. We want to break. We want to break the world as it is.
A world of injustice, of war, of violence, of discrimination, of
Gaza and Guantanamo.
A world of billionaires and a billion people who live and die in
hunger.
A world in which humanity is annihilating itself, massacring
non-human forms of life, destroying the conditions of its own
existence.
A world ruled by money, ruled by capital. A world of frustration,
of wasted potential.
We want to create a different world. We protest, of course we
protest.
We protest against the war, we protest against the growing use of
torture in the world, we protest against the turning of all life into a
commodity to be bought and sold, we protest against the inhuman
treatment of migrants, we protest against the destruction of the
world in the interests of profit.
We protest and we do more. We do and we must.
If we only protest, we allow the powerful to set the agenda. If all
we do is oppose what they are trying to do, then we simply follow
in their footsteps.
Breaking means that we do more than that, that we seize the
initiative, that we set the agenda.
We negate, but out of our negation grows a creation, an other-doing,
an activity that is not determined by money, an activity that is not
shaped by the rules of power.
Often the alternative doing grows out of necessity: the functioning
of the capitalist market does not allow us to survive and we need
to find other ways to live, forms of solidarity and cooperation.
Often too it comes from choice: we refuse to submit our lives to the
rule of money, we dedicate ourselves to what we consider necessary
or desirable.
Now. There is an urgency in all of this. Enough! ¡Ya basta!
We have had enough of living in, and creating, a world of
exploitation, violence and starvation.
And now there is a new urgency, the urgency of time itself.
It has become clear that we humans are destroying the natural
conditions of our own existence, and it seems unlikely that a
society in which the determining force is the pursuit of profit
can reverse this trend.
The temporal dimensions of radical and revolutionary thought
have changed.
We place a skull on our desks, like the monks of old, not to
glorify death, but to focus on the impending danger and
intensify the struggle for life.
It no longer makes sense to speak of patience as a revolutionary
virtue or to talk of the ‘future revolution’. What future?
We need revolution now, here and now. So absurd, so necessary.
So obvious. Nothing more common, nothing more obvious.
There is nothing special about being an anti-capitalist revolutionary.
This is the story of many, many people, of millions, perhaps billions.
It is the story of the composer in London who expresses his anger
and his dream of a better society through the music he composes.
It is the story of the gardener in Cholula who creates a garden to
struggle against the destruction of nature. Of the car worker in
Birmingham who goes in the evenings to his garden allotment so
that he has some activity that has meaning and pleasure for him.
Of the indigenous peasants in Oventic, Chiapas, who create an autonomous space of self-government and defend it every day against the paramilitaries who harass them.
Of the university professor in Athens who creates a seminar
outside the university framework for the promotion of critical
thought. Of the book publisher in Barcelona who centres his
activity on publishing books against capitalism.
Of the friends in Porto Alegre who form a choir, just because
they enjoy singing. Of the teachers in Puebla who confront
police oppression to fight for a different type of school, a
different type of education.
Of the theatre director in Vienna who decides she will use her
skills to open a different world to those who see her plays. Of
the call centre worker in Sydney who fills all his free moments
thinking of how to fight for a better society.
Of the people of Cochabamba who come together and fight a
battle against the government and the army so that water
should not be privatised but subject to their own control.
Of the nurse in Seoul who does everything possible to help
her patients.
Of the workers in Neuquén who occupy the factory and make it
theirs. Of the student in New York who decides that university
is a time for questioning the world.
Of the community worker in Dalkeith who looks for cracks in
the framework of rules that constrain him so that he can open
another world. Of the young man in Mexico City, who, incensed
by the brutality of capitalism, goes to the jungle to organise
armed struggle to change the world.
Of the retired teacher in Berlin who devotes her life to the
struggle against capitalist globalisation. Of the government
worker in Nairobi who gives all her free time to the struggle
against AIDS.
Of the university teacher in Leeds who uses the space that still
exists in some universities to set up a course on activism and
social change. Of the old man living in an ugly block of flats von
the outskirts of Beirut who cultivates plants on his windowsill as
a revolt against the concrete that surrounds him.
Of the young woman in Ljubljana, the young man in Florence,
who, like so many others throughout the world, throw their
lives into inventing new forms of struggle for a better world.
Of the peasant in Huejotzingo who refuses to allow his small
orchard to be annexed to a massive park of unsold cars. Of
the group of homeless friends in Rome who occupy a vacant
house and refuse to pay rent.
Of the enthusiast in Buenos Aires who devotes all his great
energies to opening new perspectives for a different world.
Of the girl in Tokyo who says she will not go to work today
and goes to sit in the park with her book.
Of the young man in France who devotes himself to building
dry toilets as a contribution to radically altering the relation
between humans and nature. Of the telephone engineer in
Jalapa who leaves his job to spend more time with his children.
Of the woman in Edinburgh who, in everything she does, expresses
her rage through the creation of a world of love and mutual support.
This is the story of ordinary people, some of whom I know,
some of whom I have heard of, some of whom I have invented.
Ordinary people: rebels, revolutionaries perhaps.
“We are quite ordinary women and men, children and old people,
that is, rebels, non-conformists, misfits, dreamers,” say the
Zapatistas in their most profound and difficult challenge of all.
The, “ordinary people” in our list are very different from one
another.
It may seem strange to place the car worker who goes to his
allotment in the evening next to the young man who goes
to the jungle to devote his life to organising armed struggle
against capitalism.
And yet there is a continuity.
What both have in common is that they share in a movement of
refusal-and-other-creation: they are rebels, not victims; subjects,
not objects.
In the case of the car worker, it is individual and just evenings
and weekends; in the case of the young man in the jungle, it is
a very perilous commitment to a life of rebellion.
Very different and yet with a line of affinity that it would be very
wrong to overlook.
Nothing more simple.
The sixteenth-century French theorist La Boetie expressed the
simplicity of revolution with great clarity in his Discourse on
Voluntary Servitude:
"You sow your crops in order that he [the feudal lord] may ravage
them, you install and furnish your homes to give him goods to
pillage; you rear your daughters that he may gratify his lust;
you bring up your children in order that he may confer upon
them the greatest privilege he knows-to be led into his battles,
to be delivered to butchery, to be made the servants of his greed
and the instruments of his vengeance; you yield your bodies unto
hard labour in order that he may indulge in his delights and wallow
in his filthy pleasures; you weaken yourselves in o rder to make
him the stronger and the mightier to hold you in check. From all
these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not
endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action,
but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and
you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the
tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer;
then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has
been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces."
Everything that the tyrant has comes from us and from his
exploitation of us: we have only to stop working for him and
he will cease to be a tyrant because the material basis of his
tyranny will have disappeared.
We make the tyrant; in order to be free we must stop making
the tyrant.
The key to our emancipation, the key to becoming fully human
is simple: refuse, disobey.
Resolve to serve no more, and are at once freed.
Nothing more difficult, however.
We can refuse to perform the work that creates the tyrant.
We can devote ourselves to a different type of activity.
Instead of yielding, “our bodies onto hard labour in order that
he may indulge in his delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures,”
we can do something that we consider important or desirable.
Nothing more common, nothing more obvious.
And yet, we know that it is not so simple. If we do not devote
our lives to the labour that creates capital, we face poverty,
even starvation, and often physical repression.
Just down the road from where I write, the people of Oaxaca
asserted their control over the city during a period of five
months, against a corrupt and brutal governor.
Finally, their peaceful rebellion was was repressed with violence
and many were tortured, sexually abused, threatened with being
thrown from helicopter, their fingers broken, some simply
disappeared.
For me, Oaxaca is just down the road.
But for you, gentle reader, it is not much farther, and there are many
other ‘just down the roads’ where atrocities are being committed in
your name. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo — and there are many, many
more to choose from.
Often it seems hopeless.
So many failed revolutions. So many exciting experiments in
anti-capitalism that have ended in frustration and recrimination.
It has been said that “today it is easier to imagine the end
of the world than the end of capitalism.”
We have reached a stage where it is easier to think of the
total annihilation of humanity than to imagine a change in the
organisation of a manifestly unjust and destructive society.
What can we do?
http://roarmag.org/2012/12/john-holloway-crack-capitalism-
we-want-to-break
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
A Politician’s Promise
A Politician’s Promise
By James E. Miller
Ludwig von Mises
Institute of Canada
December 29, 2012
The sure sign of a halfwit is someone who believes a politician’s
promise. They can be observed at candidate rallies with their
faces beaming and their hands grasping tightly to a cardboard
sign.
In bars and restaurants they speak endlessly on how their preferred
dictator is smarter, kinder, and cuter than the rest. In doing so, they
make up for a lack of drunkenness with exuberance over the prospect
of being ruled over.
This mix turns the political enthusiast into a package more
bothersome than either the chastising puritan or the destitute
drunk.
This heap of idiocy finds its source in the promises made by public
officeholders.
Instead of relying on intelligence and reason to make their case, all
an aspiring politico has to do is declare before a mob what he can
give it in exchange for their votes.
Every election hinges upon the degree that he can manipulate the
public into believing his sincerity. Electoral contests are won and lost
by the biggest coalition of fools who chant slogans devoid of actual
meaning and purpose.
With the recent reelection of Barack Obama, there is speculation
abound on how far the soon-to-be anointed king will deliver on his
promised agenda.
His leftist base of support is expecting an aggressive launch of
statist initiatives aimed at righting some undefined injustice.
Many of Obama’s detractors seriously believe he will use the
Oval Office to institute a kind of socialist hell.
Both are wrong.
Obama’s second term will be a continuation of the centralization
and consolidation of the state that has been occurring since the
ratification of the Constitution.
The path has already been laid out by the ruling cadre of politicians,
high level bureaucrats, military generals, CEOs of banks, and the
heads of politically-favored corporations.
Obama’s promise of a robust American economy will not come
to fruition because that was never the goal.
Like all presidencies before it, the Obama presidency is there
to ensure the “right” people keep having their pocket’s filled.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of young adults are becoming
disillusioned with their own future and income earning potential.
Many have witnessed the success of their parents and are now
questioning why they aren’t experiencing the same level of achievement.
In other words, they make perfect targets for political sloganeering.
Through pledges for good jobs, these unemployed will easily be
whipped into a frenzy of support for whichever candidate promises
them a decent, salaried job.
Their role as dupes has already been enshrined by the political class.
The record of unkempt campaign promises may be staggering
but it has so far failed to deter a significant portion of people
from participating in the electoral process.
Time and time again, voters are promised an end to war,
poverty, sickness, unemployment, addiction, obesity,
starvation, homelessness, mental illness, crime, and violence.
And with every election, each problem is exacerbated through
state policies.
Left to its own devices, a free, market economy has a
tendency to improve living standards for all.
That’s precisely why economic freedom is never granted
by the state.
It would make every politician, government worker, and
state contractor’s perceived worth vanish overnight.
There are two types of promises that originate from a
politician’s breath.
The first is a starry-eyed pledge that is practically unworkable.
The second is an assurance that would constitute a threat if
given by a private individual.
When announced, these promises are sold as a cure-all for
all of society’s ills.
They hardly ever come into fruition but are referred back to
only if they aid in another reelection campaign.
The science of politicking is quite simple: appeal to the lowest
common denominator of human life.
This, most often, is the dim yearning of folks who aspire to
do no more than feed themselves day by day.
As long as this primitive instinct can be appeased by promise,
a career in the nation’s capital is virtually guaranteed.
Finding an honest politician is like searching for a virgin in
a whorehouse. If you happen to stumble across one, they are
always eager to give away what little integrity they have left
in return for power.
The goal of the ruling class is a full blown return to feudalism.
This social decaying is emboldened by the circus known as
democracy where the mob votes away its own humanity for
a naïve feeling of comfort.
The masses have been fooled by years of unrelenting propaganda
that government is, as Leo Tolstoy called it, “the representation
of the citizens in the collective capacity” rather than its true
designation of, “one set of men banded together to oppress
another set of men.”
They are assured by campaigners for public office of a life
that requires minimal effort, little intellectual stimulation,
and no prudence whatsoever.
A pol who speaks of freedom and responsibility is quickly gutted
and cast aside.
The mass-mind prefers to grovel at the feet of those who promise
them a first class ticket to the land of plenty.
In return, they receive a pittance while the more industrious of
political brownnosers retain enriching privileges.
That is the true purpose of a political promise. It is a tool to
maintain dominance over the herd.
As long as the masses are lead to believe that success is only
enabled by the state, they will cast a ballot for anyone that
will grow state power to what they believe is their benefit.
Individual achievement in the context of laboring and serving others
is belittled as being a waste of time in comparison to the sacrifice of
the public sector.
Politicians will pay lip service to individualism but only to point out
that success is impossible without central government dictation.
That way, campaign promises hold more weight and legitimacy in
the eyes of voters eager to stick it to their fellow man.
They are means to keep the state machine running smoothly
as humanity slowly digests itself through continued warfare
and destroying any incentive to save and invest for the future.
Mark Twain once wrote:
"To make a pledge of any kind is to declare war against nature;
for a pledge is a chain that is always clanking and reminding the
wearer of it that he is not a free man."
Under normal circumstances, breaking a promise is regarded as
unbecoming for any man.
That is why pledges are hardly made except in instances in which
they can be followed through with quickly and earnestly.
Only the truly dishonest will often make promises since their
frequent use has made them into a cheap currency used to
solicit favors.
The political class is the greatest practitioner of this tradition.
It’s become a running joke in Western culture how conniving
politicians can be.
The fact that so many make light of the pathetic reputation
shows a disdain for honest character.
Even worse is that such a criminal gang is still respected by the
greater public.
This terrible truth ends up reflecting worse upon the latter than
the former.
James E. Miller holds a BS in public administration with a minor in
business from Shippensburg University, PA. He is the Editor in Chief
at the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada and a current contributor
to his hometown newspaper, the Middletown Press and Journal.
http://mises.ca/posts/blog/a-politicians-promise
By James E. Miller
Ludwig von Mises
Institute of Canada
December 29, 2012
The sure sign of a halfwit is someone who believes a politician’s
promise. They can be observed at candidate rallies with their
faces beaming and their hands grasping tightly to a cardboard
sign.
In bars and restaurants they speak endlessly on how their preferred
dictator is smarter, kinder, and cuter than the rest. In doing so, they
make up for a lack of drunkenness with exuberance over the prospect
of being ruled over.
This mix turns the political enthusiast into a package more
bothersome than either the chastising puritan or the destitute
drunk.
This heap of idiocy finds its source in the promises made by public
officeholders.
Instead of relying on intelligence and reason to make their case, all
an aspiring politico has to do is declare before a mob what he can
give it in exchange for their votes.
Every election hinges upon the degree that he can manipulate the
public into believing his sincerity. Electoral contests are won and lost
by the biggest coalition of fools who chant slogans devoid of actual
meaning and purpose.
With the recent reelection of Barack Obama, there is speculation
abound on how far the soon-to-be anointed king will deliver on his
promised agenda.
His leftist base of support is expecting an aggressive launch of
statist initiatives aimed at righting some undefined injustice.
Many of Obama’s detractors seriously believe he will use the
Oval Office to institute a kind of socialist hell.
Both are wrong.
Obama’s second term will be a continuation of the centralization
and consolidation of the state that has been occurring since the
ratification of the Constitution.
The path has already been laid out by the ruling cadre of politicians,
high level bureaucrats, military generals, CEOs of banks, and the
heads of politically-favored corporations.
Obama’s promise of a robust American economy will not come
to fruition because that was never the goal.
Like all presidencies before it, the Obama presidency is there
to ensure the “right” people keep having their pocket’s filled.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of young adults are becoming
disillusioned with their own future and income earning potential.
Many have witnessed the success of their parents and are now
questioning why they aren’t experiencing the same level of achievement.
In other words, they make perfect targets for political sloganeering.
Through pledges for good jobs, these unemployed will easily be
whipped into a frenzy of support for whichever candidate promises
them a decent, salaried job.
Their role as dupes has already been enshrined by the political class.
The record of unkempt campaign promises may be staggering
but it has so far failed to deter a significant portion of people
from participating in the electoral process.
Time and time again, voters are promised an end to war,
poverty, sickness, unemployment, addiction, obesity,
starvation, homelessness, mental illness, crime, and violence.
And with every election, each problem is exacerbated through
state policies.
Left to its own devices, a free, market economy has a
tendency to improve living standards for all.
That’s precisely why economic freedom is never granted
by the state.
It would make every politician, government worker, and
state contractor’s perceived worth vanish overnight.
There are two types of promises that originate from a
politician’s breath.
The first is a starry-eyed pledge that is practically unworkable.
The second is an assurance that would constitute a threat if
given by a private individual.
When announced, these promises are sold as a cure-all for
all of society’s ills.
They hardly ever come into fruition but are referred back to
only if they aid in another reelection campaign.
The science of politicking is quite simple: appeal to the lowest
common denominator of human life.
This, most often, is the dim yearning of folks who aspire to
do no more than feed themselves day by day.
As long as this primitive instinct can be appeased by promise,
a career in the nation’s capital is virtually guaranteed.
Finding an honest politician is like searching for a virgin in
a whorehouse. If you happen to stumble across one, they are
always eager to give away what little integrity they have left
in return for power.
The goal of the ruling class is a full blown return to feudalism.
This social decaying is emboldened by the circus known as
democracy where the mob votes away its own humanity for
a naïve feeling of comfort.
The masses have been fooled by years of unrelenting propaganda
that government is, as Leo Tolstoy called it, “the representation
of the citizens in the collective capacity” rather than its true
designation of, “one set of men banded together to oppress
another set of men.”
They are assured by campaigners for public office of a life
that requires minimal effort, little intellectual stimulation,
and no prudence whatsoever.
A pol who speaks of freedom and responsibility is quickly gutted
and cast aside.
The mass-mind prefers to grovel at the feet of those who promise
them a first class ticket to the land of plenty.
In return, they receive a pittance while the more industrious of
political brownnosers retain enriching privileges.
That is the true purpose of a political promise. It is a tool to
maintain dominance over the herd.
As long as the masses are lead to believe that success is only
enabled by the state, they will cast a ballot for anyone that
will grow state power to what they believe is their benefit.
Individual achievement in the context of laboring and serving others
is belittled as being a waste of time in comparison to the sacrifice of
the public sector.
Politicians will pay lip service to individualism but only to point out
that success is impossible without central government dictation.
That way, campaign promises hold more weight and legitimacy in
the eyes of voters eager to stick it to their fellow man.
They are means to keep the state machine running smoothly
as humanity slowly digests itself through continued warfare
and destroying any incentive to save and invest for the future.
Mark Twain once wrote:
"To make a pledge of any kind is to declare war against nature;
for a pledge is a chain that is always clanking and reminding the
wearer of it that he is not a free man."
Under normal circumstances, breaking a promise is regarded as
unbecoming for any man.
That is why pledges are hardly made except in instances in which
they can be followed through with quickly and earnestly.
Only the truly dishonest will often make promises since their
frequent use has made them into a cheap currency used to
solicit favors.
The political class is the greatest practitioner of this tradition.
It’s become a running joke in Western culture how conniving
politicians can be.
The fact that so many make light of the pathetic reputation
shows a disdain for honest character.
Even worse is that such a criminal gang is still respected by the
greater public.
This terrible truth ends up reflecting worse upon the latter than
the former.
James E. Miller holds a BS in public administration with a minor in
business from Shippensburg University, PA. He is the Editor in Chief
at the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada and a current contributor
to his hometown newspaper, the Middletown Press and Journal.
http://mises.ca/posts/blog/a-politicians-promise
Friday, December 28, 2012
Some Christmas Inspirations
Some Christmas Inspirations
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Truth-Out.org
December 28, 2012
There is much dispute and dialogue among scholars over what
to make of the Christmas narratives in the Scriptures and the
connection between what was written and what we can know
about what happened.
As the Rev. Daniel J. Harrington has noted:
"The New Testament contains two Christmas stories, not one. They
appear in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2. They have some points in
common. But there are many differences in their characters, plot,
messages and tone."
Those of us who celebrate Christmas do not tend to think as scholars
or (God forbid!) journalists, but as people of hope.
We tend at Christmastime to rely most on Luke, whose telling of
Jesus' birth is, as the Rev. Harrington says, "upbeat, celebratory
and even romantic."
We find in Jesus, all at once, inspiration, comfort, challenge and, in
one of Pope John Paul II's favorite phrases, "a sign of contradiction."
And the contradiction is right there in the two Christmas accounts:
Matthew emphasizes Jesus' noble lineage, while Luke tells the story
of a savior born in a manger. There is a special moral significance,
I think, in Luke's account:
A faith rooted in the Jewish prophetic tradition traces its origins
not to a palace but to a stable; not to an aristocratic household
but to a family led by a carpenter. It was a powerful way to send
one of Christianity's most important messages:
That every single human being is endowed with dignity by God and
worthy of respect.
Pope John XXIII offered a take on this idea that quietly reminds us of
how the materialism that seems to run rampant at Christmastime is
antithetical to the Christmas story.
The church, he argued in his 1959 Christmas message, "has always
fixed her gaze on the human person and has taught that things and
institutions, goods, the economy, the state, are primarily for man;
not man for them."
He added:
"The disturbances which unsettle the internal peace of nations
trace their origins chiefly to this source: that man has been
treated almost exclusively as a machine, a piece of merchandise,
a worthless cog in some great machine or a mere productive unit.
It is only when the dignity of the person comes to be taken as the
standard of value for man and his activities that the means will
exist to settle civil discord."
In this telling. "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men" is not a
greeting card sentiment but a moral demand.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. also took "peace on earth" as a
personal and social imperative.
On Christmas Eve 1967, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. aired
King's "A Christmas Sermon on Peace" as part of the Massey Lecture
series.
I draw this from "A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and
Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.," published by Harper Collins.
King argued that "if we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties
must become ecumenical rather than sectional," and he added:
"Now the judgment of God is upon us, and we must either learn to
live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as
fools."
Like so many of Rev. King's sermons that included stern warnings
and tough lessons, this one ended in hope.
"I still have a dream," he said, four years after his most celebrated
speech at the March on Washington, "that with this faith we will be
able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the
dark chambers of pessimism. With this faith we will be able to speed
up the day when there will be peace on earth and good will toward
men. It will be a glorious, the morning stars will sing together, and
the sons of God will shout for joy."
Go tell it on the mountain.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13523-some-christmas-
inspirations
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Truth-Out.org
December 28, 2012
There is much dispute and dialogue among scholars over what
to make of the Christmas narratives in the Scriptures and the
connection between what was written and what we can know
about what happened.
As the Rev. Daniel J. Harrington has noted:
"The New Testament contains two Christmas stories, not one. They
appear in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2. They have some points in
common. But there are many differences in their characters, plot,
messages and tone."
Those of us who celebrate Christmas do not tend to think as scholars
or (God forbid!) journalists, but as people of hope.
We tend at Christmastime to rely most on Luke, whose telling of
Jesus' birth is, as the Rev. Harrington says, "upbeat, celebratory
and even romantic."
We find in Jesus, all at once, inspiration, comfort, challenge and, in
one of Pope John Paul II's favorite phrases, "a sign of contradiction."
And the contradiction is right there in the two Christmas accounts:
Matthew emphasizes Jesus' noble lineage, while Luke tells the story
of a savior born in a manger. There is a special moral significance,
I think, in Luke's account:
A faith rooted in the Jewish prophetic tradition traces its origins
not to a palace but to a stable; not to an aristocratic household
but to a family led by a carpenter. It was a powerful way to send
one of Christianity's most important messages:
That every single human being is endowed with dignity by God and
worthy of respect.
Pope John XXIII offered a take on this idea that quietly reminds us of
how the materialism that seems to run rampant at Christmastime is
antithetical to the Christmas story.
The church, he argued in his 1959 Christmas message, "has always
fixed her gaze on the human person and has taught that things and
institutions, goods, the economy, the state, are primarily for man;
not man for them."
He added:
"The disturbances which unsettle the internal peace of nations
trace their origins chiefly to this source: that man has been
treated almost exclusively as a machine, a piece of merchandise,
a worthless cog in some great machine or a mere productive unit.
It is only when the dignity of the person comes to be taken as the
standard of value for man and his activities that the means will
exist to settle civil discord."
In this telling. "Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men" is not a
greeting card sentiment but a moral demand.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. also took "peace on earth" as a
personal and social imperative.
On Christmas Eve 1967, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. aired
King's "A Christmas Sermon on Peace" as part of the Massey Lecture
series.
I draw this from "A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and
Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.," published by Harper Collins.
King argued that "if we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties
must become ecumenical rather than sectional," and he added:
"Now the judgment of God is upon us, and we must either learn to
live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as
fools."
Like so many of Rev. King's sermons that included stern warnings
and tough lessons, this one ended in hope.
"I still have a dream," he said, four years after his most celebrated
speech at the March on Washington, "that with this faith we will be
able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the
dark chambers of pessimism. With this faith we will be able to speed
up the day when there will be peace on earth and good will toward
men. It will be a glorious, the morning stars will sing together, and
the sons of God will shout for joy."
Go tell it on the mountain.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13523-some-christmas-
inspirations
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Humanity In A Simple Analogy
Humanity In A Simple Analogy
By Elina
Collective Evolution.com
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Imagine children playing in a sandbox full of toys.
A couple of them decide that the toys are theirs, and put
barriers around them, telling all the other kids that they
must earn these little pieces of leaves that will grant them
access to the toys.
The parents observing the situation would most likely intervene
and remind the children to share and be kind to one another.
Now imagine children on a big blue playground featuring an
abundance of vegetation, animal life, oceans, lakes and rivers.
Although the playground is set up for everyone to play,
explore, create and share as equals, some of them decide to
play gods and take possession of whatever land or resource
they come across.
They then make up a brilliant game: A hierarchical system
in which they are the supreme authority while others have
to abide by their rules if they wish to survive.
In this game, resources become accessible only under the
condition of money, which is earned only under the condition
of work.
As this hierarchy becomes pervasive across the entire playground,
that which was once sharing, creativity and play becomes work,
competition, greed, fear and survival.
The people of the playground do not recognize each other
as playmates and co-creators of the same human family
any longer, but as strangers, competitors and even enemies.
There may be no parents watching over the playground,
reminding all children of the earth to simply share and
live in harmony with one another, but there is a growing
heartache felt across humanity that is calling for change.
- Elina
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2012/12/15/humanity-
in-a-simple-analogy
By Elina
Collective Evolution.com
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Imagine children playing in a sandbox full of toys.
A couple of them decide that the toys are theirs, and put
barriers around them, telling all the other kids that they
must earn these little pieces of leaves that will grant them
access to the toys.
The parents observing the situation would most likely intervene
and remind the children to share and be kind to one another.
Now imagine children on a big blue playground featuring an
abundance of vegetation, animal life, oceans, lakes and rivers.
Although the playground is set up for everyone to play,
explore, create and share as equals, some of them decide to
play gods and take possession of whatever land or resource
they come across.
They then make up a brilliant game: A hierarchical system
in which they are the supreme authority while others have
to abide by their rules if they wish to survive.
In this game, resources become accessible only under the
condition of money, which is earned only under the condition
of work.
As this hierarchy becomes pervasive across the entire playground,
that which was once sharing, creativity and play becomes work,
competition, greed, fear and survival.
The people of the playground do not recognize each other
as playmates and co-creators of the same human family
any longer, but as strangers, competitors and even enemies.
There may be no parents watching over the playground,
reminding all children of the earth to simply share and
live in harmony with one another, but there is a growing
heartache felt across humanity that is calling for change.
- Elina
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2012/12/15/humanity-
in-a-simple-analogy
Friday, December 21, 2012
It's Time for the Aware to Take Action
It's Time for the Aware to Take Action
By Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
December 21, 2012
For anyone who is even passively aware of current events and the
condition of humanity across the globe, it is abundantly clear that
both the nation and the world as a whole are moving further and
further into a state of oppression and total lockdown.
From the traditional macro-events which are taking place at the
international and global levels to the micro-events (or seemingly
micro) that are taking place at the national, state, and local arenas,
the opportunity for optimism in the outcome of the decisions made
seems to be few and far between.
Indeed, in order to find areas where battles are won by those on
the ground fighting against an encroaching police state, further
pollution of the environment, war, proliferation of GMOs, or related
causes, one must search on average one hundred times harder than
would otherwise be necessary to locate the news of another defeat.
The headlines from both the mainstream and alternative media
outlets suggest only greater accomplishments of the system
(New World Order/Anglo-American Establishment/Shadow
World Government, etc.) with each passing day.
Obviously, the mainstream media is intent and focused on the
further brainwashing and propagandizing of the world’s people,
blatantly promoting their enslavement for those who are aware
of the methods used, further implanting the accepted opinions
of the future in the minds of the masses who are not.
The constant replay of a laundry list of possible catastrophes,
those that have occurred and those that might occur, serve
to wrap the human mind in a cloak of continual panic and
subconscious desire to protect oneself by any means necessary.
That method of protection, of course, is readily served up by
the mainstream media under the guise of sacrificing freedom
for security, which the victims of the propaganda continue to
fall for on an ever-increasing scale.
Whether the initial incident is 9/11, mass shootings, flu outbreaks,
[1] or financial calamity, the unchanging trend is FEAR and the
unchanging solution is the sacrifice of basic human rights under
the guise that government, its agents or agencies, will act as the
protectors.
It has been the case ever since 9/11, most notably, that the
population has been subjected to a campaign of terror by their
governments, corporations, “experts,” and financiers.
Fear is the order of the day.
An entire generation of humanity has been reduced to a terrified
and ignorant mass of beggars, pleading with what they see as,
“authorities” to protect them from the very dangers the oligarchy
themselves have visited upon them.
This constant state of fear allows those few in positions of real power
to control the many by virtue of the reptilian brain, which at all times
seeks safety, protection, and survival.
If a population has been propagandized to believe in an enemy, real
or imagined, and then subjected to terror under the aegis of that
enemy, then the minds of the many are ready molds in the hands of
the few.
A constant state of fear clouds clear judgment. It does not allow
for rational responses, only irrational reactions. A continual state
of fear wrecks the body, the immune system, and the quality of
life experienced by those embroiled in the condition.
In the end, the fear that has wrecked the body will only produce
more fear with the inevitable illness that results.
Lastly, according to some, fear operates at a much lower vibration
than that of love, joy, and contentment.
Thus, an individual caught in a cycle of fear is entirely incapable of
achieving any higher level of consciousness that may allow them to
combat the control system on a spiritual or energetic level.
The alternative media, however, which has expanded exponentially
in recent years, has done yeomen’s service in combating much of
the propaganda issued from their corporate counterparts.
Whether the issue be one of those mentioned above or some other
aspect of our society, the alternative media is filling a void left by
the corporate mainstream media.
There is no question that the alternative media is providing a vital
service for any movement or revolution that is to take place in the
United States or any other nation.
However, for those of us actively involved in the alternative media
and this movement that seeks to establish a more peaceful,
equitable, and free world for ourselves and our progeny, it is
important that we do not become that which we fight against.
It is important that we do not become tools of the system ourselves
and contribute to establishing a constant state of fear for those who
access alternative media outlets for their information or even for
those of us who research, report, and comment upon it.
This is by no means a suggestion to cease reporting or researching
unpleasant topics. On the contrary, we must continue to unearth and
shed light on nefarious secrecy whenever possible.
We must continue to report the day-to-day events with a lens
undiluted by government and corporate money or by any agenda
other than that of basic humanity and freedom.
We must continue to acknowledge and sound the alarm over current
events that others may be unaware of or otherwise dis-informed.
However, it is now necessary that we do more than simply report on
the recently unveiled methods of enslavement that we face along
with an eye as to how much worse our plight will be tomorrow.
We cannot continue to terrorize ourselves into a state of hysteria,
to become a sizable portion of society whose eyes are now opened
but only so that we can see our inevitable destruction.
I do not believe our destruction is inevitable.
As a result, I demand to see a way forward, not new and creative
ways to solidify the fact that I am a slave.
The alternative media and “the movement” (for lack of a better
term) have become experts at documenting the daily dissolution
of our rights. We have become skilled artisans in the area of
constructing a journal of our plight.
Unfortunately, it is also true that, in our current state, the best
we can hope for may be that, in the distant future, some curious
observer (if curiosity still exists) may come into contact with our
work and puzzle at the curious writings that have come into his
possession.
But this is no future for us and it is no future for the one who
discovers the remnants of a past to which he can no longer relate.
Unfortunately, in becoming experts at journal keeping during the
collapse and restructuring of human civilization, the alternative
media and the modern revolutionary have seemingly become
content to merely report the unfolding history as opposed to
actively taking part in it.
Thankfully, there are those involved in both the alternative media
and the movement in general who are not only willing to hear
solutions but are both willing and capable of producing them.
Still, scarcely are those voices raised before catcalls of pessimism
are hurled back in their direction.
Shouts of “that will never happen,” and “but how do we get to that
point?” or “we don’t have the numbers” inevitably drown out those
that are at least attempting to develop a plan to change the course
of the nation and the earth.
Obviously, petty squabbles over political pedigree are bound to
come into play, with tendencies left over from past experiences,
further alienating activists and researchers from one another.
Yet, for all of the bickering back and forth, the fact is that numbers
alone will not bring change if they are merely numbers in their own
right. As Webster Tarpley has stated on numerous occasions,
opinions alone count for nothing. What matters is coordinated
political action.
Simple education and outreach is not enough. If we can reach
the majority of the public, we have accomplished a great feat.
However, if all we have accomplished is educating them in regards
to their fate, with no coordinated effort to reverse the course of
society, then we have only wasted our energy and made our descent
into abject slavery that much more painful a process.
With this is in mind, it is important to understand that there can
be no coordinated action based on a series of complaints. Every
mass movement needs a program; a set of demands. It is in no way
prudent to take to the streets with a series of complaints and no
programmatic solution of how to address these complaints.
To the uninformed masses, the question looms like an albatross:
“What are you going to do if you seize power?”
It is incumbent upon those of us involved in redirecting this system
to answer that question clearly with a program of our own. After all,
as Frederick Douglass once stated, “Power concedes nothing without
a demand.”
Thus, it is high time to put our personal differences aside, as well
as our philosophical and political ideologies, and begin to form a
coalition around a set of demands that both appeals to the American
people and articulates a program that will return the basic civil
liberties afforded to every American in the United States Constitution
as well as the basic human rights afforded to every human being by
the Creator (whatever one believes it to be) by virtue of being born.
We must begin to build a coalition of like-minded individuals and
organizations, but also of those people and organizations that are
further afield, in order to advance our own political agenda.
A united front must be constructed where the individuals and
organizations retain their individuality and independence, but
one in which they have come together under one common banner
with the ability to unite their forces for a common purpose.
Thankfully, this model has already begun to appear in at least two locations across the world with at least some degree of success.
The first, the Syriza party of Greece, represents a grouping
of political parties, activist organizations, unions, and other
arrangements that alone counted for nothing in terms of
political clout.
When united under a common front, the Syriza party, these
organizations were able to accumulate over 40% of the vote
in the first election campaign.
Syriza exhibited several necessary ingredients to the formation of
a successful coalition, most notably that of a program that spelled
out the steps and requirements to end austerity measures in Greece
and repair the damage done to the Greek economy by the banker-
dominated government at home and in Brussels.
Syriza exhibited expert leadership with the Presidential candidate
Alexis Tsipras in front and center of its electoral and public relations
campaign. It also demonstrated the ability to reach across national
boundaries to connect with similar coalitions and organizations
outside of Greece for potential international support.
The fact that Syriza has enjoyed so much success early on in Greek
elections not only provides us with much needed hope regarding our
own situation, it also provides us with the ability to analyze which
models work and which models do not, along with the ability to
analyze how this degree of success was accomplished.
Fortunately, there are some who have learned the lessons of
Syriza here in the United States and, as a result, a coalition
has been organized and developed within our own borders.
Based on the Syriza model, the United Front Against Austerity
(UFAA) has itself constructed a set of demands and a program
of political solutions.
The UFAA is currently working to agitate alongside a variety of
organizations that have themselves been splintered by stealthy
politics and propaganda on the part of the oligarchy. The UFAA
is attempting to build its own base and circle of influence.
The UFAA’s program is one that stands against austerity measures
and the cutting and gutting of the social safety net. It is one which
exhibits the best aspects of the New Deal, while drastically improving
upon the economic rejuvenation features of that historical program.
The program also demands Medicare For All, the de-militarization
of police, the restoration of civil liberties to the American people,
an end to foreign wars, and a more enlightened approach to health
and medicine that includes holistic and alternative methods.
However, the UFAA, as anyone building a coalition of this nature
should be, is aware that a truly successful political mobilization of
the American people can only be structured around the economic
issues that they face; not false flag attacks, wars, education, the
environment, or any other topic of concern, as important as they
may be.
Coalitions centered around false flags face the uphill battle of
massive and in-depth education efforts before any mobilization
is possible.
Anti-war, education and environmentally based coalitions generally
rely on only a quarter of the potential support due to the
disassociation and apathy experienced and expressed by most of
the populace toward these concerns, at least in terms of political
participation.
Economic concerns, however, are the one issue that not only affects
every single American, but it is the one issue that most Americans
perceive as affecting them.
For this reason, any coalition that wishes to attract broad support
must use economic solutions to build itself up and ride a wave of
popular support into power.
In addition, it is important to understand that Austrian school
economics of laissez-faire capitalism, deregulation of the banking
and finance industry, and the cutting and gutting of social safety
programs cannot and should not be used to build such a coalition.
Not only are the moral implications disastrous for everyone except
the very wealthy, such programs are not likely to win the support of
the American people, many of whom may actually rely on one or more
of these programs as a last line of defense against homelessness,
hunger, or extreme poverty.
Lastly, the forming of a true coalition must be undertaken with
much more than mere elections in mind.
It is a fact that any and all social and political movements in
the United States are vastly stronger without the Republican
and Democratic parties, as the failure of the Union protests
in Wisconsin have illustrated.
Thus, while elections will inevitably enter into the picture,
they must also inevitable exclude the two major parties.
The most pressing matter facing any coalition, like the United Front
Against Austerity, is a forcing of the issues into the mainstream and
the seizing of power by the coalition in the vacuum that will ensue.
The method of the coalition must be the general strike.
If the coalition merely becomes a lobbying group for the two major
parties, then the effort is wasted. If it becomes merely another third
party, the effort is equally useless.
However, if the coalition is able to become a force within its own right, a part, and an organization which can command the workers into the streets, then the path toward victory is real and attainable.
As Mario Savio once stated:
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so
odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You
can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies
upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all
the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to
indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that
unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at
all!"
The United States now finds itself in a crisis.
It is true that the crisis exists on multiple levels and it is true that
we are surrounded by an American population that seems oblivious
to it.
However, as Rahm Emmanuel, the former Obama Chief of Staff
and current mayor of Chicago has stated, “You never want a serious
crisis to go to waste.”
But the question to be asked is, “Why should the oligarchs be the
only ones to take advantage of a crisis?”
If Rahm Emmanuel can seize the fear and emotion surrounding a
crisis, then why can a coordinated coalition of organizations and
individuals not do the same?
If the 33rd Degree of Freemasonry can profess to create Order out
of Chaos (Ordo ab Chao), then why can we not do the same where
that chaos exists?
In the end, we have a very small window of opportunity opening up
before us. We also have some hard choices to make.
We can continue to document our own destruction, or we can mount
a resistance to it.
We can continue to make a detailed journal of the dissolution of our
way of life, or we can organize in its defense.
The time for talking has passed.
It is now time for action.
Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina.
He has a Bachelor's Degree from Francis Marion University and
is the author of three books, Codex Alimentarius -- The End of
Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, and Five Sense Solutions
and Dispatches From a Dissident.
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/12/its-time-for-aware-to-
take-action.html
By Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
December 21, 2012
For anyone who is even passively aware of current events and the
condition of humanity across the globe, it is abundantly clear that
both the nation and the world as a whole are moving further and
further into a state of oppression and total lockdown.
From the traditional macro-events which are taking place at the
international and global levels to the micro-events (or seemingly
micro) that are taking place at the national, state, and local arenas,
the opportunity for optimism in the outcome of the decisions made
seems to be few and far between.
Indeed, in order to find areas where battles are won by those on
the ground fighting against an encroaching police state, further
pollution of the environment, war, proliferation of GMOs, or related
causes, one must search on average one hundred times harder than
would otherwise be necessary to locate the news of another defeat.
The headlines from both the mainstream and alternative media
outlets suggest only greater accomplishments of the system
(New World Order/Anglo-American Establishment/Shadow
World Government, etc.) with each passing day.
Obviously, the mainstream media is intent and focused on the
further brainwashing and propagandizing of the world’s people,
blatantly promoting their enslavement for those who are aware
of the methods used, further implanting the accepted opinions
of the future in the minds of the masses who are not.
The constant replay of a laundry list of possible catastrophes,
those that have occurred and those that might occur, serve
to wrap the human mind in a cloak of continual panic and
subconscious desire to protect oneself by any means necessary.
That method of protection, of course, is readily served up by
the mainstream media under the guise of sacrificing freedom
for security, which the victims of the propaganda continue to
fall for on an ever-increasing scale.
Whether the initial incident is 9/11, mass shootings, flu outbreaks,
[1] or financial calamity, the unchanging trend is FEAR and the
unchanging solution is the sacrifice of basic human rights under
the guise that government, its agents or agencies, will act as the
protectors.
It has been the case ever since 9/11, most notably, that the
population has been subjected to a campaign of terror by their
governments, corporations, “experts,” and financiers.
Fear is the order of the day.
An entire generation of humanity has been reduced to a terrified
and ignorant mass of beggars, pleading with what they see as,
“authorities” to protect them from the very dangers the oligarchy
themselves have visited upon them.
This constant state of fear allows those few in positions of real power
to control the many by virtue of the reptilian brain, which at all times
seeks safety, protection, and survival.
If a population has been propagandized to believe in an enemy, real
or imagined, and then subjected to terror under the aegis of that
enemy, then the minds of the many are ready molds in the hands of
the few.
A constant state of fear clouds clear judgment. It does not allow
for rational responses, only irrational reactions. A continual state
of fear wrecks the body, the immune system, and the quality of
life experienced by those embroiled in the condition.
In the end, the fear that has wrecked the body will only produce
more fear with the inevitable illness that results.
Lastly, according to some, fear operates at a much lower vibration
than that of love, joy, and contentment.
Thus, an individual caught in a cycle of fear is entirely incapable of
achieving any higher level of consciousness that may allow them to
combat the control system on a spiritual or energetic level.
The alternative media, however, which has expanded exponentially
in recent years, has done yeomen’s service in combating much of
the propaganda issued from their corporate counterparts.
Whether the issue be one of those mentioned above or some other
aspect of our society, the alternative media is filling a void left by
the corporate mainstream media.
There is no question that the alternative media is providing a vital
service for any movement or revolution that is to take place in the
United States or any other nation.
However, for those of us actively involved in the alternative media
and this movement that seeks to establish a more peaceful,
equitable, and free world for ourselves and our progeny, it is
important that we do not become that which we fight against.
It is important that we do not become tools of the system ourselves
and contribute to establishing a constant state of fear for those who
access alternative media outlets for their information or even for
those of us who research, report, and comment upon it.
This is by no means a suggestion to cease reporting or researching
unpleasant topics. On the contrary, we must continue to unearth and
shed light on nefarious secrecy whenever possible.
We must continue to report the day-to-day events with a lens
undiluted by government and corporate money or by any agenda
other than that of basic humanity and freedom.
We must continue to acknowledge and sound the alarm over current
events that others may be unaware of or otherwise dis-informed.
However, it is now necessary that we do more than simply report on
the recently unveiled methods of enslavement that we face along
with an eye as to how much worse our plight will be tomorrow.
We cannot continue to terrorize ourselves into a state of hysteria,
to become a sizable portion of society whose eyes are now opened
but only so that we can see our inevitable destruction.
I do not believe our destruction is inevitable.
As a result, I demand to see a way forward, not new and creative
ways to solidify the fact that I am a slave.
The alternative media and “the movement” (for lack of a better
term) have become experts at documenting the daily dissolution
of our rights. We have become skilled artisans in the area of
constructing a journal of our plight.
Unfortunately, it is also true that, in our current state, the best
we can hope for may be that, in the distant future, some curious
observer (if curiosity still exists) may come into contact with our
work and puzzle at the curious writings that have come into his
possession.
But this is no future for us and it is no future for the one who
discovers the remnants of a past to which he can no longer relate.
Unfortunately, in becoming experts at journal keeping during the
collapse and restructuring of human civilization, the alternative
media and the modern revolutionary have seemingly become
content to merely report the unfolding history as opposed to
actively taking part in it.
Thankfully, there are those involved in both the alternative media
and the movement in general who are not only willing to hear
solutions but are both willing and capable of producing them.
Still, scarcely are those voices raised before catcalls of pessimism
are hurled back in their direction.
Shouts of “that will never happen,” and “but how do we get to that
point?” or “we don’t have the numbers” inevitably drown out those
that are at least attempting to develop a plan to change the course
of the nation and the earth.
Obviously, petty squabbles over political pedigree are bound to
come into play, with tendencies left over from past experiences,
further alienating activists and researchers from one another.
Yet, for all of the bickering back and forth, the fact is that numbers
alone will not bring change if they are merely numbers in their own
right. As Webster Tarpley has stated on numerous occasions,
opinions alone count for nothing. What matters is coordinated
political action.
Simple education and outreach is not enough. If we can reach
the majority of the public, we have accomplished a great feat.
However, if all we have accomplished is educating them in regards
to their fate, with no coordinated effort to reverse the course of
society, then we have only wasted our energy and made our descent
into abject slavery that much more painful a process.
With this is in mind, it is important to understand that there can
be no coordinated action based on a series of complaints. Every
mass movement needs a program; a set of demands. It is in no way
prudent to take to the streets with a series of complaints and no
programmatic solution of how to address these complaints.
To the uninformed masses, the question looms like an albatross:
“What are you going to do if you seize power?”
It is incumbent upon those of us involved in redirecting this system
to answer that question clearly with a program of our own. After all,
as Frederick Douglass once stated, “Power concedes nothing without
a demand.”
Thus, it is high time to put our personal differences aside, as well
as our philosophical and political ideologies, and begin to form a
coalition around a set of demands that both appeals to the American
people and articulates a program that will return the basic civil
liberties afforded to every American in the United States Constitution
as well as the basic human rights afforded to every human being by
the Creator (whatever one believes it to be) by virtue of being born.
We must begin to build a coalition of like-minded individuals and
organizations, but also of those people and organizations that are
further afield, in order to advance our own political agenda.
A united front must be constructed where the individuals and
organizations retain their individuality and independence, but
one in which they have come together under one common banner
with the ability to unite their forces for a common purpose.
Thankfully, this model has already begun to appear in at least two locations across the world with at least some degree of success.
The first, the Syriza party of Greece, represents a grouping
of political parties, activist organizations, unions, and other
arrangements that alone counted for nothing in terms of
political clout.
When united under a common front, the Syriza party, these
organizations were able to accumulate over 40% of the vote
in the first election campaign.
Syriza exhibited several necessary ingredients to the formation of
a successful coalition, most notably that of a program that spelled
out the steps and requirements to end austerity measures in Greece
and repair the damage done to the Greek economy by the banker-
dominated government at home and in Brussels.
Syriza exhibited expert leadership with the Presidential candidate
Alexis Tsipras in front and center of its electoral and public relations
campaign. It also demonstrated the ability to reach across national
boundaries to connect with similar coalitions and organizations
outside of Greece for potential international support.
The fact that Syriza has enjoyed so much success early on in Greek
elections not only provides us with much needed hope regarding our
own situation, it also provides us with the ability to analyze which
models work and which models do not, along with the ability to
analyze how this degree of success was accomplished.
Fortunately, there are some who have learned the lessons of
Syriza here in the United States and, as a result, a coalition
has been organized and developed within our own borders.
Based on the Syriza model, the United Front Against Austerity
(UFAA) has itself constructed a set of demands and a program
of political solutions.
The UFAA is currently working to agitate alongside a variety of
organizations that have themselves been splintered by stealthy
politics and propaganda on the part of the oligarchy. The UFAA
is attempting to build its own base and circle of influence.
The UFAA’s program is one that stands against austerity measures
and the cutting and gutting of the social safety net. It is one which
exhibits the best aspects of the New Deal, while drastically improving
upon the economic rejuvenation features of that historical program.
The program also demands Medicare For All, the de-militarization
of police, the restoration of civil liberties to the American people,
an end to foreign wars, and a more enlightened approach to health
and medicine that includes holistic and alternative methods.
However, the UFAA, as anyone building a coalition of this nature
should be, is aware that a truly successful political mobilization of
the American people can only be structured around the economic
issues that they face; not false flag attacks, wars, education, the
environment, or any other topic of concern, as important as they
may be.
Coalitions centered around false flags face the uphill battle of
massive and in-depth education efforts before any mobilization
is possible.
Anti-war, education and environmentally based coalitions generally
rely on only a quarter of the potential support due to the
disassociation and apathy experienced and expressed by most of
the populace toward these concerns, at least in terms of political
participation.
Economic concerns, however, are the one issue that not only affects
every single American, but it is the one issue that most Americans
perceive as affecting them.
For this reason, any coalition that wishes to attract broad support
must use economic solutions to build itself up and ride a wave of
popular support into power.
In addition, it is important to understand that Austrian school
economics of laissez-faire capitalism, deregulation of the banking
and finance industry, and the cutting and gutting of social safety
programs cannot and should not be used to build such a coalition.
Not only are the moral implications disastrous for everyone except
the very wealthy, such programs are not likely to win the support of
the American people, many of whom may actually rely on one or more
of these programs as a last line of defense against homelessness,
hunger, or extreme poverty.
Lastly, the forming of a true coalition must be undertaken with
much more than mere elections in mind.
It is a fact that any and all social and political movements in
the United States are vastly stronger without the Republican
and Democratic parties, as the failure of the Union protests
in Wisconsin have illustrated.
Thus, while elections will inevitably enter into the picture,
they must also inevitable exclude the two major parties.
The most pressing matter facing any coalition, like the United Front
Against Austerity, is a forcing of the issues into the mainstream and
the seizing of power by the coalition in the vacuum that will ensue.
The method of the coalition must be the general strike.
If the coalition merely becomes a lobbying group for the two major
parties, then the effort is wasted. If it becomes merely another third
party, the effort is equally useless.
However, if the coalition is able to become a force within its own right, a part, and an organization which can command the workers into the streets, then the path toward victory is real and attainable.
As Mario Savio once stated:
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so
odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part! You
can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies
upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all
the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to
indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that
unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at
all!"
The United States now finds itself in a crisis.
It is true that the crisis exists on multiple levels and it is true that
we are surrounded by an American population that seems oblivious
to it.
However, as Rahm Emmanuel, the former Obama Chief of Staff
and current mayor of Chicago has stated, “You never want a serious
crisis to go to waste.”
But the question to be asked is, “Why should the oligarchs be the
only ones to take advantage of a crisis?”
If Rahm Emmanuel can seize the fear and emotion surrounding a
crisis, then why can a coordinated coalition of organizations and
individuals not do the same?
If the 33rd Degree of Freemasonry can profess to create Order out
of Chaos (Ordo ab Chao), then why can we not do the same where
that chaos exists?
In the end, we have a very small window of opportunity opening up
before us. We also have some hard choices to make.
We can continue to document our own destruction, or we can mount
a resistance to it.
We can continue to make a detailed journal of the dissolution of our
way of life, or we can organize in its defense.
The time for talking has passed.
It is now time for action.
Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina.
He has a Bachelor's Degree from Francis Marion University and
is the author of three books, Codex Alimentarius -- The End of
Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, and Five Sense Solutions
and Dispatches From a Dissident.
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/12/its-time-for-aware-to-
take-action.html
Sunday, December 16, 2012
An Interview with Jesus Christ
An Interview with Jesus Christ
By Charles Rayner Kelly
Brave New World
December 16, 2012
Interviewer: Thanks for coming on the St. Matthew the Evangelist
Show, Jesus. I know you’re a busy man so let’s get right to it. You
probably know of the great income disparity in the world today. What
would you tell those who call themselves ‘Christians’ to do about it?
Jesus: Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven. 19:21
Interviewer: Gee, I don’t hear any televangelist saying that. That’s
a pretty hard thing to do, give all your money to the poor. No wonder
there aren’t that many true Christians.
Jesus: Many are called but few are chosen. 22:14 The harvest is rich,
but laborers are few. 9:37
Interviewer: But you’re saying the opposite of what our consumer
culture is telling us, that we should be as rich as we possibly can.
Jesus: You can’t serve both God and money. 6:24 You must worship
God and serve him alone. 4:10
Interviewer: So you’re saying we shouldn’t want to be rich, huh?
Jesus: I tell you truly, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of God. 19:23 It is a narrow gate and a hard road that
leads to life, and only a few find it. 7:14 Many who are first will
be last, and the last, first. 19:30
Interviewer: Yikes, it sounds like there are a lot of rich and famous
people we won’t be seeing in the hereafter. What would you tell the
Occupy Wall St. folks, who are protesting the inequalities of our
economic and political system?
Jesus: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice. 5:6
Interviewer: But they’re getting beat up by the police!
Jesus: Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of
righteousness. 5:10 Don’t be afraid of those who can kill the
body, but not kill the spirit. 10: 28
Interviewer: But they’ll haul them off to court to face a judge.
What then?
Jesus: Don’t worry about how to speak or what to say, because it
is not you who will be speaking. The Holy Spirit will be speaking
through you. 10:19,20
Interviewer: But you’re facing a court of law.
Jesus: The weightier matters of the Law are justice, mercy and
faithfulness. 23:23
Interviewer: Golly, I’m not sure they teach that even in Christian
law schools! I gotta tell ya, the police state and all, sometimes I
get scared, not for myself but for my kids and grandkids.
Jesus: Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of
itself. 6:34
Interviewer: Yeah, but it’s still a little scary.
Jesus: Why are you frightened, oh ye of little faith? 8: 26
Interviewer: Well, okay, I admit I’m a little lacking there.
Jesus: Don’t be afraid. 17:7 If your faith was the size of
a mustard seed, nothing would be impossible. 17:20
Interviewer: Do you think we should be going to church more?
Jesus: When you pray, go to your private room and pray to your
Father, who is in that secret place. 6:6
Interviewer: The churches are telling people to be critical of abortion,
contraception, gays, and all things pubic. What would you tell them?
Jesus: Do not judge and you will not be judged, because the
judgments you give are the judgments you will get, and the
amount you measure out is the amount you will be given. 7:1,2
That is how my heavenly Father will deal with you, unless
you forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart. 18:35
Interviewer: There are a lot of people making huge sacrifices for
those causes. What do you want from them?
Jesus: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. 9:13
Interviewer: But what our priests and preachers and televangelists
are saying is so opposite to that!
Jesus: Beware of false prophets! 7:15 The tree can be told by its
fruit. 12:34 It is not those who say ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the
kingdom, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven.
7:21
Interviewer: Have you been reading about pedophiles in the clergy
recently?
Jesus: Unless you change and become like little children, you will
never enter the kingdom of God. 18: 3 Never despise any of these
little ones. Their angels in heaven are continually in the presence
of my Father. 18:10
Interviewer: What do you think of free speech? Does anything go?
Jesus: By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words
condemned. 12:37 The things that come out of the mouth come
from the heart, and it is these that make a person unclean. 15:18
Interviewer: You probably know what’s happening between the US
and Iran today. What words of wisdom would you give Americans to
meet this crisis?
Jesus: Always treat others as you would like them to treat you. 7:12
Do not be afraid. 14:28
Interviewer: Fair enough, but what will we tell the Zionists who are
goading us into a war?
Jesus: Hypocrites! It was you Isaiah meant when he so rightly
prophesied: This people honors me only with lip-service, while
their hearts are far from me. 15:7,8
Interviewer: Is there anything you’d like to say to us to wrap
things up?
Jesus: O, faithless and perverse generation! 17:17 What does it gain
for a person to win the world and lose his soul? And what will a person
offer in exchange for her soul? 16:26 You are all brothers and sisters.
23:8
Interviewer: Gosh, why is it that humans just can’t seem to get
things straight?
Jesus: The worries of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth
choke the word. 13:22
Interviewer: Hey, I gotta tell ya that this has been great, and
probably wonderful for the show’s ratings. Thanks a lot.
Jesus: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 6:21
Charles Rayner Kelly, a retired educator, philosopher and novelist,
currently resides in southern Arizona, USA. Among his works are
Little Poor Man: The Story of St. Francis of Assisi, Keeper of The
Sacred Pipe, Flight of the Goddess, and Black Robe.
http://bravenewworld.in/2012/09/18/an-interview-with-jesus-
christ
By Charles Rayner Kelly
Brave New World
December 16, 2012
Interviewer: Thanks for coming on the St. Matthew the Evangelist
Show, Jesus. I know you’re a busy man so let’s get right to it. You
probably know of the great income disparity in the world today. What
would you tell those who call themselves ‘Christians’ to do about it?
Jesus: Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven. 19:21
Interviewer: Gee, I don’t hear any televangelist saying that. That’s
a pretty hard thing to do, give all your money to the poor. No wonder
there aren’t that many true Christians.
Jesus: Many are called but few are chosen. 22:14 The harvest is rich,
but laborers are few. 9:37
Interviewer: But you’re saying the opposite of what our consumer
culture is telling us, that we should be as rich as we possibly can.
Jesus: You can’t serve both God and money. 6:24 You must worship
God and serve him alone. 4:10
Interviewer: So you’re saying we shouldn’t want to be rich, huh?
Jesus: I tell you truly, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of God. 19:23 It is a narrow gate and a hard road that
leads to life, and only a few find it. 7:14 Many who are first will
be last, and the last, first. 19:30
Interviewer: Yikes, it sounds like there are a lot of rich and famous
people we won’t be seeing in the hereafter. What would you tell the
Occupy Wall St. folks, who are protesting the inequalities of our
economic and political system?
Jesus: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice. 5:6
Interviewer: But they’re getting beat up by the police!
Jesus: Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of
righteousness. 5:10 Don’t be afraid of those who can kill the
body, but not kill the spirit. 10: 28
Interviewer: But they’ll haul them off to court to face a judge.
What then?
Jesus: Don’t worry about how to speak or what to say, because it
is not you who will be speaking. The Holy Spirit will be speaking
through you. 10:19,20
Interviewer: But you’re facing a court of law.
Jesus: The weightier matters of the Law are justice, mercy and
faithfulness. 23:23
Interviewer: Golly, I’m not sure they teach that even in Christian
law schools! I gotta tell ya, the police state and all, sometimes I
get scared, not for myself but for my kids and grandkids.
Jesus: Don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will take care of
itself. 6:34
Interviewer: Yeah, but it’s still a little scary.
Jesus: Why are you frightened, oh ye of little faith? 8: 26
Interviewer: Well, okay, I admit I’m a little lacking there.
Jesus: Don’t be afraid. 17:7 If your faith was the size of
a mustard seed, nothing would be impossible. 17:20
Interviewer: Do you think we should be going to church more?
Jesus: When you pray, go to your private room and pray to your
Father, who is in that secret place. 6:6
Interviewer: The churches are telling people to be critical of abortion,
contraception, gays, and all things pubic. What would you tell them?
Jesus: Do not judge and you will not be judged, because the
judgments you give are the judgments you will get, and the
amount you measure out is the amount you will be given. 7:1,2
That is how my heavenly Father will deal with you, unless
you forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart. 18:35
Interviewer: There are a lot of people making huge sacrifices for
those causes. What do you want from them?
Jesus: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. 9:13
Interviewer: But what our priests and preachers and televangelists
are saying is so opposite to that!
Jesus: Beware of false prophets! 7:15 The tree can be told by its
fruit. 12:34 It is not those who say ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the
kingdom, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven.
7:21
Interviewer: Have you been reading about pedophiles in the clergy
recently?
Jesus: Unless you change and become like little children, you will
never enter the kingdom of God. 18: 3 Never despise any of these
little ones. Their angels in heaven are continually in the presence
of my Father. 18:10
Interviewer: What do you think of free speech? Does anything go?
Jesus: By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words
condemned. 12:37 The things that come out of the mouth come
from the heart, and it is these that make a person unclean. 15:18
Interviewer: You probably know what’s happening between the US
and Iran today. What words of wisdom would you give Americans to
meet this crisis?
Jesus: Always treat others as you would like them to treat you. 7:12
Do not be afraid. 14:28
Interviewer: Fair enough, but what will we tell the Zionists who are
goading us into a war?
Jesus: Hypocrites! It was you Isaiah meant when he so rightly
prophesied: This people honors me only with lip-service, while
their hearts are far from me. 15:7,8
Interviewer: Is there anything you’d like to say to us to wrap
things up?
Jesus: O, faithless and perverse generation! 17:17 What does it gain
for a person to win the world and lose his soul? And what will a person
offer in exchange for her soul? 16:26 You are all brothers and sisters.
23:8
Interviewer: Gosh, why is it that humans just can’t seem to get
things straight?
Jesus: The worries of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth
choke the word. 13:22
Interviewer: Hey, I gotta tell ya that this has been great, and
probably wonderful for the show’s ratings. Thanks a lot.
Jesus: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 6:21
Charles Rayner Kelly, a retired educator, philosopher and novelist,
currently resides in southern Arizona, USA. Among his works are
Little Poor Man: The Story of St. Francis of Assisi, Keeper of The
Sacred Pipe, Flight of the Goddess, and Black Robe.
http://bravenewworld.in/2012/09/18/an-interview-with-jesus-
christ
Friday, December 14, 2012
Above The Law
Above the law
By Barry Grey
WSWS.org
December 14, 2012
In the latest scandal involving the criminal activities of major banks,
the US Justice Department on Tuesday announced a $1.9 billion
settlement with British based HSBC on charges of money laundering
on a massive scale for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels.
The deal was specifically designed to avert criminal prosecution of
either the bank, the largest in Europe and third largest in the world,
or any of its top executives.
Even though the bank admitted to laundering billions of dollars
for drug lords, as well as violating US financial sanctions against
Iran, Libya, Burma and Cuba, the Obama administration avoided
an indictment by means of a, “deferred prosecution agreement.”
The agreement was in keeping with the policy of the US government
of shielding top bankers from any accountability for illegal activities
that led to the collapse of the financial system in 2008 and ushered
in the global recession.
Not a single leading executive of a major bank has been prosecuted,
let alone jailed, for fraudulent activities that triggered the present
crisis, leading to the destruction of millions of jobs and the
decimation of working-class living standards in the US and around
the world.
Under the protection of the state, the frenzied speculation and
swindling continue unabated, underpinning record profits for
the banks and bigger than ever multi-million dollar compensation
packages for top bankers.
In a front-page article on Tuesday, the New York Times outlined
internal discussions within the Obama administration that led to
the decision not to indict HSBC.
The Times reported that prosecutors at the Justice Department and
the New York District Attorney’s office pushed for a compromise in
which the bank would be indicted not for money laundering, but for
the lesser charge of violating the Bank Secrecy Act.
Even this, however, was too much for the Obama administration.
The Treasury Department, headed by former New York Federal
Reserve President Timothy Geithner, and the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency, the federal regulatory agency charged
with policing major banks including HSBC, vetoed any prosecution
on the grounds that a serious legal blow to HSBC would jeopardize
the financial system.
What does this mean?
HSBC, in its pursuit of profit, facilitated the activities of drug
cartels that have been the target of the so-called, “drug war”
a war prosecuted by the Mexican military at the behest of and
with the collaboration of Washington, in which over 60,000
people have died.
This is in addition to the human suffering caused by the narcotics
trade in the US and around the world.
It was allowed to pay a token fine, less than 10 percent of its
profits for 2011 and a fraction of the money it made laundering
the drug bosses blood money.
Meanwhile, small-time drug dealers and users, often among the
most impoverished and oppressed sections of the population, are
routinely arrested and locked up for years in the American prison
gulag.
The financial parasites who keep the global drug trade churning
and make the lion’s share of money from the social devastation
it wreaks are above the law.
As the Times put it, “certain financial institutions, having
grown so large and so interconnected, are too big to indict.”
Here, in a nutshell, is the modern-day aristocratic principle
that prevails behind the threadbare trappings of democracy.
The financial robber barons of today are a law unto themselves.
They can steal, plunder, even murder at will, without fear of
being called to account.
They devote a portion of their fabulous wealth to bribing
politicians, regulators, judges, and police, from the heights
of power in Washington, down to the local police precinct, to
make sure their wealth is protected and they remain immune
from criminal prosecution.
The role of so-called, “regulators” such as the Federal Reserve,
the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Office
of the Comptroller of the Currency is to run interference for the
bankers.
They are well aware that crimes are being committed on a daily
basis, but turn a blind eye because criminality is intrinsic to the
operations of Wall Street and the profits it takes in.
There is evidence that HSBC and other major banks stepped up
their money laundering for drug cartels and other criminal outfits
in response to the financial crisis that began to emerge in earnest
in 2007 and exploded in September of 2008 with the collapse of
Lehman Brothers.
Following a similar, “deferred prosecution” deal with Wachovia
Bank in 2010 for its drug money laundering operations, Antonio
Maria Costa, who then headed the United Nations office on drugs
and crime, said that the flow of crime syndicate money represented
the only, “liquid investment capital” available to the banks at the
height of the crisis.
“Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from
the drugs trade,” he said.
There can be little doubt that US regulators and political leaders gave
their tacit consent to these operations as part of their rush to rescue
Wall Street from the consequences of its own money mad speculative
binge.
The incestuous relationship between bank regulators and the
banks comes into full view in the case of another recent bank
scandal.
Last week, Deutsche Bank was named by three ex-employees in
a complaint to the SEC alleging that it fraudulently concealed
$12 billion in losses between 2007 and 2009.
The Financial Times noted in passing that Robert Khuzami, the
head of enforcement at the SEC, has recused himself from the
probe because, before taking his post at the federal agency, he
was Deutsche Bank’s general counsel for the Americas from
2004 to 2009.
In other words, he was in charge of legally defending the bank at
the very time it was, according to whistle blowers, engaging in
accounting fraud.
This was also the period when Deutsche Bank and other major banks were making billions by poisoning the world financial system with toxic mortgage backed securities.
Last year, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
devoted 45 pages of a voluminous report on the financial crash to
the fraudulent activities of Deutsche Bank.
The report noted that the bank’s top trader in collateralized debt
obligations had referred to securities the bank was selling as, “crap”
and, “pigs,” and called the banking industry’s CDO operations a,
“Ponzi scheme.”
That such a man should be put in charge of policing the banks is,
in fact, par for the course.
The man who recommended that the Obama administration give
Khuzami the job, Richard Walker, the current chief counsel at
Deutsche Bank, was himself a former head of enforcement at the
SEC.
Last June, when JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified
before the Senate on unreported losses of at least $5 billion,
sitting behind him was the bank’s chief counsel, Stephen Cutler,
who had graduated to that post after serving as SEC enforcement
chief.
This Augean stable of crime and corruption, which involves every
official institution of American capitalism, cannot be reformed.
The stranglehold of the financial aristocracy over economic life
can be ended only through the mass mobilization of the working
class to expropriate the bankers and place the major banks and
financial institutions under public ownership and democratic
control.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/dec2012/pers-d14.shtml
By Barry Grey
WSWS.org
December 14, 2012
In the latest scandal involving the criminal activities of major banks,
the US Justice Department on Tuesday announced a $1.9 billion
settlement with British based HSBC on charges of money laundering
on a massive scale for Mexican and Colombian drug cartels.
The deal was specifically designed to avert criminal prosecution of
either the bank, the largest in Europe and third largest in the world,
or any of its top executives.
Even though the bank admitted to laundering billions of dollars
for drug lords, as well as violating US financial sanctions against
Iran, Libya, Burma and Cuba, the Obama administration avoided
an indictment by means of a, “deferred prosecution agreement.”
The agreement was in keeping with the policy of the US government
of shielding top bankers from any accountability for illegal activities
that led to the collapse of the financial system in 2008 and ushered
in the global recession.
Not a single leading executive of a major bank has been prosecuted,
let alone jailed, for fraudulent activities that triggered the present
crisis, leading to the destruction of millions of jobs and the
decimation of working-class living standards in the US and around
the world.
Under the protection of the state, the frenzied speculation and
swindling continue unabated, underpinning record profits for
the banks and bigger than ever multi-million dollar compensation
packages for top bankers.
In a front-page article on Tuesday, the New York Times outlined
internal discussions within the Obama administration that led to
the decision not to indict HSBC.
The Times reported that prosecutors at the Justice Department and
the New York District Attorney’s office pushed for a compromise in
which the bank would be indicted not for money laundering, but for
the lesser charge of violating the Bank Secrecy Act.
Even this, however, was too much for the Obama administration.
The Treasury Department, headed by former New York Federal
Reserve President Timothy Geithner, and the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency, the federal regulatory agency charged
with policing major banks including HSBC, vetoed any prosecution
on the grounds that a serious legal blow to HSBC would jeopardize
the financial system.
What does this mean?
HSBC, in its pursuit of profit, facilitated the activities of drug
cartels that have been the target of the so-called, “drug war”
a war prosecuted by the Mexican military at the behest of and
with the collaboration of Washington, in which over 60,000
people have died.
This is in addition to the human suffering caused by the narcotics
trade in the US and around the world.
It was allowed to pay a token fine, less than 10 percent of its
profits for 2011 and a fraction of the money it made laundering
the drug bosses blood money.
Meanwhile, small-time drug dealers and users, often among the
most impoverished and oppressed sections of the population, are
routinely arrested and locked up for years in the American prison
gulag.
The financial parasites who keep the global drug trade churning
and make the lion’s share of money from the social devastation
it wreaks are above the law.
As the Times put it, “certain financial institutions, having
grown so large and so interconnected, are too big to indict.”
Here, in a nutshell, is the modern-day aristocratic principle
that prevails behind the threadbare trappings of democracy.
The financial robber barons of today are a law unto themselves.
They can steal, plunder, even murder at will, without fear of
being called to account.
They devote a portion of their fabulous wealth to bribing
politicians, regulators, judges, and police, from the heights
of power in Washington, down to the local police precinct, to
make sure their wealth is protected and they remain immune
from criminal prosecution.
The role of so-called, “regulators” such as the Federal Reserve,
the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Office
of the Comptroller of the Currency is to run interference for the
bankers.
They are well aware that crimes are being committed on a daily
basis, but turn a blind eye because criminality is intrinsic to the
operations of Wall Street and the profits it takes in.
There is evidence that HSBC and other major banks stepped up
their money laundering for drug cartels and other criminal outfits
in response to the financial crisis that began to emerge in earnest
in 2007 and exploded in September of 2008 with the collapse of
Lehman Brothers.
Following a similar, “deferred prosecution” deal with Wachovia
Bank in 2010 for its drug money laundering operations, Antonio
Maria Costa, who then headed the United Nations office on drugs
and crime, said that the flow of crime syndicate money represented
the only, “liquid investment capital” available to the banks at the
height of the crisis.
“Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from
the drugs trade,” he said.
There can be little doubt that US regulators and political leaders gave
their tacit consent to these operations as part of their rush to rescue
Wall Street from the consequences of its own money mad speculative
binge.
The incestuous relationship between bank regulators and the
banks comes into full view in the case of another recent bank
scandal.
Last week, Deutsche Bank was named by three ex-employees in
a complaint to the SEC alleging that it fraudulently concealed
$12 billion in losses between 2007 and 2009.
The Financial Times noted in passing that Robert Khuzami, the
head of enforcement at the SEC, has recused himself from the
probe because, before taking his post at the federal agency, he
was Deutsche Bank’s general counsel for the Americas from
2004 to 2009.
In other words, he was in charge of legally defending the bank at
the very time it was, according to whistle blowers, engaging in
accounting fraud.
This was also the period when Deutsche Bank and other major banks were making billions by poisoning the world financial system with toxic mortgage backed securities.
Last year, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
devoted 45 pages of a voluminous report on the financial crash to
the fraudulent activities of Deutsche Bank.
The report noted that the bank’s top trader in collateralized debt
obligations had referred to securities the bank was selling as, “crap”
and, “pigs,” and called the banking industry’s CDO operations a,
“Ponzi scheme.”
That such a man should be put in charge of policing the banks is,
in fact, par for the course.
The man who recommended that the Obama administration give
Khuzami the job, Richard Walker, the current chief counsel at
Deutsche Bank, was himself a former head of enforcement at the
SEC.
Last June, when JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon testified
before the Senate on unreported losses of at least $5 billion,
sitting behind him was the bank’s chief counsel, Stephen Cutler,
who had graduated to that post after serving as SEC enforcement
chief.
This Augean stable of crime and corruption, which involves every
official institution of American capitalism, cannot be reformed.
The stranglehold of the financial aristocracy over economic life
can be ended only through the mass mobilization of the working
class to expropriate the bankers and place the major banks and
financial institutions under public ownership and democratic
control.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/dec2012/pers-d14.shtml
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
46 Trillion Reasons
46 Trillion Reasons
By David DeGraw
Information Clearing House
December 12, 2012
Due to technological advancements, over the past 35 years there has
been an explosion in production, distribution, profits and wealth
creation.
Most of that wealth increase has gone to only one-hundredth of
one percent of the population, to the modern day aristocracy.
In the United States, the 400 richest people now have as much wealth
as 185 million people combined, nearly 60% of the entire population.
US millionaire households have at least $46 trillion in wealth,
yet only one-tenth of one percent of the population makes one
million dollars a year.
$46 trillion.
Can you comprehend how much money that is and what could be
done with that stunning amount of wealth, the implications, the
possibilities?
Especially given the capabilities of modern technology.
Think about how we could evolve society with that astonishing
amount of wealth, and how much better off we would ALL be if
we did.
It’s hard to comprehend how much wealth $46 trillion represents.
One trillion is equal to 1000 billion, or $1,000,000,000,000.
People cannot comprehend that much wealth because there is no
frame of reference, no comparison of scale or historical precedent.
An entire generation of stratospheric wealth has been systemically
denied to the people and hoarded into the hands of a few.
It’s the greatest theft of wealth in history, a crime against humanity.
Once you wrap your mind around how much wealth $46 trillion is,
and realize how profoundly society can be transformed by it, you
begin to grasp the fact that we’ve been living under neo-feudal
rule.
If Americans had a real understanding of how much wealth is being
kept from them, we would have a full-blown societal evolution right
now.
There’s no doubt about it; the denial of wealth is what keeps us
in check, in debt.
As a wise man once said, “There are two ways to conquer and
enslave a nation. One by sword, the other by debt.”
The harsh, unavoidable truth is that we live in a system of debt
slavery.
The indentured servant is now the indebted consumer, indebted to
a modern day aristocracy that thinks we are merely wage slaves
and glorified peasants.
Instead of using the advancement of technology and exponential
increase in production, distribution and wealth creation to empower
humanity, these modern neo-feudal lords are pathological in their
shortsighted greed.
When you understand the wealth at hand, you begin to recognize
the crime against humanity that is afoot.
We live in the richest, most technologically advanced society in
human history.
Yet here we are, in the 21st century, with the highest number of
people living in poverty in American history.
People can’t afford to pay their medical bills.
Millions upon millions of American families foreclosed on.
An all-time record number of children going hungry, as record-
breaking profits and record-breaking bonuses are handed out
to the bailed out aristocracy.
It’s a massive crime against humanity.
We have people walking this earth who crashed the global economy,
then profited from it.
They are responsible for the impoverishment of tens of millions
of people, and for their recklessness, they get bailed out and
then have the audacity to not only keep their jobs, but to give
themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses, bonuses on the
backs of hardworking American taxpayers.
Their scandalous and shameful behavior makes the Robber Barons
look like Boy Scouts.
It’s so shortsighted, unstable and unsustainable. Pathological
shortsighted greed is humanity’s most severe disease.
To paraphrase Guy DeBord, ‘The economy has declared war on
humanity, attacking not only our possibilities for living, but our
chances of survival. When an all-powerful economy lost its reason
that’s what defines these times.’
We anticipate reactionary, propagandized minds impulsively
attempting to dismiss this perspective as a demonization of
wealthy people.
To be clear, we’re not against wealthy people; just because
you have wealth doesn’t make you a tyrant.
It’s the people who crashed the economy and use their money to
rig the political system, to rig the legal system, to rig the market,
to rig the rules against hardworking Americans.
It’s all the corrupt crony-capitalists we are calling out.
In fact, we don’t blame any single person. It is a systemic problem.
It’s our archaic and incredibly outdated system, a system that’s
increasingly vulnerable to, and easily rigged by, the forces of
shortsighted greed.
We know many people within the economic top one percentile
who are using their wealth and resources to improve the human
condition in many different ways.
We wish more wealthy people would put their money where their
mouth is.
We’re sure they will soon enough, in the interests of preservation,
but just having wealth in no way makes you a tyrant.
Again, when you break it down, it is really only one-hundredth
of one percent of the population that is doing the damage.
And ultimately, it is the political system and mainstream media
that allows them to get away with it, that deceives, dumbs down
and mentally conditions the population to the point where the
overwhelming majority remains unaware of their own power and
potential in an incredibly wealthy and technologically advanced
society.
Even more shocking than the $46 trillion and the 400 Americans
who have as much wealth as 185 million Americans combined, is
the fact that a mere 147 tightly knit companies control 40 percent
of the global economy.
This is obviously a highly unstable, unsustainable and unhealthy
situation.
To paraphrase from several quotes by philosopher and social
psychologist John Dewey:
‘There is no such thing as the liberty or effective power of an
individual, group or class, except in relation to the liberties and
effective powers of other individuals, groups or classes.
Liberty signifies release from the impact of particular oppressive
forces, emancipation from something once taken as a normal part
of human life, but now experienced as bondage.
Today, it signifies liberation from the coercions and repressions
that prevent people from participation in the vast wealth that is
presently at hand.
In relations between people, between capital and labor, in
our attitudes toward other members of society, we have now
developed a social conscience and awareness, and situations
that would have been accepted a generation ago are now
understood as an intolerable scandal.
Our current crisis continues only because people refuse to look facts
in the face and prefer to feed on illusions produced and circulated by
those in power with an excess that contrasts with their withholding
the necessities of life.
The day that a critical mass of people awake to the realities
of the situation, the restoration of freedom will commence.’
Fortunately, that day is now upon us.
A critical mass of humanity is now awake and aware of the
obsolete systems that limit our potential.
If the 400 wealthiest people and the CEOs from the 147 most
powerful corporations were not so blinded by shortsighted greed,
they would urgently call for a summit to strategize the most
efficient and effective way to evolve their destructive behavior
and use the immense resources that they are presently in control
of to enhance the renaissance that is just beginning.
We are on the right side of history.
We are offering an olive branch. We come in peace, respect
and love.
We’re here to amplify the mass transition into a new age of
enlightenment.
The Occupy movement was the first awakening wave from a
tsunami of transformation that is just beginning to wash over
the planet.
Each successive wave will be more effective in eradicating
humanity’s most severe disease, pathological shortsighted
greed.
Ye are few… hoarding $46 trillion.
You shall reap what you sow. Karma.
As a very wise man once said, “Enlighten the people generally,
and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like
evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
Just over the horizon shines the first ray of the new rising sun.
Welcome to Renaissance 2.0.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33274.htm
By David DeGraw
Information Clearing House
December 12, 2012
Due to technological advancements, over the past 35 years there has
been an explosion in production, distribution, profits and wealth
creation.
Most of that wealth increase has gone to only one-hundredth of
one percent of the population, to the modern day aristocracy.
In the United States, the 400 richest people now have as much wealth
as 185 million people combined, nearly 60% of the entire population.
US millionaire households have at least $46 trillion in wealth,
yet only one-tenth of one percent of the population makes one
million dollars a year.
$46 trillion.
Can you comprehend how much money that is and what could be
done with that stunning amount of wealth, the implications, the
possibilities?
Especially given the capabilities of modern technology.
Think about how we could evolve society with that astonishing
amount of wealth, and how much better off we would ALL be if
we did.
It’s hard to comprehend how much wealth $46 trillion represents.
One trillion is equal to 1000 billion, or $1,000,000,000,000.
People cannot comprehend that much wealth because there is no
frame of reference, no comparison of scale or historical precedent.
An entire generation of stratospheric wealth has been systemically
denied to the people and hoarded into the hands of a few.
It’s the greatest theft of wealth in history, a crime against humanity.
Once you wrap your mind around how much wealth $46 trillion is,
and realize how profoundly society can be transformed by it, you
begin to grasp the fact that we’ve been living under neo-feudal
rule.
If Americans had a real understanding of how much wealth is being
kept from them, we would have a full-blown societal evolution right
now.
There’s no doubt about it; the denial of wealth is what keeps us
in check, in debt.
As a wise man once said, “There are two ways to conquer and
enslave a nation. One by sword, the other by debt.”
The harsh, unavoidable truth is that we live in a system of debt
slavery.
The indentured servant is now the indebted consumer, indebted to
a modern day aristocracy that thinks we are merely wage slaves
and glorified peasants.
Instead of using the advancement of technology and exponential
increase in production, distribution and wealth creation to empower
humanity, these modern neo-feudal lords are pathological in their
shortsighted greed.
When you understand the wealth at hand, you begin to recognize
the crime against humanity that is afoot.
We live in the richest, most technologically advanced society in
human history.
Yet here we are, in the 21st century, with the highest number of
people living in poverty in American history.
People can’t afford to pay their medical bills.
Millions upon millions of American families foreclosed on.
An all-time record number of children going hungry, as record-
breaking profits and record-breaking bonuses are handed out
to the bailed out aristocracy.
It’s a massive crime against humanity.
We have people walking this earth who crashed the global economy,
then profited from it.
They are responsible for the impoverishment of tens of millions
of people, and for their recklessness, they get bailed out and
then have the audacity to not only keep their jobs, but to give
themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses, bonuses on the
backs of hardworking American taxpayers.
Their scandalous and shameful behavior makes the Robber Barons
look like Boy Scouts.
It’s so shortsighted, unstable and unsustainable. Pathological
shortsighted greed is humanity’s most severe disease.
To paraphrase Guy DeBord, ‘The economy has declared war on
humanity, attacking not only our possibilities for living, but our
chances of survival. When an all-powerful economy lost its reason
that’s what defines these times.’
We anticipate reactionary, propagandized minds impulsively
attempting to dismiss this perspective as a demonization of
wealthy people.
To be clear, we’re not against wealthy people; just because
you have wealth doesn’t make you a tyrant.
It’s the people who crashed the economy and use their money to
rig the political system, to rig the legal system, to rig the market,
to rig the rules against hardworking Americans.
It’s all the corrupt crony-capitalists we are calling out.
In fact, we don’t blame any single person. It is a systemic problem.
It’s our archaic and incredibly outdated system, a system that’s
increasingly vulnerable to, and easily rigged by, the forces of
shortsighted greed.
We know many people within the economic top one percentile
who are using their wealth and resources to improve the human
condition in many different ways.
We wish more wealthy people would put their money where their
mouth is.
We’re sure they will soon enough, in the interests of preservation,
but just having wealth in no way makes you a tyrant.
Again, when you break it down, it is really only one-hundredth
of one percent of the population that is doing the damage.
And ultimately, it is the political system and mainstream media
that allows them to get away with it, that deceives, dumbs down
and mentally conditions the population to the point where the
overwhelming majority remains unaware of their own power and
potential in an incredibly wealthy and technologically advanced
society.
Even more shocking than the $46 trillion and the 400 Americans
who have as much wealth as 185 million Americans combined, is
the fact that a mere 147 tightly knit companies control 40 percent
of the global economy.
This is obviously a highly unstable, unsustainable and unhealthy
situation.
To paraphrase from several quotes by philosopher and social
psychologist John Dewey:
‘There is no such thing as the liberty or effective power of an
individual, group or class, except in relation to the liberties and
effective powers of other individuals, groups or classes.
Liberty signifies release from the impact of particular oppressive
forces, emancipation from something once taken as a normal part
of human life, but now experienced as bondage.
Today, it signifies liberation from the coercions and repressions
that prevent people from participation in the vast wealth that is
presently at hand.
In relations between people, between capital and labor, in
our attitudes toward other members of society, we have now
developed a social conscience and awareness, and situations
that would have been accepted a generation ago are now
understood as an intolerable scandal.
Our current crisis continues only because people refuse to look facts
in the face and prefer to feed on illusions produced and circulated by
those in power with an excess that contrasts with their withholding
the necessities of life.
The day that a critical mass of people awake to the realities
of the situation, the restoration of freedom will commence.’
Fortunately, that day is now upon us.
A critical mass of humanity is now awake and aware of the
obsolete systems that limit our potential.
If the 400 wealthiest people and the CEOs from the 147 most
powerful corporations were not so blinded by shortsighted greed,
they would urgently call for a summit to strategize the most
efficient and effective way to evolve their destructive behavior
and use the immense resources that they are presently in control
of to enhance the renaissance that is just beginning.
We are on the right side of history.
We are offering an olive branch. We come in peace, respect
and love.
We’re here to amplify the mass transition into a new age of
enlightenment.
The Occupy movement was the first awakening wave from a
tsunami of transformation that is just beginning to wash over
the planet.
Each successive wave will be more effective in eradicating
humanity’s most severe disease, pathological shortsighted
greed.
Ye are few… hoarding $46 trillion.
You shall reap what you sow. Karma.
As a very wise man once said, “Enlighten the people generally,
and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like
evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
Just over the horizon shines the first ray of the new rising sun.
Welcome to Renaissance 2.0.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33274.htm
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Breaking Through
Breaking Through
By Eric Peters
Eric Peters Autos
December 08, 2012
Lenin asked, “What is to be done?”
The question facing liberty minded people almost 100 years later
is the same.
But our answer should not be Lenin’s answer, violent lashing out.
I get e-mails from readers who are frustrated, rightly, about the
state of things.
About how Ron Paul was treated by the GOP apparat. About the
seemingly relentless increase in (and brazenness of) state thuggery.
They ask, “when do we do something?” “How much more do we
take”?
And most of all: “What is the point of just bitching about things?”
Some urge action, taking the proverbial stand.
But just as the time for action (physical action) had not yet come
for our forefathers circa 1770, so also the time has not yet come
for us.
The issue, then as now, is whether intellectual action is to be
preferred over (and as the necessary prelude to) physical action.
Whether we as isolated individuals, go out in the proverbial and
pointless blaze of glory, or, whether we bide our time while we
work to increase the number of people who get it and thereby,
increase the number of people who are on our side, such that if
it becomes necessary to act, we will not be acting alone, and
not acting suicidally.
As in the 1770s, opponent of the current status quo have to have
that critical mass of like-minded people on our side before we
can hope for change we can believe in. Otherwise, we are just
tilting at windmills.
We risk losing everything, to gain nothing.
No one can say for sure what the critical mass percentages are,
but 20 percent seems about right to me. Five percent won’t do
it. Ten percent might be sufficient.
But we’re not going to get anywhere until enough people share
our views and far more importantly, reject the views that have
led us to the current state of things.
And the only way to achieve that is by talking and writing about
things from a liberty-minded perspective.
Bear in mind that the vast majority of people operate unconsciously
on the implicit assumptions of collectivism and authoritarianism,
because that’s all they’ve been exposed to since childhood.
It is all they know.
The state has been monstrously effective in programming people
or rather, log jamming their brains with statist preconceptions
they never even think to question.
Because they’ve been systematically brain-raped into not
questioning anything.
Many of these people cannot be reached. They’re either
too far gone, or simply too invested in the system as it is.
But there are millions of people who can be reached. In
particular, young people.
Think on this a moment.
Never before (not in modern or even recent history) have so
many young people been anti-collectivist.
The hippies of the 1960s were exactly the opposite in terms
of the premises they accepted.
Though they preached peace and love, they worshipped the
collective. And thus, authority. Charles Manson was no
aberration. He merely took things to their logical conclusion.
As also Hillary and Bill and that entire generation or most of it.
Their, “help” their, “brotherhood of humanity” always flows from
the barrel of a gun. Today’s liberty-minded youth are not like this.
They embrace individual liberty and loathe the collective. They
want to be left the hell alone, to work and live on a cooperative
and voluntary basis and not at gunpoint for the “greater good.”
They sniff the stink of BS when they hear talk of, “safety” and,
“security” and that it’s all for, “our own good.”
It is a magnificent thing to behold.
For these liberty yearning young people most of them just
kids when the trrr attacks of nahnleven took place and the
American police state took the place of America, have no
personal recollection of the even semi-free America that
their parents and older brothers and sisters experienced.
Unlike Gen Xers or Baby Boomers, today’s 20 something's grew
up in a miasma of authoritarianism from childhood on trapped
like pint-sized Hannibal Lecters into, “safety” seats and fed
Ritalin and hectored to, "Submit and Obey" to an extent
literally inconceivable to people who grew up before.
Yet millions of these kids somehow have groped their way to
ideas not current or even common for the past 75 years or more.
They are sick and tired of being told what to do and much
more critically, have no interest in telling others what to do.
It is nothing less than a miracle.
And: How many liberty-minded web sites are there now?
The count must run into the hundreds if not the thousands.
Several of them have huge audiences.
Lew Rockwell, for instance. Alex Jones. Even this little corner
of the Net (we are approaching 100,000 visits per month).
The, “alternative” press is growing with each month exponentially
so. Just as happened more than 220 years ago.
The mouthpieces of the collective, the propaganda organs of the
state, are being ignored into irrelevance.
They have no credibility. They are dying. Because they are part of
a dying order.
They have reached the terminal stage of Pravda during the late
Brezhnev years. An ossified joke. A decrepit mummy farting dust.
I think the powers that be are terrified. They see the great
awakening that’s taking place.
It is no coincidence, in my view, that they have escalated to the
point they have. Because they see they are living on borrowed
time.
The initiative has passed to us. Our ideas are gaining traction. We
are winning. And without suicidal charges onto the ramparts.
So, have faith. As the Catholics put it, "Sursum Corda" lift up your
hearts!
The day is coming. And it’s not decades off. Most of us now alive
will live to see it. They know this. And it’s why they’re scared.
We need not be.
Just, be patient.
http://ericpetersautos.com/2012/12/07/breaking-through
By Eric Peters
Eric Peters Autos
December 08, 2012
Lenin asked, “What is to be done?”
The question facing liberty minded people almost 100 years later
is the same.
But our answer should not be Lenin’s answer, violent lashing out.
I get e-mails from readers who are frustrated, rightly, about the
state of things.
About how Ron Paul was treated by the GOP apparat. About the
seemingly relentless increase in (and brazenness of) state thuggery.
They ask, “when do we do something?” “How much more do we
take”?
And most of all: “What is the point of just bitching about things?”
Some urge action, taking the proverbial stand.
But just as the time for action (physical action) had not yet come
for our forefathers circa 1770, so also the time has not yet come
for us.
The issue, then as now, is whether intellectual action is to be
preferred over (and as the necessary prelude to) physical action.
Whether we as isolated individuals, go out in the proverbial and
pointless blaze of glory, or, whether we bide our time while we
work to increase the number of people who get it and thereby,
increase the number of people who are on our side, such that if
it becomes necessary to act, we will not be acting alone, and
not acting suicidally.
As in the 1770s, opponent of the current status quo have to have
that critical mass of like-minded people on our side before we
can hope for change we can believe in. Otherwise, we are just
tilting at windmills.
We risk losing everything, to gain nothing.
No one can say for sure what the critical mass percentages are,
but 20 percent seems about right to me. Five percent won’t do
it. Ten percent might be sufficient.
But we’re not going to get anywhere until enough people share
our views and far more importantly, reject the views that have
led us to the current state of things.
And the only way to achieve that is by talking and writing about
things from a liberty-minded perspective.
Bear in mind that the vast majority of people operate unconsciously
on the implicit assumptions of collectivism and authoritarianism,
because that’s all they’ve been exposed to since childhood.
It is all they know.
The state has been monstrously effective in programming people
or rather, log jamming their brains with statist preconceptions
they never even think to question.
Because they’ve been systematically brain-raped into not
questioning anything.
Many of these people cannot be reached. They’re either
too far gone, or simply too invested in the system as it is.
But there are millions of people who can be reached. In
particular, young people.
Think on this a moment.
Never before (not in modern or even recent history) have so
many young people been anti-collectivist.
The hippies of the 1960s were exactly the opposite in terms
of the premises they accepted.
Though they preached peace and love, they worshipped the
collective. And thus, authority. Charles Manson was no
aberration. He merely took things to their logical conclusion.
As also Hillary and Bill and that entire generation or most of it.
Their, “help” their, “brotherhood of humanity” always flows from
the barrel of a gun. Today’s liberty-minded youth are not like this.
They embrace individual liberty and loathe the collective. They
want to be left the hell alone, to work and live on a cooperative
and voluntary basis and not at gunpoint for the “greater good.”
They sniff the stink of BS when they hear talk of, “safety” and,
“security” and that it’s all for, “our own good.”
It is a magnificent thing to behold.
For these liberty yearning young people most of them just
kids when the trrr attacks of nahnleven took place and the
American police state took the place of America, have no
personal recollection of the even semi-free America that
their parents and older brothers and sisters experienced.
Unlike Gen Xers or Baby Boomers, today’s 20 something's grew
up in a miasma of authoritarianism from childhood on trapped
like pint-sized Hannibal Lecters into, “safety” seats and fed
Ritalin and hectored to, "Submit and Obey" to an extent
literally inconceivable to people who grew up before.
Yet millions of these kids somehow have groped their way to
ideas not current or even common for the past 75 years or more.
They are sick and tired of being told what to do and much
more critically, have no interest in telling others what to do.
It is nothing less than a miracle.
And: How many liberty-minded web sites are there now?
The count must run into the hundreds if not the thousands.
Several of them have huge audiences.
Lew Rockwell, for instance. Alex Jones. Even this little corner
of the Net (we are approaching 100,000 visits per month).
The, “alternative” press is growing with each month exponentially
so. Just as happened more than 220 years ago.
The mouthpieces of the collective, the propaganda organs of the
state, are being ignored into irrelevance.
They have no credibility. They are dying. Because they are part of
a dying order.
They have reached the terminal stage of Pravda during the late
Brezhnev years. An ossified joke. A decrepit mummy farting dust.
I think the powers that be are terrified. They see the great
awakening that’s taking place.
It is no coincidence, in my view, that they have escalated to the
point they have. Because they see they are living on borrowed
time.
The initiative has passed to us. Our ideas are gaining traction. We
are winning. And without suicidal charges onto the ramparts.
So, have faith. As the Catholics put it, "Sursum Corda" lift up your
hearts!
The day is coming. And it’s not decades off. Most of us now alive
will live to see it. They know this. And it’s why they’re scared.
We need not be.
Just, be patient.
http://ericpetersautos.com/2012/12/07/breaking-through
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
The Class War in America
The Class War in America
By Rick Kepler
Dissident Voice.org
December 04, 2012
Just years before the start of the French Revolution, which resulted
in the overthrow of the “royalists” and their sycophants, a French
journalist wrote the following:
"The distance which separates the rich from other citizens is
growing daily and poverty becomes more insupportable at the
sight of the astonishing progress of luxury which tires the view
of the indigent. Hatred grows more bitter, and the State is
divided into two classes; the greedy and insensitive, and the
murmuring malcontents."
As a Union organizer for the Teamsters, consider me among the
malcontents as those words from 1783 ring just as true today in
the United States as they did 230 years ago in pre-revolutionary
France.
During his time as president, FDR rightly named the very rich of
his period “economic royalists.” Today we call them the 1 percent.
The sycophants of today are those who worship the “greedy and
insensitive” and assist them in their destruction of America’s
middle class.
Today, much talk and print is devoted to the downfall of America’s
workers.
Never was it mentioned what the “economic royalists” of today
mutter under their breath until one of their own, Warren Buffet,
let the cat out of the bag, declaring that, “There is a class war
going on, my class started it, and we are winning it.”
To put the class war in stark relief, a multinational corporation
CEO was quoted in a local newspaper as saying to a roundtable
of corporate owners the following:
“Until we drive the wages of the American worker down to those of
the Mexicans, we cannot remain competitive in this global economy.”
Warren Buffet and that CEO know that it isn’t automation,
computerization and other “breakthroughs” in the production
process that have caused workers’ incomes to slide downward,
but attacks on collective bargaining, right-to-work laws,
corporate lockouts, Wall Street cannibalization of profitable
companies, and way, way too much political and economic power
for that greedy 1 percent.
While corporate profits and executive pay go through the roof,
the workers are forced to take wage cuts and to pay dearly for
their corporate-sponsored health care.
Other hard-won benefits are being trimmed or taken completely
away, and the corporate philosophy on providing a decent retirement
after years of loyal service by the workers is considered a relic from
another age.
The harder the American worker works, the more he or she is
being skimmed by that top 1 percent, who amassed 93 percent
of all income made since President Obama took office.
This is absolutely Robin Hood in reverse.
As long as this class war persists, and it will not end until we
the workers end it, you are going to have a polarized country.
A divided country is beneficial to the economic royalists. Their
“scorched earth, screw the workers” philosophy is working.
The top 400 families amassed just this year $1.7 trillion in
wealth, 5 times more wealth than they did 10 years ago.
Their patrons and cheerleaders in Congress, especially the
"Teabaggers" with their no-compromise mentality, assure us
that this country will remain divided.
Civility, bipartisanship and tolerance are considered
weaknesses by these mouthpieces for the ultra-rich.
As in any war including the class war, sides are taken.
You are either for the American workers, and their hopes and
dreams for a better life for themselves, their families, their
friends and neighbors, or you are for Wall-Street, private-equity
owners, hedge fund owners and corporate America chieftains,
who are waging this class war against the American workers
and who are determined to take even more for themselves and
their class at our expense.
Our government is supposed to mediate this natural friction
between capital and labor. It has failed miserably to do this
over the past four decades.
With few exceptions our elected representatives from both
parties have chosen to honor wealth over work.
These politicians have been kissing the asses of Wall Street,
and as a result the American workers, who built this country,
fight its wars, and daily work their butts off, have witnessed
a very sharp decline in their family’s standard of living.
Until the workers of this country rise up and put aside those
differences that the 1 percent use to keep us divided, racism,
sexism, classism, homophobia, religion, etc., we will continue to
slide down the economic ladder with all the hardship that entails.
Our top priority in the Unions should not be getting politicians
elected, but educating our own members about the class war
that is being waged against us, and enlisting all workers, Union
and non-Union, into this life-and-death struggle for the middle
class.
Rick is a Teamster organizer in Ohio.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/12/the-class-war-in-america
By Rick Kepler
Dissident Voice.org
December 04, 2012
Just years before the start of the French Revolution, which resulted
in the overthrow of the “royalists” and their sycophants, a French
journalist wrote the following:
"The distance which separates the rich from other citizens is
growing daily and poverty becomes more insupportable at the
sight of the astonishing progress of luxury which tires the view
of the indigent. Hatred grows more bitter, and the State is
divided into two classes; the greedy and insensitive, and the
murmuring malcontents."
As a Union organizer for the Teamsters, consider me among the
malcontents as those words from 1783 ring just as true today in
the United States as they did 230 years ago in pre-revolutionary
France.
During his time as president, FDR rightly named the very rich of
his period “economic royalists.” Today we call them the 1 percent.
The sycophants of today are those who worship the “greedy and
insensitive” and assist them in their destruction of America’s
middle class.
Today, much talk and print is devoted to the downfall of America’s
workers.
Never was it mentioned what the “economic royalists” of today
mutter under their breath until one of their own, Warren Buffet,
let the cat out of the bag, declaring that, “There is a class war
going on, my class started it, and we are winning it.”
To put the class war in stark relief, a multinational corporation
CEO was quoted in a local newspaper as saying to a roundtable
of corporate owners the following:
“Until we drive the wages of the American worker down to those of
the Mexicans, we cannot remain competitive in this global economy.”
Warren Buffet and that CEO know that it isn’t automation,
computerization and other “breakthroughs” in the production
process that have caused workers’ incomes to slide downward,
but attacks on collective bargaining, right-to-work laws,
corporate lockouts, Wall Street cannibalization of profitable
companies, and way, way too much political and economic power
for that greedy 1 percent.
While corporate profits and executive pay go through the roof,
the workers are forced to take wage cuts and to pay dearly for
their corporate-sponsored health care.
Other hard-won benefits are being trimmed or taken completely
away, and the corporate philosophy on providing a decent retirement
after years of loyal service by the workers is considered a relic from
another age.
The harder the American worker works, the more he or she is
being skimmed by that top 1 percent, who amassed 93 percent
of all income made since President Obama took office.
This is absolutely Robin Hood in reverse.
As long as this class war persists, and it will not end until we
the workers end it, you are going to have a polarized country.
A divided country is beneficial to the economic royalists. Their
“scorched earth, screw the workers” philosophy is working.
The top 400 families amassed just this year $1.7 trillion in
wealth, 5 times more wealth than they did 10 years ago.
Their patrons and cheerleaders in Congress, especially the
"Teabaggers" with their no-compromise mentality, assure us
that this country will remain divided.
Civility, bipartisanship and tolerance are considered
weaknesses by these mouthpieces for the ultra-rich.
As in any war including the class war, sides are taken.
You are either for the American workers, and their hopes and
dreams for a better life for themselves, their families, their
friends and neighbors, or you are for Wall-Street, private-equity
owners, hedge fund owners and corporate America chieftains,
who are waging this class war against the American workers
and who are determined to take even more for themselves and
their class at our expense.
Our government is supposed to mediate this natural friction
between capital and labor. It has failed miserably to do this
over the past four decades.
With few exceptions our elected representatives from both
parties have chosen to honor wealth over work.
These politicians have been kissing the asses of Wall Street,
and as a result the American workers, who built this country,
fight its wars, and daily work their butts off, have witnessed
a very sharp decline in their family’s standard of living.
Until the workers of this country rise up and put aside those
differences that the 1 percent use to keep us divided, racism,
sexism, classism, homophobia, religion, etc., we will continue to
slide down the economic ladder with all the hardship that entails.
Our top priority in the Unions should not be getting politicians
elected, but educating our own members about the class war
that is being waged against us, and enlisting all workers, Union
and non-Union, into this life-and-death struggle for the middle
class.
Rick is a Teamster organizer in Ohio.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/12/the-class-war-in-america
Friday, November 30, 2012
Biblical Economics
Biblical Economics
An irony of modern politics is that many conservative Americans
view themselves as devout believers in the Bible yet they ascribe
to right-wing, dog-eat-dog economic theories that Jesus and other
Biblical figures would condemn.
By Rev. Howard Bess
Consortiumnews.com
November 30, 2012
The Bible has an identifiable view of economics.
Whether or not we take the point of view seriously is a matter
of choice, but for those who give some sort of special authority
to the Biblical writings, the viewpoint cannot be ignored.
One cannot not say “I believe the Bible” and lightly dismiss the
perspective developed by Israelites in an ancient setting.
The Israelite understanding of economics was developed over
a period of nearly 1,000 years, from the Israelite escape from
Egyptian slavery to the cruel years of slavery in Babylonia.
Putting together the story of their development of economic theory
is like following the plot as a well-written novel. In its final form it
was laid out by a group of Israelite priests in the Sixth Century BCE.
Priests in ancient Israel were taken seriously.
They were not hampered by theories of separation of church
and state or keeping religion out of economics and politics.
When priests spoke about wealth, property and God, no one
would dare tell them to keep their noses out of the public
square. They WERE the public square.
The summary of their economic theories is imbedded in the book
of Leviticus in the Old Testament. The essence of Biblical ethics
is at times captured in short phrases.
Memorize these short phrases and a person has enough guidance
for a Godly life.
Examples are “am I my brother’s keeper?,” love mercy, do justice,
and walk humbly with God,” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”
A controlling and precise statement about economics is found
in Leviticus 25:23 – “Land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for
the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.”
When we look at the development of the Israelite nation, it is very
clear that they were not a capitalist, consumer-oriented society,
whose first order of business was to spend and use material wealth
on themselves and to pursue the getting of more so they could spend
more lavishly on themselves.
Jesus pegged the Israelite tradition correctly when he said the
greatest of all commandments was to love God with heart, mind
and soul.
All ethical behavior and the handling of all wealth were subservient
to the command to love God.
The priests developed not-so-simple rules about how the control
of land was to be handed down from generation to generation.
The Year of Jubilee was meant to be a once-every-50-years
complete redistribution of land among the Israelites.
But the redistribution as written in Levitical law was never
enacted. I suspect that those who controlled land were a bit
reluctant to turn it over to “lazy” folk who had not taken good
care of the family farm.
Yet, whether or not the system was ever implemented is not
the point. A principle was set.
All people were to have access to and use of the resources of
the earth.
This basic right was to take priority over any person or group
to claim private ownership and use of those resources.
One can argue that these standards are from an ancient agrarian
economic system that cannot be reasonably applied to modern
economics.
Essentially, that is the view of leading American politicians,
whether President Barack Obama or his Republican rival
Mitt Romney.
They were both more in line with Ayn Rand than the Bible.
However, as a Christian who takes the Bible seriously, I
am suggesting that there are principles from Leviticus
25:23 and other economic references in the Bible that
can be applied to modern economic practices.
The first principle has already been mentioned but needs
to be restated and is foundational to everything else.
The resources for the support of life must be available to
and enjoyed by all.
To cut off people from basic life needs is immoral.
It is an affront to the God who claims ownership of all things.
All possessions are gifts from God, and those gifts are not
reserved for a select few.
A living wage, clean air to breath, quality health care, and
potable water all become demands from the Almighty.
The second principle is related. I make no suggestion that
everyone have exactly the same resources at his/her disposal.
However, just as the less fortunate in life must have basic
needs met, limitations on accumulation must be put in place.
The second principle is that Biblical economics limit the
permanent control and ownership of wealth by the few.
In a modern economic system, Biblical economics demand that
such accumulation and control of wealth be brought to an end
through taxation, anti-trust laws or other legislative remedies.
Jesus was quite blunt. You cannot serve God and money.
The arrogance of today’s super-rich makes the point.
Super-rich people are in big trouble with God.
The third principle raises the question “who is to benefit?”
In the Biblical economic system and ethic, the highest concern
is focused on right where people live.
Economics must serve the smaller of our social units.
A social unit may be understood as a family, a clan,
a neighborhood or a community.
The point of Biblical economics is that the concerns of God
will never be found on Wall Street or in the corporate suites
of Bank of America.
The Bible does indeed present an economic system with
underlying principles.
They are pounding at our door.
Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister,
who lives in Palmer, Alaska.
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/11/27/biblical-economics
An irony of modern politics is that many conservative Americans
view themselves as devout believers in the Bible yet they ascribe
to right-wing, dog-eat-dog economic theories that Jesus and other
Biblical figures would condemn.
By Rev. Howard Bess
Consortiumnews.com
November 30, 2012
The Bible has an identifiable view of economics.
Whether or not we take the point of view seriously is a matter
of choice, but for those who give some sort of special authority
to the Biblical writings, the viewpoint cannot be ignored.
One cannot not say “I believe the Bible” and lightly dismiss the
perspective developed by Israelites in an ancient setting.
The Israelite understanding of economics was developed over
a period of nearly 1,000 years, from the Israelite escape from
Egyptian slavery to the cruel years of slavery in Babylonia.
Putting together the story of their development of economic theory
is like following the plot as a well-written novel. In its final form it
was laid out by a group of Israelite priests in the Sixth Century BCE.
Priests in ancient Israel were taken seriously.
They were not hampered by theories of separation of church
and state or keeping religion out of economics and politics.
When priests spoke about wealth, property and God, no one
would dare tell them to keep their noses out of the public
square. They WERE the public square.
The summary of their economic theories is imbedded in the book
of Leviticus in the Old Testament. The essence of Biblical ethics
is at times captured in short phrases.
Memorize these short phrases and a person has enough guidance
for a Godly life.
Examples are “am I my brother’s keeper?,” love mercy, do justice,
and walk humbly with God,” and “love your neighbor as yourself.”
A controlling and precise statement about economics is found
in Leviticus 25:23 – “Land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for
the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.”
When we look at the development of the Israelite nation, it is very
clear that they were not a capitalist, consumer-oriented society,
whose first order of business was to spend and use material wealth
on themselves and to pursue the getting of more so they could spend
more lavishly on themselves.
Jesus pegged the Israelite tradition correctly when he said the
greatest of all commandments was to love God with heart, mind
and soul.
All ethical behavior and the handling of all wealth were subservient
to the command to love God.
The priests developed not-so-simple rules about how the control
of land was to be handed down from generation to generation.
The Year of Jubilee was meant to be a once-every-50-years
complete redistribution of land among the Israelites.
But the redistribution as written in Levitical law was never
enacted. I suspect that those who controlled land were a bit
reluctant to turn it over to “lazy” folk who had not taken good
care of the family farm.
Yet, whether or not the system was ever implemented is not
the point. A principle was set.
All people were to have access to and use of the resources of
the earth.
This basic right was to take priority over any person or group
to claim private ownership and use of those resources.
One can argue that these standards are from an ancient agrarian
economic system that cannot be reasonably applied to modern
economics.
Essentially, that is the view of leading American politicians,
whether President Barack Obama or his Republican rival
Mitt Romney.
They were both more in line with Ayn Rand than the Bible.
However, as a Christian who takes the Bible seriously, I
am suggesting that there are principles from Leviticus
25:23 and other economic references in the Bible that
can be applied to modern economic practices.
The first principle has already been mentioned but needs
to be restated and is foundational to everything else.
The resources for the support of life must be available to
and enjoyed by all.
To cut off people from basic life needs is immoral.
It is an affront to the God who claims ownership of all things.
All possessions are gifts from God, and those gifts are not
reserved for a select few.
A living wage, clean air to breath, quality health care, and
potable water all become demands from the Almighty.
The second principle is related. I make no suggestion that
everyone have exactly the same resources at his/her disposal.
However, just as the less fortunate in life must have basic
needs met, limitations on accumulation must be put in place.
The second principle is that Biblical economics limit the
permanent control and ownership of wealth by the few.
In a modern economic system, Biblical economics demand that
such accumulation and control of wealth be brought to an end
through taxation, anti-trust laws or other legislative remedies.
Jesus was quite blunt. You cannot serve God and money.
The arrogance of today’s super-rich makes the point.
Super-rich people are in big trouble with God.
The third principle raises the question “who is to benefit?”
In the Biblical economic system and ethic, the highest concern
is focused on right where people live.
Economics must serve the smaller of our social units.
A social unit may be understood as a family, a clan,
a neighborhood or a community.
The point of Biblical economics is that the concerns of God
will never be found on Wall Street or in the corporate suites
of Bank of America.
The Bible does indeed present an economic system with
underlying principles.
They are pounding at our door.
Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister,
who lives in Palmer, Alaska.
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/11/27/biblical-economics
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Black Friday
American Wage Slaves Fight Over Chinese Slave Goods
By Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire
November 28, 2012
How does it make you feel when you see people fight like animals
over something like a new iPhone5 or Samsung Galaxy mobile phone?
You can tell the health of the tree by the quality of its fruits.
America, as is evidenced by this week’s annual materialistic ritual
known as ‘Black Friday’, has produced this particularly rotten fruit,
consistently.
It’s getting way too predictable for our liking.
The name “Black” joined with Friday, in itself, is worth looking at
in all its Satanic symbolism.
Why do they try to market this event as some sort of national holiday
and call it “Black”?
It’s important to point out first, that in America, shopping is not
just a basic human need, it’s a national sport, where people root
for brands like a football team and as you will see, it's a very
competitive sport.
On Black Friday, it moves up the ladder to become gladitorial.
It all started with the Cabbage Patch Doll uprisings back in the 1980′s.
It seemed like a fluke at the time. But the trend has raged on and on.
An epic battle for a load of cheap plastic made in China and Vietnam,
mostly by women and children on a dollar a day.
Quite simply, it’s a victory for worldly goods, over humanity, as
people worship brands like gods for sale.
The devil’s handiwork, no less.
In reality, Black Friday is nothing more than a collective con, a
nonevent, made to appear as an event.
American wage slaves who have witnessed such riots should know by
now that America’s once coveted status as the progressive world’s
cultural leader has come and gone.
More and more it’s looking like ‘American exceptionalism' could be
the stuff of 20th century history already.
Those who have taken part in the Black Friday ritual should also
know that their rulers are indeed laughing at them right now as
they watch their social engineering master plan come to fruition.
Segments of the population all but reduced to a shallow pulp of
mindless consumerism, currently in the process of eating itself.
The remaining, mentally challenged chattering classes, will
also watch these ugly scenes and then sit and argue whether
Black Friday riots are the result of an Obama or Romney victory.
As if this level of sub-intelligence is what killed American democracy,
another victory for the elite.
On a foreign policy note, if you are Arab and you are now watching
these scenes, you might want to ask yourself, if this is what Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton were talking about when they waxed lyrical
during your Arab Spring (that wasn’t) about the virtues of exporting
”American values of freedom and democracy?"
Imagine when the dollar collapses how ugly would that look.
Empty supermarket shelves. How would Americans treat each
other then?
It’s become a pathetic tradition, in what is way past the point
of national embarrassment, but it’s not instead, they promote
it.
http://21stcenturywire.com/2012/11/25/american-wage-slaves-
fighting-over-chinese-slave-goods/
By Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire
November 28, 2012
How does it make you feel when you see people fight like animals
over something like a new iPhone5 or Samsung Galaxy mobile phone?
You can tell the health of the tree by the quality of its fruits.
America, as is evidenced by this week’s annual materialistic ritual
known as ‘Black Friday’, has produced this particularly rotten fruit,
consistently.
It’s getting way too predictable for our liking.
The name “Black” joined with Friday, in itself, is worth looking at
in all its Satanic symbolism.
Why do they try to market this event as some sort of national holiday
and call it “Black”?
It’s important to point out first, that in America, shopping is not
just a basic human need, it’s a national sport, where people root
for brands like a football team and as you will see, it's a very
competitive sport.
On Black Friday, it moves up the ladder to become gladitorial.
It all started with the Cabbage Patch Doll uprisings back in the 1980′s.
It seemed like a fluke at the time. But the trend has raged on and on.
An epic battle for a load of cheap plastic made in China and Vietnam,
mostly by women and children on a dollar a day.
Quite simply, it’s a victory for worldly goods, over humanity, as
people worship brands like gods for sale.
The devil’s handiwork, no less.
In reality, Black Friday is nothing more than a collective con, a
nonevent, made to appear as an event.
American wage slaves who have witnessed such riots should know by
now that America’s once coveted status as the progressive world’s
cultural leader has come and gone.
More and more it’s looking like ‘American exceptionalism' could be
the stuff of 20th century history already.
Those who have taken part in the Black Friday ritual should also
know that their rulers are indeed laughing at them right now as
they watch their social engineering master plan come to fruition.
Segments of the population all but reduced to a shallow pulp of
mindless consumerism, currently in the process of eating itself.
The remaining, mentally challenged chattering classes, will
also watch these ugly scenes and then sit and argue whether
Black Friday riots are the result of an Obama or Romney victory.
As if this level of sub-intelligence is what killed American democracy,
another victory for the elite.
On a foreign policy note, if you are Arab and you are now watching
these scenes, you might want to ask yourself, if this is what Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton were talking about when they waxed lyrical
during your Arab Spring (that wasn’t) about the virtues of exporting
”American values of freedom and democracy?"
Imagine when the dollar collapses how ugly would that look.
Empty supermarket shelves. How would Americans treat each
other then?
It’s become a pathetic tradition, in what is way past the point
of national embarrassment, but it’s not instead, they promote
it.
http://21stcenturywire.com/2012/11/25/american-wage-slaves-
fighting-over-chinese-slave-goods/
Monday, November 26, 2012
Creating A New Paradigm
All the darkness of the world cannot put out the light of a single
candle.
By Want To Know.info Team
Monday, November 26, 2012
The Old Paradigm
Together, we are creating a new paradigm on Earth.
Yet in order to give meaningful suggestions to further support
this, we first need to speak candidly about the old paradigm.
It appears that there are factions within the world's power elite
which still desire to exert as much control as possible over the
world.
Their primary means for establishing control are through promoting
fear, secrecy, and polarization, and through distracting people from
their deeper purpose in life.
When these factions gain greater power and control, our freedoms
and liberties are increasingly taken away, sometimes without our
even realizing it.
Fear is used as a powerful tool of control by these factions of the
global elite.
"The terrorists want to kill us all. Your job, home, and retirement
are no longer secure. You are either for us or against us. We might
be attacked at any time."
All of these messages push us towards fear.
And by encouraging us to focus blame on others such as terrorists
and "evil" leaders, the global power brokers push us away from
feeling in control of our lives and towards the role of powerless
victims, so that we look to them for protection.
The more we slip into fear and being victims, the easier it is for us
to be manipulated.
Secrecy leads to control through preventing the exposure of hidden
agendas, and through breeding distrust, suspicion, and paranoia in
the world.
In the name of "national security," we have been told ever more
frequently that we should not know what is happening behind closed
doors in government.
Yet we are encouraged to keep vigilant watch over our neighbors,
over those who question the government, and over those who
look or act different from us, as they could secretly be terrorists
in sheep's clothing.
Rampant suspicion and secrecy cause us to lose touch with the
common humanity we share with all around us.
Polarization leads to "us vs. them" ways of thinking.
Divide and conquer is a tactic that has been used successfully
by the power elite of the world for centuries.
As long as people focus on blaming and attacking "the enemy,"
they are not likely to look for the deeper causes of their
problems.
Controlling factions of the power elite work to keep public and media
attention focused on issues which divide us into two polarized camps,
so that their greatest concerns of power and control go unnoticed.
The power brokers then control both sides of the divided public by
assuring that corporate ownership of the media and key candidates
from all political parties support their deeper power and polarization
agendas, which often involve war profiteering.
A final subtle, yet powerful method of gaining control is to distract
people from their purpose in life.
Consider that television, radio, and movies have been filled with
ever more greed, violence, and empty sex.
Our educational system has increasingly prioritized passing tests
over developing intelligence and creativity.
Excessive corporate control of the media has limited what news
we receive, and often shaped our decisions and the way we think.
Our attention has been subtly diverted from our deeper purpose
in life to the more superficial attractions of sex, consumerism,
and money.
When we succumb to fear, secrecy, and polarization, and when we
lose touch with our sense of purpose in life, elements of the global
elite are able to exert ever more control over our lives and world.
The New Paradigm
What can we do about all this?
Ultimately, it is the collective fear, secrecy, polarization, and loss
of purpose within all of us that has allowed leaders to take power
who would subvert democracy, and who would take away our
freedoms and liberties.
By each one of us making a commitment to work on these issues
both inside of ourselves and out in the world, and to inspire others
to do the same, we are changing our collective direction and building
a solid foundation for a new paradigm. Several actions can help us to
take firm steps in that direction.
Develop purpose and intentions for your life.
To live full, rich lives in today's complex world, it's vitally important to give your life clear direction by exploring what is deepest and most meaningful to you, and by developing life purpose and intentions based on this.
Then choose to live your intentions and follow your purpose to the best of your ability every day.
By choosing to live with clear direction and focus, life becomes deeper and more meaningful.
This then weakens the seduction of consumerism and media hype which distract us from our purpose, and allows us to more effectively focus on creating a new paradigm.
Choose to transform fear into acceptance and love.
When we notice ourselves feeling fear, we can trace the roots of
that fear, so that we are able to identify our core challenges and
deal more consciously with them.
We can open to guidance from friends, teachers, and spiritual sources in helping us to move from fear to acceptance and understanding.
We can also transform our fears through welcoming the ever-present love of our divine creator, and the love that lies always deep within our own hearts, and in the hearts of those around us.
In doing this, we begin to recognize fear as an invitation to growth.
Become aware of when you are playing the role of victim, and choose
instead to take personal responsibility for creating a new paradigm.
In blaming others for our problems, we often avoid taking
responsibility for how much we are involved in creating these
problems through the choices we make.
Whenever we catch ourselves playing the role of victim by blaming
others (including the power elite) for everything that's wrong in our
lives, we can choose to take a look inside ourselves, and to explore
and take responsibility for our role in what's happening.
By focusing less on blaming others, and more on improving
ourselves, every one of us can make a difference both in our
lives and in our world.
Avoid secrecy and encourage openness and transparency.
An important way we can do this is to work together to inform
friends and colleagues about the major cover-ups being hidden
from the public.
Then in our personal lives, when we notice ourselves keeping
information from others, we can examine our motives for this
secrecy.
Are we withholding information out of our own self-interest, or
because this is really what's best for all involved?
And on a deeper level, where are we avoiding being honest with
ourselves?
Move beyond polarization and the focus on "good vs. evil" and
"us vs. them."
Consider the possibility that all of us are doing what we believe
to be right based upon our beliefs, circumstances, and upbringing.
Each of us has a place in our heart that wants only to love and
be loved.
As we focus less on blaming and judging "them" and more on
supporting the highest motive in all people, including members
of the power elite, we increasingly come to see that we are all
one human family, and that we can choose to transform our world
by working together for the good of all.
And finally, come together in groups and communities to
support each other in making these positive changes.
In these groups and communities, we support each other
in transforming fear into acceptance and love.
We exchange information about all that is being hidden from us
and explore ways to move beyond polarization.
We also share our life purpose and intentions and encourage each
other to live these as fully as we can and we inspire each other to
take responsibility for our lives and to be the best that we can be.
When we gather in community to support each other in these
intentions, we join in building a growing network of inspiration
and empowerment around the planet.
These suggestions emphasize changing the collective consciousness
of the world by transforming both our own personal lives and the
world around us.
Let us do all that we can to stop destructive behaviors of the
global power elite.
Yet let us not overly focus on changing the outside world without
first having a solid internal foundation, lest we fall into blaming
others, and into the polarizing "us vs. them" ways which only
further divide us.
By reminding ourselves that the most powerful change starts
inside each one of us, we can develop more balance and
strength to then work towards positive change out in the world.
As we change ourselves from the inside out, we send ripples of
inspiration and healing out into the world.
By joining together in groups and communities to support each
other in this, those ripples become waves which are powerfully
helping to create a new paradigm for all of us.
The Want To Know.info Team is composed of researchers and
concerned citizens from around the globe dedicated to empowering
transformation of our lives and world. Some of these team members
have written key books which are summarized on this website, while
others have sent valuable information revealing major cover-ups.
All are courageous citizens who venture where many dare not go.
We share a deep commitment to inspiring us all to work together
to strengthen democracy, and to build a brighter future for us all.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/070707newparadigm
candle.
By Want To Know.info Team
Monday, November 26, 2012
The Old Paradigm
Together, we are creating a new paradigm on Earth.
Yet in order to give meaningful suggestions to further support
this, we first need to speak candidly about the old paradigm.
It appears that there are factions within the world's power elite
which still desire to exert as much control as possible over the
world.
Their primary means for establishing control are through promoting
fear, secrecy, and polarization, and through distracting people from
their deeper purpose in life.
When these factions gain greater power and control, our freedoms
and liberties are increasingly taken away, sometimes without our
even realizing it.
Fear is used as a powerful tool of control by these factions of the
global elite.
"The terrorists want to kill us all. Your job, home, and retirement
are no longer secure. You are either for us or against us. We might
be attacked at any time."
All of these messages push us towards fear.
And by encouraging us to focus blame on others such as terrorists
and "evil" leaders, the global power brokers push us away from
feeling in control of our lives and towards the role of powerless
victims, so that we look to them for protection.
The more we slip into fear and being victims, the easier it is for us
to be manipulated.
Secrecy leads to control through preventing the exposure of hidden
agendas, and through breeding distrust, suspicion, and paranoia in
the world.
In the name of "national security," we have been told ever more
frequently that we should not know what is happening behind closed
doors in government.
Yet we are encouraged to keep vigilant watch over our neighbors,
over those who question the government, and over those who
look or act different from us, as they could secretly be terrorists
in sheep's clothing.
Rampant suspicion and secrecy cause us to lose touch with the
common humanity we share with all around us.
Polarization leads to "us vs. them" ways of thinking.
Divide and conquer is a tactic that has been used successfully
by the power elite of the world for centuries.
As long as people focus on blaming and attacking "the enemy,"
they are not likely to look for the deeper causes of their
problems.
Controlling factions of the power elite work to keep public and media
attention focused on issues which divide us into two polarized camps,
so that their greatest concerns of power and control go unnoticed.
The power brokers then control both sides of the divided public by
assuring that corporate ownership of the media and key candidates
from all political parties support their deeper power and polarization
agendas, which often involve war profiteering.
A final subtle, yet powerful method of gaining control is to distract
people from their purpose in life.
Consider that television, radio, and movies have been filled with
ever more greed, violence, and empty sex.
Our educational system has increasingly prioritized passing tests
over developing intelligence and creativity.
Excessive corporate control of the media has limited what news
we receive, and often shaped our decisions and the way we think.
Our attention has been subtly diverted from our deeper purpose
in life to the more superficial attractions of sex, consumerism,
and money.
When we succumb to fear, secrecy, and polarization, and when we
lose touch with our sense of purpose in life, elements of the global
elite are able to exert ever more control over our lives and world.
The New Paradigm
What can we do about all this?
Ultimately, it is the collective fear, secrecy, polarization, and loss
of purpose within all of us that has allowed leaders to take power
who would subvert democracy, and who would take away our
freedoms and liberties.
By each one of us making a commitment to work on these issues
both inside of ourselves and out in the world, and to inspire others
to do the same, we are changing our collective direction and building
a solid foundation for a new paradigm. Several actions can help us to
take firm steps in that direction.
Develop purpose and intentions for your life.
To live full, rich lives in today's complex world, it's vitally important to give your life clear direction by exploring what is deepest and most meaningful to you, and by developing life purpose and intentions based on this.
Then choose to live your intentions and follow your purpose to the best of your ability every day.
By choosing to live with clear direction and focus, life becomes deeper and more meaningful.
This then weakens the seduction of consumerism and media hype which distract us from our purpose, and allows us to more effectively focus on creating a new paradigm.
Choose to transform fear into acceptance and love.
When we notice ourselves feeling fear, we can trace the roots of
that fear, so that we are able to identify our core challenges and
deal more consciously with them.
We can open to guidance from friends, teachers, and spiritual sources in helping us to move from fear to acceptance and understanding.
We can also transform our fears through welcoming the ever-present love of our divine creator, and the love that lies always deep within our own hearts, and in the hearts of those around us.
In doing this, we begin to recognize fear as an invitation to growth.
Become aware of when you are playing the role of victim, and choose
instead to take personal responsibility for creating a new paradigm.
In blaming others for our problems, we often avoid taking
responsibility for how much we are involved in creating these
problems through the choices we make.
Whenever we catch ourselves playing the role of victim by blaming
others (including the power elite) for everything that's wrong in our
lives, we can choose to take a look inside ourselves, and to explore
and take responsibility for our role in what's happening.
By focusing less on blaming others, and more on improving
ourselves, every one of us can make a difference both in our
lives and in our world.
Avoid secrecy and encourage openness and transparency.
An important way we can do this is to work together to inform
friends and colleagues about the major cover-ups being hidden
from the public.
Then in our personal lives, when we notice ourselves keeping
information from others, we can examine our motives for this
secrecy.
Are we withholding information out of our own self-interest, or
because this is really what's best for all involved?
And on a deeper level, where are we avoiding being honest with
ourselves?
Move beyond polarization and the focus on "good vs. evil" and
"us vs. them."
Consider the possibility that all of us are doing what we believe
to be right based upon our beliefs, circumstances, and upbringing.
Each of us has a place in our heart that wants only to love and
be loved.
As we focus less on blaming and judging "them" and more on
supporting the highest motive in all people, including members
of the power elite, we increasingly come to see that we are all
one human family, and that we can choose to transform our world
by working together for the good of all.
And finally, come together in groups and communities to
support each other in making these positive changes.
In these groups and communities, we support each other
in transforming fear into acceptance and love.
We exchange information about all that is being hidden from us
and explore ways to move beyond polarization.
We also share our life purpose and intentions and encourage each
other to live these as fully as we can and we inspire each other to
take responsibility for our lives and to be the best that we can be.
When we gather in community to support each other in these
intentions, we join in building a growing network of inspiration
and empowerment around the planet.
These suggestions emphasize changing the collective consciousness
of the world by transforming both our own personal lives and the
world around us.
Let us do all that we can to stop destructive behaviors of the
global power elite.
Yet let us not overly focus on changing the outside world without
first having a solid internal foundation, lest we fall into blaming
others, and into the polarizing "us vs. them" ways which only
further divide us.
By reminding ourselves that the most powerful change starts
inside each one of us, we can develop more balance and
strength to then work towards positive change out in the world.
As we change ourselves from the inside out, we send ripples of
inspiration and healing out into the world.
By joining together in groups and communities to support each
other in this, those ripples become waves which are powerfully
helping to create a new paradigm for all of us.
The Want To Know.info Team is composed of researchers and
concerned citizens from around the globe dedicated to empowering
transformation of our lives and world. Some of these team members
have written key books which are summarized on this website, while
others have sent valuable information revealing major cover-ups.
All are courageous citizens who venture where many dare not go.
We share a deep commitment to inspiring us all to work together
to strengthen democracy, and to build a brighter future for us all.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/070707newparadigm
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
