A howling defiance into the darkness of the corporate state night
By Phil Rockstroh
Information Clearing House
Saturday, January 07, 2012
It is laughable (in a weeping outright sort of way) that Obama
and his fellow Democratic Party supporters and apologists can't
find a more resonant campaign theme than, "We carry out the
agendas of the national security/bankster/militarist state (i.e.,
the one percent) while appearing to be less crazy than Republicans."
The notion of even possessing a preference as to whom should be president of this crumbling, faux republic...is a bit like asking what color uniform one would prefer that the crew tasked with rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic should don as they go about their duties.
In times such as these, when escaping into one's comfort zone is
no longer a viable option, one is advised to evince the audacity
of hopelessness, because the act leaves one desperate enough to
embrace this daunting proposition:
"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
Although, for the present and foreseeable future, the propitious
aspects of the sentiment will not hold true for Bradley Manning…
whose plight displays the punitive, hyper-authoritarian nature of
late U.S. empire.
As is the case with Manning, in a national security state, few acts will cause one to lose his freedom in a more rapid manner than to reveal the secrets of lawless, ruthless power.
Apparently, Bradley Manning guarded secrets of his own…not
shameful ones--but traits that would cause him to become
subject to derision if revealed.
Manning desired to practice transvestism. This U.S. Army private
was privy to illusion. Innately, he grasped how being coerced into
suppressing one's secrets damages one's soul.
Manning merely harbored the desire to practice a bit of gender
bending; in contrast, the operatives of empire demand that they be
allowed to bend and twist the world itself towards their exploitative
ends.
To live in empire--in the service of its imperial military or in the
thrall of the pursuit of careerist vanity and consumerist compulsions-
-is to live a selfish lie, day in and day out.
Rupaul (Andre Charles) averred, "We all came into this world naked. The rest is all drag.”
We all make choices as to what form of drag we practice.
Does my lie promote the truth? Is my act educational, entertaining
or edifying? Does it allow me to inhabit my true self yet transcend
my narcissism?
Does my act and attendant actions bring balm or does it deliver
more suffering than necessary to a world where it is impossible
to escape suffering?
Ask yourself and those around you these questions in regard to
Private Manning and the operatives and denizens of U.S. Empire.
On the subject of identity, authentic or dubious: Even after being an almost constant public presence for more than half a decade, Barack Obama's true nature and authentic identity remains elusive.
After all this time, he still seems less man than marketing rollout, less of a political leader than an object lesson in product placement.
The situation is like having the role of chief executive of the nation filled with a disposable razor or a heavily hyped iPhone application.
The U.S. presidency, as is the case with almost all aspects of life in the corporate consumer state, has become increasingly dominated and defined by commercial/public relations-type legerdemain.
The constant commercial come-ons of the media hologram mask its hollow core; the proliferation of weightless lies serves to overwhelm the gravity of perilous times.
Obama's nebulous nature works to ensure the continued irrational
ardor of his supporters, who, against all evidence, insist on clinging
to fantasy and projection regarding the president's much in evidence
anti-democratic tendencies; hence, progressive types seem prone to
project their own redeeming qualities on the blank slate that Obama
creates and deploys as his public persona--a method similar to that
used by con artists who exploit the decency of their marks to
achieve their criminal ends.
Apropos, this indefensible, Bush-era type of deceit connecting 9/11
and the invasion and occupation of Iraq:
"The war in Iraq will soon belong to history. Your service belongs
to the ages. Never forget that you are part of an unbroken line
of heroes spanning two centuries — from the colonists who
overthrew an empire, to your grandparents and parents who faced
down fascism and communism, to you — men and women who fought
for the same principles in Fallujah and Kandahar, and delivered
justice to those who attacked us on 9/11.”— President Obama
speaking to troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., December 14, 2011
In this instance, the shape-shifter Obama morphs from hollow man
to Death's slick, narrow-ass, public relations representative.
I've noticed that debates with Obama's apologists have a very similar trajectory as those with Republican partisans.
Because partisans are hard pressed to explain away the affronts to
truthful discourse and good governance displayed by the politicians
they support, any attempt to engage them in debate involving the
merits (or lack thereof) of the policies of said politicians (e.g., their
unwavering support of the 1% and U.S. militarist imperium)--quickly
devolves into volleys of ad hominem attacks launched from the ranks
of their supporters.
For example, from the right, OWS activists are labeled dirty, America-hatin' hippies who supports swarthy terrorists, yet from the liberal camp, OWSers who refuse cooperation with the Democratic Party are cast as purer-than-thou types--too above it all to sully themselves by an acceptance of the pragmatic nature of political reality.
What is the reason for this irrational response from liberals--from
folks who scoff at teabaggers and religious fundamentalists for
their less than sane and sanguine approach to political discourse?
There is simply no reasonable way to defend the acts of our blood-
sustained empire abroad and the machinations of a predatory
economic elite at home; hence, the testiness evinced by the
enablers of the duopolistic state.
Withal, when I post an article or FaceBook status critical of
President Obama--the tone and tenure of the ensuing debate
with his defenders takes on a Bush era aura.
As a general rule, when the rationalizations of both Bush and
Obama supporters are countered with facts regarding their
dismal governance, the invectives fly.
Granted, the grammar and syntax of Obama apologists is superior to that of Republican loyalists--but their fallacy arguments are every bit as dodgy.
Consequently, the policies of both parties (bulwarked by the
concretized support of partisans) translate into unnecessary
suffering and death--the calling card and ground level criteria
of the oligarchic/imperialist state.
And sorry, Obama loyalists--your man is not the lesser-of-two evils candidate: He is among his peers.
In many ways, he has proven himself a more deceitful, ruthless crime boss than his predatory, Republican predecessors, in other words, the chief executive of a militarist empire.
The 1% and their advocates and operatives in the U.S. political class have thrown us to the wolves.
How does one make an ally of uncertainty and keep close the verities of the heart while negotiating this howling political wilderness?
Even in this era of oversized fear and diminished imagination, there are some among us--nonconformists, creative thinkers, artists and occupiers--who welcome (rather than cower before) the metaphorical image of wolves (that are recognize as fellow outcasts).
Instead of being shamed by outsider status, they have been suckled and raised by wolves--i.e., by embracing their fate of having been cast-out into the wilderness.
Nourished by the spirit of defiance, some thrive when freed from
the constraints of a habitual adherence to groupthink.
The dark terrain of societal abandonment becomes their natural
habitat: They howl at the moon; they reject the daylight world of
bland consensus; they learn to see in the dark, apprehending their
own interior darkness and, as a result, gaining understanding into
the hearts of darkness beating within those in power.
The wilderness of political activism, of poetry, of art becomes their
home: They don't clean-up nicely for the polite company demanded
by political duopoly; they don't let themselves be bred down (as a few
domesticated wolves did) to yapping Toy Poodles, in exchange for a
few food scraps.
When you're looking at a Toy Poodle--you're looking at a former wolf,
as, for example, when your looking at corporate press members,
you're looking at folks whose ancestors long ago were journalists.
One moment, you're loping through the woods, snout held high,
smelling the scent of fresh game on the wind, but the next thing
you know--you're being led around on a leash and collar, encrusted
with tacky rhinestones, and you're salivating at the sound of an
electric can-opener.
One moment, you're a child, entranced in play, hardwired to eternity--next moment, you're sitting at work and your passions, hopes and yearnings have been shrunk down to Toy Poodle-sized agendas . . . You're truckling for your boss's approval; you're counting the minutes until break time.
Like domesticated livestock and unfortunate animals incarcerated in zoos, you are no longer a noble animal--you have become a Thing That Waits For Lunch.
To resist, we must cast off the fear of being an outcast.
The signs bode well for us: Over the last few months, in the
company of the OWS pack, I have witnessed the awakening of many…
have been graced with the privilege of being in their lupine company
as we howled defiant into the darkness of the corporate state night.
One must remember this: We human beings are of nature as well.
Accordingly, within us lies an indomitable self, encoded with the grace and fury of the natural world, and, if acknowledged and respected, our authentic nature will awaken and arise.
Then the real dogfight begins: The fur will fly, as we fight, fang and
claw, to retake the lost landscape of our collective humanity, and,
by extension, begin the struggle to restore health, imagination and
empathy to a nation of cage-accepting, imperium-countenancing, sick puppies.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in
New York City. He may be contacted at: phil@philrockstroh.com
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30167.htm
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
To Uncle Sam Social Activism Equals Terrorism
To Uncle Sam Social Activism Equals Terrorism
By Brennan Browne
Activist Post
January 04, 2012
Are you a devoted, grassroots activist with an effective strategy for feeding the hungry? Sheltering the homeless? Giving aid, compassion and equal consideration to both human and non-human beings? Are you dedicated to protecting the environment and promoting peace?
If so, Uncle Sam wants YOU.
He may not recognize your efforts immediately, but if you are
successful in your field, well organized and making a difference
in the lives of those he has abandoned, then rest assured, he will
find you.
Uncle Sam keeps tight purse strings on programs he feels do not further his goals. Social safety nets are out -- saving the sick and desperately needy is far too expensive.
He prefers to spend like a drunken sailor -- on himself.
He uses the bulk of his money to attain more power and wealth
by commandeering other countries' resources.
Being the violent old geezer he is, endless and expanding carnage
is the strategy of choice in his ongoing global plunder.
Uncle Sam also needs every dollar he can choke out of his own
citizens, whom he considers nothing more than 313 million
individual ATMs.
He needs this money because he is grossly corrupt and egregiously irresponsible in his allocation of the money he receives.
It's not that there isn't more than enough money; there is, but
Uncle Sam diverts most of it to pay his cronies at the top,
because whether it be his corporate partners, Wall Street
parasites, predatory, thieving banksters, legions of warmongers
or the now ubiquitous surveillance pimps, all must share in the
spoils of their unholy alliance, and this leaves little for the rest
of us.
You would think in supporting so much evil, Uncle Sam would be grateful to those who lessen his financial burden.
By privately funding programs which aid the most abused, ignored and forgotten within society, conscientious activists never ask him for a single dime. Through creativity, hard work and shoestring budgets, industrious citizens have found countless ways to improve lives and circumvent our Uncle's involvement (or lack thereof).
Perhaps this is what's pissing him off.
Maybe he can't handle the fact that instead of sitting back in desperation and waiting for the moldy crumbs he flicks in our direction, some of us have empowered ourselves to help others.
And we didn't need obscene wealth or elite connections to do it.
Maybe because of the overbearing monstrosity he has become,
he can't stand being disenfranchised and relegated to the back
seat treatment he regularly dishes out, but obviously can't take.
Like the famous Twilight Zone episode in which a vile-spirited,
adolescent bully "wishes people away to the cornfield" who don't
agree with him, Uncle Sam spends an inordinate amount of time
and resources on creating, then "tracking down" phantom terrorists
social progressives to the rest of us -- to imprison, publicly smear
and assassinate, both figuratively and literally.
Through a never-ending campaign of fear-based, neo-fascist politicizing, non-violent acts of civil disobedience and/or exercising the First Amendment, are now categorized as "terrorism."
According to Uncle Sam's vastly expanding terrorist database(s)
we have (growing) millions of individuals who pose a threat to
our totalitarian "freedoms" in America.
If you have ever volunteered your energy or money to help
disadvantaged people, non-humans or the environment,
consider yourself on his terrorist list.
Uncle Sam's 'war on terror' has reached absurdly ridiculous, asinine levels.
As an outlandish example -- one which sounds like a plot straight out of a comic strip -- he believes veganism (those who choose not to consume or buy animal-derived products due to their aversion to non-human suffering, environmental degradation and health concerns) constitutes a terrorist lifestyle.
This is why he finds it necessary to infiltrate vegan potlucks. He
feels that anyone taking a view that "ALL life is sacred" and doesn't
just pay it empty, hypocritical, neocon lip service, must be a sick,
twisted bastard poised to violently overthrow the government. (No
one ever said Uncle Sam possessed common sense, sanity or was
the sharpest pair of cleats on the field.)
His self-serving philosophy is that if a real terrorist threat doesn't exist -- invent one.
He considers this a capitalistic strategy for generating and funneling vast sums of wealth to the corporate surveillance and military communities, as well as luring a complicit, ill-informed or gullible Congress into believing there is a legitimate need for funding trillions more to fight his largely manufactured version of reality.
The masses of unquestioning, compliant rubes who do his bidding, facilitate his omnipotent presence.
He demands ALL in return for NOTHING and expects a joyous acceptance of his increasingly sadistic injustices.
When he feels threatened, our Uncle is a harsh taskmaster. Case in point: Individuals being illegally arrested for recording video on their cellphones. He considers the ubiquitous cellphone a weapon if it is pointed in his direction as he commits acts of unjustified barbarity against his own citizens.
His hypocrisy is legendary.
While giving rousing speeches espousing democratic principles to
the rest of the world (ironically, in police states which he funds and
controls), he crushes them at home.
Uncle Sam is the uninvited guest at the dinner table who engages in
a slew of outrageous, repulsive habits which showcase his gluttony,
despotism and contempt for those forced to feed his cancerous addictions.
His stench invades and permeates every facet of life as he denies, rapes and splays open everyone else's privacy and rights, while increasingly granting himself god-like status and shielding his own dark and evil perversions.
While there is no concrete way of knowing whether you are on his
delusion-based terrorist list, you can assume that if you are a
decent, empathy-filled individual with a strong sense of fairness
and justice, who is attempting to better our world through social
activism, you probably are.
The following is Wikipedia's definition of 'domestic terrorism' as outlined by the FBI. If one removes all references to "government" (which I have done) it becomes apparent that Uncle Sam is the biggest domestic and international terrorist cell of all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_terrorism_in_the_United
_States
According to a memo produced by the FBI's Terrorist Research and Analytical Center in 1994, domestic terrorism was defined as "the unlawful use of force or violence, committed by a group(s) of two or more individuals, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."
Under current United States law, set forth in the USA PATRIOT Act,
acts of domestic terrorism are those which: "(A) involve acts
dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws
of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended to
intimidate or coerce a civilian population; or to affect conduct by
mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur
primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States."
Uncle Sam's war isn't on terror. Perhaps he needs to change his
catch phrase to reflect reality.
He has become, more correctly, the perfect 'proxy' terrorist,
creating far more destruction and fear to his citizens than any
group of foreign zealots with a religious agenda ever could have.
Uncle Sam's war is bent on annihilating the best humanity has to offer.
Caring, compassionate people who should be lauded for getting off their duffs and unselfishly doing something to elevate humanity.
Using government agents and turncoat snitches in an attempt to provoke individuals into committing "terrorist" acts is a widespread ploy as the FBI infiltrates groups with absolutely no history of violence: Peacenik coffee clatches, vegan potlucks, Granny's knitting circles, local book club meet-ups, groups feeding the homeless and giving assistance to the poor; these are "home-grown extremists or potential al-Qaeda hotbeds" of terrorism only in the minds of those who need a good long rest in a rubber room and lots of psychiatric help.
Of course, it must now be obvious to many, that none of these
government crackdowns are about terrorism or inside threats to
our 'democracy'.
Put simply, we currently have the finest army of corporate goons money can buy and this is the real reason social justice activists are being targeted for persecution, prosecution and imprisonment -- to smooth the way toward total enslavement by an ever more diseased system run by psychopathic monsters.
By Brennan Browne © Copyright. Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media if this credit is attached and the title and content remain unchanged. Brennan is a freelance writer whose commentaries have appeared on web media and numerous blogs.
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/to-uncle-sam-social-activism
-equals.html#more
By Brennan Browne
Activist Post
January 04, 2012
Are you a devoted, grassroots activist with an effective strategy for feeding the hungry? Sheltering the homeless? Giving aid, compassion and equal consideration to both human and non-human beings? Are you dedicated to protecting the environment and promoting peace?
If so, Uncle Sam wants YOU.
He may not recognize your efforts immediately, but if you are
successful in your field, well organized and making a difference
in the lives of those he has abandoned, then rest assured, he will
find you.
Uncle Sam keeps tight purse strings on programs he feels do not further his goals. Social safety nets are out -- saving the sick and desperately needy is far too expensive.
He prefers to spend like a drunken sailor -- on himself.
He uses the bulk of his money to attain more power and wealth
by commandeering other countries' resources.
Being the violent old geezer he is, endless and expanding carnage
is the strategy of choice in his ongoing global plunder.
Uncle Sam also needs every dollar he can choke out of his own
citizens, whom he considers nothing more than 313 million
individual ATMs.
He needs this money because he is grossly corrupt and egregiously irresponsible in his allocation of the money he receives.
It's not that there isn't more than enough money; there is, but
Uncle Sam diverts most of it to pay his cronies at the top,
because whether it be his corporate partners, Wall Street
parasites, predatory, thieving banksters, legions of warmongers
or the now ubiquitous surveillance pimps, all must share in the
spoils of their unholy alliance, and this leaves little for the rest
of us.
You would think in supporting so much evil, Uncle Sam would be grateful to those who lessen his financial burden.
By privately funding programs which aid the most abused, ignored and forgotten within society, conscientious activists never ask him for a single dime. Through creativity, hard work and shoestring budgets, industrious citizens have found countless ways to improve lives and circumvent our Uncle's involvement (or lack thereof).
Perhaps this is what's pissing him off.
Maybe he can't handle the fact that instead of sitting back in desperation and waiting for the moldy crumbs he flicks in our direction, some of us have empowered ourselves to help others.
And we didn't need obscene wealth or elite connections to do it.
Maybe because of the overbearing monstrosity he has become,
he can't stand being disenfranchised and relegated to the back
seat treatment he regularly dishes out, but obviously can't take.
Like the famous Twilight Zone episode in which a vile-spirited,
adolescent bully "wishes people away to the cornfield" who don't
agree with him, Uncle Sam spends an inordinate amount of time
and resources on creating, then "tracking down" phantom terrorists
social progressives to the rest of us -- to imprison, publicly smear
and assassinate, both figuratively and literally.
Through a never-ending campaign of fear-based, neo-fascist politicizing, non-violent acts of civil disobedience and/or exercising the First Amendment, are now categorized as "terrorism."
According to Uncle Sam's vastly expanding terrorist database(s)
we have (growing) millions of individuals who pose a threat to
our totalitarian "freedoms" in America.
If you have ever volunteered your energy or money to help
disadvantaged people, non-humans or the environment,
consider yourself on his terrorist list.
Uncle Sam's 'war on terror' has reached absurdly ridiculous, asinine levels.
As an outlandish example -- one which sounds like a plot straight out of a comic strip -- he believes veganism (those who choose not to consume or buy animal-derived products due to their aversion to non-human suffering, environmental degradation and health concerns) constitutes a terrorist lifestyle.
This is why he finds it necessary to infiltrate vegan potlucks. He
feels that anyone taking a view that "ALL life is sacred" and doesn't
just pay it empty, hypocritical, neocon lip service, must be a sick,
twisted bastard poised to violently overthrow the government. (No
one ever said Uncle Sam possessed common sense, sanity or was
the sharpest pair of cleats on the field.)
His self-serving philosophy is that if a real terrorist threat doesn't exist -- invent one.
He considers this a capitalistic strategy for generating and funneling vast sums of wealth to the corporate surveillance and military communities, as well as luring a complicit, ill-informed or gullible Congress into believing there is a legitimate need for funding trillions more to fight his largely manufactured version of reality.
The masses of unquestioning, compliant rubes who do his bidding, facilitate his omnipotent presence.
He demands ALL in return for NOTHING and expects a joyous acceptance of his increasingly sadistic injustices.
When he feels threatened, our Uncle is a harsh taskmaster. Case in point: Individuals being illegally arrested for recording video on their cellphones. He considers the ubiquitous cellphone a weapon if it is pointed in his direction as he commits acts of unjustified barbarity against his own citizens.
His hypocrisy is legendary.
While giving rousing speeches espousing democratic principles to
the rest of the world (ironically, in police states which he funds and
controls), he crushes them at home.
Uncle Sam is the uninvited guest at the dinner table who engages in
a slew of outrageous, repulsive habits which showcase his gluttony,
despotism and contempt for those forced to feed his cancerous addictions.
His stench invades and permeates every facet of life as he denies, rapes and splays open everyone else's privacy and rights, while increasingly granting himself god-like status and shielding his own dark and evil perversions.
While there is no concrete way of knowing whether you are on his
delusion-based terrorist list, you can assume that if you are a
decent, empathy-filled individual with a strong sense of fairness
and justice, who is attempting to better our world through social
activism, you probably are.
The following is Wikipedia's definition of 'domestic terrorism' as outlined by the FBI. If one removes all references to "government" (which I have done) it becomes apparent that Uncle Sam is the biggest domestic and international terrorist cell of all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_terrorism_in_the_United
_States
According to a memo produced by the FBI's Terrorist Research and Analytical Center in 1994, domestic terrorism was defined as "the unlawful use of force or violence, committed by a group(s) of two or more individuals, against persons or property to intimidate or coerce the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."
Under current United States law, set forth in the USA PATRIOT Act,
acts of domestic terrorism are those which: "(A) involve acts
dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws
of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended to
intimidate or coerce a civilian population; or to affect conduct by
mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur
primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States."
Uncle Sam's war isn't on terror. Perhaps he needs to change his
catch phrase to reflect reality.
He has become, more correctly, the perfect 'proxy' terrorist,
creating far more destruction and fear to his citizens than any
group of foreign zealots with a religious agenda ever could have.
Uncle Sam's war is bent on annihilating the best humanity has to offer.
Caring, compassionate people who should be lauded for getting off their duffs and unselfishly doing something to elevate humanity.
Using government agents and turncoat snitches in an attempt to provoke individuals into committing "terrorist" acts is a widespread ploy as the FBI infiltrates groups with absolutely no history of violence: Peacenik coffee clatches, vegan potlucks, Granny's knitting circles, local book club meet-ups, groups feeding the homeless and giving assistance to the poor; these are "home-grown extremists or potential al-Qaeda hotbeds" of terrorism only in the minds of those who need a good long rest in a rubber room and lots of psychiatric help.
Of course, it must now be obvious to many, that none of these
government crackdowns are about terrorism or inside threats to
our 'democracy'.
Put simply, we currently have the finest army of corporate goons money can buy and this is the real reason social justice activists are being targeted for persecution, prosecution and imprisonment -- to smooth the way toward total enslavement by an ever more diseased system run by psychopathic monsters.
By Brennan Browne © Copyright. Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media if this credit is attached and the title and content remain unchanged. Brennan is a freelance writer whose commentaries have appeared on web media and numerous blogs.
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/to-uncle-sam-social-activism
-equals.html#more
Sunday, January 1, 2012
The Rain and the Reckoning
The Rain and the Reckoning
"...and soon now we shall go out of the house and go into
the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and
the awful responsibility of Time."
- Robert Penn Warren
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout.org
January 01, 2012
Dewey Square, the patch of earth in the shadow of the Federal
Reserve Building and One Financial Center that Occupy Boston
protesters called home from September to December, is empty
now.
The same can be said for the original Occupy space at UC Davis,
where a dozen kneeling and defenseless protesters were hosed
down with pepper spray, and for Oakland, where the police
rioted and very nearly killed a two-tour Marine Corps veteran
of Iraq.
Occupy encampments sprang up in hundreds of cities in all fifty
states of the union over these last four months. Many, if not most,
are gone now, done in by police invasion or uncooperative weather,
or both.
You may have noticed the sudden lack of attention paid to the
Occupy movement, now that the gendarmes of the status quo
have wielded their truncheons and rolled up the encampments
like so many windowshades.
Nightly reports by the "mainstream" news media about Occupy
actions all across the country have dwindled to almost nil, and
for those so disposed, this is a good thing.
The roused rabble have been crushed and scattered, and all this talk
of inequality and justice can finally be replaced with what has for so
long now been the real American anthem: everything is fine, nothing
to see here, your betters are in control, go back to work.
The uprising has been quelled, it would seem, and it is time to
consign the Occupy movement to the dustbin of history. Nothing,
but nothing, but nothing, could be further from the truth.
This is not over. Not by a long, long chalk. It is not over because
the American conversation has been irrevocably altered in ways
both subtle and sublime.
For those predisposed to rocking the boat, the Occupy movement
has provided an opportunity to give voice to the overarching sense
that matters in America have gone horribly wrong: uncounted
thousands dead in a war of choice that provided a wonderful
opportunity for the transfer of hundreds of billions of taxpayer
dollars into the bloated coffers of "defense" contractors with friends
in high places; billions more stolen in broad daylight by Wall Street
gangsters; billions more given back by way of "bailouts" - read:
socialism - to these same gangsters thanks to the aforementioned
high-placed friends; no jobs, and no jobs, and no jobs, because it
is more important to score political points than it is to ease the
suffering of millions.
For those not immediately predisposed to boat-rocking - the fathers who lay awake at night worrying about mortgage payments, the mothers with sick children who live in terror of the mailman bringing more medical bills, the retail workers making a shamefully substandard minimum wage who are holding on by their fingernails - such highblown talk has always been drowned out by the necessities and requirements of the immediate present.
Who has time to camp out in Zuccotti Park when there are bills to pay, mouths to feed and time-cards to punch?
And yet...and yet...
And yet those same hard-working over-burdened Americans who
have been thus far unable to take up the Occupy banner - who, in
many instances, dismiss the whole thing with a contemptuous "Get
a job, hippie" - are the same Americans who have had a bug put in
their ear, and the buzzing of that bug will not go away.
Four months of national dialogue about fair taxation, burden-sharing
and the overwhelming power of the corporate state have done their
work, and done it well.
The conversation in America about wealth and power has been
redirected: instead of blindly worshipping the power and prestige
of these Sheriffs of Nottingham, who drink the sweat and blood of
the toilers for their sustenance and entertainment, a great many
people have been made to remember Robin Hood, and what the
genuine definition of fairness, equality and patriotism really is.
The story of America on the eve of this new year can be summed
up by the old tale of the two donkeys who meet on the road.
The first donkey is fresh as a daisy, unencumbered, brushed and
bright-eyed. The second donkey is tired and broken, sad-eyed and
swaybacked from the monstrous burden he carries.
The first donkey looks at the second donkey and says, "Boy, that's
quite a load you're carrying." The second donkey looks at the first
donkey in exhausted confusion and replies, "What load?"
Get it?
The second donkey had been carrying his burden for so long that he
no longer even realizes it is there, though his back breaks from the
strain.
For generations now, that has been the sorry lot of the 99%, but it
will not be so in 2012; after carrying the load for so long that they
didn't even see it anymore - a fact that suits the 1% right down to
the ground, mind you - a vast majority of Americans have finally
looked up from their fruitless toiling, seen the unfair and over-
burdensome load they carry, and recognized the fundamental
injustice that has left them as beaten and swaybacked as that
donkey on the road.
Occupy is not over.
We come now to another winter of our discontent, and though
the tents and signs and shouts of the movement have been
momentarily subdued, they will return.
Spring is coming, the rocks are already rolling down the
mountainside and while there is still time for the pebbles
to catch up, gravity is an absolute.
Sooner or later, those rocks will reach the reckoning that has been
so long in coming, and when that happens, nothing in this country
will be the same again.
With Spring comes the rain, and the rain is coming to this dry and
thirsty land.
The rain is coming.
By God and sonny Jesus, the rain is coming.
William Rivers Pitt is a Truthout editor and columnist. He is also a
New York Times and internationally bestselling author who lives and
works in Boston.
http://www.truth-out.org/rain-and-reckoning/1325105757
"...and soon now we shall go out of the house and go into
the convulsion of the world, out of history into history and
the awful responsibility of Time."
- Robert Penn Warren
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout.org
January 01, 2012
Dewey Square, the patch of earth in the shadow of the Federal
Reserve Building and One Financial Center that Occupy Boston
protesters called home from September to December, is empty
now.
The same can be said for the original Occupy space at UC Davis,
where a dozen kneeling and defenseless protesters were hosed
down with pepper spray, and for Oakland, where the police
rioted and very nearly killed a two-tour Marine Corps veteran
of Iraq.
Occupy encampments sprang up in hundreds of cities in all fifty
states of the union over these last four months. Many, if not most,
are gone now, done in by police invasion or uncooperative weather,
or both.
You may have noticed the sudden lack of attention paid to the
Occupy movement, now that the gendarmes of the status quo
have wielded their truncheons and rolled up the encampments
like so many windowshades.
Nightly reports by the "mainstream" news media about Occupy
actions all across the country have dwindled to almost nil, and
for those so disposed, this is a good thing.
The roused rabble have been crushed and scattered, and all this talk
of inequality and justice can finally be replaced with what has for so
long now been the real American anthem: everything is fine, nothing
to see here, your betters are in control, go back to work.
The uprising has been quelled, it would seem, and it is time to
consign the Occupy movement to the dustbin of history. Nothing,
but nothing, but nothing, could be further from the truth.
This is not over. Not by a long, long chalk. It is not over because
the American conversation has been irrevocably altered in ways
both subtle and sublime.
For those predisposed to rocking the boat, the Occupy movement
has provided an opportunity to give voice to the overarching sense
that matters in America have gone horribly wrong: uncounted
thousands dead in a war of choice that provided a wonderful
opportunity for the transfer of hundreds of billions of taxpayer
dollars into the bloated coffers of "defense" contractors with friends
in high places; billions more stolen in broad daylight by Wall Street
gangsters; billions more given back by way of "bailouts" - read:
socialism - to these same gangsters thanks to the aforementioned
high-placed friends; no jobs, and no jobs, and no jobs, because it
is more important to score political points than it is to ease the
suffering of millions.
For those not immediately predisposed to boat-rocking - the fathers who lay awake at night worrying about mortgage payments, the mothers with sick children who live in terror of the mailman bringing more medical bills, the retail workers making a shamefully substandard minimum wage who are holding on by their fingernails - such highblown talk has always been drowned out by the necessities and requirements of the immediate present.
Who has time to camp out in Zuccotti Park when there are bills to pay, mouths to feed and time-cards to punch?
And yet...and yet...
And yet those same hard-working over-burdened Americans who
have been thus far unable to take up the Occupy banner - who, in
many instances, dismiss the whole thing with a contemptuous "Get
a job, hippie" - are the same Americans who have had a bug put in
their ear, and the buzzing of that bug will not go away.
Four months of national dialogue about fair taxation, burden-sharing
and the overwhelming power of the corporate state have done their
work, and done it well.
The conversation in America about wealth and power has been
redirected: instead of blindly worshipping the power and prestige
of these Sheriffs of Nottingham, who drink the sweat and blood of
the toilers for their sustenance and entertainment, a great many
people have been made to remember Robin Hood, and what the
genuine definition of fairness, equality and patriotism really is.
The story of America on the eve of this new year can be summed
up by the old tale of the two donkeys who meet on the road.
The first donkey is fresh as a daisy, unencumbered, brushed and
bright-eyed. The second donkey is tired and broken, sad-eyed and
swaybacked from the monstrous burden he carries.
The first donkey looks at the second donkey and says, "Boy, that's
quite a load you're carrying." The second donkey looks at the first
donkey in exhausted confusion and replies, "What load?"
Get it?
The second donkey had been carrying his burden for so long that he
no longer even realizes it is there, though his back breaks from the
strain.
For generations now, that has been the sorry lot of the 99%, but it
will not be so in 2012; after carrying the load for so long that they
didn't even see it anymore - a fact that suits the 1% right down to
the ground, mind you - a vast majority of Americans have finally
looked up from their fruitless toiling, seen the unfair and over-
burdensome load they carry, and recognized the fundamental
injustice that has left them as beaten and swaybacked as that
donkey on the road.
Occupy is not over.
We come now to another winter of our discontent, and though
the tents and signs and shouts of the movement have been
momentarily subdued, they will return.
Spring is coming, the rocks are already rolling down the
mountainside and while there is still time for the pebbles
to catch up, gravity is an absolute.
Sooner or later, those rocks will reach the reckoning that has been
so long in coming, and when that happens, nothing in this country
will be the same again.
With Spring comes the rain, and the rain is coming to this dry and
thirsty land.
The rain is coming.
By God and sonny Jesus, the rain is coming.
William Rivers Pitt is a Truthout editor and columnist. He is also a
New York Times and internationally bestselling author who lives and
works in Boston.
http://www.truth-out.org/rain-and-reckoning/1325105757
Thursday, December 29, 2011
2012
2012
By Kathleen Wallace Peine
Dissident Voice
December 29th, 2011
It is with a morbid curiosity that we face the upcoming New Year.
Not because of a cartoonish version of prophecy.
No, it’s a visceral knowing that many wrong and untenable creations are still alive and they threaten every thread in the fabric of what we know. And it’s inevitable to reflect when a New Year is looming.
I never quite understood why New Year’s didn’t fall on the very
first day after the winter solstice.
The days lengthen at that moment, hope beckons, but with our calender there is that lag, and during this lag week that we find ourselves in now, there is time to consider what awaits.
It’s not to say that it is an entirely terrible thing that much of this seems ready to topple. We’ve been complacent and ugly in the protection of our way of life.
Even if we don’t make the cruel decisions, much comfort is derived at the expense of others. A mounting debt, not of the fiscal kind, swirls on our horizon.
Oddly our way of life really doesn’t seem to make us anything but medicated, fat and plastic. And then shocked into a stunned puddle as it is inevitably stripped away, one by one — lay-off or medical bill — chose your middle class poison.
Deeply felt emotions are difficult to mine these days unless they are rage or crippling depression.
Flirting notions of change could lead to a world more of our making or an explosion of all that we find stifling and unholy. Collective hearts beat in unison, but we mistake the sound as being ours alone.
I’m scared and I know others are too, even if shaded by a ridiculous attempt at immortality via consumerism, our version of mummification.
Encase yourself in purchased crap, live forever. Canopic jars encase us while alive. But they were purchased at Pottery Barn 1/2 off!
In this year we have seen previously inconceivable issues like the indefinite detention of Americans being considered and soon likely implemented.
The last pretense of a government for the people was dissolved.
They no longer even feel the need to maintain the fairy tale notions.
It’s quite clear now.
A nation striving towards a linear future, one of growth and enlightenment is now fully evident as shadow and lie.
Those paying attention knew this prior, of course.
Exponential growth is not possible, and there is no linear movement of humanity as our descent into unhappiness and continuous strife prove.
We are not a nation that looks to the sky, we look down to our
wallets. We allowed them to tell us that things like income or
credit scores measured our true worth in these last decades.
We wasted time listening to people like this, and some planned
careers to fulfill artificial ideals of success. This will ultimately
prove to be as valuable as how many hearts the Aztecs carved
out on a particular day so long ago.
And now, those that fall to the side are thought to be weak, thought to be lacking, when really they just scare everyone….that unguarded moment of compassion allows our collective roots to be felt.
It’s but a blink of the eye. We are here, but they distract us from that fact and keep us in line, raging tickers flood our minds with nonsense.
We don’t voice love to each other even when we feel it as strongly
as a knife.
Some may say that it has always been so. That humans will always fall to the base of their nature and we are the culmination of this imperfect death impulse.
The sleepwalk to doom is the easier path.
But when asked “What was the first sign of civilization?” Margaret Mead answered “A healed human leg bone.” So where was the profit in that?
From these healers we find our ancestors. Cooperation without which we probably wouldn’t be here. There are still healers in our nature, but they have been hiding.
We feel a need to be punished and the new year looks poised to
do just that.
A clown show of politicians, ready to be popped out of the Mattel
box will bleed us as they smile this coming year.
Whether it will be the fraudulent hope in place or a new fraud
matter little.
The reality is such that they will continue to pull against humanity and the veil is certainly not lifted for most.
The Occupy movement is a luscious and beautiful spark, but it’s
not evident yet if it has the power to unravel so many years of
propaganda, so many years of greed.
This nation started with a premise – that of individual enrichment and worked backwards with philosophies to support that.
It’s a tall order to dismantle a framework of bones such as that.
But it’s not to say it’s impossible.
Truth and beauty have a power of their own, and this leaves me wondering. What is possible?
Our mere existence is improbable. We are facing the end of an Empire, the end of easily obtainable resources to power it all.
Though we aren’t there yet, I suspect those in power are
anticipating the upcoming difficulty in obtaining valuables
like fresh water and fossil fuels and they are trying to
solidify a feudal world before the fact.
It’s likely we will know by the end of 2012 if they are going to easily obtain this goal they seek. How easy will we make it for them?
With fear, love and solidarity I wish you the best of 2012.
Because like a stand of Aspens, we all hold the same fate – our roots locked in embrace during our shared moments of this short life.
Let us be brave and kind through this New Year, whatever it may bring.
Kathleen Wallace Peine welcomes reader response. She can be reached at: kathypeine@gmail.com
http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/12/2012/
By Kathleen Wallace Peine
Dissident Voice
December 29th, 2011
It is with a morbid curiosity that we face the upcoming New Year.
Not because of a cartoonish version of prophecy.
No, it’s a visceral knowing that many wrong and untenable creations are still alive and they threaten every thread in the fabric of what we know. And it’s inevitable to reflect when a New Year is looming.
I never quite understood why New Year’s didn’t fall on the very
first day after the winter solstice.
The days lengthen at that moment, hope beckons, but with our calender there is that lag, and during this lag week that we find ourselves in now, there is time to consider what awaits.
It’s not to say that it is an entirely terrible thing that much of this seems ready to topple. We’ve been complacent and ugly in the protection of our way of life.
Even if we don’t make the cruel decisions, much comfort is derived at the expense of others. A mounting debt, not of the fiscal kind, swirls on our horizon.
Oddly our way of life really doesn’t seem to make us anything but medicated, fat and plastic. And then shocked into a stunned puddle as it is inevitably stripped away, one by one — lay-off or medical bill — chose your middle class poison.
Deeply felt emotions are difficult to mine these days unless they are rage or crippling depression.
Flirting notions of change could lead to a world more of our making or an explosion of all that we find stifling and unholy. Collective hearts beat in unison, but we mistake the sound as being ours alone.
I’m scared and I know others are too, even if shaded by a ridiculous attempt at immortality via consumerism, our version of mummification.
Encase yourself in purchased crap, live forever. Canopic jars encase us while alive. But they were purchased at Pottery Barn 1/2 off!
In this year we have seen previously inconceivable issues like the indefinite detention of Americans being considered and soon likely implemented.
The last pretense of a government for the people was dissolved.
They no longer even feel the need to maintain the fairy tale notions.
It’s quite clear now.
A nation striving towards a linear future, one of growth and enlightenment is now fully evident as shadow and lie.
Those paying attention knew this prior, of course.
Exponential growth is not possible, and there is no linear movement of humanity as our descent into unhappiness and continuous strife prove.
We are not a nation that looks to the sky, we look down to our
wallets. We allowed them to tell us that things like income or
credit scores measured our true worth in these last decades.
We wasted time listening to people like this, and some planned
careers to fulfill artificial ideals of success. This will ultimately
prove to be as valuable as how many hearts the Aztecs carved
out on a particular day so long ago.
And now, those that fall to the side are thought to be weak, thought to be lacking, when really they just scare everyone….that unguarded moment of compassion allows our collective roots to be felt.
It’s but a blink of the eye. We are here, but they distract us from that fact and keep us in line, raging tickers flood our minds with nonsense.
We don’t voice love to each other even when we feel it as strongly
as a knife.
Some may say that it has always been so. That humans will always fall to the base of their nature and we are the culmination of this imperfect death impulse.
The sleepwalk to doom is the easier path.
But when asked “What was the first sign of civilization?” Margaret Mead answered “A healed human leg bone.” So where was the profit in that?
From these healers we find our ancestors. Cooperation without which we probably wouldn’t be here. There are still healers in our nature, but they have been hiding.
We feel a need to be punished and the new year looks poised to
do just that.
A clown show of politicians, ready to be popped out of the Mattel
box will bleed us as they smile this coming year.
Whether it will be the fraudulent hope in place or a new fraud
matter little.
The reality is such that they will continue to pull against humanity and the veil is certainly not lifted for most.
The Occupy movement is a luscious and beautiful spark, but it’s
not evident yet if it has the power to unravel so many years of
propaganda, so many years of greed.
This nation started with a premise – that of individual enrichment and worked backwards with philosophies to support that.
It’s a tall order to dismantle a framework of bones such as that.
But it’s not to say it’s impossible.
Truth and beauty have a power of their own, and this leaves me wondering. What is possible?
Our mere existence is improbable. We are facing the end of an Empire, the end of easily obtainable resources to power it all.
Though we aren’t there yet, I suspect those in power are
anticipating the upcoming difficulty in obtaining valuables
like fresh water and fossil fuels and they are trying to
solidify a feudal world before the fact.
It’s likely we will know by the end of 2012 if they are going to easily obtain this goal they seek. How easy will we make it for them?
With fear, love and solidarity I wish you the best of 2012.
Because like a stand of Aspens, we all hold the same fate – our roots locked in embrace during our shared moments of this short life.
Let us be brave and kind through this New Year, whatever it may bring.
Kathleen Wallace Peine welcomes reader response. She can be reached at: kathypeine@gmail.com
http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/12/2012/
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Occupy vs. Nihilism
All or Nothing at All
By Michael Meade, D.H.L.
Information Clearing House
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
The Occupy movement may be an instinctive response, not just to the greatest disparity of wealth and power in the history of America, but also to the emptying out of institutions and loss of meaning at all levels of life.
An underlying instinct to inhabit life more fully may be arising and taking root in different places for different reasons.
The message of Occupy may be "all over the place" because the
underlying message is about "place," about reclaiming and more
fully inhabiting public places, about being more present to the
critical issues in each place, and about taking one's own place in
life more fully.
A movement whose time has come keeps moving and keeps
changing; it morphs and alters itself because it represents
underlying changes that are only beginning to surface.
Although national in scope, each new occupation takes up local issues and takes on local style.
As the movement moves it stirs a wide range of issues and injustices waiting just under the skin of the country; that is what "grass roots" means.
Seeds are carried on the winds of change, take root in all kinds
of places, and sprout up everywhere at once.
Campuses and courthouses, parks and banks become places of intentional occupation as an instinctive, embodied response to the hollowing out of local as well as national institutions takes shape.
When Occupy appears on campuses the stunning emptiness and increasing meaninglessness of "higher education" as well as its outrageous cost is being highlighted.
When campus police appear as storm troopers ready to punish students for being more present and more engaged in their own education, the emptiness of the institutions themselves is being depicted.
University means a place of universal learning, not a staging ground for mindless careers or a franchise site for the blind continuance of the "business of education."
When mini-Occupy sites appear at individual houses threatened
with foreclosure and neighbors set aside typical disagreements
in order to protect each other's homes, the roots of community
are trying to resurface.
Genuine grass roots movements can cross typical "party lines" and dissolve class distinctions as the deep-rooted connections between people and the underlying dreams of the country rise up from below.
The difference and distance between those who inhabit the land
and those who rule the nation become revealed.
For, it is not simply that government has gotten too big, but that
it has become so empty of meaning and devoid of the values that
sustain common humanity.
Occupy can be an instinctive, collective response to the loss of meaning and spread of nihilism throughout the culture.
The Latin word nihil means "nothing at all;" absence as opposed to
a presence, emptiness instead of abundance, a lack of substance
rather than something substantial.
Nihilism refers to various "doctrines of negation" that tend to be reductionist, narrow-minded, and rejecting.
The spread of nihilism is one way of understanding what is currently happening where reductionist ideas, single-issue politics, and fixed ideologies make politics, public discourse, and public institutions increasingly empty of substance and lacking in meaning.
It is not just that the "do nothing" Congress appears to be a replica
of the old "know nothing party," but that it also represents an
underlying negation of life, an unconscious nihilistic movement that
threatens to drain meaning and justice from collective life.
It is not simply that the debates between "those who would be king"
lack genuine substance, but that the candidates aspire to so little
and reject so much.
It is not just that those who desire to lead seem so ready to reduce
elected office to simplistic tax pledges and the dull repetition of
ideas that lack both substance and imagination.
It is that they do it so willfully, so blindly, and with a bravado that surpasses egotism and seems intended to elevate narcissism to religious heights.
The bankrupting of the system allows those who are most empty of substance to rise to the top most readily. When winning is the only goal, everyone loses.
When Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich appear as ego-twins
trumpeting "big ideas" that are empty of true meaning, lacking in
genuine intention, and devoid of actual political value, something
is being said about the emptiness of both business and politics.
Something is being said about the loss of statesmanship and
absence of genuine ideas of governance, about the hopeless
collapse of the complexities of life into the most common
forms of commerce and self aggrandizement.
In the end, economics alone can never solve the problems of economics.
The desire to punish the poor, blame the disadvantaged, and force children into hard labor arises from willful ignorance as well as blind arrogance.
Notions of putting "poor kids" to work because they lack inner values
is not just regressive and possibly racist; it is not simply ignorant
and unfeeling; it is also another form of the doctrines of negation
that attack the meaning of individual lives.
Such hollow ideas may serve the narcissistic needs and short term
interests of a few, but what begins as simple negation can end in
nihilistic disaster as those with hollow ideas and hardened avoid the
real work of reviving the heart of culture and tending to the soul of
the country.
Nihilism also raises its reckless head in the coarse and dehumanizing
idea that a corporation can be a person.
No matter how many people "sell their souls to the corporation," the corporation can never become a person.
The idea of elevating a common business form to human status does not just distort reality, it also diminishes humanity.
Like any abstract entity, a corporation can readily dehumanize people because it has no soul and no real interest in individual life.
Such doctrines of negation are not "big ideas" as much as clever manipulations that occur when real ideas are absent.
The issue is not just financial corruption on a wide scale, but also that people have "bought a bill of goods" that have no long-term backing and have forgotten the common good.
The great crises and great movements of the world do not take place outside the human soul, but within the souls of those moved by the unseen forces of change.
At issue in all genuine movements is the suffering of the individual human soul and it is soul that is missing when no one can imagine ways out of the practical dilemmas of life.
The hidden meaning of Occupy may involve an instinctive response
to the threat of nihilism and the rise of emptiness; it may be a
collective attempt to find the heart and soul of America again.
Not "occupy" as a single-minded political statement, but the soulful
sense of occupying life in ways that return meaning and justice,
truth and beauty to the lives of individuals and communities, to
institutions and practices that are after all intended to serve the
people.
Occupy may be an instinctive vehicle for making life in its diverse and surprising forms more valuable and meaningful again.
The soul of a movement cannot be simply identified or be easily codified. Yet, soul is what brings people together and shapes new ways of being when the old ways have become mere rote or have hardened into fixed and unmovable attitudes.
Soul is what gives any movement depth, what gives any action meaning, what gives each life substance, authenticity, and genuine meaning.
The underlying notion of Occupy may be an inspiration to begin to occupy something, anything more fully before the spread of nihilistic attitudes and heartless policies leech all meaning from the land.
Occupy an idea, live with it, sleep with it, inhabit it until it becomes a kind of "gnosis," or genuine knowing.
Occupy a place because you love it or because it needs loving attention or simply because you need a place to be.
Find something that feels and smells authentic and occupy it fully in order to bring back life's natural state of diversity and abundance.
In the midst of all the change, confusion, and chaos, occupy your
own soul; for without soulful presence even momentous events can
become hollow and be reduced to political in-fighting and the seeds
of change can fail to take root.
Michael Meade, D.H.L., is a renowned storyteller, author and scholar of mythology, anthropology and psychology. - Founder, Mosaic Multicultural Foundation
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30074.htm
By Michael Meade, D.H.L.
Information Clearing House
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
The Occupy movement may be an instinctive response, not just to the greatest disparity of wealth and power in the history of America, but also to the emptying out of institutions and loss of meaning at all levels of life.
An underlying instinct to inhabit life more fully may be arising and taking root in different places for different reasons.
The message of Occupy may be "all over the place" because the
underlying message is about "place," about reclaiming and more
fully inhabiting public places, about being more present to the
critical issues in each place, and about taking one's own place in
life more fully.
A movement whose time has come keeps moving and keeps
changing; it morphs and alters itself because it represents
underlying changes that are only beginning to surface.
Although national in scope, each new occupation takes up local issues and takes on local style.
As the movement moves it stirs a wide range of issues and injustices waiting just under the skin of the country; that is what "grass roots" means.
Seeds are carried on the winds of change, take root in all kinds
of places, and sprout up everywhere at once.
Campuses and courthouses, parks and banks become places of intentional occupation as an instinctive, embodied response to the hollowing out of local as well as national institutions takes shape.
When Occupy appears on campuses the stunning emptiness and increasing meaninglessness of "higher education" as well as its outrageous cost is being highlighted.
When campus police appear as storm troopers ready to punish students for being more present and more engaged in their own education, the emptiness of the institutions themselves is being depicted.
University means a place of universal learning, not a staging ground for mindless careers or a franchise site for the blind continuance of the "business of education."
When mini-Occupy sites appear at individual houses threatened
with foreclosure and neighbors set aside typical disagreements
in order to protect each other's homes, the roots of community
are trying to resurface.
Genuine grass roots movements can cross typical "party lines" and dissolve class distinctions as the deep-rooted connections between people and the underlying dreams of the country rise up from below.
The difference and distance between those who inhabit the land
and those who rule the nation become revealed.
For, it is not simply that government has gotten too big, but that
it has become so empty of meaning and devoid of the values that
sustain common humanity.
Occupy can be an instinctive, collective response to the loss of meaning and spread of nihilism throughout the culture.
The Latin word nihil means "nothing at all;" absence as opposed to
a presence, emptiness instead of abundance, a lack of substance
rather than something substantial.
Nihilism refers to various "doctrines of negation" that tend to be reductionist, narrow-minded, and rejecting.
The spread of nihilism is one way of understanding what is currently happening where reductionist ideas, single-issue politics, and fixed ideologies make politics, public discourse, and public institutions increasingly empty of substance and lacking in meaning.
It is not just that the "do nothing" Congress appears to be a replica
of the old "know nothing party," but that it also represents an
underlying negation of life, an unconscious nihilistic movement that
threatens to drain meaning and justice from collective life.
It is not simply that the debates between "those who would be king"
lack genuine substance, but that the candidates aspire to so little
and reject so much.
It is not just that those who desire to lead seem so ready to reduce
elected office to simplistic tax pledges and the dull repetition of
ideas that lack both substance and imagination.
It is that they do it so willfully, so blindly, and with a bravado that surpasses egotism and seems intended to elevate narcissism to religious heights.
The bankrupting of the system allows those who are most empty of substance to rise to the top most readily. When winning is the only goal, everyone loses.
When Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich appear as ego-twins
trumpeting "big ideas" that are empty of true meaning, lacking in
genuine intention, and devoid of actual political value, something
is being said about the emptiness of both business and politics.
Something is being said about the loss of statesmanship and
absence of genuine ideas of governance, about the hopeless
collapse of the complexities of life into the most common
forms of commerce and self aggrandizement.
In the end, economics alone can never solve the problems of economics.
The desire to punish the poor, blame the disadvantaged, and force children into hard labor arises from willful ignorance as well as blind arrogance.
Notions of putting "poor kids" to work because they lack inner values
is not just regressive and possibly racist; it is not simply ignorant
and unfeeling; it is also another form of the doctrines of negation
that attack the meaning of individual lives.
Such hollow ideas may serve the narcissistic needs and short term
interests of a few, but what begins as simple negation can end in
nihilistic disaster as those with hollow ideas and hardened avoid the
real work of reviving the heart of culture and tending to the soul of
the country.
Nihilism also raises its reckless head in the coarse and dehumanizing
idea that a corporation can be a person.
No matter how many people "sell their souls to the corporation," the corporation can never become a person.
The idea of elevating a common business form to human status does not just distort reality, it also diminishes humanity.
Like any abstract entity, a corporation can readily dehumanize people because it has no soul and no real interest in individual life.
Such doctrines of negation are not "big ideas" as much as clever manipulations that occur when real ideas are absent.
The issue is not just financial corruption on a wide scale, but also that people have "bought a bill of goods" that have no long-term backing and have forgotten the common good.
The great crises and great movements of the world do not take place outside the human soul, but within the souls of those moved by the unseen forces of change.
At issue in all genuine movements is the suffering of the individual human soul and it is soul that is missing when no one can imagine ways out of the practical dilemmas of life.
The hidden meaning of Occupy may involve an instinctive response
to the threat of nihilism and the rise of emptiness; it may be a
collective attempt to find the heart and soul of America again.
Not "occupy" as a single-minded political statement, but the soulful
sense of occupying life in ways that return meaning and justice,
truth and beauty to the lives of individuals and communities, to
institutions and practices that are after all intended to serve the
people.
Occupy may be an instinctive vehicle for making life in its diverse and surprising forms more valuable and meaningful again.
The soul of a movement cannot be simply identified or be easily codified. Yet, soul is what brings people together and shapes new ways of being when the old ways have become mere rote or have hardened into fixed and unmovable attitudes.
Soul is what gives any movement depth, what gives any action meaning, what gives each life substance, authenticity, and genuine meaning.
The underlying notion of Occupy may be an inspiration to begin to occupy something, anything more fully before the spread of nihilistic attitudes and heartless policies leech all meaning from the land.
Occupy an idea, live with it, sleep with it, inhabit it until it becomes a kind of "gnosis," or genuine knowing.
Occupy a place because you love it or because it needs loving attention or simply because you need a place to be.
Find something that feels and smells authentic and occupy it fully in order to bring back life's natural state of diversity and abundance.
In the midst of all the change, confusion, and chaos, occupy your
own soul; for without soulful presence even momentous events can
become hollow and be reduced to political in-fighting and the seeds
of change can fail to take root.
Michael Meade, D.H.L., is a renowned storyteller, author and scholar of mythology, anthropology and psychology. - Founder, Mosaic Multicultural Foundation
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30074.htm
Friday, December 23, 2011
You Are The Battlefield
You Are The Battlefield
By Zen Gardner
Before It's News.com
December 23, 2011
There's no looking for crowd validation. There's no waiting for outside redemption.
There's no collective bargaining to rely on. The awakening is you.
Only you.
That's what all this ruckus is about. The battle for your spirit and soul.
And that's the boat each of us is in. There is nothing more important in this life for you, or me, than waking up. Once that's straightened out the rest will follow.
How we perceive the world around us creates and reinforces the world around us.
Once we become conscious and aware that this existing matrix
we're witnessing is an arbitrary creation manipulated by power-
crazed puppeteers, however you perceive them, that is when the
change happens.
And the Universe will tell you what to do from there. That's what
to respond to. Nothing else. That's your job. That's my job. Don't
shirk it when it happens.
Enjoy Your Earthly Suit, But Rediscover Who You Truly Are
Like me, you are sitting inside, or somewhat near anyway,
the body you chose to be in. We're looking through and
freely operating these amazing biological machines on a
fabulous planet.
And, "Wow, there appears to be a whole lot of other beings like
me walking around! Where am I? What am I here for? And what
am I supposed to do?"
I know, jumped off the deep end there, but that's exactly our predicament. And what immediately sets in once we arrive?
As young children we have this abandon as we experience
this incredible place and all its feelings, sights and sounds.
We screech with delight, sing made up songs, swing our
arms around wildly, and run in place. We just express!
Then what happens?
We start to conform to what we're seeing, as well as what we're
being told.
We become more regimented and are herded into classrooms
and categories.
We start feeling social pressures and are then handed this
fundamental doctrine of insecurity where fear and scarcity
become our main drivers.
Your purpose in life now is to "fit in and get a job" so you
won't run out of money or food.
Your internal, conscious response? "This is strange. Everything's
a problem here. Sure didn't feel that way when I arrived."
The Illusory Attachment Trap
The main trick of the illusory world around us is to make us think
we're somehow attached to it, and therefore dependent, and that
we need to conform to this world we're viewing.
We tend to judge by the standards we're exposed to, and act accordingly.
We base our lives and actions around these perceived behavior patterns, which in turn gradually dull the voice of conscious awareness.
You might have noticed how blind people, such as entertainers
Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, gesticulate totally freely, rocking
their heads while singing or talking, and have wildly free facial
expressions, almost as if they're handicapped.
Obviously they're not. But it strikes you. They're free from
visual conformity. They don't know how everyone else acts.
They're free to physically express their emotions without having
to conform to the suppressed, fearful conformist nature of our
hung up society.
They don't know you don't rock back and forth, shake your head
and smile so broad your face almost cracks. How liberating!
And that principle can be applied across the board.
We judge so much by how we think it will measure up to the world around us rather than just express what we're thinking and feeling openly.
Whether with close friends and family, our peer group, or the message we pick up in public or from the media, we're being programmed.
Programmed to not respond to obvious needs, but to strange,
shallow self-serving impulses. Just like everyone else.
You can say that's just natural, but it's not. It's induced behavior
from a manipulated and self-regulating created collective.
Natural for the matrix, but not for a conscious human being, especially when the crowd is clearly going the wrong way.
But who's looking when you're sleep walking.
The Cost of Vicarious Living and Beyond
In the end most humans end up living a vicarious life, acting out the projection they think they're supposed to live up to. That's bondage.
The yardstick is acceptance rather than truth or conscience.
This is heavily reinforced through education, the media and the
existing paradigm they've succeeded in creating. It appears to be
the only option out there...but only to the unawakened.
But there's a price to pay.
Everything. Waking up costs everything.
So what? What are you saving up for? Aren't you paying that price anyway even if you're not waking up?
Life always costs everything.
You'll leave here eventually, like me, and the cost will be your life.
How did you spend it?
Consciously, or trying to conform, and using that to hide behind
to justify living as a comfortable, selfish, lazy brain donor to
the system you're too afraid to buck?
That's the battlefield. You. Me. It goes no further.
What we see playing out in the world is a bunch of you's and me's
deciding if they'll live consciously and truly respond to that still,
small voice within them, or not.
The sad reality is almost every one of them has been duped into
being fixated on what all the other "me's" are doing in order to
keep up with the projected reality.
It's like a school of fish feverishly clinging together in response
to a perceived predator.
The only thing is, for conscious, spiritual reality there is no predator.
That's the secret. We are eternal consciousness having an experience.
The way to solve these problems is to re-create the perceived
reality through conscious awareness and conscious actions.
When You Get the Call, Take It!
We, individually, have to change first.
We have to commit to consciousness, get free of entanglements
and live a conscious life.
The rest has little meaning until we get out of the matrix ourselves.
If each of us would get that message the phony world structure would crumble in a minute.
Every soldier would drop his weapon and go home.
Every politician would wake up as if out of a dream and go be with his family.
Every policeman would lay down his gun, take off his uniform, and
go help someone in need, smiling and greeting people on his way.
It's you. It's me. Your personal world and experience is the only one you'll ever know. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Just let consciousness be your guide.
But act on it.
And don't fret too much about what it is you're supposed to do. You'll know it when you see it.
It comes in the form of little things, little decisions, the rest follows.
Learn to listen to that voice and act accordingly and it gets louder and louder.
Just walk away from what you know to be wrong, and do what you know to be right.
It's not that hard once you start. And again, once you get your boat
in motion, the rudder will take effect.
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lao Tzu
...Now go for it. I can't wait to hear about it!
Love, Zen
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1539/287/NL/You_Are_The_Battle
field.html
By Zen Gardner
Before It's News.com
December 23, 2011
There's no looking for crowd validation. There's no waiting for outside redemption.
There's no collective bargaining to rely on. The awakening is you.
Only you.
That's what all this ruckus is about. The battle for your spirit and soul.
And that's the boat each of us is in. There is nothing more important in this life for you, or me, than waking up. Once that's straightened out the rest will follow.
How we perceive the world around us creates and reinforces the world around us.
Once we become conscious and aware that this existing matrix
we're witnessing is an arbitrary creation manipulated by power-
crazed puppeteers, however you perceive them, that is when the
change happens.
And the Universe will tell you what to do from there. That's what
to respond to. Nothing else. That's your job. That's my job. Don't
shirk it when it happens.
Enjoy Your Earthly Suit, But Rediscover Who You Truly Are
Like me, you are sitting inside, or somewhat near anyway,
the body you chose to be in. We're looking through and
freely operating these amazing biological machines on a
fabulous planet.
And, "Wow, there appears to be a whole lot of other beings like
me walking around! Where am I? What am I here for? And what
am I supposed to do?"
I know, jumped off the deep end there, but that's exactly our predicament. And what immediately sets in once we arrive?
As young children we have this abandon as we experience
this incredible place and all its feelings, sights and sounds.
We screech with delight, sing made up songs, swing our
arms around wildly, and run in place. We just express!
Then what happens?
We start to conform to what we're seeing, as well as what we're
being told.
We become more regimented and are herded into classrooms
and categories.
We start feeling social pressures and are then handed this
fundamental doctrine of insecurity where fear and scarcity
become our main drivers.
Your purpose in life now is to "fit in and get a job" so you
won't run out of money or food.
Your internal, conscious response? "This is strange. Everything's
a problem here. Sure didn't feel that way when I arrived."
The Illusory Attachment Trap
The main trick of the illusory world around us is to make us think
we're somehow attached to it, and therefore dependent, and that
we need to conform to this world we're viewing.
We tend to judge by the standards we're exposed to, and act accordingly.
We base our lives and actions around these perceived behavior patterns, which in turn gradually dull the voice of conscious awareness.
You might have noticed how blind people, such as entertainers
Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, gesticulate totally freely, rocking
their heads while singing or talking, and have wildly free facial
expressions, almost as if they're handicapped.
Obviously they're not. But it strikes you. They're free from
visual conformity. They don't know how everyone else acts.
They're free to physically express their emotions without having
to conform to the suppressed, fearful conformist nature of our
hung up society.
They don't know you don't rock back and forth, shake your head
and smile so broad your face almost cracks. How liberating!
And that principle can be applied across the board.
We judge so much by how we think it will measure up to the world around us rather than just express what we're thinking and feeling openly.
Whether with close friends and family, our peer group, or the message we pick up in public or from the media, we're being programmed.
Programmed to not respond to obvious needs, but to strange,
shallow self-serving impulses. Just like everyone else.
You can say that's just natural, but it's not. It's induced behavior
from a manipulated and self-regulating created collective.
Natural for the matrix, but not for a conscious human being, especially when the crowd is clearly going the wrong way.
But who's looking when you're sleep walking.
The Cost of Vicarious Living and Beyond
In the end most humans end up living a vicarious life, acting out the projection they think they're supposed to live up to. That's bondage.
The yardstick is acceptance rather than truth or conscience.
This is heavily reinforced through education, the media and the
existing paradigm they've succeeded in creating. It appears to be
the only option out there...but only to the unawakened.
But there's a price to pay.
Everything. Waking up costs everything.
So what? What are you saving up for? Aren't you paying that price anyway even if you're not waking up?
Life always costs everything.
You'll leave here eventually, like me, and the cost will be your life.
How did you spend it?
Consciously, or trying to conform, and using that to hide behind
to justify living as a comfortable, selfish, lazy brain donor to
the system you're too afraid to buck?
That's the battlefield. You. Me. It goes no further.
What we see playing out in the world is a bunch of you's and me's
deciding if they'll live consciously and truly respond to that still,
small voice within them, or not.
The sad reality is almost every one of them has been duped into
being fixated on what all the other "me's" are doing in order to
keep up with the projected reality.
It's like a school of fish feverishly clinging together in response
to a perceived predator.
The only thing is, for conscious, spiritual reality there is no predator.
That's the secret. We are eternal consciousness having an experience.
The way to solve these problems is to re-create the perceived
reality through conscious awareness and conscious actions.
When You Get the Call, Take It!
We, individually, have to change first.
We have to commit to consciousness, get free of entanglements
and live a conscious life.
The rest has little meaning until we get out of the matrix ourselves.
If each of us would get that message the phony world structure would crumble in a minute.
Every soldier would drop his weapon and go home.
Every politician would wake up as if out of a dream and go be with his family.
Every policeman would lay down his gun, take off his uniform, and
go help someone in need, smiling and greeting people on his way.
It's you. It's me. Your personal world and experience is the only one you'll ever know. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Just let consciousness be your guide.
But act on it.
And don't fret too much about what it is you're supposed to do. You'll know it when you see it.
It comes in the form of little things, little decisions, the rest follows.
Learn to listen to that voice and act accordingly and it gets louder and louder.
Just walk away from what you know to be wrong, and do what you know to be right.
It's not that hard once you start. And again, once you get your boat
in motion, the rudder will take effect.
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Lao Tzu
...Now go for it. I can't wait to hear about it!
Love, Zen
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1539/287/NL/You_Are_The_Battle
field.html
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Money Power World Rule
Money Power World Rule
By Stephen Lendman
Media With Conscience
December 21, 2011
The late Georgetown University historian Carroll Quigley said in
his book titled, "Tragedy and Hope:"
"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim,
nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in
private hands able to dominate the political system of each country
and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be
controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world
acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent
private meetings and conferences."
By controlling democratic and despotic governments as well as others
in between they've moved closer to absolute global control of money,
credit and debt to dominate economies, politics, commerce, and
imperial adventurism.
As a result, they've benefitted handsomely at the expense of nations and popular interests.
Josiah Stamp, former Director of the Bank of England said:
"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again."
"However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like
mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be
a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain
the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let
them continue to create money."
Aesop said "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones
to public office."
Bankers with money power are the most pernicious of all.
Ellen Brown's must-read book titled, "Web of Debt" discussed private
banking, how it usurped money creation power, and how we can get
it back.
She explained what growing numbers know about the malignant
effects of its destructive power. Everyone should understand that
the Fed isn't federal. It's a private banking cartel owned by its major
bank members in 12 Fed districts. New York has controlling power
through its majority interest.
As a result, the Fed rules globally with the European Central Bank,
Bank of England, and Bank of Japan. They're the world's dominant
central banks along with the Bank for International Settlements -
the central bank for central bankers, or unaccountable banking
boss of bosses.
In America, except for coins, banks create money called Federal
Reserve notes, in violation of the Constitution under Article I,
Section 8 that gives Congress sole power "To coin (create) money
(and) regulate the value thereof....;"
Coins and paper money comprise less than 3 percent of America's money supply. The rest is in computer entries for loans.
Banks create money that didn't previously exist. Around 30% of it is for their private accounts - for speculation and other non-productive purposes.
A 1960s Chicago Fed booklet called Modern Money Mechanics explained how through "fractional reserve" banking, saying:
"(Banks) do not really pay out loans from the money they receive
as deposits. If they did this, no additional money would be created.
What they do when they make loans is to accept promissory notes
in exchange for credits to the borrowers' transaction accounts."
Money is created by "building up" deposits in the form of
loans. They, in turn, become more deposits, not the reverse.
The system goes back centuries based on the idea that
paper receipts can be issued and loaned out repeatedly.
Under the gold standard, enough had to be held in reserve so depositors had access to their money.
Today it's run the presses, anything goes, and print it like
confetti, even if currency debasement's risked.
Fractional reserve banking literally creates money out of thin
air. It's then used to create multiples more.
Unlike previous times, today's major banks are "giant betting machine(s)."
Traditional banking is a lost art, at least at the mega-bank level. Most, or at least many, community ones operate responsibly.
Run recklessly, banking giants use multi-trillions for high-risk casino-type operations, through devices like derivatives and securitization scams.
Since Andrew Jackson's presidency (1829 - 1837), the federal debt
hasn't been paid off, only interest to bankers and other owners of
US obligations.
The 16th Amendment let Congress levy an income tax so bankers could be paid interest on federal debt.
If America controlled its own money, it would be interest-free,
and taxing people to pay it wouldn't be necessary.
Early colonists did it. So did Lincoln. Why not now by returning
money power to public hands where it belongs. Onerous taxes
would be minimized or eliminated.
Money for productive growth could be created inflation-free. Prosperity could be sustained. Full employment and social justice would be possible.
Imagine that America.
Imagine the entire world that way, instead of one plagued booms, busts, inflation, deflation, instability, crisis, and perhaps the greatest ever Depression today bankers caused for their own self-interest to achieve greater consolidation, wealth and power.
In September 2010, a trader named Alessio Rastani on BBC
said "governments don't rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules
the world." As a result, “(t)he savings of millions of people
are going to vanish."
Warning viewers to prepare, he said the "economic crisis is like
a cancer. If you just wait and wait thinking this will go away, just
like a cancer it's going to grow and it's going to be too late."
He added that most traders "don't really care about having a fixed
economy, having a fixed situation. Our job is to make money from"
whatever goes on, up or down, good or bad. "Personally, I've been
dreaming of this moment for three years. I go to bed every night
and I dream of another recession."
"When the market crashes....if you know what to do, if you have
the right plan set up, you can make a lot of money from this."
In 1929, rampant fraud caused the crash.
In summer 2007, market scholar/analyst Jeremy Grantham warned of a "slow-motion train wreck" caused by "the first truly global bubble."
Market manipulated speculation caused it. Money power in private hands gamed the system destructively.
Supposedly, the Fed was established to stabilize the economy, smooth out the business cycle, maintain healthy sustainable growth, create price stability, control inflation, and work for the betterment of everyone.
The 1978 Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act (called the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act) was enacted to fulfill the mandate of the Employment Act of 1946 by pursuing "maximum employment, production, purchasing power," price stability, and balanced trade cooperatively with private enterprise.
It also required the Fed to pursue monetary policy for long-term
sustainable growth with minimum inflation and stable prices.
Specific goals included maximum unemployment of no more than
3% for persons aged 20 or over, not more than 4% for those aged
16 or over, and inflation not exceeding 4%.
In fact, a 1988 target of zero inflation was set. The law let
Congress revise goals over time, but its purpose was to achieve
sustainable, full employment low inflationary growth with Fed
governors providing responsible monetary policy to help.
Instead, before and after Humphrey-Hawkins, they've been
economic crashes, multiple recessions, instability, high
inflation, soaring unemployment, the Great Depression, and
today's Greatest Depression expected to persist for years
and leave incalculable human wreckage behind.
Fed policy also caused soaring consumer debt, record budget
and current account deficits, an unprecedented national debt
at exceeding 118% of GDP rising exponentially, high levels of
personal bankruptcies and mortgage loan defaults, America's
manufacturing base offshored abroad, a secular declining
economy, an unprecedented wealth disparity, over one third
of US households impoverished, eroding social services, and a
nation pursuing unbridled militarism helped by Fed complicity
funding it.
A Final Comment
Clearly, money power in private hands failed.
It's wrecking the country, devastating the American dream,
impoverishing millions, destroying jobs, contaminating the
environment, and funding America's military machine that's
ravaging the world one country at a time, and threatening
humanity with extinction.
Job one should be stopping this monster from doing more harm, returning money power to public hands, using it responsibly to restore what decades of Fed policy destroyed, and hope it's not already too late.
OWS and global protesters must grasp this as top goal to achieve others for long-denied social justice currently being lost entirely because corrupt politicians plan it with bankers.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for
Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be
reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net
http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/15643-money-power-world-
rule.html
By Stephen Lendman
Media With Conscience
December 21, 2011
The late Georgetown University historian Carroll Quigley said in
his book titled, "Tragedy and Hope:"
"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim,
nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in
private hands able to dominate the political system of each country
and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be
controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world
acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent
private meetings and conferences."
By controlling democratic and despotic governments as well as others
in between they've moved closer to absolute global control of money,
credit and debt to dominate economies, politics, commerce, and
imperial adventurism.
As a result, they've benefitted handsomely at the expense of nations and popular interests.
Josiah Stamp, former Director of the Bank of England said:
"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again."
"However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like
mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be
a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain
the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let
them continue to create money."
Aesop said "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones
to public office."
Bankers with money power are the most pernicious of all.
Ellen Brown's must-read book titled, "Web of Debt" discussed private
banking, how it usurped money creation power, and how we can get
it back.
She explained what growing numbers know about the malignant
effects of its destructive power. Everyone should understand that
the Fed isn't federal. It's a private banking cartel owned by its major
bank members in 12 Fed districts. New York has controlling power
through its majority interest.
As a result, the Fed rules globally with the European Central Bank,
Bank of England, and Bank of Japan. They're the world's dominant
central banks along with the Bank for International Settlements -
the central bank for central bankers, or unaccountable banking
boss of bosses.
In America, except for coins, banks create money called Federal
Reserve notes, in violation of the Constitution under Article I,
Section 8 that gives Congress sole power "To coin (create) money
(and) regulate the value thereof....;"
Coins and paper money comprise less than 3 percent of America's money supply. The rest is in computer entries for loans.
Banks create money that didn't previously exist. Around 30% of it is for their private accounts - for speculation and other non-productive purposes.
A 1960s Chicago Fed booklet called Modern Money Mechanics explained how through "fractional reserve" banking, saying:
"(Banks) do not really pay out loans from the money they receive
as deposits. If they did this, no additional money would be created.
What they do when they make loans is to accept promissory notes
in exchange for credits to the borrowers' transaction accounts."
Money is created by "building up" deposits in the form of
loans. They, in turn, become more deposits, not the reverse.
The system goes back centuries based on the idea that
paper receipts can be issued and loaned out repeatedly.
Under the gold standard, enough had to be held in reserve so depositors had access to their money.
Today it's run the presses, anything goes, and print it like
confetti, even if currency debasement's risked.
Fractional reserve banking literally creates money out of thin
air. It's then used to create multiples more.
Unlike previous times, today's major banks are "giant betting machine(s)."
Traditional banking is a lost art, at least at the mega-bank level. Most, or at least many, community ones operate responsibly.
Run recklessly, banking giants use multi-trillions for high-risk casino-type operations, through devices like derivatives and securitization scams.
Since Andrew Jackson's presidency (1829 - 1837), the federal debt
hasn't been paid off, only interest to bankers and other owners of
US obligations.
The 16th Amendment let Congress levy an income tax so bankers could be paid interest on federal debt.
If America controlled its own money, it would be interest-free,
and taxing people to pay it wouldn't be necessary.
Early colonists did it. So did Lincoln. Why not now by returning
money power to public hands where it belongs. Onerous taxes
would be minimized or eliminated.
Money for productive growth could be created inflation-free. Prosperity could be sustained. Full employment and social justice would be possible.
Imagine that America.
Imagine the entire world that way, instead of one plagued booms, busts, inflation, deflation, instability, crisis, and perhaps the greatest ever Depression today bankers caused for their own self-interest to achieve greater consolidation, wealth and power.
In September 2010, a trader named Alessio Rastani on BBC
said "governments don't rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules
the world." As a result, “(t)he savings of millions of people
are going to vanish."
Warning viewers to prepare, he said the "economic crisis is like
a cancer. If you just wait and wait thinking this will go away, just
like a cancer it's going to grow and it's going to be too late."
He added that most traders "don't really care about having a fixed
economy, having a fixed situation. Our job is to make money from"
whatever goes on, up or down, good or bad. "Personally, I've been
dreaming of this moment for three years. I go to bed every night
and I dream of another recession."
"When the market crashes....if you know what to do, if you have
the right plan set up, you can make a lot of money from this."
In 1929, rampant fraud caused the crash.
In summer 2007, market scholar/analyst Jeremy Grantham warned of a "slow-motion train wreck" caused by "the first truly global bubble."
Market manipulated speculation caused it. Money power in private hands gamed the system destructively.
Supposedly, the Fed was established to stabilize the economy, smooth out the business cycle, maintain healthy sustainable growth, create price stability, control inflation, and work for the betterment of everyone.
The 1978 Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act (called the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act) was enacted to fulfill the mandate of the Employment Act of 1946 by pursuing "maximum employment, production, purchasing power," price stability, and balanced trade cooperatively with private enterprise.
It also required the Fed to pursue monetary policy for long-term
sustainable growth with minimum inflation and stable prices.
Specific goals included maximum unemployment of no more than
3% for persons aged 20 or over, not more than 4% for those aged
16 or over, and inflation not exceeding 4%.
In fact, a 1988 target of zero inflation was set. The law let
Congress revise goals over time, but its purpose was to achieve
sustainable, full employment low inflationary growth with Fed
governors providing responsible monetary policy to help.
Instead, before and after Humphrey-Hawkins, they've been
economic crashes, multiple recessions, instability, high
inflation, soaring unemployment, the Great Depression, and
today's Greatest Depression expected to persist for years
and leave incalculable human wreckage behind.
Fed policy also caused soaring consumer debt, record budget
and current account deficits, an unprecedented national debt
at exceeding 118% of GDP rising exponentially, high levels of
personal bankruptcies and mortgage loan defaults, America's
manufacturing base offshored abroad, a secular declining
economy, an unprecedented wealth disparity, over one third
of US households impoverished, eroding social services, and a
nation pursuing unbridled militarism helped by Fed complicity
funding it.
A Final Comment
Clearly, money power in private hands failed.
It's wrecking the country, devastating the American dream,
impoverishing millions, destroying jobs, contaminating the
environment, and funding America's military machine that's
ravaging the world one country at a time, and threatening
humanity with extinction.
Job one should be stopping this monster from doing more harm, returning money power to public hands, using it responsibly to restore what decades of Fed policy destroyed, and hope it's not already too late.
OWS and global protesters must grasp this as top goal to achieve others for long-denied social justice currently being lost entirely because corrupt politicians plan it with bankers.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for
Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be
reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net
http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/15643-money-power-world-
rule.html
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