You're a meek little thing.

I suppose you think you will inherit the earth.



Americans seem to be mesmerized or intimidated. The banker/gov theft goes on with barely a ripple.


In London some are trying to stand up and make their voices heard during the G20 summit, so the government and media step up a psyops operation of fear and try to discourage those who have only good intentions.


A Metropolitan police officer stands guard at the area where a suspect package was found in front of the The Bank of England in London, England, 31 March 2009. The City, London's financial district, is undergoing heavy police scrutiny as it braces for protests before and during Thursday's G20 summit. more photos

Fear terrorists will use G20 protests

LONDON - Thousands of extra police are patrolling London's streets ahead of tonight's expected start of G20 summit protests amid fears that terrorists could capitalise on the presence of tens of thousands of unruly protesters to launch an attack.

The convergence of the two threats comes as Britain is already on "severe" alert, meaning security officials believe an attack is highly likely. more

Highly likely?

Protest should be the backbone of taking back control of our lives and our country.

The majority of Americans are sleepy.

Characters and Cartoons

art: Helene Terlien

America scarfs up the world and shits on it

By Frank Zappa

The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents — because they have a tame child-creature in their house.

The first thing you have to do if you want to raise nice kids, is you have to talk to them like they are people instead of talking to them like they're property.

Children are naïve -- they trust everyone. School is bad enough, but, if you put a child anywhere in the vicinity of a church, you're asking for trouble.

It pays to make the U.S. school system a crock of shit because the dumber the people are that come out, the easier it is to draft them, make them into docile consumers, or, you know, mongo employees. There are plenty of yuppies out there with absolutely nothing upstairs. Graduate airheads with PhDs and everything but they don't know anything.

Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.

If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT!

We're involved in sort of a low key war against apathy. Most of what we do is designed to annoy people to the point where they might just for a second question enough of their environment to do something about it. As long as they don't feel their environment, they don't worry about it — they're not gonna do anything to change it. Something's gotta be done before America scarfs up the world and shits on it.

from Vegan School 101.....hat tip to Dave Warwak

Censored by the New York Times: The Story Behind a Political Cartoon that the Publisher didn't want you to see

by Kitchen Table Cartoons

End the War on Drugs - Ron Paul

We have recently heard many shocking stories of brutal killings and ruthless violence related to drug cartels warring with Mexican and US officials. It is approaching the fever pitch of a full blown crisis. Unfortunately, the administration is not likely to waste this opportunity to further expand government. Hopefully, we can take a deep breath and look at history for the optimal way to deal with this dangerous situation, which is not unprecedented.

Alcohol prohibition in the 1920’s brought similar violence, gangs, lawlessness, corruption and brutality. The reason for the violence was not that making and selling alcohol was inherently dangerous. The violence came about because of the creation of a brutal black market which also drove profits through the roof. These profits enabled criminals like Al Capone to become incredibly wealthy, and militantly defensive of that wealth. Al Capone saw the repeal of Prohibition as a great threat, and indeed smuggling operations and gangland violence fell apart after repeal. Today, picking up a bottle of wine for dinner is a relatively benign transaction, and beer trucks travel openly and peacefully along their distribution routes.

Similarly today, the best way to fight violent drug cartels would be to pull the rug out from under their profits by bringing these transactions out into the sunlight. People who, unwisely, buy drugs would hardly opt for the back alley criminal dealer as a source, if a coffeehouse-style dispensary was an option. Moreover, a law-abiding dispensary is likely to check ID’s and refuse sale to minors, as bars and ABC stores tend to do very diligently. Think of all the time and resources law enforcement could save if they could instead focus on violent crimes, instead of this impossible nanny-state mandate of saving people from themselves!

If these reasons don’t convince the drug warriors, I would urge them to go back to the Constitution and consider where there is any authority to prohibit private personal choices like this. All of our freedoms – the freedom of religion and assembly, the freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, the right to be free from unnecessary government searches and seizures – stem from the precept that you own yourself and are responsible for your own choices. Prohibition laws negate self-ownership and are an absolute affront to the principles of freedom. I disagree vehemently with the recreational use of drugs, but at the same time, if people are only free to make good decisions, they are not truly free. In any case, states should decide for themselves how to handle these issues and the federal government should respect their choices.

My great concern is that instead of dealing deliberatively with the actual problems, Congress will be pressed again to act quickly without much thought or debate. I can’t think of a single problem we haven’t made worse that way. The panic generated by the looming crisis in Mexico should not be redirected into curtailing more rights, especially our second amendment rights, as seems to be in the works. Certainly, more gun laws in response to this violence will only serve to disarm lawful citizens. This is something to watch out for and stand up against. We have escalated the drug war enough to see it only escalates the violence and profits associated with drugs. It is time to try freedom instead.

Ron Paul

*************

Drugs and Guns

The New York Times has an article about the drug war activities in Mexico: In Drug War, Mexico Fights Cartel and Itself

They mention Hillary Clinton's well-publicized statements:

At the same time, American drug users are fueling demand for the drugs, and American guns are supplying the firepower wielded with such ferocity by Mexico's cartels -- a reality acknowledged by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her trip to Mexico last week.

Calderon has also complained about the American guns, and a lot of people (including politicians) have been talking about the need to stop the smuggling of guns across the Mexican border - guns easily bought at gun shows and retail stores in the United States.

This has led to more calls to militarize the border and stop smuggling both ways (people who say we can just stop smuggling by doing a better job of border control don't quite understand the amount of legal traffic and trade across that border. Truly effective interdiction efforts would hurt the economy of both countries.)

And yet, let's take a closer look at those guns...

On night patrol in Reynosa in November, soldiers came upon some suspicious men, who led them to a house that was packed with armaments for the drug cartels -- 540 rifles, 165 grenades, 500,000 rounds of ammunition and 14 sticks of dynamite. [...]

The war analogy is not a stretch for parts of Mexico. Soldiers, more than 40,000 of them, are confronting heavily armed paramilitary groups on city streets. The military-grade weapons being used, antitank rockets and armor-piercing munitions, for example, are the same ones found on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Are these being bought at gun shows in the U.S.? Unlikely.

Anybody who has followed the drug war in Mexico knows that there is another factor that is heavily involved here...

The cartels bring in billions of dollars more than the Mexican government spends to defeat them, and they spend their wealth to bolster their ranks with an untold number of politicians, judges, prison guards and police officers -- so many police officers, in fact, that entire forces in cities across Mexico have been disbanded and rebuilt from scratch.

If you can own politicians and police forces, do you really need to smuggle individual handguns in from another country?

Bill Conroy at NarcoNews has done excellent reporting on the drug war and gets to the bottom of this in Legal U.S. Arms Exports May Be Source of Narco Syndicates' Rising Firepower

The Obama administration is now sending hundreds of additional federal agents to the border in an effort to interdict this illegal arms smuggling to reassure an agitated middle-America that Uncle Sam will get these bad guys. The cascade of headlines from mainstream media outlets printing drug-war pornography assures us in paragraphs inserted between the titillation that the ATF's Operation Gunrunner and other similar get-tough on gun-seller programs will save America from the banditos of Mexico.

But in reality, while the main weapons are getting to the cartels from the U.S., they're not being smuggled into Mexico, and so no interdiction efforts will help.

The deadliest of the weapons now in the hands of criminal groups in Mexico, particularly along the U.S. border, by any reasonable standard of an analysis of the facts, appear to be getting into that nation through perfectly legal private-sector arms exports, measured in the billions of dollars, and sanctioned by our own State Department. These deadly trade commodities -- grenade launchers, explosives and "assault" weapons --are then, in quantities that can fill warehouses, being corruptly transferred to drug trafficking organizations via their reach into the Mexican military and law enforcement agencies, the evidence indicates.

That's right, the ultimate source of the guns used by the cartels in Mexico? The U.S. government.

Hey, why should we be surprised? After all, one of the most dangerous groups in Mexico -- the mercenary army for Mexico's Gulf Cartel -- is Los Zetas, which we helped train at Fort Benning in rapid deployment, aerial assaults, marksmanship, ambushes, small-group tactics, intelligence collection, and counter-surveillance techniques. So why shouldn't we be supplying them the weapons as well?

Conroy follows the trail of the shipments of legal guns to Mexico, noting that while these weapons could be traced...

But that assumes the Mexican government, and our own government, really want to trace those weapons. A November 2008 report in the San Antonio Express News, which includes details of the major weapons seizure in Reynosa, Mexico, that same month involving the Zetas, reveals the following:

Another example of coordination problems occurred this month. Mexican authorities in Reynosa across the border from McAllen, seized the country's single largest stash of cartel weapons -- nearly 300 assault rifles, shoulder-fired grenade launchers and a half million rounds of ammunition.

But weeks later, Mexican authorities still have not allowed the ATF access to serial numbers that would help them track down the buyers and traffickers on the U.S. side.

[...] A former DEA agent, who also asked not to be named, says the shipment of military-grade weapons to the Mexican government under the DCS program, given the extent of corruption within that government, is essentially like "shipping weapons to a crime syndicate."

Conroy also notes that the State Department's Blue Lantern program, which monitors the end-use of commercially exported defense articles had 634 cases in FY' 2007, of which 143 were deemed "unfavorable."

So we're fighting an escalating drug war where both sides are funded and supplied by... us.

Over and over again in the drug war, we find the same kind of thing. The more we fight the drug war, the more damage we cause -- more corruption, more violence, more criminal activity.

A strange game.

The only winning move is not to play.

How about a nice game of chess?

from Drug War Rant

*************

It is Tue Mar 31 2009

Money Spent on the War On Drugs this Year

Federal State Total

History Lesson for Today: The Capitalist-Communist Connection

By Matthew D. Jarvie

SovereignSentience.blogspot.com

The Capitalist-Communist Connection Part 1 - video

The Capitalist-Communist Connection Part 2 - video

Excerpt from a 1980 interview with Professor Antony C. Sutton, highlighting the capitalist-communist connection.

From Sutton's book 'Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution' (1974):

While monopoly control of industries was once the objective of J.P. Morgan and J.D. Rockefeller, by the late nineteenth century the inner sanctums of Wall Street understood that the most efficient way to gain an unchallenged monopoly was to "go political" and make society go to work for the monopolists -- under the name of the public good and the public interest. This strategy was detailed in 1906 by Frederick C. Howe in his Confessions of a Monopolist. [1] Howe, by the way, is also a figure in the story of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Therefore, an alternative conceptual packaging of political ideas and politico-economic systems would be that of ranking the degree of individual freedom versus the degree of centralized political control. Under such an ordering the corporate welfare state and socialism are at the same end of the spectrum. Hence we see that attempts at monopoly control of society can have different labels while owning common features.

Consequently, one barrier to mature understanding of recent history is the notion that all capitalists are the bitter and unswerving enemies of all Marxists and socialists. This erroneous idea originated with Karl Marx and was undoubtedly useful to his purposes. In fact, the idea is nonsense. There has been a continuing, albeit concealed, alliance between international political capitalists and international revolutionary socialists -- to their mutual benefit. This alliance has gone unobserved largely because historians -- with a few notable exceptions -- have an unconscious Marxian bias and are thus locked into the impossibility of any such alliance existing. The open-minded reader should bear two clues in mind: monopoly capitalists are the bitter enemies of laissez-faire entrepreneurs; and, given the weaknesses of socialist central planning, the totalitarian socialist state is a perfect captive market for monopoly capitalists, if an alliance can be made with the socialist powerbrokers. Suppose -- and it is only hypothesis at this point -- that American monopoly capitalists were able to reduce a planned socialist Russia to the status of a captive technical colony? Would not this be the logical twentieth-century internationalist extension of the Morgan railroad monopolies and the Rockefeller petroleum trust of the late nineteenth century?

********
Wall Street, Freemasonry and the Bolshevik Revolution

Video

Consensus history teaches that capitalism and communism are at opposite ends of the political-economic spectrum, and that communism is the bitter enemy of capitalism. In some ways this may be true. But those at the top of the global banking system -- who are often labeled "greedy capitalists" -- are not by any means classical, free-market capitalists. They are monopoly capitalists who are after complete control. They exercise their control over the people by their control over the money supply. Perhaps this can all be best summed up by one of the conspirators themselves; for instance, John D. Rockefeller, who once stated "competition is a sin."

Communism IS monopoly capitalism. Lenin once stated that "communism is socialism in a hurry." Communism is often brought about through violent and bloody revolution, whereas socialism often takes a more incremental and stealthy approach. However, the end game is still the same. For the past many decades, the countries of the West have been gradually moving in the direction of socialism, as people are losing more and more of their freedoms while government becomes bigger and ever more encroaching upon people's rights, often under the pretense of solving the problems the system itself creates (poverty, crime, terrorism) to gain more control.

In order to have monopoly control over the people, you must first gain monopoly control over government through the issuance of credit (debt creation). This is what the international bankers have done.

This video takes a brief look at the role that the Anglo-American financiers played in fomenting the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, marking the rise of communism in Russia, and a dialectical antithesis to capitalism that would play out on a global scale, moving us ever closer to the "third way" synthesis of a one world government, currency and military.
by Matthew D. Jarvie

Israeli War Crimes are 'Rumors'

Just like Israel's attack on the USS Liberty was a 'rumor.'

Or the Mossad involvement in 9/11 is a 'rumor.'

How about that 'rumor' about Palestine being "A land without a people for a people without a land."

Perhaps it is also a 'rumor' that God has a 'chosen people.'


Israel has said it did everything it could to prevent casualties among Gaza civilians [AFP]

IDF ends Gaza probe, says misconduct claims are 'rumors'

By Anshel Pfeffer and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents, and Reuters

Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Avichai Mendelblit on Monday instructed the Military Police Investigation unit to close the inquiry into soldiers' accounts of alleged misconduct and serious violations of the army's rules of engagement during Operation Cast Lead.

He said it was unfortunate that the soldiers, who discussed their Gaza experiences in private on Feb. 13 at a military academy session which was later leaked verbatim to the media, had been careless about accuracy.

"It will be difficult to evaluate the damage done to the image and morals [of the armed forces] in Israel and the world", his statement said.

In a press release issued Monday the army said that the preliminary Military Police investigation into the testimonies revealed that they "were based on hearsay and not first-hand experience."

The Israeli human rights groups B'Tselem, Yesh Din, Physicians for Human Rights and others issued a statement Monday saying "the speedy closing of the investigation immediately raises suspicions that [it] was merely the army's attempt to wipe its hands of all blame for illegal activity..."
more

G20 Globalists Face 'Burn a Banker' Backlash

more G20 protest photos

Rightfully so, trust in world leaders and globalist bankers is virtually non-existent among the working class. Although their concerns are all the political map, the Brits show a little spunk in the outcry against the manufactured economic crisis and the 'leaders' who are willing participants in crimes against humanity.

It's unlikely any relief for the people will come from this summit. It's likely that the secret sessions will move us closer to a one world currency and further the chasm between the rich and the poor.

To protect the 'dignitaries' from harm, Scotland Yard is coordinating the most expensive police operation in British history. To enhance the world perception that anti-globalists are violent anarchists, agent provocateurs may be in place to make sure that conflict occurs in the streets of London.


The City of London must be protected and some 'tough' bankers say to bring it on.

March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Graham Williams, an insurance company director, has a warning for protesters planning to bring London’s financial district to a standstill this week: “We’re not all pansies.”

As officials in the City of London advise financial workers to dress down and avoid confrontation with demonstrators from groups such as the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination and Anarchist Federation, some bankers and brokers are pledging to keep their suits crisply pressed and ties firmly knotted.

“Most us have played rugby or boxed,” said Williams, 66. “If any of those guys do get violent against us individually because we’re wearing a suit, we will take action.”

Protesters plan to target London bankers for their role in the financial meltdown as G-20 leaders gather in the city to discuss their response. Police estimate 1,500 campaigners will try to block roads and prevent people from getting to work in central London, home to the London Stock Exchange, Bank of England and the European headquarters of JPMorgan Chase & Co., on April 1, which demonstrators have dubbed Financial Fools Day.

“What we’re seeing with these groups is certainly an intention to cause us problems or to cause the city’s institutions problems,” Commander Bob Broadhurst of the Metropolitan Police said in a written statement.

The London Chamber of Commerce is advising employees of financial firms to stagger their arrivals, cancel meetings and shed their suits to lessen the impact of the protests. About 300,000 people work in the City, mostly in financial services, according to the City of London police.

Already some most likely 'patsies' have been arrested to show that the police are on top of the situation.

G20 summit 'terror plot' uncovered

Police have discovered “suspicious devices” along with imitation firearms and a number of other weapons.

Three men aged 25, 19, and 16 and two women aged 20, who all live in Plymouth or the surrounding area, were arrested between Friday and Sunday, police said.

“As the search progressed officers found a number of weapons and suspected imitation weapons as well material relating to political ideology,” a spokesman said.

The spokesman said there was no suggestion of Islamic extremists being involved and added: “Those arrested are not believed, at this stage, to be part of a national or larger operation.”

A police source said: “At this time this enquiry would appear to be regarding political activity involving British nationals.”

Imitation weapons?? Sounds dangerous.


Good ole Joe "I am a Zionist" Biden chimed in:

US Vice-President Joe Biden has called for G20 protesters to give governments a chance to tackle the economic crisis.

At a G20 warm-up meeting in Chile, Mr Biden said heads of state would agree proposals to remedy the crisis at next week's meeting in London.

and

US billionaire George Soros told the BBC the G20 meeting was "make or break" for the world economy.

"Unless they do something for developing world there will be serious collapse in that part of the world," Mr Soros said.

Soros smells money to be made.

Obama has his economic agenda and also will use this trip to promote the ever continuing fraudulent wars.

Obama has publicly urged other nations to embrace bigger stimulus plans. On this page last week, for example, he wrote that "the leaders of the G-20 have a responsibility to take bold, comprehensive and coordinated action," beginning with "swift action to stimulate growth.

"Already, some of the money from his economic recovery program is being used to purchase foreign goods and supply credit to foreign firms. (That's how globalization works.)

And, outside the G-20, Obama will be asking his new partners for big increases in economic aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Last but not least. Surely the 'intelligence' agencies would not resort to a false flag attack during the G20 summit as they did during the G8 summit on 7/7/05, the infamous London bombings. That would be too obvious. But strange things happen when some are trying to control the world. Lives are the least of their concern.

Letters to the Editor are an option

'The Give Act' needs more exposure.

Bloggers have a limited audience. Much of the time it's the same old thing, preaching to the choir.

An option to getting an issue that is mostly ignored by the main stream press and that most people are unaware of is to submit a letter to the editor to a local newspaper or website.

Compromise may be necessary, tone the wording down a bit from the usual rant and you just may have a shot at getting it in print.

Fortunately, a local news website with a fairly large readership, the Cannon Wire, is open to publishing letters that the local newspaper would not touch. I thank them for their support of free speech.

For what it may be worth, they published this one today.
Mandatory Volunteerism?

Gun grabbers get another box of ammunition

Six people were killed and at least three others were injured Sunday, March 29, 2009, when a man walked into the Pinelake Health and Rehab Center in Carthage, NC and started shooting.

Video

A news conference is scheduled for 5 p.m. (Watch it live on WRAL.com.)

Mass killings seem to be occurring at an increased frequency. Psychopaths, criminals, Manchurian Candidates and big pharma drug zombies seem to be everywhere. The Obama, Pelosi, Holder and Emanuel goosestepping followers will once again use this latest shooting by making the pitch for taking our guns. I would bet this nursing home was a 'gun free zone.'

The Brady Bunch will spring into action on this one. They could not have scripted a better storyline.

They already have a new 'report' on the Mexico situation. Exporting Gun Violence - How Our Weak Gun Laws Arm Criminals in Mexico and America.

Their goal is to take one step at a time. First ban the semi-automatic rifles and then...........


I fell very sorry for the victims and their families. I know that it could next be my family, friends or me that could fall by the hand of a crazed gunman.

I'm more worried about a future in which unarmed American citizens are prey for not only criminals but also defenseless against a government that will go to any lengths to make sure we are the slaves they intend for us to be.

Propaganda Continuity

"Not everyone has access to or the ability to navigate the 'tubes.' From William Randolph Hearst to Rupert Murdoch, the publishers of these fine newspaper institutions have ensured that the government's message has gotten directly into the hands of the American people. They are too big to fail."

anonymous U.S. Senator

NEWS FLASH!! As the United States of Socialist America continues its Bizarro World freefall towards Great Depression II, we now have word that the "Honourable" Benjamin Cardin, U.S. Senator (Democrat, of course) from the great state of Maryland, has introduced into that "august" body known as the U.S. Senate a bill entitled "Newspaper Revitalization Act."

“We are losing our newspaper industry...the economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy. It is in the interest of our nation and good governance that we ensure they survive” said Senator Cardin.

The act would grant newspapers tax-free status as non-profits¹, a deal similar to that enjoyed by public broadcasting outlets, which survive on tax-deductible contributions from listeners. The newspapers, however, will also be able to enjoy tax free advertising revenue."

Since all newspapers might soon become non-profits, perhaps we can convince the great Jerry Lewis to hold a telethon for The New York Times--and I know the perfect day to hold that telethon on: May Day.

¹As far as I'm concerned, I don't think any Establishment newspaper has ever been profitable--at least in the sense of any thinking person having found it "profitable" to read an Establishment newspaper.

David Kramer at The LRC Blog

Of course some newspapers must have 'contributed' to Sen. Cardin for his support in getting them some free money.

Bad business practices deserve bailouts? Bad depends on your perspective. The government depends on the propaganda outlets and when the newspapers depend on the government for survival, well, that's a symbiotic relationship that can't be allowed to fail.


whore: (compromise oneself for money or other gains)

If the definition fits, use it.

Thoughts for a Sunday Morning

art - Alexej Ravski


The Four Politicians of the Apocalypse

Elitist Thugs Keep Trying to Kill Off Indigenous and People of Color

by MNN

We are told the world is overpopulated and that it must be depopulated! We are finding out it is part of the old eugenics plan to create a "super race" and get rid of those who they deem to be "useless eaters". It's a code for systematic killing of us and people of color, in violation of international law and norms.

The serial killers making these blatant plans to carry out "mass executions" must be stopped.

The economic melt down is being used as their incentive to proceed. Outright killing and bio-terrorism strategies are being perfected and practiced on us. It's a pet project of the elite. It's common knowledge that Prince Phillip said that after he dies, he wants to come back as a deadly virus to reduce the earth's population by 90%.

Henry Kissinger set up the old ideas that President Obama is following. [Hey, isn't he a person of color?] Kissinger was National Security Advisor NSA and Secretary of State for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford in the 1970's. Like King George VI and early elitist Thomas Malthus, Kissinger says that humans will eat and reproduce until there is standing room only on the planet. He thinks he should rebalance the natural world to his way. In his memoirs, "The Final Days", control over life and death is a sexual high as "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac".

We think that the megalomaniacs should not reproduce.

more - Mohawk News Network via Pacific Free Press


If you’ve not yet figured out that Council of Foreign Relations members Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski are the PR Department for our anonymous overlords, you are asleep at the wheel or willfully ignorant.
more - The Hedonistic Pleasureseeker

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The Zionist Origins of World War III

They're at it again. The same pack of rabid dogs who helped scare Americans into invading Iraq and Afghanistan have another prey in their sights: Iran.

This pack of mad dogs scents blood and is very adept at manipulating Americans into fighting wars for Israel by using their effective "echo chamber," a relentless assault on our senses.

There is a country that is peopled with blood-thirsty psychos that has no qualms about using WMD's, especially on civilians. This nation has launched countless wars of aggression against mostly 3rd world nations, to either keep their thuggish bitch dictator in place or install some heavy-handed goon that will be happy with getting paid chump change while that nation's corporations rape, pillage and plunder the natural resources.

If you guessed that country to be Israel, you're close, but Israel comes in at #2.

The world's #1 terrorist state that is fond of using false-flags, of spreading lies and distortions on the MSM to start wars of aggression and of gladly killing civilians is the country that formerly belonged to We the People.
more - Greg Bacon

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Freemasonry: The American Dilemma; Power and Mystery

The United States greatness can not be viewed outside of its relationship to the Masonic worldview and almost at every turn in American history there is Freemasonry. Its philosophy and ideology gave the U.S. Government teachings that would alter the world's power dynamic and create a paradigm shift that has been in existences for over two centuries. Thus, for the most part, until perhaps the last twenty years historians and social scientist have ignored the Masonic influence in shaping our democracy. Yes, as I stated above some of the early Masonic writers had documented this reality, but oftentimes their research were dismissed as mere conspiracy theory and this further allowed Freemasonry to cloak it-self and remain under the radar. But let’s be clear those that embraced Freemasonry have stood shoulders above their uninitiated brothers.
more - Fahim Knight

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Freedom Tower Renamed to Slave Tower, Chinese take first Position on 9/11 Site

The agency that owns the space where the World Trade Center towers stood is freeing itself of the term "freedom" to describe the signature skyscraper replacing the buildings destroyed on September 11, 2001. The new term "slave tower" appears more appropriate as many Americans remain enslaved to the "official story" of how the twin towers were utterly pulverized on September 11, 2001.

The One World Trade Center skyscraper is expected to be completed in late 2013.

The change from Freedom Tower was revealed Thursday at a news conference where the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced the signing of the first commercial lease in the building to a Chinese company
more - RobertsCourt

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Hemp Is Not Pot: It's the Economic Stimulus and Green Jobs Solution We Need

We can make over 25,000 things with it. Farmers love it. Environmentalists love it. You can't get high from it. So why is it still illegal?

While Uncle Sam's scramble for new revenue sources has recently kicked up the marijuana debate -- to legalize and tax, or not? -- hemp's feasibility as a stimulus plan has received less airtime.

But with a North American market that exceeds $300 million in annual retail sales and continued rising demand, industrial hemp could generate thousands of sustainable new jobs, helping America to get back on track.

With 25,000 known applications from paper, clothing and food products -- which, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal this January, is the fastest growing new food category in North America -- to construction and automotive materials, hemp could be just the crop to jump-start America's green economy.

But growing hemp remains illegal in the U.S. The Drug Enforcement Administration has lumped the low-THC plant together with its psychoactive cousin, marijuana, making America the planet's only industrialized nation to ban hemp production. We can import it from Canada, which legalized it in 1997. But we can't grow it.

more - Dara Colwell via AlterNet

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Next: Bailout for Mainstream Media Liars

One of the silver linings of this economic depression is the collapse of mainstream media companies and the creation of internet blogs along with citizen journalism.

While this media shift is ongoing and certain, a question arises - Will the government, in further effort to keep their political-financial-media power in tact, bailout big media?

I wonder what a "neutered press" would look like? Would they peddle optimism even while the economy was collapsing? Would celebrity gossip become newsworthy? If the government wanted to loot the United States treasury and bailout their campaign contributors on Wall St, would a "neutered press" fail to demand answers or, even worse, scare the American people into submission? Would this neutered press allow the government to use 9-11 as a tool to occupy the middle east, while ignoring the cries of first responders and families of 9-11?

I've often said that I do not follow the mainstream news for information, I follow it for the lie.
more - Conspiracy Planet

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Coughing Fit

And time to take away the tax base.

If you guys stop all the vice for our health, where is all that tax dough you are shoveling at Hollywood and biotech gonna come from?

Typical do-gooders never thinking things through.

What do I want?

I want the government OUT of the VICE and TAX business, that's what I want.

more - Rock the Truth - MSM Monitor

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You are SO generous. Thank your congresspeople. They represent you.

Congress is not going to do shit to stop this. It will all go down because they're all in on the game. Whether they are bought off or threatened doesn't matter anymore. If anything were going to be different, we would have already seen many high profile people hauled off to jail in front of teevee cameras. Somehow I missed that news cycle. It didn't happen. So many people belong in jail -- basically the entire ruling class -- that none of the dominoes can be allowed to fall. And that's why this keeps going on and on, and we keep paying and paying. These people are all corrupt to the bone. Again, whether they started out that way or got sucked in incrementally makes no difference to me. People justify things to themselves all the time. Maybe they told themselves they could do some good with the power we invested them. Maybe they wanted to "help people." Maybe they thought looking the other way was the price they had to pay to bring the bacon home to the district. I do not know, and I do not care, because they've done nothing but screw us in the end. They can all rot in hell, along with their masters.

more - A. Peasant at Twelfth Bough

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Pistolgriphobia

Some Americans are unfortunately afflicted by hoplophobia, the unnatural fear of guns, which causes them to lose all common sense in public policy discussion about the right to bear arms. This fear may or may not be treatable by gun range therapy and other measures.

But a new phobia that has arisen over the last few years that afflicts some elected officials: pistolgriphobia, the unnatural fear of pistol grips on otherwise ordinary long guns. In a few states, state legislatures have gone as far to say that a rifle or shotgun with a pistol grip is an "assault weapon," requiring special registration, or perhaps banned from private ownership.

There is no rational basis for either pistolgriphobia or the DC City Council's ban on rifles containing pistol grips. Rifles with pistol grips may look scary to some people, but they are often less deadly than normal hunting rifles
more - Mike Stollenwerk - Gun Rights Examiner

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Neo-Cons Want Patriot Act Extended

When the Patriot Act was first passed by Congress one month after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, privacy groups objected to the freedom-robbing measure. At the time, legislators claimed that the bill would only be temporary following 9-11. Eight years later, the most troubling portions of the legislation are still law even though the provisions were set to expire at the end of 2005. That year, Congress hastily passed legislation which kept the measures in full force.

There has been much debate over the Patriot Act’s effectiveness other than sending the country further down the slippery slope of a police state. The FBI’s own inspector general found that federal law enforcement regularly applied the new law for the purpose of prosecuting other criminal activity that was outside the intent of the original legislation.

“The Patriot Act vastly—and unconstitutionally—expanded the government’s authority to pry into people’s private lives with little or no evidence of wrongdoing.”
more - American Free Press

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Obama to Bring More Mercenaries to Afghanistan -- Sound Familiar?

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to war we go!

The initial surge will add 17,000 troops to the 36,000 already there. Then, later this year, there is to be a second troop surge of another 17,000 or so. This mass of soldiers is expected to be deployed to a series of new garrisons to be built in far-flung regions of this impoverished, rural, mostly illiterate warlord state that is ruled by hundreds of fractious, heavily armed tribal leaders. We're not told how much this escalation will cost, but it will at least double the $2 billion a month that American taxpayers are already shelling out for the Afghan war.

What Obama has not mentioned is that, in addition to soldiers and civilians, there is a third surge in his plan: private military contractors. Yes, another privatized army, such as the one in Iraq. There, the Halliburtons, Blackwaters and other war profiteers ran rampant, shortchanging our troops, ripping off taxpayers, killing civilians and doing deep damage to America's good name.

Already, there are 71,000 private contractors operating in Afghanistan, and many more are preparing to deploy as Pentagon spending ramps up for Obama's war. The military is now offering new contracts to security firms to provide armed employees (aka, mercenaries) to guard U.S. bases and convoys. Despite the widespread contractor abuses in Iraq, Pentagon chief Robert Gates defends the ongoing privatization push: "The use of contractor security personnel is vital to supporting the forward-operating bases in certain parts of the country," he declared in a February letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

What the gentle war secretary is really saying is this: "We don't have a draft, and I don't see a lot of senators' kinfolks volunteering to put their butts on the line in Afghanistan, so I've gotta pay through the nose to find enough privateers to guard America's Army in this forbidding place."

Meanwhile, here's an interesting twist to Obama's contractor surge: the for-hire guards protecting our bases and convoys will not likely be Americans. The Associated Press has reported that of the 3,847 security contractors in Afghanistan, only nine are U.S. firms.

more - Jim Hightower via Global Reserch

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Some more thoughts for today.

Capitalist Incarnate: My interview with a vampire by Jason Miller

Obama's Latest No Banker Left Behind Scheme - Steve Lendman via The Peoples Voice

More Than 600 Architects Say 9/11 an Inside Job - Facts Not Fairies

Flim-Flam Obama Man

Clinton, Salmond and Lockerbie - aangirfan

Greg Felton Exposes the Ziofascist Troika

"This is how we are raised"

Prospect of Barak Obama show causes UK to clear its decks

With an entourage of 500 staff, an armour-plated limousine and a fleet of decoy helicopters, America's new president will arrive for his first visit to Britain amid huge razzmatazz on Tuesday for the G20 summit. But it will be his closed-door meetings with world leaders that are likely to prove the most significant of the trip

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Al Gore Leaves The Light On For Ya

Even during Earth Hour. President of the Tennessee Center For Policy Research Drew Johnson takes a Saturday drive by Al Gore’s during the time most environmentalists went dark:

I pulled up to Al’s house, located in the posh Belle Meade section of Nashville, at 8:48pm – right in the middle of Earth Hour. I found that the main spotlights that usually illuminate his 9,000 square foot mansion were dark, but several of the lights inside the house were on.

In fact, most of the windows were lit by the familiar blue-ish hue indicating that floor lamps and ceiling fixtures were off, but TV screens and computer monitors were hard at work. (In other words, his house looked the way most houses look about 1:45am when their inhabitants are distractedly watching “Cheaters” or “Chelsea Lately” reruns.)

The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore’s mansion.

I [kid] you not, my friends, the savior of the environment couldn’t be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees.

This, of course, would be the same Drew Johnson who exposed Gore’s excessive energy use at his home back in 2007.

UPDATE: Gore responds to accusations.

UPDATE II: Drew Johnson stands by his story.

nashvillepost

A Tale From the Dark Side

Nashville's Batman Building will go 'dark'

The 'top' story tonight on local WKRN TV is the hype over "Earth Hour" at 8:30 pm on Saturday.

In Nashville, the ever lit Batman building will dim, honky-tonk bands will play acoustic, the Predators hockey team has an early 5 pm start for respect and Al Gore will masturbate in the darkness of his mansion over his 'carbon credit' monopoly board.

OK, I made that last one up but you never know.

All of this spin to increase awareness about 'global warming.' Not a word about the centralized monoliths that control the electric grid. It's all our fault for turning on the lights.

Everyone wants a clean planet and if the truth be known we could have had decentralized energy sources many years ago. Greed has prevented it and now we'll have to pay up in carbon taxes and ever increasing energy bills just to continue to flip a switch.

I can think of a few more 'hours' we need to have.

No TV news lies hour.
That would mean a blank screen.

A congress without lobbyists hour.
Withdrawals would set in but not long enough for them to do themselves harm.

An Obama free hour.
With all of his mandated face time lately, it's unlikely he would agree to this.

A no war hour.
The military industrial complex would not like this, the bankers and Israel would have a fit.

A no arrests for marijuana possession hour.
Cops would have to do something else, like maybe catch a real criminal.

A no killing of animals for meat hour.
Probably not, McDonald's might fall behind in getting their shipments.

A no tax hour.
That would stimulate the economy a little.

You can probably think of an hour you might want to become international and increase awareness of a certain issue.

But if there's no profit to be made from it, you can forget it.

Obama on Afghanistan and Pakistan - Lies and Propaganda

Obama, Clinton and Gates in a press conference 3-27-09


Repeat al Qaeda ad nauseum. Make sure 9/11 is mentioned repeatedly.

Obama quotes:

"The single greatest threat to that future comes from al Qaeda and their extremist allies."

"al Qaeda and extremist allies have killed several thousand Pakistanis since 9/11"

"I remind everybody that the United States of America did not choose to fight a war in Afghanistan. Nearly 3,000 of our people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001 for doing nothing than going about their daily lives. al Qaeda and their allies have since killed thousands of people in other countries. Most of the blood on their hands is the blood of Muslims."

"al Qaeda and their extremist allies are a cancer."

"They assassinated Benazir Bhutto." {oh yeah}

"We will insist that action be taken one way or another."

"...$1.5 billion to Pakistan each year for 5 years."

More money and lives for the fraud of the 'War on Terror.'

Obama Announces Plans for More Funding for Afghan War

4,000 Additional Troops to Deploy {in addition to the 17,000 military personnel he already has ordered to the country}

March 27, 2009 - Washington Post

President Obama this morning announced a new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy that will require significantly higher levels of U.S. funding for both countries, with U.S. military expenses in Afghanistan alone increasing about 60 percent from the current toll of about $2 billion a month.
more

Richard Holbrooke has been named as the special representative for both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Doesn't it seem odd that yet another jew is tasked with bringing peace to the Middle East. You might think that given the Israeli genocide in the area, Afghani and Pakistani people would prefer someone else. But being praised by the ADL, being an AIG insider, a key component of the 9/11 cover up and a lifelong war monger is all that Obama needs for a pick.

Richard Holbrooke only spent a year as the U.S. ambassador to Germany, but he tried to make sure that his hosts would not forget this son of German Jews.

Visitors to Holbrooke's official residence were greeted by an ambassador who proudly displayed a photo of his grandfather, a Jewish businessman, in his World War I Germany army uniform. "I show it to German visitors as a symbol of what they lost," Holbrooke told The New York Times in a 1994 interview.

Widely praised in the Jewish community for his role in ending the Bosnian war, he received awards for his efforts from the Anti-Defamation League and the World Jewish Congress.


Obama administration special envoy Richard Holbooke was on the American International Group Inc. board of directors in early 2008 when the insurance company locked in the bonuses now stoking national outrage. Holbrooke, a veteran diplomat who is now the administration's point man on Pakistan and Afghanistan, served on the board between 2001 and mid-2008.

During that period, AIG undertook the aggressive investment strategies that led to a near-collapse and forced a multibillion-dollar federal bailout. more

Richard Holbrooke — former US ambassador to UN; CFR member; co-chaired “Independent Task Force on America’s Response to Terrorism” in which the Official Conspiracy Theory (OCT) {9/11} was promoted.

From Vietnam to today, Holbrooke has always had his hands right in the middle of death, destruction and theft.

As always, no 'change' here.

Washington escalates “drug war” intervention in Mexico

"There is ample evidence that US bankers are among the principal beneficiaries of drug profits."

Could it be that this new front in the 'war on drugs' is all about control of the drug trade?
The U.S. government and bankers hate competition.

By Bill Van Auken
27 March 2009

With the announcement of a new border security plan Monday and the two-day visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Mexico City and Monterrey which ended Thursday, Washington is launching a major intervention in Mexico in the name of combating drug trafficking and associated violence.

The flurry of activity by the US government—similar trips to Mexico are scheduled next week by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder and by Obama himself next month—has been accompanied by a campaign in the American media to create an atmosphere of near panic over the "war" in Mexico and the supposed threat that it is spilling over into the US itself.

The sudden concern over an emergency on the US-Mexican border has not been driven by any recent major change in the objective situation. The right-wing government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon has deployed the country's military in the anti-drug trafficking campaign for two years. The violence associated with this effort has been steady ever since, with over 6,000 people killed last year and 1,000 so far this year.

Rather than responding to some sudden crisis, it appears that the Obama administration is executing plans drafted and developed under the Bush administration, and particularly the Pentagon and the US national intelligence apparatus.

At the heart of the program rolled out this week is $700 million approved by the US Congress as part of the so-called Merida Initiative, a three-year $1.4 billion aid package signed by Bush and Calderon in June of last year. Also known as Plan Mexico for its resemblance to Plan Colombia, which initiated the largest US-backed counterinsurgency campaign in the hemisphere, the central thrust of the initiative is US support for the militarization of Mexico's counter-narcotics operations and border security and closer coordination between the US and Mexican militaries in the development of counter-terrorism strategies.

Under the plan unveiled Monday by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, in addition to the $700 million in Merida Initiative aid previously requested by the Bush administration, Washington is sending an additional 360 Homeland Security agents to the border along with 116 agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The FBI announced that it is forming a Southwest Intelligence Group (SWIG) to coordinate all FBI activities related to Mexico.

"This issue requires immediate action," said Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano in announcing the initiative. "We are guided by two very clear objectives. First, we are going to do everything we can to prevent the violence in Mexico from spilling over across the border. And second, we will do all in our power to help President Calderon crack down on these drug cartels in Mexico."

In subsequent testimony on Capitol Hill and in an interview with the Spanish news service EFE, Napolitano referred to the potential deployment of US troops on the border and a "contingency plan" that has been drawn up to deal with the potential for violence in Mexico triggering a "massive emigration" to the US.

The deployment of troops—Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry has called for 1,000 troops to be sent to his state's border with Mexico—"is under active consideration in the Department of Defense and will depend on several factors," Napolitano told EFE.

In testifying Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Napolitano acknowledged that the border plan being enacted by her department—the "Southwest Border Violence Operations Plan"—had been drafted by her predecessor, Bush's Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff.

She also made reference to the central role being played by the Pentagon in developing US strategy towards Mexico. "The Department of Defense has been a close partner in scenario planning," she said. Napolitano added that her department is "working with the Department of Defense to determine if there are other support roles for the Department of Defense to assist us in securing our southwestern border."

Significantly, the first trips to Mexico City initiated by the Obama administration involved Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who touched off a controversy in Mexico by claiming that the country's military had shed its historically rooted prejudices against collaboration with the Pentagon, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen, who said the US military was prepared to assist the Mexican military in implementing counterinsurgency tactics learned in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The US military is carrying out its own aid program separately from the Merida Initiative under Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act passed in 2006, allowing it to funnel money, training and equipment to foreign militaries under the pretext of combating terrorism. The program—which provided the Mexican armed forces with nearly $13 million in arms and training this year—is one of the means by which Washington has increasingly delegated foreign policy to the Pentagon.

The stepped-up US intervention in Mexico was highlighted by Secretary of State Clinton's two-day trip which ended Thursday in Monterrey.

Much was made of Clinton's acceptance of the fact that US money and arms play a decisive role in fueling the Mexican drug trade and violence and her repudiation of claims made in the media and by sections of the US military and foreign policy establishment that Mexico is on the verge of becoming a "failed state."

This aspect of the trip represented an exercise in damage control, under conditions in which Washington has increasingly antagonized Mexico, in no small measure through the repeal earlier this month of a pilot program allowing a limited number of Mexican long-haul trucks to travel US highways. Mexico denounced the move as protectionism and imposed $2.4 billion worth of tariffs on US goods in retaliation.

Clinton announced while in Mexico City that the US is providing the Mexican army with five Blackhawk assault helicopters and the Mexican navy with a reconnaissance plane to "respond aggressively" to drug traffickers.

"The criminals and kingpins spreading violence are trying to corrode the foundations of law, order, friendship and trust between us that support our continent," Clinton declared Wednesday at a joint press conference with Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Patricia Espinosa. "They will fail."

The rhetoric, employing the pseudo-democratic phrasemongering of the "war on terrorism," ignores the obvious. The "kingpins" aren't concerned with "corroding" the values extolled by Clinton. Their principal motivation is no different than that of the bankers and financiers on Wall Street: profit.

There is ample evidence that US bankers are among the principal beneficiaries of drug profits. Earlier this year, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said his agency had found mounting indications that money from drug trafficking was playing a key role in the bailout of failing banks.

"Interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa told the Austrian magazine Profil. There were "signs that some banks were rescued in that way," he added.

As for the hundreds of thousands of people involved in one form or another in the lower ranks of the drug trade, their objective is obtaining an income and escaping the poverty that afflicts over half of Mexico's 104 million people.

"Clearly what we have done has not worked," Clinton said in relation to the US "war on drugs." But the reality is that the program being launched by the Obama administration in relation to Mexico represents a continuation and escalation of that same policy, treating the complex and deeply rooted problems associated with drugs as a security question to be solved through military action.

That this policy has been a failure is indisputable. The number of people taking illegal drugs in the US has not declined, nor has the supply of drugs, despite the US spending an estimated $2.5 trillion over the past four decades in its "war on drugs" and increasing the US prison population seven-fold in the last 30 years, in large part due to drug-related convictions.

The failure is inevitable, given that the policy treats what is essentially a question of social conditions and public health as a military campaign to be won with increased firepower and measured by the number of narco-traffickers killed or imprisoned.

Nothing said by Clinton or the other US officials who have spoken on the drug violence in Mexico has addressed the conditions of poverty there. Nor have any proposals been made to curtail the demand for illegal drugs in the US, either through decriminalization of drug use or expanded drug treatment programs.

Why would the US administration continue and even escalate a policy that its chief foreign policy representative admits is a failure? The answer lies in the fact that the "war on drugs," like the "war on terrorism," is a façade behind which are concealed strategic aims of US imperialism, which seeks to exert its hegemony over resource-rich regions of the globe by military means.

Mexico is the third largest source of US imported oil, trailing only Saudi Arabia and Canada. In addition to military support, Washington has provided strong political backing to the Calderon government's bid to open the state-owned oil monopoly Pemex to foreign capitalist investment. The proposal is opposed by the overwhelming majority of the Mexican people.

For the Calderon government as well there is a large element of pretext in the escalating drug war. It has militarized the country under conditions of a deepening economic crisis and a growing potential for social explosions.

A poll conducted earlier this month by Mexico's leading polling firm found that nearly twice as many Mexicans saw the economy, unemployment and poverty as the main problems confronting the country as those who cited security and drug trafficking. In the same poll, 35 percent said that at least one member of their family had lost a job in the previous six months.

According to Mexico's National Institute of Statistics, 472,000 workers joined the ranks of the unemployed in January and February. Industrial production is in free fall, having declined 15 percent since last year, with many of the layoffs hitting export assembly plants (maquiladoras) operating in border cities like Ciudad Juarez, now subjected to an occupation by 10,000 Mexican troops and federal police.

source: wsws.org

Reports from inside Mexico: Maggie's Madness

The bees are buzzing

Some people are buzzing too, wondering about the future and thinking about solutions.

Military Industrial Complex Prepares Mass Graves for U.S. Citizens??

Shepard Ambellas via RobertsCourt

A usually quiet U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Cemetery, has been unusually active lately. The National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona is a beautiful 225 acre facility located in Phoenix.

For the past 30-45 days in the early hours of the morning until sunset, a massive construction operation has been underway. Major amounts of earth have been excavated out about 9-10 feet deep and 600-1000 feet wide. There is multiple locations on the property like this. From the satellite view there appears to be more sections that have been covered with the concrete lids and backfilled to look as if nothing is there. ABC rock is put in place under the burial vaults for good drainage and solid bedding. This will help not contaminate ground water sources from decomposition of human bodies.

The cleanliness of the heavy equipment operation and the large perfect cuts of earth is im pressive. These Massive concrete boxes are transported from a nearby storage yard on various privately owned flatbed semi-trucks, then unloaded and put into place a half mile away at the actual mass grave site. They are installed tight together side by side with no space in between.

An interview was conducted between my friend and a truck driver involved in this operation. After beating around the bush for ten minutes, the driver admitted “ I got paid a whole lot of money to speak good english.” Take it for what it’s worth but that sounds suspect. The truck driver also admitted “Each burial vault holds four caskets.”
I took note that if caskets were not used you could fit 40 bodies or more in each one.

So if these were to hold four troops each and the truck driver did know what he was talking about; this would mean that there are plans in advance for over 4000 U.S. soldiers deaths.

If these are not to contain caskets and only bodies are inserted there could be room for over 40,000 civilians bodies.



Editor’s note: On February 11, 2009, D. H. Williams, writing for the Daily Newscaster, reported on the revelations of an Indiana county municipal official in the vicinity of Chicago who revealed how FEMA and DHS were attempting to prepare “county officials to prepare a Hazard Mitigation Plan to deal with flooding, fires, high winds and tornadoes.”

“FEMA inquired to where mass graves could be placed in the county and would they accept bodies from elsewhere,” writes Williams.

During the legally mandated meetings held with FEMA and DHS different disaster scenarios were reveled to county officials:

In late December 2008 municipal officials were invited to Indianapolis for a briefing on the state of Indiana. There were told if industry were to collapse for example GM going bankrupt resulting in mass unemployment a depression would soon follow and municipalities could expect to loose 40% of their funds.

Every county in the nation would be required to prepare a Hazard Mitigation Plan.

The county should prepare a plan to vaccinate the entire population within 48 hours and practice the plan several times.

FEMA inquired to where mass graves could be placed in the county and would they accept bodies from elsewhere.

The sheriff’s department via the state sheriff association was told that no .223 ammunition rounds would be available as the military would be purchasing all stocks.

The county was asked to make plans for “hardening” of police and fire stations, putting in hardened bunker type buildings around town.

The county was asked to make plans for the possibility of up to 400,000 refugees from Chicago.


source: RobertsCourt

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Usurious Bastards

excerpts from Ed Encho

The history of the last century shows, as we shall see later, that the advice given to governments by bankers, like the advice they gave to industrialists, was consistently good for bankers, but was often disastrous for governments, businessmen, and the people generally.

-Carroll Quigley

As the conventional wisdom goes, the stock market is predicated on trust and as a crusty old uncle of mine once said to a young and impressionable teenager with zero knowledge of the way that the world really worked: “trust me is just another two letter word that means the same as fuck you.” Old Uncle Harvey’s words of wisdom came home to roost on this Monday morning in America when the finance oligarchs were able to use their inside juice to pull off the grandest and most audacious heist yet in this season of sleazy swindles. Obama Treasury Secretary and Wall Street fixer Timothy Geithner delivered the bacon for the bankers, gave the crack ho stock market a wonderful and intoxicating fix that sent the Dow screaming up by nearly 7 percent in a matter of hours and locked in the losses for the great grandchildren of every poor schmuck with the misfortune to be living through this period of plunder and wealth consolidation.

In phase two of the ongoing SPLURGE (any similarity to the con-game called the surge that allowed us to become winners in Iraq is fully intentioned), on Tuesday night, our very own national Teflon coated bullshit salesman, President Barack Obama, the banker’s gofer and shill for the new generation began to sell it to the saps and a marvelous job he is doing. This man my friends is no new Roosevelt, he is the devil in disguise and he (as many progressives had warned) is in the bag for the establishment. What we really have is a by proxy continuation of the Clinton administration, of course Hillary was to have been the one but in the waning days of the ruinous Bush-Cheney neocon war on America it was just too tough to pimp another dynasty so the crooks who run the system found another pitchman. I cannot possibly articulate the sense of disgust and betrayal that I am experiencing as I write this, it is very difficult to restrain my gag reflex and keep from vomiting on my keyboard because once again the scum wins again and Americans have been played for chumps.

A sleazy little political gangster like Rahm Emanuel who I predict will eventually make even the Great Satan Karl Rove look like an amateur running the show and protecting the interests of his investment banker buddies. While Barack Obama may be the friendly Fozzie Bear face of this latest hostile takeover of the White House the real example of how things are really done is in this incredible NYT piece from back in January:

Early this month, Barack Obama was meeting with the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and other lawmakers when Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, began nervously cracking a knuckle.

Mr. Obama then turned to complain to Mr. Emanuel about his noisy habit.

At which point, Mr. Emanuel held the offending knuckle up to Mr. Obama’s left ear and, like an annoying little brother, snapped off a few special cracks.

The venomous cobra that is Emanuel is of course Mr. Obama’s minder and handler, note that he was the first announced member of the new administration, the first of a reoccupation of Washington by Clintonistas. The promised change, at least to this point has been strictly cosmetic, the wars still continue, more troops are headed to Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires past, Gitmo is still open, the new administration is engaging in Clintonian language manipulation regarding ‘torture’ that invokes memories of “it depends on what the meaning of is is”, the military is getting ready to be sent to the Mexican border and there has been no serious discussion of reigning in the run amok police state and the Stasi style high tech domestic spying operations. Yep, change has come to America alright, just like “the check’s in the mail”, “this won’t hurt a bit”, “I love you” and “I promise not to come in your mouth”…and it was all wrapped up in a big bundle of stinking dogshit with a $ sign on it and parked on the doorsteps of Americans and set afire by the Geithner-Bernanke-Paulson triad with the unarguable message that you are either cops or little people. Webster Tarpley had a good one that I heard that saving the banks is like trying to save one of Count Dracula's victims by giving the blood transfusion to the victim through the vampire when the real remedy is to just pull him off and drive a stake through his heart.

Now that it has become pretty apparent that Obama is just more of the same and like Bush has his own legions of cultlike devotees and apologists we can all just take Bobby Knight's advice that if rape is intevitable relax and enjoy it because really what choice do we really have? Before it even really started the revolution has been hijacked, progressives are still getting the shaft, the Employee Free Choice Act is going to be dead on arrival, there is NO antiwar movement if the media refuses to acknowledge that there is a fucking war and even the Ron Paul movement libertarians have been marginalized by the old fool's proclivity to ghettoize himself and keep showing up at Nazi bund meetings like CPAC and regularly appearing on FOX. The oligarchy has it's shit together, this is their homefield, they own the refs and there is no replay booth. Welcome to chumpland, when a show like HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher features Keith Olbermann as a guest and they both mock the very real detention camps by conflating their existence with the weeping, at the edge of sanity fascist basket case Glenn Beck it's a done deal that the agents have seized control of all phones and the only way out of the matrix will be in a body bag.

Despite the rear guard cover that the corporate media is giving to the ongoing looting spree by laying poison bait for maxed-out marks and rubes to get back into the casino and start spending their money at usurious interest rates by rapacious banks that are fast approaching the same sort of deal that you can score at pay day lenders there are those who really get it, too bad that their observations are drowned out by Dancing With the Stars, American Idol and the rest of the standard bread and circuses that placate the masses of asses. Some very excellent work has been done for those with an inclination for the truth by alternative media types and dissenting with the official state line experts who have been consistently right about this catastrophic clusterfuck from the outset.

The DOW was up 174 today, it's morning in America again, time to pull yerself up by those good ole star-spangled bootstraps, go shopping... but if you look around you will notice that gas prices are creeping up again too since speculation is back in vogue, it could crack 8000 tomorrow when Barack Obama goes to give a progress report (grovel) to his banker bosses.

But that's not important, hey, didja hear the one about the Michigan dude who just got 90 days for being caught with his dick in a car wash vacuum cleaner?

Move Along, Nothing to See Here...

by Ed Encho at The Existentialist Cowboy

A Stooge Could Do Better

Obama announces his newest team of Bank Bailout Advisors

Secretary Larry comments on the current crisis: "Our genius ain't appreciated around here... let's scram!"

Secretary Moe, what is your opinion of this mess?" "Where are those three loafers?" "They're in there, talking politics. I just heard one of them say, 'Let's have a New Deal'."

Secretary Curly chimes in with: "Five hundred dollars!? Hmmm... that's almost a million!"

posted by Greg Bacon at Wake Up From Your Slumber

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Speaking of Stooges...

This is the dumbest idea ever

Nyuk Nyuk…Huh? Sean Penn Joins ‘Three Stooges’ Movie

By Dave Itzkoff

To his allies, Sean Penn is a wise guy; to his adversaries, he’s a stooge. Now they’re both correct: the actor has joined the cast of “The Three Stooges,” a new MGM comedy based on the vintage film shorts of that knockaround trio, Variety reported. Mr. Penn, who recently won his second Academy Award, for playing the title role in Gus Van Sant’s “Milk,” is set to play Larry, the wire-haired, Stradivarius-wielding Stooge. The studio is also said to be in final negotiations with Jim Carrey, who will gain weight to play the rotund Curly, and is pursuing Benicio Del Toro (“Che”) to play the irritable Moe. The film is to be written and directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly (of “There’s Something About Mary” and “Kingpin” fame), and is planned for a 2010 release.

Watch video of the classic Three Stooges (and try to imagine them replaced by Sean Penn, Jim Carrey and Benicio Del Toro) here:



source: News From The West

Also see: The Three Stooges View of Jewish History by Patrick Grimm

Tennessee state representatives are mostly a waste of space

Tennesseans do not need more laws and resolutions, they need less. Anything brought up should be based on sound U.S. and TN state constitutional principles. Most of the time it's anything but.




Subcommittee advances TN resolution seeking regret for slavery

The three-page resolution states that slavery has left a “bitter legacy” in the United States, and that Tennessee, with a slave population in 1860 of 275,000 people, or one-quarter of the state, played a part in creating that legacy.

No one today was responsible. Very few Tennesseans even owned slaves. Unneeded rhetoric that does nothing.


Bill seeks to criminalize saggy pants in Tennessee

Under the proposal, a person could be fined as much as $1,000 for publicly wearing pants "below the person's waistline ... in a manner that exposes the person's underwear or bare buttocks."

You may not like them but this bill is unconstitutional. What would be next?


Photo ID's required for voting

The Finance Committee of the state Senate on Wednesday discussed a proposal to require Tennesseans to show "qualified photographic identification" before being allowed to vote. Currently, many Tennesseans who are elderly or have disabilities have no "qualified" photo ID — typically, because they do not drive, and therefore have no driver's license. And there are still some motorists in Tennessee who have driver's licenses without photos, for various reasons.

No evidence of any voter fraud but we'll make it a law anyway.


Honk if you love capitalism

A bill to allow color advertising on school buses took a left turn in the House this morning, as representatives debated how bright and shiny colors could cause drivers to plow into little Timmy’s school bus.

But another fight could be brewing: The House added an amendment prohibiting advertisements of products that can’t be sold in vending machines in schools (read: junk food).

That moves directly against action in the Senate, which will now have to take up the bill again. The Senate had previously adopted an identical no-junk-food-ad measure, and then passed another amendment to nullify it.

Why not just sell naming rights for schools like sports stadiums do? How about Walmart High, McDonald's middle school?


TN panel approves out-of -state wine legislation

A proposal to allow people to bring up to five cases of wine into Tennessee from out-of-state wineries is bubbling up in the legislature. Current law bars transporting any alcohol into the state.

Maybe not so bad. Making Granny a criminal for bringing back some Kentucky wine seems silly.


OK, some reps must have read the constitution.
Some bills have tried to protect the 2nd amendment and citizens from two and four legged predators. Success in these has gone back and forth. Most are written with stipulations.

TN House panel OKs guns in local parks

A House panel on Wednesday advanced a measure to authorize local governments to allow people with state-issued handgun permits to carry their loaded weapons in parks and playgrounds.

The bill sponsored by Rep. Harry Tindell, a Knoxville Democrat, also would allow local governments to decide to be selective about where to allow guns. For example, officials could decide to allow handguns on greenways, but not at ball fields.

Other pending 2nd amendment bills:

Senate Bill 576, sponsored by State Senator Doug Jackson (R- 25), would allow a person who has a valid Right-to-Carry permit, to carry a firearm into restaurants where alcohol may be served, as long as the permit holder is not consuming alcohol or is not otherwise prohibited by posting provisions. SB 576 has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. House Bill 1807, sponsored by State Representative Ben West (D-60), is the companion bill to SB 576. HB 1807 is currently in the House Subcommittee on Criminal Practice and Procedure.

Senate Bill 1908, sponsored by State Senator Doug Jackson (R- 25), the “Second Amendment Protection Act,” would prohibit the sale of micro-stamped firearms or ammunition in Tennessee. This pro-active preventive measure is currently in the Senate Judiciary Committee. House Bill 1924 sponsored by State Representative Henry Fincher (D-42), is the companion bill to SB 1908 and has been referred to the House Judiciary’s Sub-committee on Criminal Practice and Procedure.

House Bill 254, sponsored by State Representative Glen Casada (R-63), would delete the requirement to give a thumbprint as part of the background check process when purchasing a firearm. HB 254 passed the House 82-11 on Thursday, March 12. It has been referred to the Senate. Senate Bill 554, sponsored by State Senator Mark Norris (R-32), is the companion bill to HB 254 and is expected to be voted on favorably.

House Bill 959, sponsored by State Representative Eddie Bass (D-65), would ensure the privacy of handgun permit holders by making records of permit applications and renewals confidential. Any public disclosure of this information would be a Class A misdemeanor. HB 959 is expected to be heard in the House Judiciary on Wednesday, March 18.

House Bill 961, sponsored by State Representative Mike Bell (R-26), would authorize a person with a handgun carry permit to possess a firearm in a refuge, public hunting area, wildlife management area, or on national forest land. HB 961 has been referred to the House Finance, Ways and Means Subcommittee on Budget. Senate Bill 1519, sponsored by State Senator Tim Burchett (R-7), is the companion bill to HB 961.

House Bill 2376, sponsored by State Representative David Shepard (D-69), would modify the methods of disposing of certain confiscated firearms. HB 2376 would prohibit the destruction of confiscated firearms and require them to be auctioned off or sold to federally licensed firearms dealers. Proceeds from the sale of these firearms would be used to benefit of law enforcement agencies.

Some other reps do have some common sense but this bill is limited, only for the dying.

Tennessee legislators introduce medical marijuana legislation

Recently, Sen. Beverly Marrero (D-Memphis) and Rep. Jeanne Richardson (D-Memphis) introduced companion medical marijuana bills — SB 209 and HB 368.

This legislation would allow terminally ill patients to use medical marijuana pursuant to a physician's recommendation. Registered patients or their caregivers would be allowed to possess up to 8 ounces of dried marijuana and 6 mature or 12 immature marijuana plants.

Just read the U.S. and state constitutions...state representatives.

Don't waste your and our time with anything that doesn't meet the test of constitutionality. Unconstitutional bills are a hallmark of the out of control federal government and we don't want to compare you with them.

Once Again, Feds Repress Legal Medical Marijuana and States Rights

Drug Agents Raid SF Medical Marijuana Clinic

DEA agents raided Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic on Howard Street in San Francisco on Wednesday.

One week after President Barack Obama's top law enforcement official seemed to indicate the feds would no longer raid pot clubs, DEA agents busted a medical marijuana facility in San Francisco Wednesday night.

As agents carried large plastic containers of marijuana plants out of Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic at 1597 Howard Street, a small crowd of protesters formed a gauntlet outside the door, booing the agents and chanting, "our medicine is marijuana … listen to Obama!"

DEA spokeswoman Casey McEnry told CBS 5 the documents regarding the raid are sealed, so the DEA was not able to give any details.

"Based on our investigation we believe there are not only violations of federal law, but state law as well," said DEA Special Agent in Charge Anthony D. Williams in a written statement.

Emmalyn's has a provisional permit from the city, according to Eileen Shields, spokesperson for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, which she said is an indication the club is in good standing with city laws.

Brendan Hallanin, the pot club's attorney, said Emmalyn's is in compliance with state and local laws.

"They are well-respected and have a good reputation in the medical marijuana community," said Hallanin, who added the business has never been raided in its five year existence.

Hallanin said the DEA would not tell him why the club was being busted.

"They're going to have a huge fight on their hands if they're arbitrarily busting clubs that are in compliance with state and local laws," said Hallanin.

Kris Hermes, spokesperson for Americans for Safe Access, a national advocacy group for medical marijuana issues, wants the attorney general to explain the DEA's actions.

"We're shocked that after the Attorney General has made repeated statements that raids on California medical cannibis dispensaries would be suspended that we are seeing a continuation of that policy," said Hermes.

Source: CBS5.com

_____________

Drug War Rant

SSDP's Micah Daigle was on the scene and reported that all the local press were there. (Protesters were there as well.) Micah also reported that the DEA agents went in with a sledgehammer and crobar, so they certainly weren't there to talk.

Later, DEA agents carried out tubs of marijuana and loaded it into a van.

Note: Keep in mind that, if the dispensary was violating state law, or violating other federal laws, then this would not theoretically be any kind of repudiation of Holder's clear position to let state laws in medical marijuana occur without DEA interference.

Thanks to Tom Angell in comments: Quote from the DEA

"The documents relating to today's enforcement operation remain under court seal. Based on our investigation we believe there are not only violations of federal law, but state law as well. As of now we are prohibited from releasing further details of the case. Items of evidentiary value were seized and no arrests have been made. The investigation is currently ongoing," said DEA Special Agent in Charge Anthony D. Williams in a written statement.

There's also some video at that link.

Regardless of whether the dispensary was violating state law, this is extremely stupid.

Having federal agents (all marked "DEA" and "Federal Agent") bust a dispensary is politically tone-deaf. A smart person in the Justice Department right now would say, regardless of the potential laws being broken, "if it's a dispensary, send only the state cops. We don't want people seeing the DEA logo at a dispensary."

However, we didn't even see any state or local cops.

I mean, really. Are the state cops that incompetent, that they can't bust a dispensary by themselves if state laws are being broken?

Someone needs to be asking the state police why they are perceived as so incompetent by the feds that they're unable to enforce their own laws. source



SAN FRANCISCO—A medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco that gave out free marijuana to poor people is mostly empty after a raid by federal agents.

Emmalyn's had been providing free marijuana to the poor on Wednesdays.

The dispensary had been operating with a temporary permit issued by the Department of Public Health.

"There is no indication that the dispensary was in violation of state law," says Kris Hermes, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a medical-pot advocacy group in California. He points out the City of San Francisco issued the club a provisional permit to operate. It has been in business, apparently in compliance with state law, since 2006. California law says that patients must have an authorization from their physician to possess marijuana, and recent rules say dispensaries must operate as not-for-profit collectives.

The bust suggests that either the DEA is sidestepping the Obama Administration, or the Obama Administration itself is establishing a new interpretation of California law.

"If there is any indication that these facilities have been in violation of state law, local law enforcement or state law enforcement should be determining whether a violation has taken place," Hermes says. Furthermore, he points out, "Violations of state law are never going to [be prosecuted] in federal court."

A couple hours ago, ASA reportedly contacted the San Francisco Police Department, which said it had no part in the raid. more

Raw footage of DEA Raid on Medical Marijuana Dispensary in San Francisco, California on March 25, 2009.

SF Cannabis Clubs

Pot-related questions deluge W.H.




Obama on Marijuana Policy

Secessionist Talk

There's been a lot of chatter lately, both real and some propagandizing fear tactics, about the US government preparing for civil unrest. Hunger, homelessness and anger at the administration, Congress, corporations and bankers could provoke some people to do desperate things.

But to what end would the civil unrest be directed to. Replacing all members of the federal government, and with what or who? Removing the corrupt banking system? Restoring states sovereign rights?

Some folks think the time is coming to break away from the centralized dictatorship and move towards regional independence. In short, secession. Could this be done peacefully? The federal powers won't give up control easily. Military might and possibly false flag attacks would be options to prevent secession.

Is it too late to 'fix' the federal government and creating decentralized regional alliances is the only hope? It would take honesty. Do we still have enough of that in our current world?

A possible scenario?

Secessionist group advocates independence for the Southern states

March 26, 2009

League of the South, secessionist group, starting local chapter

The group says the federal government has overstepped its constitutional bounds for too long. It would be impossible to reign in the government now, so secession is the only option.

Anniston Star | Mar 25, 2009

By About Graham Milldrum

A group advocating independence for the South is starting a local chapter with a dinner Thursday in Anniston.

The national president of the League of the South, a secessionist group, will speak at the local group’s founding meeting at the Anniston Western Sizzlin’.

Michael Hill founded the group in 1994. He said the group plans to have a chapter in every county in the state.

The local chapter will be named the John C. Calhoun Chapter, after the South Carolina senator the county is named for.

The group says the federal government has overstepped its constitutional bounds for too long. It would be impossible to reign in the government now, so secession is the only option, said Josh Doggrell of Saks, president of the local chapter.

They seek a return to a Jeffersonian democracy, one of a smaller, less-active federal government.

“I don’t believe we live in a republic. I believe we live in an empire,” Doggrell said.

His group is advertising in a low-pressure, word-of-mouth, magazine and pamphlet campaign, he said, adding that he mailed invitations to the approximately 10 local league members as well.

Doggrell said he expects the meeting will be small, like most founding meetings.

The league was labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2000. League of the South denies the charge. Doggrell said he considers the label by the group a “badge of honor,” since it comes from such a liberal group.

Source: Aftermath News

_____________

The Legal Issues of Secession as a Legitimate Recourse of the States

Secession is a term and a concept that holds various and differing connotations to many individuals. It is an idea seldom thought about by most Americans in our day. Those that have some familiarity with the term generally associate it primarily with the War of 1861-1865. To the majority the concept of secession is a far away notion, little understood and even less thought of as a practical concept applicable to our current political arrangement. After all, most Americans believe that whatever secession was all about the issue must have been settled when the forces of the Union defeated the South.

This treatment of secession is one dimensional and flawed. Most Americans would agree that it is impossible, nay unjust, to settle matters of legal principle through the use of force. On the schoolyard we do not reward the bully that is stronger than his fellows by accepting that his point of view must be right just because he is stronger. We do not accept this in our system of civil law. A mere individual with a right and just cause can and often does prevail against large and powerful corporations on points of justice and legality. It seems un-American to simply accept that a question as powerful as the nature of the compact that holds the Union together might be answered in no other way than force.

Much more here:
Secession as a Legitimate Recourse of the States

Ladies and Gentlemen, there was a time not too long ago when I would have argued, nay, slapped the living hell out of anyone that would have suggested that a state would be legal and correct in attempting an act of secession from the Union of the United States of America. The legality of secession has long been a point of contention among patriots.

I personally thought such an act, in modern times, was best described as an act of treason. I am not convinced that I was wrong! I would prefer to see the United States remain just that, UNITED, but when the federal government ceases to govern, and attempts to expand their powers, greatly expand, and those powers are nothing more than overbearing attempts at full control of the American people and the forcing OF the American people into a government of sheer socialism, it is now time for the American people to act and take this nation back from the brink of disaster, OR, it is time for the individual states to exercise their STATES RIGHTS and LEAVE this unholy debacle that was once the United States of America!

Perhaps the best argument against the legality of secession is the one that rests upon secession being an “insurrection.” Section VIII of Article 1 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to call forth the militia to “suppress insurrections.” However, many people would argue that secession is not an insurrection. They see secession as the withdrawal of recognition of an authority as lawful rather than the refusal to obey recognized lawful authority. In addition, secession is not in itself an aggressive action taken against the residue of states left within the Union. It is a point often overlooked, but some states that seceded during the Civil War are very proud of the fact that they did not declare war - or fight an offensive war - against the Union, but only fought a defensive war in order to be able to govern themselves as they saw fit. Northerners should remember this if they wish to understand the thinking of many in the South. SOURCE: The Legality of Secession

There are many that seem to believe that secession is an act against the constitution of the United States, an act of insurrection. Under that interpretation I am sure the United States could take action to preserve the Union.

I don’t know that the current administration would have the guts TO take action, I am more of the belief that *The One* would want to discuss it with Russia and Iran 1st, and then offer us some type of missile shield assurance. Yes, that IS sarcasm!

The U.S. Constitution does not expressly recognize or deny a right of secession. Accordingly, the argument for a right of unilateral secession begins (and pretty much ends) with a claim about the very nature of the Constitution.

That document, by the terms of its Article VII, only obtained legal force through the ratification by nine states, and then only in the states so ratifying it. Because the Constitution derived its initial force from the voluntary act of consent by the sovereign states, secessionists argued, a state could voluntarily and unilaterally withdraw its consent from the Union.

In this view, the Constitution is a kind of multilateral treaty, which derives its legal effect from the consent of the sovereign parties to it. Just as sovereign nations can withdraw from a treaty, so too can the sovereign states withdraw from the Union. SOURCE: Does the Constitution Permit the Blue States to Secede?

I am NOT a constitutional scholar, I don’t claim to be, but there is a vein of dissatisfaction ripping through this nation the likes of which we have never seen. Many states, not just Texas, are making an effort to establish their sovereignty for the United States.

Twenty states standing up to the federal government and demanding a return to constitutional principles is a great start, but it remains to be seen whether legislatures and governors are brave enough or angry enough to follow through. As the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress push for more expansion of federal power and spending that may help provide the motivation needed for the sovereignty movement to take off. SOURCE: State Sovereignty Movement Quietly Growing

I don’t know if this sovereignty movement will result in calls for secession, but it well could, and for the 1st time in my 55 years I am honestly looking into the possibility of making secession a viable option in this great state of Texas!

Source: TexasFred's

Also see:

League of the South

American Secession Project

The Middlebury Institute

Secession.net

Current North American Secessionist Groups

Resist 'Giving' Your Children to the Government

How about "Just Say No" or maybe words that are a little stronger.

“A soft refusal is not always taken, but a rude one is immediately believed”




The 'GIVE' Act Calls for Your Kids to be 'Owned' by the State

by Michael Gallucci

"We should be owned, as soldiers are by the army, and our pride would rise accordingly." ~ William James, The Moral Equivalent of War

The quote above is taken from an essay that The Corporation for National and Community Service (www.nationalservice.org) takes as one of its founding documents. What is the CNCS you may ask? We’ll be getting to that. First let’s take a gander at the latest statist scribblings to come forth from the horde in Congress, the GIVE Act H.R.1388:

PART III – INNOVATIVE DEMONSTRATION SERVICE-LEARNING PROGRAMS AND RESEARCH

SEC. 120. INNOVATIVE DEMONSTRATION SERVICE-LEARNING PROGRAMS AND RESEARCH.

(2) YOUTH ENGAGEMENT ZONE – The term youth engagement zone means the area in which a youth engagement zone program is carried out.

(3) YOUTH ENGAGEMENT ZONE PROGRAM – The term youth engagement zone program means a service learning program in which members of an eligible partnership described in paragraph (4) collaborate to provide coordinated school-based or community-based service learning opportunities, to address a specific community challenge, for an increasing percentage of out-of-school youth and secondary school students served by local educational agencies where –

(A) not less than 90 percent of the students participate in service-learning activities as part of the program; or

(B) service-learning is a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.

There is much more in statist scribbling, but the first question that should come to the mind of any thinking parent is, "What exactly is service-learning, and why should it be mandatory in public-statist schools?"

At the National Service Learning Clearinghouse website at www.servicelearning.org, you can read the glossy euphemistic "What is Service Learning?" page for its glorious "Guiding Principles" and its exalted "Vision of the Organization." Or, you can dig deeper. Dig deeper, why don’t you? After all, this is about the souls of your children. National Service Learning Clearinghouse is simply one of many operative appendages of The Corporation for National and Community Service. Finding its founding principles would divulge much more than the NSLC’s bulleted list of glossy euphemisms.

"The mission of the Corporation for National and Community Service is to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic engagement through service and volunteering." That’s pretty, yes? But more importantly, look at the National Service Timeline page to begin to get into the genetics of the matter:

National Service Timeline

Read about the history of national service – from the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933 to the launch of the President’s Volunteer Service Award in 2003. This timeline provides a quick glance at key dates and milestones during the past century.

1903
The Cooperative Education Movement is founded at the University of Cincinnati.

Circa 1905
American philosophers William James and John Dewey develop intellectual foundations for service-based learning.

1910
American philosopher William James envisions non-military national service in his essay "The Moral Equivalent War"

"The Moral Equivalent of War" essay is an allegedly monumental ditty, and a founding building block for the concept of "service learning," as it is embodied in today’s NCSC and the GIVE Act. As a matter of fact, the NCSC cheerfully lists the GIVE Act as one of their legislative achievements right on their home page. In other places, the essay is claimed to be "based on a speech delivered at Stanford University in 1906, is the origin of the idea of organized national service. The line of descent runs directly from this address to the depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps to the Peace Corps, VISTA, and AmeriCorps." AmeriCorps is what the GIVE Act seeks to enlarge and further empower.

So what of William James and his mighty essay? Like all else Mr. James gave birth to with his cumbrous brain, it is quite pointy headed and longwinded. It can be read in full by the interested at www.des.emory.edu/mfp/moral.html. But here’s the gist of it for the less than interested; "War is hideous and must come to an end some day. But we can’t be wimps about it, because the brutes among us insist it is an essential part of being a true man. War is hideous in all but one respect. It is really good at kicking the childishness out of people. It is really good for organizing and centralizing. I think we need to create pseudo-wars where people don’t die, so we can use this positive element of war to help us centralize power in the hands of the unbrutish, like myself, for the good of all mankind." That really is about it. This rather juvenile concept is more fully documented in such books as Johan Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism.

We are full to the gills with these pseudo-wars in this liberal-socialist American society we presently live in, are we not? As Mr. James says in this article, H.G. Wells puts it best:

"In many ways military organization is the most peaceful of activities. When the contemporary man steps from the street, of clamorous insincere advertisement, push, adulteration, underselling and intermittent employment into the barrack-yard, he steps on to a higher social plane, into an atmosphere of service and cooperation and of infinitely more honorable emulations. Here at least men are not flung out of employment to degenerate because there is no immediate work for them to do. They are fed a drilling and training for better services. Here at least a man is supposed to win promotion by self-forgetfulness and not by self-seeking. And beside the feeble and irregular endowment of research by commercialism, its little shortsighted snatches at profit by innovation and scientific economy, see how remarkable is the steady and rapid development of method and appliances in naval and military affairs! Nothing is more striking than to compare the progress of civil conveniences which has been left almost entirely to the trader, to the progress in military apparatus during the last few decades. The house-appliances of today, for example, are little better than they were fifty years ago. A house of today is still almost as ill-ventilated, badly heated by wasteful fires, clumsily arranged and furnished as the house of 1858. Houses a couple of hundred years old are still satisfactory places of residence, so little have our standards risen. But the rifle or battleship of fifty years ago was beyond all comparison inferior to those we now possess; in power, in speed, in convenience alike. No one has a use now for such superannuated things."

This alone is beneficial from war for the pointy headed cowards. Not that war is ever a self-sacrificial endeavor to save other human beings from servitude or death at the hands of tyranny. True, very often that is not the case, but sometimes it is. The disembodied concept of war though is much more about being "drilled and trained for better services." So all one needs is to be "drilled and trained" without the war, and then one may magically possess "martial virtues." The militarized person is then groomed to carry out the collective minded "better services" envisioned by the liberal-socialist elite their entire lives. Just that simpleminded, just that juvenile.

Cutting through the billows of hot air, Mr. James eventually felt the need to make his case clear:

"This is my idea – there were, instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature…"

What is meant by this army "against Nature?" The "Nature" here would be man’s seeming innate and undying urge to be a bloodthirsty brute, seeking barbaric conquest and loot, or the implementation of his illusory concept of "good" by force. The operative thought here though, that which is foundational to the NCSC and the GIVE Act, is the "conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years." Certainly the concepts of "good" put forth by non-brutish statists would be more worthy of the service of the entire youth, than those of the brutish statist? This idea of "the conscription of the whole youthful population" is nothing new to the world outside our American window. This concept was brought here from Germany by the likes of James and Dewey, who suckled many a year at Germany’s academic teat. Look how wonderfully it played out in Germany, remember? This is unnatural to the root of the American tree though.

What else does the exalted and cumbrous brain of Mr. James have to offer in this article?

"All these beliefs of mine put me firmly into the anti-military party. But I do not believe that peace either ought to be or will be permanent on this globe, unless the states, pacifically organized, preserve some of the old elements of army-discipline. A permanently successful peace-economy cannot be a simple pleasure-economy. In the more or less socialistic future toward which mankind seems drifting we must still subject ourselves collectively to those severities which answer to our real position upon this only partly hospitable globe. We must make new energies and hardihoods continue the manliness to which the military mind so faithfully clings. Martial virtues must be the enduring cement; intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain the rock upon which states are built."

The pseudo-wars that need to be created and engaged in, in order to instill the pseudo "martial virtues" in our youth, are an essential part of continuing and expediting "the more or less socialistic future toward which mankind seems drifting." "We must still subject ourselves collectively" he claims, in order to "make new energies and hardihoods continue the manliness … intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain the rock upon which states are built." This is what the socialist state of a Mr. James is built on, and this is what the youth need mandatory grooming for, through such means as the "educational" instrument embodied in the likes of a GIVE Act.

Yet more from the statist brain of Mr. James:

"The war-party is assuredly right in affirming and reaffirming that the martial virtues, although originally gained by the race through war, are absolute and permanent human goods. Patriotic pride and ambition in their military form are, after all, only specifications of a more general competitive passion. They are its first form, but that is no reason for supposing them to be its last form. Men are now proud of belonging to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down their persons and their wealth, if by so doing they may fend off subjection. But who can be sure that other aspects of one's country may not, with time and education and suggestion enough, come to be regarded with similarly effective feelings of pride and shame?"

These "martial virtues" are effective in brutish war and all, "but that is no reason for supposing them to be its last form," that is, all they are good for. "But who can be sure that other aspects of one's country may not, with time and education and suggestion enough, come to be regarded with similarly effective feelings of pride and shame," as they do in actual brutish military service?

But how does one instill these "martial virtues" otherwise, Mr. James queries himself:

"It is only a question of blowing on the spark until the whole population gets incandescent, and on the ruins of the old morals of military honor, a stable system of morals of civic honor builds itself up. What the whole community comes to believe in grasps the individual as in a vise. The war-function has grasped us so far; but the constructive interests may some day seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly lighter burden. Let me illustrate my idea more concretely…and this is my idea – there were, instead of military conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted against Nature, the injustice would tend to be evened out, and numerous other goods to the commonwealth would remain blind as the luxurious classes now are blind, to man's relations to the globe he lives on, and to the permanently sour and hard foundations of his higher life."

If you read this essay in full, you would see that the "injustice which would tend to be evened out" by the service-learning programs for which "the conscription of the whole youthful population" is called for, is nothing other than those pesky inequalities between the socialist’s concept of classes. The standard class warfare socialist swill. These pseudo-wars that need to be a mandatory part of all public-statist school curriculum is nothing other than the age-old Marxist yelp of "he has more stuff than him. I must rectify this." As stated above, it is essential to "the more or less socialistic future toward which mankind seems drifting," that the teaching of class warfare be mandatory.

The magnanimous pontificator continues:

"To coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to dishwashing, clotheswashing, and windowwashing, to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, and to the frames of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas. They would have paid their blood-tax, done their own part in the immemorial human warfare against nature; they would tread the earth more proudly, the women would value them more highly, they would be better fathers and teachers of the following generation. Such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that would have required it, and the many moral fruits it would bear, would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues which the military party is so afraid of seeing disappear in peace. We should get toughness without callousness, authority with as little criminal cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily because the duty is temporary, and threatens not, as now, to degrade the whole remainder of one's life."

The "nature" of real brutish warfare is nothing other than the plundering of the have-nots by the haves, as Mr. James and his ilk would have it. The youth must be taught to war against this anti-collectivist and brutish "nature." It is only then that they can be proud of themselves and their society, when they have learned to war against this realest of "injustices," when they have mandatorily volunteered, as the GIVE Act would have it, to serve the oppressed peoples.

Mr. James goes on and on:

"I spoke of the "moral equivalent" of war. So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, and until and equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for preserving manliness of type. It is but a question of time, of skillful propagandism, and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities."

The "moral equivalent of war" is nothing other than socialist class warfare. The "equivalent discipline that needs to be organized" is further unveiled in the GIVE Act. This act is not only the fruition of the foundation laid by Mr. James, but also the embodiment of plans announced by both Barrack Obama, and his Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel. Plans to have "a civilian national security force." In July 2008 Obama stated (and repeated many times before and since) "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that is just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded." His Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, stated his intention to help create "universal civil defense training" in 2006. Despite denials from the Obama administration about specific plans to institute a mandatory program of national service, his original Change.gov website stated that Americans would be "required" to complete "50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year." The text was only later changed to state that Americans would be "encouraged" to undertake such programs. This of course would be an example of the "skillful propagandism of opinion-making men seizing historic opportunities." We’ve heard much about seizing the "historic opportunities" that emerge out of crisis lately, haven’t we? According to the statists that crafted the GIVE Act, and all the preceding legislation and agencies that led to its birthing, the "question of time" proposed by Mr. James is now being answered.

A bit more of Mr. James will suffice:

"The martial type of character can be bred without war…Priests and medical men are in a fashion educated to it, and we should all feel some degree of its imperative if we were conscious of our work as an obligatory service to the state. We should be owned, as soldiers are by the army, and our pride would rise accordingly…The only thing needed henceforward is to inflame the civic temper as part history has inflamed the military temper … H.G. Wells adds that he thinks that the conceptions of order and discipline, the tradition of service and devotion, of physical fitness, unstinted exertion, and universal responsibility, which universal military duty is now teaching European nations, will remain a permanent acquisition when the last ammunition has been used in the fireworks that celebrate the final peace. I believe as he does. It would be simply preposterous if the only force that could work ideals of honor and standards of efficiency into English or American natures should be the fear of being killed by the Germans or the Japanese. Great indeed is Fear; but it is not, as our military enthusiasts believe and try to make us believe, the only stimulus known for awakening the higher ranges of men's spiritual energy."

"We should be owned, as soldiers are by the army?" "Owned" is pregnant with visions of involuntary servitude, is it not? The further you delve into this brain spewing of Mr. James, the concept of "temporary" seems to evaporate. Nevertheless, being "owned," either temporarily or permanently, is still involuntary servitude. Notice again, the necessity to "inflame the civic temper," to "blowing on the spark until the whole population gets incandescent," through means of "skilful propagandism of opinion-making men." All of this points to the unnatural, the artificial, the fabricated nature of the entirety of what the statist mind puts out as truth. Such are the minds of the Jameses, the Deweys, the Obamas, the Emmanuels. They are unnatural, artificial, fake, deceptive, in a word…lying. That they can state their lies articulately and eloquently does not make them not lies. It does though make them Orwellian unlies.

Under section 6104 of the GIVE Act, entitled Duties, in subsection B6, the legislation states that a commission will be set up to investigate whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges.

One may ask, "What’s the big deal about kids doing some good for their community?" There is one very simple answer for this…"What’s the big deal with your kids being OWNED by an omnipotent government?" What a wonderful example of its delights the Germans and their drilled and trained wunderkinder left us? Mandatory involuntary service shall set us all free!

March 25, 2009

Michael Gallucci [send him mail] is a homeschooling father and songwriter living in the People's Republic of Maine. His music can be heard at www.sthuckleberry.com.

from LewRockwell.com

Preparing for Civil Unrest in America?

The Obama Regime Prepares for Civil Unrest

by AL MARTIN

1930-1940 -- Is it a portent of 2009-2019?

(3-23-09) Economic history in the United States today parallels 1930-1940. Therefore if you want to see what 2009 to 2019 will look like, just look at what happened from 1930-1940. Gold confiscation. Gun confiscation. Property confiscation...

Now we have seen the defacto collapse of the real estate market. Ultimately three-quarters of the states and ninety percent of the counties will be in default and then there will be the absolute collapse of public pension systems. One quarter of all financial institutions will collapse.

Lest we forget -- from 1930 to 1940, one sixth of the American population died of starvation, exposure or lack of medical care.

For the first time, since the year 2000, FBI resources are being redirected away from international terrorism to domestic terrorism. Recently a report from Missouri shows the concern the FBI has about this issue as it has tried to put together the old informant system it had in the late 1990s, during the era of the militia groups and the Patriot Movement.

They have targeted so-called Constitutionalist types. The Obama Regime is quietly getting ready. Homeland Security has redirected a lot of FEMA resources. Communication facilities have been upgraded. They're getting ready to suppress what they feel is going to be large-scale civil unrest due to increasing economic deprivation.

The general population has been marginalized so far with all these bailout packages. Mainstream media has done its part by not giving any press coverage to the swelling ranks of Bushvilles (tent cities) throughout the country. The only media that is paying attention to this is the alternative media like Current TV, INN and FSTV. This, however, is just part and parcel of a larger operation, a coordinated program which is one of the reasons that Obama wants to bring back troops to the United States. You might have noticed that those 17,000 troops withdrawn from Iraq are not being plugged into Afghanistan as people thought.

For instance, the largest private military contractor (PMC) in both Iraq and Afghanistan has received a substantial contract to build up units for domestic use. The regime is devoting a great amount of resources to this program which is a much greater plan they inherited from the Bush Cheney Regime, which realized that its economic policies were going to create civil unrest at some point when things fell apart.

When the Grand Leverage Bubble began to break in 2006, the Bush Cheney Regime certainly understood the consequences of the final move, as it were, under Bushonomics II. Even they dramatically increased CILF (Civilian Inmate Labor Facility) resources. That's why they had FEMA and OEM come up with all sorts of domestic emergency civilian management programs.
from - Conspiracy Planet

_____________


Are Congress and Obama deliberately inciting a new US civil war?

Our "leaders" are so outrageous that it has led me to believe that both Congress and Obama are in the process of purposefully creating conditions that will lead to a revolution by We-the-People so that it and Obama can affect Martial Law and once and for all forcibly suppress the American people. Don't think so? Let's take a look.
more - Sher Zieve

_____________


Preparing for Civil Unrest in America

Legislation to Establish Internment Camps on US Military Bases
by Michel Chossudovsky

The financial meltdown has unleashed a latent and emergent social crisis across the United States.

What is at stake is the fraudulent confiscation of lifelong savings and pension funds, the appropriation of tax revenues to finance the trillion dollar "bank bailouts", which ultimately serve to line the pockets of the richest people in America.

This economic crisis is in large part the result of financial manipulation and outright fraud to the detriment of entire populations, to a renewed wave of corporate bankruptcies, mass unemployment and poverty.

The criminalization of the global financial system, characterized by a "Shadow Banking" network has resulted in the centralization of bank power and an unprecedented concentration of private wealth.
more - informationliberation

_____________


art from David Dees & rense

In American crisis, anger and guns

Tent cities for the homeless have expanded outside a string of American cities, from Sacramento and Phoenix to Atlanta and Seattle, for people who are living the American dream in reverse. First they lose their jobs, then their health insurance, then their homes, then their hopes. The encampments are reminiscent of Third World refugee camps.

Often former members of the middle class, tent dwellers’ accounts of their plight to television cameras have a common theme: “I never thought this could happen to me.” Unlike the victims of Katrina, the 2005 hurricane that destroyed much of New Orleans, many of the newly-poor are white. more

_____________

Everywhere I turn people are upset. Even the older folks realize there is something deadly wrong. Is the preparation by our government to deal with civil unrest a sign of things to come? Will we be playing into their hands by standing up for our rights and making an attempt to stop the criminal activities from the White House and Congress and the Federal Reserve and Wall Street?

Is the plan to totally repress Americans by military and police force and blame it all on the 'people?'

What are our choices, where do we begin and can we do anything?

Too many questions, too much disinformation and too little time.

_____________

Les Visible philosophizes...

The Boxwood Maze and The Pecking Order

There is another feature which enters into the mix and keeps you in your allowed portion of the maze and in your place in the pecking order. The satisfaction of having something just isn’t as great without the knowledge that many others do not. This is a key feature of why life is unfair. It is also a given that power has no greater savor than when it is over the lives of others.

The people at the top of the pecking order are not there because they are better; more industrious, smarter or better looking than you.

They have what they have because, usually, they stole it.

They are also where they are because they have no conscience.

the entire essay is at Smoking Mirrors

Disinformation in the Main Stream and Alternative Media

Good disinfo agents tell a lot of truth while diverting certain aspects of the story. It's always up to us to figure out where the bottom line is, sort of separating the 'wheat from the chaff.' This applies not only to the main stream media but sometimes also to the 'leaders' of the patriot/truther movement.

Nathanael Kapner give us a look at Alex Jones.



read the entire article: Is Alex Jones A Zionist?...Controversy Swirls



Detain This specializes on the disinformation of the Associated Press.

AP kisses Israeli ass with another 'corrective'

TVNews Lies gives us a video example.

How the News Networks Lie by Telling the Truth

Gun control is an old disinfo tactic still being used to disarm Americans and negate the 2nd amendment.

From David Codrea via Gun Rights Examiner;

Oakland shootings show uselessness of 'gun control'

"The bulletproof vests that Romans and Sakai wore were no help - when Mixon fired his automatic rifle through a closet door in the apartment, he hit the two sergeants in the head."

The reporters (I like to call them "Authorized Journalists") managed to convey several visceral messages in that compact statement.

One of the bits of disinformation used to justify banning semiautomatic rifles is that the ammunition they fire can penetrate police vests. The truth is, the AK and variants fire a round that is hardly high-powered by rifle standards--so while the gunhaters are quick to assure people their hunting rifles are safe, any such rifle will penetrate body armor designed to stop handgun rounds. But note in this case, vest penetration was not a factor--so why even bring it up?

The other problematic choice of words? Using the term "Automatic rifle."

If, in fact it, was full-auto, that's yet two more sets of "gun control" laws ignored--state and federal. More likely, and information is conflicting at this point, it was a semiauto. But we in the gun rights advocacy community are used to seeing the press confuse the public on the difference. It's actually part of a larger disinformation plan that the media continually either intentionally propagates or obliviously parrots.*

Here's what we do know: "Gun control" laws were utterly useless at keeping guns out of the hands of a killer. And when he went on a rampage, it took other men with guns to stop him.
more

Global Warming continues to be a major source of disinfo intended to separate more money from your wallet in the form of carbon taxes. It's a part of school curriculum.

Kids Are Being Taught That Carbon Kills Polar Bears

The 'War on Drugs' turns lives upside down and creates a massive prison system. The disinfo about marijuana and industrial hemp has been ongoing for over 60 years. Can this be ended anytime soon?

We can't end the despicable "war on drugs" without an effective media that can mobilize our citizenry and spread the word.

War, terrorism, the 'War on Terror' and 9/11 are the ultimate sources of disinformation.

How our governments use terrorism to control us

Knowing who owns the media goes a long way in realizing who controls the disinfo.

Six Jewish Companies Own 96% of the World's Media

Prime Time Puppet

Rahm Emanuel contemplates Obama's performance at the March 24 prime time press conference.


Boring, no emotion, no charisma, stiff.

In all fairness, when one is tasked with telling the same lies over and over again, it must be difficult to get up and show some personality that the American public can relate to.

Obama's handlers will have to work on this, the strings are unraveling.


Transcript

Garden Day - Chicken Manure

Bill's chickens

After several years of having what I suppose you could call a vegan garden, one where no animal products are used, I decided to to go back to a tried and true aspect...free manure.

In this economic malaise I thought the boost might increase yield and along with quality and taste, yield is very important.

My old friend Bill has a chicken coop/stall in his barn so I cleaned about half of it out and got approximately 600 pounds of almost granulated manure. The coop had not been cleaned out for years. If you are going to raise chickens for eggs, you might as well do it right and Bill does that. Only the best feed and he even gives them ground oyster shells that make for a strong egg shell . With 14 pullets he gets about 10-12 eggs per day, gives away some and sell others for $1.50 a dozen. He loves his chickens and they repay him with almost perfect eggs.
So I'd say the manure is good quality also.

The big plant boost will be from chicken manure tea. In each of four 30 gallon trash cans I put in 20 pounds of the manure and filled them up with water. I will stir this periodically and after 3 to 4 weeks it should be ready. To be on the safe side so as not to 'burn' any plants, I'll use it diluted by half and try to feed the plants right before a rain if at all possible.

I then filled up a 3x6 compost bed with about a foot of the manure, covered it with straw and will let it sit until late summer when it should be broken down enough for a lettuce and spinach crop and hopefully have some late season salads.

The rest of the chicken manure was broadcast lightly over the rest of the unplanted garden and sprinkled in between the already up lettuce, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, garlic, chives and onions and on top of the potatoes planted but not yet up.

It should be worth the effort.

Rural 'Stimuli'

Although not from current 'stimulus' money, Homeland Security did contribute to our town's 'safety' through the funding of surveillance cameras. All 252 of the 'townies' should be relieved.

Stimulus money will soon be coming to rural America but it seems like more of the same old 'Homeland Security' schemes. More militarization of the local police and an increase in the 'big brother' social services.

More Federal Stimulus Grants for Cannon County
With the local economy in a slow down and a lot of Cannon County folks out of work, our local elected officials would be wise to sharpen their pencils and start looking for as many of the federal stimulus grants that local governments can apply for. There are several of these grants that local governments can apply directly to the federal government for (which means they have to ask for the funding or they won't get the money!).

As there are numerous federal agencies that are administering stimulus grants, our local officials should keep their eyes peeled for funding opportunities to help our community through these rough economic times.

If the grants are available why not?

Here are three stimulus fund local grants that just opened up that Cannon County can apply for now...

Assistance to Rural Law Enforcement to Combat Crime and Drugs

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/recovery/RecoveryRuralLE.pdf


Office of Victims of Crime grant to combat violence against women & children

http://www.ojp.gov/ovc/fund/pdftxt/FY09RecoveryAct_National_Field_Generated.pdf

Recovery Act Byrne Competitive Grant: Cannon County has been allocated $10,884 under this grant already!!!

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/recoveryJAG/JAGrecoveryLocal.pdf

Helicopters are handy in these down times. You never know when those 'domestic terrorists' will need to be tracked down. An infrared system may even help find those 'hot spots' of activity deemed not appropriate for making a little money among the unemployed.

We've got a new helicopter to fight crime, assist in rescue efforts, and emergency management in the Cookeville District THP which includes Cannon County.

A Bell Jet Ranger THP helicopter is now stationed in Crossville. more

Tennessee will be receiving an estimated $5 billion in tax debt money and getting broadband access in rural areas is on the table.

Another program funded by stimulus money is Connect TN, according to state Sen. Bill Ketron who sponsored legislation for statewide cable TV franchises. Connect TN is to improve Internet connections. It and related programs funded by the federal government have been compared to rural electrification.

"Broadband is a huge chunk of the stimulus program," Ketron said.

Some $4.7 billion is to be distributed nationally by by the national Telecommunications and Information Administration "to build out broadband in unserved and under-served areas for public safety and training and education."

I wonder if there will be stipulations regarding the filtering of 'undesirable' websites in the package.


What I see missing from the stimulus package is any money for assisting new manufacturing of essential items. Since the US manufacturing base has eroded, one might think this would be an area of opportunity. Making things here instead of China, Mexico, etc. would spread the wealth around but I guess the globalists have other ideas.


Of course individuals can apply for some stimuli through .gov websites. A friend recently spent a lot of time putting together a proposal for a sustainable farming project. In the mission statement he said that this project would be a good alternative to GMO seed crops.
Opps, that may have been a mistake in going against the Monsanto crowd.
Sorry man, no free money for you.

Militarization of Public Schools & Outlawing Citizens' Right to Protest

Is your school district running out of money? Are property taxes rising to pay for substandard education? No problem. Just partner with the military.

The Marines would share costs of operating the school, including paying for teacher salaries. DeKalb would pay for benefits.

Will the constitution be taught in these schools?



Despite protests, DeKalb proceeds with Marines school

County plans to open public high school in partnership with U.S. Marine Corps

By Kristina Torres The Atlanta Journal-Constitution March 23, 2009

DeKalb County school officials are forging ahead with plans to open a first-of-its-kind military-style public high school, despite a growing campaign by activists upset at the involvement of the U.S. Marines.

“It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in Georgia education,” said Michael Burke, a DeKalb resident and spokesman for the Georgia Veterans Alliance, a group that aligns itself with the work of the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, among others.

“The whole thing is just a ploy” to help the Marines recruit, Burke said. “We expect to fight it tooth and nail.”

That response irritated DeKalb school system officials. They said it stereotypes the proposed Marine school and students who may be interested in it. The protests — mounted largely through e-mails and letters — have not deterred them, they said.

“This is not a training ground to send kids into the military,” said DeKalb schools Superintendent Crawford Lewis, whose system, with 99,700 students, is the state’s third-largest. “My job is not to look after a portion of children but all the children. One size does not fit all. For the mom who believes her child is capable of going to college but lacks discipline, this is a choice.”

A DeKalb school spokesman said Monday the system has hired a commandant for the school, which system officials hope to open in August. The commandant was selected from a list of three candidates from the Marines.

A memorandum of understanding with the Marines has not yet been signed, although DeKalb school board members authorized the school’s concept Sept. 9.

The DeKalb Marine Corps Institute will be the first of its kind in Georgia, and joins an expanding network of such schools nationwide. The first public military academy opened in Richmond, Va., in 1980, and more than a dozen now exist in places from New York to Wisconsin. more

Military high schools and possible mandatory 'volunteering' for all of our kids. Creating a youth police state, one step at a time.

The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act has been passed by the house and now goes to the Senate. As with all things 'government' there are hidden agendas.

GIVE Act outlaws citizens' right to protest


It is another sound good piece of legislation. H.R. 1388 has a creative title; The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act. 321 representatives of the people voted approval for this legislation which, among many other things, strikes a blow to the rights of people to mount any protests against legislation. Listen closely, it outlaws the right to mount protests against proposed legislation.

This act is being presented as part of Pres. Obama's goal of establishing a national service program. In his speech delivered in Colorado Springs, CO he wanted "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded" as the the military." As Rahm Emanuel further explained, "It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, all Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service."

The GIVE Act would extend funding, through 2014, for AmeriCorps as well many other organizations that would either be extended or created. Among these are the National Civilian Community Corps, Learn and Serve Programs, the Investment for Quality and Innovation program, Campuses of Service, Innovative Service-Learning Programs and Research, an Education Corps to address unmet educational needs, a Healthy Futures Corps to address unmet health needs, a Clean Energy Corps to address unmet environmental needs, a Veterans Corps to address the unmet needs of veterans and their families. Overall it is the goal to reach at least 250,000 serving in a volunteer basis. Overall, it sounds good to the ears yet 105 representatives voted in opposition to it.

Perhaps one of the key reasons there were so many votes against this supposedly good act was the little amendment buried down as the 12th Amendment to the act. Remember it is the little invasions to our liberties that open cracks for increased federal power and decreased freedom. "Amendment to prohibit organizations from attempting to influence legislation; organize or engage in protests, petitions, boycotts, or strikes; and assist, promote, or deter union organizing." Those in support of this legislation will argue this amendment is limited in scope and is not meant to interfere with the rights of citizens to protest, petition, boycott, or strike in resistance to government proposed laws.

However, the people associated through service under the GIVE Act are considered volunteers, still free citizens, yet it will be unlawful for them to take part in any protests against any legislation. This is as close to a sedition act, a violation of 1st Amendment rights, as has been proposed in recent history. A basic right as a part of our natural, inalienable rights, is to resist government. Our founders not only knew it was a right but it was a responsibility. This legislation begins to break that down significantly.

What can you do? Research this legislation and the amendments to see if you feel as outraged as this examiner. Contact your representatives and chastise those who voted for it while sending a note of appreciation to those who stood against it. Keep an eye on your Senators and help defeat any attempt to carry the GIVE Act into law by contacting them and letting them know you oppose this violation of our natural right and responsibility as patriotic Americans.

from Gary Wood at The Examiner

Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace (1958)

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Huxley died on 22 November 1963, aged 69. Media coverage of his death was overshadowed by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, on the same day.

Thoughts for a Sunday Morning

"I don't know which will happen first, 1776 or 1929, but be prepared . . ."



Why the End of America is Closer than You Think

While the sheeple of America are caught up in their hypnotic dreams of world domination, white-collar hoodlums in Washington D.C. and Wall Street are stealing everything!

Given these circumstances, it is not difficult to predict the demise of America as we know it. The U.S. dollar will eventually collapse or be abandoned. This could happen literally overnight, or it could take years, but make no mistake: The American people will not be forewarned of the collapse of the dollar. It will be a sudden, surprise announcement, and all the politicians and banking elitists who engineered the whole thing will pronounce their "shock" that such a thing could happen! "We could never have predicted this," they will insist, even while the whole thing was actually engineered by the very same people.

One day, Americans will wake up and discover that all banks are on "bank holidays" (which means that someone in Washington is taking a holiday with your money while YOU can't access it).

Within hours, the National Guard will roll into the cities of the United States, and Americans will find themselves penniless prisoners in their own country. Anyone who protests will be arrested or shot. Law will be dispensed at the end of military rifles, and the President will get on television and explain how this is all being done for YOUR benefit! It's for your own safety and protection, didn't you know?

From here, it's difficult to say exactly what will unfold. We could see UN troops on U.S. soil, the IMF taking over the U.S. banking system, and the forced transition to a global currency. Other possibilities include the Balkanization of the formerly-united States of America, with regional nation-states declaring their own independence from Washington.

During this chaos, just-in-time delivery of food and products will grind to a halt. Store shelves will be emptied. A healthy economy of barter will immediately spring up to fill the void. Those who have things to trade (toilet paper, butter, salt, sugar, matches, gold, silver, food, fuel, etc.) will eat. Those who don't will starve. Health will plummet and infectious disease will become a very real threat in many cities. The conventional medical system will, of course, be utterly useless and will run out of medicine within days or weeks.

This economic transition chaos will be short-lived, however, and from the ashes of economic turmoil will spring a new nation (or nations) of People who have finally awakened from their complacency. New governments will be forged, and the fields of economic ruin will be ripe for the planting and sprouting of new ideas from a new generation of visionary leaders.

more - Mike Adams at Counterthink

Also see: How to Create A Healthy, Wealthy Abundant Nation from the Ashes of America's Demise

More doping of the kids 'approved' by the criminal FDA.

Forest depression drug approved for adolescents

Forest Laboratories Inc. said Friday the Food and Drug Administration approved its depression and anxiety drug Lexapro for use in children between the ages of 12 and 17 years old.

The drug is currently approved as a treatment for depression in adults.

Forest has come under scrutiny by the U.S. government for its marketing practices, with the Justice Department in February filing a complaint alleging Lexapro and Celexa was promoted for use by children, even though it is not approved for their age group. Forest has denied it marketed the drugs for any use other than the approved indications.

While doctors are allowed to prescribe drugs for uses not listed on the labels, companies are not allowed to actively promote the drugs for that kind of "off-label" use.

"We are enormously gratified that Lexapro will be available for depressed adolescents who so much require the benefits which Lexapro has made available for depressed adults for the past seven years." said Chief Executive Howard Solomon, in a statement Friday.

more

Seeds of Deception: 10-pg summary by Author Jeffrey M. Smith

On May 23, 2003, President Bush proposed an Initiative to End Hunger in Africa [1] using genetically modified (GM) foods. He also blamed Europe's "unfounded, unscientific fears" of these foods for thwarting recovery efforts. Bush was convinced that GM foods held the key to greater yields, expanded U.S. exports, and a better world. His rhetoric was not new. It had been passed down from president to president, and delivered to the American people through regular news reports and industry advertisements.

The message was part of a master plan that had been crafted by corporations determined to control the world's food supply. This was made clear at a biotech industry conference in January 1999, where a representative from Arthur Anderson Consulting Group explained how his company had helped Monsanto create that plan.

more - Rady Ananda

Also see: Defining "food safety" and thanking cowboys

Al Qaeda Doesn't Exist

Part One of the Al Qaeda Doesn’t Exist documentary from The Corbett Report, dealing with the founding and funding of what we know as Al Qaeda. This installment of the documentary goes into Zbigniew Brzezinski, Operation Cyclone, the ISI-CIA-MAK-US government funding circle and CIA connections to Osama Bin Laden.

see video at disinter

Tax Time Covert Ops

Now, having grown up in an urban community taken over by drug dealing and having spent a fair amount of time learning how secret societies, law firms, banks and government agencies manage the narcotics business and $500 billion - $1 trillion of US money laundering, when you say “local gang” what I hear is “local CIA distributor.” So when a local drug gang does something or is rumored to do something, what I hear is that covert ops is on the move and the orders are coming top down.

How do you prevent a class war? How do you stop people from starting or joining tax resistance movements? Well, believe it or not, you start a race war. You target people who understand their rights and are working to build self sufficiency. If people are afraid, they will want more law and order. So they will pay their taxes. They will worry about the gangs next door instead of the gangs in the City of London. They will not realize the two are intimately connected.

Hate. Divide and conquer. It’s a business. The media is pushing it. The people directing it are the same people who brought you the AIG bonuses. Indeed, AIG is my vote for one of the top three financial institutions involved in financing domestic covert operations.

We have nothing to fear from teenagers of any color. They are our future. We have nothing to fear from patriots. They are our conscience. If we have anything to fear, it is the IRS.

Make sure you file your taxes on April 15th. The government needs our money. They need to give it to rich traders in London and secretive banks who are laundering the profits from the drugs and gangs that plague our neighborhoods.

God forbid everyone who owed the IRS money this year should file tax extensions in protest. God forbid Wall Street should have to wait until October 15 for more bailout money.

more - Cathrine Austin Fitts

Meanwhile, Four More Canadians Die for Nothing

The troops are "Fighting for our Freedom" say many of the war proponents...
but how can that be when it is our own government, not the Taliban that
has taken our freedoms and is unleashing a police state on us?

The soldiers are in the wrong country. The enemy is in Canads, and it occupies our government and isntitutions. more - ziofascism

Student Science Question For Obama

"Secretary looks to a 'new era' of science education" by Becky Bohrer, Associated Press | March 21, 2009

NEW ORLEANS - Education Secretary Arne Duncan said yesterday that he wants to launch a "new era" of science education in the United States, one that encourages students to ask tough, challenging questions.... --more--"

Okay, kids, here's one: HOW did THREE WTC TOWERS (one not even hit by a plane) COLLAPSE into their OWN FOOTPRINT when FIRE has NEVER FELLED a STEEL-FRAMED BUILDING before or since?

Please explain this PHYSICAL IMPOSSIBILITY to me. Arne.

from Rock the Truth - MSM Monitor

Iran - Smarter Than the Average Bear

Yep! They know a slicker when they see one.

Even Yogi knew a rat when he smelled one.

Did Yogi smell an "overture"? Joe doesn't thinks so.

You can read it here: Iran's supreme leader dismisses Obama overtures

"They chant the slogan of change but no change is seen in practice. We haven't seen any change," Khamenei said in a speech ..."

"Have you released Iranian assets? Have you lifted oppressive sanctions? Have you given up mudslinging and making accusations against the great Iranian nation and its officials? Have you given up your unconditional support for the Zionist regime? Even the language remains unchanged," Khamenei said.

For its part, the Obama administration must take practical steps such as lifting a ban on selling Iran spare parts for passenger aircraft or considering unfreezing Iranian assets in the U.S., (a prominent political analyst Saeed) Leilaz said.

"They say we have stretched a hand toward Iran. ... If a hand is stretched covered with a velvet glove but it is cast iron inside, that makes no sense," Khamenei said.

Sometimes it takes a preacher to know a preacher.

from - Joe Blow Report

Questions and Answers?

Is Lawrence Summers Jewish?

Is Paul Volker Jewish?

Is Timothy Geithner Jewish?

Is Bernie Madoff's Accountant David G. Friehling Jewish?

Is this whore bag really Jewish?

AIPAC comes to Tennessee, and elsewhere.

A lot of commotion for a small minority group.

TN estimated jewish population - 19,300 ____ Total TN population - 5,962,959
percentage of jews - 0.3

The Iranian Nuclear Program: A Threat to the Middle East, Europe and the U.S.
3/22/2009 7:30 PM
Memphis, TN
Please join your fellow AIPAC activists from Memphis for this important briefing on Iran's Nuclear program.

Knoxville-Oak Ridge 2009 Annual Dinner
4/1/2009 6:30 PM
Knoxville, TN
Please join your fellow AIPAC/Pro-Israel activists for the Knoxville-Oak Ridge 2009 Annual Dinner & Briefing........

2009 Memphis Community Event
5/12/2009 6:30 PM
Memphis, TN
Be a part of Memphis' most important Pro-Israel political advocacy event of 2009. Please join us for the 2009 Memphis Community Event.

Larry Silverstein seeking BAILOUT cash

The absurdity of Silverstein possibly getting 'bailout' money shows how these people like to rub it in our face. They think they can get by with anything since they have, so far, gotten by with 9/11.

The following is from Whisleblower -Facts not Fairies. I'm sure he will have the updates on Silverstein and the bankers as the 'stimulus' money is being passed around.

~~~~~~~~~

NEW YORK, March 21 (Reuters) - The private developer redeveloping the World Trade Center site in New York City has asked the government for financial assistance, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

Quoting people familiar with the matter, the Journal said The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the government body that owns the site, is considering whether to help finance at least one of the three office towers planned in the project.

Sources said developer Larry Silverstein has sought financial help with at least two of the towers.

A spokesman for Silverstein blamed delays on the Port Authority but did not say whether it was seeking financial help.

"Unfortunately, the Port Authority has been unable to meet its obligations to deliver construction-ready sites or to maintain agreed-upon schedules for critical aspects of the World Trade Center rebuilding, including essential site infrastructure," spokesman Bud Perrone said in an email to Reuters.

"As has been previously reported, the Port Authority and Silverstein Properties have entered into discussions about altering previously-agreed to timelines for the construction of several of the office towers and associated business arrangements," Perrone said.

The Port Authority confirmed it was engaged in talks on the rebuilding.

"We are continuing to discuss with SPI (Silverstein Properties) how to best meet a changed market while ensuring the WTC site is rebuilt in the best public interest," a statement obtained by Reuters said.

"In the meantime, the negotiations will be between the two parties, not in the press," it added.

Reconstruction of the 16-acre (6.5-hectare) site destroyed in the Sept. 11 attacks has been plagued by controversy and delays. The plan calls for five skyscrapers, a memorial, a transit hub, a shopping mall and a performing arts center, much of which was expected to open between 2011 and 2013.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud, additional reporting by Jim Marshall in Chicago; Editing by Eric Walsh)
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2152291320090321

Who Destroyed The WTC? Lewis Eisenberg, vice president of AIPAC and former Goldman Sachs partner, was Chairman of the Port Authority ("PA"), the Lessor. Larry Silverstein, New York developer and friend of Netanyahu (every Sunday Netanyahu would call Silverstein) led the Silverstein Group, the Lessee. (Italics added.) In April 2001 Silverstein was informed he had lost his bid in the privatization of the World Trade Center ("WTC"). Then events took a surprising turn. The winner dropped out, leaving Silverstein and his partners, who had finished second, as the new winner. The lease was purchased by the Silverstein Group for $3.2 billion on July 24, 2001. Silverstein put up $125 million, only $14 million his own money. The net lease covers four buildings at the World Trade Center, including the Twin Towers and the retail Mall. It may have been one of the most elaborate deals in the leasing history of New York City. More A Slip From the horse's mouth: Liars have bad memories: The Jewish owner of the World Trade Center buildings tells us himself on camera that he authorized the demolition of WTC7. Jew Larry Silverstein owner of the World trade Center says: 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull (Demolish) and we watched the building collapse."

source: Facts not Fairies


more on the Silverstein story at The Raw Story - with a lot of comments.

Definition of CHANGE

Global War on Terror, Fake Nukes in Iran, and Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Signing away our future.

Posted by willyloman on March 21, 2009

by Scott Creighton

Obama and Perez of Israel both made a video message for the people of Iran attempting to reach out to them while still falsely accusing Iranian leadership of attempting to make nuclear weapons. Sounds a little like Bush’s message to the people of Iraq, now doesn’t it?

“I think the Iranian nation will topple these leaders — leaders that do not serve the people. In the end, people will understand this,” Peres said. MSNBC

That’s not the only thing coming from Obama these days that sounds a little too much like his predicessor;

At a town hall meeting in southern California yesterday, Obama renewed his support for comprehensive (immigration) reform, including a possible path to citizenship… Boston.com

Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, added, “While we agree that our priority should be fixing the nation’s economy, we also believe that we can initiate an immigration reform that will help us achieve long-term economic growth.” Boston.com

And for those “business-first liberals” out there who support Obama’s centrist manuvering, this means that yes, he will continue to strive to achieve what the Bush administration failed to do in 2007, create a super cheap labor force from across the border that will now be ‘legal” in every sense of the term.

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, … (S. 1348) was a bill discussed in the 110th United States Congress that would have provided legal status and a path to legal citizenship for the approximately 12 million illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States. Wiki

What the bill will create is a second-class citizen status in America with it’s “Z Visas”, forcing them to work and pay-taxes for 8 years, with fewer rights and privileges than U.S. citizens, but opening them up to pay into insurance companies and open bank accounts. 12 million new customers with more on the way. You phony liberal Blue-Dog Dems will like that, won’t you?

It seems everyone can see through this charade except my liberal brotheren…

“They give the slogan of change but in practice no change is seen. … We haven’t seen any change,” Khamenei said. Boston.com

Now that the “liberals” have adopted Bush’s “Global War on terror”, his “Pax Americana” world view, and soon his “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” that promises to run-down the wages of the working men and women in America even more in the name of “long term economic growth”, I mean there is nothing left for the puppet Obama to smooth over for them….

…. except….

Bush was asked if he made progress in some areas for which he hasn’t and probably won’t get credit. Topping his list was his unsuccessful drive in 2005 to reform Social Security. Bush said his effort showed it’s politically safe to campaign on changing Social Security and then actually seek to change it. TP

You see, what TP didn’t understand (or maybe they do, Podesta was Obama’s transition team leader, you know) is that Bush was giving us a hint of things to come; testing the waters, so to speak, of yet another Obama/Bush policy agenda just waiting in the wings. With all this turmoil over the bankers stealing from us and now the immigration reform bill peeking it’s head around the corner, all while we are making clear overtures in concert with out “beacon of democracy” Israel, the last thing they want to mention is the pending privatization of Social Security that Obama will eventually achieve.

(ok. The “beacon of democracy” joke wasn’t very Kosher of me, I know…)

But the point is, people, just like Emanuel said, “Never let a crisis go to waste. You can get things passed you won’t be able to normally“.

The deepening financial crisis in America is going to be this presidents 9/11. It presents opportunity for the banks to make a killing, and with his “stimulus bill” it also gives big corporations the opportunity to do the same.

What did Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package deliver to the people? Tax breaks amounting to $10 a week for people who HAVEN’T yet lost their jobs and $20 a month in FOOD STAMPS for each FAMILY. Do you have any idea what $20 dollars buys these days? That’s roughly an extra gallon of milk per week per FAMILY.

Talk about “Let them eat cake!”. You can’t even afford cake on that increase.

Thanks Obama.

Source: American Everyman

_____________


The Europeans are getting it but Americans just sit back and watch TV. The revolution is not televised here.

As neo-liberal education reforms are planned across Europe, students in the continent have been taking to the streets leading to battles with riot police in several cities.

On Wednesday morning, the day before the general strike over one million workers, students clashed with riot police in Paris after a demonstration over the university reforms. Universities across France have been barricaded and picketed for almost two months in a standoff over these higher education reforms. The satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné yesterday reported that Sarkozy wanted student protests calmed by May, fearing echoes of the student-led protests of May 1968. more

Marseille: No to closures and sackings

Reports on the March 19 demonstrations in France

Shell Oil to Planet Earth: Drop Dead

"Pay up and shut up. This collision with human civilization ... is increasingly dire."
Al 'carbon tax/cap and trade' Whore...

Written by Chris Floyd

The Guardian reports on some admirable candor from the paladins at Shell Oil, still raking in gargantuan profits despite the global economic cratering. Shell says it is dropping its much-publicized work on alternative energy sources – because the bucks just aren't big enough. Green energy, it seems, just doesn't produce enough long green for the Oil Lords. Instead, they are going to keep scraping out carbon from the guts of the earth – and going in for biofuels, i.e., diverting vast acreages of arable land from food production for the world's poor to energy for the world's rich. From the Guardian: Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydro power because they are not economic, the Anglo-Dutch oil company said today. It plans to invest more in biofuels which environmental groups blame for driving up food prices and deforestation.... The company said it would concentrate on developing other cleaner ways of using fossil fuels, such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. It hoped to use CCS to reduce emissions from Shell's controversial and energy-intensive oil sands projects in northern Canada. The company said that many alternative technologies did not offer attractive investment opportunities. Linda Cook, Shell's executive director of gas and power, said: "If there aren't investment opportunities which compete with other projects we won't put money into it. We are businessmen and women. If there were renewables [which made money] we would put money into it." You can't put it much plainer than that. And it's true: the business of business is to make money, not to pursue social policy or sustain the common good. The latter is what citizens are supposed to do through their political systems -- which is why they aren't allowed to control those systems. But anyway, given this inherent nature of business, it sort of makes you wonder about all those "green entrepreneurs" who believe that the private sector will save us from global warming -- like this worthy gentleman from over Carthage way, who has teamed up with an ex-Goldman Sachs exec to manage billions of dollars in "sustainability-driven" investments. Yes, Al Gore, like Bono and other world worthies, is in the high-end investment business, seeking to make big money from the global disaster. (The environmental one, not the economic one.) No doubt "Little Al" (as we used to call him around home when he was our kid senator, and when -- full disclosure -- my cousin used to work for him) really would like to see a more balanced earth and all; who wouldn't? But wouldn't it be refreshing if just one of our world-straddling noble crusaders could crusade for their noble causes without also milking it for millions? Source: Chris Floyd

Inviting the Sheep for Another Shearing

By Ed Encho

What do you get for pretending the danger's not real.
Meek and obedient you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors into the valley of steel.
What a surprise!
A look of terminal shock in your eyes.
Now things are really what they seem.
No, this is no bad dream.

-Pink Floyd (sheep)

In the ongoing madness of an America in terminal decline, the great Surge II is now underway. This one has nothing to do with mass brainwashing that all is ell in Iraq and that we are indeed winning thanks to our shining medal festooned superstar quarterback otherwise known as General God (aka David Petraeus) to divert the flocks attention away from a doomed imperialist crusade. Nope, this one hits closer to home, it started last Monday with a sly piece of internal propaganda from Citigroup’s CEO Vikram Pandit having its best quarter since 2007 which triggered a sucker rally in the Wall Street casinos that dictate to the inhabitants of chumpland. The pocket media once again did their job, selling this latest call for the sheep to come and be sheared with all the effectiveness that they pimped the murderous lies of George W. Bush, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. Things – ARE getting better you see, the gloom-gloomers, the glass is half-empty pessimists, the neurotic nervous nellies and the naysaying Eyores are all wrong, it’s a disease, in their heads, the economy is rocketing its way back to robustitude. The most incredible example of just how thoroughly corrupt that the corporatist media has become is the pernicious cover story of the latest edition of Newsweek magazine that has a picture of good ole Uncle Sam saying that he wants YOU to START SPENDING!... YOU need to INVEST in America – before it’s too late.

The Newsweek story, by Daniel Gross which inside is even more insidious in that it beats the reader over the head with STOP SAVING NOW! – in all caps and taking up the better part of page 27, page 26 is a picture of a squirrel (a cartoon representation of those greedy pigs who dare to save their own money rather than gamble in the Wall Street casinos who holding onto a backload of acorns has caused the branch of the tree to CRAK! Jesus fucking Christ, this is propaganda at its finest, even a cynic like me is astounded by the dastardly nature of this banker swill in one of the nation’s premier ‘news’ magazines.

A more sophisticated version of Mad Money Cramer, Gross goes on to say:

The hum of ambient noise in midtown Manhattan is several decibels lower than it was a year ago. Fewer black Town Cars idle outside the investment-bank offices on Park Avenue. The aisles of the flagship Saks Fifth Avenue are so quiet you'd think you were in a library. The restaurants and shops at Rockefeller Center are open as usual, but they seem oddly depopulated. Where are all the tourists and office workers, the hordes of junior analysts lining up in Starbucks?

Something less tangible is also absent: the spirit of caffeinated, heedless risk taking. For a generation, risk has been the adrenaline of the nation's economy, the substance that made us all—from the denizens of midtown Manhattan to the residents of Manhattan, Kans.—run a little faster and stay up a little later. Now, with the economy in its 16th month of recession and the markets scythed in half, it seems we've all either switched to decaf or simply lost the taste for risk.

And

As consumers hibernate and investors hoard cash, the economy is withering. This new age of thrift is understandable. But for a recovery to take hold, Americans will need to start taking risks again.

And

Saving cash and building up reserves is a necessary first step to recovery. But eventually the mountain of cash has to be put to work. Last week's sharp market rally was certainly a sign—however fleeting it may turn out to be—that investors are putting money to work again. Retail sales in February provided another hint that purse strings may be loosening. But there's much more work to be done. Ironically, post-bubble periods are frequently great times to start new ventures. The best time to start a dotcom wasn't in 1999 when the IPO market was raging, it was in 2002, when the price of everything associated with the business—office space, programming talent—had plummeted. When Allied Corp. in the late 1980s didn't want to pursue the development of consumer products based on global-positioning-satellite technology, Gary Burrell left, raised $4 million and formed Garmin, which today employs about 7,000 people.

Great solution, just trust Wall Street with that money, think long term, be patriotic even if the malefactors of great wealth do not and are more than happy to wallow in international troughs and then come back to shit on America. Gross, a highly-paid, high profile stooge is just playing his part in the ongoing relaunch project to save Wall Street looters and protect their plunder. We have seen this story already, Americans with dollar signs in their eyes and cash register bells going off in their heads like some bizarre real life Uncle Scrooge cartoon, duped into thinking that they can actually become rich and powerful themselves just like The Donald line up to be fleeced by the flim-flam men with the political juice and insider knowledge as they seek to cash out one more time. Perhaps a final time before the country impoldes inward upon itself. All aided and abetted by the media, the Wall Street cadre occupying Barack Obama's White House, guys like Lawrence Summers and the conniving little twit Tim Geithner whose announcement as the new treasury secretary was greeted by a 6.5 % spike in the DOW, the crack-ho economy got a mainline spike into the arm and knew that the paper pusher inside the administration would ensure them that the game would go on and on. In the end of course, all has been enabled by the bewildered herd of sheeple themselves, brainwashed from birth into the bastardized capitalist system that is already drooling over being able to suck the blood from their grandchildren on account of their greed, stupidity and folly.

As a counter to the mainstream drivel that Gross and Newsweek are peddling as pearls of infinite wisdom I counter with an excerpt from a piece from his month’s Harpers. Infinite Debt by Thomas Georghegan discusses the ruinous and usurious effects of the debt based economy and its victims The same ones that Gross and his fellow pocket media hacks are now trying to swindle out of whatever little they may now have in their piggy banks having been badly burned by the existing system that has beggared them and cast them out of jobs and homes in addition to destroying their pensions and 401k retirement plans. From the Harper's piece (which I will be addressing at length in my coming post Usurious Bastards):

What is history, really, but a turf war between manufacturing, labor and the banks? In the United States, we shrank manufacturing. We got rid of labor. Now it’s just the banks.

Which is why the middle class is shrinking. Basically, we’re all waiters now; we’re bowing and scraping and working for the banks. Look closely at any American, and it’s even odds that he or she, directly or indirectly, is somehow employed by the “financial services sector,” which covers insurance and real estate and financial instruments of any kind. As brokers, lawyers, loan collectors, loan consolidators, secretaries at big investment firms, chauffeurs of private limousines, or even the high-tech types who exist solely to service banks — all of us, millions of us, are part of it, living off it in some way, as three generations ago we lived off manufacturers.

The game is rigged people, and the hit job done on America by the rotten fuckers on Wall Street and their institutionalized system of debt slavery is all that is left, and STILL the banksters on the street and the gangsters in D.C. are doint everything that they can to continue to bleed the silly and naive masses of asses by doing all that is possible to get the debt/consumerism bubble reinflated. In a rare piece of sanity that slipped by the censors and minders of the memory hole a Reuters story, More debt: a curious solution to a credit crisis dared to utter the heresy that:

Indeed, a huge part of the Treasury's economic rescue plan is based on reviving securitization. This is the process by which everything from real estate and auto loans to credit cards and student debt gets repackaged into bonds and is then sold on to investors in a secondary market.

This worked wonders during the boom of the past couple of decades, leading to rapid capital formation that underpinned a huge rise in lending. But when the music stopped, many investors were left looking for an empty chair as these products of financial "innovation" proved ruinously difficult to value.

Given this history, Wray, also a senior fellow at the Levy Economics Institute, said asset-backed bonds are the problem, not the solution. "We need to kill off securitization and go back to banking -- loan officers and underwriting."

Wall Street is a con game, it depends on confidence in order for the moneychangers to book their fees and peddle their bad paper, given the Surge II it’s apparent that the entrenched elitists are determined to wage war against any sort of change that Obama may have in mind. Given the first two months of the administration and while being mindful that it’s still early, despite some initial guarded optimism I am becoming more and more certain that nothing is changing except the management of the whorehouse. I now find myself in agreement more or less with those progressives who were wary of Obama from the onset, with his government packed with recycled Clinton era swine, the usual assortment of Wall Street and Federal Reserve grifters running fiscal policy and his still stinging kick in the balls from the Israel lobby over the Freeman resignation it only looks like more of the same shit but in a different package. Helicopter Ben's announcement that the Fed would now be buying American debt to save their fucking system, the dollar immediately took a shit and with the coming wave of hyperinflationi as a result of this latest idiocy this story should send a cold chill up the spine of all who are onto what has really been going on as America has been gutted: The US is Facing a Weimar Moment. Read it if you dare.

As Orwell once wrote in the literary classic Animal Farm:

“All animals are equal, some are just more equal than others”

Republican ‘free marketers’ are unscrupulous and pathologically greedy, they also delight in the trafficking of human misery for profit. It makes them feel empowered. They are like the S.O.B. sitting at the Monopoly table who is not content in owning Boardwalk and Park Place as well as all of the utilities and railroads but also buys Baltic and Mediterranean and loads them up with houses and hotels then squeals with childlike glee when some poor bastard lands on one of them and is driven into bankruptcy. The game of Monopoly is very relevant to life itself in laissez-faire hell, where the rich are able to accumulate property on a rapidly escalating scale and as wealth rapidly increases the less fortunate are driven into bankruptcy with the winner being the monopolists.

This is Laissez-Faire ‘free market’ Capitalism in its ultimate form, the ‘free market’ is only truly advantageous and 'free' to those who have the most cash and assets and they are gathered at the expense of the poor who eventually are the losers but hey, that’s what it’s all about isn’t it in the Wall Street Journal's perfect world. Now that the rape of the system has nearly been completed how long is it going to take until there is a realization of just how thoroughly the free market fanatics have cannibalized the country in pursuit of profit? And the denial needs to stop immediately, the existing system has already failed and failed miserably.

Capitalism is eating itself. Like a python slowly trying to digest it’s own tail, the economic master plan, the Shock Doctrine has come home now and the sheep are being prepped for yet another shearing, soon they will served up with a side of mint jelly.

It is important to understand that a distinction needs to be made when it comes to capitalism between that which is regulated and the ‘free market’ aka Lassez Faire strain that the road to hell is paved with. The end result of unregulated capitalism is monopoly of the most extreme sort as well as the redistribution of wealth to those at the top of the class system, I wonder why nobody has ever dubbed this as ‘trickle up economics’ which is of course exactly what it is. One of history’s most important and enduring lessons is that hundreds of thousands must toil in the muck in order to allow one rotten, greedy son of a bitch to have his face displayed on a sphinx. The American middle class are the ones who are forced by their Wall Street pharaohs to build the bricks for the monuments to the super wealthy under increasingly hostile conditions in increasingly dangerous work environments with an increasingly smaller amount of straw.

The establishment after all has a vested interest in the existence of a huge and desperate underclass. The accompanying crime and urban rot helps to breed the necessary fear that justifies increased police powers and surveillance so as to keep the interests of the elite safe and sound while they sleep behind the walls of their gated communities each night. We were swindled by the free market pimps and deregulation pushers, all that it all did was create conditions for monopolies and trusts and consumer gouging. Take an honest look at yourself, are you truly better off today than you were yesterday? Or the day before? Or five years ago?

Well understand one thing.....today is as good as you are going to have it for the rest of your life under this existing rotten system.

We Are All Losers: The system itself is designed to make losers of us all except that extreme few with the means to purchase influence and therefore protection.

Under this system we all lose, mainly our losses are incremental.

We lose our lives through an increasing amount of time spent on a job locked in a struggle of diminishing gains to even survive.

We lose our health

We lose time with our children and families, this is the most tragic loss of all in most instances as it perpetuates the cycle of the decline in human relationships and destroys the family. Despite what the establishment propagandists and their phony religious wars with their insipid ‘pro family’ sloganeering it is not the loss of morality in through cultural changes in society that is causing the degradation of the family but the greed of an unfettered and monstrous capitalist system that demands more and more in order to slake its bloodsucking appetite for profits. It is the pursuit of these profits at the expense of our humanity that has laid waste to the family, and our values and every day that we are forced to prostitute ourselves in order for the wealthiest of the greed mongers to further entrench themselves is one more day closer to the day that we will ultimately die in vain for their sins.

And in buying into the legitimacy of this lie of a system we ultimately lose our souls.

In a system that is designed to ultimately make losers out of all but the very few who are able to parlay their inordinate influence into being able to utilize it as a weapon of exclusion I found the following from the late, great Hunter S. Thompson to be words of wisdom, this in reference to the ultimate outsiders The Hells Angels:

There is an important difference between a 'loser' and an 'outlaw' . One is passive and the other is active and the main reasons that the Angels are such good copy is that they are acting out the daydreams of millions of losers who don't wear any defiant insignia and who don't know how to be outlaws."

The Angels don't like being called losers but they have learned to live with it. "Yeah, I guess I am" said one "But you're looking at one loser who's going to make a hell of a scene on the way out"

Let's just hope that there are still some outlaws left out there amongst the sheeple, they are all that we have when it comes down to whatever hope there may be left in an increasingly hopeless and hostile world.

Source: The Existentialist Cowboy

The Key Point

The Point of No Return - art by Sonja Brandl-Tines

Just a Little Something that Needed to be Said

Here is the key point. We are not the one’s doing all of these horrible things. We are the ones pointing it out. We are not manufacturing wars under false pretenses. We are not putting history under lock and key along with those who question certain aspects of it BECAUSE it is being used to justify genocide …and we are not committing the genocide. You are. This is the key point. You are doing massively evil things and no amount of spin can change this fact. We are pointing it out. If that’s a crime then baby… I’m an outlaw.

The sleeping world is awakening and it is past time for the truth to be known and nothing and no one is going to stop this. My advice is to get your house in order and do something about the minority among you who are going to bring doom upon you all.

read the rest: Les Visible - Smoking Mirrors

6 years of Iraq War of Lies Should Demand Justice

Splitting the Sky attempting to break through police lines outside the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary Tuesday March 17th to make a citizens arrest of War Criminal George W. Bush. He {Splitting the Sky, not Bush} was arrested soon after. read more

The 6th anniversary of the Iraq War. The only ones to celebrate are the few psychopathic profiteers of death and destruction.

There are numerious individuals who played a part in starting the Iraq War. All of them deserve the same justice that is handed out everyday to criminals who killed far fewer people.

'Official' American deaths since 3-19-03.....4,259

Instead of Bush being brought to trial, he signs a $7 million book deal.

Will there be enough brain dead with the $25 or so to buy his shit? Well, there were plenty who bought his 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq shit, so you never know.


The manufactured economic collapse by the Bush, Obama, Federal Reserve, Wall Street, military/industrial complex, etc., etc. syndicate is assuring that there will be a steady stream of 'volunteers' from the unemployed to continue the fight in the 'War on Terror' and to die in vain.

As the recession expands, so is enlistment in the military

Aside from the jobless, those turning to the military include teenagers, college seniors and recent college graduates who can't find jobs. Plus, there are the teenagers who can't go to college because their parents have lost their jobs or because college funds invested in the stock market have dried up. Joining the military can mean a free college or trade school education.

Nationally, all of the military branches, both active and reserve, met or exceeded recruiting goals in January and February. National Guard recruitment is also doing very well.

Enlistees are well aware the military is fighting two wars, said Capt. Alton McCallum, a West Point graduate who commands an Army recruiting company in Milwaukee. His company handles Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha and Waukesha counties.

"In terms of deploying, they know they're deploying. It's not an issue for them," McCallum said. "All the applicants, we tell them, 'You will deploy, but there's also these benefits that will make your life better.' " more

Veterans are finding out that life in the civilian world is not always rosy.

Jobless rate at 11.2% for veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan

The economic downturn is hitting Iraq and Afghanistan veterans harder than other workers — one in nine are now out of work — and may be encouraging some troops to remain in the service, according to Labor Department records and military officials.

The 11.2% jobless rate for veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and who are 18 and older rose 4 percentage points in the past year. That's significantly higher than the corresponding 8.8% rate for non-veterans in the same age group, says Labor Department economist Jim Walker.

Some soldiers are re-enlisting specifically because of the poor civilian job market, says Sgt. 1st Class Julius Kelley, a career counselor at Fort Campbell, Ky. "It's job security (in the Army), and I try to sell that all the time," he says. "You don't have to worry about getting laid off in the Army." more

Kids who join the military are telling themselves "It won't happen to me."

The suicide rates in all four services last year were higher than the national civilian average, significantly higher in the Army and Marines and rose overall in the two ground services, uniformed witnesses told the Senate Armed Services military personnel subcommittee Wednesday.

But calls by troops and former troops to a Veterans Affairs help line indicate that the problem may be even larger that the alarming statistics provided at the hearing.

In calendar year 2008, the Army reported 140 confirmed or suspected suicides. That’s 20.2 suicides per 100,000 troops — an all-time high that is nearly twice the national average of 11.0 suicides per 100,000. The service’s suicide rate has more than doubled since 2004. more

or,

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance. more

and for the women recruits.....

Experts on sexual assault told more than 100 U.S. Army Europe senior leaders that the soldier who rapes a drunken woman after a night of partying made no mistake: He probably did it before and will do it again.

The experts — a former prosecutor, an academic, an expert on stalking and chief of Family Advocacy Law Enforcement Training for the U.S. Army Military Police School — challenged what they called myths about “date rape,” by far the most common type of rape in the military and elsewhere.

"Years of inaction at the DOD continue to speak volumes about senior leadership’s commitment to our service members and civil servants," Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said seven months ago in a hearing. "When it comes to sexual assault in the military, the DOD has absolutely no credibility."

According to a Veterans Administration study, up to one-quarter of women who served in the armed forces said they had been sexually assaulted. more

6 years in Iraq. The American people will allow anything to be done in their name with barely a peep of protest.

When brave folks do step up, the police state responds.

Police Attack Tristan Solidarity Demonstrators, San Francisco, 3/16/09
Thanks to Scott Creighton for the link.


Taps on Another Year of Death and Occupation

State of the Revolution

Unexpected Departure

art by Paul Bond

A Report to the American People
by Edgar J. Steele

{excerpts}

First, let me assure you that I am not advocating revolution. In fact, I am a strong anti-violence advocate. However, that does not mean I cannot urge you to shoot back when the time comes.

I think a true violent revolution in America now is inevitable. The dominos already are falling and the inexorable result lies directly ahead.

What We Can Do

Nothing.

Elections are useless in America to effect local, state or national change, as now proven. If you must vote, vote against all incumbents, right down the line ... including Dr. Paul (if he didn't have that congressional slot to which to return, he might have proven more adventurous). The international cake already is in the oven and will explode no matter what we do. The dollar is doomed and there is absolutely nothing that anybody can do about it.

As I said at the outset: We're screwed.

Violence? Much as I would love to say, "Go get 'em and bring me their heads on pikes," truly there is only one answer that I can give: Absolutely not. Anything else, of course, would get me arrested. Besides, it still is too early. Violent and/or illegal acts done now simply would serve to delay the time when the average American will be willing to throw his or her lot in with ours.

Notice that I assume you already are on the same page as I, since I doubt that hardly anybody not already there, other than our enemies, of course, will be reading these words.

I am paranoid about police-state action, financial devastation, infrastructure breakdown, nuclear strikes, nuclear fallout, racial strife, earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal waves and hurricanes, not necessarily in that order. That is why I live in North Idaho, one of the very few areas in America likely to be free from (the initial effects, at least, of) nuclear fallout, in the country with a well and a little acreage on which we grow livestock and could grow modest crops.

Next, arm yourself well, with plenty of reserves of ammunition, to protect yourself and your family. Bury some of your guns as gun confiscation is coming.

Next, put up substantial stores of basic foodstuffs, enough to get your family by for a year, ideally. Plant a garden. It will take at least two growing seasons for you to overcome your major misconceptions and mistakes and begin to produce real food for your family. Farmers will tell you that it takes ten years just to get past most of the mistakes.

Finally, protect yourself financially, if you are fortunate enough to have any money left over from the real priority items. Get out of all dollar-denominated assets and into something designed to weather the coming financial storm (which already is in progress). Check my archives for articles aplenty on this topic.

Cultivate like-minded friends, but avoid those who advocate violence or who might seem a bubble or two off center. Don't worry about federal agents. They are everywhere. Live your life right out in the open, keep your head down and do nothing illegal and you likely will avoid their wrath, if not their pettiness.

Our day will come, rest assured. All too soon. The day they start shooting us down in the streets. The day we start shooting back.

Then will be the time to retake America. Then will be the time to even scores and settle accounts. Then we begin the long journey back toward freedom and a constitutional republic.

New America. An idea whose time has come.

be sure to read the rest at ConspiracyPenPal

Follow the Money / Madoff, Mossad, AIG and 9/11

art from rense & David Dees

The Madoff investigation is very similar to the 9-11 investigation in that evidence of a larger conspiracy is being avoided and ignored. It is possible that the billions that Madoff stole, and is still unaccounted for, was being used to finance Israel’s vast global spy and sabotage network Mossad with connections to both AIG and quite possibly 9/11 itself: Allen L Roland

Talk about red flags! I always felt there was something fishy about the Madoff scandal as if the government was going to great lengths to portray this as a simple one man Ponzi scheme while avoiding the very real possibility of a major conspiracy.

Russian intelligence has weighed in on the Madoff scandal and reported today that ~ " Madoff was the chief financier for a vast Israeli spy and sabotage network ( Mossad ) set up by former Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) director Jacob Perry (Yaakov Peri) who ‘transformed’ himself into one of America’s most powerful businessman and led what FSB sources call the ñìåðòîíîñíàÿ øàòèÿ 7 ( English translation roughly means “Murderous/Fatal Gang of 7 ) which references the leaders of this American-Israeli cabal who besides Madoff and Perry include:

Henry Taub, Hungarian born American-Israeli who created the giant United States payroll company ADP which continues to funnel to Israeli intelligence services financial records for nearly every US citizen.

Maurice Greenberg, American-Israeli who was the former chairman and CEO of American International Group (AIG), the World's 18th largest public company and its largest insurance and financial services corporation which has (so far) funneled over $180 billion in US taxpayer money directly to Israel.

Larry Silverstein, the American-Israeli billionaire who secured a lease for the World Trade Center buildings in New York on July 24, 2001, insured them for $3.55 billion spread among 24 different insurance companies, and after their destruction 2 months later on 9/11 collected $4.55 billion for Israel.

Mort Zuckerman, Canadian born American-Israeli billionaire who through his vast publishing empire has direct control over 70 percent of the news reported in the United States.

Edouard de Rothschild, French born American-Israeli member of the all powerful European Rothschild Banking Empire and director of the Rothschild & Cie Banque reported by the FSB to hold nearly 80% of the wealth stolen by Israel from the United States Government and its citizens.

These reports further state that Madoff was ‘convicted’ in a ‘one of a kind’ designed trial in which his guilty plea kept all evidence against Israel’s betrayal of the United States from being entered into official American records as it was deemed by the Obama administration as ‘too incendiary’ for the American people to know about and would, most certainly, unleash an Israeli backlash many Russian Military Analysts state would leave ‘many US cities in ruin’. " http://fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/fraud/israel/news.php?q=1237329300

With that in mind, it most certainly seems to appear that the prosecution is playing along with Madoff to protect other conspirators involved in this massive fraud. If so, who are they and why are they being protected ?

Here's a clue ~ Madoff has long standing ties with two of Israel's largest banks ~ Bank Leumi and Israel Discount Bank ( IDB ) ~ which has a history of money laundering and illegal money transfers.

Jacob Ezra Merkin is a part owner of Bank Leumi and has funneled billions of dollars to Madoff's fund ~ suggesting that Madoff's scheme was, in reality, a massive theft being disguised as a Ponzi scheme. A theft that involved many high level Zionists.

If this is indeed the case ~ The Madoff fraud is a Zionist fund raising scheme in which billions of dollars have been not only been stolen but it would explain why they are still totally unaccounted for.

The missing link in this cover up would be a Zionist agent playing the role of the Government prosecutor and that is indeed the case with Lev L Dassen, U.S. Attorney ~ one of the insiders in the judicial game surrounding the possible false-flag terror attacks that changed America and brought U.S. troops into the Middle East on a permanent basis. http://www.bollyn.info/home/articles/911/another-massive-zionist-fraud-surfaces/

Once again, the Madoff scandal is a red flag which cannot be ignored and must be investigated. Just follow the money and it could be the key to opening a Pandora's Box of Israeli influence and the 9/11 cover up. Madoff is part of the Billionaires club which has wrought havoc on Wall Street and that includes AIG's CEO Edward M. Liddy. The AIG debacle is another red flag that demands a criminal investigation ~ not Obama administration stonewalling ~ for its derivative trading schemes involves trillions of dollars of debt which cannot possibly be paid and could well be the greatest financial scandal in US history.

Follow the money starting with Madoff's missing billions and let's fully open Pandora's box.

Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/03/18.html

Thanks to Facts Not Fairies for the link

Similarities

Underwater volcano in the South Pacific

The spectacular columns blasted out of the South Pacific yesterday {March 18, 2009} six miles off the coast of Tonga's main island Tongatapu.

World Trade Center Tower explodes on 9/11, 2001.


Hmm, seems like somewhat similar explosive forces at work.

Sept. 11 as a national day of service

House Passes Expansion of Programs for Service


The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, said, “This has been a great day.”

The House voted Wednesday to approve the largest expansion of government-sponsored service programs since President John F. Kennedy first called for the creation of a national community service corps in 1963.

The legislation, which passed by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 321 to 105, would more than triple the number of service positions by expanding AmeriCorps and creating volunteer programs focused on education, health care, clean energy and veterans. The total number of positions would grow to 250,000 from 75,000 now in AmeriCorps.

The bill seeks to establish Sept. 11 as a national day of service though it would not be a formal holiday.

It also establishes “youth engagement zones.”

Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said Mrs. Obama had pulled him aside at a White House dinner to introduce herself and express her keen interest in the bill moving quickly.

At a lunch with Mr. Obama the next day, Mr. Miller recounted the conversation, aides said, prompting a jovial warning from the president. “Speaking from long-term experience,” he said, “it sounds to me like you better get that bill out of committee.” more -NY Times

It's all for the children.

How appropriate to correlate the lies of the 'Obama Service Nation' with the lies of 9/11.

“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.”

“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”

Adolf Hitler

Senate and Media Call Out Bankers to Commit 'Hari Kari'

The press needs some 'good' stories.

It's the code of honor...sepuku

Senate Concludes Not Enough Executive Suicide

Iowa City, IA – An Iowa Senator suggested that AIG executives should accept responsibility for the collapse of the insurance giant by resigning or killing themselves.

“Heck, if I screwed anything up, I’d do it,” said the Senator. “I mean, if I found out that the wars I voted for, or the trillions in wasteful budgets that I approved cost America it’s place in the world, why I’d do it in a heartbeat. Thankfully, my conscience is clean.”

“When will we return to the golden age of industry?” mused a House sub-committee on morally reprehensible ideas. “Back when the President of a bank loved his employees like a family and would throw himself out of a building when his business went under. These days executives either try to keep the company together by restructuring or take a golden parachute. Disgusting.”

The National Suicide Hotline set up a hotline for bank and insurance executives which “would by back all their holdings at one hundred a fifty percent”, “pay for three trips anywhere in the world to scout for a private retirement island” and “kill a few poor people, just so they know they’re still better than everyone else.”

“Yes! It’s a Republican!” shouted an AP Editor. “Quick! Throw this out on the feed and bump it every ten minutes. Finally we have some news, people!” After dabbing his brow with a handkerchief he added, “finally, some news.”

source: Calamity News

thanks to Strike the Root for the link

A Short History of the US Central Banks

JP Morgan -The old man would be proud.........Greenspan and Bernanke - latest incarnations of deceit

New World Order must Implode the Economy for which 9/11 was the Transformational Alchemy

from Roberts Court

On February 17, 1950, James Paul Warburg appeared before the U.S. Senate and declared: "We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether world government will be achieved by conquest or consent."1 To establish a world government, it is necessary to incrementally eradicate the constitution, bring the U.S. to her knees economically, and shackle the taxpayers to perpetual debt through bailouts and stimulus packages funded by printing billions of dollars of interest and debt-bearing Federal Reserve Notes to drastically devalue the currency in circulation thus impoverishing the taxpayers. The only benefactors are the extant banks, certain corporations and the individuals who concocted the financial disaster.

The colonists issued debt-free script in the 1700s commensurate to the demands of trade and industry. The citizens were self-sufficient and industrious. Incensed over the currency issue, England burdened the colonists with excess taxes to fund Britain's imperialistic wars. This precipitated the Revolutionary War. Alexander Hamilton, a Rothschild agent, convinced George Washington to allow the Rothschilds to finance the war. In 1791, with a big war debt to be paid, Hamilton set up a central bank, owned by the Rothschilds and other foreigners called the First Bank of the United States with a twenty-year charter.2

Congress rejected renewal of the charter and the bank was closed on March 4, 1811. Nathan Rothschild was outraged and asked the British Parliament to declare war to reinstate the bank. The Prime Minister refused and was assassinated on May 11, 1812. Parliament declared war on June 18, 1812. British troops burned the White House and other government buildings including the one that housed the ratification papers for the U.S. constitution. The war increased our national debt from $45 million to $127 million.3 President Madison proposed the establishment of a second central bank on December 5, 1815 for a twenty year period. It was created by Congress on January 7, 1817. Nicholas Biddle, a Rothschild protégé, became the bank's president in 1822. President Andrew Jackson refused to renew the charter in 1836, as promised during his presidential campaign.

In opposition to the international bankers, Abraham Lincoln issued debt-free, interest-free greenbacks through the Legal Tender Act of February 25, 1862. This currency funded the Civil War, a horrific, bloody battle that took the lives of over 600,000 souls and was devised to weaken and divide the country. The privately-owned Bank of England planned to impose a gold standard on the United States. Lincoln was soon assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Rothschild agent. No debt-free or interest-free money has been issued in America since then.

J. P. Morgan & Company was founded in New York City in 1871 as Drexel, Morgan & Company by J. Pierpont Morgan and Philadelphia banker Anthony Drexel, agents for Europeans investing in the United States. Ultimately, they were so well capitalized that they financed much of America's industrial expansion. By the 1890s, Morgan became an industry consolidator, reorganizing and restructuring the debts of financially troubled railroads - the Northern Pacific, the Erie, the Reading and many other railroads for a total of one-sixth of the track in the U.S. Morgan financed and merged smaller companies to create U.S. Steel, International Harvester and others. A decline in competition results in a concentration of control. In 1904, J. P. Morgan & Company loaned money to finance the Panama Canal, the largest real estate transaction in history. J. P. Morgan & Company became the world's most powerful investment bank.

J. P. Morgan loaned money to Thomas Edison for his incandescent light research and therefore directed Edison's power generation and distribution plants. Nikola Tesla (July 10, 1856 - January 7, 1943), a Serbian who later became a U.S. citizen, was fluent in seven languages. He patented the radio on March 20, 1900, a patent usurped and used by Marconi. Tesla needed the financing that the House of Morgan offered but wishing to retain independence, he resisted the accompanying control. He had witnessed the robber baron's 1891 aggressive takeover of the struggling Thomson-Houston Company and the Edison Company to form General Electric.4

Tesla had also witnessed how Morgan coveted and endangered the autonomy of Westinghouse. Morgan wanted Tesla to sign over his broad spectrum radio patents as security for the loans. Tesla had plans for a directed-energy weapon, not yet patented. Tesla proposed an end to all war. Tesla's alternating current induction motor could have provided free, world-wide electricity to every human. Undoubtedly, Morgan, making huge profits from energy, wished to conceal that possibility. German born George H. Scherff Sr. served as Tesla's accountant and assistant. When Tesla died, his vast collection of papers were seized and classified by the banker-obedient government.5

By the turn of the century, Americans paid very few taxes, had minimal debt and grew their businesses internally - without bank loans. However, by 1910, there were, throughout the country, a combination of over twenty thousand private banks and national banks, chartered by the federal government, all taking business away from the big New York City banks. Legally, banks were allowed to issue currency or bank notes. Since they operated on a fractional reserve system, they could lend out 90 percent of their deposits. This system is manageable unless demands for cash in the form of checks or depositor withdrawals are greater than their reserve cash. Many of those banks failed in orchestrated financial panics. Those remaining would be coerced to join the Federal Reserve System, soon to be established, where their reserves would be managed and controlled by a small, highly competitive, greedy group.

In the fall of 1910, six influential competitor bankers and one well-connected congressman, Republican Senator Nelson Aldrich, stealthily collaborated at Jekyll Island to plot the establishment of a shared monopoly, the Federal Reserve System. The bankers represented the interests of J. P. Morgan, Rothschild, Rockefeller, Warburg, and Kuhn, Loeb & Company. Consequently, legislation was passed to create the Federal Reserve System in 1913, the culmination of decades of plotting by the international bankers. Under the jurisdiction of a board of directors, the U.S. was divided into twelve Federal Reserve Districts. Americans were led to believe that the Fed would eliminate financial catastrophes and stabilize the economy. In reality, the Fed is a cartel that was designed to obliterate competition and increase profits through higher prices and deceptive policies enforced by the government.

J. P. Morgan arranged the financing and purchasing of American supplies for France and Britain during World War I. By the end of that war, J. P. Morgan Bank had handled $3 billion in commercial transactions, netting $3 million in fees, and had arranged over $1.5 billion in credits to become the world's most influential bank, moving it permanently into the political arena of foreign policy, serving as an extension of the federal government.6

In 1901, the U.S. national debt was less than $1 billion. After World War I, the national debt was $25 billion. Between World War I and II, it increased to $49 billion. In 1952, in the midst of the Korean War, under U.N. command, the debt stood at $72 billion. In 1962, the debt was $303 billion which increased to $383 billion by 1970 during the Vietnam War. By 1976, at the end of the Vietnam War, it was $631 billion. During the 1980s and the orchestrated Cold War military buildup, the debt increased substantially. The international bankers funded both the U.S. and the Soviet military buildup. However, all records evidencing congressional acquiescence to the massive banker-funded technological transfer from 1916 forward were classified by Eisenhower's executive order in 1953.7 By 1998, the debt was over $5.5 trillion. Now, the national debt is well over $10.8 trillion. This does not include personal indebtedness such as credit cards, car loans or mortgages.

By the 1920s, banks routinely offered low-interest credit to businesses that had previously relied on profits and patience for expansion. Soon, businesses, eager for additional profit accepted the deceptively low-interest loans offered by the banks. Once hooked, businesses became dependant on banks for growth. To maintain perceptions beneficial to their objectives, bankers have always entrenched like-minded minions into influential positions such as newspaper publishers, editors, columnists, university presidents, professors, textbook writers, labor union leaders, filmmakers, and radio and television commentators.

Even after the deliberate New York Panic of 1920-21, America was still industrially strong. Farms provided adequate and toxin-free, un-genetically modified food. Our infrastructure and transportation systems were then modern and efficient and we were technologically advanced compared to the rest of the world. In 1921, U.S. per capita income was $522. In 1925, Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer, wanting England to return to world leadership, adjusted the British pound to $4.86 which limited the amount of British goods companies and individuals around the world could afford. Consequently, over the next two years, hundreds of millions of dollars of gold flowed to the U.S. from all over Europe.8

Montague Norman of the Bank of England, Charles Rist of the Bank of France, Hjalmer Scacht of the Reichsbank, Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve, all privately-owned central banks, and Andrew Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury convened in 1927 and agreed to lower U.S. interest rates and the Fed's discount rate. Additionally, in July, 1927, the directors of the Bank of England, the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and the German Reichsbank plotted to move the gold out of the U.S. Allegedly, this helped to generate the depression. By 1928, about $500 million in gold was transferred to Europe, especially Germany, most under the guise of post-war aid.

By 1928, U.S. per capita income grew to $628. Winston Churchill, Benjamin Strong, the New York Federal Reserve chief and the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon operated together to ensure that easy money for Wall Street speculation was readily available.

Newspaper and magazine articles promoted stock market speculation claiming that one could make a veritable fortune in a short time for minimum monthly investments. However, there were "special" speculators who owned dozens of accounts in various names which could be traded in enormous blocks. Small investors, never in a position to manipulate the market, suffered the consequences and received the blame for the 1929 crash. Blame for every catastrophe is always placed elsewhere.

Since Woodrow Wilson, the Fed has installed and managed many U.S. presidents. On October 25, 1929, President Herbert Hoover claimed: "The fundamental business of the country is on a sound and prosperous basis." The crash of October 28-29, 1929 was devised. On November 8, 2002, current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said: "Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."9

In 1929-1930, the banks, purportedly because they were short on gold, would not give loans to U.S. industry and individuals. Yet, three banks, J. P. Morgan & Company, First National Bank of New York and First National Bank of Chicago, had sufficient money to send huge amounts out of the country to the Bank of International Settlements which ultimately built up Nazi Germany. The money supply was deliberately decreased, causing the Great Depression. People defaulted on their loans and the banks repossessed farms, homes and business properties. People lost their savings - everything. The banks benefited. It was an unethical, egregious redistribution of assets. The catastrophic crash was world-wide, creating joblessness, hunger, disintegration of production and national bankruptcies.

On March 7, 1930, Hoover said: "All the evidence indicates that the worst effects of the Crash upon unemployment will have passed during the next sixty days." He then signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act against the advice of the thousand economists hired by Wall Street manipulators who were most concerned about repayment of their foreign loans. In September 1930, Bernard Baruch, after returning from a visit to Churchill in England, sent a cable affirming Churchill's views about British world supremacy. On December 11, 1930, New York's fourth largest bank, Bank of the United States, failed. Its 450,000 depositors had no recourse and no FDIC insurance. Another one thousand banks failed in 1930.10 Bank failures signal bank consolidation - extant banks consume them.

The entire national debt in 1932 was $19.5 billion. Roosevelt then initiated the New Deal in 1933 by introducing the practice of deficit spending, which was the brain-child of Britain's John Maynard Keynes, a member of the Illuminati. In 1910, Lenin said: "The surest way to overthrow an established social order is to debauch its currency." Nine years later, Keynes wrote: "Lenin was certainly right, there is no more positive, or subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency ... The process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million is able to diagnose."11

On March 9, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Orders 6073, 6102, 6111, and 6260 which declared that the U.S. was bankrupt. On April 5, 1933, Roosevelt declared a National Emergency and made it illegal for U.S. citizens to own gold. He ordered all gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates to be turned into the Federal Reserve banks by May 1 (the Illuminati was created on May 1, 1776). People would face imprisonment and fines if they refused to relinquish their gold. Further, on June 5, 1933, Congress enacted a joint resolution outlawing all gold clauses in contracts. The Federal Reserve System was not energized until 1933 when the U.S. went off the gold standard which allowed the expansion and devaluation of the money supply. The Federal Reserve collects usury on every bill printed. "Our currency has no value past the confidence of those who use it."12

Gold coinage was withdrawn from circulation, and kept in the form of bullion. The public and the Federal Reserve returned their stocks of gold to the government. The people were paid $20.67 an ounce in Federal Reserve money. The Federal Reserve received Gold Certificates. So the Federal Reserve, owned by some Illuminati families, had control of the country's gold and could control its price. The stability and responsibility of the government that issues a currency is the primary reason people accept that currency. Obviously, the collapse of that government would render the currency worthless.

What dwells upon the confluence of the familiar and the esoteric forms a portrait of political conspiracy the purpose of which is not power or money, but alchemy, the mystical science of transformation. By breaking apart and rejoining elements, it was long ago supposed, alchemy could effect most any miracle (for example, changing base metal into gold). From ancient times through the Enlightenment, science and magic were one and the same. As far as we are concerned, the era when science was indistinguishable from sorcery never ended. The Age of Reason and its industrial, post-modern antecedents are facades obscuring the seething dream world of primeval urges that surfaces only in sleep.

The plotters of 9/11 are Freemasonic alchemists scheming for sovereignty over the realm of uncontrollable impulse. The relatively tame domains of politics, economics and ideology are mere means to that end. The eternal pagan psychodrama is escalated under these modern conditions precisely because sorcery is not what 20th Century man can accept as real. He has been hypnotized by a delusion. Mockingbird media now provides government with a totalitarian, top-down myth culture. It is Nazifying our children for "endless war" and this mythic system is all based upon total deception of groupthink conformity.

Subconscious programming of the population achieves enormous statistical results for the Pentagon. But if our children are being indoctrinated into a totalitarian mythic system which will utterly destroy them, we must become very courageous and view the truth, even if this truth has been made deliberately disturbing, bizarre and unbelievable. Such mythic systems now come from Hollywood, but still function as factual for the subconscious mind. The facts will speak for themselves. We therefore must become the exceptional patriot and study the real facts about 9/11. If these facts defy our belief system, this may have been the deliberate work of military Psyops and we must advance Articles of Treason against our real enemies! We must step up to our Constitution or step out.

source: Roberts Court

AIG, Congress & Obama - Theater of the Absurd

"It was not my fault, I wasn't even there."
"Trust me. We'll fix this."

The gist of what AIG CEO Edward Liddy and Obama said today.

AIG CEO Edward Liddy before Congress - March 18 - video

Liddy came in to save AIG in September '08. He resigned from the board at Goldman Sachs to do this. Moving the criminals around.

Obama blames AIG and the previous administration and defends Geithner

Geithner moved from the New York Federal Reserve to Treasury Secretary. The criminals have interchangeable jobs.


All of the players are working together to steal everything they can and all the Congress, Obama and the media do is play the blame game.

Diversion, division and propaganda.

What do we do?

Mike Whitney has a few suggestions:

The way the financial crisis is unfolding, we’ll all have to focus on saving our own environment “close to home” without help from the government

People should organize to solve real material problems. Forget about overthrowing “the government”. That’s nonsense. They should focus on defending their homes, strengthening their role in the community, and staying alive. By any means necessary. There will be plenty to do just assuring that basic needs are met.

You can’t educate sedated and misinformed Americans overnight. But resistance is a process, and it’s a process that improves one’s chance for survival. more

Not everyone is convinced that pacifism will accomplish the goals of the resistance.

Peter Gelderloos (an excerpt from his book, How Nonviolence Protects the State)

Time and again, people struggling not for some token reform but for complete liberation — the reclamation of control over our own lives and the power to negotiate our own relationships with the people and the world around us — will find that nonviolence does not work, that we face a self-perpetuating power structure that is immune to appeals to conscience and strong enough to plow over the disobedient and uncooperative.

We must reclaim histories of resistance to understand why we have failed in the past and how exactly we achieved the limited successes we did. We must also accept that all social struggles, except those carried out by a completely pacified and thus ineffective people, include a diversity of tactics. more

Would a strong resistance be playing into hands of the controlling powers? An excuse to implement draconian measures, maybe even 'brother against brother?'

'We the people' have no real organization or the will to stop this 'theater of the absurd'...
as of today.

Stay tuned.

Big Bamboo

2 sizes of Moso bamboo leaning against a phone pole for comparison The small stick in the middle is native TN bamboo

A friend stopped by to show me some examples of Anderson, SC Moso bamboo that he had cut there on March 4. The old Silverbrook Cemetery lets people come in periodically to thin out the bamboo as it is intrusive and actually threatens to take over the cemetery.

At 2 to 5 1/2 inches in diameter and 10 to 12 feet long, he was able to get around 100 pieces in the bed of his truck but it was overloaded and he never got over 45 mph on the trip home.

It's valuable if you can find a buyer. So far no one wants the entire load so he may end up making some things out of it and selling some to craft people.


This grove of Moso bamboo is in Anderson, SC. at the old Silveroak cemetary.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bamboo and industrial hemp appear to be much needed crops for the 21st century.
Politics, money and greed keep one of them from being utilized.

Jack Herer has a fun way to learn about hemp in "The Emperor Wears No Clothes"

Bamboo is the world's fastest growing plant and some species of bamboo can grow up to a foot a day in the right conditions.

Bamboo Grove has some good information.

The taxes have gone too far

Organic tobacco field

Of course smoking is hazardous to your health. We won't argue. For all the lawsuits filed and payments by cigarette makers paid to the states, I've never met a single person who didn't know this.

But some of us like to partake of this age old tradition and the government doesn't have the right to tell us what to do. Well...no right but they do it anyway.

I've been rolling my own for years, have beat the taxes and didn't have to put up with the 599 additives 'approved' by the government for R.J. Reynolds and the rest to use in their product.

Well, no more. I knew the taxes on production cigarettes was going up on April 1st but until today I thought the roll-your-own product was safe from the long arm of the tax law.

Was I wrong. A feature on What Really Happened - Tax Hike has smokers fuming - blew me away in a cloud of smoke. A 2,400 percent increase in the tax on loose tobacco. It's the biggest one time increase on anything I have ever heard of. Once again it's tax the poor to feed the criminal government. I sort of doubt that any of this newly generated money will go to health care for the unlucky ones who have developed smoking problems. It probably will go to the war machine for new and improved ways to kill quickly instead of the slow way tobacco does.

I'm going to give a plug to a good company, Natural American Spirit, one of the few who produces organic and additive free tobacco. With the money crunch they have been doing well. I heard from a dealer that they were having trouble meeting demand. Things may slow up now for them. It looks like the tax increase will be about $8 per 5.29 oz. can.

These 'sin' taxes will never end until we do something to stop them. Great Britain appears to be going to increase taxes on beer and will put a lot of pubs out of business. Alcohol tax increases will be next on the taxers agenda here in the US. There are moonshiners still around in my area and as taxes increase so will they.

Back to smoking.
Quit, pay the price or.......

Grow your own. I'm thinking about doing this.

I grew up working in the tobacco fields and barns so I know a little about it.

The Seedman gives an short overview on how to do it. Seed, organic and non-organic can be obtained through several sources. A search will get you all of the information you need.

Now all of this grow your own stuff may sound good but laws are being passed faster than most of us can keep up with them. If some like HR 875 get passed, the garden nazis may be roaming our backyards.

They may be checking to see if we used any of that bad manure on our crops and asking to see the pesticide poison required for use to keep our food 'safe.'

And if they found a few tobacco plants in the garden, even if legal, they might say we were contaminating the food crops and have to destroy everything.

I shouldn't be surprised at anything our 'guberment' does. They let the criminal pharmaceutical industry, the fast food joints and the factory farms/animal holocaust camps poison the population but smoke a cig...or a joint...

You gotta' pay the price son.

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Reading, writing or talking about the criminal activities of the US government may be Hazardous to Your Health

AIPAC revels in Obama's 'change'

AIPAC headline

Obama Extends U.S. Sanctions Against Iran

Obama said Iran poses a threat to the United States.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

President Barack Obama on Thursday said he had extended U.S. sanctions against Iran, which were first enacted in 1995, Agence France Presse reported. The sanctions, prohibiting U.S. companies aiding the development of the Iranian oil industry and halting trade, export/import and investment ties with Iran, were imposed by the Clinton administration and have been extended on an annual basis by successive presidents. They would have expired without Obama's formal action to extend them. "The actions and policies of the Government of Iran are contrary to the interests of the United States in the region and pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security and the U.S. economy, Obama said in a message to Congress. The United States is at the forefront of an international effort to sanction Iran for its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.

From: AIPAC


Not everyone in the homeland is going along with AIPAC's agenda.

from the Denver Post

AIPAC Lobby Still Rules the White House

Hillary Clinton, to the will of AIPAC, continued to draw hard lines on the Palestinian people for the Obama administration by threatening to withhold the 900 million dollar aid plan to Palestine unless the Palestinian’s renounced violence and “recognize Israel’s right to exist”. More importantly, the Obama administration has not held Israel to the same standard or even to the standard already created by international law. The daily violence in the West Bank continues because of our foreign policy’s double standard.

The Israeli settlements of occupied Palestine are illegal according to the Forth Geneva Convention article 49, which states “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Neo-conservative Israeli religious fundamentalists knowingly break this law in order undermine the Palestinians ability to have a state of their own and destroy any chance at a two state solution. Israeli settlers refuse to recognize the Palestinian’s right to exist just as Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
more

from the Cleveland Plain Dealer

AIPAC carries too much clout in Washington

The Plain Dealer's March 11 report of Charles W. Freeman Jr., an experienced and qualified diplomat, being forced from his appointment as chair of the National Intelligence Council should raise public concern.

The report said Freeman had "come under fire for statements he had made about Israeli policies and for his past connections to Saudi and Chinese interests." Further, it said "Freeman had occasionally criticized the Israeli government's positions and U.S. support for these policies."

Plain Dealer readers should know the shortened version of the original Washington Post article omitted crucial information linking the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to the attack on Freeman.

Whatever changes President Barack Obama promised us, our right to criticize Israel on any single issue, or even allow fair public discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, won't change so long as AIPAC continues to exert undue influence over Congress, the White House and the media.

Recent polls show that AIPAC does not represent the majority viewpoint of Jews in the United States who want a fair negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It is unfortunate that Freeman was forced out. Balancing AIPAC's undue influence would be "change we can believe in." source

Philip Giraldi tells us how the Israeli media, oh, sorry... some US media, is still on board with the AIPAC clan.

2009-03-17

Washington Post Shows Its Hand

The Washington Post is apparently losing lots of money and may close in the foreseeable future, barring a deus ex machina intervention by some foreign billionaire such as saved the New York Times. While the decline of newspapers worldwide is regrettable, the Post's troubles are really good news, and bankruptcy would be a richly deserved fate for a rag that has been an enabler of every neocon fantasy for the past 20 years. Imagine no longer having to enjoy Charles Krauthammer, Fred Kagan, John Bolton, Bill Kristol, and Robert Kaplan with your morning coffee.

The Post's particular veneration for all things Israeli goes back quite a ways. Long-time readers can well recall the odious Herblock cartoons depicting Arabs as Dracula clones dressed in bedsheets and carrying bloody knives, while Israelis were always depicted as pleasant-looking, peaceful chaps just like you and me. It was almost like having the movie Exodus on a printed page.

The paper's recent editions provide a number of excellent reasons why the good old WaPo should share the fate of the dodo. A major story on March 11 was the victory of the Israeli lobby in forcing Ambassador Charles Freeman to drop out of the running for head of the National Intelligence Council (NIC). The NIC's most important function is to supervise the production of the National Intelligence Estimates, or NIEs, which are the finished intelligence reports that policymakers can generally rely on to provide the best, most up-to-date information on specific issues and countries. Freeman, who is a polyglot with extensive experience in many parts of the world, including the Middle East and Asia, was nominated for the position by Adm. Dennis Blair, the new director of national intelligence. Freeman was eminently qualified, and the job is not particularly political, but red flags immediately went up because he had been critical of Israel, noting, for example, that the national interests of the United States and Israel might not be exactly the same. This caused major heartburn in Congress and the media. Such stalwarts of liberty and free expression as Senators Chuck Schumer and Joe Lieberman and Representatives Steve Israel and Shelley Berkley immediately scented the blood in the water. Lieberman feared that Freeman would not be able to "separate his policy views from the analysis … he's very opinionated."

National Review, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal, the New Republic, and the other usual suspects all quickly climbed on board. A core group of Republican congressmen was not found wanting as the threat posed by an independent minded Freeman became evident, particularly as the congressmen in question are major recipients of pro-Israel money. And then there were the evangelicals, four-square for Israel as they wait for the Rapture. The crudity and viciousness of the attack on Freeman was unusual even for the Lobby and its friends, who are accustomed to character assassination and hardball tactics. To avoid the obvious conclusion that it was all about Israel, critics went after Freeman for his connections to Saudi Arabia, where he served as ambassador, and his views on China. It was alleged, inaccurately, that Freeman had taken Saudi money. To prove that Freeman sympathized with Chinese human rights violations, a personal e-mail he wrote some years ago was deliberately taken out of context and misquoted.

But anyone who followed the flood of criticism knew that it really was all about Israel in spite of the smoke being generated, bringing to the fore every congressman and media pundit who places Israel first. Freeman was not exactly accused of being an anti-Semite, but make no mistake, that argument would have come out soon enough in hints and nudges. After the fact, Freeman's resignation letter, in which he blasted the Lobby's plumbing "the depths of dishonor and indecency," was quickly denounced by AIPAC director William Daroff as anti-Semitic.

In the lead-up to the resignation, Rep. Israel (Steve, not the country) and Sen. Schumer went personally to the White House to explain to Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that the assignment would not be acceptable. When the withdrawal was announced, the congressman said the departure of Freeman would preserve the "impartiality of U.S. intelligence," by which he presumably meant that all information would henceforth be checked in Tel Aviv for accuracy and relevance. The senator, who only occasionally recalls that his constituency is in the United States, was not to be left out. He positively crowed on his Web site about Freeman's withdrawal, posting, "Charles Freeman was the wrong guy for this position. His statements against Israel were way over the top. … I repeatedly urged the White House to reject him, and I am glad they did the right thing."

So AIPAC wins big-time yet again and sticks it to the American people, or at least to those Americans who oppose an endless series of wars in the Middle East to defend Israel's right to punish the Palestinians in perpetuity. The Washington Post placed the March 11 article on Freeman on page A4 and assigned the demolition job to Walter Pincus. Lest there be any confusion, the article was headlined "Impartiality Questioned, Intelligence Official Quits," telling the reader that this was not a hatchet job by AIPAC but rather a question of the objectivity of the victim. In the Post's view, both it and the U.S. government have always been scrupulously neutral on issues relating to Israel, and anyone who questions the relationship must do so because he lacks "impartiality." The article cited numerous critics of Freeman while not once mentioning the sustained and vicious campaign that had been mounted against him by the Israel Lobby.

As is often the case, the Lobby was the 600-pound gorilla in the room that was apparently invisible to Pincus and the Post editors. But the Internet furor about the blocked appointment was such that the Post felt it necessary to follow up the initial coverage with a second piece by Pincus, "Intelligence Pick Blames 'Israel Lobby' for Withdrawal," the next day. In it, Pincus told some of the story that he studiously ignored before but maintained that the Freeman appointment was derailed due to China and Saudi Arabia: "the controversy … was broader than Middle East politics." Pincus presented in full the Israel Lobby's protestations that it had nothing to do with it.

The Post featured separate editorials on the day the Freeman story broke, March 11, and the following day. The first was "Time to Call It Quits," subtitled "The Justice Department should drop its misguided prosecution of two former AIPAC officials." It argued that the Obama administration "should put an end to a criminal case that should never have been brought," and it expressed no regret about AIPAC's role in the violation of the Espionage Act through passage of information known to be classified to Israel. Ironically, with that editorial, that day's edition successfully came full circle, as it was about the man who spearheaded the drive to nail Charles Freeman. Steve Rosen, one of the indicted ex-AIPAC officials, should be going to jail for a long time. Instead, he turned himself into a political commentator, writing 17 blog posts in 19 days attacking Freeman.

An editorial on the following day, "Blame the Lobby," subtitled "The Obama administration's latest failed nominee peddles a conspiracy theory," continued the trashing of Freeman, calling him a "poor choice" while virtually denying that there is any such thing as an Israel lobby. To make sure readers got the message, the Holocaust and a nuclear-armed Iran were cited along the way. An op-ed two days later by Republican Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia repeated the editorial line, even alleging that Freeman is a supporter of Darfur genocide, Chinese human rights violations, and Islamic fundamentalism. This was followed by a Charles Lane opinion piece in the Sunday edition, which asserted that "the president needs to knock Freeman's insinuations down hard." Nowhere was there any suggestion that Freeman might have had a legitimate point about the Israel lobby and how it operates.

It is pathetic to witness how Steve Rosen was able to lead a lynch mob that went after a good and honorable man who believes that the United States' national interest should come before Israel's, but there is something even worse about a sanctimonious "newspaper of record" that aids and abets the crime. The story is all too characteristic of a Washington in which AIPAC calls the shots and the media willingly becomes an accomplice.

from: antiwar.com

Rural Tennessee Towns Hit Hard

The kids in the rural areas often have only one option - the military. That is until now - Obama's service nation is coming to the rescue.

Tonica Henson waits in Lynchburg, Tenn., to get food from a food bank last November. Republican and Democratic representatives are trying to bring more attention to rural economic issues, which have been especially hard hit by the recession, in the state legislature. JOHN PARTIPILO / FILE / THE TENNESSEAN

Rural Tenn. lawmakers unite to increase economic clout

Small towns look for help

By Chas Sisk • THE TENNESSEAN • March 17, 2009

With a double-digit unemployment rate, a Depression-era bridge in need of replacement and a water system that leaves out about one-sixth of the county, there's not much doubt that Smith County could use some help.

But getting the ear of state government when you represent only 18,000 people is not always easy.

"A lot of times, rural counties kind of get left out," Smith County Mayor Michael Nesbitt said. "We don't have a certain number of people, and a lot of times we struggle."

As the recession deepens and communities start to jockey for a piece of the $4.5 billion in federal stimulus spending directed at Tennessee, some country lawmakers are pushing an idea that they think could help rural communities like Smith County grab more attention, particularly for economic development projects.

Two groups in the state House of Representatives — one on the Democratic side and another among the Republicans — are looking at banding together into rural caucuses that will press issues of interest to people living in Tennessee's vast countryside.

"Often on the biggest issues, it's not Democrat versus Republican," said Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma. "It's urban versus rural."

Overall, unemployment is about one-third higher in Tennessee's rural counties than in its urban ones, says the Center for Rural Strategies, an advocacy group. And even that understates the severity of the recession in some parts of the countryside.

In Smith County, for instance, unemployment has more than doubled in the last year to nearly 15 percent, according to the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development.Eleven Tennessee counties — all outside the state's metropolitan areas — have unemployment rates that are still higher.

more - The Tennessean


As if there's not enough problems in rural Tennessee, Congress and Monsanto are making an attempt to further destroy the small farmer and grower.

From: Les Visible

Monsanto and Corporate, Jail-House, Gang Rape

One of the ugliest things to be manifesting in the Obama portfolio in these first 50 days is the war against small farmers; against farmer’s markets, alternative and organic growers of produce. There’s more but I don’t want to spend my time laying out what you can get from the link. You can get some nice details in the preceding site’s forum about Congresswomen DeLauro and her husband Stan ‘the man’ Greenberg who pimps for Monsanto. And… you can learn all you need to know about Monsanto in this video.

Those of us who have followed the predatory operations of this evil empire know about Monsanto deliberately seeding farmland they want to seize; their powerful law firms and helicopter spy ships. When you factor in what genetically modified foods do to the human body well… it becomes apparent that there is some kind of plan by a collection of corporate and government interests to make humanity as stupid as the livestock they consume and to reduce their numbers by a frightening amount.

Those of us who have followed the predatory operations of this evil empire know about Monsanto deliberately seeding farmland they want to seize; their powerful law firms and helicopter spy ships. When you factor in what genetically modified foods do to the human body well… it becomes apparent that there is some kind of plan by a collection of corporate and government interests to make humanity as stupid as the livestock they consume and to reduce their numbers by a frightening amount.

read the rest at Smoking Mirrors

Obama's service nation set to begin

Congress Prepares to Expand Service Program

NY Times

By Carl Huls

Without much fanfare, Congress is set to move ahead this week with one of the largest expansions of national and community service in years.

The House is scheduled to vote on a measure that would enlarge the AmeriCorps program to 250,000 slots from 75,000 and create new volunteer opportunities and programs. The Senate could approve its own version of the plan as early as this week as well.

“National and community service can help make Americans a part of the solution to get our country through this economic crisis,” Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who chairs the Education and Labor Committee, said.

President Obama, who was a community organizer early in his career, has strongly promoted the idea of more national service, giving momentum to legislation that has bipartisan support though some Republicans have expressed concern about an estimated cost of up to $5 billion.

Under the House bill, the education stipend for someone who completes service in Americorps would be increased to $5,350 – equal to a Pell grant. The legislation would establish a new national campaign to promote public service and encourage Americans to observe Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance. New incentives for middle school and high school school students to volunteer would also be created. more


Also see: The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act



This is the Army, Mrs. Jones!

By Judi McLeod Monday, March 16, 2009

The biting winds of change are blowing through ObamaNation. The same “volunteerism” that kept America running since the days of its founding, wiped out with the stroke of a pen, will no longer be volunteerism. It becomes forced labor and like the practice of another era, presses American citizens of all ages and creeds, unknowingly into military service.

On paper, H.R. 1388 is the “Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act”; the more innocuous sounding “The Give Act”, for short. But “The Give Act” is not part of Obama’s distant future for unsuspecting American citizens, because it hits the House floor tomorrow.{March 17, 2009}

Democrat Rep. Carolyn McCarthy is sponsoring the bill with 25 co-sponsors, Democrats down to the last one. Yeas and Nays 34-3.

The Give Act puts the finishing touches to Public Allies New Leadership for New Times, modeled after Saul Alinsky’s “Peoples Organizations” and operating under Michelle Obama with an alleged operating budget of more than $75-million a year. According to a Fact Sheet About Public Allies, “President Obama was a member of the founding advisory board of the non-profit organization. Michelle Obama was the founding Executive Director of Public Allies Chicago from Spring, 1993 until Fall 1996 (italics CFP’s). She served on Public Allies national board of directors from 1997 until 2002. Obama was no longer on the board when Michelle was hired.

Michelle was also a pioneer in the social entrepreneur movement--leaders who create new approaches and organize to provide new solutions to social problems.

Like most things Saul Alinsky, H.R. 1388 sounds noble in stating why wide-sweeping change is necessary. “The Give Act” aims to “leverage investments to increase State, local, business and philanthropic resources to address national and local challenges.”

Comprehensive in its power, H.R. 1388 goes straight to the heart of volunteerism in America, impacting everything from the lemonade stands of neighborhood children, to the residents of senior citizens homes.

“The Give Act” puts tow-headed school children and silver-haired seniors in the official uniform of the new State, and encompasses every walk of life in main-street America.

It could be argued that ladies as sweet as their 4-H cherry pies or school children fed the pablum of being global citizens in American public schools are hardly in a position to know they will be part of Obama’s dream for a radically changed America. But no longer are the vanguards in place to teach them the difference.

The Act in entrenching will will leave no student, or senior behind and no one in between.

American ‘volunteers’ from across the spectrum, once pressed into service of the Civilian Community Corps, in the fullness of time, shall be called the “National Civilian Community Corps.”
With students and seniors corralled into the same pasture, there will be no detractors left to call then “Obamabots”.

You might want to run, but you can’t hide from H.R. 1388.

Whether you are young or old, or firmly believe that volunteering means you are offering your time to the good of community work, you will be pressed into Obama’s National Civilian Community Corps.

Just in case you don’t want to wear the uniform and think the Corps means everybody but you, these are the citizen group H.R. 1388 proposes to cover:

“Increasing service opportunities for our Nation’s retiring professionals.
“Encourage members of the Baby Boom generation to partake in service opportunities.”

The National Civilian Community Corps is year-round and will impose itself on children away at summer camp. Even private schools will not be immune from its membership.
Down through the generations, wearing a uniform has always appealed to the sincere at heart.

According to H.R. 1388, “the Director determines appropriate “Uniforms”.

Membership is mandatory!

While you were busy worrying about coming up with the rent or mortgage money and the safety of your job, on March 9, committees knowing full well the chill that comes with the word “camp” changed all of their documents to read “campus”.

“This is the equivalent of brown shirts and the “Arbeit macht frei”,” writes www.resistnet.com. “The Government has the right to require individuals to give 3 years under the guise of “volunteer” service.”

Above the gates of Auschiwitz were the words: “Arbeit Macht Frei”, (“work will set you free”).

“Man is capable of such wrong doing in the name of a cause, again and again throughout history, a charismatic man promises Utopia at the cost of abhorrent acts as a means to it.”

In Obama’s bold new America, a reversal of the innocence of good works in volunteerism is the first radical change of tomorrow. source

AP spins the Missouri domestic terrorist story

Missouri report on militias, terrorists draws criticism

The Associated Press

KansasCity.com

COLUMBIA, Mo. | A new document meant to help Missouri law enforcement agencies identify militia members or domestic terrorists has drawn criticism for some of the warning signs mentioned.

The Feb. 20 report called "The Modern Militia Movement" mentions such red flags as political bumper stickers for third-party candidates, such as U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, who ran for president last year; talk of conspiracy theories, such as the plan for a superhighway linking Canada to Mexico; and possession of subversive literature.

"It seems like they want to stifle political thought," said Roger Webb, president of the University of Missouri campus Libertarians. "There are a lot of third parties out there, and none of them express any violence. In fact, if you join the Libertarian Party, one of the things you sign in your membership application is that you don't support violence as a means to any ends."

But state law enforcement officials said the report is being misinterpreted.

Lt. John Hotz of the Missouri State Highway Patrol said the report comes from publicly available, trend data on militias. It was compiled by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, a "fusion center" in Jefferson City that combines resources from the federal Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. The center, which opened in 2005, was set up to collect local intelligence to better combat terrorism and other criminal activity, he said.

"All this is an educational thing," Hotz said of the report. "Troopers have been shot by members of groups, so it's our job to let law enforcement officers know what the trends are in the modern militia movement."

But Tim Neal, a military veteran and delegate to last year's state GOP convention, was shocked by the report's contents.

"I was going down the list and thinking, 'Check, that's me,'" he said. "I'm a Ron Paul supporter, check. I talk about the North American union, check. I've got the 'America: Freedom to Fascism' video loaned out to somebody right now. So that means I'm a domestic terrorist? Because I've got a video about the Federal Reserve?"

Neal, who has a Ron Paul bumper sticker on his car, said the next time he is pulled over by a police officer, he won't know whether it's because he was speeding or because of his political views.

"If a police officer is pulling me over with my family in the car and he sees a bumper sticker on my vehicle that has been specifically identified as one that an extremist would have in their vehicle, the guy is probably going to be pretty apprehensive and not thinking in a rational manner," Neal said. "And this guy's walking up to my vehicle with a gun."

But Hotz said using factors in the report to determine whether someone could be a terrorist is not profiling. He said people who display signs or bumper stickers from third-party groups are not in danger of harassment from police.

"It's giving the makeup of militia members and their political beliefs," Hotz said of the report. "It's not saying that everybody who supports these candidates is involved in a militia. It's not even saying that all militias are bad."

Weiner Roasting on a Reichstag Fire

Pirate News TV

Gay Commie Republican Jew Michael Savage says Obama will attack USA in false-flag terror bombings for the New World Odor.



Sounds like a weenie roast. And he read Operation Northwoods. And he listened to survivors of USS Liberty.

source: Pirate News TV

Prosecute Prosecute

Eddie Joe & the Redeemers


by way of Living With War Today

The 'Toys' of War

Some of the latest 'toys' may not be for just the foreign excursions of the military-industrial complex but for surveillance and control of an increasingly unhappy domestic population.

Contractors continue to perpetuate the myth that war is stimulating to our economy.

If those who died in vain for the war machine could speak, it just might be a very loud "Fuck You."
We'll have to say it for them.

A Visit to DARPA-land

March 15th, 2009

by Rowan Wolf

We may have a new President in office who is supposedly shifting us from military focus to a diplomacy focus. However, thus far there is little to indicate that President Obama is ready to step back from the expensive toys of war and the mindset they represent. Drone attacks in Pakistan have been the order of the day - despite the high civilian casualty rate. Meanwhile new weapons and plans roll out of the Pentagon. And despite the Pentagon’s seeming inability to track their budget (over $2 trillion is missing somewhere), Gates is pushing for even less budget oversight.

A number of projects are in the works and all have a very high price tag.

Future Combat System (FCS)
The Future Combat System has a price tag of $159 billion, which the GAO says is unrealistically low. The FCS is a wireless network interconnection between soldiers, commanders, and eight weapons platforms which allows communications and guidance.

It is under development by Boeing and Science Applications International Corp (SAIC) - who of course have high confidence in the project.

The Future Combat System is the integrative component of Future Combat Systems. Don’t be confused over the names. FCS is the communications piece for the “systems” which extend the remote attack capabilities and the integration (one assumes) of the tech-homo “future war fighter” (soldiers enhanced with optical, computer and other embedded technologies).

Of course, this system might be disabled by another new weapon that “frys electronics.”

E-Bombs that Wreak Havoc
Several categories of weapons systems actually fall under this category. The military already has the capacity to fry electronic devices using either magnetic pulses or microwave. The new plan is to combine the magnetic version with an explosive component so that both electronic devices and physical objects can be destroyed at the same time.

This could either be really simple, or very complex. One would not want the explosive half to destroy the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) components. However, it would also not be a good idea for the EMP component to set off the explosive components. Further, since these are likely to be remotely controlled or perhaps delivered by drone, it would be counter-productive to shut down either the delivery vehicle or the wireless interfaces (as in the FCS). Oh the engineering challenges of efficient destruction.

However, in the world of micro-technology, a very small magnetic-based weapon has been mocked up. It is small enough to fit within a hand grenade and is technically named “Completely explosive ultracompact high-voltage nanosecond pulse-generating system.”

Super Blimp
Surveillance is the perpetual need - particularly in a remote controlled world at war, and sometimes moving back means moving forward. Enter the super blimp.

Super blimp is