Obama’s First 100 Days: Worse Than Even We Predicted

From protecting Bush officials who ordered torture from prosecution, to maintaining and expanding the American empire, to warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, all have remained and intensified under Obama.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 20, 2009

As President Barack Obama approaches his first 100 days in office, the corporate media prepares a new round of fawning idolatry about the Obama administration’s “achievements,” yet a summary glance at what Obama has actually done in that short time with regard to expanding the Bush police state and the Neo-Con empire is worse than even we predicted.

The day after Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States in November last year, we challenged Obama supporters and the administration itself to follow through on the rhetoric of “change” by starting to dismantle the architecture of the Bush police state and beginning to roll back the unwieldy morass of the American empire. Obama has done neither, and in fact his every action has been about ensuring the Bush police state remains in place, that the people who put it in place are protected from prosecution, and that the empire continues to expand.

We presented Obama and his supporters with a series of issues on which to make progress. While we did not expect Obama to accomplish much in his first few months in office, we at least challenged the new President to take the first steps in reversing eight years of what was a de facto dictatorship and plotting the course for the “change” that was so consistently promised.

We asked the following questions of an Obama presidency;

- Will Obama support Dennis Kucinich’s efforts to bring war crimes charges against Bush, Cheney and others for deceiving the country into a war or will he protect them against such charges like Nancy Pelosi has done?

In April 2008, Obama promised that as President he would ask his Attorney General to “immediately review” potential war crimes that occurred under the Bush White House. Obama or his Attorney General have done no such thing, and every noise they have made suggests that top Neo-Cons will be protected from deceiving America into a war.

Similarly we asked;

- Will Obama bring war crimes charges against Bush, Cheney and others for authorizing torture and will the torture of suspects under U.S. detention, a complete violation of both the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, cease under an Obama administration?

As we found out last week, the answer was a resounding NO. Upon the release of the torture memos, Obama’s right-hand man, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, told ABC News that top Bush administration officials “should not be prosecuted either and that’s not the place that we go.” In addition, Obama’s statement that accompanied the release of the torture memos stated, “In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution.”

So no retribution for the people who ordered the torture, and no retribution to the people who carried it out, thus setting the precedent that future administrations are free to order torture - safe in the knowledge that they will face no consequences whatsoever.

- Will Obama withdraw American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan without sending them away again to bomb another broken-backed third world country?

The answer again is a resounding NO. Upon taking office, Obama announced that he would be sending another 17,000, and eventually perhaps as many as 30,000, extra troops to Afghanistan.

Regarding Iraq, after the “withdrawal” of U.S. troops in 19 months, a timescale that has since been put back again, “Mr. Obama plans to leave behind a “residual force” of tens of thousands of troops to continue training Iraqi security forces, hunt down foreign terrorist cells and guard American institutions,” reported the New York Times.

In terms of bombing another broken-backed third world country, Obama has beefed the U.S. military role in Pakistan beyond that pursued by the Bush administration and “expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan,” according to the New York TImes, with an increase in missile attacks by drone aircraft.

Meanwhile, Obama’s war chest demands came to a total of around $800 billion in war funds and subsidiary costs just to cover the rest of 2009.

Does any of this sound like a move towards bringing the troops home and rolling back the American empire, as Obama promised before he was elected?

- Will Obama end the warrantless secret surveillance and phone-taps of American citizens?

You’ll be shocked the learn that the answer was a resounding NO. Earlier this month, “The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration’s position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) warrantless wiretapping program,” reported the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“President Obama promised the American people a new era of transparency, accountability, and respect for civil liberties,” said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. “But with the Obama Justice Department continuing the Bush administration’s cover-up of the National Security Agency’s dragnet surveillance of millions of Americans, and insisting that the much-publicized warrantless wiretapping program is still a ’secret’ that cannot be reviewed by the courts, it feels like deja vu all over again.”

- Will Obama cease his support for the Bush-administration backed banker bailouts, hated by the majority of Americans, and target the real cause of the problem - the Federal Reserve - or will he continue to give taxpayers’ money to banks who are merely hoarding it all for themselves?

Obama’s zealous push for more bailouts, along with increased power for the Federal Reserve and the implementation of global regulations that will effectively end any notion of a free market was perhaps the defining issue of his first 100 days as President. Obama has vigorously promoted the same financial policies that were introduced by the Bush administration in its final few months.

- Will Obama repeal Patriot Acts I and II as well as reversing Bush’s signing statement and acknowledging the repeal of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act? Will Obama seek to continue the militarization of America and preparations for martial law through Northcom and the secret government or will he dismantle the police state that has been constructed over the last eight years by the Bush administration?

Despite initial rhetoric about reversing Bush’s infamous signing statements, Obama himself stated that he will continue to use signing statements. The Patriot Act and its additions as well as the John Warner Defense Authorization Act, both core planks of the Bush police state, remain firmly in place, with no sign of any reversal.

Regarding militarization through Northcom, weeks after Obama’s election victory it was announced that, “The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.” Militarization of law enforcement and troops being used domestically in preparation for martial law is continuing apace under the Obama administration.

- Will Obama follow through on his rhetorical support for the second amendment or will he seek to ban guns as he did in Illinois?

Despite Obama promising that he was not interested in going after the second amendment before his election, one of his first actions was to appoint the rabidly anti-gun Eric Holder as his Attorney General. Obama has also falsely blamed the drug war crisis in Mexico on American gun shops. The leaked Obama gun ban list would make millions of Americans criminals for owning weapons such certain types of rifles or pistols. Anti-gun legislation has found its way into stimulus and other unrelated bills as pork barrel. The first steps of the Obama administration with regard to gun control have resulted in record firearm and ammunition purchases across the country.

Upon Obama’s election we made a cynical but unfortunately accurate prediction of how the much vaunted promise of “change” would actually manifest itself. The fact is that the “change” began and ended on the day Obama won the election.

- Illegal warrantless surveillance and wiretapping of American citizens will continue under Obama.

- Top Bush administration officials who ordered torture and those that carried it out will be protected from prosecution under Obama.

- Top Bush administration officials who deceived America into a war will be protected from prosecution under Obama.

- The expansion of the military empire through continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and further military incursions into Pakistan will continue and expand under Obama.

- Banker bailouts, reckless spending, inflation of currency through overprinting and global regulations stifling the free market, all of which were initiated under Bush, will continue under Obama.

- The militarization of the United States and the architecture of the police state that was set up under Bush will be preserved and expanded under Obama.

- The attack on the second amendment right to bear arms will continue under Obama.

“The egregious spending will continue, government will balloon in size, American soldiers will be used as cannon fodder for more interventionist wars of the military-industrial complex, U.S. citizens will continue to have their phone calls tapped and their rights curtailed,” we forecast last year, “and the Federal Reserve will continue to rule the financial system with an iron fist while the middle class is squeezed out of existence.”

Who can deny that all those things have only intensified under the Obama administration?

The honeymoon is over - Barack Obama has proven himself to be nothing more than we predicted all along - another stooge for the global banking syndicate that has controlled every U.S. president since JFK, and nothing more than a black face on the new world order - sworn to continue and intensify the same agenda that the Bush-Clinton-Bush dynasty advanced before him.

The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not be uttered on TV

The New York Times' David Barstow won a richly deserved Pulitzer Prize yesterday for two articles that, despite being featured as major news stories on the front page of The Paper of Record, were completely suppressed by virtually every network and cable news show, which to this day have never informed their viewers about what Barstow uncovered. Here is how the Pulitzer Committee described Barstow's exposés:

Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.

By whom were these "ties to companies" undisclosed and for whom did these deeply conflicted retired generals pose as "analysts"? ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and Fox -- the very companies that have simply suppressed the story from their viewers. They kept completely silent about Barstow's story even though it sparked Congressional inquiries, vehement objections from the then-leading Democratic presidential candidates, and allegations that the Pentagon program violated legal prohibitions on domestic propaganda programs. The Pentagon's secret collaboration with these "independent analysts" shaped multiple news stories from each of these outlets on a variety of critical topics. Most amazingly, many of them continue to employ as so-called "independent analysts" the very retired generals at the heart of Barstow's story, yet still refuse to inform their viewers about any part of this story.

And even now that Barstow yesterday won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting -- one of the most prestigious awards any news story can win -- these revelations still may not be uttered on television, tragically dashing the hope expressed yesterday (rhetorically, I presume) by Media Matters' Jamison Foser that "maybe now that the story has won a Pulitzer for Barstow, they'll pay attention." Instead, it was Atrios' prediction that was decisively confirmed: "I don't think a Pulitzer will be enough to give the military analyst story more attention." Here is what Brian Williams said last night on his NBC News broadcast in reporting on the prestigious awards:

The Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and the arts were awarded today. The New York Times led the way with five, including awards for breaking news and international reporting. Las Vegas Sun won for the public service category for its reporting on construction worker deaths in that city. Best commentary went to Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post, who of course was an on-air commentator for us on MSNBC all through the election season and continues to be. And the award for best biography went to John Meacham, the editor of Newsweek magazine, for his book "American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House."

No mention that among the five NYT prizes was one for investigative reporting. Williams did manage to promote the fact that one of the award winners was an MSNBC contributor, but sadly did not find the time to inform his viewers that NBC News' war reporting and one of Williams' still-featured premiere "independent analysts," Gen. Barry McCaffrey, was and continues to be at the heart of the scandal for which Barstow won the Pulitzer. Williams' refusal to inform his readers about this now-Pulitzer-winning story is particularly notable given his direct personal involvement in the secret, joint attempts by NBC and McCaffrey to contain P.R. damage to NBC from Barstow's story, compounded by the fact that NBC was on notice of these multiple conflicts as early as April, 2003, when The Nation first reported on them.

Identically, CNN ran an 898-word story on the various Pulitzer winners -- describing virtually every winner -- but was simply unable to find any space even to mention David Barstow's name, let alone inform their readers that he won the Prize for uncovering core corruption at the heart of CNN's coverage of the Iraq War and other military-related matters. No other major television news outlet implicated by Barstow's story mentioned his award, at least as far as I can tell.

The outright refusal of any of these "news organizations" even to mention what Barstow uncovered about the Pentagon's propaganda program and the way it infected their coverage is one of the most illuminating events revealing how they operate. So transparently corrupt and journalistically disgraceful is their blackout of this story that even Howard Kurtz and Politico -- that's Howard Kurtz and Politico -- lambasted them for this concealment. Meaningful criticisms of media stars from media critic (and CNN star) Howie Kurtz is about as rare as prosecutions for politically powerful lawbreakers in America, yet this is what he said about the television media's suppression of Barstow's story: "their coverage of this important issue has been pathetic."

Has there ever been another Pulitzer-Prize-winning story for investigative reporting never to be mentioned on major television -- let alone one that was twice featured as the lead story on the front page of The New York Times? To pose the question is to answer it.



UPDATE: Media Matters has more on the glaring omissions in Brian Williams' "reporting" and on the pervasive impact of the Pentagon's program on television news coverage. Williams' behavior has long been disgraceful on this issue, almost certainly due to the fact that some of the "analysts" most directly implicated by Barstow's story are Williams' favored sources and friends.

On a different note, CQ's Jeff Stein responds today to some of the objections to his Jane-Harman/AIPAC/Alberto-Gonazles blockbuster story -- quite convincingly, in my view -- and, as Christy Hardin Smith notes, the New York Times has now independently confirmed much of what Stein reported.



UPDATE II: For some added irony: on his NBS News broadcast last night suppressing any mention of David Barstow's Pulitzer Prize, Brian Williams' lead story concerned Obama's trip to the CIA yesterday. Featured in that story was commentary from Col. Jack Jacobs, identified on-screen this way: "Retired, NBC News Military Analyst." Jacobs was one of the retired officers who was an active member of the Pentagon's "military analyst" program, and indeed, he actively helped plan the Pentagon's media strategy at the very same time he was posing as an "independent analyst" on NBC (h/t reader gc; via NEXIS). So not only did Williams last night conceal from his viewers any mention of the Pentagon program, he featured -- on the very same broadcast -- "independent" commentary from one of the central figures involved in that propaganda program.

On a related note, Howard Kurtz was asked in his Washington Post chat yesterday about Mike Allen's grant of anonymity to a "top Bush official" that I highlighted on Saturday, and Kurtz -- while defending much of Allen's behavior -- said: "I don't believe an ex-official should have been granted anonymity for that kind of harsh attack."

-- Glenn Greenwald
source:

Alan Keyes: Government Will Stage Terror, Declare Martial Law

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Former presidential candidate Alan Keyes has given perhaps his most dire warning yet, saying that the Obama administration is preparing to stage terror attacks, declare martial law and cancel the 2012 elections, which is why they are demonizing their political enemies as criminals and terrorists.

Keyes is best known for his performance during the 2000 Republican presidential debates, when he was accredited by many media outlets as being the clear winner during a series of debates with George W. Bush and John McCain.

“It’s obvious that they will stop at nothing,” Keyes told attendees of a reception in Fort Wayne, adding, “We may wake up one day and there’s a series of terrorist attacks, the economy is paralysed….martial law will be declared everywhere in the United States and it won’t end until the crisis ends.”

Keyes said that Americans should be thankful if they even see another election in 2012, stating, “If we don’t wake up and work to see that it happens, we will not see another election.”

“The minute they think they can get away with it, they will end this system of government and that is their intention,” added Keyes, noting that everyone acting as if the time we are in was just “business as usual” reminds him of the attitude of politicians in the Weimar Republic when Hitler was rising to power or eastern Europe when the Communists were taking over after the second world war.

Keyes said that because the majority of people are decent-minded, they believe others will play by the rules when this simply isn’t the case, warning that this attitude will allow evil to take over before we can do anything about it.

“It is so clear hat we have now put a faction in place - they are not playing by the rules and they don’t intend to play by the rules - if they were playing by the rules they wouldn’t have tried to identify their opposition as criminals,” added Keyes, making reference to the recent controversy surrounding the release of the MIAC and Homeland Security reports, which implied that Americans who exercise and are knowledgeable about their constitutional rights are a threat to law enforcement and potential domestic terrorists.

Keyes said that the only solution was from the bottom up because our leaders “are so gutless that they won’t even ask that the Constitution be enforced for clear, plain, absolutely unequivocal requirements,” and respond meekly with “their lips shut and their hearts terrorized.”

Keyes also warned of Obama’s agenda to create a civilian security force and said it was part of the ultimate agenda to disarm American citizens and create a police state.

Keyes has been a vocal critic of Obama, warning that he is a radical Communist who is determined to destroy America, and that if his agenda is not stopped then the country as we know it will cease to exist.

The Tower of Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a Global Currency

Ellen Brown
Global Research
April 19, 2009


BIS, founded in Basel, Switzerland, in 1930, it has been scandal-ridden from its beginnings. According to Charles Higham in his book Trading with the Enemy, by the late 1930s the BIS had assumed an openly pro-Nazi bias.

In an April 7 article in the London Daily Telegraph titled “The G20 Moves the World a Step Closer to a Global Currency,” Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote:

“A single clause in Point 19 of the communiqué issued by the G20 leaders amounts to revolution in the global financial order.

“We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation which will inject $250bn (£170bn) into the world economy and increase global liquidity,’ it said. SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency issued by the International Monetary Fund that has lain dormant for half a century.

“In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMF’s power to create money and begin global ‘quantitative easing’. In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it.”

Indeed they will. The article is subtitled, “The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, running monetary policy for all humanity.” Which naturally raises the question, who or what will serve as this global central bank, cloaked with the power to issue the global currency and police monetary policy for all humanity? When the world’s central bankers met in Washington last September, they discussed what body might be in a position to serve in that awesome and fearful role. A former governor of the Bank of England stated:

“[T]he answer might already be staring us in the face, in the form of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)…. The IMF tends to couch its warnings about economic problems in very diplomatic language, but the BIS is more independent and much better placed to deal with this if it is given the power to do so.”[1]

And if that vision doesn’t alarm conspiracy theorists, it should. The BIS has been called “the most exclusive, secretive, and powerful supranational club in the world.” Founded in Basel, Switzerland, in 1930, it has been scandal-ridden from its beginnings. According to Charles Higham in his book Trading with the Enemy, by the late 1930s the BIS had assumed an openly pro-Nazi bias. This was corroborated years later in a BBC Timewatch film titled “Banking with Hitler,” broadcast in 1998.[2] In 1944, the American government backed a resolution at the Bretton-Woods Conference calling for the liquidation of the BIS, following Czech accusations that it was laundering gold stolen by the Nazis from occupied Europe; but the central bankers succeeded in quietly snuffing out the American resolution.[3]


Modest beginnings, BIS Office, Hotel Savoy-Univers, Basel


First Annual General Meeting, 1931

In Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966), Dr. Carroll Quigley revealed the key role played in global finance by the BIS behind the scenes. Dr. Quigley was Professor of History at Georgetown University, where he was President Bill Clinton’s mentor. He was also an insider, groomed by the powerful clique he called “the international bankers.” His credibility is heightened by the fact that he actually espoused their goals. He wrote:

“I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960’s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. … [I]n general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.”

Quigley wrote of this international banking network:

“[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.”

The key to their success, said Quigley, was that the international bankers would control and manipulate the money system of a nation while letting it appear to be controlled by the government. The statement echoed an often-quoted one made by the German patriarch of what would become the most powerful banking dynasty in the world. Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild famously said in 1791:

“Allow me to issue and control a nation’s currency, and I care not who makes its laws.”

Mayer’s five sons were sent to the major capitals of Europe – London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and Naples – with the mission of establishing a banking system that would be outside government control. The economic and political systems of nations would be controlled not by citizens but by bankers, for the benefit of bankers. Eventually, a privately-owned “central bank” was established in nearly every country; and this central banking system has now gained control over the economies of the world. Central banks have the authority to print money in their respective countries, and it is from these banks that governments must borrow money to pay their debts and fund their operations. The result is a global economy in which not only industry but government itself runs on “credit” (or debt) created by a banking monopoly headed by a network of private central banks; and at the top of this network is the BIS, the “central bank of central banks” in Basel.

Behind the Curtain

For many years the BIS kept a very low profile, operating behind the scenes in an abandoned hotel. It was here that decisions were reached to devalue or defend currencies, fix the price of gold, regulate offshore banking, and raise or lower short-term interest rates. In 1977, however, the BIS gave up its anonymity in exchange for more efficient headquarters. The new building has been described as “an eighteen story-high circular skyscraper that rises above the medieval city like some misplaced nuclear reactor.” It quickly became known as the “Tower of Basel.” Today the BIS has governmental immunity, pays no taxes, and has its own private police force.[4] It is, as Mayer Rothschild envisioned, above the law.

The BIS is now composed of 55 member nations, but the club that meets regularly in Basel is a much smaller group; and even within it, there is a hierarchy. In a 1983 article in Harper’s Magazine called “Ruling the World of Money,” Edward Jay Epstein wrote that where the real business gets done is in “a sort of inner club made up of the half dozen or so powerful central bankers who find themselves more or less in the same monetary boat” – those from Germany, the United States, Switzerland, Italy, Japan and England. Epstein said:

“The prime value, which also seems to demarcate the inner club from the rest of the BIS members, is the firm belief that central banks should act independently of their home governments… . A second and closely related belief of the inner club is that politicians should not be trusted to decide the fate of the international monetary system.”

In 1974, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision was created by the central bank Governors of the Group of Ten nations (now expanded to twenty). The BIS provides the twelve-member Secretariat for the Committee. The Committee, in turn, sets the rules for banking globally, including capital requirements and reserve controls. In a 2003 article titled “The Bank for International Settlements Calls for Global Currency,” Joan Veon wrote:

“The BIS is where all of the world’s central banks meet to analyze the global economy and determine what course of action they will take next to put more money in their pockets, since they control the amount of money in circulation and how much interest they are going to charge governments and banks for borrowing from them…

“When you understand that the BIS pulls the strings of the world’s monetary system, you then understand that they have the ability to create a financial boom or bust in a country. If that country is not doing what the money lenders want, then all they have to do is sell its currency.”[5]

The Controversial Basel Accords

The power of the BIS to make or break economies was demonstrated in 1988, when it issued a Basel Accord raising bank capital requirements from 6% to 8%. By then, Japan had emerged as the world’s largest creditor; but Japan’s banks were less well capitalized than other major international banks. Raising the capital requirement forced them to cut back on lending, creating a recession in Japan like that suffered in the U.S. today. Property prices fell and loans went into default as the security for them shriveled up. A downward spiral followed, ending with the total bankruptcy of the banks, which had to be nationalized – although that word was not used, in order to avoid criticism.[6]

Among other collateral damage produced by the Basel Accords was a spate of suicides among Indian farmers unable to get loans. The BIS capital adequacy standards required loans to private borrowers to be “risk-weighted,” with the degree of risk determined by private rating agencies; and farmers and small business owners could not afford the agencies’ fees. Banks therefore assigned 100 percent risk to the loans, and then resisted extending credit to these “high-risk” borrowers because more capital was required to cover the loans. When the conscience of the nation was aroused by the Indian suicides, the government, lamenting the neglect of farmers by commercial banks, established a policy of ending the “financial exclusion” of the weak; but this step had little real effect on lending practices, due largely to the strictures imposed by the BIS from abroad.[7]

Similar complaints have come from Korea. An article in the December 12, 2008 Korea Times titled “BIS Calls Trigger Vicious Cycle” described how Korean entrepreneurs with good collateral cannot get operational loans from Korean banks, at a time when the economic downturn requires increased investment and easier credit:

“‘The Bank of Korea has provided more than 35 trillion won to banks since September when the global financial crisis went full throttle,’ said a Seoul analyst, who declined to be named. ‘But the effect is not seen at all with the banks keeping the liquidity in their safes. They simply don’t lend and one of the biggest reasons is to keep the BIS ratio high enough to survive,’ he said…

“Chang Ha-joon, an economics professor at Cambridge University, concurs with the analyst. ‘What banks do for their own interests, or to improve the BIS ratio, is against the interests of the whole society. This is a bad idea,’ Chang said in a recent telephone interview with Korea Times.”

In a May 2002 article in The Asia Times titled “Global Economy: The BIS vs. National Banks,” economist Henry C K Liu observed that the Basel Accords have forced national banking systems “to march to the same tune, designed to serve the needs of highly sophisticated global financial markets, regardless of the developmental needs of their national economies.” He wrote:

“[N]ational banking systems are suddenly thrown into the rigid arms of the Basel Capital Accord sponsored by the Bank of International Settlement (BIS), or to face the penalty of usurious risk premium in securing international interbank loans… . National policies suddenly are subjected to profit incentives of private financial institutions, all members of a hierarchical system controlled and directed from the money center banks in New York. The result is to force national banking systems to privatize …

“BIS regulations serve only the single purpose of strengthening the international private banking system, even at the peril of national economies… . The IMF and the international banks regulated by the BIS are a team: the international banks lend recklessly to borrowers in emerging economies to create a foreign currency debt crisis, the IMF arrives as a carrier of monetary virus in the name of sound monetary policy, then the international banks come as vulture investors in the name of financial rescue to acquire national banks deemed capital inadequate and insolvent by the BIS.”

Ironically, noted Liu, developing countries with their own natural resources did not actually need the foreign investment that had trapped them in debt to outsiders:

“Applying the State Theory of Money [which assumes that a sovereign nation has the power to issue its own money], any government can fund with its own currency all its domestic developmental needs to maintain full employment without inflation.”

When governments fell into the trap of accepting loans in foreign currencies, however, they became “debtor nations” subject to IMF and BIS regulation. They were forced to divert their production to exports, just to earn the foreign currency necessary to pay the interest on their loans. National banks deemed “capital inadequate” had to deal with strictures comparable to the “conditionalities” imposed by the IMF on debtor nations: “escalating capital requirement, loan writeoffs and liquidation, and restructuring through selloffs, layoffs, downsizing, cost-cutting and freeze on capital spending.” Liu wrote:

“Reversing the logic that a sound banking system should lead to full employment and developmental growth, BIS regulations demand high unemployment and developmental degradation in national economies as the fair price for a sound global private banking system.”

The Last Domino to Fall

While banks in developing nations were being penalized for falling short of the BIS capital requirements, large international banks managed to escape the rules, although they actually carried enormous risk because of their derivative exposure. The mega-banks succeeded in avoiding the Basel rules by separating the “risk” of default out from the loans and selling it off to investors, using a form of derivative known as “credit default swaps.”


BIS Tower Building, Basel


Botta 1 Building, Basel

However, it was not in the game plan that U.S. banks should escape the BIS net. When they managed to sidestep the first Basel Accord, a second set of rules was imposed known as Basel II. The new rules were established in 2004, but they were not levied on U.S. banks until November 2007, the month after the Dow passed 14,000 to reach its all-time high. The economy was all downhill from there. Basel II had the same effect on U.S. banks that Basel I had on Japanese banks: they have been struggling ever since to survive.[8]

Basel II requires banks to adjust the value of their marketable securities to the “market price” of the security, a rule called “mark to market.”[9] The rule has theoretical merit, but the problem is timing: it was imposed ex post facto, after the banks already had the hard-to-market assets on their books. Lenders that had been considered sufficiently well capitalized to make new loans suddenly found they were insolvent. At least, they would have been insolvent if they had tried to sell their assets, an assumption required by the new rule. Financial analyst John Berlau complained:

“The crisis is often called a ‘market failure,’ and the term ‘mark-to-market’ seems to reinforce that. But the mark-to-market rules are profoundly anti-market and hinder the free-market function of price discovery… . In this case, the accounting rules fail to allow the market players to hold on to an asset if they don’t like what the market is currently fetching, an important market action that affects price discovery in areas from agriculture to antiques.”[10]

Imposing the mark-to-market rule on U.S. banks caused an instant credit freeze, which proceeded to take down the economies not only of the U.S. but of countries worldwide. In early April 2009, the mark-to-market rule was finally softened by the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB); but critics said the modification did not go far enough, and it was done in response to pressure from politicians and bankers, not out of any fundamental change of heart or policies by the BIS.

And that is where the conspiracy theorists come in. Why did the BIS not retract or at least modify Basel II after seeing the devastation it had caused? Why did it sit idly by as the global economy came crashing down? Was the goal to create so much economic havoc that the world would rush with relief into the waiting arms of the BIS with its privately-created global currency? The plot thickens …

Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her earlier books focused on the pharmaceutical cartel that gets its power from “the money trust.” Her eleven books include Forbidden Medicine, Nature’s Pharmacy (co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker), and The Key to Ultimate Health (co-authored with Dr. Richard Hansen). Her websites are www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.

NOTES

1. Andrew Marshall, “The Financial New World Order: Towards a Global Currency and World Government,” Global Research (April 6, 2009).

2. Alfred Mendez, “The Network,” The World Central Bank: The Bank for International Settlements, http://copy_bilderberg.tripod.com/bis.htm.

3. “BIS – Bank of International Settlement: The Mother of All Central Banks,” hubpages.com (2009).

4. Ibid.

5. Joan Veon, “The Bank for International Settlements Calls for Global Currency,” News with Views (August 26, 2003).

6. Peter Myers, “The 1988 Basle Accord – Destroyer of Japan’s Finance System,” http://www.mailstar.net/basle.html (updated September 9, 2008).

7. Nirmal Chandra, “Is Inclusive Growth Feasible in Neoliberal India?”, networkideas.org (September 2008).

8. Bruce Wiseman, “The Financial Crisis: A look Behind the Wizard’s Curtain,” Canada Free Press (March 19, 2009).

9. See Ellen Brown, “Credit Where Credit Is Due,” webofdebt.com/articles/creditcrunch.php (January 11, 2009).

10. John Berlau, “The International Mark-to-market Contagion,” OpenMarket.org (October 10, 2008).

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1323

Famous quotes we probably should of listened to more carefully.

"I BELIEVE THAT BANKING INSTITUTIONS ARE MORE
DANGEROUS THAN STANDING ARMIES...
IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE EVER ALLOW PRIVATE BANKS TO
CONTROL THE ISSUE OF CURRENCY... THE BANKS AND
CORPORATIONS THAT WILL GROW UP AROUND THEM WILL
DEPRIVE THE PEOPLE OF THEIR PROPERTY UNTIL THEIR
CHILDREN WAKE UP HOMELESS ON THE CONTINENT THEIR
FATHERS CONQUERED"

THOMAS JEFFERSON1743 - 1826


"[OUR] GREAT INDUSTRIAL NATION IS CONTROLLED BY ITS
SYSTEM OF CREDIT.

OUR SYSTEM OF CREDIT IS PRIVATELY CONCENTRATED,
THE GROWTH OF THE NATION, THERFORE, AND
ALL OUR ACTIVITIES ARE IN THE HANDS OF A FEW MEN...
WHO NECESSARILY, BY VERY REASON OF THEIR LIMITATIONS,
CHILL AND CHECK AND DESTROY GENUINE ECONOMIC FREEDOM.

WE HAVE COME TO BE ONE OF THE WORST RULED, ONE OF THE
MOST COMPLETELY CONTROLLED AND DOMINATED GOVERNMENTS
IN THE CIVILIZED WORLD

-NO GOVERNMENT BY FREE OPINION, NO LONGER A GOVERNMENT
BY CONVICTION AND THE VOTE OF THE MAJORITY, BUT A GOVERNMENT
BY THE OPINION AND DURESS OF SMALL GROUPS OF DOMINANT MEN."

WOODROW WILSON


"A WORLD BANKING SYSTEM WAS BEING SET UP HERE...A
SUPERSTATE CONTROLLED BY INTERNATIONAL
BANKERS...ACTING TOGETHER TO ENSLAVE THE WORLD FOR
THEIR OWN PLEASURE. THE FED (FEDERAL RESERVE CORPORATION)
HAS USURPED THE GOVERNMENT"

CONGRESSMAN LOUIS MCFADDEN


"UNDER THE FEDERAL RESERVE ACT. PANICS ARE
SCIENTIFICALLY CREATED. THE PRESENT PANIC IS THE
FIRST SCIENTIFICALLY CREATED ONE, WORKED OUT AS WE
FIGURE A MATHEMATICAL EQUATION"

CONGRESSMAN CHARLES LINDBERG


"GIVE ME CONTROL OF A NATION'S MONEY SUPPLY, AND I
CARE NOT WHO MAKES ITS LAWS"

MAYER AMSCHEL ROTHSCHILD,
FOUNDER OF THE ROTHSCHILD BANKING DYNASTY


"THE LARGE BANKING INTERESTS WERE DEEPLY INTERESTED
IN THE WORLD WAR (I) BECAUSE OF THE WIDE
OPPORTUNITIES FOR LARGE PROFITS"

SECRETARY OF STATE, WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN


"WE SHALL HAVE WORLD GOVERNMENT WHETHER OR NOT WE
LIKE IT. THE QUESTION IS WHETHER WORLD GOVERNMENT
WILL BE ACHIEVED BY CONQUEST OR CONSENT"

-JAMES WARBURG TO THE UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE
ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1950


"WE ARE GRATEFUL TO THE WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORK
TIMES, TIME MAGAZINE AND OTHER GREAT PUBLICATIONS
WHOSE DIRECTORS HAVE ATTENDED OUR MEETINGS AND
RESPECTED THEIR PROMISES OF DESCRETION FOR ALMOST 40
YEARS, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE FOR US TO
DEVELOP OUR PLAN FOR THE WORLD IF WE HAD BEEN
SUBJECTED TO THE LIGHTS OF PUBLICITY DURING THOSE
YEARS. BUT, THE WORLD IS MORE SOPHISTICATED AND
PREPARED TO MARCH TOWARD A WORLD GOVERNMENT.
THE SUPRANATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY OF AN INTELLECTUAL ELITE
AND WORLD BANKERS IS SURELY PREFERABLE TO THE
NATIONAL AUTO-DETERMINATION PRACTICED IN PAST
CENTURIES"

DAVID ROCKEFELLER
COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS


"POWER CORRUPTS: ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY"

LORD ACTON
ENGLISH HISTORIAN 1834 - 1902


"When the power of love overcomes the love of power,
the world will know peace."

-Sri Chinmoy Ghose


"IT IS NO MEASURE OF HEALTH TO BE WELL ADJUSTED TO A PROFOUNDLY SICK SOCIETY"

-Jiddu Krishnamurti


"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who
falsely believe they are free"

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
1749 - 1832


"...slavery is but the owning of labor and carries
with it the care of the laborers, while the European
plan... is that capital shall control labor by
controlling wages-This can be done, by controlling the money. It will
not do to allow the Greenback... as we cannot control that."

- "The Hazard Circular" - July, 1862


"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation.
One is by sword. The other is by debt.

-John Adams-1735-1826

Famous Quotes from Zeitgeist the Movie
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Alex Jones kicking some ass on FOX

Ok..Ok.. It's only an online news program, but it's still a huge step in the right direction. Someone commented this on youtube:

"Why doesn't fox put this guy on the actual television instead of keeping it only on the internet. FOX news no doubt wants to cater to what it feels are the nutjobs of the world. They are merely tapping what they consider nutjob market, as they see a market in it. Obviously restricting it to the internet will not anger our owners.
This show needs to be aired on TV."

So true...so true...The problem is most reporters in mainstream media report the majority of important news straight from the mouths of politicians, they should be doing their own research like Alex Jones and report honest news. The mighty hands of the corporations however, do not allow that. Long live the internet!
Until next time...

9/11 again?? You serious??....you betcha!

Crazy conspiracy theorists vs naive, gullible, government propaganda spoon-fed, naysayers.

Who is right?

This has been a very popular debate, especially since the events of 9/11.
I'm sure many of you have seen Zeitgeist (over 100 million views, making it one of the most popular online movies of all time...if you haven't seen it, watch it now: zeitgeistmovie.com) or Loose Change, Freedom to Fascism or one of the many other so called "conspiracy movies". These theories (do your own research and you find the opposite to be true) are nothing new, but more and more factual information gets released every day which gives enormous strength to them and in turn makes them facts. Including the new ones below, which really put the nail in the coffin. It's too bad you'll never hear about it on the mainstream media...although, occasionally Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck will throw you a bone. 9/11 is a very sensitive topic for us Americans and it's sad to see that a bunch of us have our heads in the sand about what really happened. It took us a few years to find out the real story behind Pearl Harbor, just like the other previous wars before it and this False Flag of terror is no different. It's impossible to debunk or deny cold hard facts..it's even harder to accept the truth once you realize it.

Does this cover-up piss anyone else off?

Danish Scientist on TV: Nano-thermite Behind Collapse of WTC Buildings on 9/11, Not Planes

On the morning of April the 6th, Professor Niels Harrit of Copenhagen University in Denmark, who is an expert in nano-chemistry, was interviewed for an entire 10 minutes during a news program on the topic of the nano-thermite found in the dust from the World Trade Centre, (WTC).



During this news report, Harrit, who is one of the nine scientists primarily responsible for the pivotal paper entitled: ‘Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe’, talks about how their research, which was conducted over 18 months, led to the conclusion that planes did not cause the collapse of the three buildings at the WTC on 9/11.

He says that they found such large quantities of nano-thermite in the dust from the WTC, that he believes that this compound, which has the ability to melt metal, must have been brought into the WTC site in tonnes, on pallets. Consequently, he suggests that we need to address this matter with those who were in charge of the security at the World Trade Centre on 9/11. Bush's brother, look it up... http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-06.htm

Harrit, like Dr Steven Jones who also played a major role in this ground-breaking research, refers to their findings as “the loaded gun” and suggests that military personnel might be able to enlighten us more on the little-known topic of nano-thermite, which differs from regular thermite in a number of significant ways, including that its ignition temperature is far lower than that of the conventional kind.

http://www.infowars.com/danish-scientist-on-tv-nano-thermite-behind-collapse-of-wtc-buildings-on-911-not-planes/


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



9/11 Commission Counsel: Government Agreed to Lie About 9/11

The senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission - John Farmer - says that the government agreed not to tell the truth about 9/11, echoing the assertions of fellow 9/11 Commission members who concluded that the Pentagon were engaged in deliberate deception about their response to the attack.

Farmer served as Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (officially known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States), and is also a former New Jersey Attorney General.
featured stories 9/11 Commission Counsel: Government Agreed to Lie About 9/11


Farmer’s book about his experiences working for the Commission is entitled The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11, and is set to be released tomorrow.



The book unveils how “the public had been seriously misled about what occurred during the morning of the attacks,” and Farmer himself states that “at some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened.”

Only the very naive would dispute that an agreement not to tell the truth is an agreement to lie. Farmer’s contention is that the government agreed to create a phony official version of events to cover-up the real story behind 9/11.

The publisher of the book, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, states that, “Farmer builds the inescapably convincing case that the official version not only is almost entirely untrue but serves to create a false impression of order and security.”


In August 2006, the Washington Post reported, “Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.”

The report revealed how the 10-member commission deeply suspected deception to the point where they considered referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.

“We to this day don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us,” said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. “It was just so far from the truth. . . . It’s one of those loose ends that never got tied.”

Farmer himself is quoted in the Post article, stating, “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The [Norad air defense] tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true.”

As we also reported in August 2006, released portions of NORAD tapes from 9/11, which were featured in a Vanity Fair article, do little to answer skeptic’s questions about the impotence of U.S. air defenses on 9/11 and if anything only increase focus on the incompatibility of the official version of events with what is actually known to have taken place on that day.

Make no mistake, Farmer is not saying that 9/11 was an inside job, however, Farmer’s testimony, along with that of his fellow 9/11 Commission members, conclusively demonstrates that, whatever really happened on 9/11, the official story as told to the public on the day and that which remains the authorities’ version of events today, is a lie - according to the very people who were tasked by the government to investigate it. This is a fact that no debunker or government apologist can ever legitimately deny.

http://www.infowars.com/911-commission-counsel-government-agreed-to-lie-about-911/

Bill Hicks: "I'M SO GLAD WE ARE FREE"

In the spirit of great stand up comics, here is another clip from one of our greats. Mr. Bill Hicks Ladies and Gentleman...

Alex Jones Stand Up Comedy

I thought about writing something serious this time around, but then I said fuck it! Let's keep this stand up thing going. We need some more humor in our lives damn it. I've never heard Alex Jones do a comedy routine before and I thought it was pretty funny. Enjoy my babies!

"It's Called the American Dream Because You Have To Be Asleep to Believe It"

You gotta love this man...he tells it like it is!

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/61955/

By the way, Alternet is pretty much one of the only site where you can find this clip anymore...

"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying ­ lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else."

"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

"You know what they want? Obedient workers ­ people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."

"This country is finished."

George Carlin- "Owners Of This Country"

In dedication to Z...

In dedication to our new poster, last but not least: Z
(for those who can appreciate literary ingenuity and creativeness...)

To pragmatists, the letter Z is nothing more than a phonetically symbolic glyph, a minor sign easily learned, readily assimilated, and occasionally deployed in the course of a literate life. to cynics, Z is just an S with a stick up its butt.

Well, true enough, any word worth repeating is greater than the sum of its parts; and the particular word-part Z - angular, whereas S is curvaceous - can from a certain perspective, appear anally wired (although Z is far too sophisticated to throw up its arms like Y and act as if it had just been goosed).

On those of us neither prosaic nor jaded, however, those whom the Fates to monitor such things, Z has had an impact above and beyond its signifying function. A presence in its own right, it's the most distant and elusive of our twenty-six linguistic atoms; a mysterious, dark figure in an otherwise fairly innocuous lineup, and the sleekest little swimmer ever to take laps in a bowl of alphabet soup.

Scarcely a day of my life has gone by when I've not stirred the alphabetical ant nest, yet every time I type or pen the letter Z, I still feel a secret tingle, a tiny thrill. This is particularly due to Z's relative rarity: my dictionary devotes 99 pages to A words, 138 to P, but only 5 pages to words beginning with Z. Then there's Z's exoticness, for, though its a component of the English language, it gives the impression of having zipped out of Africa or the ancient Nebuchadnezzar. Ultimately, perhaps, whats most fascinating about Z is its dual projection of subtle menace and aesthetic grace. Z's are not verbal ants; they are bees. Stylish bees. Killer bees. They buzz; they sting.

Z is a whip crack of a letter, a striking viper of a letter, an open jacknife ever ready to cut the chords of convention or peel the peach of lust.

A Z is slick, quick (it's no accident that automakers call their fastest models Z cars), arcane, eccentric, and always faintly sinister - although its very elegance seperates it from the brutish X, that character traditionally associated with all forms of extinction. If X wields a tire iron, Z packs a laser gun. Zap! If X is Mike Hammer, Z is James Bond. (For reasons known only to the British, a Z 007 would pronounce its name "zed.") If X marks the spot, Z avoids the spot, being too fluid, too cosmopolitan, to remain in one place.

In contrast to that prim, trim, self-absorbed supermodel, I or to O, the voluptuous, orgasmic, bighearted slut, where Z a woman, she would be femme fatale, the consonant we love to fear and fear to love.

The celebrities of the alphabet are M and Z, the letters for whom famous movies have been named. Of course, V had its novel, but I can assure you from personal experience, in today's culture a novel lacks a movie's sizzle, not to mention pizzazz. Is it not testimony to Z's star power that it is invariably selected to come on last - and this despite the fact that the F word gets all the press?

Take a letter? You bet. I'll take Z. My favorite country, at least on paper, is Zanzibar; my favorite body of water, the Zuider Zee. ZZ Top is my favorite band, zymology my favorite branch of science (dealing, as it does, with the fermentation of beverages).

Had ZsaZsa Gabor married Frank Zappa, she would have had the coolest name in the world - except, maybe, if ZaSu Pitts had wed Tristan Tzara. As for me, my given name, Thomas, is a modern, anglicized version of the old prebiblical moniker Tammuz. Originally, Tammuz was a mythological hero who served the Godess simultaneously as lover, husband, brother, and son. Give me my Z back, and there's not telling where might go from there.

Before I go anywhere, however, let me lift a zarf of zinfandel to the former ruling family of Russia. To the tzar, the tzarina, and the little tzardines! And as for those who would complain that I'm taking this business too far, I say: better a zedophile than a pedophile.

- Tom Robbins
His answer to the request: "Write about one of your favorite things"
Esquire, 1996

The Knights Templars-Freemasonry-Jesuit-Vatican-CIA-Knights of Malta connection. Or it's lack there of...

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=The+Knights+Templars+and+Freemasonry+by+Harun+Yahya+&aq=f

I just watched this movie about the Knights and Mason. Besides some important things left out, it's a pretty well made and informative short movie.

The movie claims the Knights were rounded up because of their homosexuality and use of black arts, when in the book "Rule by Secrecy" by exemplary writer and researcher Jim Marrs, he writes that paid witnesses were called to say that after their capture. They were captured because France's King Philip was in debt to them and he got turned down as a member of the order. So he supported the election of archbishop Clement to the vacant papal throne in return for a secret commitment to crush the Knights after he became Pope. Plus in the movie they skip the whole part about the Knights finding the Arch of the Covenant and Holy Grail, Dead Sea Scrolls, their intention to rebuild Solomons Castle....and supposedly they uncovered the true identity of Christ.

Also, at the end of the movie when they finish up with masonry, they cover the granddaddy P2 masonic lodge but they fail to mention that the lodge is the connecting point between the Vatican and the CIA, who is still being represented by Kissinger.


Another example of the Vatican being left out, although it's relevance is key to connecting the dots. Much like Alex Jones who's obviously religious after his famous Peter Joseph interview where he totally showed his short sightedness and ignorance, the director of this movie Harun Yahya boasts his creationism and death to Darwinism on his website. Only the most hardcore researchers dare cover the Vatican, regardless of their religious views.

I gotta give Jones some credit though....besides his poor debating skills and obvious fear mongering, he has a lot of balls coming out the way he does. He's obviously the loudest voice of our movement and he seems spot on the major current globalist conspiracy topics, but he fails to address other key topics. Those concerning the whole Jesuit-Vatican-Knights of Malta connection, which is appears to be at the top of this whole conspiracy pyramid according to Eric Phelps.... I dunno...maybe?



Some Alex Jones bashing for a change
3 10min parts

Eric Jon Phelps exposes Jesuit-CIA Alex Jones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDUMp0OniVI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-cWKsgIcGU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW8W1pV9pes&feature=related

The "Black" Pope - The most powerfull man in the world?

http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/blackpope.htm

New World Order: Still A Conspiracy Theory?

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown himself yesterday announced that the G20 heralded the creation of a “new world order” which would involve increased global regulation of economic markets.



Despite the fact that world leaders have been talking about a “new world order” for decades, in the context of the political agenda to diminish the power of sovereign states in favor of a move towards global governance, it was still regarded as a delusion of paranoid conspiracy theorists by the establishment media until relatively recently.

The Sheep Conspiracy

Whatever the outcome of the G20, however strict or lax the new regulation will become, whatever new powers are given to international institutions, one thing remains clear: we are headed towards a one world government, and the bankers will continue to be in charge.

Conspiracy theorists have been pounding on the doors of those who will listen for years, only to be labeled as paranoid lunatics, anarchists, or even terrorists. They have been trying to slap us awake to the fact that the banks have been pulling the strings of government, dictating policy, essentially controlling our fates throughout time.

We are the sheep, the flock, the brainless gullible masses that need direction. Without us the Shepard has no income and the the sheepdog no purpose.

The Geithner plan for economic recovery will rob US taxpayers as the gains will continue to be privatized while the losses are socialized. The SDR plan as a new international currency, will create a defacto world currency, outside the control of any sovereign body. Further regulations will serve to curtail national sovereignty and slowly cede powers to international institutions run by the financial elite.

Conspiracy? This is happening in open view, reported in the newspapers, lamented on TV. This is a conspiracy in the same sense as that between a Shepard and his dog, working to fool the sheep.

Which countries drink the most alcohol??

Some of us drink to quench our sadness, others to water our happiness. The same can be said of countries...

The latest figures from the World Health Organization show a new list of big drinkers based on pure alcohol bought and drank in 2007. Our number one contender, Luxembourg, I will disqualify for cheating. Their low taxes mean all neighboring countries just cross the border to stock up...

Lets se if we can explain the rest.
Ireland is depressing and Hungarians are just plain depressed... Not sure which one is the cause and which one the effect. Most likely a self-reinforcing viscous cycle providing a continuous excuse to indulge. Moldova is the poorest country in Europe with obvious needs for a reality-bender, and as far as I know, the Czechs are still the largest beer consumers in the world.

For the rest... your guess is as good as mine...

1) Luxembourg (15.6 litres per capita)
2) Ireland (13.7 litres)
3) Hungary (13.6 litres)
4) Moldova (13.2 litres)
5) Czech Republic (13.0 litres)
6) Croatia (12.3 litres)
7) Germany (12.0 litres)
8) Scotland (11.8 litres)
9) Spain (11.7 litres)
10) France (11.4 litres)

Some other intresting facts are Russia (10.3 litres), Lithuania (9.9 litres), England & Wales (9.9 litres), Australia (9.0 litres), United States (8.6 litres), Italy (8.0 litres),Canada (7.8 litres), Japan (7.6 litres), Sweden (6.0 litres), Norway (5.5 litres) China (5.2 litres).

Practical wisdom

An idea worth spreading: Barry Schwartz’ passionate plea for practical wisdom, a standing ovation talk fresh from TED2009.



Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html

In his inaugural address, Barack Obama appealed to each of us to give our best, as we try to extricate ourselves form the current financial crisis. But what did he appeal to? He did not, happily, follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and tell us to just go shopping. Nor did he tell us , “Trust us, trust your country. Invest. Invest. Invest.”

Instead, what he told us, was, to put aside the childish things. And he appealed to virtue. Virtue is an old-fashioned word. It seems a little out of place, in a cutting edge environment like this one. And besides, some of you might be wondering, what the hell does it mean?

Let me begin with an example. This is the job description of a hospital janitor that is scrolling up on the screen. [a list with the mundane chores of a janitor scrolls up the screen] And all of the items on it are unremarkable. They are the things you would expect: mob the floor, sweep them, empty the trash, restock the cabinets.

It may be a little surprising how many things there are, but it is not surprising what they are. But the one thing I want you to notice about them is this: even though this is a very long list, there isn’t a single thing on it that involves other human beings. Not one.

The janitor’s job could just as well be done in a mortuary as in a hospital. And yet, when some psychologists interviewed hospital janitors, to get a sense of what they thought their jobs are like, they encountered Mike, who told them about how he stopped mobbing the floor, because mr. Jones was out of his bed, getting a little exercise, trying to build up his strength, walking slowly up and down the hall.

And Charlene, told them about how she ignored her supervisor’s admonition, and didn’t vacuum the visitor’s lounge because there were some family members, who were there all day, every day, who at this moment happened to be taking a nap.

And then there was Luke, who washed the floor in a comatose young man’s room twice, because the man’s father who had been keeping him vigil, didn’t see Luke doing it the first time, and his father was angry.

And behavior like this, form janitors, from technicians, from nurses, and, if we are lucky so now and then, from doctors, doesn’t just make people feel a little better, it actually improves the quality of patient care and enables hospitals to run well.

Now, not all janitors are like this, of course. But the ones who are think that these sorts of human interactions, involving kindness, care and empathy, are an essential part of the job. And yet, their job description contains not a one word about other human beings. These janitors have the moral will to do right by other people, and beyond this, they have the moral skill to figure out what doing means.

Practical wisdom. Aristotle told us, is the combination of moral will and moral skill.

A wise person knows when and how to make “the exception to every rule”, as the janitors knew when to ignore their job duties in service of other objectives.

A wise person knows how to improvise, as Luke did when he rewashed the floor. Real world problems are often ambiguous and ill-defined, and the context is always changing.

A wise person is like a jazz musician, using the notes on the page, but dancing around them, inventing combinations that are appropriate for the situation and the people at hand. [Fellow jazz players cover up for each other's mistakes, always in harmony]

A wise person knows how to use these moral skills in the service of the right aims, to serve other people, not to manipulate other people.

And finally, perhaps most important, a wise person is made and not born.

Wisdom depends on experience, and not just any experience. You need the time to get to know the people that you are serving. You need permission to be allowed to improvise. To try new things. Occasionally to fail and to learn from your failures. And you need to be mentored by wise teachers.

When you ask your janitor to behave like the ones I described, how hard it is to learn to do their jobs, they tell you that it takes lots of experience. And they don’t mean it takes lots of experience to learn how to mob floors and empty trash cans. It takes lots of experience to learn how to care for people.

At TED, brillance is rampant. It’s scary. The good news is that you don’t need to be brilliant to be wise. The bad news is that without wisdom, brilliance isn’t enough. It is as likely to get you and other people in trouble as anything else. [applause]

Now, I hope that we all know this. There is a sense in which it is obvious, and yet, let me tell you a little story. It is a story about lemonade.

A dad and his eleven year old son were watching a Detroit Tigers game at the ball park. His son asked him for some lemonade and dad went to the concession stand to buy it. All they had was Mike’s Hard lemonade which was five percent alcohol.

Dad, being an academic had no idea that Mike’s Hard lemonade contained alcohol. [laughter] So, he brought it back and the kid was drinking it and the security guard spotted it and called the police who called an ambulance that rushed to the ball park, whizzed the kid to the hospital.

The emergency room ascertained that the kid had no alcohol in his blood. Pfew. And they were ready to let the kid go. But not so fast. The Wayne County Child Welfare Protection Agency said: No! And the child was sent to a foster home for three days.

At that point, can the child go home? And the judge said, Yes, but… Only if the dad leaves the house and checks into a motel. After two weeks, I am happy to report, the family was reunited, but the welfare workers and the ambulance people and the judge all said the same thing: “We hate to do it, but we have to follow procedure.”

How do things like this happen?
Scott Simon, who told the story on MPR, said: “Rules and procedures may be dumb, but they spare you from thinking. And to be fair, and to be fair, rules are imposed because previous officials have been lacks and they let a child go back to an abusive household. Fair enough. When things go wrong, as of course they do, we reach for two tools to try to fix them. One tool we reach for is rules, better ones, more of them. The second tool we reach for is incentives. Better ones, more of them. What else, after all, is there?

We can certainly see this in response to the current financial crisis. Regulate. Regulate. Regulate. Fix the incentives. Fix the incentives. Fix the incentives. The truth is that neither rules, nor incentives are enough to do the job. How could you even write a rule that got the janitors to do what they did? And would you pay them a bonus for being empathic?

It is preposterous on its face. And what happens, as we turn increasing the rules. Rules and incentives may change it for the better in the short run, but they create a downwards spiral that makes them worse in the long run. Moral skill is chipped away by an over reliance on rules that deprives us of the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisations. And moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy and our desire to do the right thing. And, without intending it, by appealing to rules and incentives, we are engaging in a wor on wisdom.

Let me give you just a few examples first of “Rules and the War on Moral Skill”. The “Lemonade” story is one. Second, no doubt familiar to you, is the nature of modern American education—scripted, lock-stepped curricula. Here is an example from Chicago kindergarten.

Script for day 53.
Title: Reading and enjoying literature/words with “b”.
Text: “The Bath”
Lecture: Assemble students on the rug or reading area… Give students a warning about the dangers of hot water… Say, “Listen very quietly as I read the story.”… Say, “Think of other pictures that make the same sound as the sound bath begins with.”…

Say 75 items in this script to teach a 25 page picture book all over Chicago in every kindergarten class in the city. Every teacher the same, the same words in the same way on the same day.

We know why these scripts are there—we don’t trust the judgment of teachers to let them loose on their own. Scripts like these are insurance policies against disaster. And the prevent disaster. But what they assure in its place is mediocricy. [applause and cheering]

Don’t get me wrong! We need rules! Jazz musicians need some notes on the page. We need rules for the bankers, God knows. But too many rules prevent accomplished jazz musicians from improvising and as a result they lose their gifts, or worse, they stop playing altogether.

Now, how about incentives? They seem clear and clever. If you have one reason for doing something, and I give you a second reason for doing the same thing, it seems only logical that two reasons are better than one, and you are more likely to do it. Right? Well, not always.

Sometimes, two reasons to do the same thing seem to compete with one another instead of complementing, and they make people less likely to do it. I’ll just give you one example because time is racing.

In Switzerland, back about 15 years ago, they were trying to decide where to site nuclear waste dumps. There was a national referendum and some psychologists went around and polled citizens who were very well informed. And they said, “Would you be willing to have a nuclear waste dump in your community?” Astonishingly, 50% of the citizens said “Yes.” They knew, or thought, it was dangerous, they thought it would reduce their property values, but, it had to go somewhere, and they had responsibilities as citizens.

The psychologists asked other people a slightly different question. They said, “If we paid you six weeks salary, every year, would you have a nuclear waste dump in your community?” Two reasons: it is my responsibility and I am getting paid. Instead of 50% saying yes, 25% said yes.

What happens is that the introduction of the incentive gets us to instead of asking, “What is my responsibility?” all we ask is “What serves my interest?” When incentives don’t work, when CEOs ignore the long term health of their companies in pursuit of short term gains that will lead to massive bonuses, the response is always the same: get smarter incentives.

The truth is, that there are no incentives you can devise that are ever are going to be smart enough. Any incentive system can be subverted by bad will. We need incentives, people have to make a living, but excessive reliance on incentives demoralizes professional activity in two sense of that word.

It causes people who engage in activity to lose moral, and it causes the activity itself to lose morality.

Barack Obama said before he was inaugurated, “We must ask, not just is it profitable, but is it right.” [applause] And when professions are demoralized, everyone in there becomes dependent on and addicted to incentives, and they stop asking, “Is it right?”

We see this in medicine. “Although it’s nothing serious, let’s keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t turn into a major lawsuit.” And we certainly see it in the world of business, “In order to remain competitive in today’s marketplace Bentham, I’m afraid we’re going to have to replace you with a sleazeball.” “I sold my soul for about a tenth of what the damn things are going for now.”

It is obvious this is not the way that people want to do their work. So what can we do? A few sources of hope. We ought to try to re moralize work. One way not to do it: teach more ethics courses. [laughter and applause] There is no better way to show people that you are not serious than to tie up everything you have to say about ethics into a little package with a bow and consign it to the margins as an ethics course. What to do instead?

One, celebrate moral exemplars. Acknowledge when you go to law school that little voice that is whispering in your ear about Atticus Finch. No ten year old goes to law school to do mergers and acquisitions. People are inspired by moral heroes. But we learn that with sophistication comes the understanding that you can’t acknowledge that you have moral heroes. Well, acknowledge them, be proud that you have them, celebrate them and demand that the people that teach you acknowledge and celebrate them too. That is one thing we can do.

I don’t know how many of you remember this, another moral hero, 15 years ago, Aaron Feuerstein who was the head of Malden Mils at Massachusets. They make Polartech, burned down, 3,000 employees, he kept everyone of them on the payroll. Why? Because it would been a disaster for them and for the community of he had let them go.

Maybe on paper our company is worth less to Wall Street, but I can tell you it is worth more. We are doing fine. Just at this TED, we heard talks from several moral heroes too, two particularly inspiring to me. One was Ray Anderson [cheering and applause] who turned a part of the evil empire into a zero footprint, or almost a zero footprint business. Why?! Because it was the right thing to do. And the bonus he is discovering is that he is discovering even more money. His employees are inspired by the effort. Why? Because they’d be happy to doing things that are the right thing to do.

Yesterday we heard Willy Smits about reforesting in Indonesia, [applause] and in many ways this is the perfect example, because it took the will to do the right thing. And God knows it took a huge amount of technical skill. I boggled at how much he needed to know, and his associates, in order to ply this out.

Most important to make it work, and he emphasized this, is that it took knowing the people in the communities. Unless the people you are working with are behind you, this will fail. And there isn’t a formula to tell you how to get the people behind you because different people in different communities organize their lives in different ways.

So there is a lot here at TED and other places that celebrate, and you don’t have to be a mega hero. There are ordinary heroes. Ordinary heroes like the janitors who are worth celebrating to. As practitioners, each and everyone of us thrive to be ordinary, if not extraordinary, heroes. As heads of organizations, we should strive to create environments that create and nurture, both moral skill and moral will. Even the wisest and most well-meaning people will give up, if they have to swim against the current in the organizations in which they work.

If you run an organization, you should be sure that non of the jobs, none of the jobs, have job descriptions like the job descriptions of the janitor. Because the truth is, that any work you do that involves interaction with other people, is moral work, and any moral work depends upon practical wisdom.

And perhaps, most important, as teachers we should strive to be the ordinary heroes, the moral exemplars to the people we mentor. And there are few things that we have to remember as teachers. One is that we are always teaching. Someone is always watching. The camera is always on. Bill Gates talked about the importance of education, in particular the model that Kipp was providing. Knowledge is power. And he talked about a lot of the wonderful things that Kipp is doing to take inner city kids and turn them into the direction of college.

I want to focus on one particular thing that Kipp is doing that Bill did not mention, and that is, they have come to the realization that the single most important thing kids need to learn is character. They need to learn to respect themselves. They need to learn to respect their schoolmates. They need to learn to respect their teachers. And, most important, they need to learn to respect learning.

That is the principle objective, if you do that, the rest is just pretty much a coast down hill. And the teachers, the way you teach these things to kids, is by having the teachers and all the other stuff and embody it, every minute of every day.

Obama appealed to virtue, and I think he was right. And the virtue that we need above all others, I think, is practical wisdom, because it is what allows others: honesty, kindness, courage, and so on, to be displayed at the right time, and in the right way.

He also appealed to hope. Right again. I think there is reason for hope. I think people want to be allowed to be virtuous. In many ways, it is what TED is all about—wanting to do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons. This kind of wisdom is within the grasp of each and everyone of us, if only we start paying attention. Paying attention to what we do, to how we do it, and, perhaps most importantly, to the structure of the organizations within which we work, so as to make sure that it enables us and other people to develop wisdom rather than having it suppressed.

Thank you very much.

[standing ovation]

Tweak Your Brain With Colors

Who needs caffeine? if this is true, get me color changing walls instead!

"
For an all-natural brain boost, skip the pills and hit the colors.

In the latest and most authoritative study on color's cognitive effects, test subjects given attention-demanding tasks did best when primed with the color red. Asked to be creative, they responded best to blue.

"Color enhances performance," said study co-author Juliet Zhu, a University of British Columbia psychologist.

Previous research on red's effects on the brain have found that it attracts people to food and can enhance sexual arousal. But research on the color's cognitive effects have been mixed: Studies have linked red to cognitive impairment on IQ tests, telemarketing pitches and analytical problem-solving, but also to improvements on low-demand tasks and clerical work. The latest findings tip the balance toward the red-as-brain-booster results and fits with work that showed a link between the color and arousal of neurobiological awareness and vigilance.

"Think about red, and what comes to mind: stop lights, stop signs, danger, ambulances," said Zhu. "People want to avoid those things, and that's why they do better on detail-oriented tasks."

While earlier studies tended not to test creativity, Zhu's findings provide a plausible explanation for blue's apparent role.

"Blue is the color of the sky, the ocean, safety," she said. "When their environment is safe, people are more explorative."

Zhu's study, published Thursday in Science, started with tests designed to measure avoidance and attraction. Students vigilantly avoided red and were strongly attracted to blue.

Blue linked to higher scores on subsequent tests of creativity, and red with better performance on memory tests.

State University of New York at Albany psychologist Ronald Friedman, co-author of a study that found red-linked drops on IQ tests, called the findings "quite remarkable." Stony Brook University psychologist Markus Meier, also a co-author on Friedman's study, called Zhu's study "a great paper," one that underscores the unappreciated importance of color.

"Colors are everywhere in our lives," said Meier. "We should use them more carefully in all settings."

To test alternative explanations for the findings, Zhu's team showed that neither red nor blue influenced mood. Test subjects also spent the same amount of time on their tasks, suggesting that neither color affected their motivation.

The colors appeared to enhance performance, but not to impair it. Red- and white-primed students had similar creativity scores, while blue- and white-primed students were equal on attention tasks.

Asked about the implications, Zhu suggested that people engaged in creative tasks surround themselves with blue, and with red when trying to focus.

"In our university, some professors use different color sheets for different groups during exams," said Meier. "Using them in an unthinking way could produce bad results for some students, and good for others."

Zhu is now studying the effects of red on other types of tasks.

It's possible, given the other effects provoked by red — interest in food and sex — that it will have different effects in other contexts.

"The science has been focused on the cognitive domain," she said. "But maybe in the physical domain, like sports, red can be associated with a different meanings, like power or enthusiasm. That's what we're doing now."

Citation: "Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color on Cognitive Task Performances." By Ravi Mehta and Juliet Zhu. Science, Vol. 324, Issue 5915, Feb. 5, 2009."

Let banks fail, says Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz

My sentiments exactly...

Professor Stiglitz, the former chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told The Daily Telegraph that Britain should let the banks default on their vast foreign operations and start afresh with new set of healthy banks.

"The UK has been hit hard because the banks took on enormously large liabilities in foreign currencies. Should the British taxpayers have to lower their standard of living for 20 years to pay off mistakes that benefited a small elite?" he said.

"There is an argument for letting the banks go bust. It may cause turmoil but it will be a cheaper way to deal with this in the end. The British Parliament never offered a blanket guarantee for all liabilities and derivative positions of these banks," he said.

Mr Stiglitz said the Government should underwrite all deposits to protect the UK's domestic credit system and safeguard money markets that lubricate lending. It should use the skeletons of the old banks to build a healthier structure.

"The new banks will be more credible once they no longer have these liabilities on their back."

Mr Stiglitz said the City of London would survive the shock of such a default because it would uphold the principle of free market responsibility. "Counter-parties entered into voluntary agreements with the banks and they must accept the consequences," he said.

Such a drastic course of action would be fraught with difficulties and risks, however. It would leave healthy banks in an untenable position since they would have to compete for funds in the markets with state-run entities.

Mr Stiglitz's radical proposal is a "Chapter 11" scheme for households to allow them to bring their debts under control without having to go into bankruptcy. "Families matter just as much as firms. The US government can borrow at 1pc so why can't it lend directly to poor people for mortgages at 4pc. ," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/4424418/Let-banks-fail-says-Nobel-economist-Joseph-Stiglitz.html