Search This Blog, All Links Referenced In All Posts, & Paranoid Links At The Bottom Of The Page

30 November, 2008

Obama Fears Double Gun Sales in Connecticut

A RETAIL BULLSEYE
By DAVID NELSON

November 30, 2008

Connecticut residents are going gun crazy.

After showing minimal increases in gun-permit applications through the first seven months of the year, the Yankee Doodle Dandies in the Constitution State have stormed their local police departments in recent weeks, producing a stunning 18.4 percent rise in pistol-permit applications in October and a 23.5 percent jump in authorizations to buy guns in November, according to statistics compiled by the Connecticut State Police.

"November could be my best month ever, with sales up nearly 100 percent year-over-year," said Scott Moss, the president of Forest & Field Outdoor Specialties, in Norwalk, amid a jam-packed store on a recent Saturday.

And its not just hunters picking up rifles, said Moss, who described his handgun sales as "off the Richter scale." The store, which had run state-mandated classes twice a month held five classes in November. Gun-store sales are one of the few retail bright spots.

The recent spike in interest in guns in Connecticut mirrors the national trend since October. Increases in background checks into gun and pistol permit applicants edged ahead 4.9 percent, 4.2 percent and 2.3 percent in the first three quarters of 2008, respectively, compared with the year-earlier period, according to the FBI. Since Oct. 1, those checks have skyrocketed 28.6 percent.

Gun buyers in Connecticut, like those in other states, said they are looking to pack heat for two basic reasons - first, they believe an Obama administration would make gun ownership harder either through legislation or taxes, and, second, they believe the economic downturn could spark an increase in crime. A first-time gun buyer in Forest & Field, a banker who wanted only to be identified as Russ, said he was looking to pick up a Mossberg shotgun because "I was so concerned about what I was seeing in the credit markets I felt I had to take this step to insure my family's safety in case there was a breakdown in the system."

Danny, a 38-year-old Fairfield County business owner, with a wife and three kids, let his pistol permit expire some time ago but had second thoughts this summer. "Reading article after article this year about the economy going bad and burglaries going up, I decided to re-new my license for my Smith & Wesson 9mm semi-automatic," he said.

With more restrictive handgun laws in New York and New Jersey, those states are not seeing such a spike in gun-permit applications. In fact, in New Jersey, a spokesperson for the state police said there is "no significant increase" in gun-permit applications.

While there are some reports of increased gun sales from storeowners in New York, no statewide data are collected. From 2003 through 2007, the total number of new pistol licenses issued each year in New York dropped 16.9 percent, to 12,307 last year from 14,803.

"Women are right out in front as new buyers of handguns," says NRA certified trainer Jim Hutchinson, of Norwalk, who notes that attendance at his handgun training classes is up 50 percent this year. "Many students are professional women, aged 35-60, who feel the timing is right for a handgun purchase."

Profit potential in firearms hasn't been lost on the investment community. Cerberus Capital Management, famous for its 80 percent stake in Chrysler, owns firearms manufacturers Remington and Bushmaster. In fact, a Bushmaster assault rifle is one of the best-selling rifles in 2008, several store owners report.

Copyright 2008 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

29 November, 2008

A/HRC/4/L.12 CLICK HERE!

It ws September 3rd, 2003 when I was put in solitary confinement. Myself and a few dozen other Muslim prisoners in SCI Mahanoy in PA had written letters to the institution-assigned Islamic Chaplain voicing our concern that he was monopolizing his post to push his particular brand of Islam, which has involvment in a group called "The Musilm Brotherhood". Islam has 80+ sects, and he represented only one. This resulted in a round-up of deemed "threats to security" including myself. We were placed under "administrative custody", which means that every 3 months the institution's staff would question us about our faith, then send us back to our cells, that is unless we recanted and played nice. Of course, since this was occuring behind fences and walls, their was no balance and mostly the reviews invovled the throwing around of insults to illicit a negative response from the reviewed. It worked. I spent 6 months in a cell with ice on the inside of my window, until the FBI became involved and started to try and recruit those who stood firm. I suppose that the whole thing was orchestrated to break each of us down, and make us more willing to cooperate as spies. Maybe it worked for some, maybe it didn't. Thankfully, I evolved past religion and have been released back into the world a spiritual man without any label to ascribe to.

Lately, I've been receiving calls from the American Center for Law and Justice requesting support in opposing the passing of a UN resolution that would make illegal the descrimination against people of religion, a resolution that is to no suprise receiving alot of support from Muslims. Though I am not a Muslim anymore, by modern Muslim standards at least, I am deeply offended by the calls I am receiving. Dig this: They say that the res will result in the persecution of Christian s world-wide! Imagine that. After a recent 8 year Crusade, suddenly the Christians Right are worried that they may get some of their own medicine.

The reality of it is that the resolution calls for no such action, but rather is like a cease and desist order to stop them from doing what they claim others will do. Yes, there will be consequences in other nations if a Mission group oversteps the lines they've ignored for so long. Yes the passing of this res could speed up the self-fulfilling prophecy of Armegeddon and what not. It's happening anyway, though. In reality, I see the res as a form of damage control, and a necessary one at that. But what do I know?

27 November, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!

“Cigarettes make the sun come up
Whiskey makes the sun go down.
And in between you do a lot of standing around

I'm walking down the sidewalks of L.A.
Wishing I had a warmer jacket
And leaves are falling down.” -- Warren Zevon

Happy Thanksgiving!

I wish everyone a warmer jacket, a cigarette or two, and some whiskey to keep you warm this Thanksgiving.

Maybe we don’t have much, but we got each other.

Let’s keep it together!

Peace and Love to the downtrodden.

My version of Amazing Grace:


26 November, 2008

Argentina: West of Buenos Aires – Reports, Lights and Strange Beings?

Source: Codigo Ovni – Argentina
Date: 11.25.08

Argentina: West of Metropolitan Buenos Aires – Reports, Lights and Strange Beings?
By Daniel Valverdi, Daniel Szauter, Jorge Marron.
(Originally published on 10/09/08)

On October 4, 2008 we headed out to this area once more, which has recently become the focus of our efforts, given that one report leads us to another and we successively begin to close out a large number of “unusual” episodes reported by qualified local witnesses.
Jorge Marron, Daniel Valverdi and Daniel Szauter met at 16:00 hours at Reserva Los Robles in the Municipality of Moreno, Greater Buenos Aires, and we traveled together to the Archeological Museum that is near this reservoir.
We were kindly met at that location by Cacho Ferrer, who is a ranger in the area, and his assistant. Second Lieutenant Hector R. Losa was also present – for the past 10 years he has been in charge of monitoring the sluice gates belonging to the Roggero Dam, and his duty post is on the bridge surmounting that structure.
After introducing ourselves as investigators of this phenomenon, and showing them some of our fieldwork, they began telling us about the various “unusual” episodes that they have experienced in the area. Ferrer was the first to speak, discussing a strange episode that occurred only months ago and which has repeated itself many times, regardless of the time of day.
There is an iron gate at the entrance to the Museum’s premises, and a wire fence that is closed with a chain. A lock never secures the chain – it is merely tied around both of the gate’s doors. One afternoon, while Ferrer and his assistant and 2nd Lieutenant Losa were chatting some twenty meters away from the gate, they could clearly head a sound suggesting that the gate’s chain was being unraveled and opened. This sound caused them to automatically turn around to see who was entering the premises, but they were stunned to see that the gate was closed and the chain was exactly as they had left it minutes earlier. They consulted among themselves to see if they had all heard the same, and the reply was affirmative. They dismissed the possibility that the sound came from elsewhere, as they were very close to the source where the noise came from and there is no other chain that could be the source of the sound. It should be noted that there was no one at the gate who may have tried to open it up. This episode occurred in broad daylight, repeated itself even at night, with the same outcome. The chain was always in place.
While we sat down to chat with Lt. Losa in the hall of the cabin occupied by the rangers, he started telling us about a series of episodes that have taken place in the area, some that he has experienced himself.
Losa says that once, when he was on sentry duty at night (remember that his duty post is a shack located on the dam itself) and he heard a buzzing noise he had never heard before. While this occurred, he tried adjusting his TV set’s telescopic antenna, since he wasn’t getting a signal, which seemed very odd, as he could always place it in the proper direction to watch TV. Minutes later, he heard an insistent klaxon outside the shack. Running outside, he encountered a police cruiser with two fellow officers who excitedly asked him if he’d seen “the light” that was hovering over the shack. Losa said no, as he was inside with the blinds closed, noting that only minutes earlier he had heard a “buzzing” that lasted some 10 minutes, but with no visible lights. His fellow officers were heading toward the shack, part of their customary patrol, and even though they were at a distance, they noticed a powerful light over the reservoir. [The light] was only slightly smaller than the shack itself, so they hurried over to investigate. During one of the twists and turns on the road, they lost sight of it and couldn’t see it again. If we combine the accounts offered by Losa and his comrades, we get “the light” seen by the drivers, the “buzzing” heard by Losa, and the interference that occurred in the TV set. Upon asking Losa if there had been a power drop within the shack, he said that there is no electricity within and that the TV set and lighting operate on a 12-volt battery.

A Strange Creature

A group of fishermen had headed to a rather inaccessible part of the lake formed by the reservoir to do some night fishing. They were equipped to spend the night there, carrying with them a battery and a spotlight to dispel the shadows. While they were readying their fishing tackle, they heard sounds emerging from the shrubs, and they turned around to see what it could be. When they were able to focus on the area where the noise was coming from, they were able to see the outline of a very hairy “man”, possibly some two meters tall with a very large head and luminous eyes. Without succumbing to panic, one fisherman told another to hook up the spotlight to the battery to get a better look a that “thing”, but the man’s nervousness kept him from connecting the spotlight to the battery’s terminals, and by the time the operation was over, the “stranger” had gone. They didn’t wait for it to return: they collected their gear and left immediately.

We could associate pr of these stories with the case of the Colonia Elia entity, given the similarity between the creature described and the “prankish” behavior, such as the rattling of chains, etc.
This is only a part of the stories and eyewitness accounts that these people shared with us, as they are customarily in contact with these situations. We will continue sharing more of these experiences in a later installment.

(Translation (c) 2008, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez)

Argentina: Entity in Colonia Elia

Source: Vision OVNI
Date: 11.25.08

Argentina: Bizarre Entity in Colonia Elia (Prov. of Entre Rios)
By Andrea PĂ©rez Simondini and Daniel Szauter

Very early in the morning on October 8, a team from Vision Ovni headed for the locality of Colonia Elia in the Province of Entre Rios to research the manifestations of a strange creature that appears in smallholds and fields, slaying farm animals as well as calves and sheep. This was the information presented to us by the national media, which had taken an interest in the story. It was thanks to this interest that we became aware of the case.

Once we had reached the site, 260 kilometers distant along Route 14, we entered Colonia Elia through a dirt road in search of the witnesses. As always, we employed an old but sure-fire strategy to get information. We stopped a man who was riding along on horseback, and he quickly indicated the location of the Restayno family home. This was the family that had witnessed the events involving the unusual creature.

The witnesses warmly welcomed us: they showed us evidence of the mutilations, which was among the reasons for our trip, and quickly told us the details of the occurrences.

A Summary of the Restayno Family’s Experiences

Manifestations of this entity began a year ago, around September 15, when they found a dead chicken beside the granary, displaying strange marks, and a large print on the ground (see photo of plaster cast, courtesy of Daniel Padilla, researcher). The family’s boys – Matias and Gabriel – fully knowledgeable about the animals that wander the fields, could not recognize the type of marks left on the chicken’s breast and much less identify the footprint found near the dead animal. In an effort to glean further evidence, they found tear marks, made as if by claws, in the back of the henhouse. The following night, early in the morning, the heard noises that prompted them to go outside to see what was happening. Matias, 16, was startled when he saw a bizarre figure scurry away among the vegetation at the back of the house; he described this figure as large (standing at least 1.70 meters) and swift in its getaway. Upon inspecting the henhouse, they found a dead chicken with a large rip in it chest.

From that moment on, the family’s boys would not have a normal life again, as each night turned into an episode of chase and attempted capture of this creature, which turned the family’s life into a strange adventure. According to ach family member, the “critter”, as they’ve dubbed it, seems more frightened than them. Whenever the possibility of an encounter exists, the reaction is always the same: flight.

All manner of snares have been laid out to trap this creature: otter traps, cages (lent by a neighbor who cares for endangered animals), and they even prepared a trap using old bedding elastic [...]. The creature was captured in each of these, but managed to free itself. The otter trap, however, inflicted serious injury, given that blood traces remained on the trap and on a nearby stone. These samples were taken for analytical purposes.

Manifestations have been constant. The witness see fleeting shadows and the entity’s claw-prints, such as the ones it left on a tree, as though it had used the wood to sharpen them, or its footsteps, which are easily seen because the boys, in their urge to secure evidence, began spreading ashes and rice powder around the henhouses.

The best was yet to come, and it would happen inside the house at three o’clock in the morning. Matias heard a noise behind the kitchen but within his home. This experience allowed Matias to clearly see the entity that had been engaged in the chicken mutilations. We managed to obtain an oral picture of the creature. We showed him a series of figures from our files, and he identified one of them as very similar, and based on that, he outlined the description of what confronted him that night.

He seized his carbine (.22 caliber) and quickly headed to the front of the house. When he drew the curtain of the room that houses his mother’s pantry and the cheese-making churns, he found the “critter” on top of the freezer, clearly intending to grab the churn. Matias’s immediate reaction was to fire, which he did four times without wounding it. The anima jumped through a window, spilling chicken entrails throughout the room.

(Translation (c) 2008, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez)

Barak Obama's Narcissism (revised, updated)

Plenty in this piece for the conspiracy theorists :) And as has been said: 'It is not paranoid if it is really happening' which is why the information has been patiently developed from mainstream sources over time... so the skeptics have something to initiate scary dreams but- don't be paranoid, be appalled! At the above link ;)

25 November, 2008

Stop Paying Credit Card Debt

I am posting this for Richard C. Cook. He recommends:

Credit card debt is starting to be viewed as the next bubble to burst. So until real relief is forthcoming, citizens who are in distress should simply destroy their credit cards and stop paying the monthly bills.

The “Cook Plan” would bring real reform to a system that has collapsed. The plan would begin to correct the primary cause of the recession, which is the steep decline of consumer purchasing power.

Citizens’ Economic Stimulus Plan: Stop Paying Credit Card Debt

by Richard C. Cook

Now to the Wall Street bailouts, the plan for the government to purchase preferred shares in banks, and the takeovers of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG, may be added the intention announced last night that the government will throw another $20 billion at Citibank, the nation’s largest financial institution.

The announcement came after Citibank’s stock fell 60 percent last week to $3.77 a share. Of course it won’t help the 50,000 people Citibank is laying off, but, what the hey, no plan is perfect.

Meanwhile, almost nothing has been done to help the consumers within the producing economy who have lost trillions of dollars in the stock market crash, seen the value of their homes fall in many cases below what they owe on their mortgages, and lost jobs or health benefits through the escalating recession. Fannie Mae, which over the weekend sponsored a Walk for the Homeless in Washington, D.C., an event that drew thousands of participants, had announced the previous day that it was placing a moratorium on further home foreclosures until after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Wow, thanks.

But what then? Everyone agrees that the recession will be long and deep, not only in the U.S. but in nations that export to us. The Federal Reserve can only go so far in cutting interest rates, because at a certain point nations such as China which have floated the Federal deficit will no longer lend.

Besides, what good are low interest rates if borrowers can’t even afford to repay the principle, which is the situation so many of us find ourselves in today? Japan found that out in the 1990s, leading to a recession that lasted a decade.

So what are ordinary people to do who have families to feed, rent or mortgages to pay that are still inflated from the collapsed housing bubble, unmet medical or insurance expenses, or may be trying to get their kids through college? Should we go deeper into debt when U.S. households, businesses, and government already owe in the neighborhood of $60 trillion (excluding federal unfunded debt liabilities), almost five times the GDP? Banks have cut back on lending anyway.

Then there are the jobs programs. The Senators who bowed down to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson when he came to extort $700 billion for Wall Street scolded the Big Three automakers who came seeking help in salvaging an industry that still employees millions. But maybe by cutting worker wages and benefits the carmakers will be able to limp along a while longer.

Or maybe we should wait to see if president-elect Barack Obama gets his economic stimulus plan through Congress after he is inaugurated. Granted the plan may result in some new jobs a few years down the road once the additional federal borrowing to pay for it works its way through the economy. But will America still be alive by then?

Ladies and gentlemen, the financial system has destroyed America. And really and honestly, the folks in Washington, both those arriving and those departing, don’t know what to do.

I have argued in recent articles that the government should implement what I have modestly called the “Cook Plan,” whereby a dividend similar to the Alaska Permanent Fund would be paid to every U.S. citizen at the rate of $1,000 per month in vouchers for food, housing, and other necessities of life.

This dividend would be paid out of the U.S. Treasury, where I used to work, from an emergency self-financed account without recourse to taxes or government debt. The dividend would constitute each citizen’s fair share of the producing potential of the economy, as advocated by Social Credit reformers in the British Commonwealth nations for decades. The vouchers could then be deposited in a new network of community savings banks that would revitalize local economies through lending at zero-percent interest, charging only administrative fees and a small amount of lending insurance for access to capital.

Such a system would provide recompense for the vast amounts of money stolen from citizens’ pockets due to a lifetime of borrowing from financial institutions which are now looting our children’s and grandchildren’s heritage to pay for generations of abuse. This abuse has taken place under a debt-based monetary system by which banks create money out of thin air, then charge the rest of us interest to utilize it for survival. This system has operated for almost a century under the auspices of a Federal Reserve System accountable to no one.

The “Cook Plan” would bring real reform to a system that has collapsed. The plan would begin to correct the primary cause of the recession, which is the steep decline of consumer purchasing power.

Of course I am not so deluded as to believe Congress or the incoming Obama administration would implement it. Why would the politicians turn against a financial system which paid their way into office? As indicated by the announcement that Obama will appoint Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as his treasury secretary, it’s the banking system that will continue to oversee the government, not the other way around. Even so, I would be happy to explain the "Cook Plan" to Mr. Geithner - for free.

But the citizens must do something. How can we just sit and wait while the financial monopolists smother the economy to death in order to protect their wealth and privileges? The least they could do is declare a moratorium on debt payment until the economy is functioning again or cancel the most egregious types of debt-abuse, such as credit card or student debt.

But they are not likely to do this either. So citizens’ can be forgiven if they simply stop paying. Many home purchasers are already doing this—turning in the keys to their homes and driving away. Who can blame them?

But the worst of the debt may be credit card debt, where the controls on interest rates and penalty charges were lifted long ago and the government stopped providing a tax deduction for interest paid. In many cases, interest on credit cards is 28 percent or more, which means that even by making the minimum required payment, consumers see their balances grow each month. That the politicians could continue to allow such evil to exist is astounding but proves who their masters are.

So until real relief is forthcoming, citizens who are in distress should simply destroy their credit cards and stop paying the monthly bills. People are already doing this. Arrearages and defaults are climbing, and credit card debt is starting to be viewed as the next bubble to burst. But so what? If people have to use a credit card, that means they can’t really afford to buy whatever it is they think they want. If they can afford it, they should use a debit card instead.

Then tell the credit card company you cannot pay. Ask them to write off some or all of the debt, and if they want to take you to court, go on your own and defend yourself. You don’t need a lawyer, and you don’t need anyone’s permission. You also don’t need to go through the horrendous “reformed” bankruptcy system the credit card companies got Congress to pass in 2005. Failure to pay credit card debt is not, thank God, a crime in this country, and there are no debtors’ prisons—yet.

Besides, if people do not pay credit card debt, that money remains in circulation. So default is actually a form of patriotism in today’s trying circumstances. And the credit card companies really don’t lose anything, since the money didn’t exist before they lent it to people who are now broke.

Where I used to live in the country in rural Virginia, the story was going around about a farmer who fell down in the pen where he was feeding his pigs, and the pigs ate him. That is what has been happening in this country. The financial industry which is now swilling at the public trough has been eating alive a nation that was once “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Copyright 2008 by Richard C. Cook

Richard C. Cook is a former federal government analyst who writes on economic issues. His new book, We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, is now available and may be ordered at www.tendrilpress.com (303-696-9227). His contact email is EconomicSanity@gmail.com.

Is George Bush Still President?

Washington - With a series of forceful actions in recent days, amid an almost unprecedented set of challenges, Barack Obama has taken an unusual step for a president-elect: attempting to alter the country's perilous course even before he takes office.

The most dramatic example came Saturday, when Obama announced a far more aggressive economic stimulus plan than previously promised - a two-year program to add 2.5 million jobs he said represented "an early down payment on the type of reform my administration will bring to Washington."

That announcement was the latest indication that the president-elect has decided to use the transition period to influence events at a time of crisis, when the current administration appears powerless to stem the slide.

"There's no question that Bush is still president, but people are looking for signs to see what's going to happen going forward," said an Obama aide who, like others, requested anonymity when discussing deliberations inside the transition. "We're going to attempt to do that in this period."

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


In the video below, George Bush attends the G20 summit in Peru on November 15. Nobody shakes his hand, and he offers his hand to no one. It’s unbelievably weird. Bob Dobbs told me almost a year ago that George Bush was under “house arrest”. Now he’s reminding me of that again and I think he’s right.





Is this song about Barach Obama?

"Move aside and let the man go through, let the man go through"
Soul Coughing, "Super Bon"


24 November, 2008

Stacks of Dead Presidents or Flesh and Blood Companions?

Jason Miller interviewed by Robert Turnbull
11/19/08

Robert Turnbull: I guess I’ll start with a rather mundane question. How are you?

Jason Miller: I just looked at some horrific photos of extremely sick and emaciated people who suffer from a drug-resistant strain of TB and AIDS, so I’m feeling blessed because I’m relatively healthy and able to employ my personal strengths to carry o ut my purpose on Earth.

RT: What is that you consider your purpose on Earth to be?

JM: It’s multi-faceted and complex, but if I distill it to its essence and put it succinctly, my primary purpose on Earth is to strive for two causes: animal liberation and socialism.
I realize that socialism is a loaded word, particularly in our benighted land here in the US. But as we talk you’ll get a better sense of what I mean when I talk about socialism, which I use as a bit of a catch-all term to describe a more logical and just way of interacting socially, politically and economically.

RT: What do you say to socialism’s critics who argue that it has failed each time it’s been tried and that it’s utopian in nature, and therefore impossible to implement?

JM: Capitalism has predominated for a couple hundred years, give or take. Obviously we don’t live in a black and white world, so the line blurs a bit between feudalism,20 mercantilism, and capitalism as one traces the arc of socioeconomic history. Even capitalism itself has passed through a number of phases and can be described in a number of ways, depending on one’s perspective—think of industrial capitalism, finance capitalism (that brought us the $700 billion ‘bailout’), relatively unfettered ‘free markets’ (that gave us the Robber Barons, child labor, slave wages, deadly consumer products, horrific working conditions, monopolies, trusts and the like—the ‘good old days’), a mixed economy (which means a heavy dose of capitalism slightly mitigated with just enough socialism to keep capitalism’s inevitable crises from collapsing the system and to keep the masses in check), monopoly capitalism (Microsoft and Wal-Mart), corporate capitalism and more. By both moral and practical standards, capitalism is an abject failure. Concentrating the wealth and power in the hands of a few while 35,000 people starve to death each day is unconscionable and attempted infinite growth on a finite planet is a recipe for disaster.

To read the remainder of this fascinating interview, go to:
---------------------------------
Robert Turnbull is a radical activist residing in northeastern Kansas. He has penned numerous political commentaries under a nom de guerre, which he decided to shelve for this interview.

Jason Miller is the indefatigable associate editor of Cyrano’s Journal Online. His main turf is Thomas Paine’s Corner, Cyrano’s largest blog. He performs numerous editorial, administrative and promotional tasks, including CJO’s newsletter, Mind Detox.

21 November, 2008

JFK – 45 years ago




It’s the Big Secret everyone knows.

Even gray haired bank managers.

Today I went to the bank to get a document notarized. In the cubicle to the right of me a customer ranted loudly about how rich people ought to pay higher taxes like they did in the 1970s. In the cubicle to the left a banker tried to explain to a Spanish-speaking customer the difference between a savings account and a line of credit. It seems the customer's savings account balance was negative and his line of credit was positive. The man went outside to fetch his wife.

Across the desk the gray-haired bank manager proceeded to remind me that tomorrow is the 45th anniversary of the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. He said, “I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I remember that day crystal clear.”

He told me he was at school just down the street on that fateful day. He pointed out his window down the street. The children of Saint Mary's had been instructed by the principal to begin saying their rosary for the president. Just five minutes later the principal came back on the intercom and played the news on her transistor radio that the president was dead.

He then began saying that John Kennedy was no saint, but it doesn't mean you go and kill the guy. And it wasn't just the Cubans, and it wasn't a mafia hit either.

"Right!," I added. "It was a coup d'Ă©tat."

He began to get animated. He started ranting about the Bay of Pigs and all the players in the assassination: Lee Harvey Oswald was not a lone assassin but was a player on the periphery of the military industrial complex.

"Yup," I said. "He was FBI, CIA or both."

He looked at me surprised. He began to get slightly agitated. "You're not as old as I am, but I remember the day, two days later, on a Sunday morning, when …."

I interrupted, "when Lee Harvey Oswald was shot right in front of everyone on live television by Jack Ruby?"

He pointed at me: "Oh, very good. You know that."

"Um, hmmm," I said.

His face began to get red. He ranted about the murder of Dorothy Kilgallen of "What's My Line" fame, and how they made it look like she had been a doper and an alcoholic.

"She was actually a journalist. You know what she had done to upset the status quo?" he asked.

"Yea," I said. "She was the only person to interview Jack Ruby in prison."

"Right," he said, perplexed at my familiarity with these obscure names.

I asked him if he'd seen the Oliver Stone film, JFK. He said yes, he had. "Do you think Jim Garrison really had the guy?" he asked me.

"Clay Shaw? Yes, probably so. He was with the CIA in New Orleans." I said.

He brought up FDR's [wooops, Eisenhower's] famous warning about the military industrial complex. He ranted about the line of debunking that passes for information on television. He couldn't think of the guy's name who had written all the books debunking the JFK conspiracy theories.

"You mean, Gerald Posner, author of Case Closed"?

“That’s the guy.”

I said, "yeah, they bring him out every five years to close the case again. The problem is everybody knows what's up."

"Have you ever seen the list of mystery deaths surrounding the JFK assassination?" I asked. He said he had. He said President Kennedy's daughter Caroline was probably aware that her father was murdered by the military industrial complex. I agreed that she probably knows the whole deal but can't say anything. We talked about the Conspiracy Museum in Dallas founded by assassinologist, R.B. Cutler. It was a whirlwind discussion.

His phone beeped and I excused myself.

I walked out of the bank realizing the whole world is now paranoid. We're all twirling on the head of that angelic pin. You can't tell us anything we don't already know. There’s an elephant on the pin with us. They can't dupe us anymore.

Tomorrow I'll bring him a paranoia manual, wooops, I mean, magazine. Maybe he'll buy a prescription, wooops, I mean a subscription.

Domain name seizures in Kentucky overturned


A judge in Kentucky in the United States of America earns Paranoids On-Line's 
HORSE'S ASS Award!

...and the winner is!
Thomas D. Wingate 
Judge of the Franklin Circuit Court
Commonwealth of Kentucky

A ridiculous state court order in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, USA, seizing 141 domain names because they were gambling sites that were illegal in Kentucky was overturned on appeal.

None of the domains were registered in Kentucky; however, the lower court thought that did not matter because the sites could be reached from Kentucky. Hence, the very dumb judge considered them to be Kentucky businesses that he could regulate! Hmm... Does that mean if I can call a New York company from my phone in Rhode Island, that the state of Rhode Island has jurisdiction over that New York company? What makes this even worse is the fact it was the Commonwealth of Kentucky government that made this argument to the judge!

The Commonwealth did not want people in its jurisdiction to play poker over the Internet for money, so it sought to seize the domains of the gambling companies anywhere in the world.  To grant a government that power is too great a risk, but judge Wingate did not listen to reason.

The obviously uneducated and demagogue-like judge acceded to the Commonwealth's over-reach and thus applied local law to out of state enterprises (some out of the country enterprises). In doing so, the court essentially tried to assert authority over the entire world! (Can you imagine a world ruled by Kentucky? The horror!)

If allowed to stand, this ruling would be very dangerous to freedom because it would mean any repressive regime in the world could assert its authority over any business in the world if a person living in the jurisdiction of that repressive regime could access the business over the Internet. Only a moron would have thought this just. Thank the gods of both heaven and hell and everywhere in between the appellate court listened to reason. 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU both filed amicus briefs in the matter against the lower court ruling.

See the Electronic Frontier Foudation's press release HERE.

Related references:



20 November, 2008

We are the Robots

Android Meme's Xenochrony by Bob Dobbs




Translation:

Dobbs: I say people are now largely patterns of information. So I like to use historical patterning to illustrate to friends how they became reduced or inflated to these patterns.

Marshall: We've been weaved?

Dobbs: Yes. We've been robots for five hundred years here in the West.

The first phase was psychological automatism. Its icon is Newton.

The second phase was biological automatism. The icon is Darwin.

The third was hardware automatism. Two icons - Edison and Ford.

The fourth was software automatism. Two icons - any President of the United States since World War Two and Walter Cronkite.

The fifth phase is a paradoxical condition. I call it autonomy automatism - the robot confident in declaring its independence and in refining its sense of freedom.

We have an endless supply of icons for this phase - any star in any demographic of any genre of entertainment or information. It's probably obvious to you we have not arrived at the sixth phase.

Everything has disappeared.

There is no present – only an ersatz present.

There is no longer a now. . . .

Just Say NO to bailing out the Big Three!

There are still far too many SUV’s wandering the boulevards.

Will Obama do the right thing?


Revenge of the Electric Car

While the Big Three U.S. automakers in Detroit cry for a $25-billion dollar bailout, we should keep in mind the documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car." This important documentary released in 2006 investigates the "creation, limited commercialization and subsequent destruction of the battery-powered electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s."

CAR-ma?

On November 14, 2008, Nate Holden, former California State Senator and L.A. City Councilmember, held a press conference demanding General Motors apologize to the American people for destroying the automaker’s EV1 plug-in electric vehicle. Mr. Holden demanded the EV1’s immediate re-introduction before, or in exchange for, any Government bailout of GM.

GM now has a hybrid-electric car called the Volt due in 2010. It promises to be a great car - it's just far too late.

Chris Paine, director of "Who Killed The Electric Car," is currently working on the sequel titled, "Revenge of the Electric Car."

Simply put, the Big Three don't deserve a bailout - they've had 30 years of bad management and refused to give the American people what they wanted: Fuel-efficient vehicles. Instead, they seemed to be holding hands with the oil companies and other special interest groups, making big gas guzzlers. Because of this obvious conspiracy, they destroyed every one of those EV1 electric vehicles.

I say give a new car manufacturer a try - one who will make the necessary adjustments, keeping in mind future energy issues, sustainability and foreign oil from countries who hate America and are trying to destroy this nation. Oil companies who do not have America's best interests at heart have had a monopoly for far too long.

Now is a perfect time for such a new direction, with a new automobile industry and a new President who promises to finally give the U.S. a real energy policy, for the first time in 30 years. Hopefully, Obama will also consider the Pickens Plan. These are great opportunities, if the US government and business can get it together.

The Stone Age didn't end because they ran out of stones. So it should be with the fossil-fuel industry - let's end it before we run out of oil, and before it ends us! I have no problem saying, "Good riddance!" to the oil industry. Let it and these dinosaur automakers remain in the last century. Bring in the sustainable energy age.

Argentina: Mutilating Entity Adds to Mystery in Victoria

Mutilating Entity Adds to Mystery in Victoria
By Silvia PĂ©rez Simondini

On November 12, 2008 another strange manifestation occurred in this locality, which evidently remains the area for deep mysteries.

This occasion involved the mutilation of a small rabbit, which shows us the impunity with which such deeds are committed.

The animal’s owner says that at 8 pm on the previous evening, she fed the animal for the night and awoke to find it in the condition displayed in the photographs. Brick walls on all sides enclose the site: the only open area is the roof. It is divided by another wall, with the rabbits (3 of them) on one side and hens and chickens on the other.

Even though there are dogs on the property, no one heard anything that night. The following night, at around 2 a.m. the family heard a commotion in the henhouse. They got out of bed and headed for the location, fearful on account of the previous day’s activities. An older woman had the courage to venture forth, and found a being that stood more or less 1 meter tall in a corner, menacing five of her chickens. According to her description, this entity had clawed hands and was jet black – even though it was night, it was darker than the encircling, moonlit darkness. She thought it might attack her, so she cried out and summoned her son, but when she turned around to do so, the creature was no longer there. She doesn’t know how it vanished, but she didn’t see it again.

The first thing she did was sacrifice all her poultry, fearing that they could be infected by something. The previous day she had put down a rooster that began to tremble uncontrollably and was unable to remain standing, finally falling down and never getting up again. At the time of this writing, there is another rooster in the same condition. The woman tells me that she will bring it to me while it is still alive, since Pablo Puchet and I already videotaped the manner in which the rooster walks with great difficulty.

A black fungus that desiccates plants is growing behind the place where these events occurred. We took samples of them, which along with the rabbit and almost surely the rooster, will be sent to the School of Agronomy and Veterinary Science of the University of Buenos Aires.

I am omitting the person’s name to keep curiosity-seekers from visiting her and keep us from conducting our research, since our intention is to stake out the location. I will continue reporting on this situation as events develop.

(Translation (c) 2008, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez)

Argentina: Further Details on the Chicoana Agriglyphs

[This is a report we had anxiously awaited: Mercedes Casas is one of Inexplicata’s most respected contributors and is known to our long-time readers for her reports on the cattle mutilation wave of 2002 and other high-strangeness situations that have transpired in Argentina’s northwestern corner. Read on! – SC]

Argentina: Further Details on the Chicoana Agriglyphs
By Mercedes Casas

Residents of the town of Metán also witnessed strange lights with zigzagging movements at low altitude late into the night. These lights disappear into the fields, and occurred at the same time as the Chicoana events. What is remarkable is that the predominant direction of movement is toward the NW, which dovetails with the statements made by the people of Chicoana, who see the movements predominantly toward the SE. In both cases, the trajectory suggests the Cabra Corral Resevoir, an immense body of water.

The reason that I’m highlighting this fact is because the disappearance of large quantities of water is often associated with this phenomenon.

With regard to the wheat fields: the first one, nearest the town, was visited by hundreds of curiosity-seekers that trampled down the wheat, so the possibility of seeing the marks no longer exists. The field was plowed, but the flattened wheat stalks that formed the mark were allowed to remain. The soil’s depth is no different from that of the rest of the field. The depth of the marks was due to the field’s height prior to plowing. The wheat stalks were no different from the remainder of the mature wheat stalks: neither burns nor color-changes are noticeable.

I visited a tobacco plantation to the north of Chicoana, where three workers witnessed flying object manifestations. They are probably the best-qualified witnesses to the phenomenon, as they had to work nights in the field the week that the marks occurred and the following week as well. This is a summary of my conversation with them: They are well aware of the stars and planets at various times of year by virtue of having to work at night. The lights they saw could not be mistaken for stars, planets, shooting stars, airplanes or satellites, which are also visible at night.

The lights they saw at night were several. They lit up the fields in the darkness with such intensity that it was possible to see the crops; a powerful beam of light [issued from them], casting light in the same way as fishermen’s’ flashlights. They compared the size of the object to that of the Sun at that time of day (4 p.m.) and they also gyrated.

The employees tried to record the lights on their cellphones and were unable to do so. All three have cellphones and not one of these devices worked at the time. The symbols appeared on the wheat fields after the first evening that these sightings took place. The place where the first object was seen is over a mountain located to the west of the plantation. They saw two small lights breaking away from the larger one, progressing along the sky in a parallel formation.

At a given moment, when the larger object remained motionless over the mountain, they saw something like “lightning rays”, blue in color, and emerge from the mountain toward the object.

When the lights moved toward them, they estimated that they were some 100 meters overhead. They did not notice any reactions in the local animals, as there were none nearby.

Another object was also seen toward the southeast, in the distance, over the mountains of Sierra Metán, behind which the city of the same name is located. They had the impression that these objects were in communication, as the lights would rise and descend in unison (the Cabra Corral Reservoir is located between Chicoana and Metán, separated from Metán by the Sierra Metán).

The three workers assured me that they didn’t believe in “flying saucers” and had never warmed to the subject. But ever since their sighting, the think that what they saw was neither a natural phenomenon nor anything known to them up to that point.

On the third night of the sightings, given that the plantation’s owner did not believe them, one of the workers ran over to wake him up and bring him to the fields. The owner remained incredulous, arguing that the lights could be stars, but moments later the light began to move and headed toward them, causing a commotion. Speaking to the plantation’s owner, he echoed the words of his employees. He had never believed in such “tales” but what he saw was new to him.

Finally, I was in the field of the Arroyo Tillán mountain stream, facing the Villa Fanny shelter school. No wheat had been harvested there and the marks were present. This is the field that was photographed from a height, as displayed in the press. I wasn’t lucky enough to see the photos from above, but here are the images I took. This photo was taken with a view toward the East-Southeast, from the Villa Fanny School, with the Sierra Metán Mountains in the background.

The wheat stands approximately 1.30 meters tall. Soil is normal, the stalks that form the agriglyph are flattened, some are bent and others broken; this could be due to the fact that the wheat stems are very fragile this time of year, when they are ready to be harvested. Furthermore, there has been no rain, which has contributed to very dry conditions these days, and a 30Âş C heat. The flattened wheat stalks are not aimed toward any particular point, rather in a spiral, as though following the direction of the object that caused them.

This, then, is a summary of what I saw in Chicoana. I have more photographs, with higher definition, and I have a panoramic shot of the wheat field, which is far too large to include [in this report]. Regards – Mercedes Casas

(Translation (c) 2008. S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez and Mercedes Casas)

19 November, 2008

Antiwar.com / Scott Horton interviews Tim Cavanaugh

Scott Horton Interviews Tim Cavanaugh

November 18th, 2008

Tim Cavanaugh, columnist for Reason magazine, discusses the efforts of activist Lira Tskhovrebova to tell the South Ossetian side of the Georgian invasion, the numerous accounts of Georgian soldiers deliberately killing civilians, the U.S. media failure to accurately portray the conflict and the mixed signals Saakashvili received from U.S. neocon agitators and the State Department.

Tim Cavanaugh represents Lira Tskhoverbova, chairwoman of the Association of South Ossetian Women for Democracy and Human Rights. He is a columnist for Reason magazine and former web editor for the Los Angeles Times.

MP3 here. (34:08)
http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_11_18_cavanaugh.mp3

Support Antiwar.com!

Toxic Chemicals Blamed for Gulf War Illness

Toxic Chemicals Blamed for Gulf War Illness
Washington Post

By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay Reporter
Monday, November 17, 2008; 12:00 AM

MONDAY, Nov. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Gulf War illness, dismissed by some as a psychosomatic disorder, is a very real illness that affects at least 25 percent of the 700,000 U.S. veterans who took part in the 1991 Gulf War.
Its likely cause was exposure to toxic chemicals that included pesticides that were often overused during the war, as well as a drug given to U.S. troops to protect them from nerve gas, a frequent weapon of choice of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

And no effective treatments have been devised for the disorder.
Those are three key conclusions of a Congressionally mandated landmark report released Monday by a federal panel of scientific experts and veterans.
"It is very clear that Gulf War illness is a real condition that was not caused by combat stress or other psychological factors," said Lea Steele, scientific director of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, which issued the report, and an associate professor at Kansas State University.

"This is something we need to take seriously," Steele said. "These folks were injured in wartime service, much as people who were shot with bullets or hit with bombs."

The committee presented the 450-page report to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake.

Gulf War illness is frequently described as a collection of symptoms that includes memory and concentration problems, chronic headaches, fatigue and widespread pain. Other symptoms can include persistent digestive problems, respiratory symptoms and skin rashes.

The panel also said Gulf War veterans have much higher rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease) than other veterans, and soldiers who were downwind from large-scale munitions demolitions in 1991 have died from brain cancer at twice the rate of other Gulf War veterans.

In reaching its conclusions, the panel reviewed evidence about a wide range of possible environmental exposures that could cause Gulf War illness. That review included hundreds of studies of Gulf War veterans, research in other groups of populations, animal studies of toxic exposures, and government investigations about events and exposures during the Gulf War, which began after Hussein invaded Kuwait.
Speculation about the causes of Gulf War illness has included exposure to depleted uranium munitions, vaccines, nerve agents and oil well fires.

The new report says the illness was caused by soldiers' exposure to certain chemicals, Steele said.

"When you put all the evidence together there are two chemicals that jump out as the main causes," she said. One is a drug called pyridostigmine bromide, which is a cholinesterase inhibitor that was given to the troops to protect them against nerve gas.

"It turns out that people who took those pills have a higher rate of Gulf War illness," Steele said. "And people who took more pills have even higher rates of Gulf War illness."

In addition, soldiers were exposed to pesticides that were also cholinesterase inhibitors, Steele said. "The strongest evidence points to pyridostigmine bromide and pesticides as causal factors," she said. "This type of illness has not been seen after other wars."

While pyridostigmine bromide is still in use, its use is more limited than it was in the first Gulf War. It's currently being used against one type of nerve agent, but is not being given out on a widespread basis, Steele said.

"The Gulf War was the only time a lot of people used this drug," she said.
Steele added that the U.S. military has also cut back on its use of pesticides since the 1991 war.

There are other factors that, while not likely causes of Gulf War illness, can't be ruled out, Steele said. These include exposure to nerve agents, exposure to smoke from oil well fires, and vaccines given to the troops. The panel ruled out depleted uranium and anthrax vaccine as causes.

The panel also found government research and funding into Gulf War illness wanting. "There has not been sufficient attention given to Gulf War illness. It's a real problem," Steele said.

"In recent years, both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs have reported a lot of studies that weren't Gulf War illness as Gulf War research," Steele added. "Some of the money was misused."

The panel noted that overall federal funding for Gulf War research has declined substantially in recent years; the group urged lawmakers to devote $60 million annually to such programs.

When veterans with Gulf War illness go to Veterans Administration hospitals for treatment, their problems often aren't taken seriously, Steele said. "VA docs often know nothing about it and aren't able to help them. Sometimes they treat them as if they are head cases or malingering," she said.

James Binns is chairman of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses.

"We have no treatments that work," said Binns, a Vietnam veteran and former Pentagon official. "I would like to see the new administration take this more seriously. When you look at all the studies, it's as clear as the nose on your face that this [Gulf War illness] is real."

It took 20 years to admit that Agent Orange, a defoliant used in the Vietnam war, caused illness, Binns said. "It's now coming up to 17 years on Gulf War illness," he said. "Troop exposures [to these chemicals] were a serious but honest mistake. Covering it up rather than trying to help them has been unconscionable."

More information

Learn more about Gulf War illness from the University of Chicago Medical Center.
SOURCES: Lea Steele, Ph.D., associate professor, Kansas State University, Manhattan, and scientific director, Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses; James Binns, chairman, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses

© 2008 Scout News LLC. All rights reserved.

18 November, 2008

The New Macarthyism

Macarthyism isn’t dead. The new version goes something like this: "Do you identify with, or sympathize with the cause of the Taliban? Or, do you know anyone who does? How do you feel about suicide? Women’s rights? Do you use a toothbrush?" etc. Then, They try to give you a job spying on U.S. citizens. Sounds like old tricks to me.

Children of the Damned

There is no explanation possible for this one!





Except perhaps the film Children of the Damned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_the_Damned

Children of the Damned is a 1963 science fiction film, a sequel to the 1960 version of Village of the Damned. It is about a group of children, with similar psi-powers to the original seeding but with notable improvements upon their design and distribution.[1]



Children identified by a UNESCO research initiative into child development are gathered from around the world and housed in London for collective study. The children have extraordinary powers of intellect and are all able to complete a difficult brick puzzle within the same amount of time. Apparently, there were six children born from all around the world—China, the Soviet Union, India, Nigeria, the USA and the UK—who share this advanced intelligence.

British psychologist Tom Lewellin (Ian Hendry) and geneticist David Neville (Alan Badel) show an interest in Paul, the boy born in London. After a while, they realize that all six children were born without any fathers and are capable of telepathy.
After international and Cold War tensions lead world governments to return the children to their respective embassies, the children escape and hide out in an abandoned church in Southwark, London. The children take control of Paul's aunt to help them survive in the derelict church while the military debates whether to destroy them. The children have demonstrated the ability to mind-control, causing the deaths of several government officials and soldiers.

Lewellin urges the government to give the children a chance. He and a few scientists observe the difference between an ordinary human cell and the children's body cells. After a short while investigating the cells, a scientist postulates that they may be human cells—but more advanced by a million years.

When authorities try to take control of them, the children are compelled to protect themselves. The situation escalates into a final showdown between armed forces and the children.

a little essay brought on by insomnia

Faith vs Religion

Many people equate Faith with Religion. Were that the case, I’d be a religious man, and I’m not. Really, I despise religion. So many people are hurting, or hurt others, in the name of their religions. In Islam, I’d been taught that "faith is speech and action. Speech of the heart and tongue, action of the heart, tongue, and hands." It is also taught that "knowledge precedes faith". I deduce that the knowledge comes from being a part of a religion, by studying it’s doctrinal intricacies. Therefore, one doesn’t necessarily need faith to be religious, but one does need knowledge to have Faith. An old Sufi saying goes that one should pray "until they know for a surety". I take this to mean that once a person gets to a certain point, the religion should fall away, leaving knowledge-based faith rather than dogma and rhetoric.

Faith has no denomination or boundaries. Faith is actually more scientific, while religion itself is based upon blind following and discourages excessive knowledge which could bring the knowledgeable to usurp the throne, which is why it is discouraged that one should study "from the cradle to the grave, even as far as China." (old Islamic saying, now denied by the Saudi-backed Wahabbi sect and others)

In Faith, one can stand alone, however in religion the individual no longer exists. They become part of a fold, a non-entity. This must create a powerful group consciousness, and I think that this is what will push the world over the edge into what many expect; The End of Days. But mankind can’t destroy what he himself didn’t create, so it can’t happen. The wars can. The anti this, christ that can, but ultimate destruction? I doubt it. And if it does so be it. It won’t be "god", it’ll be a huge explosion and nuclear winter. Man as god will destroy shit. This, I have Faith in.

in search of the lost chord

17 November, 2008

OK, I'm going to need help here!

I just saw the interview John Stewart did with David Frost tonight on the Daily Show. 88 minutes of the 28 hours of the David Frost/Richard Nixon originally broadcast in May of 1977 have been re-released on DVD.

I looked around for the full transcript online, and I couldn't find it. So I'm looking for it, and I need help finding it. I saw the interview on TV when it first aired. There was a reason I wanted to watch... I wanted to find out if there was anything Nixon knew about secret military programs that would transpire through his words.

At the time I was not aware of what Jackie Gleason had once casually revealed to reporter Bill Knell at the Jolly Roger Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. Gleason told Bill that Nixon arranged for him to see dead aliens in a box at MacDill Air Force Base.

What struck me during the Frost/Nixon interview is the part where Nixon, to justify all his actions, talked about the responsibility of being a US President... and that is the quote I am looking for... where he said: "You can't imagine the responsibility of having an excalibur, and not being able to use it."

Now that could mean anything, the atomic bomb, the force de frappe of the United States military... or it could mean something else entirely... namely a secret weapon, something almost mythic, reverting back to the Bible prophecy that Christ would return with a sword of fire!

Keep in mind that Nixon was in a tug of war with Howard Hughes, who built Area 51 with Van Tassell... an avid UFO buff who put on the Giant Rock UFO gatherings in the 50's. Howard Hughes had hired then environmentalist Barry Commoner to put an end to the nuclear tests in Nevada because it was shaking his Las Vegas penthouse.

Nixon was on the take from Howard Hughes, who gave him large pay-offs to stop nuclear tests. It's in fact what some have rumored what the Watergate break-in was all about, trying to find and destroy evidence that Nixon had received large sums of under the table money from Howard.

Howard Hughes brought Sikorsky from France to Connecticut, wanting to be his first customer of vertical lift off aircraft. Sikorsky and Gurdjieff were friends. Many of Sikorsky's personal writings speak of a spirituality in search of magic. Did they find something? Did they relocate the real future of flight to this then very secret base Area 51?

Was Nixon speaking of a very, very advanced aircraft? Capable of things no other aircraft of the day, and possibly even today, is capable of doing in the sky? I suspect so.

I can't remember the date, and here again I need help researching this. But Fortune magazine in the 70's or 80's released an issue with photographs from a ghost town called Delamar Idaho, where then, maybe still today, layed rusting away littering the landscape of this old abandoned silver mine boom town, the remains of aircraft nuclear jet engine test reactors, which, or so they say, the Air Force never went ahead and developed because of what may happen in case one of them fell back to the ground.

But think about it, it didn't stop them building an armada of nuclear submarines now poisoning the seven seas with a trail of radiation killing the oceans. So why not a fleet of nuclear powered flying ships? What would stop them from building top secret atomic aircraft? Is this what the UFO community, infiltrated and ridiculed, is in fact covering up, that our military is using atomic energy to power aircraft?

And how would this atomic energy be used? To make electricity to power force fields which in turn would lift these machines? Isn't that how magnetic levitation works? The only draw back is the lack of sufficient on board power to make such physics feasible.

We all know the Aurora is real. I personally overheard conversations between ground control and pilot of the Aurora during an emergency test system late night on television. Thousands upon thousands have seen these super silent, low and slow moving giant ships fly at night over Rhode Island and other parts of the world. Possibly large troop transport.

With Obama as our new president, Zbigniew Brzezinski is back in the White House. The founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller. Zbig is also the only man we know from any sitting administration to have actually publicly acknowledged visiting Area 51 in an interview with the Progressive magazine. I'm also looking for that issue.

In it Zbig said that after visiting the base, he now knew why the things he saw there needed to be kept top secret.

I grew up near the SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) outside Paris, where Robert Dean claims he was shown a report titled Cosmic Top Secret in 1963 (I was ten years old) about alien contact and deals with other intelligences in exchange for certain technologies, which is what others like John Lear, Bob Lazaar and many more have also claimed.

What if Zbig, who was at the Treasury dept. during the Nixon administation in 1973, at the time when he conceived the Trilateral Commission, the agenda tailored after his book Between Two Ages, greatly inspired by Gurdjieff's work on bringing the spirituality of the East with the technology of the West together.

What if the Trilateral Commission was in part created to keep UFO secrets from the general public, by muddling the trail... what if we have built some amazing flying ships, and are in so deep, suppressing certain energy conversion technologies for perceived, and possibly missconceived, national security concerns, that we have as a result, trashed the planet for nothing, and taken civilization to the brink of economical and ecological disaster.

Environmental lawyers have tried in the past to find out what's really going on at Area 51 representing workers there who had contracted fatal diseases from working at the base. But all sitting presidents, one of the first things they are given to sign, is a renewal of the pre-emption from investigation or prosecution of the base for environmental reasons, making Area 51 impervious to governmental and civil oversight... in other words, untouchable.

How will Obama fend in this instance? I wonder... If Carter and Clinton, and Reagan, and all other sitting presidents refused the American people and the world a peek inside the black world, a world it would seem Kuccinich knows only too well, only playing sentinel, how can we ever expect to save the planet from the ruin of oil, coal and nuclear?

This has been one of the motivating factors fueling the Disclosure Project, something I wrote about already a few years ago in a book called Universal Seduction. Until these questions are answered to the best of everyone's satisfaction, as long as doubt keeps lurking under the surface about our true military capability, we won't have the tools of restoration necessary to fix the mess we made burning fossil fuels and enriching uranium into the worse poison on Earth.

I need three things to make my case. So I'm asking all Paranoia magazine readers to help me in my investigation. I need the full transcripts of the Frost/Nixon interview to find the reference to Excalibur, which Tom Bearden interestingly enough used as the title of his opus book on free energy suppression! I need the date and a copy of the Fortune magazine article with photographs of the nuclear jet reactors rusting away in Delamar, Idaho. Or photos of them still there today, in case nobody bothered to clear them out, capitalizing on them as a tourist attraction.

And I need a copy of the Progressive magazine interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski where he described his visit to Area 51.

I think with these three peices of evidence, I can clearly demonstrate that the US government has been hiding giant man-made space ships at secret military bases around the world. It's no big fat secret anymore. The documentary Fastwalkers makes the case clear. If we are to save the planet for future generations, we need to come clean with all our secrets. The consequences of our continued silence could be much worse; atmospheric collapse, global nuclear contamination, poisoning of the seas, massive coastal flooding... Need I go on?

Ask yourself, ask your neighbors, ask anyone you know who has worked for special branches of the military, in black funded energy laboratories, where would we be today if the National Secrecy Act of 1947 had not carted off all the best energy conversion technologies to secret places to either be misused, or forgotten.

If there is to be a true revolution in this country, not just cosmetic for the media and to soothe populist fears, we need to deal with the suppression of energy technologies for military applications... and investigate the role the nuclear energy industry has played in assisting in the culture of suppression our government entrusted to them with back in 1947 when the Office of Strategic Studies became the Central Intelligence Agency after the influx of German intelligence through Project Paperclip.

We are living in a magical world of global communications with computers, and gadgets, and ipods... exiting President Bush said so himself today at the G20 conference... we live in a Star Trek world of technological marvels... and yet, we're still missing the prime ingredient, the Enterprise. We're still producing electricity to power all these machines by rubbing magnets against each other, at great expense to the biosphere, at the cost of the loss of millions of intelligent species, possibly some we haven't even been in contact with.

For years small press magazines starting with Factsheet 5, Paranoia, Infinite Energy, Electrifying Times, have investigated all these rumors and urban legend... Chris Carter got the idea to break each chapter of the Whole Earth Review's Fringes of Reason into what became the first season of the X-Files, sending shivers down our spine because it cut so close to the bone of our personal experience with this other world us "paranoids" live under.

We have a battle song, the old Black Sabbath tune... A rallying cry, like bag pipes in the morning fog. We have an amazing opportunity with a black president in the White House to re-align the balance of power. It will be a juggling act... millions have lost their jobs in the last few months, while Van Jones talks of a green economy for dissafected youth in the inner cities. We're not going to rebuilt our civilization with just wind and solar. Oil, coal and nuclear is paramount to societal suicide. So what's left?

What's left is waiting behind the gates at Area 51. What Howard Hughes, Sikorsky, Gurdjieff, Nikola Tesla and others put there long ago, for a time when humanity had matured enough to take on the responsibility of that technology. Childhood Ends... Enter the First Earth Battalion!

Barack Obama is Abe Lincoln

When Ufologists Become Skeptics

[Gustavo Fernandez, editor of the “Al Filo de la Realidad” bulletin and host of the radio show with the same name, shared with us an extended article on the phenomenon of UFO researchers who suddenly switch sides and join the ranks of skeptics. We have taken the liberty of translating an abbreviated version of the piece for INEXPLICATA readers, striving to preserve the core of Gustavo’s message. While the conditions he discusses apply to his native Argentina, some parallels clearly exist in the Northern Hemisphere – SC]

When Ufologists Become Skeptics
By Gustavo Fernandez – “Al Filo de la Realidad”

In Psychology, it’s customary to discuss the destruction of the “object of desire” – stated plainly, this is the unconscious and overwhelming need of some minds, bewildered by the enormity of having to accept the fact that the object of their desire will be forever out of their reach, to destroy what they had lusted after until that very moment. Weakened souls and emotionally unprotected minds feel unable to resign themselves to the fact that what they love, seek or covet will never be theirs. Ever. Police blotters are filled with examples of this nature on a daily basis, spurned lovers who murder (out of love?) the person who rejected them. Folk wisdom recalls this brilliantly in the fable of the fox and the grapes, the one about the fox, who desperately strives for an unreachable branch after many hours of efforts, shrugs and finally walks off saying “Bah! They’re still green.”


In our specific case, it is my belief that some characters, tormented by the awareness that they will never divine the true nature of UFOs (and much less come into contact with them) preserve a certain emotional balance by triggering a denial mechanism (which is ultimately one of the defensive mechanisms of the unconscious ego) and seek to destroy it, slaughter it, thus achieving a certain degree of intellectual peace through the gratification that such compensation affords.

History (in uppercase or not) is loaded with examples of this. Many religious converts are more devoted than those who were born into the faith. Let us not forget, by the way, that fanaticism is a psychological aberration, a behavioral and personality disturbance that has nothing to do with education. Therefore, receiving a college degree does not safeguard any human being against fanaticism. A fanatic is the individual who concocts a theory to belittle and attack the ideology espoused by others. A fanatic is someone who, distressed by the dissemination of another’s ideas, claims journalistic censure against these ideas, which is a patent manifestation of cultural regression. A fanatic necessarily thinks that he or she possesses the truth because the other is wrong.

There are other motivations that logically concur with the destruction of the object of desire. When one closely follows the creation of groups like the ComisiĂłn para la Investigacion y Refutacion de las Pseudociencias (Commission for Research and Refutation of Pseudosciences) in our country – so scientific that they commit the basic mistake of knowledge, since an organization whose very name seeks “refutation” cannot seriously and objectively propose research – or others, which are created, fight and dissolve with the same swiftness and ease characterized by teenage UFO study groups. One cannot help but feel certain tenderness toward the solemn and fatuous manner in which these crusaders present their task. Its only natural, being aware of the cyclic waves of human emotion –- the same which caused tens of thousands of youths to embrace left-wing causes, imposing the psycho Marxist fashion, and who later became comfortable bourgeois free-market defenders. After a huge wave of pro-UFO passion, a UFO backlash was inevitable. But to believe that the proliferation of [skeptics] in recent years is because current generations have a keener scientific understanding than in the past is an effrontery to common sense. After all, who remembers groups of “professional skeptics” back in the ’60s and ‘70s?

Being a skeptic is nice work. It’s no longer unusual to see someone on TV defending the extraterrestrial hypothesis as the source of UFOS, or to see someone holding a lecture on paranormal phenomena. But to have someone seriously, and with a sardonic smile, say that UFOs are bunk, or a publicity-starved stage magician “prove” that telepathy exists, is really different, and therefore newsworthy. Unfortunately, a large segment of the public is amused by heated exchanges and the vulgarity (my grandma used a far stronger and effective word) of “researchers” fighting in front of the camera. One of them will surely lose the exchange, usually the one who is less skilled in managing on-air time, since television has no time for the truth. This creates ratings. Moderators don’t care who’s right or wrong: only the Nielsens matter.

On the other hand, representatives of the skeptical fauna are usually invited to conferences, even if only to avoid being labeled “cultists” should they not do so. Many times this results in per diem allowances and other gratuities.

Furthermore, being a horse of a different color is eye-catching. In Argentina, some former ufologists and progressive skeptics have taken advantage of this repositioning and their contacts in the journalistic world in order to boldly attack other researchers, employing all manner of fallacious arguments to settle old personal scores.

It is for this reason, among others, that I praise the members of RAO (Red Argentina de Ovnilogia – Argentinean UFO Network) for unanimously voting to bar the entry of naysayers into their organization. What for? I know that my stance may be decried as lacking objectivity and displaying fear of dissent, but I’m a simple fellow. Not only is it not worth feeding these vultures, just to have them benefit from the work of others, turning their own structures against them.

I believe that Anti-UFO Skepticism is a fad, surely a transient one. A sort of intellectual snobbery that will exhaust its followers when they reach the critical mass that no longer makes them attractive or original to others. Some will undoubtedly continue to embrace their fanaticism (we all believe that we have a mission in this life); hesitant to let go of what has given a sense of meaning to their lives. Others will feel the anguish of looking over their shoulders and seeing that the same old mysteries are still there. They will harden their brain cells and will turn skepticism into a cult. As long as there are those who believe that “Dr.” preceding their names gives them the right to petulantly state that “there are no scientific investigations that have proven the reality of these phenomena,” as long as there are people who believe that UFOs do not exist because a UFO photograph can be doctored (overlooking the fact that Hollywood simulates amazing airplane crashes, which unfortunately doesn’t mean airplane crashes do not exist), these Torquemada wannabees will continue meddling with the credulity of others. An apparently contrary form of credulity (it-cannot-be-and-therefore-I-must-be-convinced form of credulity), but which remains credulity, in the end.


Opposite, yet complementary. The ying and yang of this cosmic sideshow.

Finally, I think we’re taking matters too seriously. Something has been lost when knowledge needs to garb itself in solemnity. I believe that neither skeptics nor defenders of “whatever” are so important that we can waste time that we’ll never recover on this childish quarrel. So don’t waste your time either, dear reader. For this reason I am ending these lines with something that perhaps does matter. Not brainy “scientific evidence” or quotations from ominous encyclopedic treatises. This intellectual feast I set aside for minds more enlightened than my own. With regard to this subject, I only wish to leave behind a treat for the spirit, in the form a poem written by Chesterton: “when practical minds invite us/to discover the cold calculations that the world is made of/our souls shall reply from the shadows/yes, perhaps, but are there others?”

(Translated by Scott Corrales)

Paranoia by Dope

Interesting song.


Scott Ritter on Taking on Iran

penucquem,

Thank you for posting this video in your Of Donkeys and Men post below.



The Middle East WILL retaliate to any size nuke.

Pick which city you're willing to lose, people!

Seattle? Miami? Boston? New York?

Washington DC?

Of Donkeys and Men

At the above link ;)

16 November, 2008

G20 Won't Change This Financial Crime Scene

G20 Won't Change This Financial Crime Scene

By Richard C. Cook

Author of the forthcoming book, We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform

Please order the book at:

http://www.tendrilpress.com/

Remarks by Richard C. Cook
George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
November 15, 2008

The G20 is meeting today in Washington, D.C., to discuss the world financial crisis, its causes, and what can be done about it. But this won’t help the people of the U.S. who have been victimized by their own financial system.

The stated objectives are to find ways to stabilize and reduce speculation in the financial markets and make financial transactions more transparent, more efficient, and more international in scope. But this is also a revolt by the nations of the world against over-reliance on the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. What we are likely to see over time is a multi-currency regime that includes the Euro and one or more Asian currencies as well.

But the conference will not address the real causes of why the world is heading into a global recession or why the U.S. economy in particular is in such dire straits. Nor will the meeting result in redress of the staggering level of bankers’ criminality abetted by the U.S. government in the creation of the financial bubbles whose collapse is underway.

The real problem is that the world is locked into a debt-based financial system run by the world’s banks, where the only way currency can be entered into circulation is through lending. It’s been massive amounts of completely irresponsible lending which have leveraged the bubbles against much smaller amounts of tangible value.

The GDP of the entire world is $55 trillion. This is dwarfed by speculative lending in the derivatives markets of ten times that amount--$525-$550 trillion. No nation has clean hands in this travesty. The governments of the world and the central banks have allowed it to come into being.

Within the U.S., reliance on money-creation through bank lending has been the problem since the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. At that point the U.S. monetary system was privatized. The case has been the same with all the other nations which have private banking systems that control their central banks. The granddaddy is the Bank of England which dates from 1694.

The creation of the Federal Reserve System marked the start of a century of world war. This is hardly a coincidence. Indeed, the central banking system encourages wars and lives off them, because it is war and the threat of war that is most profitable to a system where the more money governments borrow the more profits the banks make.

All this started with World War I, which was largely financed by the British, French, German, and the U.S. banks. Events have continued in that vein through today, where the nations of the world are armed to the teeth and global finance capitalism tries to increase its control everywhere to the detriment of workers, national economies, and the environment.

To try to fix the crisis through bailing out the system, we are now seeing in the U.S. and Europe levels of government borrowing that have not been experienced since World War II. The purpose is to recapitalize a financial system that has destroyed itself through its own greed and folly. But all this does is defer the bill to future generations who have to pay the enormous compounded interest charges this borrowing entails. Interest on the national debt in the 2009 federal budget is over $500 billion. Every man, woman, and child in the nation is a victim of this crime.

The situation is so bad that many people believe the U.S. may even be in danger of defaulting on its gigantic national debt sometime in 2009.

Meanwhile, the failed financial system is dragging down the world’s producing economy with it, and the bailouts won’t change that situation. Combined with the financial crash has been a collapse in consumer “demand.” In other words, consumers, who are maxed out on their credit, no longer can borrow enough to keep the wheels of the economy turning.

But the reason they must borrow for consumption is that earnings are not sufficient for people to buy what they need to live. This is why in the U.S. there has been an outcry, including with the Obama campaign, for new government job-creation programs. Every day there is another proposal by progressives for new government spending, which, of course, will have to be financed by even more government debt.

So when are we going to learn how to introduce purchasing power without debt? How did we ever come to believe that the only way to create money is through a bank inventing it out of thin air? In the past few weeks we have had a number of Nobel-prize winning economists chip in with their suggestions of what to do, but none have addressed the obvious question of what the alternatives may be to bankers’ debt-based currency.

If we look at history, we see other ways governments have used their powers to create money. Indeed, until the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the U.S. was a kind of laboratory of alternative methods of money-creation.

If we go back to colonial days, the American colonies used a variety of means to introduce currency into circulation. In Virginia, plantation owners received tobacco certificates when they deposited their product at public warehouses. The certificates then circulated as currency.

In Pennsylvania the government ran a land bank which paid cash to land-owners for liens on property. The interest paid for the costs of government without any taxation of citizens.

In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, governments spent paper money directly into circulation. The money received value by then being accepted by those governments, after it circulated within the economy, in payment of taxes.

Other forms of currency were Spanish dollars, Indian wampum, and IOUs. There was also a flourishing barter trade.

The system worked. By 1764, the American colonies formed one of the most prosperous trading regions on the planet. When asked why, Benjamin Franklin said it was because of colonial scrip—i.e., their paper money. When the British Parliament outlawed it through the Currency Act of 1764, an economic depression followed. It was the underlying cause of the Revolutionary War.

During that war, the Continental Congress issued the famous Continental Currency. What likely caused that money to inflate was extensive British counterfeiting, not being used to excess by our national government.

Once the nation became independent, a U.S. mint was founded so individuals could bring in gold or silver and have it stamped into coinage free of charge. New discoveries as with the California and Yukon gold rushes or better methods of extraction from ores resulted in economic booms. From then until coinage lost its value after the Federal Reserve System was established, precious metals were a major part of the U.S. monetary system that included not only coinage but also gold and silver certificates.

In 1791 and again in 1816 Congress passed legislation for the First and Second Banks of the United States. These banks were dupicates of the Bank of England whose purposes were to fasten on the U.S. the same type of debt-based monetary system that was the driving force for the British Empire. Presidents Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, and Martin van Buren were among those who saw these banks as a Trojan Horse for financier tyranny. The split between pro- and anti-bank forces was the origin of the two-party system within the United States.

When Jefferson became president in 1800 he refused to borrow from the bank and balanced the federal budget for eight consecutive years by cutting military expenditures. Andrew Jackson took similar action in 1833 when he withdrew federal funds from the bank and paid off the entire national debt. It was recognized back then that fiscal responsibility was an effective means for keeping the government out of the control of the bankers and their political friends.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln refused to borrow from the banks. Instead he financed the war through income and excise taxes, sale of war bonds directly to citizens, and issuance of the famous Greenbacks. This came about in 1862 when Congress authorized the government to spend $450 million in paper Greenbacks directly into circulation. Congress also introduced tangible value into the economy by what was then the very wise policy of transferring huge amounts of public land to the railroads and to citizens under the Homestead Act.

During the late 19th century, ordinary citizens were not so stunningly ignorant of the politics of money as they are today. People recognized the Greenbacks for having saved the union. A Greenback Party was formed that elected representatives to Congress and ran candidates for president.

Greenbacks remained in circulation, and as late as 1900 still made up a third of the nation’s monetary supply, along with coinage, gold and silver certificates, and national bank notes. Also, many other business entities, including the “company stores” owned by mining companies, issued their own paper scrip that was part of the circulating currency. For example, in a pamphlet on monetary reform written by American poet Ezra Pound in the 1930s was an illustration of paper money his grandfather issued from his lumberyard in Michigan in the late 1800s backed by board-feet of lumber payable on demand! Of course barter trade continued and still exists today among industrial firms.

But the bankers were on the move. In 1863 and 1864 Congress passed the National Banking Acts which drove the extensive system of state-chartered banks, including some owned by state governments, out of existence. By the early 1900s, the power of the bankers had coalesced under the New York banking trust led by the J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller financial interests.

The bakers struck in 1913 just before the Christmas recess when many Congressmen had already left Washington for the holidays. The Federal Reserve Act had actually been written by bankers from Europe who were allied with the Rothschild interests. Congressman Charles Lindbergh, Sr., father of the aviator, called the Act “the legislative crime of the ages.” Later President Woodrow Wilson, who signed the Act, said he had “unwittingly ruined my nation.”

But the deed was done. The Federal Reserve System created the first major financial bubble through World War I spending, followed by a depression, then created and burst the stock market bubble whose collapse started the Great Depression in 1929. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took over credit creation through low-cost government lending in the 1930s but had to use World War II to achieve full employment because by then the government was totally locked into the Keynesian tax-and-borrow credo of public finance.

The bankers began their comeback in the 1950s and consolidated their power in the 1970s under the heading of “monetarism,” which is the philosophy of trying to control the economy through raising and lowering of interest rates. This travesty—which is really institutionalized usury—is as familiar to us today as the water a fish swims in. We don’t even notice it. Yet it’s this system that has ruined the world. Ever since the 1970s, every period of economic growth in the U.S. has been a bank-created bubble followed by a crash and a recession.

We had the inflation of the 1970s created by the government-induced oil prices shocks, followed by the Paul Volcker crash of 1979-83 when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates above twenty percent and caused the biggest downturn since the Great Depression.

During the later Reagan years we had the merger-acquisition bubble followed by the recession that brought Bill Clinton to office in 1992. Then we had the dot.com bubble of the mid- to late-1990s that ended with the crash of 2000-2001.

Next, instead, of rebuilding an economy that had been devastated by export of our best manufacturing jobs to China and other cheap-labor countries, the Federal Reserve under chairman Alan Greenspan, with assistance from the George W. Bush administration, created the biggest bubble economy in history, with the housing, commercial real estate, equity, hedge fund, derivatives, and commodities bubbles all blowing up at the same time and leaving us with the mess we are in today.

What has happened during the Bush administration has been the greatest crime against the public interest in U.S. history. Its effects are only starting to be evident.

Of course in the face of so many disasters, the credit markets have imploded, and governments don’t know what to do except recapitalize and restructure them but without taking action to address the deep systemic problems with the producing economy. And while the Europeans may have blown the whistle on U.S. excesses through the G20 meeting, this country still faces disaster.

Yes, Wall Street is killing Main Street, and no one has come up with an answer except suggestions for the bailouts and some New Deal-type programs in an environment that is much worse even than in the 1930s. For one thing, most of what we consume today is produced abroad. For another, family farming has been ruined. In a pinch, our nation could no longer even feed itself.

But the amazing thing is how easy it would be to salvage the situation if the government took the simple step of treating credit as what it really is—a public utility like clean air, water, or electricity, not the private property of the banking system. In fact the banking system and the politicians they own have stolen and abused this fundamental piece of the social commons.

Banks have no legal right to work against the public interest. Every single bank that has ever existed has operated under a public charter. The Constitution gives Congress—i.e., the people’s representative government—authority to regulate interstate commerce. It also gives Congress the right and responsibility to control the monetary system.

So why doesn’t Congress do it? Why does Congress sit passively and stare when Federal Reserve chairmen such as Alan Greenspan or Ben Bernanke sit before them and mumble nonsense about markets and interest rates and inflation and the rest of a made-up system whose main result is to funnel the wealth of the economy upwards into the hands of the financial elite?

In my writings I have advocated several measures Congress could take immediately to remedy the catastrophe we are facing:

1. Congress could authorize direct expenditure of government funds for legitimate public expenses, as was done with the Civil War-era Greenbacks. Contrary to bankers’ propaganda, the Greenbacks were not inflationary then and would not be inflationary now, because they would be backed by tangible economic production of goods and services. What has been inflationary has been the debt-based currency which, since it was introduced in 1913, has caused the dollar to lose 95 percent of its value. Greenback-type spending is contained in the proposed American Monetary Act, developed by the American Monetary Institute.

2. Congress could authorize a national infrastructure bank that would be self-capitalized and would lend money into existence to state and local governments at zero percent interest. Legislation for such a bank has been introduced by Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

3. Congress could authorize dividend payments to citizens as advocated by the Social Credit movement founded by Major C.H. Douglas of Great Britain decades ago as a means of monetizing the net appreciation of the producing economy. Dividends exceeding $1,000 a month could be issued from a national dividend account without recourse to taxation or borrowing. Such a concept is related to the Alaska Permanent Fund which paid over $3,200 to each state resident in 2008 and to the concept of a basic income guarantee advocated by proponents of the negative income tax in years past.

4. Congress could utilize dividend payments once they were spent, possibly in the form of vouchers for necessities of life like food and housing, to capitalize a new network of community savings banks that would provide low-cost credit to home purchasers, students, small business people, and local farms.

I worked in the U.S. Treasury Department for 21 years and learned first-hand the history and operations of public finance in the U.S. I have seen the disastrous results of the debt-based financial system and how it has driven our nation, government, and people into bankruptcy. I have also seen how these simple measures of monetary reform would be easy to implement and would begin to turn the situation around within weeks or months.

All it takes is political will and a determination to challenge the death-grip the financial elite has had on our economy for a century.

We can be quite certain that these vital issues will not be addressed by the summit of the G20 meeting in Washington today. If anything, these meetings are likely to render the grip of private finance on the peoples of the world even tighter than before.

But sooner or later change must come. For the immediate future people could fight back by doing everything possible to get out of debt, convert their cash reserves to tangible holdings, and start their own local currency and barter systems. But for real change, a monetary revolution is required.

Copyright © 2008 by Richard C. Cook

Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst and an advocate for economic democracy and sustainability. His new book, We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, can now be ordered for $19.95 from www.tendrilpress.com.