Are 'We the People" of the United States finally starting to wake up to whom are real terrorists?
Wall Street banksters are financially terrorizing the US into a new depression.

When Americans flood into DC by the millions to say 'No more bailouts for Wall Street' then the terrorism can end. Do nothing and the rape will continue for another 4 years under Obama's Regime.

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Clearly the conservatives, with their economic, military, intelligence and foreign policies, have done far more damage to the US than al Qaeda possibly could. America's hegemony is in irreversible decline due to Reagan and his ideological heirs.

Yet those who have so palpably laid the nation so low and committed or abetted so many felonies continue to bray as if they could possibly have anything truthful or insightful to say. The Christian Right's crime spree will likely go unpunished, but shouldn't go unremembered.

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Even more we should know that none of this was an accident.

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Anyway, it should be understood now that if a contingency should arise whereby the DoD becomes a major arm of internal "security" (repression), it will be the duty of every capable person in this country to offer opposition by any means necessary, even at the cost of one's life or the lives of loved ones. A military state absolutely cannot be permitted to form, no matter what. In the event it does emerge, Americans will deserve their dire fate.

For the time being it is best to keep stoking up Leftist fervor and demands for economic reform at every opportunity. Keep escalating the rhetoric to get people aroused. A significant amount of reformist (and sometimes revolutionary) fervor at this stage could be enough to stem the possibility of internal military repression.

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And while we had hoped to turn this around under Obama it is just not turning out that way.

Obama in word and deed and through his appointments looks to be pushing the kinder gentler Bush Line ...

Stalled in Iraq, escalating in Afghanistan, no torture investigations, still bigger military budget, tax cuts instead of programs, stimulus instead of permanent social spending, bailing instead of prosecuting Wall Street banksters .... the list goes on and on ...

And now, the warning to the powers that be, your constituents are going to be your worst enemies! The control of the National Guard has already been taken from the governors and given to the President ...

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

Unless we as Progressives, Liberals and Populists stand up and demand a social platform for people to stand on rather than a safety net to fall into people will become hungry, homeless and violent ... The size of the prison populations already speak to the social and economic failure of our economy and our country. The situation will only get much worse.

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All the big stakeholders were in cahoots. Not only Wall Street. It starts from the feds (no connection between Paulson and Goldman Sachs being the only bank that escaped unscathed?), goes up to the rating agencies, all the way up to the trading desks. Thugs. When the sun was shining, no one bothered.

Now they're all busy noodling a way to their bonuses -- but their millions have been stashed away already. No point doing this token capping of executive bonuses (they'll still make millions) when nothing is coming from their offshore accounts already stashed. Those who suffer will be the future minions.

Pointless. I want to see some action. I want to see those Merrill cretins put behind bars. I want retroactive enabling of anti-bonus rules. I want the fed reserve to be accountable as well, including people like Greenspan who's now cheerfully doing speeches and VIP presentations.

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Maybe the tide has now turned? Maybe we have some influential people on-side who will be in a position to be constructive and foster substantive change that will give peace and us a chance! But hope on its own is insufficient. This and other blogs must keep up the pressure on the powers that would prefer to maintain the status-quo!

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but instead the domestic riffraff, environmentalists, anarchists, unions and enraged members of our dispossessed working class

That's a very telling phrase. Are all those groups 'riff raff'? Oh, really? Well, I suppose it will appear to the ruling class that they are.

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put a stake in the ground and we're all far better of for it. Can't thank him or AlterNet enough.

Pull the plug on all MSM/PBS/NPR or embrace the fraud your living in.

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Last year, Amy Goodman sponsored a discussion on the question whether or not the law prohibiting the active deployment of US military as a force against US citizens was still a viable legal constraint on the Pentagon.
In light of this article, Ms Goodman's discussion rewards a re-read.
In short, the conclusions in environmental ethics concerning our criminal neglect of moral obligations to future generations apropos of earth's habitability is transparent in the case of global socio-economic survivability as well.

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who won the cold war again?

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" It is time to dust off your copies of Marx." It should be so easy.
Leave Karl on the shelf, dust and all. Marxism, Marxist Leninism, etc. has never worked and won't work. (If you want to dust off something much more relavent, try Robert Malthus.)
The problems we face will take something new, something no one has thought of yet.

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Some folks say they "know" all this but there are a lot of Americans who don't. Everyone has a different level of awareness and intelligence. Chris Hedges has taken a lot of issues and summarized them very nicely.

As a nutritionist, I say, let's not just treat symptoms! Let's try to find the CAUSE of one's health challenges/obesity/fatigue, etc. Well, part of our trouble with the issue of terrorism is that we treat it like a disease. It is nothing of the sort: It is a SYMPTOM of injustice and miss-distribution of resources. This is obvious to the lower classes, but conveniently ignored by those who control the masses. Yes, this is the elite and those who get out their messages: The corporate controlled mass media. (See John Stauber's book: "Trust Us, We're Experts" for more on the sick field of "public relations" or how to lie so much to the people, but in full business attire, they believe our nonsense or that we really are telling the truth!)

In Naomi Klein's outstanding book, "The Shock Doctrine--The Rise of Disaster Capitalism", we can understand that all three of the major "shocks" used as excuses or tools to manipulate and control populations (economic, weather, military) are now coalescing together to create a huge monster and all around the world. (Remember, many of the world's major crisis are related to global warming. The Sudan crisis, to give but one example.)

If we learn that these crisis enrich ONLY the few and deprive the MANY, we can understand the importance of NOT overreacting, but appropriately responding. Take care of our health, don't overeat, exercise every day, do NOT spend any money unnecessarily, store your beans and water AND prepare to march on Washington. (How are you going to do this if you can't walk a mile?), then you'll be better able to cope when (not if), martial law is declared. I could say more, but let's leave it at that.

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Contrary to what was said in this article, it was not globalization as such that killed manufacturing in the USA. Instead, the "smart" CEO's took the easy way out and sought to find cheaper labor --- in Mexico, China, etc. They then had their products manufactured and shipped back to the USA while crying for protection from foreign products. What the hell, their products are "foreign" products. Rather than leading their companies they led the demise of American manufacturing. And, we have to have it back! Without manufacturing the USA will just be another call center.

And don't blame the conservatives in government because that would be wrong. The CEO's and Wall Street gurus (the ones on TV are actually wantabe actors) were educated, for the most part, at Ivy League schools or places like Stanford --- not exactly known as bastions of conservatism.

No, the real problem lies in executive leadership and the forgotten duty of the CEO to plan strategically so that the organization endures forever. Globaliztion means going abroad and operating your business there, within the local economy, with local labor, with local materials, making products for local consumption. Yes, Toyota and Honda began in the USA by shipping cars made in Japan, but they are now making their products in the USA, with local labor, mostly parts made in the USA, and selling those products competively to US citizens for "dollars", not yen! I don't think they are shipping products back to Japan!

Enough said --- if a US company makes a product offshore and ships it back to the USA then give that company the protection it has sought for years --- tax the product as a "foreign product"!!!!! Maybe then a leader will step us and utilize the American ingenuity that has always and can continue to make us number one in manufacturing! No one is holding the executives accountable for the leadership of their organizations and the stockholders have "no" power even though they own the companies.

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"Our elected officials, along with the press, have been exposed as corrupt and spineless corporate lackeys."

I beg to differ. The evidence suggests that one party has gone went bad, and the other party hasn't.

Just check CREW's list of the 20 most corrupt Congresspeople. It's almost all Republicans. The Clinton Administration had fewer convictions and forced resignations than any two-term Presidential Administration since Teddy Roosevelt.

It's not true that both parties have collapsed. This is just what the corporate media will tell us--to make us feel we have no hope. Judging from the comments here, they're succeeding.

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Poster the nation with WANTED posters: put the names and faces of those most responsible on the poster.

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Lest it be forgotten, I will remind folks that Marxism has fared no better in meeting people's needs than its 19th Century ideological rival, unfettered capitalism. Worse, actually, not that capitalism wins many prizes. Ecologically it was worse. Economically it was worse. From the standpoint of individual freedoms, humanitarianism, and quality of life it was worse. And Marxism has been no friend to democracy anywhere it's been practiced, unless restricted to a minority party as in Italy. Give 'em a majority and they're pretty much like Nazis, you can write democracy off.

My copy of Das Capital will remain shelved, dust undisturbed, thanks. I'll stick with Keynesianism, at least until something better comes along.

As for the author's prediction of deflation, he speaks as if it's a done deal, unavoidable and certain. I hate to disillusion him, but the reason deflation was such a problem during the Great Depression was the reluctance of the government to just print money willy-nilly. Roosevelt did not do much with monetary policy except to try to stabilize the currency. Our present government feels no such reluctance, let me assure you. They're gushing the stuff over at the Fed, more every passing day. At this rate the world will eventually be so awash in greenbacks you won't be able to give 'em away.

No, our fate is far more likely to be a much more devastating version of the stagflation which hit us after the oil embargo in 1973 - rampant inflation coupled with dismal economic performance, with some dollar shocks tossed in as spice.

Stagflation is an economic state where too many people can't get a good job, and the currency you have accumulated (savings) erodes in value. We have one leg in this grave already - people have instinctively avoided saving because the real rate of inflation has been higher than the CPI (it was jiggered to be dishonest back in Reagan's day).

With sustained stagflation, you are reduced to extreme poverty unless you have some essential skill or talent you can exploit to buck the trend. If it gets real bad, then the untaxable underground swap economy, where goods and services are exchanged without reference to dollars, will become so large that state and local governments will find it challenging to operate at all.

And that's the point at which we will find soldiers and National Guardsmen taking the field in our own country against our own citizens, because when civilian government breaks down, you get orgies of looting and destruction. We humans are funny that way.

I say, seize the underwater banks. Establish honest inflation indices. End all the stupid foreign adventures. Establish fiscal discipline in the budget. Invest in infrastructure. Stop exporting jobs and letting rich people off the hook when it comes to taxes. Bring the Fed back under direct control of the Administration, where there is political accountability for it. Simplify the tax code, it's ridiculous and a drag on economic development. Charge headlong into the green economy; there are a lot of jobs that we can generate with that, and if we become a world leader in the field, we can boost our exports significantly.

Bust up monopolies and oligopolies, too. They aren't helping. If it's too big to fail, it's too damn big. I happen to think competition is a good thing. When the competition in an industry is lost to consolidations, it just drags the rest of the economy downward.

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I'm over in Australia. Last year, in mid-October, our economy went from being in the middle of a resources boom to recession. Why? Well, it's because our economy is so closely tied to the US economy that when you folks sneeze, we get a cold. The news over here is full of all kinds of news on sackings, layoffs, closures, and redundancies - and none of it need have happened, save for the actions of a group of greedy so-and-sos in the US financial sector.

We're a peaceful nation. We don't have a history of rioting in the streets on a regular basis, or burning down the buildings. Instead, we're battening down the hatches and bracing for the oncoming storm in a variety of ways. It's not likely that our politicians will attempt to "resolve" the whole issue by raising levels of hatred toward others, and trying to embroil us in a war (or at least I sincerely hope not). But I swear: if there were an easy way to take out the majority of the US bank and financial institution CEOs, I'd be lining up to give it a go.

This crisis hasn't stopped at your borders. The big ones never do. It's affecting the whole world, and if your country attempts to dodge the responsibility for what's happened, I'd say there's going to be more than one nation willing to declare you persona non grata.

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When Americans stop dropping Bombs on innocent people, the U.S. economy will boom.

Who except for war criminals wants to associate with war criminals?

REMINDER:
War criminals never stop on their own!!!
The same group are STILL running the same affairs from behind the stage .

Obama is just a news anchorman..watch his face nothing is there that wasnt on the face of Tony Snow and the rest of the cast. We should not see him as otherwise.

When he CONSIDERS investigating and indicting many many people then that is when we should CONSIDER that he is not a NEWS ANCHORMAN.

When the hoarde of war criminals and traitors are frog marched to their severest sentencing, we can then safely say that Obama is a real President and America is a real democracy.

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Enough Said

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What about government miscreants who illegally confiscate honest citizens’ income while being tax cheats themselves? I find it depressing that Mike Hamersley gets to confiscate honest citizens’ income while he himself by his own definition is a tax cheat. Misprison, it is a crime not to report a crime. Any U.S. citizen who knows of another who has committed a crime and does not report it to the authorities, is guilty of Misprison and could be subjected to years in prison for the commission of such crime. Therefore I must hereby notify all legal authorities that Mike Hamersley a high level Government official in the bankrupt state of California at the FTB (who is nationally known as a tax shelter fighting crusader) is guilty of tax evasion and conspiracy to commit tax evasion as (he defines it); guilty of theft of honest services; conspiracy to defraud creditors; possibly perjury to the Senate and other government agencies: and violation of 7216, disclosure of confidential taxpayer information to third parties. It is indeed a rather long list.

Hamersley testified to the Senate in 2003 that tax fraud involves devising transactions which allow for tax losses and “hiding the true facts from the IRS”. The transcripts are available for all to see. Hamersley also restated the same in his lawsuit against KPMG in 2003 (which is a public document).

As one example of Hamersley’s fraud, Hamersley while at KPMG gave advice to a client that tens of millions of tax losses could obtain with a 20% to 30% of success upon IRS audit if the IRS discovered the true facts of the transaction. Presumably, if the IRS did not discover the true facts of the transaction, a higher chance of success upon audit by the IRS would obtain. Hamersley was advising on a series of preplanned asset and stock transfers which involved separating assets from liabilities inside a company, transferring the assets to a foreign company and selling the stock of yet another company to the client’s lawyer for a dollar, all to achieve tens of millions in tax losses and defraud the creditors of the company from which the assets were being stripped. Hamersley’s participation in all these crimes is confirmed in an email by him dated May 24, 2000 prepared by him while working as a tax expert at KPMG.

Hamersley also further participated in hiding the true facts of the transaction from the IRS and the creditors by reviewing and approving documents prepared in June of 2000 which gave effect to the transaction back to 19999 (which based on Hamersley’s definition of tax evasion, is a classic case of backdating a fraudulent tax shelter).

In fact, the transaction approved by Hamersley is very similar to the one he claimed in his lawsuit against KPMG involving XYZ corporation (which we all now know was Occidental Petroleum) as tax fraud.

This of course creates an interesting conundrum for Hamersley, as it is likely he will claim his tax shelters were not fraudulent (not with standing his email which describes the possibility and chances of success upon IRS audit if the IRS discovers the true facts), however, if that is so, then his description of tax fraud to the Senate, other government officials, taxpayers whom he now confiscates income from and all the people he gave speeches to and articles he wrote for are being lied to. In which case, Hamersley is guilty of lying to the Senate and other government officials, perjury; outright theft of income from those taxpayer’s whom he is now confiscating income; theft of honest services from the FTB and those who he gave speeches to or wrote articles for on tax fraud; and most incredibly, conspiracy to defraud creditors by participating in a convoluted scheme to separate valuable assets from liabilities for profit at the creditors expense.

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Here is the "good news" in this report: the Admiral at least is telling Congress (in his oblique way) about the Pentagon doing contingency planning for martial law. It gets more serious when the Pentagon decides Congress and the media don't need to know. The other thing is -- how can the military fight 2 wars overseas and control domestic insurrections with a volunteer army? Seems like most or all Natl Guard units would have to be mobilized. Congress had better stay awake and keep a close watch on this fantasy project. Who holds the keys to the armories?

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Wall Street committed suicide when they allowed all the thieves at the top, to stay in place. Who in their right mind will ever invest any stock, or 401k, or anything for that matter with this den of thieves? Wall Street is worried that we just might get it figured out that, the world doesn't need them any more. Instead of stock, we just may decide to invest in "real things", like "real estate". Banking has always puzzled me, how can all these investment bankers in the middle do nothing but shuffle, and jumble numbers around and come out making billions? This whole generation will have to die of old age before Wall Street makes any kind of comeback.

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In order to understand a political philosophy, take it to its final conclusion.

COMMUNISM: If everyone was compensated equally …and there is a grantee of employment, why would anyone work or innovate? COMMUNISM imploded.

FASCISM: If all dissenters were killed and all their possessions confiscated, how would the society continue? They would have to steal from and kill their own …which is what happened in 1944, 1945.

The TALIBAN: If Art and Entertainment were not permitted and all women subjugated; all dissenters killed, how would the society replenish itself?
They would die out eventually.

REPUBLICANISM: In order to maximize profit, all labor would be so minimally compensated that workers would be slaves. All wealth would be inherited. There would be no need for elections as the outcome was already determined.

Is that the society you would want?

DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM: If all wealth and services were equally shared, but citizens have a say in their entire social and governmental structure, would there be a need to steal or for war profiteering?

You figure it out.

Totalitarian Government

What is the first item on the agenda for any totalitarian government?
…To Dismember Trade Unions and Organizations.

Is the American Society interested in a totalitarian government?
Ya betcha!

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With all these unemployed people, we have plenty of manpower for wars and war production... (snark)
When does WW III start?

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Great article! I'm amazed that Adm. Blair actually told the truth. The emperor has no clothes. The question now is - will the emperor throw all the commoners in jail who notice he has no clothes or will he thank us for noticing and ask for our help in getting himself clothed?

A key statement raised in the article was:

"Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States."

I wonder what and who will define "hostile"? Will a home gardener or an amish farmer trying to sell/trade fresh milk be hostile? Not to the masses they won't but to the large commerical growers and dairys they might.

What we need right now is transparency, calmness and working together. Fight against too much government control, greed, and secretiveness. If I wasn't so worried about the future I'd actually be fascinated by what is going to happen.

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I totally agree with his statement, "Our elected officials, along with the press, have been exposed as corrupt and spineless corporate lackeys. Our business schools and intellectual elite have been exposed as frauds."

http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html

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What year did Ike warn Americans about the MIC?
How many decades have Repugs and corps spewed 'Americanism' and "Patriotic" double Speak?
Which 'Terrorists' were Beneficiaries of both Repugs and Corps esp during the '80's?
Being only capable of claiming poilitcal consciousness for about the last 30 yrs- I serious consider the Repugs and the Corps to be two most treasonous groups that have been operating within our borders for that time.
We already know about McCain's aid & Comfort to Bin laden, The Oil corps (Cheney) assistance in spawning and rearing Bin laden and his fellow Saudi native Sons.Ronny's admin supplying Anthrax to Saddam. so why should we be surprised that Berneke, Paulson and the rest of Wall Street are not involved in this internal seige upon the US.
Hasn't a US Economic Catastrophe been a goal of these foreign Terrorist the entire time- hasn't that been their biggest bitch about US? Our wealth and influence not being used to address the suffering of those our Corps & Gov't used to build up their 'Reserves'.
seem sto me it doesn't take a mental Giant to connect the dots, esp when the hopes and dreams of those who hate US have come to pass.
How could some distant Rag tag group bring down America- Infect it from the inside and wait for it to implode.
Why would this be a goal? Because Misery not only Loves company, but creates desperation. What is the most expensive 'commodity' Corps are required to purchase- labor. and Which Party has been working (and confessing) to undermine- Organized labor.Deplete available jobs, hike up prices, and destroy all savings. How do you drive down Prices, Wall Street? flood the market.
If bin Laden et al wanted Americans to feel the pain of other 3rd world nations, who better to enlist than those in Political office who control legislation and those who Control the distribution of wealth and resources?
They have been attacking US for at least the last 30 yrs- their 'Trojan Horse' was 9/11- The event which created a euphoic feeling of Unity, when in fact it was nothing more than a Red herring- A Distraction.While We slept under the veil of 'patriotism' they were laying waste to the Very Foundation of our 'Village'.
Some Repug Dumbass even admitted to resorting to 'Insurgent'/ 'Taliban' tactics to undermine any attempts at recovery- Freudian Slip- Most Definitely!

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What if Bush and Chaney were still running things?

By now they would have launched yet another costly and devastating war, this time no doubt on the Cayman Islands.

Bush would take a break from clearing brush to tell us that's where the bad guys are. Sadly half of us would believe him.

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My father, who was a staunch anti-Communist, still told me of problems in Depression days and the appeal even to him of a Communist revolution. He also quoted a Catholic Social principle that you can be justified in stealing a loaf of bread when you and your family are starving and you see rich people having way more than they need to live on. Sounds a lot like today's situation, doesn't it?

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"Of course, all of us recall the ... the economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe" - NO, we don't!

"Unemployment ... is close to 14 percent." THAT doesn't take into account the millions "unemployed" Americans in prison, nor the statistical effect of "workers" in the military who are always at (or near)100% employment.

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In grad school polysci course, I gave an oral desertion on Marx. I was getting an MS in polysci, just to get paid by the GI bill, and had no real interest in Marx. The Marx I read was not the Marx my trippy-hippy professor read. Marx was not writing a revolutionary handbook, Marx was a profit he was predicting the future. Marx was a believer in individual responsibility, so much so that he believed governments; religion or any structure that put controls on the individual were destructive to our humanity that arose out of our individuality. Marx’s revolution was a revelation of the mind and the human spirit (damn those religious words). What were some of Marx’s predictions? The revolution would occur in the US first, because of the advanced stage of the industrial revolution, remember the means of production. Having achieved the means of production one can use it to create wealth or something else. Wealth creation would fail because it is dysfunctional and a means of control; there was a greater good that one could achieve having conquered the means of production. The most fantastic prediction of Marx’s was the replacement of gold with plastic money, sound familiar. You can through away your Marx books, which you failed to understand, because you are living it. If you really want to be progressives lighten up on fascism, militarism, capitalism, socialism or all the other isms you create to divide and spread fear. The prophet had more faith in us than you do. Ain’t that a revelation.

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"Consumers, thanks to credit card companies and easy lines of credit, are $14 trillion in debt. "

* * * *
By some estimates, $14 trillion is roughly 25% of the entire yearly economic product of all of Planet Earth! There are also tens – or hundreds – of trillions of dollars in those voo-doo "investment instruments," derivatives, that have gone sour. What happens when the bill comes due on all of that virtual funny-money as well?

Capitalism is screwed. No wait ... WE'RE screwed; capitalism is dead. Or should be.

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for the average citizen to be taken seriously. As long as Dr. King preached nonviolence, violence was perpetrated against his activists of all colors. When he was killed and several major cities exploded into violence and looting, the White Liars at the top started conciliating, appeasing, and finally, finally granting some civil liberties to African-Americans. Read: someone finally stood up to the bullies.
Women continue to be oppressed because we haven't taken the same approach since the suffrage riots of the WWI era.
I totally hate the idea, but it's the only thing the Wall Street White Liars and their hangarounds respect and fear.

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The real enables of this mess are on Capital Hill and many progressives dont have the stones to go after them!

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A fundamental tenet of my father's reactionary ideology, why he kept 10 guns in his house, is that the economy will collapse and the race war is coming soon. He was saying this 20 years ago.

The military paper quoted here reflects the same ideology. Military men assume that if people in other countries either riot or take up arms because of poverty, Americans will too. Left unsaid these days is a reactionary hangover belief that a human being's skin color always affects critical thinking.

What actually happens is that citizens in countries with a strong democratic system work first through the election system, then second through nonviolent protests, to implement change. In countries that the U.S. occupies, the citizens don't have some options. For example, if I throw my shoe at my state's governor I might pay a fine, but I won't disappear.

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the tools of these people --> click here.

And if you didn't elect to "click," here is their ongoing, long-term agenda:

1. Use violence and terrorism rather than academic discussions.
2. Preach “Liberalism” to usurp political power.
3. Initiate class warfare.
4. Politicians must be cunning and deceptive – any moral code leaves a politician vulnerable.
5. Dismantle “existing forces of order and regulation.” Reconstruct all existing institutions.”
6. Remain invisible until the very moment when it has gained such strength that no cunning or force can undermine it.
7. Use Mob Psychology to control the masses. “Without absolute despotism one cannot rule efficiently.”
8. Advocate the use of alcoholic liquors, drugs, moral corruption and all forms of vice, used systematically by “agenteurs” to corrupt the youth.
9. Seize properties by any means to secure submission and sovereignty.
10. Foment wars and control the peace conferences so that neither of the combatants gains territory placing them further in debt and therefore into our power.
11. Choose candidates for public office who will be “servile and obedient to our commands, so they may be readily used as pawns in our game.”
12. Use the Press for propaganda to control all outlets of public information, while remaining in the shadows, clear of blame.
13. Make the masses believe they had been the prey of criminals. Then restore order to appear as the saviors.
14. Create financial panics. Use hunger to control to subjugate the masses.
15. Infiltrate Freemasonry to take advantage of the Grand Orient Lodges to cloak the true nature of their work in philanthropy. Spread their atheistic-materialistic ideology amongst the “Goyim” (gentile).
16. When the hour strikes for our sovereign lord of the entire World to be crowned, their influence will banish everything that might stand in his way.
17. Use systematic deception, high-sounding phrases and popular slogans. “The opposite of what has been promised can always be done afterwards... That is of no consequence.”
18. A Reign of Terror is the most economical way to bring about speedy subjection.
19. Masquerade as political, financial and economic advisers to carry out our mandates with Diplomacy and without fear of exposing “the secret power behind national and international affairs.”
20. Ultimate world government is the goal. It will be necessary to establish huge monopolies, so even the largest fortunes of the “Goyim” will depend on us to such an extent that they will go to the bottom together with the credit of their governments on the day after the great political smash.”
21. Use economic warfare. Rob the “Goyim” of their landed properties and industries with a combination of high taxes and unfair competition.
22. “Make the ‘Goyim’ destroy each other so there will only be the proletariat left in the world, with a few millionaires devoted to our cause, and sufficient police and soldiers to protect our interest.”
23. Call it The New Order. Appoint a Dictator.
24. Fool, bemuse and corrupt the younger members of society by teaching them theories and principles we know to be false.
25 Twist national and international laws into a contradiction which first masks the law and afterwards hides it altogether. Substitute arbitration for law.

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REPUBLICANS DON’T GET IT!



At a time of crisis for the country, high unemployment, massive foreclosures, increased debt, etc., Republicans are not interested in doing what’s best for Americans but what’s best for the rich and them to regain power to keep this country off track. Let’s not forget that Bush and Republicans are the blame for wasting nearly a trillion dollars starting a war based on lies, illegal wire-tapping, torture, failing to regulate the banking industry which caused this financial crisis, outsourcing jobs overseas which prevented Americans from having jobs, no domestic policy at all and the list goes on. Now is not the time for partisanship but a time for us to unite as a country and yet the Republicans are not interested in helping average Americans but instead they continue with a pursuit of giving tax cuts to those who don’t even need them. Republicans are still out of touch with the average American and fail to see that the American people voted for change in this country. They still don’t get it! Well let’s remind them that we have not forgotten the mess that Bush and Republicans have put this country in and we will no longer allow their failed, old and divisive policies to divide us. Yet with this crisis, Republicans voted no on the stimulus bill that would be a first start in getting this economy back on track and they are boasting about voting no! Well the polls show that the American people want the stimulus and need the benefits of it. The states need the money to help with infrastructure and other states related needs and yet the Republicans voted no on the stimulus bill. It just shows how out of touch and disconnected they are from average Americans and it’s time that the American people say very loud and clear that the policies of Republicans are not what this country want or need at this critical time. They didn’t get it during the election and they don’t get it now!

Please join me in the crusade to vote all Republicans out of office!

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This economic crisis, like that of the Great Depression of the 1930's, was caused by a relative handfull of insanely greedy Wall Street gamers, aided and abetted by complicit and/or dimwitted government regulators who didn't regulate.

This is the ugly, destructive underbelly of our secular religion, laissez- faire capitalism. I'm no Bolshevik, but it should be obvious by now that any economic system that is structured to allow massive accumulation of wealth by a few pirates while impoverishing everybody else is a failure and must be replaced, not just spackled over with borrowed money.

The "Shock Doctrine" that Naomi Klein has written about has been used recently by the disgustingly rich and power-mad to take even more from the populace. But that sword can cut both ways: the shock can be so great that it causes the populace to take down the rich and powerful. We did it in 1776, the French in 1789. Although those two rebellions turned out well, I prefer that it not happen again; the results can be very ugly and the outcome uncertain. I feel, though, that if our national pressure cooker continues to boil, an explosion will be inevitable.

Thomas Jefferson once said, "I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

I only hope that we are strong enough to weather the coming storm.

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Hedges nails it: its a systemic failure, lets drop all the cant about saving the "system" when its the system that led the long march to oblivion.
So turn off the corporate tv, and get out your book on alternative social/political systems...

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& decades of corporate goon squad behaviours from the US military, CIA, DEA & WHINSEC...

& you wonder if the Rest of the World might be irritated at an immature bully state called the USA?

gee, thanks for catching up...

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Terrfic article, and true. We are on the cusp of a sea change of epic scale, a socio-economic upheaval that will (or should) cause all of us to question our basic assumptions about the structure of society.

But ...

Boy, it's going to be a long time, maybe never, before the cultural establishment "gets it." On a television talk show this morning, there was a segment on baby boomers starting over in our sour economy. The segment's answer to their 401(k)'s being in the toilet, pensions evaporating and their jobs going bye-bye in an economy that has hit a wall? Make and sell more useless crap! Start a small business (presumably going deeper into debt to do it), find or invent more consumer junk everyone could do without if they had any brains, and then SELL, SELL, SELL!

They might as well have been told to use gasoline to put out a fire. Or to try to sell fire at $19.95, plus shipping and handling, to some unsuspecting rube.

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One of the things that led to the financialization of the US economy in the 1980s, beside the record high real interest rates needed to attract loans because tax cuts created deficits, is the freeing up of global capital markets and the increased selling of Mortgage Backed Securities(MBS)to foreign investors in order to recapitalize the US banking system. These sales continued for quite a long time and by the late 1990s, the US became utterly dependant on foreign capital flows to fund government and consumer purchases and sustain the economy. Tax revenues and real wages were low and foreign capital inflows to stock and bond markets allowed the US economy freedom of manuvre.

Trillions of dollars poured in, mostly because bonds represent savings and the US dollar is a major reserve currency in which most debt is denomenated. US bonds have always been deemed safe and thus attract billions in investment despite a relatively low rate of return. This is still the case despite the crisis. I return to this point.

As the housing bubble expanded, more and more MBS's were sold overseas. In mid-2006 a global stock market decline began to occur and by mid-2007 it began to affect US capital markets as the housing bubble began to burst. About this time foreign investors, who were assured of the soundness of the MBS's they held, began to unload them as well as the corporate stocks and bonds that were based on the general health of the US economy. Between Jan. and July 2007, the monthly net inflow of foreign capital into the stocks and bonds of US corporations averaged over $65 billion, over four times the net foreign capital flowing into US Treasuries. But from August 2007 to Oct. 2008, the average monthly net inflow from abroad to US stocks and bonds fell by more than 75% compared to the earlier period while the inflow to US Treasuries almost doubled!! By the last quarter of 2008, twice as much investment was flowing into Treasuries as into corporate stocks and bonds.

The reason was simple. Financial speculation ruined the US economy but not the market in government bonds or the dollar the strength of which our Asian trade partners needed to maintain in order to save their export markets and hence their economies. Capital flight did harm the dollar temporarily. But ultimately it only shifted foreign investment within the US economy instead of collapsing it altogether. We are, after all, too big to fail.

One final point, footloose capital markets allowed politicians and the state freedom of manuvre around the democratically elected representitives and the interests of society. They didn't have to rely on Congress for money; they just relied on ongoing foreign capital inflows. The Fed played this game. So did the Argentine Government and they got badly burned in 2002 when they defaulted on their bonds. In the US, the bursting of the housing bubble in 2007 took the whole economy down with it. It's time for regulation. It's also time for an earnest discussion about international capital controls, what they are, and how we can again use them to positive effect.

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At least we'll be treated to a bit of levity as the world collapses around us.

Some of us have been anticipating the current state of affairs for decades. It really shouldn't have come as a surprise.

All we have to do to quiet threats of Al Qaeda is to leave the Middle East.

Then we need to find alternative energy to oil. That necessity is already upon us, but it will shake the economy to the core.

Imperialism and militarism are anachronistic. The great danger is that they will continue despite the harsh realities of the situation. We simply can't continue dominating the world through wars.

Zero Population Growth has had the answer to prosperity without unbridled growth for decades.

Bush dismissed the concerns of environmentalism as a fad. When oil, water, and food become increasingly scarce and pollution becomes increasingly dominant, environmentalism will come to the fore, but perhaps too late, lacking the resources to meet the new demands.

It should be perfectly obvious that the federal government is too inflexible to take a new tack. It will resort to population control at the expense of personal freedom. The four students shot dead on the Ohio college campus of Kent State testify to the extent to which the federal government will go to keep dissent under control.

If the government monetizes the debt, the American dollar will become less valuable than the paper it is printed on.

Learn to hunt, plant gardens, heat with wood, light your domain with candles, and learn to barter rather than buy.

Welcome to the 18th Century.

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I will never believe that all of this trouble and turmoil isn't the Republicans and Bush's fault. The worst excesses occurred during Bush's watch and while the GOP majority were ruining the country (I meant ruining not running). The American culture of acquisitiveness must change and change dramatically. It must now also take into account the unemployed and the poor. Am I my brother's keeper? You bet I am and after allowing him to suffer in poverty for decades I am now charged with helping him get back on his feet. To have the majority of the world's billionaires residing in America is not necessarily a thing to brag about. The economy is only so big and when a very small number of oligarchs own 50% of a country's wealth you know automatically that the rest of society is receiving less than a fair share. Sorry to have to say this to all you Republicans out there but you screwed the country and in the end yourselves and now you have to pay!

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So it looks like history will be made here in Denver – at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science no less – when Obama signs over the $1 Trillion “Stimulus Bill” into law when he visits the Mile High City today

Even though the “Bill” is over 1100 pages in length and the public was “given” only one day to review it, this “Stimulus” will nonetheless be passed into activation right here in CO. So, one day, when our grandchildren ask me “What was it like when America had money, gramma and grampa?” I can say:

“I was living in the city where this, as it should be called International Banker Takeover Plan was enacted, and watched as millions of mindless citizens did nothing as the United States’ national sovereignty was handed over to the internationalist bankers – the same bankers who created the financial and economic implosion of 2007-09 when the once mighty America was completely sold out and forever changed from a democratic republic to a global-fascist regime bankrolled by the Federal Reserve and tyrants of corporate industry and approved by a spineless Congress and Senate consisting of morally-corrupt politicians – but – hey - at least it was the first African-American President who signed over your health, prosperity and future little Timmy – we might have been dumb, but we weren’t racist!”

This “Stimulus” is going to destroy the USA. But at least we have a front row seat!! And if things get out of control – the good old boys at USNORTHCOMM in Colorado Springs will be there with the 20,000+ fresh-from-Iraq soldiers who are to be put on active duty within the US!! I wonder why so many active troops are now going to be coming home to patrol American streets? It is almost like the government is expecting something bad to happen… Everyone should Google the FEMA camps being built around the country. What are the plans here?

Time to wake up – America has been taken over in a silent economic coup and is now a mere shell of its Constitutional roots. In this total FRAUD we are being controlled by the world banking elite and prepared for future horrors. They are putting soldiers on our streets, taking our pensions and 401k’s and Obama is appointing the very criminals whom have been behind the scenes making all of this our current reality (look at Geithner and Rahm Emanuel for instance). This is not a mere ponzi scheme – this is outright THEFT. No oversight = something to hide.

We have been under Emergency Powers Act since 2001 and Obama will not be lifting it. He has obviously shied away from any actions that lead to the conviction of any Bush Admin officials for their murderous treason. He will not reverse the Presidential ‘Signing Statements’ of his predecessor. He will not remove the Patriot Act. He will not even look at ending the Iraq War until 24 months from now (while campaigning he said it would end in 6 months). More troops to Afghanistan = more death and money thrown away. He will continue Extraordinary Renditions. His Attorney General – Eric Holder, is a gun grabber and the latest legislation introduced (HR1 and HR45) state as much. The government has given out, as of the last report in DECEMBER over 8.5 TRILLION in US Taxpayer funds, that is before the Federal Reserve decided not to report such data anymore. This is Orwellian – simply put. This is not Change, this is exactly the same with a more slick PR packaging and “new/fresh” face to deliver the message of the economic ruin of our country on behalf of the internationalist banking class that is attempting to enact global governance and single world currency. The faster we all realize that the people that Obama has put around him will not allow Obama to make good on his multitude of campaign promises the better our chances of national and personal survival.

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we all are.. still contexulizing blame outside ourselves.. will it ever end...probably not until a very low bottom takes the alternatives away and we are left with near nothing.. so many rationalizations:
1. it was us who voted in obama and more of the same. beleiving the "talk" versus his "actions".."least if the two evils" a vote out of fear.
2 it is us who continued to support the stock market, demanding our 20% return and closed our eyes to layoffs and sending jobs overseas, bought energy stocks, all while crying foul.
3 it is us who shops at the chains that produce their goodies in sweat shops abroad and here.
4 it is us who continue to borrow to buy that next toy... until we have completely maxed out our credit
5 it is us who permitted congress to attack the constitution and the bill of rights, who let a little man in the white house go wild.. as we continue to vote back to congress those who perpetrated the crimes by either directly voting for the presidents program or who set on the sidelines.
6 the list goes on and on.. and crying about it while we continue the same political game just doesn't cut it. but hey we have "hope" and "yes we can"

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Wall $treet would have been saved if he were president instead of Dubya and now Barry.

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We need to wake up and unite into local communities of support. Band together and remove the Federal Reserve which has been at the root of all of our problems since is dastardly inception in 1913 by the banking families of the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Morgans, etc. We need to start actually talking about these issues of paramount importance as they stare us in the face right now…



We need to understand these words:



I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

Thomas Jefferson, (Attributed)
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)

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Adm. Dennis Blair included the Balkans among the top five greatest terrorist threats we face.

“The Balkans?” Hey, isn’t that what Bush calls his male relatives?

On the serious side, many commentators, including myself, have said for years that Bush and the GOP were doing more damage to America than 1,000 bin Ladens and 1,000 al Qaedas.

Blair's report suggests we underestimated the damage.

You can find this and much more in "The Bush League of Nations: The Coalition of the Unwilling, the Bullied and the Bribed – the GOP’s War on Iraq and America," by James A. Swanson (2008, published by CreateSpace Publishing, 448 pages).

You can download the entire $25.95 book for FREE at www.bushleagueofnations.com.

I ask for nothing in return, except that you consider using my book to help restore and build America.

Jim Swanson, Los Altos, CA
“The Bush League of Nations”
www.bushleagueofnations.com [for FREE download of entire $25.95 book]

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Obviously crime will increase as money loses value and commodities become more scarce. The general population is going to be very upset but will the new Democratic President and Congress pursue criminal convictions for those responsible? Will Bernie Madoff and HIS ENTIRE FAMILY have all their assets frozen and seized (as I believe they should)? Will heads of corporate banks have their books open to investigators and the true letter of the law applied toward their misdeeds?
People might have more respect for the law if they see that is is somewhat designed for their protection and not just for the benefit of the wealthy corporate elite.
So let's all watch the Madoff family be stripped of their wealth and that old bastard put in prison. Let's see CEO's who are presently getting bonuses, not just stripped of their bonus but of their property and position.
I have worked in many of these people's homes as a contractor and they are not starving. These people have multiple houses all over the world and have a team of staff that take care of their homes, raise their kids, cook their food, wash their clothes, and perform all the services that most of us can barely afford to do on our own. As millions of Americans are laid off I am taking care of homes whose owners are vacationing in Aspen!!!
Trust me there is plenty of money out there it's just that we don't have it. Obama will never penalize the same people who put him in office. He will give you a lot of lip service as your savings, benefits, and health care are reduced to rubble, though.
Thanks for the HOPE.

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Thank you for a very timely article.Of course the mainstream will do everything it can to squash this info.But it needs to get spread as far and as wide as it can,
What can we do? I agree that 1000 Ben Ladens could not have done the damage to the US economy that the hand full of CEO corporate hacks thieves have done to us and world.!!!!!!!!!
If the major financial institutions were a country unto themselves, we would have to declare war on them and attack them ASAP

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This confuses the hell out of me:
In plain English, something bureaucrats and the military seem incapable of employing, this translates into the imposition of martial law and a de facto government being run out of the Department of Defense. They are considering it. So should you.

Based on what lower class people fleeing Katrina experienced, how does a lower class person "prepare" or "consider" this potential future? Learn how to take a dive (like the Italian National side) when gun shots are fired? Learn how to play dead? Learn how to bow and scrape before a soldier, somebody's kid?

This makes no sense. Seems to me there is ZERO accountability for "electeds" any more. There is ZERO accountability for anyone in the owning class and their corporations. Dude, we already know it's a fuckin' free-for-all so how the hell do ya prepare for things to get worse?!

This whole damned culture needs a fuckin' enema.

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I don't know if it's true or not but, I heard that Osama Bin Laden had offered George W. Bush membership in Al-Quida. Bin Laden said he needed men like Bush because he did a better job of wrecking the United States than he ever dreamed of.

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I sure hate to ay that I agree, but I do. 100%!

RT
Online PRivacy when it COunts

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Osama Bin Laden should hang in times square. But he was not a stupid man. His goal all along was to destroy our country and do so by attacking our wealth. Flying planes into the world trade center was not meant to ruin our economy by taking out our financial center. He baited our proud and arrogant leaders to follow him to the middle east and rage war on his turf.

We won the war for our independence not because we had the superior military. We won the war because we knew how to fight the war on our turf. We also lost a war for the same reason. US soldier were not prepared to fight a war in a jungle like we attempted in Vietnam. Just like our soldiers now are not equipped to win a war in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Wars are no longer fought by lining up soldiers on both sides of a battlefield. Because of this, no war will ever truly be won against terrorists. Bin Laden recognized the cowboy, known as “W” would come after him in Afghanistan. He wanted this all along because he knew they had already defeated the Soviets there and would bog the U.S. down for a decade as well.

The U.S. can win a military battle easily. We can take out your army and weapon stockpile, and your government. But we cannot defeat enemies living amongst those we are trying to protect.

Bin Laden knew we would be sucked into a war we could not win but would continue to throw money at. So far over a trillion dollars spent.

On top of the money spent we also diverted time and attention away from our own country. We have let schools and info-structure crumble and wall street and the banking industry to run wild. We have soldiers away from their families for years at a time and then they are returning home with PTSD.

Fighting these continued wars is exactly what Bin Laden had in mind. He has brought the giant to its knees. Will we continue these actions that are disastrous to our country and continue our fall? Or will we rise up, stop these unjust wars and hang onto money our country desperately needs.

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Main Street's gonna have to unite sooner or later against Wall $treet.

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The banks had a lot of power.
Now they have even more.
This "crisis" was orchestrated by the bankers.
Intentionally.
Look who benefited and look who's paying.
Follow the money.
Build guillotines.

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In America, where folks are unwilling to organize against ownership that robs employees of their pay, unwilling to vote against the establishment's puppets in government, patronize right-wing radio, let the Pentagon waste billions every year, allow the corporations to pay the smallest income tax in history, and continue to believe that those who are tough on crime (happy to jail everyone except the corrupt public officials) deserve re-election--the worst we can expect from that kind of America, is to again destroy their own neighborhoods and schools and one another.

Business as usual is still in charge, and that includes alarmist journalists like Hedges who will write whatever sells.

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One of the neocon talking points is "values". While this may give some people a nice warm feeling, so will pissing their pants. We stubbornly and continously value the wrong people and things:
1. We look up to crooks and liars as heros and demigods, even though their ONLY value is accumulation of wealth at ANY cost (to US, that is).
2. We STILL beg for sucrease and mercy from imaginary friends in the sky, even though the bloodstained history of those delusions is readily available for examination and consideration.
3. We continue, against all evidence to the contrary, to believe our elected officials are pure as the driven snow, when, in fact, most of them are on the take, and are evil, no-good cretins.
4. We STILL think a return to the "good old days" of heedless, wasteful, polluting way of life is just around the corner.
5.We STILL pretend the exploding world population has no adverse effect on the good of humanity.
We REALLY don't need these values, never did, and never will. It's time for new and more humane and realistic values.

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I am wondering why so many so-called Progressives have such antipathy towards Israel. Look at the very first line of this article--attributing nefarious doings to the Israeli state.

I am not Jewish but just a farmer from Nebraska. I grew-up in the sixties and was always presented such a positive image of the Israeli state (such as the movie Exodus). Here was a little country created against all odds and holding-out against a host of enemies by the courage of a people with a dream. Here were a people that had guts-iness and were the only truly progressive people in the mid-east.

Now on Alternet, every other article and every other poster attributes such Machiavellian purposes to Israel. I am dismayed and mystified that Progressives have such a "gang up-on" attitude on Israel.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29242187/

READ IT AND WEEP !!

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"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

President Eisenhower circa 1957

With the kinds of observations being made by military officials about US citizens speaking their minds...I'd say we're on the threshold of confrontation between our fundamental rights granted by law and what Eisenhower feared over a half century ago...

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"Laissez-faire capitalism has destroyed itself. It is time to dust off your copies of Marx."

This absurd line and its theme belongs in the dustbin of history.

CAPITALISM (noun)
an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and distribution of goods, characterized by a FREE COMPETITIVE market and motivation by profit
(Encarta® World English Dictionary ©)

FASCISM (noun)
any movement, tendency, or ideology that favors DICTATORIAL government, CENTRALIZED CONTROL of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism
Encarta® World English Dictionary ©

"Laissez-faire capitalism" may have existed in ancient time but whatever its faults "capitalism" that by definition requires real competition at commerce and basic human thought to operate DOES NOT EXIST in the west or anywhere else. “Capitalism” certainly did not exist during Marx’s lifetime when monopoly robber barons virtually owned the planet as they still do. (Groucho Marx had a better understanding of these issues than Karl Marx)

What has "destroyed itself" is the Illusion of "capitalism" and democracy. What is left is FASCISM which has been our true governing system since the private Ponzi trap "Federal Reserve" Corp (NOT federal with minus ZERO reserves) was palmed off to rig the economy for Organized Corporate Crime (i.e. FASCISM) oligarchy in 1913.

“Al-Qaeda” also never existed before it was trumped up in an FBI rigged Manhattan courtroom January of 2001 when a RICO case was brought against the fictitious CIA org behind the false-flag farce cooked on the west by what should more properly be called Al-CIAda funded out of the House of Saud and the U.S. through Pakistan’s ISI.


“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the government of the U.S. ever since the days of Andrew Jackson. History depicts Andrew Jackson as the last truly honorable and incorruptible American president.”
President FDR (on de facto Fascist rule in a letter to corporate monopoly charlatan “Colonel” Edward M. House, co-founder of the Council on Foreign Relations and political fixer for the ruling class. House also handled President Wilson. 11/21/ l933 from the book "F.D.R.: His Personal Letters" - New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce 1950)

“The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.”
Doctor Albert Einstein (in a letter to Sigmund Freud 7/30/1932. 1879-1955)

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency… the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered… The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of [private] lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”
President Thomas Jefferson - 1743-1826

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Now, to use the principal of the preemptive strike and develop integrated national, state and local plans for restructuring the economy away from the control of corrupt interests and the martial law they are leading us toward. With the seditious, morally corrupt and unpatriotic Republicans as the main barrier to rational problem-solving and transition, call it a national emergency or defense of American integrity (or "war on subversive ignorance") and temporarily suspend participation by the elements of our political process that are rapidly carrying us over the cliff. This is a war from within, every bit as damaging and dangerous to our nation as the Civil War. It is functional secession.

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What we need is for some agency to issue banker hunting licences. Put a bag limit of, say, 10 bankers per licence. After you bag 10 bankers you then get 5 lawyers. There is a condition; you have to use a 50 cal. sniper rifle with tungston core bullets. Thin out the herd.

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It is not Wall St. We learned from the Robber Barons that unregulated Wall St was like this. FDR almost got them under control, but Reagan & Bush undid FDR's good works. The problem is Reagan, the worst US pres of all time, and Bush.
Regan & Bush are a bigger threat to the nation than Osama ever was.

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every ruling class in history has and still has it's intellectual and ideological syncophants, Malthus was one. Today, the hegemony of ruling class ideology is emmemce, piercing through this ideology and developing a real class self interests among the wage earning population whether employed or laid off will be the most difficult in the struggles ahead. Marx more now than ever.

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Bush, Cheney, Jerry Falwell--these guys are the top of the list when it comes to creating anarchy, hatred and division.

Friends and family thought I was extreme for publishing such views 2 years ago on

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Friends and family thought I was extreme for publishing such views 2 years ago on Toward Bestworld. Read "Antifamily and Antichristian Bush Vetoes Children's Health Insurance" on 2bestworld.blogspot.com.

Now they wonder how such supposedly nice, rich, right-minded Christian people could let the financial melt-down happen!

Answer: They did it because they could. They profited relentlessly, destroying years of consumer protections and rights along the way, and we now have the result. And Democrats are not exempt from responsibility--though Bush-appointed Republicans and associates have been involved in most of the scandals (See http://www.scandalist.info/ and "The scandal sheet" at http://dir.salon.com).

Any time someone takes such a polarized viewpoint as those Christian Corporate Terrorists and acts on it as if in fear for his life--all the while couched in a plush mansion with a $1 million + salary--the cuckoo clock is sounding off on society!

Hello, it's a canary in a coalmine! These rich, mentally unbalanced extremists have taken our society, handed more and more of it to themselves--who don't know any better than anybody else how to manage it--and almost single-handedly sown the seeds of revolution.

Why aren't we marching in the streets in Washington for the mortgage crisis? Let's start by imprisoning Countrywide's Angelo Mozilo, who walked off with over $100 million after leading the largest mortgage servicer down the path of fraud, corruption and bankruptcy.

Mozilo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Mozilo) should be personally bailing out hundreds of consumers of his loans with those millions.

Insanity rules the rich, the conservative, the Reaganites. They never did make sense, the Southern yahoos elected them to try and coop up abortion rights activists and people who just want to live in a sustainable world--and now we have the economic melt-down!

Thank you Bush! Thank you Cheney! Thank you Regan, George H. W. Bush, Nixon, Limbaugh, Hannity and Gonzales! You've led our nation down the toilet while making millions off the backs of those who work for sub-par wages.

Call your Senators, Congressmen, editors and yank the idiots out of office.
Pass laws to fine, tax and imprison them for the kind of income redistribution that has put 40-50% of the nation's wealth into the hands of less than 1% of its population! While poor homeless kids suffer, eat dirt on sidewalks and fight each other for food and the dubious honor of gang membership.

Maybe those gangs supply the only prestige (and much needed cash) they've ever known. Values and goods that don't exist in the ghetto, because it's been stripped bare by the Conservative Christian Wrong.

We worry about gangs, and well we should--but what about the fraudulent gang members in the corporate world? Let's gang up on them!

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It is treason. Pure and simple. The bankers, politicians, corporations who put their financial well being and their political interests before the welfare of the American people and the Constitution of the United States. I don't expect it to happen in my life time or if ever, but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove; the Wall Street execs who pulled the ponzi schemes, the bankers who passed on the bad notes, and the so-called regulators who ignored and covered it all up, should all be charged with treason. But if the American people rise up and demand it, we'd probably get to see the inside of those detention centers they've been busily building all over the country.

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It's too late for political solutions to this crisis. The American economy is collapsing. There is only time to get out of the way of the falling pieces before they crush us to death! The best way to survive this is to get out into the remote countryside on your own property. If you can't and are forced to live in a city, network with your neighbors about how you can help each other to survive the coming storm. Stockpile food, water, weapons, ammunition, batteries, and all the other materials you use regularly (no luxuries! You don't have room for them.) and can lay your hands on at once! Get an electric and/or gas-powered electric generator. Get ready to barter supplies for services and vice-versa. Spring is coming. Get the seeds of the vegetables you and your family use and create a garden in your yard, and be prepared to share what you grow, because if you don't it will be taken from you. If you share, others are more likely to share with you. There is going to be some real disorder and chaos in some places. Desperate people do desperate things, and the police may not be able to handle it, but let them try, first, if they are anywhere available! Use your weapons only to defend yourself and your family in the LAST RESORT. NEVER threaten anyone with a weapon! Don't let anyone see or know about your weapons unless you are on the point of using them. Always try to talk your way out of any explosive situation first. "Soft words turneth away wrath." Avoid violence if at all possible, try to talk people down if they seem agitated, but don't go looking for them! Be calm and collected. Agitated people are just as scared as you are, and if you're calm, they are more likely to trust you to help them. More often than not, help is what they're looking for. The more we can learn to trust and help each other, the more likely it is that we will come out of this alive.

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. . . in this article is true. Are we ready to accept this reality, or will we continue to try to live in some sort of corporate-sponsored fantasyland? Early indications are that the latter will be the choice of many. So much the worse for them, and all of us. If anyone is foolish enough to think that any "stimulus" is going to magically restore the former situation of fake "prosperity" based on fake money manufactured by big-business fakers, then those persons are in for a very rude awakening. Wake up now, rather than later!

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I agree with everything here. It is a shame that the system that we believe in was all a sham:
Free Market Capitalism Morally and Financially Bankrupt

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to the economy. perhaps, but our Constitution is still a living document and still one of the greatest texts on Earth.

That's the real threat. Many of its words threaten established religion and other countries' traditional mores. Our founders were brave people who dared to tread on some sacred ground when they established this text. We stole this land from a great people, the Native Americans; our founders caught a little of that Great Spirit, imho, when they wrote our founding documents.

Don't let a couple terrorists, whether here or overseas shred our dream.

If all else fails, the meek will inherit the Earth because the meek (plants & animals & perhaps some enlightened humans) don't give a rat's behind what happens to our economy, so hang on!

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In the "We the People" declaration of independence, the word "People" included only male white, wealthy, land-proprietor founding fathers. Since then, as narrated by Howard Zinn, a "democracy" had to be feigned by finding IN WAR and fear a commonality of interests between plutocrats and working people, be them white or colored. After more than 300 years of reiterated economic crisis due to the greed of terrorist plutocrats, meddling into the affairs of most other peoples in the world, and pretending before their own public that USA is the "greatest nation on Earth" -it sure is the proudest, but the greatest?- which would be now the state more likely to be pronounced "failed"? which is the terrorist nation most likely now to be declared "rogue"? I guess if We the Other Peoples could prevail -say, in the U.N.- to qualify the status of USA poor people's, working people's woes, that the USA should be pronounced a rogue nation, a failed state, and it should be energetically adviced to clean up its act internally and not seek to be the foreman or the police or the looter of the world, for seeking to be that would continue to bring poverty and corruption and misery to all other nations of the world, as it has been, from Hawaii to Iraq, from Mexico to Chile, from the Philippines to Vietnam.

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