"Here's a thought for progressives: Bush isn't the problem. And the next president should not try to be the anti-Bush.
No, I haven't lost my mind. I'm not saying that we should look kindly on the Worst President Ever; we'll all breathe a sigh of relief when he leaves office 405 days, 2 hours, and 46 minutes from now. (Yes, a friend gave me one of those Bush countdown clocks.) Nor am I suggesting that we should forgive and forget; I very much hope that the next president will open the records and let the full story of the Bush era's outrages be told.
But Bush will soon be gone. What progressives should be focused on now is taking on the political movement that brought Bush to power. In short, what we need right now isn't Bush bashing—what we need is partisanship...."
"The US media has no investigative capability and serves up the lies that serve short-term corporate and political interests. If it were not for the Internet that provides Americans with access to foreign news sources, Americans would live in a world of perfect disinformation...."
Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan administration. He is credited with curing stagflation and eliminating “Phillips curve” trade-offs between employment and inflation, an achievement now on the verge of being lost by the worst economic mismanagement in US history.
"An interview with author Naomi Wolf, whose new book, 'The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot,' may confirm your worries about democracy in America...."
"The racial economic gap is growing, with whites moving ahead more quickly than Blacks. Even more damning to African American prospects, a new study shows that nearly half the children of the Black 'middle class' are worse off than their parents. Decades of accumulated, systemic assaults on Black upward mobility are definitively taking their toll, making a lie of the vaunted 'American Dream.' There is no mystery behind the disaster: 'If big business destroys entire industries that provide well paid employment, poverty is not far behind. If black people are targeted for prison, low marriage rates and lower incomes will be the result....'"
"Hold on a second here. The risk of Bush attacking Iran is not yet over. When the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran came out earlier this week, a lot of people jumped to the conclusion that Cheney and the hardliners have lost, and so we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Well, I’m not exhaling at the moment. Because I still believe Bush and Cheney are going to do the deed...."
MANCHESTER, Conn. & DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. has begun a campaign to use the federal Freedom of Information Act to reveal the disposition of United States gold reserves.
On Thursday, December 6, GATA delivered to the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury Department formal requests for access to all documents in their possession that have been generated since 1990 and mention swaps of gold involving the U.S. government. Such swaps of gold are commonly used by governments to intervene surreptitiously in the gold and currency markets, and in May this year provisions for swaps began to be cited in Treasury Department records of the U.S. government's international financial reserve position: http://www.gata.org/node/5637.
GATA's requests seek not only any documents showing gold swaps but also any documents identifying the legal authority for swaps and any documents describing the U.S. government's policy for engaging in them. "These requests to the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are only the first we plan to make to seek a full accounting of the U.S. gold reserve," GATA Chairman William J. Murphy III explains. "We also plan to ask for documents involving gold loans and leases and any other possible impairments of the gold reserve.
"That reserve has not been audited in 60 years, even as intervention by governments in the currency and gold markets has been increasing dramatically. Investors have the right to know exactly what the U.S. government is doing to affect what are supposed to be free markets. And the U.S. gold reserve is part of the national patrimony, the birthright of every citizen. All we want is the truth. Who can be against that?" GATA's FOI requests were prepared by the McLean, Virginia, law firm of William J. Olson, P.C., in association with GATA's consultant, the constitutional scholar and lawyer Edwin Vieira Jr., author of the monetary history of the United States, "Pieces of Eight."
If the Fed and the Treasury fail to respond to the requests in a reasonable time, refuse to provide the documents sought, or provide documents with excessive redactions, GATA can bring the agencies to court. "This campaign for the truth will incur substantial expense for GATA," Murphy says. "So as always GATA will be grateful for contributions from its supporters."
Since GATA is recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt educational and civil rights organization, contributions are federally tax-deductible in the United States. Information on contributing to GATA is available here: http://www.gata.org/node/16.
There is no shortage of speculation about "why" our leaders are still adamantly planning for the destruction of Iran, in the face of overwhelming popular opposition, even though everyone except the neocons and their allies believes that America would not survive our own actions. An irrational attack is planned and apparently the decision has been chiseled in stone. It may be for Israel. It may be for oil. Maybe it is for world domination?
We are launching a nuclear world war to save us from ourselves. "We have found the enemy and he is us." --Pogo. We risk blowing the world apart, to avoid watching America slowly choke on its own excesses.
The government has known for decades that America is on a countdown to self-destruction. Among the elite it is common knowledge that our "global economy" must one day collapse from its own dead weight. In 1974 an intensive research project was undertaken by the Stanford Research Institute and the Charles F. Kettering Foundation for the Dept. of Education. Their final report was released as the Changing Images of Man. It was compiled by the SRI Center for the Study of Social Policy, Director Willis Harmon. This is a far-reaching investigation into how the basic nature of man might be changed. The Aquarian Conspiracy describes the implementation of their work in the real world.
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The most reassuring part of "Images" is that it confirms my own conclusions about our crisis, but it is also the most disturbing part, for it confirms my worst reservations about this time.
The object of the research was the development of a plausible vision of the future in which democratic methods survive, major problems are managed successfully if not resolved, and the unfolding of the human potential continues to expand. In other words, the postulation of a "desirable future" including feasible paths to its realization . . .
The government was looking forward to a very troubling future, trying to figure out the best path through it. The plan was to find ways to shape and mold mankind into a new cultural image, complete with new ideas and ideologies, even religious ones. The root of the problem was human nature, and solution was to reshape the competing forces of daily life, in order to forge a new image of a new human nature. The researchers were brutally honest in seeking all available knowledge pertaining to their research, and in assessing the current common image of man-on-earth.
The research revealed that there were a multitude of crises that were about to intersect in America's near future. Not the least of these converging catastrophes was a rapidly approaching breakdown of both American capitalism and democracy. The collapse was a natural result of globalism and monopoly capitalism. The basic greed that powers the system eroded the American political and economic structures, exposing the foundation of immorality and unfairness that amplifies the social unrest. The Stanford researchers clearly predicted that the American economy was destined to collapse from its own dead weight. The data also showed that that economic collapse was to be accompanied by disastrous social repercussions, such as rioting and upheaval, which would lead us into a "garrison state."
The thing about this research is that this work has confirmed that our economy based on parasitic capitalism, where the small elite sits atop the heap of men and gorges on their lifeblood, is destroying the social fabric of America. This system is based on a stacked deck, where the top elite always reap the profits that are made to rise to the top through the corporate profits-based system. The research confirmed that the growing inequities of such a system were ever increasing and with them, elevated social tensions. A system based on usury and putting everyone in the "poor house" is an economic order that is guaranteed to produce a democratic revolution, whenever the misery index of the armed populace exceeds the limits that they are willing to peacefully bear, without striking back at the source of their misery.
Changing Images of Man predicts an American economic collapse and a "garrison" (police) state," if the overwhelming inequities of our economic system are not corrected by powerful multinationals making more humane decisions. Alternatives to this doomsday scenario are discussed, all of which point to the need to devote all available resources towards transforming the image of man, changing man's nature, instead of altering the corrupted economic system which has brought America to this dire state. In this government study it was inappropriate to denounce the evil culprits behind all our troubles (who pull the strings on government itself), even though the task was to document and remedy the damage that they have done. Instead, they are cited as the hopeful "saviors," that we should look to for help and leadership. The hypocrisy of the hegemons! The authors admit that it is "utopian in 1974 to think of the multinational corporations as potentially among our most effective mechanisms for husbanding the earth's resources and optimizing their use for human benefit -- the current popular image of the corporation tends to be more that of the spoiler and the exploiter."
Instead of charging the people who are responsible for our situation (such as men like David Rockefeller), for manipulating our economy and our democracy to maximize their profits, the multi-national corporations and their owners were exalted as the potential saviors of mankind. Rockefeller and the elite have consistently taken steps to dominate the world by controlling people through "humanitarian" projects which, in the end, turn out to be profit mechanisms. The "green revolution" to spread corporate farming to the Third World has been the key to globalization's destabilizing of world labor markets, in order to create populations of "refugee workers," who are willing to go anywhere to find work for slave wages. This is the cause of the wave of illegal immigration into the US from Mexico. This is part of the proof that there are powerful individuals who are using their economic power to undermine nations in a long-term scheme to gain control of nations and multiply their profits.
Here David Rockefeller admits media collusion with his one world plans: "We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the light of publicity during those years. But now the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supra-national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."
Rockefeller writes on page 405 of his memoirs: "Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." (Activists Go Face to Face With Evil As Rockefeller Confronted)
Melissa McEwan: Democrats have also been engaging in quite the charade with their supposed outrage about the Bush administration's torture policy.
"It's bad enough when an opposition party merely fails to effectively oppose, or when they are give tacit approval to a criminally corrupt majority party's radical policies with passive indifference, but when they are active supporters of extremist departures from the nation's most basic principles, they make themselves complicit in the coup by a thousand cuts. Per Lambert, no wonder Pelosi took impeachment off the table....
The Heartland Presidential Forum is TODAY December 1st, 2:30 pm eastern, 1:30 pm central, 11:30 am pacific
Heartland Presidential Candidate Forum to Ignite New Values Debate
Community Groups to Lead Nation in Challenging Status Quo Launch Campaign for Community Values
(Washington, DC) This presidential campaign season will see more stories and hear more debate about our country’s values. The real conversation begins at the Heartland Presidential Candidate Forum when grassroots community groups ignite a new values debate in American politics as five presidential candidates are challenged to offer bold solutions for getting America back to where we are at our best. Senator John Edwards, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Chris Dodd, Senator Barack Obama and Congressman Dennis Kucinich have confirmed to attend the forum on December 1, 2007 at HyVee Hall in Des Moines, in which hundreds of community groups will launch a major national campaign for Community Values that is about creating a new standard in politics and advancing a new national agenda that does not accept leaving people behind, as we strive for prosperity as a nation.
“This nation is at its best when we recognize our individual success and prosperity depends on the collective responsibility of us all working together to solve our shared problems. Whether it’s providing relief for hurricane victims, building an immigration system that is just and humane or ensuring fair wages and decent working conditions for us all, America can and must do better,” says Deepak Bhargava, executive director of Center for Community Change. “Community values are core American values that our politicians have forgotten. We hear America’s call and with this campaign we are getting America back on track.”
Community leaders who have been in the trenches dealing with social issues have bold and fresh ideas to offer in the perennial debate over the condition of the nation. The Campaign for Community Values is not a Washington-led campaign, rather is deeply rooted in the community and is diverse, authentic and powerful with membership in the hundreds of thousands and the power to reach millions. This campaign will boldly defy the ‘on your own’ mentality in Washington that is failing America and will lead the nation in challenging political leaders to end the status quo and build a society that shares the ladder of opportunity.
Healthcare, immigration reform and worker rights are key issues that impact us all and are a focus of the Campaign for Community Values. When the Democratic presidential candidates gather at HyVee Hall on December 1, they can expect to hear personal stories that reflect the need for a new political direction that improves the lives of all people and serve the common good. Five thousand everyday Americans will witness this interaction that will surely be the most authentic America has seen thus far on the campaign trail. On election day 2008, community value voters will choose the candidate brave enough to lead. Visit www.iowaheartlandforum.org for more information and to apply for media credentials.
