BUSH ADMINISTRATION EXPOSED: MONUMENTAL CRIME ON TORTURE AND CORRUPTION
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!['Push harder': A source said that 'for most of 2002 and into 2003, [Vice-President Dick] Cheney (far right) and [Defence Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld (far left) were also demanding proof of the links between al-Qaeda and Iraq' and demanded interrogators 'push harder' when no evidence was found](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/12/15/05EC1B1D0000044D-0-image-a-21_1418652771621.jpg)
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"Globalization"and Secret Societies Exposed
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At their meeting in Waco, Texas, at the end of March 23, 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin committed their governments to a path of cooperation and joint action.
It will eventually lead to the surrender of U.S. sovereignty, independence and national borders. It will result in the establishment of a North American currency called the “Amero,” as the dollar is junked. The U.S. will provide the army for defense. The U.S. will provide Social Security benefits for those who are now citizens of Mexico and Canada. Gone will be U.S. citizenship. Gone will be any kind of border control between the three nations of North America (the current flood of illegal aliens will look like a picnic when our borders are gone).
Plans are well underway to establish a N.A.F.T.A. Super Highway, to be the width of eight football fields. It will run from Mexico to Canada, running through the middle of the United States. No tariffs and no inspections will be enforced as trucks from Mexico and Canada drive through what was once our nation. Kansas City, Missouri has been selected to serve as an “inland port” to handle imports and exports among the three nations. Operating quietly, Kansas City has already designated $2.5 million of its taxpayers' money to establish the port. Now, some say, the land on which the port sits will become officially Mexican sovereign territory.
The effort to bring this about began on March 23, 2005, after a summit that was held in Waco, Texas. It was attended by President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Fox and Martin have since retired. The three leaders signed an agreement to create common policies about various economic and security areas among the three nations.
For obvious cover of official denyability the term “North American Union” is not being used. Instead the agreement officially authorized eight tri-national “working groups” to establish the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” (S.P.P.). The concept is being sold simply as a new framework within which the member nations can create free trade and security within the North American continent. However, from the information in the working documents the intent to create the North American Union is impossible to hide.
The trilateral agreement, signed as a joint declaration, has not been submitted to Congress for review. There is no congressional oversight. Nobody will have the opportunity to vote on it.
Security and Prosperity Partnership (S.P.P.)
The joint statement on the S.P.P., issued on March, 23, 2005, described it as an initiative to “establish a common approach to security to protect North America from external threats, prevent and respond to threats within North America, and further streamline the security and efficient movement of legitimate, low-risk traffic across our shared borders.” The working groups are now laying the foundation for a European Union-style integration of the North American continent.
The White House has established the S.P.P. office in the North American Free Trade Agreement (N.A.F.T.A.) office in the U.S. Department of Commerce, where it has worked in virtual secrecy ever since it was established. As the plan proceeds, the S.P.P. groups have not released public reports of their activity.
Since its inception, at least 20 S.P.P. working groups have produced a number of memorandums of understanding and trilateral declarations of agreement. These agreements cover a wide variety of issues, including e-commerce, aviation policy, border and immigration policy and the means for multiple governmental agencies to interact. They may be viewed on the Internet at www.spp.gov.
Source:
This report (North American Union) has been produced by The American Policy Center, 70 Main Street, Suite 23, Warrenton, VA 20186. 540-341-8911 , www.americanpolicy.org. Much of the information for this report was contained in material produced by investigative journalist Jerome Corsi. His reports on the North American Union may be found on World Net Daily, www.worldnetdaily.com, Human Events, www.humanevents.com. More information was provided by Dr. Steven Yates, “The United States of North America,” The Ecologic Powerhouse, www.freedom.org. The blueprint for the North American Union may be viewed in its entirety on the web site of the Council on Foreign Relations, www.cfr.org, and the official reports of the S.P.P. working groups, now operating out of the U.S. Department of Commerce, may be viewed at www.spp.gov. [Additional editing and format contributed by George Bushnell.]
Note: Neither Congress, nor the U.S. Citizens have had a chance to review this S.P.P effort, nor vote on it. The founders say that this is an Agreement, not a Treaty, so Congress and the U.S. Citizens have no right, or authority, to review this effort, or to vote on it.
False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, a ship flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peacetime: for example, during Italy's strategy of tension.
Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag
Examples from the Past:
Feb. 15, 1898 - The Maine Bombing – At 9:40 PM an explosion destroyed the American battleship Maine in Havana Harbor and helped propel the United States into a war with Spain. In 1976, Adm. Hyman Rickover, of the U.S. Navy, mounted yet another investigation into the cause of the Maine disaster. His team of experts found that the ship's demise was self-inflicted. Spontaneous combustion of the coal in bunker A16 created a fire that detonated the nearby magazines. 274 crewmen died in this sinking.
May 7, 1915 - The Lusitania - The sinking of the British cargo and passenger ship Lusitania by a German submarine caused serious tension between the United States and Germany and led to America's declaration of war against Germany. There were 5,246 total people on board, including 128 Americans when it sank. A total of 1,272 died in this sinking. 10,351,813 died as a result of WW I.
December 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor attack by Japanese – Roosevelt knew 12 days before the attack that the Japanese were going to attack and did not warn the Military. The purpose was to have a reason to declare war against Japan. 2,403 military and civilians died this day. 72,155,800 died as a result of WW II.
March 13, 1962 – Operation Northwoods - by L. L. Lemnitzer, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff – a plan to invade Cuba and blame it on the Cubans. JFK turned down his request.
August 2nd & 4th, 1964 – Gulf of Tonkin Incident - The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was an alleged pair of attacks by naval forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (commonly referred to as North Vietnam) against two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy. This did not happen. This was drummed up by the US military and President Johnson as an excuse to ratchet up the war in Vietnam. 8.744 million military served in this war, 58,169 Americans killed & 153,303 wounded, and 1,948 MIA; 1.7 mil. KIA, WIA & MIA N. Vietnamese military; 4,000,000 million Vietnamese (N. & S.) civilians died; 3 mil Vietnamese (N. & S.) casualties due to Agent Orange; 700,000 Cambodians civilians killed; and 50,000 Laotian civilians killed; 4,900 S. Koreans KIA; 1,446 Chinese Military; 16 Soviet Military KIA; 552 Philippine Military; 351 KIA Tailand; 520 KIA Australians; 37 KIA New Zealanders, during Vietnamese War. At least a total of 6,167,979 lost their lives in the Vietnam War. Total KIA/WIA/MIA casualties -11,091,282.
February 26, 1993 - World Trade Center Bombing - The Muslim group involved had been infiltrated by Emad Salem, a former Egyptian intelligence agent who was hired by the FBI and ultimately paid $1 million. The FBI even provided the Egyptian with a timer for the bomb. 6 died and 1,042 injured.
April 19, 1995 – Murrah Building, Oklahoma City – A classified report prepared by two independent Pentagon experts has concluded that the destruction of the federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995 was caused by five separate bombs, and no ATF or FBI agents were in their offices at the time of the blast (about 9:05 AM) 168 died and800+ injured in this blast.
September 11, 2001 – World Trade Center & Pentagon attacks – Dozens of researchers have accumulated hundreds of facts proving the complicity, if not full responsibility for these events, on persons within the US Government. 2,993 died, including 19 “terrorist”.
October 7, 2001 – Invasion of Afghanistan – Predicated on the 9/11 false flag. Osama bin Laden was given full credit for 9/11 by Bush/Cheney/Rice. Another reason given was to remove the Taliban regime, which had provided support and safe harbor to Al-Qaeda.
By December 20, 2001, well over 2,000 Afghan civilians had already perished.
July 2007 – 407 US military killed and 1,636 wounded. 226 other nation’s military killed.
March 20, 2003 – Invasion of Iraq – predicated on WMD, links of Al-Qaeda. to Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, to free the Iraqi people and to bring democracy to Iraq.
As of July 30, 2007 – US military deaths – 3,651, British – 163, other Coalition forces – 129
Iraqi military – between 4,900-6,375 died.
Between 68,009 and 74,403 Iraqi civilians died.
May 2005, Imad Khadduri, the Iraqi-exile physicist whose writings helped to discredit American and British fabrications about weapons of mass destruction, reported a story that in Baghdad a driver whose license had been confiscated at an American check-point was told "to report to an American military camp near Baghdad airport for interrogation and in order to retrieve his license." After being questioned for half an hour, he was informed that there was nothing against him, but that his license had been forwarded to the Iraqi police at the al-Khadimiya station "for processing"—and that he should get there quickly before the lieutenant whose name he was given went off his shift.
"The driver did leave in a hurry, but was soon alarmed with a feeling that his car was driving as if carrying a heavy load, and he also became suspicious of a low flying helicopter that kept hovering overhead, as if trailing him. He stopped the car and inspected it carefully. He found nearly 100 kilograms of explosives hidden in the back seat and along the two back doors. The only feasible explanation for this incident is that the car was indeed booby trapped by the Americans and intended for the al-Khadimiya Shiite district of Baghdad. The helicopter was monitoring his movement and witnessing the anticipated ‘hideous attack by foreign elements’."
September 20, 2005 – Two British soldiers dressed in Arab clothes, in a civilian car loaded with explosives and timers were arrested in Basra by Iraqi police. The British military attacked the police station to rescue these two British soldiers.
So, who knows who is REALLY responsible for the bombing of Mosques and Iraqi military and police facilities, businesses and shopping areas? It could be Palestinians on contract with Israeli Mossad without their knowledge of who is paying them; it could be British SAS or MI6 agents in disguise; it could be US Special Forces or CIA in disguise; it could be contractors working for the Israeli Mossad, or; it could be KGB (now FSB), it could be former members of the KGB working as contractors for any nation or secret service; or it could just be someone who just got out of the bed on the wrong side that day.
Why would the Mossad, FSB, CIA, MI6, SAS or other intelligence agencies want to destroy religious shrines and Iraqi facilities? Almost all problems around the world can be traced back to MONEY.
- The international bankers have always gotten richer because of wars. They finance both sides of all wars, then they finance the reconstruction of the nations destroyed by wars.
- The US wants control of the Iraqi oil and gas. That is one of the reasons why Iraq was attacked in the first place.
- The Military/financial/ industrial/Zionist complex profit greatly from wars, so part of the justification for extending the wars is to keep military spending up in the budget.
Financial Crisis – Starting in 2007
The financial crisis of 2007 has been building for a couple of years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average Intra-day Theoretical peaked at 14,121.04 on July 19, 2007. About a month later, on Friday, August 16, 2007 the Dow hit a low of 12,735.71, a loss of 1,385.33 points from the peak, or 9.8% drop. This drop triggered action by the Plunge Protection Team. As of February 3, 2008, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 7,935, almost half the average on July 19, 2007.
The four key members of the Plunge Protection Team (which reports directly to the President of the United States) are the Secretary of the Treasury (Henry M. Paulson), the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Ben Bernanke), the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (William H. Donaldson), and the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Acting Chairman Walter Lukken).
New York Post recently ran a piece on Washington’s tight-lipped Plunge Protection Team, or, the "Working Group," as it is formally known. Essentially, the role of this group is to prevent another 1987 "Black Monday" in the stock market. It was put into law in 1988, as Executive Order 12631, by Ronald Reagan. If you read the Executive Order you’ll note that it essentially allows the government (actually the Federal Reserve System, which is NOT a part of the Federal Government) to intervene in the stock market – should a crash or foreseeable dip appear to be on the horizon – via legislative law, administrative fiat, or the manipulation of private bodies via coercive tactics on the part of the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, or the executive office. Section Two of the order states that its purpose and function is to recognize "the goals of enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of our Nation's financial markets and maintaining investor confidence."
The Working Group was established in order to identify issues – which studies have vetted out – in regards to the events surrounding the 1987 market crash. Its purpose is to gather recommendations from anointed experts and consider what government actions, under existing laws and regulations, can be undertaken in order to carry out those recommendations. The last step is to "appropriately consult" with private sector bodies and participants in order to seek any possible private solutions. These "private solutions," however, will come from puppet organizations of the corporatist (banking) establishment.
The final goal, then, is to "maintain investor confidence" in the market in the case of sudden declines. When a rally immediately follows a downturn, the European press will refer to this as a "PPT Rally." Even the American press has not been shy about discussing plunge protection. This is from a 1997 piece by the Washington Post:
These quiet meetings of the Working Group are the financial world’s equivalent of the war room. The officials gather regularly to discuss options and review crisis scenarios because they know that the government’s reaction to a crumbling stock market would have a critical impact on investor confidence around the world.
"The government has a real role to play to make a 1987-style sudden market break less likely. That is an issue we all spent a lot of time thinking about and planning for," said a former government official who attended Working Group meetings. "You go through lots of fire drills and scenarios. You make sure you have thought ahead of time of what kind of information you will need and what you have the legal authority to do."
...The Working Group’s main goal, officials say, would be to keep the markets operating in the event of a sudden, stomach-churning plunge in stock prices – and to prevent a panicky run on banks, brokerage firms and mutual funds. Officials worry that if investors all tried to head for the exit at the same time, there wouldn’t be enough room – or in financial terms, liquidity – for them all to get through. In that event, the smoothly running global financial machine would begin to lock up.
Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/decoster/decoster114.html
So, the FED regularly intervenes in the stock, bond and commodities markets without transparency. Only the insiders know which stocks, bonds and commodities are being bought or sold by the FED. Obviously, if you are "in" on what is about to happen, you can "make a killing". Then, the insiders pump enough money into the pockets of the President and his Administration and both houses of Congress, so that they can get away with looting the public's pockets.
Money Supply
Deflation is defined as a decrease in the nations money supply, and inflation is therefore defined as an increase in the money supply.
M1 Money Supply - is defined as a basic measure of the money supply that includes all coins and currency held by the public, traveler's checks, checking account balances, NOW accounts, automatic transfer service accounts, and balances in credit unions.
M2 Money Supply - is defined as M1, plus savings and small time deposits, overnight repos at commercial banks, and non-institutional money market accounts.
M3 Money Supply - is defined as M2, plus large time deposits, repos of maturity greater than one day at commercial banks, and institutional money market accounts.
M3 Money Supply
Here is a 2006 statement on the FED's action on M3:
"Federal Reserve System announced that, as of March 23, 2006, they will be ceasing the publication of the M3 monetary aggregate. According to a Fed spokesman, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors wants to “de-emphasize the role of M3.” Academically, they add, this measure of money supply receives less attention than M1 and M2 do. A Fed spokesman also suggested that M3 is “no longer closely tracked by policymakers.”
For those of you who are not econogeeks, M3 is the broadest measure of money supply in the U.S.
Source: http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2005/11/money_supply_an.html
My personal view on the elimination of M3 reporting is that the FED planned massive infusions and withdrawals in the financial markets because they planned this crisis and wanted to cover their tracks by not reporting M3. The FED didn’t want us to know about the large time deposits, repos of maturity greater than one day at commercial banks, and institutional money market accounts. Both houses of Congress have chosen to overlook the curtailment of M3 Money Supply reporting. They have been paid to look the other way.
The REAL United States Federal Debt
Lastly, the US REAL federal debt is actually over US$99.2 trillion (as of May 2008). Who says so? The President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, Richard W. Fisher, in a May 2008 speech at the Commonwealth Club of California. Our descendants for the next century will not be able to pay this debt off. The Elite international bankers don't want it paid off, because they want the interest on this debt to keep flowing.
Though the Bush Administration’s official budget lists the national debt and deficit as being incredibly high, they are actually far worse than reported, according to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN). But don’t just take his word for it, even if Cooper is a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law graduate. The following figures appear in the official U.S. Financial Report, released by the Treasury Department:
* The true national debt is $49 trillion, not the $8.3 trillion Bush reported
o That’s $156,000 for every citizen, or $375,000 for every working American
o This figure has more than doubled in the past five years
o We paid $327 billion last year on interest alone
* The true 2005 deficit was $760 billion, not the $318.5 billion Bush reported
o This is 6.2% of the GDP, not 2.6%
* It’s all getting worse
What accounts for the huge discrepancy? Unlike businesses, the government uses “cash” instead of “accrual” accounting. This means that the government does not report future spending promises like Medicare and Social Security, or even future spending guarantees like veterans’ benefits and federal employee pensions.
“Cash accounting tells you what’s in your bank account. Accrual accounting tells you what’s in your bank account and what’s on your credit card statement,” Cooper told BuzzFlash in an interview. “Whether you’re promising to buy a road or something at Target, you need to know what you promised to buy. That should be a binding obligation of the government. We’ve made a world of promises to folks that we need to keep.”
But wait, there’s more! The U.S. Financial Report does not mention that if Medicare and Social Security are factored into the equation (which the Treasury Department did not), the true deficit was actually a whopping $3.3 trillion last year, over ten times more than Bush claims. And when Social Security projections are adjusted to reflect current life expectancies instead of the old 75-year mark, Cooper said the true national debt is “probably closer to $65 trillion.”
Jul. 7, 2007 Source: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/07/blood-and-treasure/
Laurence J. Kotlikoff, in his October 2005 paper titled, “Is the U.S. Bankrupt?”, estimates that the US real debt, in 2005, was $65.9 trillion, and in order to pay this debt off our children and grandchildren will be paying a federal income tax at the rate of 63% to 80.6%. This means that in 2007 it could be in the $70 to $75 trillion range.
For over 50 years the CIA has been involved in regime changes around the world. If they cannot get the citizens of a particular country to oust a particular leader from office at the voting poles, or by coup de gras, they have contract killers do the job for them.
Jun. 27, 1954 - Jacob Arbenz Guzman,
President - Guatemala
Jan. 17, 1961 - Patrice Lumumba,
Prime Min. - Republic of Congo
Nov. 1, 1963- Ngo Din Diem,
President - South Vietnam
Nov. 22, 1963 – John F. Kennedy – President, United States
Jan. 17, 1973 - Salvador Allende,
President - Chile
May 9, 1978 - Aldo Moro,
Pres., Christian Dem. Party – Italy
Jul. 31, 1981 – Omar Efrain Torrijos, de facto leader - Panama 1968-81
May 24, 1981 – Jaime Roldos Aguilera, President - Ecuador 1979-81
Venezuela
Since President Hugo Chavez took office on February 2, 1999, the common people of Venezuela have backed him and his reforms. Chavez insists on keeping more of the oil export profits in Venezuela, so that his nation can recover from its chronic financial problems. His strong will has been the stumbling block to the completion of the American Union. The CIA has backed coup attempts to oust this "radical" leader, but the Venezuelans have turned out by the thousands to protest these attempts. The petroleum industry strikes were not strikes at all. They were lock-outs by the oil industry managers, in order to try to embarrass President Chavez, and to turn the public against him. (http://www.narconews.com/)
The Elite-owned mainstream news media and the current Bush Administration have been trying to smear Chavez as being a Communist, a Socialist, a Dictator, and the like, and have made several attempts to remove him from office. This is no differrent than the FBI smearing Reverand Martin Luther King, Jr. with a host of outright lies before they had him assassianted.
President Hugo Chavez is a true American hero. He thumbs his nose at the international bankers as he single-handedly stops the American Union. He has stunned the Elite with the following speech from the 7th African Union summit in Banjul, the Gambia:
July 02, 2006
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Saturday proposed four areas of cooperation among the peoples of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in the spirit of South-South cooperation.
In an extemporaneous speech to African leaders attending the 7th AU summit in Banjul, the Gambia, Chavez suggested the establishment of a joint commission to set up four projects, which he listed as "Petrosouth, Telesouth, Bank of the South and University for the South".
He said through Petrosouth, the leaders would harness the power of oil, which he called a powerful instrument for social development, to develop their peoples.
"It was used by the colonialists (to oppress us). We are now going to use it to liberate our peoples," the President said, adding that 15 percent of the world`s oil reserves are in Africa.
He said Telesouth would involve the establishment of a TV station for the peoples, while the Bank of the South will be a development bank to assist the poor from the three areas. (Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela will provide the funds for this Central Bank, and its purpose is to provide low-interest loans to Latin American nations, so that they can get out from under the domination or the Elite international bankers and their IMF and World Bank.)
Chavez said the University of the South would help train the youths of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean in key areas.
Source: http://redpepper.blogs.com/venezuela/2006/07/chavez_proposes.html
Brazil
On December 13, 2002, Brazilian President Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva appointed international financier Hernando Meirelles as head of the Central Bank of Brazil. Meirelles was the former president of FleetBoston Financial Corp., and served as a director of David Rockefeller’s Council of the Americas.
Argentina
On December 26, 2002, Argentina's Senate approved the appointment of Alfonso Prat-Gay as president of the Argentina's Central Bank. Prat-Gay was formerly the head of emerging market research for J. P. Morgan Chase bank. David Rockefeller is Chairman of the bank’s International Advisory Committee.
Fast Track Legislation
On August 6, 2002, President Bush signed into law the Trade Act of 2002 (or fast track legislation). This is also referred to as Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). This means that he may be able to complete the North American Union on schedule, because Congress will now only be allowed an up or down vote on treaties that he presents. The Elite will publicly shame and humiliate anyone in the Senate who votes against their treaties. They have reduced their opposition greatly by making sure that Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and Congressmen Earl Hilliard, and Bob Barr were defeated in recent primaries. They had already ousted Jim Trafficant earlier. Congressman Ron Paul is next on their list.
Senate Majority Leader
Now we really know why Senator Trent Lott was replaced. Not because he made an improper statement (and it was improper), but because he was NOT a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The Elite need to do many things within the next few years in order to complete the North American Union and the American Union, so they MUST have one of their own heading the U.S. Senate. The perfect replacement is Senator William (Bill) H. Frist, who was made a member of the CFR in 2002. Did they make him a member of the CFR because they knew that he would be the likely replacement for Trent Lott? Very likely.
Success out of Fear
"Today Americans would be outraged if U. N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." - Henry Kissinger, in an address to the Bilderberg meeting at Evian, France, May 21, 1992. Transcribed using a concealed tape recording made by one of the Swiss delegates. Henry Kissinger is an inner-circle member of the Bilderbergs, Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission, and a long-time right-hand-man of David Rockefeller, who aspires to be the Czar of the Global Union. Only Rockefeller has attended more Bilderberg meetings than Kissinger.
Terrorism
Is the current fear of terrorist what Kissinger was talking about? All of the evidence is not in yet linking the Elite to the Trade Center and Pentagon tragedies of 9/11, but you can rest assured that they are using these crashes and terrorist threats to tighten up, and eliminate many of our rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The next step is to destroy the Second Amendment to our Constitution - our right to private ownership of firearms.
Bush had appointed Kissinger to head up the commission to investigate the 9/11 terrorism tragedy. However, he withdrew from this position when the law required that he reveal his customer list at Kissinger & Associates. Kissinger is under indictment from several nations for his past crimes, including Italy, Chile, Spain, France and possibly others. He cannot travel to these nations without being arrested and brought to trial.
Gun Regulation
Amendment II to the U.S. Constitution
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
A major obstacle to the completion of the American Union is the fact that we have the right to private ownership of firearms. No dictator has ever taken control of his country without first confiscating the citizens guns. The Elite know this, so they have created the organization called "The Department of Homeland Security", which was formed with the expressed purpose of defending this nation against terrorist attacks from the outside. In reality, this is the beginning of a "police state", which will be used to "handle" the militias that will protest the confiscation of firearms owned by Americans. Every time that a firearm is used in an incident, the mainstream news media, and several members of Congress, such as Senator Dianne Feinstein (BB & TC), demand that we have much more restrictive control of weapons.
Will we find out twenty years from now that the "DC-Area Sniper" was actually a member of one of the CIA's black-operations organizations, or was under CIA mind control as he shot his victims? There is no doubt that Timothy McVeigh was under CIA mind control when he (allegedly) bombed the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City.
Australia was once a penal colony for the British Empire, so most of the citizens of this nation are descendents of convicted criminals. Most U.S. citizens are not aware of the fact that Australia immediately outlawed private ownership of firearms after Martin Bryant, a so-called "mad murderer", killed 35 and wounded another eighteen people on the public streets of Port Author, Tasmania, in April 28, 1996, using an AR-15, .223 cal. assault rifle. Within twelve months after the outlawing of guns were passed by the Australian government, 640,381 guns were bought off the streets at the cost of over $500 million, Australian. Twelve months later, a study was made of the effects of such radical gun control, with the following results:
Australia-wide, homicides went up 3.2%.
Australia-wide, assaults went up 8.6%.
Australia-wide, armed-robberies went up 44%.
In the state of Victoria, homicides-with-firearms went up 300%!
The steady decrease in homicides-with-firearms that occurred during the previous 25 years became an increase in the 12 months following the ban on weapons.
The steady decrease in armed-robbery-with-firearms that occurred during the previous 25 years became an increase in the 12 months following the ban on weapons.
There has been a dramatic increase in breakins-and-assaults-of-the-elderly.
At the time of the ban, the Prime Minister said "self-defense is not a reason for owning a firearm".
From 1910 to present, homicides in Australia have averaged about 1.8-per-100,000 or lower, a safe society by any standard.
The ban has destroyed Australia's standings in some international sport shooting competitions.
The membership of the Australian Sports Shooting Association has increased by 200% in response to the ban and in an attempt to organize against further controls, which are expected.
Australian politicians are on the spot and at a loss to explain why no improvement in "safety" has been observed after such monumental effort and expense was successfully expended in "ridding society of guns". Their response has been to "wait longer".
During the years 2001 and 2002, armed robberies, Australia wide, increased 34.1% over the period just before the elimination of private ownership of firearms.
Concentration Camps
The Elite have already established "concentration camps" on military bases in the U.S. to house the militia members and other protesting citizens once they have outlawed private ownership of weapons.
Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, 14 August, 2002
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's announced desire for camps for U.S. citizens he deems to be "enemy combatants" has moved him from merely being a political embarrassment to being a constitutional menace.
Ashcroft's plan, disclosed last week but little publicized, would allow him to order the indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens and summarily strip them of their constitutional rights and access to the courts by declaring them enemy combatants.
Martial Law
The Elite cannot accomplish their American Union (New World Order) without declaring Martial Law. In order to justify such a drastic measure, there must be a major crisis, such as a violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a U.S. military invasion abroad, resistance to the outlawing of ownership of guns by U.S. citizens, or a major financial crisis. We are now on the verge of all of the above, with the invasion of Iraq, constant demands for tighter gun control to stop terrorist acts, and the Wall Street melt down. Opponents of this action would without doubt file civil action to stop Martial Law from being enacted, which means that it would doubtlessly end up in the U.S. Supreme Court. You might surmise then that this court would rule in our favor, until you learn that two sitting judges on this court are members of the CFR; Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You might say that the chances of the CFR controlling the Supreme Court are slim, until you learn that during one of the recent changes in this court, on the short-list of five candidates, "only" CFR members were considered for the vacated position.
Spying on U.S. Citizens
There is now a proposal to open all snail-mail sent to Congress, digitize it, and make it available to the recipient by E-mail. The stated purpose of doing this is to protect members of Congress from anthrax, and to save their staff time in opening the mail. The REAL reason is to snoop the correspondence to see what is inside. All electronic means of correspondence are now being monitored by NSA's operation ECHELON. Once they have digitized the snail-mail, there will be no secrets between members of Congress and their constituents. They now snoop every electronic transmission (fax, E-mail, telephone, Telex, radio, etc.) by the N.S.A.'s Operation ECHELON. For details check out the following web sites: (http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ECHELON/echelon.html) and (http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html)
Now they are considering establishing a spy agency to monitor all U.S. citizens, just like the MI-5 spy agency does in Great Britain. This group of spooks will probably be positioned within the new Homeland Security Agency.
The National Security Act of 1947 established the CIA, and prohibited it's operations within the United States. However, the CIA was granted legal authority to spy on U.S. citizens by Executive Order 12333, dated Dec. 4, 1981, signed by Ronald Reagan. This E.O. reads: Article 1.8 (c) Conduct counterintelligence activities outside the United States and, without assuming or performing any internal security functions, conduct counterintelligence activities within the United States in coordination with the FBI as required by procedures agreed upon by the Director of Central Intelligence and the Attorney General; Article (i) Conduct such administrative and technical support activities within and outside the United States as are necessary to perform the functions described in sections (a) through (h) above, including procurement and essential cover and proprietary arrangements. (http://www.cia.gov/cia/information/eo12333.html)
Nanobots
Now, you are going to say that I've really gone crazy! But, what if the Elite invented a very small robot, or nanobot, and injected it into your bloodstream when you get your next injection, and when the time is right, they send a signal to your body activating these little devils to do their programmed duty? This duty could be either beneficial or detrimental - who knows? There are frequent scares about anthrax and other biological agents threatening our lives. Could this be an opportunity to inject these nanobots into your bloodstream? Now if you don't believe me, do a web search on Nanobots, or check out one of these sites: (http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/crh275.htm) or (http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nanotech-02a.html) or (http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/expressnews/articles/news.cfm?p_ID=2275)
Bohemian Club
Many of the Elite leaders are members of the Bohemian Club, who meet annually at the Bohemian Grove in Northern California, where they worship their Moloch, in the form of a giant concrete owl, as they march around the sacrificial table in their medieval robes, uttering their pagan chants. Alex Jones secretly took a video camera into one of the Bohemian Grove meetings, and recorded a very disturbing ritual. Check it out at: (http://www.infowars.com)
International Bankers as the Ruling Class
There are several terms used to describe those in the inner circle who direct the Elite, such as central bankers, international banking families, world banking cabal, and the like, but the two families whoreally are in charge are the Rockefellers, headed by David Rockefeller, and the Western European and United Kingdom's House of Rothschild, headed by David de Rothschild. In 1998 the Rockefeller family was worth $11.48 trillion, and the Rothschild family was worth somewhere between $100 and 900 trillion. When they need money, they just print it. They create their money out of thin air, and it is backed by nothing. You cannot trade it in for gold or silver. These International bankers own the Central Banks in every nation in the world, except the so-called seven rogue nations. The U.S. State Dept. defines "rogue nations" as any nation that harbors of supports terrorists. The present nations that meet this definition are/were: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan. There is no evidence that Cuba or North Korea harbor or support terrorist, so the only common thread between these countries is that none of them allow the International bankers to control their central banks. (Afghanistan and Iraq were removed from this list when the U.S. Invaded them. One of the first acts after the invasion was to set up an Elite controlled Central Bank.)
Oil & Gas
The world's total oil reserves are around 928 billion barrels (Gb), with about 63% resting within the Middle Eastern nations. Saudi Arabia has about 280 Gb (about 25-30%) of this oil in its reserves, with about 8.3 million barrels a day (mbd) of production, while Iraq has about 102 Gb in reserve (or about 11% of the worlds total supply) and produces about 2 million barrels a day. The typical cost to lift a barrel of oil to the surface in the Middle East is about $3.00 per barrel, while the cost to lift a barrel in Iraq is about $1.00 per barrel. According to Mike Ruppert, of "From The Wilderness" newsletter, the total world "conventional" production of oil peaked around the year 2000. As new wells are completed, many others are abandoned for lack of economic production. The world's consumption rate, in 2001, was 22 Gb/year, and the current discovery rate is about 6 Gb/year. There is no significant substitute for oil on the horizon. This means that whoever controls oil, controls the rest of the world. As the available supply diminishes, the price will climb (a simple supply/demand reality).
Global demand for oil is increasing by between 1.5 and 2 mbd each year, and could grow from the current 77 mbd to 120 mbd within the next 20 years. OPEC production is expected to grow from 28 mbd (in 1998), to 60 mbd by 2020. Saudi Arabia supplies around 1.7 mbd of the roughly 10 mbd imported into the U. S. at present, and sells its oil for about $1.00 per barrel less to the U.S. than it charges other nations of the world.
Russia is gaining on Saudi Arabia as the world's greatest producer. In 1996 the Soviets production amounted to about 7 mbd, but just before the Soviet collapse, they produced around 12.5 mbd. The estimated Caspian Sea reserves have been disappointing after recent studies. There were a number of pipelines planned in order to deliver this oil to the consumers.
Bosnia
The war in Bosnia was simply to gain a possible route for an oil and/or gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the West to a salt water port.
Afghanistan
The war in Afghanistan was simply to establish a route for oil and/or gas from the Caspian Sea oil fields through Pakistan to a salt water port to the South, and oil and/or gas pipelines from these same fields to China.
(http://www.worldpress.org/specials/pp/pipelines.htm)
Iraq
Iraq was invaded simply to gain control of its massive oil reserves and Iraq's Central Bank. When Saddam Hussein said this, the Elite's puppet news media scoff at him, and keep on demanding that the reason was to destroy his weapons of mass destruction.
Is it a coincidence that President Bush I and II, and Vice President Cheney are from the oil industry? In fact, Bush I was partners with Saddam Hussein in the oil business before the Gulf War.
Skull & Bones Society
One stepping stone into these secret societies is the Skull & Bones Society at Yale University, as well depicted in the movie "The Skulls". The 1995 edition of Who's Who of the Elite names all of the members of this shadow government, and reveals where they work, the secret societies that they belong to, and their job titles, so that you can see the stranglehold that they have on our federal government, the mainstream news media, industry, labor unions, universities, foundations, the Supreme Court, and all facets of the financial world. Senator Prescot Bush, President G.H.W. Bush and President G.W. Bush were all members of the Skull & Bones Society, a stepping stone into the main secret societies.
Freedom of the Press
BILL of Rights - 1st Amendment
Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
So, Congress cannot destroy freedom of the press, but the Elite can, and have done so since the beginning of the twentieth century. If they are to be successful in establishing their New World Order, or Global Union, in enhancing their wealth and securing this wealth, they must maintain absolute secrecy concerning their organizations and activities. Therefore they must control the newspapers, news magazines and the television networks. Then, they must swear all their members to absolute secrecy. They can easily enforce this secrecy by threatening, or implying threats of, financial ruin to, and character destruction of, anyone who divulges the contents of any of their meetings, or discussing their activities.
Article II of the by-laws of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) states: “It is an express condition of membership in the Council, to which condition every member accedes by virtue of his or her membership, that members will observe such rules, and regulations as may be prescribed from time to time by the Board of Directors concerning the conduct of Council meetings or the attribution of statements made therein, and that any disclosure, public, or other action by a member in contravention thereof may be regarded by the Board of Directors in its sole discretion as grounds for termination or suspension of membership pursuant to Article I of the by-laws.”
Is it not surprising then that the anchors of all of the major television networks remember this by-law very vividly as they report the daily "news". Members of the secret societies who bring us this "news" are: Peter Jennings (BB), Dianne Sawyer (Director of CFR '98-99), Garrick Utley (Dir. of CFR '93-), Barbara Walters (CFR), George Will (TC), Lesley Stahl (CFR), Ed Bradley (CFR), Marvin Kalb (CFR), Dan Rather (CFR), Jesse Jackson (CFR), Bernard Kalb (CFR), Frank Sesno (CFR), Tom Brokaw (CFR), John Chancellor (CFR), Elizabeth Drew (CFR), Bill Moyers (BB), George Stephanopolos (BB, CFR), Michael Beschloss (CFR), and Paula Zahn (CFR). Other prominent Elite in TV who are/were: Roone Arledge (CFR), Laurence Tisch (CFR), Thomas Wyman (CFR), Thomas Murphy (CFR), David Brinkley (CFR), Carl Zelnick (CFR), Barbara Cochran (CFR), Roland Evans (CFR), Joan Richman (CFR), Joan Cooney (CFR), Wyatt Johnson (CFR, TC), Carl T. Rowan (TC), Jane Pfeiffer (CFR), Herbert Schlosser (CFR), Robert Frederick (CFR), Sharon Rockefeller (CFR), and Michael Eisner (CFR). You can find out who else in the mainstream news media belong to the secret groups, BB, CFR and TC, in our first book, "Who's Who of the Elite".
Neither Sam Donaldson, nor Cokie Roberts (ABC's This Week, Sundays) were members of the CFR, so to make sure that they had control, the Elite replaced them with George Stephanopolos (BB, CFR). Now we see more members of the CFR on this show, such as Robin Wright (CFR) and George Will (TC).
An example of how the Elite deny us the facts was during the 32nd Washington Conference of the Council of the Americas, held May 5 - 7, 2002. I was watching CNN at the beginning of the hour when they show brief 1-2 second snippits of what will be covered in the following hour. On this occasion they showed David Rockefeller shaking Secretary of State Colin Powell's hand after introducing him as the next speaker. I watched CNN for the next 3-4 hours without seeing this event being covered. Some CNN executive saw this on his TV monitor, and probably ran to the control room and told them NOT to show this event. All mainstream news media have been carefully instructed to NEVER cover any event that David Rockefeller, or the Rothschild family are involved in. Now, I ask - why is this?
You can read Colin Powell's speech at: http://207.21.242.176/coa/events/2002-PowellSpeech.html
Voting Scams
Our current voting procedures are a sham. In an effort to speed up the vote counting process (or so "they" would like you to believe), they have, in most instances, gone to computer assisted voting. Once the votes have been digitized, they are easily manipulated, and in most cases a recount is impossible. Is this how the Elite have controlled the White House, The Senate and the House of Representatives. Is this by accident, or was this accomplished by rigging the voting process?
(http://truthout.com/docs_02/09.21G.landes.crooks.htm)
Senator Paul Wellstone's Death
Was Senator Paul Wellstone's death an accident? Many, including some members of Congress, are concerned. If you have not learned it by now, there are many in our elected offices who will do ANYTHING to reach their goals, or to protect their interests.
(http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/0012/0044.html), (http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2000/12/irp-001201-col.htm), (http://www.counterpunch.org/pipermail/counterpunch-list/2000-December/004162), (http://www.americas.org/news/nir/20001210_herbicide_douses_u_s_senator.asp)
Legislative Oversight
Many of our nation’s problems are caused by the lack of adequate Legislative oversight. This failing has gotten worse since around 1975 (when David Rockefeller became Chairman of the CFR), and regardless of which party is in control. Below are my suggestions of what they should be investigating:
1. Great Depression of 1929 - The Federal Reserve System deliberately caused the ’29 depression by manipulating the U.S. money supply. From 1915 to early 1929, the money supply was very loose. You could get a loan to do almost anything. The Standard & Poor’s Index followed the same pattern during this same period. Both went into free-fall from ’29 to ’33. The Fed drastically tightened the money supply, and loans were almost unavailable, resulting in a panic. Unable to pay their massive debts, many committed suicide. Those who try to cover for the Fed say that the depression was caused by the Glass-Spiegal Act, which is far from the truth.
2. The Attack on Pearl Harbor - President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew that the Japanese Navy was heading for Hawaii twelve days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and he failed to warn the military leaders stationed on this island. His purpose was to create an excuse to declare war against Japan during WW-II.
Source – Gregory Douglas, author of "Gestapo Chief".
3. The Vietnam War – The U.S. State Dept. said that at 3:40 a.m. EDT (3:40 p.m. Saigon time), August 2, 1964, the destroyer Maddox, on patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin, reported that it was "being approached by high speed craft with apparent intention of torpedo attack. Intend open fire in necessary self defense." (Message 020740Z to Commander Seventh Fleet; Department of State, Vietnam Working Group Files: Lot 72 D 219, DeSoto Patrols, August) Twenty-seven minutes later, the Maddox reported that it was being attacked by three North Vietnamese patrol craft and had opened fire. (Message 020807Z to Commander Seventh Fleet; ibid.) In the ensuing engagement, the Maddox and aircraft from the U.S.S. Ticonderoga damaged two of the patrol craft, which retreated to the North, and left one dead in the water. Reports on the incident reached Washington shortly after 4 a.m. U. S. military escalation was justified on the basis of the Gulf of Tonkin attack against U. S. ships. We know today that this incident was fabricated purely to deceive the American people in order to win their support for additional military action. Expert witnesses – 1970–1971 Emmy Award winning, CBS’s "60 Minutes" anchor, Morley Safer and his producer, Joe Wershba, blew the whistle on the phony Gulf of Tonkin attack tale, the start of the domino effect in Vietnam.
4. Operation Northwoods – March 13, 1962, L. L. Limnitzer, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, proposed that a bevy of lies be spread upon the U.S. public to justify the invasion of Cuba. Typical lies that were to be spread:
“….We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.
…We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in Cuba waters
….We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. …We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). ….Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement…
…Use of MIG type aircraft by US pilots could provide additional provocation. Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type planes would be useful as complimentary actions. An F-86 properly painted would convince air passengers that they saw a Cuban MIG, especially if the pilot of the transport were to announce such fact.
… Hijacking attempts against civil air and surface craft could appear to continue as harassing measures condoned by the government of Cuba.
… It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil aircraft…”
Luckily, this plan was shot down by President Kennedy before it could take place, but this was a clear example of the top military commander at the time, Limnitzer, losing control of his senses and risking war with the Russians. Source – James Bamford, author of "Body of Secrets".
5. Assassination of President John F. Kennedy – This tragic murder directly involved Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and many other prominent men of the time. The Warren Commission was used to keep Congress from doing it’s own investigation.
Source – Robert Gaylon Ross, Sr., author of The Elite Serial Killers of Lincoln, JFK, RFK & MLK.
6. Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy – Those involved in the JFK killing were also involved in this murder. Lyndon Johnson made sure that Congress looked the other way on this one as well.
Source – Robert Gaylon Ross, Sr., author of The Elite Serial Killers of Lincoln, JFK, RFK & MLK.
7. The assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. – The same people who planned the killings of the Kennedy brothers were also directly involved in the murder of King. J. Edgar Hoover’s efforts were exposed by the Senator Frank Church Select Committee to Study Government Operations in 1976, which laid out Hoover’s and the FBI’s efforts to discredit MLK. Source – Robert Gaylon Ross, Sr., author of The Elite Serial Killers of Lincoln, JFK, RFK & MLK.
8. The Gulf War – Ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam Hussein - “But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” This was President George Herbert Walker Bush’s direct invitation for Iraq to invade Kuwait, so that he could become a hero by saving Kuwait and Saudi Arabia from the invading Iraq army.
"THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL" SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1990, quoted from the transcripts of the meeting between Hussein and Glaspie.
9. War with Yugoslavia – The Elite needed to change the government of Yugoslavia so that they could run pipelines from the Caspian Sea oil fields to the West to a salt water port.
Source - William F. Hagel, author of "The Hidden History of the War Against Yugoslavia".
10. War in Afghanistan – The Elite needed to change the government of Afghanistan so that they could run pipelines from the Caspian Sea oil fields to China, and South to a salt water port, without going through Iran. The wars in both Yugoslavia and Afghanistan were necessary to protect the interests of big oil, big banking, money laundering, and illegal drug trafficking. They also wanted to take over the Central Bank of Afghanistan, which they immediately did after the U.S. invasion. Equally important was the need to remove the Taliban, which had outlawed the growing of opium plants. Just prior to the U.S. invasion the production of opium was headed to zero. Immediately after this invasion, production was resumed.
11. The 9-11 attacks on America - There is no evidence (yet) that the Elite were directly involved in the 9-11 attacks, but they certainly have used this event to destroy our Bill of Rights and Constitution. Perhaps some day in the future someone who was directly involved in these attacks will have a major attack of guilty conscience and spill the beans. That is unless they can kill him/her before the beans are spilt.
12. Executive Orders – The powers of the Presidency have been greatly enhanced through the use of Executive Orders, to the great loss of control by Congress. Laws must originate in Congress, not the White House. Perhaps one day Congress will regain the courage required to stop the use of Executive orders to enact laws.
13. The Secret Elite have taken over the U.S. – Members of the Bilderbergs, Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission have quietly taken over almost all key positions within our government, the news media, the Labor Unions, academia, banking, foundations, industry, and on and on. Their goal is to subvert the Bill of Rights and Constitution, to destroy the sovereignty of this nation, and to bring it under the control of the Global Union. Those who participate in this conspiracy are committing Treason.
"Today Americans would be outraged if U. N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." - Henry Kissinger in an address to the Bilderberg Conference at Evian, France, May 21, 1992. Transcribed from a tape recording made by one of the Swiss delegates. Henry Kissinger has attended most of the Bilderberg Conferences, and is a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Trilateral Commission.
It is absolutely necessary that both houses of Congress hold extensive hearings on the above, as soon as possible, and before the United States becomes the second phase of Globalization - the American Union.
Treason
The definition of Treason is: The offense of attempting to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance, or of betraying the state into the hands of a foreign power.
Before the federal elected officials take office, they must first swear the following oath: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of ___________________, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States.
Therefore, anyone who is a federally elected official, and who violates this oath is very simply committing absolute TREASON. Then, if all of the above is true, then we have hundreds within our federal government who are very clearly committing treason. Why is nobody charging them with treason? Why don't you ask your elected officials this question.
Quotes That You Should Remember
The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushes its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, 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
History records that the money-changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent plans possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money, and its issuance. - James Madison
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the republic is destroyed. The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency, and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government, and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principals, the taxpayers will be saving immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master, and become the servant of humanity. - Abraham Lincoln
If Congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations. - Andrew Jackson
The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astonishing piece of slight of hand ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity, and born in sin. Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again. Take this great power away from them, and all great fortunes like mine will disappear. And, they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue to be the slaves of the bankers, and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money, and control credit. - Sir John Stamp (former governor of the Bank of England)
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. . . . These United States of America can never be destroyed from forces outside its borders. If America falls, it will fall from within. Brought down by apathy. When good people do nothing, Anarchy reigns.
- Abraham Lincoln in a 1854 letter to Congress
We the people are the rightful masters of Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution. - Abraham Lincoln
The aim of socialism is not only to abolish the present division of mankind into small states, and all national isolation, not only to bring the nations closer to each other, but also to merge them. The merging of states is inevitable.
- Lenin in his Imperialism and the Right to Self-determination
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. – Ephesians (6: 12)
Expose the works of darkness. - Ephesians (5:11)
With this knowledge, you will be better prepared to interpret the news media's reporting, and the governments actions as time moves on toward the completion of the American Union.
Financial Terrorism In America: How The Economic Elite Made Off With $46 Trillion
By David De Graw
Analysis of Financial Terrorism in America
Part One :: The Economic Devastation
Part Two :: The Economic Elite
V :: How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have?
VI :: Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1%
VII :: Tax Breaks For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Rest Of Us
Part Three :: The Perfect Storm Overhead
(Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest = Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation)
Part Four :: Fascism in America
Abstract :: Welcome to World War III
Despite increasing personal financial hardship, most Americans remain unaware of the economic world war currently unfolding. An all-pervasive corporate and government propaganda campaign has effectively obscured this blatant reality. After extensive analysis, it is evident that World War III is a war between the richest one-tenth of one percent of the global population and 99.9 percent of humanity. Or, as I have called it, The Economic Elite Vs. The People. This war has been a one-sided attack thus far. However, as we have seen throughout the world in recent months, the people are beginning to fight back. The following report is a statistical analysis of the systemic economic attacks against the American people.
The American public has sustained intensive economic attacks across broad segments of the population. While the attacks have been increasingly severe in scale over the past four years, they have been implemented with technocratic precision. They have been incrementally applied thus far, successfully keeping the population passive and avoiding any large-scale civilian unrest, while effectively reducing living standards for the majority of the population. As you will see in this report, the 55 million Americans that have been hit the hardest have thus far acquiesced due to temporary financial assistance, such as food stamps and extended unemployment benefits.
The global Economic Elite have been much more strategic in handling the American public, as they are potentially the greatest threat to their continued consolidation of wealth, resources and power. National populations that are not as powerful, and on the periphery of the Economic Elite’s global empire, have been dealt with in much harsher fashion. In many smaller and less powerful countries the dramatic rise in food prices and costs of living have led to all-out revolt — Tunisia, Algeria, Albania and Egypt were among the first to rebel. While the contagion of rebellion has rapidly spread throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East, it is also spreading in a decentralized manner throughout most of the world, now threatening popular rebellion throughout Europe. Like the US population, the geographically clustered European nations represent a potentially powerful countervailing force to the Economic Elite’s continued domination.
Within the United States, the technocratic suppression of the population has been extensive. Increasingly severe economic and governmental policies have systematically eroded civilian wealth, power and rights. Intensive propaganda has effectively distracted, confused, isolated, marginalized and divided the US population. Despite the success of these efforts thus far, given the severe, prolonged, unsustainable and escalating level of economic suffering, outbreaks of civil unrest are inevitable. The US population, if a critical mass is reached, represents the greatest threat to the Economic Elite. In this regard, the American people are their primary adversary.
In writing this report, I will clearly demonstrate the severity and scale of the deliberate systemic economic attacks against the US population, in hope that we can urgently build a critical mass of aware and engaged citizens.
Part One :: The Economic Devastation
Snapshot: According to most recent Census Bureau data, from 2005 – 2009, average US household wealth declined by 28%. This represents a loss of $27,000 per household. Currently, at least 62 million Americans, 20% of US households, have zero or negative net worth.
The Census figures cited above are based on statistics that have been consistently proven to be lowball estimates. The government and corporate media spread propaganda on vital economic statistics that mask the severity of our economic crisis. Deceptive inflation, unemployment, poverty and GDP measures, which cast the illusion of recovery, are easily exposed with some research and a closer look at the data. Throughout this report, we will explore significant examples of government economic propaganda. In several cases, the government has been forced to revise their numbers due to proven inaccuracies. The government’s “revisions” are most always for the worse, and are usually just a footnote correction that the public is rarely ever aware of. All that being said, for many statistics we are forced to use government data, as there are not any other extensive data sets available from alternative sources.
The Census Bureau poverty rate is a horribly flawed measurement that uses outdated methodology. The Census measures poverty based on costs of living metrics established in 1955 – 56 years ago. They ignore many key factors, such as the increased costs of medical care, child care, education, transportation, and many other basic costs. They also don’t factor geographically-based costs of living. The National Academy of Science measure, which gets little if any corporate media coverage, gives a much more accurate account of poverty, as they factor in these vital cost of living variables.
The most current Census data revealed that 43.6 million Americans, 14.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009. While that is a staggering number that represents the highest number of American people to ever live in poverty, and a dramatic increase of four million people since 2008, it significantly under-counted the total. Last year, in my analysis, extrapolating data from 2008 National Academy of Science findings, I estimated that the number of Americans living in poverty in 2009 was at least 52 million. Recently, the National Academy of Science released their latest findings, backing up my claim by revealing that 52,765,000 Americans, 17.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009.
The poverty rate for children is even worse. According to Census data, a total of 15.5 million American children lived in poverty in 2009, which is 20% of all children. The number of children in poverty increased 28% since 2000, and jumped 10% from 2008 to 2009. Extrapolating data from the 2009 National Academy of Science poverty rate, in relation to the Census childhood poverty data, the number of American children living in poverty in 2009 is more accurately 18.8 million, which is 24%, or nearly one in four.
Other than this rapidly increasing number children who are in families that have recently fallen into poverty, “every day in America 2,573 babies are born into poverty.”
As the chart to the right shows, even with the lower Census numbers, nine major American cities have a poverty rate over 25%.
It is important to note, based on many key indicators, as you will see throughout this report, the overall poverty totals have increased since 2009. Also consider that the recent deficit reduction plan is going to cut “anti-poverty” programs that currently assist tens of millions of Americans. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that “the poverty rate would double without these programs.” It is predicted that the new deficit deal will cut the funding for these programs in half, which, based on these estimates, would bring the total number of Americans living in poverty up to 80 million people, 26% of the population.
II :: Record Breaking Food Insecurity
For another revealing statistic, which has been quickly increasing, we can look at the number of Americans currently surviving off of food stamps. 
In 2005, 25.7 million Americans needed food stamps, currently 45.8 million people rely on them. As the chart to the right shows, the number of people in need of food stamps has been rapidly increasing year-over-year.
Meanwhile, Congress is cutting the funding for the food stamp program at a time when the Department of Agriculture estimates that an additional 22.5 million people will need them, bringing the total number of Americans in need of food assistance to a stunning 68.3 million people.
III :: Record Breaking Unemployment
While the “official” unemployment rate hovers around 9%, 14 million people, the government’s numbers are deceptively low once again. The only reason unemployment has stayed below 10% for the past few months is because millions of long-term unemployed, and part-time workers who are looking for full-time work, are not included in the baseline government unemployment rate. John Williams, from ShadowStats.com, has a consistently proven method of tracking unemployment that provides a much more accurate view of the overall situation. As shocking as it may sound, when you apply his SGS method, counting the total number people in need of employment, you get a current unemployment rate of 22.5%, which is an all-time record total of 34 million people currently in need of work. Here is how the SGS rate is calculated:
“The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.”
On top of these shocking figures, the labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the total population currently working, has fallen to a 27-year low of 63.9%.
Currently, an all-time record 6.3 million people have been unemployed for over six months. As the chart to the right shows, the average time it takes for a person to find a job has also just hit an all-time high of 40.4 weeks. 
As companies continue to downsize and shift jobs overseas, unemployment is once again accelerating. Private-sector job cuts in July surged 60% to a 16-month high. When accounting for population growth within the total labor force, from December 2007 to present, we have lost 10.6 million jobs.
With the implementation of state and federal budget cuts, public-sector unemployment is accelerating as well. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, since August 2008, state and local governments have cut 577,000 jobs. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that cuts in the new deficit deal will lead to an additional 1.8 million job losses.
Of the new jobs that have been added in 2010, 60% of them are in low-wage fields. Since December 2007, the official unemployment rate has masked the fact that 2.8 million of the news jobs created have been part-time jobs.
Breaking down the data, over the last 12 months, the National Employment Law Project found that well-paying jobs are rapidly decreasing, while low-paying jobs are helping to mask an increasingly dire employment crisis:
· Lower-wage industries constituted 23% of job loss, but fully 49% of recent growth
· Mid-wage industries constituted 36% of job loss, and 37% of recent growth
· Higher-wage industries constituted 40% of job loss, but only 14% of recent growth
When considering the effects of unemployment, to the human devastation of joblessness, it is important to consider the terrible emotional and psychological effects of such unemployment. Such effects are well-documented, but rarely mentioned in articles or blog postings.
A well-regarded 2010 study by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, “The Anguish of Unemployment,” quantified the tremendous emotional suffering engendered by unemployment. “‘The lack of income and loss of health benefits hurts greatly, but losing the ability to provide for my wife and myself is killing me emotionally,’ wrote one respondent to the survey.” (See PDF for Powerpoint presentation of results.)
Just last April, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a study that showed that suicide rates rise and fall in tandem with the business cycle. The study covered the years 1928-2007. According to the CDC press release:
The overall suicide rate rises and falls in connection with the economy, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study released online today by the American Journal of Public Health. The study, “Impact of Business Cycles on the U.S. Suicide Rates, 1928–2007″ is the first to examine the relationships between age-specific suicide rates and business cycles. The study found the strongest association between business cycles and suicide among people in prime working ages, 25-64 years old.
“Knowing suicides increased during economic recessions and fell during expansions underscores the need for additional suicide prevention measures when the economy weakens,” said James Mercy, Ph.D., acting director of CDC’s Injury Center’s Division of Violence Prevention. “It is an important finding for policy makers and those working to prevent suicide.”
“After unemployment, symptoms of somatization, depression, and anxiety were significantly greater in the unemployed than employed.” — Effects of unemployment on mental and physical health. American Journal of Public Health, May 1985.
“Controlling for a number of individual characteristics, unemployed individuals are found to suffer significantly higher odds of experiencing a marked rise in anxiety, depression and loss of confidence and a reduction in self-esteem and the level of general happiness even compared with individuals in low-paid employment. This finding highlights the involuntary nature of unemployment.” — “The effects of low-pay and unemployment on psychological well-being: A logistic regression approach.” Journal of Health Economics, January 1998.
“Unemployment was associated with an increased risk of suicide and death from undetermined causes. Low education, personality characteristics, use of sleeping pills or tranquilizers, and serious or long-lasting illness tended to strengthen the association between unemployment and early mortality.” — “Unemployment and Early Cause-Specific Mortality: A Study Based on the Swedish Twin Registry.” American Journal of Public Health, January 2004.
“Unemployed individuals had lower psychological and physical well-being than did their employed counterparts.” — “Psychological and Physical Well-Being During Unemployment: A Meta-Analytic Study.” Journal of Applied Psychology, Jan. 2005.
“SPRC conducted a literature review of relevant research published in the past two decades. The review shows that a strong relationship exists between unemployment, the economy, and suicide. A common “chain of adversity” can begin with job loss and move toward depression through financial strain and loss of personal control. In fact, this chain leads to myriad financial, social, health and mental health outcomes—all of them negative. The most common (but by no means the only) mental health outcome is depression, which significantly increases suicide risk. The associated financial outcomes (such as mortgage foreclosures and loss of retirement security) have not been researched with respect to suicide. However, the potential link is that for vulnerable individuals, losses (whether real or anticipated) that result in humiliation, shame, or despair can trigger suicide attempts.” — “Relationship between the Economy, Unemployment and Suicide.” Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC), November 2008.
“There was a strong independent association between suicide and individuals who were unemployed (odds ratio 2.6; 95% confidence interval 2.0 to 3.4) and permanently sick (2.5; 1.6 to 4.0)…. The association between suicide and unemployment is more important than the association with other socioeconomic measures.” — “Suicide, deprivation, and unemployment: record linkage study.” British Medical Journal, Nov. 1998.
“Socioeconomic events are known to produce important fluctuations in suicide mortality. Unemployment, in particular, seems related to suicide risk along direct and indirect pathways. Blakely and co- workers’ paper in this issue adds to evidence indicating a causal association between unemployment and suicide. Their results indicate that this association is not attributable to confounding factors linked to the socioeconomic status and that it is only partly related to health selection or mental disorders.” — “Unemployment and Suicide.” Journal of Epidemiological Community Health, 2003.
Anemic Jobs Help from Washington Assures More Suffering
According to news reports, President Barack Obama has announced that he will be proposing in September a “jobs package” meant to stimulate job growth. The program, which reportedly will include yet more tax cuts, along with some infrastructure spending, appears yet another tepid approach to a problem that is seriously affecting millions of people. In fact, the government has sat and twiddled its thumbs while millions have languished in despair.
Unemployment is deadly. The effects of the capitalist boom-and-bust system seriously damage millions of lives. But with an almost daily bombast of propaganda about terrorism, the populace lives in fear, while wondering how they will make their bills, ground down between anxiety over ghostly terrorists and eviction, or how to put gas in their car, or afford a bus pass. Hopelessness stalks the land, not Al Qaeda. And yet the politicians in D.C. care little or nothing about the suffering their policies cause. Indeed, their pockets are lined with campaign donations from corporations that routinely layoff hundreds of thousands, and ship many thousands more jobs overseas.
Callous disregard for human lives is what links the terrible policies of war and torture with the policies of neglect and indifference towards the jobless. Such callousness is the by-product of a get-rich-quick ethos that worships profit over all else, over worship of a capitalist system that has brought about terrible world wars, massive depressions, colonial atrocities, and even genocide. U.S. society awaits its turn through the meat-grinder of history.
Meanwhile, the politicians only care about getting re-elected. Indeed, the blogosphere is too infected with following the minutiae of the fake political campaigns, while daily, minute by minute, people’s lives are destroyed. Somewhere today, perhaps while you were reading this, someone has taken their life because they felt useless, with no hope of gainful employment, their self-esteem ground down, the sense of meaning and connection severed by redundancy and societal disconnection.
We need dramatic, radical change in this country, and we need it now. For many thousands, however, it will come too late. How many more individual lives, how many more families lives will be shattered by mental illness and suicide due to joblessness? The right to a job is the most fundamental of human rights.
While the cost of living from 1990 – 2010 increased by 67%, worker income has declined. According to the most recent available IRS data, covering the year of 2009, average income fell 6.1%, a loss of $3,516 per worker, that year alone. Average income has declined 13.7% from 2007 – 2009, representing a $8,588 loss per worker.
The decline in worker income is due to the dramatic increase in CEO pay. CEO pay has consistently increased year-over-year since the mid-1970s. From 1975 – 2010, worker productivity increased 80%. Over this time frame, CEO pay and the income of the economic top 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of the population quadrupled. The income of the top 0.01% (one-hundredth of one percent) quintupled.
To understand the affect CEO pay increases have had on workers’ declining share of income on an annual basis, after analyzing 2008 tax data, leading tax reporter David Cay Johnston summed up the situation with these revealing statistics:
“Had income growth from 1950 to 1980 continued at the same rate for the next 28 years, the average income of the bottom 90 percent in 2008 would have been 68 percent higher…. That would have meant an average income for the vast majority of $52,051, or $21,110 more than actual 2008 incomes. How different America would be today if the typical family had $406 more each week…”
As shocking as that is, over the last two years, workers have lost an even higher share of income to CEOs. In the last year alone, CEO pay skyrocketed by 28%. Looking at 2009, according to a recent Dollars & Sense report, workers lost nearly $2 trillion in wages that year alone:
“In 2009, stock owners, bankers, brokers, hedge-fund wizards, highly paid corporate executives, corporations, and mid-ranking managers pocketed—as either income, benefits, or perks such as corporate jets—an estimated $1.91 trillion that 40 years ago would have collectively gone to non-supervisory and production workers in the form of higher wages and benefits.”
As bad as these numbers are, consider that the attack on American workers has increased significantly since 2009. From 2009 to the fourth-quarter of 2010, 88% of income growth went to corporate profits (i.e. CEOs), while just 1% went to workers.
As the NY Times reported in an article entitled, “Our Banana Republic,” from 1980 – 2005, “more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.” Again, as bad as that was, since 2005 it has gotten even worse, as Zero Hedge recently reported, labor’s current “share of national income has fallen to its lowest level in modern history.” This chart shows how workers’ percentage of income has been rapidly declining:
The bottom line, as statistics clearly demonstrate, these trends are getting worse and the attacks against us, as severe as they have been over the past four years, are dramatically escalating.
Part Two :: The Economic Elite
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class,
the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
– Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire HathawayV :: How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have?
While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90% of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level. According to an extensive study by auditing and financial advisory firm Deloitte, US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth. On top of the $38.6 trillion that this study reveals, they have an estimated $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts.
In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper one-tenth of one percent of the population.
If all this isn’t obscene enough, to further demonstrate how the global economy has now been completely rigged, Deloitte’s analysis predicated, based on current trends, that US millionaire households will see a 225% increase in wealth to $87.1 trillion by 2020. Accounting for wealth hidden in offshore accounts, they are projected to have over $100 trillion in total within the next decade.
Most people cannot even comprehend how much $1 trillion is, let alone $46 trillion. One trillion is equal to 1000 billion, or $1,000,000,000,000. To put it in perspective, last year the entire cost of feeding all 40 million Americans on food stamps was $65 billion.
Now consider, according to the latest IRS data, only 0.076% of the population, less than one-tenth of one percent, earned over $1 million in 2009.
The graph below, based on data from the Tax Policy Center, shows how much income is earned by a household at any given percentile in income distribution:
The highest bracket for annual income is $50 million or more. Only 74 Americans are in this elite group. The average income within this category was $91.2 million in 2008. As astonishing as that is, in 2009 they averaged $518.8 million each, or about $10 million per week. This means, in the depths of the recession, the richest 74 Americans increased their income by more than 5 times within this one year. These 74 people made more money than 19 million workers combined.
In context, overall, the richest 400 people in the US have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50% of the entire country. The top economic 1% of the US population now has a record 40% of all wealth, and have more wealth than 90% of the population combined.
VI :: Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1%
Here is an analysis from an investment manager with mega-wealthy clients breaking down the economic top 0.5% of the population, recently published by William Domhoff, sociology professor and author of Who Rules America?:
“Unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence legislation in the US. They have access to the very best in accounting firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and many other benefits.
Folks in the top 0.1% come from many backgrounds but it’s infrequent to meet one whose wealth wasn’t acquired through direct or indirect participation in the financial and banking industries…. Most of the serious economic damage the US is struggling with today was done by the top 0.1% and they benefited greatly from it…. For example, in Q1 of 2011, America’s top corporations reported 31% profit growth and a 31% reduction in taxes, the latter due to profit outsourcing to low tax rate countries…. The year 2010 was a record year for compensation on Wall Street, while corporate CEO compensation rose by over 30%.…
In 2010 a dozen major companies, including GE, Verizon, Boeing, Wells Fargo, and Fed Ex paid US tax rates between -0.7% and -9.2%. Production, employment, profits, and taxes have all been outsourced….
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the US financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the US political and legislative processes.
They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%….
… the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.”
To get into the top economic 0.01% (one-hundredth of one percent) of the population, you have to have a household income of over $27 million per year.
If you look at some of the central players who caused this economic crisis, you will see that they are among this Economic Elite group.
Former Goldman Sachs CEO and Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had already amassed at least $700 million prior to moving to the US Treasury in 2006. Current Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and a few other top executives at Goldman Sachs just received $111.3 million in bonuses. Blankfein just took home $24.3 million, as part of a $67.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s President Gary Cohn took home $24 million, as part of a $66.9 million bonus he was awarded. Goldman’s CFO David Viniar and former co-president Jon Winkelried both took home over $20 million in bonuses.
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit just took home $80 million, in what may eventually total more than $200 million in compensation and bonuses. Coming in at the top of the list is JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who just took home $90 million.
If you think people in this income level don’t control the US political process, you are not paying attention. After they caused this economic crisis, they got the government to give them trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, and then, after taking our tax dollars, they gave themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses. 2009 was an all-time record-breaking year for Wall Street executives bringing in a total of $145 billion. And then, in 2010, they raised the bar even higher, breaking the all-time record set the year before by pulling in another $149 billion. The audacity of it all is stunning.
Finding people more grotesquely greedy than Wall Street executives would seem to be impossible. However, health insurance CEOs are giving them a run for their money. As the LA Times reported:
“Leaders of Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth, WellPoint and Aetna received nearly $200 million in compensation in 2009, according to a report, while the companies sought rate increases as high as 39%….
H. Edward Hanway, former chief executive of Philadelphia-based Cigna, topped the list of high-paid executives, thanks to a retirement package worth $110.9 million. Cigna paid Hanway and his successor, David Cordani, a total of $136.3 million last year….
Ron Williams, the CEO of Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc., earned nearly $18.2 million in total compensation, down from $24.4 million in 2008.”
Aetna CEO Ron Williams has recovered from his down year in 2009 by making $72 million in 2010.
Given this level of obscene profiteering within the health care industry, it is not surprising that Americans pay more for medical care than any other nation in the world. In fact, Americans are forced to pay twice as much as most nations, and get lower quality care in return. As health insurance companies admitted, they have been reaping windfall profits because people with health insurance plans still cannot afford to go to the doctors and have stopped going unless it is an absolute emergency. With well over 50 million people unable to afford health insurance and the skyrocketing costs, it is not surprising that over 60% of all personal bankruptcies are the result of medical bills. In fact, 75% of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have health insurance.
Within this Economic Elite group, you also have the war profiteering oil companies, which themselves are in large part owned by the big Wall Street banks. The biggest five oil companies, while gas prices have been skyrocketing, reaped $36 billion in profit last quarter. These companies also receive an average of $6 billion per year in tax subsidies.
VII :: Tax Breaks For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Rest Of Us
To further demonstrate how the mega-wealthy have seized control our political process, consider that the richest 400 Americans paid 30% of their income in taxes in 1995, but they now pay only 18%.
In fact, 1,470 Americans earned over $1 million in 2009 and didn’t pay any taxes.
The average tax rate for millionaires was 22.4% in 2009, down from 30.4% in 1995. The average millionaire saves $136,000 a year due to reduced tax rates.
Looking at the tax rate from a long-term perspective, the amount of money the richest people and most profitable corporations pay in taxes has fallen dramatically since 1955. Corporate tax accounted for 27.3% of federal revenue in 1955. In 2010, corporate tax accounted for only 8.9% of federal revenue. Corporate taxes accounted for 4.3% of overall GDP in 1955, in 2010 they accounted for only 1.3%.
Part Three :: The Perfect Storm Overhead:
(Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest = Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation)
The cuts in taxes for the mega-wealthy have led to record wealth inequality and resulted in a record national deficit. Meanwhile, to make up for the deficit that the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population has created, Democrats and Republicans are committed to making draconian budget cuts to vital social services, which target the poor, middle class, elderly and sick, while handing out billions more in corporate welfare annually. (Inequality = Debt = Austerity)
Just as the government has done, to make up for tax revenue lost to the mega-wealthy, Americans have made up for the decline in income by taking on large amounts of debt as well. (Inequality = Debt)
In a severely unequal society, massive debt will always be created, thus forming a vicious cycle of increasing inequality and increasing debt, until the fragmentation of society reaches a breaking point when those in debt cannot afford to pay back their debts without starving to death. We are now reaching that breaking point. (Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest)
The Indentured Servant Has Become The Indebted Citizen
As for statistics on Americans being buried in financial debt, the indentured servant has evolved into the indebted citizen. As mentioned before, from 1990 – 2010 costs of living have increased 67%, while wages have stagnated and declined. As the national debt has reached a record $14.6 trillion, total personal debt is now over $16 trillion. Consumer debt is $2.5 trillion. Credit card debt is $805 billion and student debt now exceeds $1 trillion.
Obviously, the more severe your debts are, the more you have to cut back in spending and the less money you have to buy new items. (Debt = Austerity)
Meanwhile, a perfect storm circles overhead as society breaks down and falls into an economic death spiral – health care, food and gas costs are skyrocketing, while income and home values are plummeting. (Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation)
Given these conditions, it is not surprising that over 250 million Americans, another record-breaking number, are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck struggling to make ends meet.
The following charts, from Advisor Perspectives, show the increase in costs of living since 2000:
As you can see, the price of basic necessities are consistently increasing, only clothing (apparel) has declined. The second chart highlights the crucial skyrocketing cost of energy:
The third chart highlights the pernicious skyrocketing cost of education:
The cost of education essentially buries a young person in a debt that they will spend a significant portion of their life attempting to get out of. Given the increasing costs of living, and the decreasing ability to make an expected income from such an expensive level of education, this young demographic will most likely live an entire life locked into spiraling levels of debt that they will never be able to get out of.
Propaganda Inflation
When reporting on inflation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has twice, since 1980, revised their methodology to mask the severity of inflation, similar to how they mask the severity of unemployment. In their Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation, they have heavily discounted the measurement weight of energy, food and education – three of the most significant costs for most American households.
To understand the significance in their revised methodology, current “official” CPI is at a 3.6% annual rate. However, if calculated the way it was before former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan altered it in 1980, it would be 11.1%, three times worse than officially stated.
So while the government and the Federal Reserve claim that inflation is low, at 3.6% over the past year, food prices have increased 39% and US gas prices have increased 34% over the same time frame.
The increase in gas cost over the past one-year masks the severity of total gas price inflation, which is currently 125% more expensive since December 2008, increasing from $1.67 per gallon to $3.75.
The Hidden Tax
The Federal Reserve’s strategic policy known as Quantitative Easing (QE) has been a significant factor in the rising cost of basic necessities by deliberately stimulating inflation, while decreasing the value of the dollar. Looking at their recent QE2 program, the dollar lost 7.5% of its value from January 2010 through March 2010. From August 2010 through March 2010, the dollar lost 17% of its value. To understand how this acts as a hidden tax, consider if you had $10,000 in the bank, over this time frame you would have lost $1700 in purchasing power. So your $10,000 would now be worth $8300. At the same time, the cost of gas and food drastically increased.
The Phantom Recovery
By decreasing the value of the dollar, the Federal Reserve is also inflating the stock market by creating the impression that stock prices are rising, which, when measured in dollars, they have. However, in real terms, their overall value has decreased. To understand how deceptive this strategy has been in giving the appearance of a rising market, instead of measuring overall stock value in dollars, let’s look at their overall value when measured in terms of gold:
Dow/Gold Chart from January 1, 2003 – August 8, 2011
As investor Michael Krieger explains:
“You can see from the chart above the downtrend of stock prices in real terms is completely intact and they have now hit a new low, below the previous low point in March 2009. In fact, although stocks did temporarily rise in real terms from the low in 2009 for the year as a whole, they were still down 5% in real terms. Then last year, stocks were 14% lower in terms of gold. Finally, despite a brief rally early in 2011, stocks in terms of gold are down 23% year-to-date.”
Dollar Vs. Gold
When comparing the value of the dollar to the value of gold, the dollar has lost a stunning 84% of its value since 2000. In 2000, gold was worth $279 per ounce, as of August 8, 2011, gold is $1,725 per ounce. In fact, the dollar continues to fall in value while gold continues to rise.
Stagflation
All these factors together create a perfect storm of stagflation. As 90% of Americans experience income declines, and the value of the dollar declines, the price of necessities are rising, while the one major asset many Americans have, a house, is also declining in value. Already, thanks to declining home values, 28% of US homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their home is currently worth. With 10.4 million American families having lost their homes to foreclosure since 2007, Amherst Securities, a leading broker/dealer focused on mortgage-related investments, estimates that another 10.8 million homes are at risk of default over the next six years. This will obviously continue downward pressure on home values.
Confronted With Severe Financial Hardship, Why Do Americans Remain Passive?
With an unprecedented sum of wealth, tens of trillions of dollars, held within the top one-tenth of one percent of the US population, we now have the highest and most severe inequality of wealth in US history. Not even the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age were as greedy as the modern day Economic Elite.
As famed American philosopher John Dewey once said, “There is no such thing as the liberty or effective power of an individual, group, or class, except in relation to the liberties, the effective powers, of other individuals, groups or classes.”
In The Economic Elite Vs. The People, I reported on the strategic withholding of wealth from 99% of the US population over the past generation. Since the mid-1970s, worker production and wealth creation has exploded. As the statistics throughout this report prove, the dramatic increase in wealth has been almost entirely absorbed by the economic top one-tenth of one percent of the population, with most of it going to the top one-hundredth of one percent.
If you are wondering why a critical mass of people desperately struggling to make ends meet are still not fighting back with overwhelming force and running the mega-wealthy aristocrats out of town, let’s consider two significant factors:
1) People are so busy trying to maintain their current standard of living that their energies are consumed by holding on to the little that they have left.
2) People have very little understanding of how much wealth has been consolidated within the top economic one-tenth of one percent.
Considering the first factor, it is obvious that people have become beaten down psychologically and financially. A report in the Guardian entitled, “Anxiety keeps the super-rich safe from middle-class rage,” suggests that people are so desperate to hold on to what they have that they are too busy looking down to look up: “As psychologists will tell you, fear of loss is more powerful than the prospect of gain. The struggling middle classes look down more anxiously than they look up, particularly in recession and sluggish recovery.”
Considering the second factor, people do not understand how much wealth has been withheld from them. The average person has never personally experienced or seen the excessive wealth and luxury that the mega-rich live in. Wealth inequality has grown so extreme and the wealthy have become so far removed from average society, it is as if the rich exist in some outer stratosphere beyond the comprehension of the average person. As the Guardian report mentioned above also states:
“… having little daily contact with the rich and little knowledge of how they lived, they simply didn’t think about inequality much, or regard the wealthy as direct competitors for resources. As the sociologist Garry Runciman observed: ‘Envy is a difficult emotion to sustain across a broad social distance.’… Even now most underestimate the rewards of bankers and executives. Top pay has reached such levels that, rather like interstellar distances, what the figures mean is hard to grasp.”
In fact, the average American vastly underestimates the severe wealth disparity that we currently have. This survey, featured in the NY Times, reveals that Americans think our society is far more equal than it actually is:
“In a recent survey of Americans, my colleague Dan Ariely and I found that Americans drastically underestimated the level of wealth inequality in the United States. While recent data indicates that the richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth, people estimated that this group owned just 59 percent – believing that total wealth in this country is far more evenly divided among poorer Americans.
What’s more, when we asked them how they thought wealth should be distributed, they told us they wanted an even more equitable distribution, with the richest 20 percent owning just 32 percent of the wealth. This was true of Democrats and Republicans, rich and poor – all groups we surveyed approved of some inequality, but their ideal was far more equal than the current level.”
Here is a chart showing the results from their survey:
The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of US population is unaware of the vast wealth at hand. An entire generation of unprecedented wealth creation has been concealed from 99% of the population for over 35 years. Having never personally experienced or known of this wealth, the average American cannot comprehend what is possible if even a fraction of it was used for the betterment of society as a whole.
In fact, given modern technology and wealth, not a single American citizen should live in poverty. The statistics clearly demonstrate that we now live in a Neo-Feudal society. In comparison to the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population, who are sitting on top of tens of trillions of dollars in wealth, we are modern day serfs, essentially propagandized peasants.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are struggling to get by, while tens of trillions of dollars are consolidated within a small fraction of the population, is a crime against humanity.
The day the average American fully comprehends how much wealth is consolidated within just the top one-tenth of one percent of the population, there will be a massive uprising and all the paid off politicians will be run out of town.
The next time you are stressed out, struggling to make ends meet and pay off your debts, just think about the trillions of dollars sitting in the obscenely bloated pockets of one-tenth of one percent of the population. The first step in overcoming your peasant status is to understand that you are indeed a peasant. This is a bitter pill to swallow and most will prefer to, as they have been conditioned to do, continue on their path of media-induced delusion, denial, apathy and ignorance.
However, I still cling to the hope that once enough people become aware of this hidden and obscured fact, we can have the non-violent revolution we so urgently need. Until then, the rich get richer as a critical mass with increasingly dire economic prospects desperately struggles to make ends meet.
Part Four :: Fascism in America
Other than driving large segments of the American population into poverty, and pushing the majority into massive debt and a state of financial desperation, there is an ever darker side to what is unfolding today. The Economic Elite have turned America into a modern day fascist state.
Fascism is a very powerful word which evokes many strong feelings. People may think that the term cannot be applied to modern day America. However, as Benito Mussolini once summed it up: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” In the early 1900s, the Italians who invented the term fascism also described it as “estato corporativo,” meaning: the corporate state.
Very few Americans would argue the fact that corporations now control our government and have the dominant role in our society. Through a system of legalized bribery – campaign finance, lobbying and the revolving door between Washington and corporations – the most power global corporations dominant the legislative and political process like never before. Senator Huey Long had it right when he warned: “When fascism comes to America, it will come in the form of democracy.”
As President Franklin D. Roosevelt once described fascism: “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes strong than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”
The most blatant modern example of this was the bailout of Wall Street, when the “too big to fail” banks got politicians to promptly hand out trillions of tax dollars in support and subsidies to the very people who caused the crisis, without any of them being held accountable.
Another shocking example of how far we have descended into fascism is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is a group of corporate executives who literally write government legislation. They have gone as far as setting up a system that imprisons the poor and then puts them to work, instead of paying living wages to non-imprisoned workers. Make no mistake, this is a modern day system of slavery unfolding before our eyes.
At the leadership of ALEC and various other Economic Elite organizations, poverty has essentially become a crime. To demonstrate these attacks against the poor, there was $17 billion cut from public housing programs, while there was an increase of $19 billion in programs for building prisons, “effectively making the construction of prisons the nation’s main housing program for the poor.” Before laws began to be rewritten in 1980, with direct input from ALEC, we had a prison population of 500,000 citizens. After laws were rewritten to target poor inner city citizens with much more severe penalties, the US prison population skyrocketed to 2.4 million people.
We now have the largest prison population in the world. With only 4% of the world’s population, we have 25% of the world’s prison population. As I reported previously, in a report entitled, “American Gulag: World’s Largest Prison Complex“:
“The US, by far, has more of its citizens in prison than any other nation on earth. China, with a billion citizens, doesn’t imprison as many people as the US, with only 308 million American citizens. The US per capita statistics are 700 per 100,000 citizens. In comparison, China has 110 per 100,000. In the Middle East, the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia imprisons 45 per 100,000. US per capita levels are equivalent to the darkest days of the Soviet Gulag.”
The dramatic increase in poverty has obviously torn many families apart and caused a devastating psychological toll, but consider the increase in deaths as a result of poverty and severe wealth inequalities. This is a very difficult statistic to accurately measure, but Columbia University’s School of Public Health conducted an intensive examination of mortality and medical data and estimated that “875,000 deaths in the US in 2000 could be attributed to a cluster of social factors bound up with poverty and income inequality.”
As a report by Debra Watson sums up the study, “There is no reason to believe, after a decade that has seen sustained attacks on social programs and consistently high unemployment rates, that the social mortality rate has declined. On the contrary, it has likely risen.” Indeed, poverty and income inequality have skyrocketed since 2000.
Now, let’s consider the fact that, according to the Census Bureau, 31.1 million people lived in poverty in 2000, and according to Columbia’s study 875,000 deaths came as a result. This means that 1 out of every 35.5 people living in poverty die annually as a result of their impoverishment. If you extrapolate this data to the 2009 total of 52.8 million people living in poverty, you get an estimate of 1,486,338 deaths within that year. Even if you use the lower poverty totals from the Census Bureau, 43.6 million people, you get an estimate of 1,228,169 deaths in 2009.
XIII :: Deliberate Systemic Attacks
The dramatic increase in economic inequality and poverty, along with the unprecedented rise in wealth within the top one-tenth of one percent of the population has not happened by mistake. It is the designed result of deliberate governmental and economic policy. It is the result of the richest people in the world, and the “too big to fail” banks, using the campaign finance and lobbying system to buy off politicians who implement policies designed to exploit 99.9% of the population for their financial gain. To call what is happening a “financial terrorist attack” on the United States, is not using hyperbole, it is the technical term for what is currently occurring.
Compare the million people who die annually as a result of these economic attacks, to the 2,977 that died on 9/11. As someone who lived three blocks from the World Trade Center, as tragic as 9/11 was, these economic attacks are much more severe and damaging to us as a nation, albeit a much slower and unseen death toll. Nonetheless, the result is of genocidal proportions. One can statistically compare the economic attacks on the US to the invasion of Iraq, which some estimate as leading to one million deaths. Once again, many of those deaths came in brutal and spectacular fashion in bombing campaigns known as “shock and awe.” However, the death toll compares to the hidden brutality of a four-year campaign of economic “shock and awe.” Just as Iraq was invaded, the US has been invaded by a global banking cartel.
As shocking as that is to realize, consider that this is happening throughout the world. While the US poverty death rate is probably higher than in most European countries, the Federal Reserve’s economic policies — along with policies from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Bank of International Settlements — have caused rioting and uprisings over skyrocketing food prices and costs of living throughout the world. The fact of the matter, and very harsh and unfortunate reality of this crisis, is that the global economic central planners are deliberately carrying out genocidal economic policies.
As Che Guevara, a man who took on the global financial elite, once said, “The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.”
When tens of trillions of dollars deliberately flow to the top economic one-tenth of one percent of the global population, while large percentages live in poverty, you have to conclude, in technical terms, that a Neo-Feudal-Fascist state is upon us. The rich have never been richer, while their paid off politicians make budget cuts for the poor and middle class, and cause the cost of basic necessities to skyrocket.
You can call me extreme, but the reality of this is extreme, these people, the global economic top one-tenth of one percent, are genocidal fascists carrying out a holocaust. Fascism has evolved. There is no need to get blood on your hands while rounding up people and putting them into concentration camps when you can do it through economic policy while sitting in a jacuzzi on a corporate jet, or in a three-piece custom-made Armani, completely detached and insulated from the world in which you plunder.
However, as what happens with all empires, greed and arrogance makes them overreach. The beaten down masses get to a point where they literally can’t live under these conditions. This desperation spreads throughout the population until it reaches a critical mass, then, suddenly, they rise up and the empire begins to collapse… Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, (Northern Africa, the Middle East), Albania, Greece, Spain, Britain (Europe), Wisconsin…
The Economic Elite are overreaching and their empire is collapsing.
The decentralized global rebellion has begun…
Welcome to World War III.
Which side of history do you want to be on?
As a wise old friend once said, “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.”
Five years ago, the war in Afghanistan began to escalate drastically. Troop surges soon pushed the number of NATO troops up to more than 140,000, and the levels of violence grew to match the surge. At the time, I felt the conflict was being under-reported relative to other international stories, especially considering the level of commitment involved, so I began a monthly series dedicated to covering the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Now, more than 60 monthly photo essays later, I'm ending the series as a regular feature. I will continue to post photos from Afghanistan through the withdrawal, as well as after the handover—but as an occasional entry, not monthly. In this time, I've been fortunate enough to feature more than 2,000 amazing images of Afghanistan taken by incredibly brave and skillful photographers—telling many aspects of a very difficult story. As of today, there are reportedly fewer than 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with a withdrawal deadline looming at the end of the year. How many soldiers will stay after the deadline remains in question, as the outcome of the recent Afghan presidential election remains in dispute, and the signing of any long-term agreements is on hold. For the past year, many coalition forces have been involved with what they term retrograde operations, defined by the U.S. Army as "defensive tasks that involve organized movement away from the enemy." Gathered here are images of recent retrograde operations in Afghanistan, from demolition and remediation to demilitarization and evacuation.
Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles wait in a staging area for onward movement at an undisclosed base in Southwest Asia. The joint team of Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen of the Central Command's Deployment Distribution Operations Center is playing a major role in moving the more than 50,000 coalition military vehicles in Afghanistan that will need to be recovered or pre-positioned in contingency stocks abroad. (U.S. Air Force/Senior Master Sgt. George Thompson)
An Australian soldier takes the Australian flag after it was lowered at Joint Multinational Base Tarin Kot, Afghanistan, on December 11, 2013. The base was transferred over to the Afghan National Army, as the last of Australian troops left Tarin Kot.(U.S. Army/Cpl. Harold Flynn) #
A CH-53E Super Stallion assigned with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 462 (HMH-462) transports a Humvee over Helmand province, Afghanistan, on October 7, 2013, as part of demilitarization operations. (U.S. Marine Corps/Sgt. Gabriela Garcia) #
U.S. Soldiers with 229th Engineer Company, Wisconsin Army National Guard, help clear out Combat Outpost Talukan in the Panjwa'i District of Kandahar province. (U.S. Army/Sgt. Kimberly Hackbarth) #
U.S. Marine Cpl. Armondo Cortez (left), a data network specialist, and Cpl. Estevan D. Hernandez, a telephone switchboard and personal computer intermediate repairer, with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 2d Marine Regiment, discuss their plan for the deconstruction of the command operation center during the retrograde of Patrol Base Boldak in Helmand Province on August 14, 2014.(USMC/Cpl. John A. Martinez Jr.) #
A member of the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing drags tent material through a tent at Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, on March 6, 2014. Personnel from various units volunteered to assist in reduction efforts at the transit center, which was transferred to Kyrgyz control in June of 2014. (USAF/Senior Airman George Goslin) #
Col. Mirbek Imayev, Chief of Staff of the Kyrgyz National Guard, holds up a symbolic key as he departs a transfer ceremony held at the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, on June 3, 2014. The event signified the representative transfer of control of the Transit Center from the United States to the Kyrgyz government. The facility stood up 12 and a half years ago after the terrorist attacks in America on Sept. 11, 2001. The center was the premier transportation and logistics hub supporting combat operations in Afghanistan.(USAF/Capt. Cory O'Brien) #
Airmen from the 455th Expeditionary Aerial Port Squadron, Bagram Air Field, load MRAP All-Terrain Vehicles onto a C-17 from McChord Air Force Base, Washington, on August 11, 2014. (USAF/Maj. Brandon Lingle/Released) #
Army engineers with the 1223rd and 955th Engineer Companies deconstruct a building at Kandahar Air Field on February 18, 2014. The units have deconstructed over 1,000 structures during their deployment and have been vital in aiding with the closure of numerous bases. (US Army/Spc. Aaron Ellerman) #
Staff Sgt. Angel Tavarez (driving), a native of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, consolidates excess metal scrap from base closure operations for reuse on different bases or to sell to Afghan locals, in the evening hours on Forward Operating Base Walton, on July 15, 2014.(US Army/Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston) #
An Afghan driver watches as Defense Logistics Agency personnel load a water truck purchased by his company onto his flatbed truck on Bagram Air Field on June 25, 2014, during the first white goods sale in the country. (US Army/Capt. Devon McRainey) #
A convoy of U.S. Marine Corps MRAP vehicles utilized by 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment (1/7), carrying the last 1/7 Marines from Suicide Charley Company and material retrograding from Forward Operation Base (FOB) Sabit Qadam and FOB Nolay travel down Route 1, near Gereshk, Helmand province, on May 4, 2014. Operation Lee removed the last remaining ISAF presence in Sangin and turned control of FOBs Sabit Qadam and Nolay over to the Afghan National Army (ANA). (USMC/Lance Cpl. Lance Cpl. Cody Kelley) #
Task Force Guam Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 294th Infantry Regiment, Guam Army National Guard, sit tightly packed into a CH-47 Chinook filled with duffel bags and rucksacks during a flight out of Camp Phoenix, Kabul, Afghanistan.(US Army National Guard/Sgt. Eddie Siguenza) #
A U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II with the 303rd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, Bagram Air Field, peels away after being in-air refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker over Eastern Afghanistan on August 16, 2014. (USAF/Staff Sgt. Vernon Young Jr.) #
Estonian soldiers, part of the Estonian contingent to Afghanistan, fold their nation's flag for the last time in a ceremonial flag lowering aboard Camp Leatherneck, Helmand province, Afghanistan, on May 9, 2014. The lowering of the Estonian flag formally concluded the county's participation in Operation Enduring Freedom. (USMC/Lance Cpl. Darien J. Bjorndal) #
A scrap wood pile created during retrograde operations at Forward Operating Base Pasab in Kandahar on June 2, 2014. Scrap wood is one of the reusable materials that ISAF allows others including the Afghan military to sort through and take what they need.(Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images) #
Army engineers with the 1223rd and 955th Engineer Companies deconstruct a building at Kandahar Air Field on February 18, 2014.(US Army/Spc. Aaron Ellerman) #
This photo taken on June 2, 2014 shows a member of the US Army using an M-88 to demolish Hesco barriers ahead of the withdrawal from Forward Operating Base Pasab in Kandahar province. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images) #
A sign still remains on a door of an abandoned hospital site which is in an area on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank that is no longer used due to a shrinking population on the FOB on April 3, 2014. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) #
Engineers with the Hammonton, New Jersey,-based 150th Engineer Company, attached to the Portland, Maine-based 133rd Engineer Battalion, use heavy equipment to clear the remains of structures from a deconstruction site at Bagram Air Field.(US Army/Sgt. 1st Class Jon Cupp) #
A guard tower that was once in a heavily populated area on Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank is now surrounded by open land and abandoned building sites on April 3, 2014 near Pul-e Alam, Afghanistan. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) #
A welcome mat and foundation are all that remain of a building site in an area on Forward Operating Base Shank that is no longer used due to a shrinking population on April 3, 2014. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) #
From left to right: Spc. Jamie Morris, Spc. Daniel Adensam, Command Sgt. Maj. Kevin King, Spc. Ricky Schumann and Spc. William Banks, all serving with different battalions of 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Inf. Division, retire and fold the U.S. flag on July 15, 2014, as base closure operations come to an end and U.S. troops prepare to leave Forward Operating Base Walton. The FOB served as a strategic joint operating base with Afghan National Security Forces during Operation Enduring Freedom, and was officially closed the next day. (US Army/Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston) #
Multiple vehicles with Combat Logistics Battalion 7 line up as they prepare to convoy back with the last supplies, equipment and team members of Security Force Assistance Advisor Team 4-215 from Forward Operating Base Delaram II, Nimroz province, Afghanistan, on April 8, 2014. The Marines and sailors of CLB-7 were instrumental in retrograding more than 300,000 pounds of equipment and supplies and the last of the Marines and sailors of SFAAT 4-215 back to Camp Leatherneck from FOB Delaram II.(USMC/Sgt. Frances Johnson) #
U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Brent Stevens, right, and Maj. Devin Cummings, both pilots with the 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, fly a C-130 Hercules aircraft out of Forward Operating Base Sharana, Paktika province, on September 28, 2013. Airmen with the unit transported the last cargo from FOB Sharana before command of the base was transferred to the Afghan Ministry of Defense.(USAF/Master Sgt. Ben Bloker) #
Soldiers with the Kingdom of Jordan fold their flag during a ceremony aboard Camp Leatherneck, Helmand province, on July 23, 2014. The ceremony marked the end of mission for the Jordanian army serving with Regional Command Southwest.(USMC/Sgt. Jessica Ostroska) #
This photo taken on June 1, 2014 shows a worker cutting metal while demolishing a building that once housed a TGI Fridays restaurant ahead of the withdrawal by military forces, at Kandahar Airfield in Kandahar province. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images) #
Airmen from the 376th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron demilitarize camouflage netting in a waste holding yard here on May 9, 2014, in preparation for the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, closure this summer. The airmen tear the netting into small, unusable pieces that are less than 12 inches square. (USAF/Lt. Col. Max Despain) #
Marines with Combat Logistics Battalion 1, Regional Command (Southwest), motion to a Tractor, Rubber-Tired, Articulated Steering, Multi-Purpose vehicle operator during a retrograde operation aboard Patrol Base Boldak, Helmand province, on August 14, 2014.(USMC/Cpl. Cody Haas) #
Spc. Adam Alvarez, a native of Chicago, who serves as a mechanic with Special Troops Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Inf. Division, guides trucks full of wood and other materials off Forward Operating Base Walton, on July 16, 2014. The FOB closed the next day, having served as a strategic joint operating base with Afghan National Security Forces during Operation Enduring Freedom.(US Army/Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston) #
Royal Tongan Marines assigned to Tranche 7, the seventh and final rotational contingent of Royal Tongan Marines to Afghanistan, participate in a "haka," a ceremonial dance, during a flag lowering ceremony aboard Camp Leatherneck, Helmand province, Afghanistan, on April 28, 2014. The lowering of the flag symbolized the end of the Kingdom of Tonga's participation in Operation Enduring Freedom and return to their homeland. (USMCLance Cpl. Darien J. Bjorndal) #
A panorama shows the retrograde of Patrol Base Boldak in mid-August of 2014. (USMC/Cpl. John A. Martinez Jr.) #
Australian soldiers load up the back of a plane before departing Joint Multinational Base Tarin Kot, Afghanistan. The base was transferred over the Afghan National Army as the last of Australian troops has left Tarin Kot. (US Army/Cpl. Harold Flynn) #
Lance Cpl. Matthew Ghibaudi, a UH-1Y Huey crew chief with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 369, performs a weapons check before an aerial assault support mission covering ground convoys in Helmand province, on May 3, 2014. Before the last Marines and sailors of Forward Operating Bases Nolay and Sabit Qadam convoyed out of northern Helmand to return to Camp Leatherneck for the final time, the "Gunfighters" of HMLA-369 and "Heavyweights" of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 466 provided overwatch for returning vehicle convoys as well as retrograde support. (USMC/Sgt. Frances Johnson) #
Soldiers with the Republic of Georgia lower their flag during a ceremony aboard Camp Leatherneck, Helmand province, Afghanistan, on July 15, 2014. The ceremony marked the end of mission for the Georgian army serving with Regional Command Southwest.(USMC/Sgt. Jessica Ostroska) #
Sgt. Charles Nelson, a heavy equipment operator for the Calhoun City, Mississippi,-based 858th Engineer Company, attached to the Portland, Maine-based 133rd Engineer Battalion, uses a bulldozer April 21 at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan to level an area where engineers with the 133rd recently deconstructed several structures. (US Army/Sgt. 1st Class Jon Cupp) #
U.S. Marine Cpl. Travis Shotland, a radio operator with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 2d Marine Regiment, removes data cables from a command operation center during the retrograde of Patrol Base Boldak in Helmand Province on August 14, 2014.(USMC/Cpl. John A. Martinez Jr.) #
U.S. Marines with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 462 (HMH-462) load a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter into a C-17 Globemaster at Camp Bastion, Helmand province, on November 1, 2013. HMH-462 retrograded the aircraft as part of ongoing demilitarization efforts.(USMC/Sgt. Gabriela Garcia)
The food bubble is now starting to implode. What does it all mean? It means that as these economic and climate realities unfold, our world is facing massive starvation and food shortages. The first place this will be felt is in poor developing nations. It is there that people live on the edge of economic livelihood, where even a 20% rise in the price of basic food staples can put desperately-needed calories out of reach of tens of millions of families. If something is not done to rescue these people from their plight, they will starve to death. Wealthy nations like America, Canada, the U.K., and others will be able to absorb the price increases, so you won’t see mass starvation in North America any time soon (unless, of course, all the honeybees die, in which case prepare to start chewing your shoelaces…), but it will lead to significant increases in the cost of living, annoying consumers and reducing the amount of money available for other purchases (like vacations, cars, fuel, etc.). That, of course, will put downward pressure on the national economy. But what we’re seeing right now, is just a small foreshadowing of events to come in the next couple of decades. When gasoline is $10 a gallon in the U.S., how expensive will food be around the world? The answer, of course, is that it will triple or quadruple the current price. And that means many more people will starve. One thing that has become abundantly clear in all this is that the era of cheap food and cheap fuel is over. Add to this the fact that global climate change is already underway, altering weather patterns and creating floods, droughts and other agricultural calamities, and you start to get the picture of just how bad things might get. That’s not even to mention the very serious problem of collapsing honeybee populations due to a mysterious condition called colony collapse disorder that’s devastating honeybee populations across North America. Honeybees, in case you didn’t know, pollinate plants that represent about 30% of all the calories consumed by Americans. That’s about one out of every three bites of your dinner, and it all depends on the “free” work performed by honeybees — bees who are apparently going on strike by refusing to keep working for us.
The U.S. Is Broke But Somehow Finds $1 Trillion To Operate New F-35 Fighter, China Makes A Killing On Gold, Muni Default Chart, Wall Street Pay Watch, Nil Baby Nil (LINKS)The global economy is doomed to implosion, and here are four charts which explain why. Though the complexities may appear endless, the global economy's coming implosion is really fairly easy to understand: here are four charts which do the heavy lifting. It boils down to these basics: 1. When money is dear and difficult to borrow, then productivity and capital accumulation are encouraged, speculation, malinvestment and debt-based consumption are discouraged. 2. When money is "free" (zero-interest rate policy) and liquidity is unlimited, then the opposite conditions hold: speculation in risk assets, malinvestment and debt-based consumption are all encouraged, and productivity and capital accumulation are heavily discouraged. 3. When debts exceed the value of the underlying assets, the only way out of the Tyranny of Debt is to write off the debt on both the borrower and lender's balance sheets, wiping out their capital via liquidation and bankruptcy. 4. The "extend and pretend" policy pursued by all major nations is simply transferring the impaired debt from private hands to the taxpayers (public debt), crippling the economy with higher taxes and higher debt service. 5. The Central State's "extend and pretend" policy requires heavy borrowing every year to prop up the status quo, pushing the Central State (or equivalent, i.e. the Eurozone) in an inescapable double-bind: either continue increasing public debt and cripple the economy with high taxes and high public-debt servicing costs, or let the financial status quo of "profits are private, losses are public" implode. The first path leads to default, as the Tyranny of Debt cannot be masked for long, while the second path wipes out the Financial Power Elite which feeds the politicians. Here are the charts. Note how the speculative economy created the illusion of rising wealth for the bottom 90%, an illusion stripped away by the Default Economy. In essence, the Financial Power Elites profited immensely from creating this illusory wealth which gave the bottom 90% the false sensation that their declining earnings and purchasing power were being offset by the "magic" of asset bubbles. Then, when the bubble popped, the Financial Power Elites transferred the impaired assets to the taxpayers, a process which is still underway. The politicos of both parties are complicit; behind the simulacra of toothless "reforms," this process proceeds in myriad ways (Bank of America transferring toxic debt to Fannie/Freddie, etc.) Behind the smokescreen of conjuring a "wealth effect" to foster more consumption, the Fed's purchase of Treasuries (QE2) serves this transfer-of-debt-to-the-public process.
This same process is playing out throughout the global economy: Greece, Ireland, the U.S., and eventually, in China when its monumental property bubble pops. Mr King Had 300 Tons Of Gold. After Selling 1,350 Tons, He Still Had 300 Tons Of Gold.
Video Rebel’s Blog The following are a few examples of the New Math as practiced by the banking elite. Mervyn King was until just recently the Governor of the Bank of England. In April he sold 1,350 metric tons of gold to drive down the price of gold. But after selling all of that gold, he still had 300 tons of gold. How was this possible? He sold gold on deposit from foreign countries and from bullion banks. A bullion bank can lease gold from the Bank of England or the Federal Reserve and sell it 3, 4 or even 5 times. Of course if the price of gold goes up, then they are technically obligated to replace the gold which is why they needed to drive the price down. After the Germans asked the French, the English and the Americans to return just 350 metric tons of their gold on deposit at those central banks, they were told it would take 7 years to return it. We learned why it would take so long when French soldiers invaded their former colony Mali which had just discovered a large high grade gold deposit. The trouble was that the people of Mali had wanted to sell their gold to the Chinese at the highest price. But fortunately for the banks the government had just been taken over in a coup by a general who had been trained at Forts Benning and Huachuca in the USA. And then Al Qaeda showed up threatening the takeover of the entire West coast of Africa. This is the same Al Qaeda that invaded Bosnia, Libya and Syria for the NATO imperialists. That these people practice cannibalism and kill unarmed women and children is of no concern to their paymasters in NATO. Now they are helping the bankers steal Africa’s gold which is what the British and French armies had done in the 19th and 20th centuries. There are other examples of new mathematics being demonstrated by the bankers. Every year the banks launder a trillion dollars a year in drugs and illegal weapons sales. A $20 bill weighs one gram. A trillion dollars in $20 bills would be a pile of 50,000,000 Federal Reserve Notes and would weigh 50,000,000 grams or 50 metric tons. One metric ton weighs 2,204.6 pounds. Asia Times magazine said that the banks launder 500 billion dollars in political bribes every year. That would be another 25 metric tons for a total of 75. Does anyone imagine that there is some elderly Sicilian mobster from central casting who is wheeling almost a ton and a half of $20 bills into banks around the world every week of the year without the financial regulators finding out what he was doing? Another example of new math applied to banking is the sentencing of common criminals versus what happens to bankers. It is as if a bank robber was caught, paid a thousand dollar fine from the million dollars he just stole and was allowed to keep the other $999,000. Bankers have been proven to rig interest rates and sell fraudulent mortgages. In fact Matt Taibbi in a now famous 14 page article in Rolling Stone magazine said he had 27 examples of rigged markets when he said the Conspiracy Theorists were right. I would love to see a comedy skit in which the cops catch bank robbers coming out of a bank with the loot. The bankers count the loot and pay a 1% fine which goes to the city hall slush fund allowing the criminals to walk away freely with 99% of the loot and no criminal indictment. That is the way America’s justice system actually works. I would like to cite the US budget and America’s 17 trillion dollar debt as a final example of the New Math. Dr Jim Willie has a PhD in statistics from Carnegie Mellon. He said that we have no justice system to prevent a bank which functions as one of the 21 primary dealers in US Treasury bonds to sell counterfeit bonds to the Federal Reserve. He said in the video below that WTC Tower 7 had the evidence of 2.3 trillion dollars in fake Treasury bondsfrom J P Morgan which were destroyed on 911. This is a separate issue from the bankers looting federal spending in departments ranging from Housing to the Department of Defense. HUD lost 77.2 billion dollars in the last two years of the Clinton administration. On 9-10-2001 Donald Rumsfeld said that he could not trace 2.3 trillion dollars in DOD spending. Let’s more closely examine the combination of the bankers ability to steal from federal spending and to sell fake Treasury bonds which the Federal Reserve must redeem so we can determine the real burden banker criminality has put upon our federal budget. In June of 2010 approximately 17.3 billion dollars (at a rate of 4 billion dollars a week for 4.3 weeks) was stolen from unaudited government spending. But for the sake of believability I will cut that estimate by 3 billion down to 14.3 billion dollars. This helped run the deficit up from 53.7 billion dollars to 68 billion. So the Treasury in June of 2010 had to raise a total of 68 billion including the 14.3 billion of missing federal funds. The New York FED and the primary dealers sold a total of 211 billion dollars. If you subtract the 68 billion actually needed from the 211, you get a total of 143 billion dollars the bankers pocketed from the sale of phony Treasury bonds. Now go back and add in the 14.3 billion to the 143 billion and you get a total of 157.3 billion dollars the bankers stole in just one month from you. So what are you going to do about it? If you add in the 6 trillion dollars we have spent on wars for Israel since we let them do 911 and get away with it, you are talking about most of the total of 17 trillion dollars in US federal debt. And the rest of the 17 trillion can probably be attributed to the right granted to the banks under the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to charge interest to us on money they have created out of nothing.
These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration /Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. By 2012, the photographs and captions will haunt this generation as the cyclical downturn worsen due to high unemployment and huge tax burden.
In the eight years between invasion and withdrawal, more than 110,000 people suffered violent deaths as direct result of the Iraq conflict. Some estimates put that number at over a million. Hundreds of thousands of civilians and former combatants also suffered injury during the war, both physical and psychological. When the coalition finally withdrew in 2011, no significant weapons of mass destruction had been located, but Saddam Hussein's regime had been replaced by elected representatives. A mostly Sunni-led insurgency flared up, challenging the new government and security forces. Trillions of dollars were spent and millions of lives were affected, but the Iraqis are still struggling to find their post-war footing as near-constant violence hampers any efforts to move beyond poverty and pain. Ten years later, we look back in a three-part series. Today's entry focuses on the period from 2011 to present-day.
This Wednesday, March 13, 2013 photo shows a view of Firdos Square at the site of an Associated Press photograph taken by Jerome Delay as the statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down by U.S. forces and Iraqis on April 9, 2003. Ten years ago on live television, U.S. Marines memorably hauled down a Soviet-style statue of Saddam, symbolically ending his rule. Today, that pedestal in central Baghdad stands empty. Bent iron beams sprout from the top, and posters of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in military fatigues are pasted on the sides.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) Humvees sit parked in a courtyard at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, on September 30, 2011. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) # Iraqi Army soldiers march at the Monument of the Unknown Soldier mark Army Day in Baghdad, on January 6, 2010.(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) # Sgt. 1st Class Justin Hathaway braves a sandstorm after leaving the 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force-Iraq and U.S. Forces-Iraq Provost Marshal Office at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, on September 27, 2011. (Master Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo/USAF) # Iraqi policemen man a checkpoint on a road leading to Baghdad airport on December 11, 2012.(Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images) # Copies of the Quran, Muslims holy book, splattered with blood, at Um al-Qura mosque in Baghdad, Iraq, on August 29, 2011. A suicide bomber blew himself up inside Baghdad's largest Sunni mosque, killing dozens during prayers, a shocking strike on a place of worship similar to the one that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war five years before. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed) # A female taxi driver fetches a passenger in Arbil, about 350 km (220 miles) north of Baghdad, on November 19, 2011. Inspired by the success stories of the ladies' taxis services in Lebanon and Dubai, 25-year old civil engineer Lana Khoshabaan has recently started an all-women taxi firm, in the Kurdish city of Arbil. The black cars, imprinted with the words "PNK TAXI" are dispatched upon calls to pick up female passengers from all parts of Arbil. Currently, only three cars are in operation on two shifts daily. (Reuters/Azad Lashkari) # An Iraqi boy is taken away from a suspected militant, who has been accused of killing his father at the height of the sectarian slaughter in 2006-07, during a presentation to the media at the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, on November 21, 2011. A total of 22 suspected militants were presented to the media as they awaited trial, according to the police. (Reuters/Saad Shalash) # Soldiers with the 1452nd Combat Heavy Equipment Transportation Company, North Carolina Army National Guard, load an M1 Abrams tank onto the bed of a super heavy equipment transporter tractor-trailer on Contingency Operating Base Adder, on November 4, 2011. The 1452nd loaded two of the 60-ton tanks to transport to Kuwait in support of the U.S. Forces drawdown in Iraq.(Pvt. Andrew Slovensky/U.S. Army) # U.S. Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles drive through Camp Adder before departing what is now known as Imam Ali Base near Nasiriyah, Iraq December 16, 2011. The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq, ending their withdrawal after nearly nine years of war and military intervention that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.(Reuters/Mario Tama/Pool) # Sgt. Aaron Grudich of Oakfield, Wisconsin, walks back to the car with his family after returning from Iraq at the West Bend Armory, on November 19, 2011, in West Bend, Wisconsin. Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 135th General Aviation Support Battalion returned home from Iraq. After 51 weeks, the last Wisconsin National Guard Unit returned home. (AP Photo/West Bend Daily News, John Ehlke) # The scarred hands of 12-year-old Iraqi Khitam Hamad, photographed as she participated in a class with other young victims of Iraq violence at a program operated by Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), on July 28, 2011 in Amman, Jordan. Khitam, who is from the city of Fallujah, was severely burned following a car bomb when she was walking with her sister. MSF has been running a reconstructive-surgery program for war-wounded Iraqis since August 2006. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # (1 of 2) Iraqis throw stones after protesters attacked Iraq's deputy premier Saleh al-Mutlak on December 30, 2012, forcing him to flee a rally he was addressing on the outskirts of the western city of Ramadi, an AFP reporter said. The demonstrators, who blocked a key highway connecting Iraq to Syria and Jordan over the alleged targeting of their Sunni Arab minority by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, threw water bottles, stones and shoes at Mutlak before grabbing and hitting him. (Azhar Shallal/AFP/Getty Images) # (2 of 2) Iraqi security forces fire into the air as Iraqi deputy premier Saleh al-Mutlak is attacked as he arrived to give a speech on December 30, 2012, forcing him to flee the rally he was addressing in Ramadi. (Azhar Shallal/AFP/Getty Images) # A suicide bomber in Iraq injured Marine veteran Keith Buckmon, native of Capitol Heights, Maryland, in 2008, resulting in the complete reconstruction of both of his legs and his right arm using bone grafts and metal plates. Buckmon has also struggled with losing the Marines who died during the attack and battles the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder every day. Now, Buckmon is an athlete in the 2013 Marine Corps Trials who competes in seated volleyball, wheelchair basketball, seated shot put, discus, and shooting. Buckmon says his wife and two daughters, Damaris Buckmon, Iz'Abella Amaris Buckmon (lower right) and Jy'Zella-leilani Grace Clark, are his motivation to keep pushing to get better because he strives to be a good husband and father. Buckmon has a tattoo on his shoulder that depicts a Purple Heart medal and the date he was injured. (USMC/Cpl. Tyler L. Main) # Workers attend a training class at LUKOIL training center in Basra, Iraq, on December 25, 2012. Russian oil firm LUKOIL has opened its first training center located in al-Rumaila in the southern city of Basra to develop skilled staff to work in its oilfield. The firm, Russia's second-largest crude producer, won a contract to develop the West Qurna-2 oilfield. (Reuters/Atef Hassan) # An aerial view of the Shrines of Imam al-Abbas and Imam al-Hussein during the religious ceremony of Arbain in Kerbala, about 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, on January 1, 2013. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) # Shi'ite pilgrims pray at the Imam Hussein shrine in the holy city of Kerbala, on November 24, 2012. The festival, commemorated by Shi'ite Muslims, marks the martyrdom of Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) # A film crew shoots a scene of an Iraqi film in a street in Baghdad October 18, 2012. The din of power generators, tangle of jury-rigged electric wiring and hassle of security checkpoints are all part of the movie business in Iraq, not to mention the lack of studio space and dearth of experienced crews. War and international sanctions have left most of Iraq's infrastructure and industry in shambles, including the movie industry. But the return of government funding means a new start for many local directors, even if the amounts are small by international standards. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) # A little girl runs towards the Pacific Ocean, as she visits the Arlington West Iraq war memorial on Veterans Day, on the seashore in Santa Monica, California. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes) # Samar Hassan, 16, looks at a photo of the family car after her family were shot at in 2005, during an interview with Reuters in Mosul, Iraq, on March 6, 2013. (Samar can be seen in a famous photo of the incident in yesterday's entry, photo 19.) Samar, a Turkman from the city of Tel Afar, is one of thousands of Iraqis who have relatives that were killed by U.S. forces, since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Samar said she was sitting in the back seat of the car with her brother and three sisters on their way back from the hospital on January 18, 2005, when a group of U.S. soldiers shot at them, killing her parents on the scene and seriously wounding her brother, Rakan. (Reuters/Thaier al-Sudani) # Ministry of Health staff carry a wounded colleague during a car bomb attack at the Health Department in Baghdad, on June 4, 2012. A suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car outside Iraq's main religious affairs office for Shiite Muslims, tearing down part of the three-story building, killing and wounding scores of people, police said. (AP Photo/Adil al-Khazali) # A man stands amid debris after a bomb attack in the Shuala district of Baghdad, on November 28, 2012. Three car bombings killed 23 Shi'ite Muslims during mourning processions in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, police and hospital sources said. The deadliest attack occurred in the Shuala district, where a car bomb parked outside a Shi'ite place of worship exploded as people were leaving the building, killing nine. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) # Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team outfielder Brian Urruela warms up before their game against the Cooperstown, New York Fire & Police Department team at Abner Doubleday Field in Cooperstown, New York, on May 27, 2012. The Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball team is comprised of United States military personnel who lost limbs during their service in Iraq and Afghanistan.(Reuters/Gary Cameron) # A woman and her child react as Iraqi soldiers raid her house in Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, on July 20, 2012. Iraqi security forces raided some villages in Arab Jabour and detained 54 men suspected members of al-Qaida. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani) # Iraqis enjoy a ride at Amusement City fairgrounds during Eid al-Adha celebrations in Baghdad, on October 29, 2012.(AP Photo/Karim Kadim) # Iraqi Christians attend a mass on Christmas at St. Joseph Chaldean church in Baghdad, on December 25, 2012.(Reuters/Thaier Al-Sudani) # Bryan Anderson talks about his new book titled "No Turning Back," at his home in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, on October 31, 2011. His story details enlisting with the Army and receiving a deployment date of September 11, 2001, serving two tours in Iraq as a sergeant in the military police, driving over a roadside bomb in his Humvee in October 2005, and recovering for 13 months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he was one of the few triple amputees to survive. (AP Photo/Daily Herald, Bob Chwedyk) # Iraqi Shiite Muslim women attend the Eid al-Adha prayer, outside the party headquarters of the Supreme Islamic Council in Baghdad, on October 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban) # An Iraqi biker prepares for a ride during a biker show on Abu Nawas street in Baghdad, on October 19, 2012. In some parts of Baghdad, youthful rebellion and American biker style clash with conservative mores, in a country where just a few years ago militias imposed their own radical Islamic views at gunpoint. (Reuters/Saad Shalash) # An Iraqi security man inspects the wreckage of destroyed vehicles following a bomb attack on the previous day in north Baghdad, on December 18, 2012. The car bomb exploded at a car dealership, killing at least 11 people and wounding at least 40, security and medical officials said, as a wave of attacks targeting both Iraqi security forces and civilians killed 48 people ahead of the first anniversary of the withdrawal of US forces. (ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images) # A woman reacts near the site of a car bomb attack in Kirkuk, on November 14, 2012. A series of car bomb blasts killed at least 12 people across Iraq, police and hospital sources said. (Reuters/Ako Rasheed) # Ryan Lamke of Washington, sits by the grave of his fellow U.S. Marine, Cpl. Benny G. Cockerham III, in Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery Tuesday, on March 19, 2013, in Arlington, Virginia. Lamke visits his friend's grave about once a month. Capt. Tyler Swisher, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Chris Thompson, and Marine Lance Cpl. Kenneth Butler also died with Cocherham when their Humvee was attacked by an improvised explosive device. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) # A stone decorated with "Love you Pappa", set on a headstone in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, on March 13, 2013. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque) # A visitor views pictures of British war veterans photographed by Canadian rock star Bryan Adams during the opening of his exhibition in Duesseldorf, Germany, on February 1, 2013. Adams shows 150 pictures of his photo work like celebrity portraits, but also a series of portraits of injured soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) # A student practices playing the oud at the Institute of Musical Studies in Baghdad, on October 21, 2012. The once quiet courtyards of Baghdad's Institute of Musical Studies, located in the busy Sinak area, where violence was rife during the height of Iraq's sectarian violence in 2006 and 2007, are thriving again as the Iraqi capital enjoys a noticeable ebb in violence. Many of Iraq's most talented musicians fled during the rule of Saddam Hussein, fearing persecution for their political views and suffering from a lack of funding and exposure if they refused to glorify the leader in their art. Now, gingerly, some musicians are making plans to come back, hoping to revive Iraq's rich musical tradition on home soil. (Reuters/Mohammed Ameen) # (1 of 2) Matt Ecker points out a bullet hole in the back of his Champion, Ohio home, on April 19, 2012. On a warm summer afternoon in Champion, Michael Ecker, a 25-year-old Iraq war veteran, called out to his father from a leafy spot in their backyard. Then, as the two stood just steps apart, Michael saluted, raised a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. (Reuters/Jason Cohn) # (2 of 2) Matt and Cheryl Ecker hold a photo of their son, Army veteran Michael Ecker, in Champion, Ohio, April 19, 2012. In 2009, Michael committed suicide, shooting himself in front of his father. Veteran suicides remain a serious problem in the U.S. A recent Veteran's Administration study using data from 21 states between 1999 and 2011 suggested that as many as 22 veterans were killing themselves every day. (Reuters/Jason Cohn) # Brad Schwarz, with his service dog Panzer, attends a Chicago Cubs game with a group of veterans from the Wounded Warrior Project at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, on June 14, 2012. Schwarz uses Panzer to help him cope with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) issues related to his 2008 tour in Iraq. In addition to suffering from PTSD Schwarz has memory loss related to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and he must walk with a cane because of vertebrae and nerve damage in his back and legs. Ten days before he was scheduled to rotate home from a 15-month deployment in Iraq, his second, the Humvee in which he was riding was struck by an IED. Of the 5 soldiers riding in the vehicle, which caught fire after the explosion, Schwarz was the only one to survive. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) # This March 12, 2013 photo shows a view of Abu Nawas park in Baghdad, at the site of a photograph taken by Maya Alleruzzo showing Iraqi orphans playing soccer with a U.S. soldier from the Third Infantry Division in April of 2003. The park that runs along Abu Nawas Street, named after an Arabic poet, is now a popular destination for families who are drawn by the manicured gardens, playgrounds and restaurants famous for a fish called mazgouf. Ten years ago, the park was home to a tribe of children orphaned by the war and was rife with crime. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) # This March 14, 2013 photo shows the crossed swords monument at the site of an Associated Press photograph taken by Karim Kadim of U.S. soldiers taken on November 16, 2008. The crossed-sword archways Saddam Hussein commissioned during Iraq's nearly eight-year war with Iran stand defiantly on a little-used parade ground inside the Green Zone, the fortified district that houses the sprawling U.S. Embassy and several government offices. Iraqi officials began tearing down the archways in 2007 but quickly halted those plans and then started restoring the monument two years ago. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) # In this March 14, 2013 photo, Hussein, age 3, poses in Firdos Square in Baghdad, holding a photograph taken at the site by Jerome Delay of the Associated Press, showing the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down by U.S. forces and Iraqis on April 9, 2003.(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
3 Farm auction. Derby, Connecticut, September 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
4 Children gathering potatoes on a large farm. Vicinity of Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
5 Trucks outside of a starch factory. Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
6 Headlines posted in street-corner window of newspaper office (Brockton Enterprise). Brockton, Massachusetts, December 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
7 Children in the tenement district. Brockton, Massachusetts, December 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
8 Going to town on Saturday afternoon. Greene County, Georgia, May 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
9 Chopping cotton on rented land near White Plains. White Plains, Greene County, Georgia, June 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
10 Barker at the grounds at the state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
11 Backstage at the "girlie" show at the state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
12 At the Vermont state fair. Rutland, Vermont, September 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
13 Couples at square dance. McIntosh County, Oklahoma, 1939 or 1940, Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
14 Orchestra at square dance. McIntosh County, Oklahoma, 1939 or 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
15 Children asleep on bed during square dance. McIntosh County, Oklahoma, 1939 or 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
16 Jack Whinery, homesteader, and his family. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
17 The Faro Caudill family eating dinner in their dugout. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
18 Saying grace before the barbeque dinner at the New Mexico Fair. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
19 Homesteader and his children eating barbeque at the New Mexico Fair. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
20 School children singing. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
21 Garden adjacent to the dugout home of Jack Whinery, homesteader. Pie Town, New Mexico, September 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
22 Mill at the Camp Bird Mine. Ouray County, Colorado, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
23 Distributing surplus commodities. St. Johns, Arizona, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
24 Hauling crates of peaches from the orchard to the shipping shed. Delta County, Colorado, September 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
25 Hay stack and automobile of peach pickers. Delta County, Colorado, 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
26 On main street of Cascade. Cascade, Idaho, July 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
27 Road cut into the barren hills which lead into Emmett. Emmett, Idaho, July 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
28 Shasta dam under construction. California, June 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
29 Boy building a model airplane as girl watches. Robstown, Texas, January 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Arthur Rothstein. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
30 Grand Grocery Company. Lincoln, Nebraska, 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
31 Young African American boy. Cincinnati, Ohio, 1942 or 1943. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
32 Wisdom, Montana, April 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by John Vachon. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
33 A Fourth of July celebration. St. Helena Island, South Carolina, 1939. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
34 Planting corn along a river. Northeastern Tennessee, May 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
35 African Americans fishing in creek near cotton plantations. Belzoni, Mississippi, October 1939. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
36 Bayou Bourbeau plantation, a Farm Security Administration cooperative. Vicinity of Natchitoches, Louisiana, August 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
37 African American's tenant's home beside the Mississippi River levee. Near Lake Providence, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
38 A crossroads store, bar, "juke joint," and gas station in the cotton plantation area. Melrose, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
39 Boys fishing in a bayou. Schriever, Louisiana, June 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
40 A store with live fish for sale. Vicinity of Natchitoches, Louisiana, July 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
41 African American migratory workers by a "juke joint". Belle Glade, Florida, February 1941. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
42 Children aiming sticks as guns, lined up against a brick building. Washington, D.C.(?), between 1941 and 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photographer Unknown. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
43 Shulman's market, on N at Union Street S.W. Washington, D.C., between 1941 and 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Louise Rosskam. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
44 House. Washington, D.C.(?), between 1941 and 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Louise Rosskam. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
45 Chapel, Vadito. Near Penasco, New Mexico, Spring 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by John Collier. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
46 A welder who works in the round-house at the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company's Proviso yard. Chicago, Illinois, December 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
47 View in a departure yard at Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company's Proviso yard at twilight. Chicago, Illinois, December 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
48 Switchman throwing a switch at Chicago and Northwest Railway Company's Proviso yard. Chicago, Illinois, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
49 Mike Evans, a welder, at the rip tracks at Proviso yard of the Chicago and Northwest Railway Company. Chicago, Illinois, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
50 Putting the finishing touches on a rebuilt caboose at the rip tracks at Proviso yard. Chicago, Illinois, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
51 Switch engine in yard near Calumet Park stockyards, Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad. Calumet City, Illinois, January 1943. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
52 General view of part of the South Water Street freight depot of the Illinois Central Railroad Chicago, Illinois, May 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
53 Mrs. Viola Sievers, one of the wipers at the roundhouse giving a giant "H" class locomotive a bath of live steam. Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
54 Women workers employed as wipers in the roundhouse having lunch in their rest room, Chicago and Northwest Railway Company. Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Jack Delano. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
55 Children stage a patriotic demonstration. Southington, Connecticut, May 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Fenno Jacobs. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
56 At Beecher Street School. Southington, Connecticut, May 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Fenno Jacobs. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
57 Street corner. Dillon, Montana, August 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
58 Shepherd with his horse and dog on Gravelly Range Madison County, Montana, August 1942. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
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Florence Thompson with three of her children in a photograph known as "Migrant Mother." This famous image is one of a series of photographs that photographer Dorothea Lange made of Florence Thompson and her children in early 1936 in Nipomo, California. More on the photo 
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