michelle
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Post by michelle on May 30, 2006 15:28:12 GMT 4
RECOGNISING A COUNTRY'S SOVEREIGN RIGHT TO MAKE DECISIONS ON ITS NATURAL RESOURCES. This article is related to information in Reply #29 above........MichelleBOLIVIA: The Story Behind Gas NationalisationFranz Chávez LA PAZ, May 13 (IPS) - "If you agree, sign the decree!" Bolivian President Evo Morales told his ministers on the morning of May 1, as he got ready to announce the renationalisation of an industry that will move 200 billion dollars over the next two decades in South America's poorest country. One of the architects of the measure to reassert state control over the country's natural gas reserves -- the second-largest in South America -- described the process to IPS in an interview. That day, Morales handed the decree to his cabinet, sitting around a huge carved wooden table in the meeting room in the government palace, as the first rays of sunlight filtered through the chilly morning of La Paz. Signatures, applause and the national anthem. After the last verse ("Morir antes que esclavos vivir" - "Better to die than to live as slaves"), Morales smiled and said "The plane is waiting for us." Only a few of his closest associates knew that the army would be called out to occupy Bolivia's oil fields, refineries and petrol stations, or that the president and his stunned ministers would ride that morning in a Hercules transport plane to the region of Caraparí, 1,200 km to the south. When Morales reached the doors of the San Alberto gas plant, controlled until that day by Brazil's state-owned oil giant Petrobras, the smiling employees asked which part of the gas field or facilities he wanted to visit. But the president had not come for a visit. He had come to seize control of the installations and the gas fields. A day earlier another army, but this time of oil engineers, had moved quietly through the gas fields and plants on the pretext of carrying out inspections and controls, although in larger numbers than usual. "New technicians are accompanying the old ones to gain experience on the ground," the engineers told the guards and watchmen at the foreign oil companies, to allay any suspicions. The aim of the secret mission by the oil industry technicians was to take emergency action in case the companies decided to respond to the nationalisation by cutting off energy supplies. The little-known story behind the events of May 1 was related to IPS by one of the six strategists responsible for the secret plan, Manuel Morales Olivera, general adviser to Bolivia's state-owned oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB). Morales Olivera is the son of lawyer Manuel Morales Dávila, who spent 42 days in prison in 1996 after accusing then president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada of betraying the fatherland by privatising the energy industry. Decree 28701 returned the country's energy resources to state hands, in compliance with a 2004 referendum in which Bolivians voted for the renationalisation of the natural gas reserves, and with two articles of the constitution. It also put YPFB in control of the entire chain of production as well as domestic natural gas prices, and gave foreign companies six months to renegotiate the terms of their existing contracts under the new rules. The May 1 presidential decree reaffirmed that the companies' exploration and production contracts were annulled because they had not been approved by the legislature as established by the constitution. It also outlined the conditions under which the industry would operate during the transitional period, while the Ministry of Hydrocarbons decides, "on a case by case basis, and by means of audits," on investments, repayments, operating costs and profit margins for each company. The result of the audits will serve as the basis for the new contracts. In the meantime, in the case of fields that produce more than 100 million cubic feet of gas a day, 82 percent of the proceeds will go to the state - 18 percent in royalties, 32 percent in a direct tax on production, and an additional 32 percent to YPFB - and 18 percent to the foreign companies. For smaller gas fields, the current 50/50 split of revenues will remain in place during the transitional period, the decree states. To guarantee the continued distribution of supplies, the decree gave YPFB a controlling stake in the companies. The origins of the decree date back to the second half of 2002, after the now governing Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and its leader Evo Morales came in second in the elections, just 20,000 votes behind Sánchez de Lozada (1993-1997 and 2002-2003), who had privatised not only the country's natural gas industry but also telecommunications, the railways, power companies, and other state assets and enterprises. Morales Dávila, the father of the current YPFB adviser, was put in charge of drawing up the first bill for the nationalisation of the gas industry introduced to Congress by MAS in October 2002, with the backing of 30 legislators and 10 trade unions. That support, however, was insufficient for the bill to make it through the legislature, explained Morales Olivera. What Congress did approve, in May 2005, was a law raising the royalties and taxes paid by foreign oil companies from 18 to 50 percent. Leaning back in an armchair in his home in a middle-class neighbourhood of La Paz, across from a stylised image of legendary Argentine-Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Morales Olivera responded to IPS's questions on the third nationalisation of Bolivia's oil and gas industry, as the smoke rose from the cigarette in his hand. IPS: What is the predominant current of thought in the MAS, in favour of nationalising the country's energy resources? MANUEL MORALES OLIVERA: The first current arose from the indigenous movement for the recuperation of their land and powerà.This nationalisation process puts capital at the service of the interests of the nation instead of expropriating it. Like Evo Morales says, we want partners, not bosses. That explains the deployment of the armed forces. If any company had rejected the decision, at that same moment, the armed forces and government engineers would have taken control of the operations. IPS: Ten years after the privatisation of the gas industry, the concept of what a state-owned oil company is supposed to do seems to have been forgotten. What role did the YPFB used to play? MMO: It operated in the entire production chain. It owned the oil that was pumped, supplied the domestic market and exported gas to Argentina. Foreign companies operated here, but they were subordinate to YPFB. Through royalties and other mechanisms, the state received 50 percent of all proceeds. After privatisation, the state-run company was dismantled and its role was limited to the administration of contracts with the foreign firms. By law it was prohibited from "touching oil or smelling gas." The private companies took over the industry. They were eager to take in five billion dollars to export natural gas as raw material (to the United States and Mexico), but they were incapable of investing 40 million dollars in a gas pipeline to provide the western part of the country with energy supplies. For example, we have not found a balance between the low level of production and the great demand for liquefied petroleum gas, but we export natural gas that is rich in liquefied gas. IPS: How much did YPFB contribute to the state prior to privatisation? MMO: YPFB contributed 400 million dollars a year. But in 1993, during the government of Sánchez de Lozada, its contribution to the state coffers began to decline, and they began to kill off YPFB on the argument that it was inefficient and loss-making. IPS: After privatisation, how much did the private firms contribute to the state coffers? MMO: No more than 100 million dollars, and in some years as little as 10 million. After the popular movement grew in strength, in October 2003 [when mass protests triggered by the plans to export natural gas to the United States and Mexico toppled the government of Sánchez de Lozada], the foreign companies increased their contributions, accepted government decisions on their activities, and set an oil price for the domestic market. To prevent price hikes for gasoline, the government paid the difference between international prices and the domestic price that was subsidised through a compensation mechanism. The oil companies basically loaned us money to buy our own gasoline for ourselves at an international price, with a commercial interest rate of eight percent a year. IPS: What would happen if the companies decide to pull out of the country? MMO: The oil companies would not be able to withdraw their investment immediately, and if they decided to do so, they would have to transfer their installations, pipelines and other assets to new companies, and there are already firms interested in buying them. The new firms coming in would find a new scenario and new conditions, and would know that it is the state and Bolivians as a whole who make the decisions here. In the past, they told us that charging a 50 percent tax would trigger an economic blockade and the death of the oil industry. But now that the San Alberto and San Antonio gas fields [which were under Petrobras control] will have to pay 82 percent in taxes, no one is saying they will die because we know that even under these conditions, they will still be making a profit. The two mega-gas fields produced around 940 million dollars a year in earnings and [since the May 2005 law went into effect in September], they were supposed to pay half - 470 million dollars. Now they will pay approximately 780 million dollars a year. IPS: What will happen in case one of the companies tries to sue Bolivia? MMO: They do not have valid contracts on the basis of which to sue us. And if they tried to do so, the Bolivian state could refuse to respond to an international court of arbitration. Even if the suit moved forward, and in seven years they won, we would innocently ask how they planned to enforce the arbitration awards.
No arbitration award against a sovereign state has ever been collected by force, and there is no international legislation creating a mechanism to enforce such an award against a state. The majority of states face arbitration - including Brazil and Argentina, for example - and they don't collapse and they aren't embargoed. IPS: Is the Bolivian state being opportunistic in nationalising an industry that had received 3.5 billion dollars in investment since 1996? It looks like you kicked out the rival team and kept their ball. MMO: We had our own team, and a coach came and replaced the players with foreigners. They kept our ball as well as the field, and took control of the whole game. The ball and the field have now returned to us, and the foreign players are submitting to the new coach. An audit will determine how much investment was actually made, and whether or not they have recovered it totally or partially. IPS: What guarantees will there be in the future to keep social movements from once again pressing successfully for a change in the rules governing foreign investment? MMO: We are sure that more than 80 percent of the population agrees with the nationalisation, which was born of the July 2004 referendum, in which voters ordered us to recover state ownership of the country's energy resources. We will be very tough with the companies, but we will guarantee secure contracts. They either accept, or they leave. IPS: Will YPFB once again directly operate in the chain of production? MMO: Thirty-two percent of the San Alberto and San Antonio gas fields will go to YPFBàAnd sooner rather than later, the public will hear the news that the state-owned company will once again get involved in exploration. Nationalising the entire chain of production would have been a leap in the dark. The next day, fuel supplies would have come to a halt. But the nationalisation of 51 percent of the companies that belonged to YPFB prior to privatisation guaranteed that operations would continue smoothly. IPS: To what extent did the Venezuelan model influence the decision? MMO: This system is different from the one that our brothers and sisters in Venezuela are applying. Despite facile accusations that the decision was influenced by Venezuela, industry experts know that the concept of joint ventures is different from the model that Bolivia is following. IPS: Has Cuba made any ideological contribution to the nationalisation process? MMO: Cuba is a guiding light for Latin America's social movements, but with respect to the oil industry, our style is different. In Cuba, the state sells part of the output, while in Bolivia the state will sell 100 percent. IPS: The media reported that Morales was criticised by Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Néstor Kirchner of Argentina for nationalising the industry without prior notice. What is your opinion on that? MMO: At the summit meeting [in which Lula, Kirchner, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Morales met] in Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, the three large economies of South America [Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela] had to recognise Bolivia's sovereign right to make decisions on its natural resources. As of now, there is a new important actor in the negotiations: the Bolivian state and government. IPS: How much did the urgent demand for natural gas in Brazil and Argentina influence the decision to take the big step? MMO: The market conditions and current circumstances in the industry at a regional and international level were analysed, which allowed us to take firm, bold decisions. The truly daring aspect was to have had the courage to adopt sovereign measures without consulting Brazil, Argentina, the United States, or the European Union.(END/2006) Source: ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33229
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michelle
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Post by michelle on May 31, 2006 19:04:36 GMT 4
BILDERBERG 2006 AND THE KILLERS OF FREEDOMMore articles related to replies 29 & 30 above....Michelle**************************************************** 8-11th June Ottawa 2006: Bilderberg 2006 and the Killers of Freedom CLIP:Venezuela and Iran, two great global 'problems' which, backed by most of the private money in the world, Bilderbergers will attempt to 'solve' in Ottawa next month. The public's majority view however, which they will scrupulously ignore, is that Venezuela and Iran represent two great bastions of freedom which have defended the views of their respective populations and refused to bow to the totalitarian dominance of the biggest war machine the world has ever seen and the fascist Project for a New American Century. This year, the tenth I have covered Bilderberg, credit for pinpointing the venue is shared between Jim Tucker in Washington and Brussels activist Marek Tysis' scrutiny of Turkish language website, islamdevleti.org. Hearty thanks to everyone. Henry Kissinger and his co-conspirators edge closer every year to their goal of stopping ANY coverage of what is plainly the most powerful political and economic congress in the world. What BBC online called 'The Ultimate Conspiracy Theory'. Those who enquire about Bilderberg's power are expected to wait with baited breath for an incomplete list of participants, delivered as the last luminary's car leaves the hotel. I know embarrassingly powerful people are removed because I spoke to the woman who served Tony Blair his breakfast at Turnberry in 1998. He was not on that year's list. I suppose Kissinger and friends get some kind of cheap 'kick' smuggling their superstars in and out. If leaks are correct, this year's meeting will involve a 'dance macabre' celebrating the outbreak of 'democracy' in Iraq where only 80 people a day are shot dead or blown up and looking forward to repeating that 'success' in Iran. In secret session just a stone's throw from the Skull and Bones' Deer Island in the St. Lawrence river, they will bemoan the 'sectarian divide' and forget that the al-Askariya congregation in Samarra, wiped out in February, was one of those many mosques where Shi'ite and Sunni worshipped together. So which 'faction' was responsible for killing their own people? Or was it the SAS, caught a few months earlier with explosives and dressed as arabs, or the CIA or Mossad who really destroyed that holy place and killed over 160 people? This is the equivalent of having the SAS demolish Westminster Cathedral and blaming it on Arabs. Think on. Not since Dr Goebbels in the 1940's has the Western public been subjected to such daily repeated lies right across the news media about Iran, the Western plutocrats' latest 'rogue state'. In an incredible feat of myopia, the BBC scrupulously fails to mention that Iran is keeping to the letter of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Israel with its bristling nuclear arsenal still refuses to sign. How easily the BBC mandarins have scrapped their motto - Nation shall Speak Peace unto Nation - as they fire off volleys of pseudo-intellectual cover for another round of carnage. Hundreds of thousands, even millions more Islamic murders are in prospect. In the vilest betrayal BBC Current Affairs managers and editors have turn a blind eye to the fate of the Jews just sixty years ago. Meanwhile their fellow travellers at Bilderberg prepare to rotate their palms towards us, smile, and explain that they are nothing more than an innocent private club. Kissinger, Rockefeller and the rest will be crossing their fingers behind their back and hoping we don't notice the ten wealthiest bankers, five most prestigious European royals, four richest oil men, three biggest media barons (now minus bang to rights Conrad Black - well done Mounties!) and a bunch of frightened politicians are dreaming up more nightmares to poison our children's future. Rather than the old silence, the New Labour press here in the UK, The Guardian now paints Bilderberg as the victim, defending their right to neither confirm nor deny, doffing the cap, and failing to inform their readers that this unelected body sits at the global black heart of the capitalism they make a pretence of opposing. As Britain's respected daily paper of the left The Guardian Jason Walsh Blog's defence last week of Bilderberg, Skull and Bones and Neo-Con puppet Blair are appalling betrayals. commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/jason_walsh/2006/05/a_conspiracy_of_dunces.htmlScrupulously ignored in their and the BBC's coverage is the fact that Bilderberg's founder, recently deceased Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands was a enthusiastic member of Hitler's elite SS before World War II. Neither will they mention umbilical ties to the freemasons' 500,000 strong religious cult whose most trusted personal assistant Andrew Palmer organised the last UK Bilderberg conference. Read the rest and much much more at www.bilderberg.org/pepis06.htm**************************************************** Also, interestingly, as mentioned at www.girlsgofishing.com/CLIP:(...) It might also interest you to know that Steven Harper, Canada's newly-installed conservative Prime Minister has been seen and photographed at Bilderberg meetings for years. Is that a surprise? Watch a video clip or two of these secret Bilderberg meetings. Harper refuses to answer the question as to whether or not he's attending the secret meeting this time around. The leader of Canada, having secret meetings with corporate criminals and hiding it from the public. Harper has even stated that he will do no more press conferences . This is more secrecy coming from Canada's leader, a man who is obligated to serve the people. Way to go Harper! CLIP **************************************************** More, much more about this at thunderbay.indymedia.org/news/2003/06/7014_comment.php**************************************************** Secretive power brokers meeting coming to Ottawa? (May 24, 2006) CLIP:OTTAWA - The meetings of a secretive global think-tank would bring 100 of the world's most powerful and influential figures to Ottawa next month and make an Ottawa hotel the host of deliberations on such weighty issues as the direction of global oil markets and potential military action against Iran.Reports circulating on the Internet say this year's Bilderberg Conference will be held June 8-11 at the Brookstreet Hotel a rumour the hotel would not confirm. But, if a gathering in Ottawa is anything like past Bilderbergs, invitees will be drawn from the pages of International Who's Who, with a emphasis on political and corporate leadership and strong representation of the oil and banking industries. Guest lists typically include names like Kissinger, Rockefeller and Soros.The obsessive secrecy that accompanies Bilderberg conferences could also draw Ottawa into the insane conspiracy theories that surround the group. The Bilderberg has been accused of being everything from a Zionist cabal building a single global government to a secret star-chamber that seeks to fix the price of oil and presidential elections.Even some rational critics suspect the Bilderberg's meetings set the economic and political agenda for much of the industrialized world without any public oversight or accountability. They denounce the Bilderberg as elitist and overly secretive, calling it an anti-democratic gathering of ''the high priests of globalization.''The conference takes its name from the Hotel de Bilderberg in the Netherlands, site of the first meeting in 1954. The group's intent was to link governments and economies in Europe and North America amid the Cold War. But its mandate has evolved, and it now exerts a global influence with interests in foreign policy in general and energy in particular.Several Canadian political figures have spoken at Bilderbergs, including prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien, New Brunswick premiers Bernard Lord and Frank McKenna, and former Ontario premier Mike Harris. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office would not say Tuesday if he's been invited to attend the rumoured Ottawa meetings. Harper attended the 2003 conference in Versailles, France. CLIPRead the rest:www.canada.com/reginaleaderpost/news/story.html?id=ff614eb8-02cc-41a3-a42d-30642def1421&k=62840**************************************************** NOTE FROM MICHELLE: Another point of clarification is this: The most powerful of the Illuminati are not public figures such as presidents, premiers, ambassadors, members of Congress or Parliaments, or corporate CEOs, board chairs or head of the Federal Reserve. On the contrary, the peak Illuminati work in secrecy and silence out of public sight as they control those prominent figures. More on this to come. As our awareness grows, so does The Light grow and expand its illumination on the Dark Ones who perpetuate all human misery on our planet Earth.
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Jun 2, 2006 4:32:36 GMT 4
This article is related to replies 29, 30, & 31 above....MGlobalization's Watchdogs[/b][/color] Mark Engler | May 26, 2006 Editor: John Gershman, IRC Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org When Bolivian President Evo Morales announced plans to nationalize his country's oil and natural gas resources in early May, he did more than lay out a promising path for development. He also provided an ideal opportunity to illustrate how large segments of the U.S. and British press have adopted roles as watchdogs for corporate globalization. Since Bolivia's energy exports go to Brazil and Argentina rather than the United States, and since the nationalization is unlikely to significantly alter the price of natural gas on international markets, the direct impact on our country is minimal. Yet in the weeks since Morales took action, we have been treated to a wealth of hysterical commentary. As Condoleezza Rice criticized South American “demagoguery” and industry groups warned that Morales was “embarking on a dangerous path,” the editorial pages charged to advance the front. The Wall Street Journal predictably led the way, calling “abrogation of contracts” the latest “Latin craze.” It echoed The Economist's warning from London that “ Bolivia may be moving backwards” and “its people are likely to grow even poorer.” These business-oriented publications actually sounded subdued compared to some rival dailies. The Los Angeles Times wrote, “Morales put his head in an oven this week and turned on the natural gas. There are only two likely outcomes: an explosion that ends his political career—or a slow suffocation for his people.” New York's Newsday also worked up a rabid editorial assault. There, columnist James Pinkerton derided Bolivia as “a country that is nationalizing, or, if you prefer, stealing, foreign-owned assets.” The paper's editorial page then grouped Bolivia with Cuba and Venezuela in an “Axis of Idiocy” and asserted that “nationalization of major industries has proved to be a road to economic ruin in an era of globalization.” Given that little nationalization of major industries has occurred in this era of globalization, Newsday left readers wondering about how this idea has been “proven”—at least to anyone who wants evidence instead of just blind market ideology. Nor did the paper give any indication why an increasing number of Latin American countries are inviting sure “failure” by bucking the policies of neoliberal globalization. For its part, the Los Angeles Times gave some insight by remarking, “It's true that [Bolivia's] resources have long been exploited by foreigners with little benefit to the indigenous population.” But it nevertheless contended that “sending in the army to take over the gas fields isn't the answer to Bolivia's problems.” What the alarmist viewpoints lack most is context. In predicting economic disaster for a re-nationalized Bolivian energy sector, the editorials turn a blind eye to the two-decade disaster known as neoliberalism. In the 1980s Bolivia was on the cutting edge of the trend toward privatization, adhering to an International Monetary Fund (IMF)-recommended structural adjustment program. The pro-corporate reforms proved profitable for the multinational energy companies involved, but they utterly failed to benefit the Bolivian people. Today 64% of the population lives in poverty, with a majority of people scraping by on less than $2 per day. A March 2006 report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows that, according to the IMF's own data, real per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) in Bolivia is lower now than it was 27 years ago. Despite the general trend, there were some levelheaded voices in the media. These exceptions went far in debunking many of the Evo-bashers' doomsday scenarios. Usually a defender of “free trade” policies, The New York Times ran an op-ed entitled, “All Smoke, No Fire in Bolivia.” It noted that foreign energy companies will not be kicked out of Bolivia under Morales' framework, but merely will have to cooperate with the state on less lucrative terms than before. While private partners will remain, Evo's plan will increase state control of natural resources and force renegotiation of the suspect corporate contracts signed during privatization. As a result, a greater share of the proceeds from oil and gas will be redirected to benefit Bolivia's poor. “The companies will still profit under the new rules,” commentator William Powers wrote. “They won't see the huge profits they enjoyed under lax Bolivian control and the global rally in commodities prices, but they will make money.” The London Independent observed, “Energy reserves are national assets which the state has a right to control and benefit from.” And even the stodgy Financial Times, while generally suspicious of Morales, conceded “there is nothing intrinsically wrong in trying to maximize royalties and taxes” from the use of a country's natural resources. Not all economists think that Evo's wager was a bad one—and some think the gamble could pay off big. Especially galling for critics has been Joseph Stiglitz's public show of support this week for Bolivia's re-nationalization. After meeting with Morales on May 17, Stiglitz, a Nobel-prize winning economist and former chief economist at the World Bank, argued that Bolivia “felt all the pains [of neoliberal structural adjustment] but has experienced no gains—it's clear that it must have a change in its economic model.” Stiglitz also contended that the sale of Bolivian hydrocarbons to private interests was illegal, since it was never approved by the country's Congress. “When a person was robbed of a painting and then it is given back to him,” Stiglitz argued, “we don't call it re-nationalization, but return of a property that was his to begin with.” For all their professed concern about democratic reform, this is a point that the critics consistently miss. Morales was elected in a landslide on a platform vowing nationalization. That he actually kept a campaign promise may seem bizarre to the watchdogs of corporate globalization, but it's something that should be lauded. With their commentaries filled with alarm, too few papers took note of a remarkable development: This time, when democracy and neoliberal economics collided, democracy won. Mark Engler, a writer based in New York City, is an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org). He can be reached via the web site www.democracyuprising.com. Research assistance provided by Kate Griffiths.SOURCE: www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3284
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Jun 15, 2006 11:52:10 GMT 4
The Fallout from Falling US Wagesby Rick Wolff Real wages in the US rose during every decade from 1830 to 1970. Then this central feature of US capitalism stopped as the figures below show:Source: Labor Research Associates of New York based on data from the US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics; wages expressed in constant 1982 dollars. 1964 $302.52 1974 314.94 1984 279.22 1994 259.97 2004 277.57 No comparable steady rise in real wages has occurred since. The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate real weekly wages declined again over the last year (2005-2006). American workers' reactions to this downtrend in real wages have profoundly shaped the nation's economy and society for the last thirty years. Stagnant or falling real wages undermine workers' basic expectations of rising levels of consumption. Those expectations had become key parts of what it meant to be "an American." Rising consumption has long functioned as the evidence of success in achieving the American dream. When, after the mid-1970s, real wages no longer allowed for rising consumption, wage-earners turned, with growing urgency, toward other ways and means to maintain rising consumption . This delayed the inevitable, a falling standard of living, but at great economic and social cost.In one "solution" to counteract the problem of shrinking real wages, many families sent more members out to work more hours. Part-timers switched to full-time positions or else multiplied part-time jobs to secure more income. Full-timers took second and third jobs. While this helped, in part, to offset the real wage problem, it also disorganized family and household life. Time with spouse and children was cut. So too was the energy and attention adults could devote after work to cope with family problems aggravated by lengthenig work times for family members. Rising divorce rates, intra-familial difficulties and abuse, and indices of psychological depression became signs of the costs of this partial "solution." When mothers' entry into the paid workforce required costly day-care for dependents and commercially prepared foods, families again confronted insufficient funds to enable increased consumption. A second "solution" -- when longer work hours did not generate enough money to increase consumption -- was to borrow. Multiple credit cards per family and increasing mortgages added to vehicle financing to generate historically unprecedented levels of total consumer debt across the last 25 years -- and especially since 2000. March and April 2006 saw negative real savings rates for the public of 1.5%. Nor do these stark statistics count the vast sums that adult children increasingly "borrow" from their parents' savings. Not surprisingly, the debt service portion of disposable income has also reached historic heights. Over 15 percent of after-tax personal income repays debt (despite current low interest rates). Borrowing has thus heaped the costs and anxieties of debt on top of those flowing from increased external work time by family members. The resulting stress levels contributed to the deepening reliance of millions of Americans on legal and illegal drugs, as well as excess food (the "obesity problem") and alcohol. As constricted consumption provoked more work and debt, the latter provoked more consumption as a coping mechanism. More malls filled with more people who increasingly cannot afford to shop there. Stagnant or falling real wages were partly caused by technological changes and immigration. The former reduced the demand for labor while the latter increased its supply: a combination resulting in predictable downward pressures on wages. Yet immigration receives far more emphasis than rigorous analysis warrants. Other causes of the real wage downtrend were simultaneously its effects: declining union membership and militancy, declining government services and supports to wage-earners, and declining civic (including electoral) participation by the general population. In genuine desperation, a portion of the increasingly stressed, decreasingly organized, and less community-engaged population turned for support and help toward fundamentalist religion. Underfunded and less and less functional government agencies and the Democratic Party associated with them lost considerable public support. Republicans saw their chance to take power. They positioned themselves as the way to (1) bring the change ever more workers felt they needed, (2) restore badly strained "families and family values", and (3) support religious institutions as public service providers. While the Republicans thereby won elections, their free market programs (tax cuts, public service cuts, government deregulation, etc.) never stopped the basic downward cycle of real wages, more work, and higher debt. Predictably, Republicans now face rising problems in sustaining a public perception of economic progress or wellbeing. Fundamentalist economic theory accompanied all these developments, the "scientific assurance" to the population that only good things would result from free market programs. That is, "economics" taught the absolute wisdom of cutting taxes, public service delivery, and welfare, as well as removing government controls and regulations of business. Economics promised that the resulting inequalities of wealth and income would provide the incentives and capital for greater economic growth beneficial to all. Economics proved that the outsourcing of jobs, greater immigration, and huge federal budget and foreign trade deficits all brought net social benefits and so were best left unimpeded by any government action. In fact, the economics profession has debated these issues for the last 200 years without resolution among the contending theories and their analyses. But that fact got swept aside by the Republican need for one absolute version of "economics" that either denied economic problems existed or else glossed them with a scientific guarantee of imminent, free market solution. Bush's recent loss of public approval may signal the limits to the last twenty-five years of economic change and policy. A vast outrage may arise among Americans who "forget" their beliefs in and complicity with policies that are now becoming exposed as failures and who will insist that they were duped and mislead. Then the political pendulum can swing as far toward government economic intervention as before it swung the other way. Such shifts have, after all, happened many times in the past. "Economic science" may yet again be reformulated in Keynesian or "socialist" terms to justify such shifts (note Latin America's recent dramatic moves away from its extreme neo-liberal policies after the1970s). The key questions for many now are (1) how much longer can the combination of real wage decline, rising work effort, debt, and family stress, and deepening social inequalities continue; (2) what might enable Bush & Co. nonetheless to continue the economic direction they champion; and (3) how fast and how far will the backlash proceed if they cannot do so? For socialists, the key political question is different. When private capitalism a la Bush hits its crisis, will the chief socialist response be (as it mostly was after 1929) to support a government intervention aimed to save the system by making it more worker-friendly for a while till the crisis passes? Or will they demand far more basic economic change? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rick Wolff is Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is the author of many books and articles, including (with Stephen Resnick) Class Theory and History: Capitalism and Communism in the U.S.S.R. (Routledge, 2002). SOURCE: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wolff120606.html**************************************************** OK, here's the latest stats on job creation between 2003 and 2004. More than one million jobs were created; the only problem is the industries they were created in. Can anyone seriously raise a family, on salaries from these industries? They don't even pay enough for a single person to maintain a decent apartment and reasonable lifestyle. Plus there's the fact that many people are not given full time status at these jobs, hence no medical insurance. Also, childcare is at least $100/week per child.
Here's the top hiring industries mentioned below and where I imagine you'll be working at:
Retail trade: WALMART
Health care and social assistance: NURSING HOMES, HOME HEALTH CARE: This doesn't necessarily mean nursing jobs [which I wouldn't want to do in today's world; have you asked a nurse how much forced overtime he/she is working?] there are plenty of menial tasks to be done in these areas.
Accommodations: HOTELS/MOTELS plenty of low paying jobs here, you can clean rooms, wash dishes....you get the picture.
Food services industries: There's a myriad of FAST FOOD PLACES popping up in land destroying malls and urban sprawl development being built everywhere.
Of course, many of the middle class still have reasonable paying jobs and why should the jobs being offered to the American public matter to them, they're doing fine....for now.......MichelleCounty Business Patterns: 2004; More Than 1 Million Jobs Added in Retail, Other Industries, New Census Report Finds6/15/2006 12:01:00 AM Contact: Mike Bergman of the U.S. Census Bureau Public Information Office, 301-763-3030 or 301-457-1037 (TDD) or pio@census.gov WASHINGTON, June 15 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Businesses in the retail trade, health care and social assistance, and accommodations and food services industries added more than 1.1 million jobs between 2003 and 2004, according to a report on business activity released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.According to the report, 2004 County Business Patterns, retail trade led all industry sectors in employment gains, adding 483,606 jobs; followed by health care and social assistance (342,629 jobs); and accommodations and food services (310,160 jobs). Among counties with the largest employment changes in these industries were San Diego, Calif., for retail trade (nearly 8 percent gain between 2003 and 2004); Miami-Dade, Fla., for health care and social assistance (nearly 13 percent); and Alameda, Calif., for accommodations and food services (more than 13 percent). Los Angeles County had the largest numeric gains in retail trade and health care and social assistance between 2003 and 2004. --- The following tables represent Numerical and Percentage Gains in Employment, 2003 to 2004: U.S. and Top-Five Counties in Selected Industry Sectors RETAIL TRADE Geographic Area; 2004 Employees; 2003 Employees; Gain 2003- 2004 Number; Gain 2003-2004 Percent United States; 15,351,431; 14,867,825; 483,606; 3.3 Los Angeles, Calif.; 419,549; 402,888; 16,661; 4.1 Cook, Ill.; 239,731; 24,324; 15,407; 6.9 San Diego, Calif.; 157,626; 146,145; 11,481; 7.9 Maricopa, Ariz.; 191,624; 180,174; 11,450; 6.4 Orange, Calif.; 161,339; 153,146; 8,193; 5.3 HEALTH CARE AND SOCIAL ASSISTANCE Geographic Area; 2004 Employees; 2003 Employees; Gain 2003- 2004 Number; Gain 2003-2004 Percent United States; 15,814,812; 15,472,183; 342,629; 2.2 Los Angeles, Calif.; 430,996; 416,807; 14,189; 3.4 Harris, Texas; 188,286; 174,931; 13,355; 7.6 Miami-Dade, Fla.; 115,179; 102,000; 13,179; 12.9 Dallas, Texas; 129,497; 120,006; 9,491; 7.9 Maricopa, Ariz.; 149,802; 141,782; 8,020; 5.7 ACCOMMODATIONS AND FOOD SERVICES Geographic Area; 2004 Employees; 2003 Employees; Gain 2003- 2004 Number; Gain 2003-2004 Percent United States; 10,749,811; 10,439,651; 310,160; 3.0 Clark, Nev.; 227,004; 218,311; 8,693; 4.0 Los Angeles, Calif.; 317,534; 308,894; 8,640; 2.8 Orange, Fla.; 86,043; 77,692; 8,351; 10.8 Alameda, Calif.; 48,579; 42,866; 5,713; 13.3 Harris, Texas; 137,536; 131,878; 5,658; 4.3 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns, 2003 and 2004 - www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/view/cbpview.html--- Other highlights:-- Professional, scientific and technical services businesses showed considerable growth, with the total number of establishments up 3 percent, employment up 3.1 percent and annual payroll up 7.1 percent between 2003 and 2004. San Francisco County, Calif., led the nation in employment growth for this sector and added 29,000 new jobs in 2004. Fairfax County, Va., was another leading county, with establishment growth of 5.9 percent, employment growth of 13.7 percent and annual payroll growth of 16.8 percent. -- The southeastern region (Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) led the nation in employment growth and added 630,000 jobs. The salaries for all employees in the region grew by 6.7 percent from $705.6 billion in 2003 to $752.6 billion in 2004. -- Nationwide, private sector employment grew by 1.5 percent from 113.4 million in 2003 to 115.1 million in 2004. Annual pay for all employees grew by 5.3 percent to $4.3 trillion. -- Among the 50 counties with the most establishments in 2004, New York continued to have the highest average annual payroll per employee (in 2004 dollars) at $80,013, a 9.6 percent annual gain over $73,032 (in 2003 dollars). The report defines employment as all full- or part-time employees who were on the payroll during the pay period that includes March 12. The 2004 County Business Patterns data are tabulated by industry according to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). County Business Patterns covers private sector businesses in most of the 1,100 NAICS industries. The data in today's report cover such important issues as small business growth, average employee wages and geographic concentration of industries across the nation. Data for the vast majority of the nation's businesses -- those without paid employees -- will be released later this year. County Business Patterns data are provided at various geographic levels, including state, county and metropolitan statistical areas. The Census Bureau also will release the data down to the 5-digit ZIP code level later this year. County Business Patterns data have been published annually since 1964 and at irregular intervals back to 1946. The data will be available on CD-ROM at a later date. --- The data are obtained from Census Bureau reports and administrative records from other federal agencies. Quality assurance procedures are applied to all phases of collection, processing and tabulation to minimize errors. The data are subject to error from miscoding and estimation for missing or misreported data.
The data can be accessed at www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/cbptotal.html.
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Jun 19, 2006 15:25:39 GMT 4
Bush-GOP Tax Cuts Benefit Wealthy (Audio) While Jeopardizing U.S. Economic FutureInterview with Len Berman, Director of the Tax Policy Center, Conducted by Melinda Tuhus www.btlonline.org/berman062306.ram
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jun 20, 2006 15:13:19 GMT 4
IMF and World Bank: Two Instruments of National Destruction An interview with Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of OttawaInterview and editing by Jared Israel The Bretton Woods Conference, referred to in the following interview, is the popular name for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference that took place, in 1944, at Bretton Woods vacation resort in New Hampshire. Attended by the representatives of 44 nations, it resulted in the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, more commonly known as the World Bank .Ed. Chossudovsky: When an IMF mission goes into a country and requires the destruction of social and economic institutions as a condition for lending money - this is very similar to the physical destruction caused by NATO bombing. The IMF will order the closing down of hospitals, schools and factories. That's of course more cost effective than bombing those hospitals, schools and factories, as they did in Yugoslavia, but the ultimate result is very similar: the destruction of the country. The IMF has what is called the MAI - the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. It's the ultimate investment treaty. Signing leads to the economic destruction of the targeted country. Well, really, war is simply the MAI of last resort. Jared: What are your thoughts on the demands of the folks protesting now in Washington? Chossudovsky: Well, lots of people have converged on Washington to protest the Bretton Woods system, the IMF and the World Bank. The question is: what are we fighting for? I suspect the dominant position among the NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations] is still that we need to make them work for the poor and so forth. I think this approach, which developed from the "50 Years Is Enough" campaign against the Bretton Woods institutions is a mistake. And increasingly people are challenging it, questioning the legitimacy of these Washington institutions. But still there's a lot of confusion. Some think the IMF and World Bank are playing contradictory roles, which is not so. And also there's a tendency to see these institutions in isolation. In fact they are simply two tools used by the Western elite to destroy nations, to turn them into territories. Jared: You think some people are fooled by the World Bank? Chossudovsky: They believe the World Bank has adopted a humane approach, that it's involved in poverty alleviation whereas the IMF creates poverty. Or they even think there's a conflict between the two. That's nonsense. The World Bank is doing essentially the same job as the IMF; it merely has different responsibilities in the Third World. In a way, it is far more dangerous precisely because [of the fact that] its supposed mandate to alleviate poverty disarms critics. The simple fact is: Wall Street is behind both these institutions. They are run by bankers not sociologists. FREE TRADE BROTHER OF WARChossudovsky:More important: a lot of people don't see the link to NATO.[/color] Very few of the organizations criticizing the Bretton Woods institutions opposed the attack on Yugoslavia. They didn't talk about it in Seattle and they aren't doing it in Washington now. They campaign against free trade, against the IMF, in favor of the Jubilee campaign to cancel third world debt, but not against war. But free trade and war go hand in hand. It was true with the British in the 19th century when they forced the Chinese to "freely" purchase opium and it is true today. And there's a good deal of coordination between the IMF and NATO. You saw it in Kosovo. The IMF and the World Bank had set up a postwar economic plan including free market reforms well before the onset of bombing. They work together. If a country refuses IMF intervention, NATO steps in, or NATO and various covert agencies, and they create the proper conditions for IMF programs to be imposed. Israel: Very sharp point. Chossudovsky: The countries that accept the IMF, like Bulgaria and Romania, they may not get bombed but they are destroyed with the pen. In Bulgaria the IMF implemented the most drastic reforms, IMF medicine, which decimated social conditions - pensions slashed, factories closed, dumping of cheap finished goods, elimination of free medical care and transportation services and so on. And it's not just NATO. We see that in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Hand in hand with the imposition of IMF and World Bank reforms and privatisation program we have not only NATO but also CIA covert intelligence operations - the institutions of war and economic management interface with one another at a global level. So right now various countries are being softened up with regional conflicts that are financed overtly and covertly by the Western elite. The KLA is just one example of an externally financed insurgency. You see these manipulated conflicts especially wherever there are strategic pipelines, and they are linked to the drug trade and the CIA, covertly, then openly linked to NATO and official US foreign policy, and finally to the IMF, the World Bank and regional banks and private investors. Links in a chain. Let's categorize these global institutions: you've got the United Nations system and peace keeping; they play a role and they are interfacing with NATO as well. Then you've got the IMF and the World Bank, and the regional development banks like the ADB, the Asian Development Bank, and so on. In Europe it's the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. These are the main arms. Sometimes war creates the conditions, and then the economic institutions come in and pick up the pieces. Or conversely the IMF itself does the destabilizing, as they did in Indonesia. They insisted on cutting off transfer payments to the various states in the federation. Now that fractures a country like Indonesia which has 2,000 islands with a system of local governments. It is the geography of the bloody place. So they leave these islands to their own devices. Do you see what that accomplishes? Israel: In other words, they insisted on cutting money that was supposed to subsidize local government? Chossudovsky: Yes, for example for education and so on. By doing this - and incidentally they did it in Brazil as well - they destabilize the country because in order to have a country there must be fiscal coherence, a system of fiscal transfers. So in a place like Indonesia, each of these islands becomes a small state. And of course now the idea of going it alone becomes far more attractive to the many different ethnic groups. Of course they [that is, the planners] are fully aware of this - they have made it happen time and again. It took place in Yugoslavia; it took place in Brazil; it took place in the former Soviet Union where the regions are left to their own devices because Moscow doesn't transfer any money. Potentially it could happen in the United States as well. It is guaranteed to produce a situation of conflict, internal strife. Israel: Mutually unproductive conflict? Chossudovsky: Yes because people are impoverished to such an extent that they start fighting. Israel: On every basis, especially ethnic. Chossudovsky: Incidentally in Somalia there weren't any ethnic groups, but it worked there too. You don't need a multi-ethnic society to have divisions, to have Balkanization. Israel: And you're saying this is part and parcel of a plan for Empire? Chossudovsky: I am saying this is recolonization, countries are transformed into territories, colonies essentially. Israel: What distinguishes the two? COUNTRIES VERSUS TERRITORIESChossudovsky: A country has a government. It has institutions. It has a budget. It has economic borders. It has customs. A territory has only a nominal government, controlled by the IMF. No schools and hospitals, as those have been closed down on orders of the World Bank. No borders because the WTO has ordered free trade. No industry or agriculture because these have been destabilized as the result of interest rates of 60% per anum and that is also the IMF program. Israel: 60% per year? Chossudovsky: In Brazil it's much higher. I'm looking at Botswana now. The interest rate is horrendously high. Israel: And this is imposed by the IMF? Chossudovsky: They put a ceiling on credit. Do you see? So people can't get bank loans; it drives interest sky high and that kills the economy. Then they open it up to free trade. So the local capitalist enterprises have to borrow at 60% from the local banks and then they have to compete with commodities from the United States or Europe where interest rates are 6 or 7%. These reforms are essentially aimed at destroying local capitalism. Israel: So how do we fight this? Chossudovsky: Not with a single-issue movement. We can't focus solely on the Bretton Woods institutions, or the WTO, or environmental issues or genetic engineering; we have to look at the totality of relations. When we look at the totality we see the link to the use of force. Beneath this economic system lie the undercover features of the capitalist order: the military-industrial complex, the intelligence apparatus and the links to organized crime including the use of narcotics to finance conflicts aimed at opening nations to Western control. We have gone from gunboat diplomacy to missile diplomacy. In fact it is not missile diplomacy. It is sheer bombing. Israel: You said that part of the military intelligence apparatus is gangsters. I know that you have been writing material about how drugs is actually an economically powerful force. Chossudovsky: Well it is more complicated than that. Because in fact the gangsters are the instruments of big capital. They are not - they don't overshadow the system in any way. The gangsters are people who can be easily used precisely because they are not responsible to anybody. So it is much more convenient. Let's say you install Hacim Thaci [leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army] in the seat of government in Kosovo. It's much more convenient to have a gangster like this running a country than to have an elected prime minister that is responsible to citizens. The best thing is to have an elected gangster, somebody like Boris Yeltsin, that's the best - get an elected gangster. We have elected gangsters in the US as well.
Why? Because elected gangsters are much easier to control than elected non-gangsters. But we must understand these gangsters are pretty obviously subordinate - when we say it is the criminalization of the colony, it is not true. It's the other way around. You are never going to have a situation where these gangsters will be given any power. The big ones perhaps... So there is a certain interpenetration of legal and illicit trade. But in effect illicit trade is always subordinate to large scale financial and business undertakings. An important aspect of this is that the IMF creates the conditions for the growth of illicit trade and for the laundering of dirty money, all over the world. That is very clear because when legal economies collapse under the brunt of IMF reforms what are you left with? It's the grey economy; it's the criminal economy. Israel: And that encourages the development of forces that can be used to replace potentially responsible legal forces. Chossudovsky: Yes and that type of collapse in legal economic systems also creates the conditions for developing insurgencies, destabilizing elected governments, closing down of institutions and transforming countries into territories which are then run as colonies. From: Emperor's Clothes www.tenc.net SOURCE: www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=79
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DT1
Moderator
You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
Posts: 428
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Post by DT1 on Jun 23, 2006 9:02:08 GMT 4
Minimum wage increase shot down...again Straight down party lines.What is so enfuriating is that the vote was so close.(52-46). Senator Edward Kennedy was madder than hell about this,as we all should be. "Americans believe that no one who works hard for a living should have to live in poverty. A job should lift you out of poverty, not keep you in it!". He said a worker paid $5.15 an hour would earn $10,700 a year, "almost $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three." Kennedy also said lawmakers' annual pay has risen by roughly $30,000 since the last increase in the minimum wage. So there you have it.The party in power,these "representatives" (with their enviable medical coveredge,retirement accounts,travel expenses,ridiculous retirement packages)will not hesitate to keep crumbs from falling off their table..But they are so very eager to let millionaires become billionaires through price-gouging at the pump.Meanwhile, people who actually work every day have to choose between,food,medicine,and having enough gas in the tank to get to work... Wealthiest nation on Earth?Depends on who you ask,I guess. Or who you own...
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Jul 8, 2006 16:39:22 GMT 4
THIS IS A MUST READ FOR ALL CANADIANS!Thinking the unthinkable about Canada’s future: Is it time to start using the “f”word?by Geoff Olson July 5 2006 In the eye-opening film Hoodwinked: The Myth of Free Trade, former Liberal prime minister John Turner reflects on the mid-’80s battle over the North American Free Trade Agreement. After a famous heated exchange with Brian Mulroney, Turner lost the battle for Canadian hearts and minds on the divisive trade issue – and their votes in the process.Turner reflects on how, unlike most politicians, he had read the actual NAFTA agreement. After discovering an absence of binding agreements on such things as monopolies, antidumping, and labour standards, he decided the document had more to do with investment than “free trade.”Cut to 20 years later. Iconic Canadian institutions like Hudson’s Bay and the Laurentian Hotel chain have disappeared into the deep pockets of foreign investors. Provincially, it’s more of the same. Texas-based Kinder Morgan owns BC’s gas delivery system. One third of the operations and services of BC Hydro, our most profitable public company, has been outsourced to Bermuda-based Accenture. The BC Medical Services Plan and Pharmacare are in the hands of American firms. The CEO of the privatized BC Ferries hails from the US, where he presided as vice-president of Covanta Energy, which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001. Neo-conservative apologists in academia and media continue to applaud the high levels of direct foreign investment, federally and provincially, even though the bulk of it is in takeovers and acquisitions. Foreign direct investment has more than doubled in Canada since 1990. The Ontario governments’ website boasts that “Canada puts no restrictions on the repatriation of capital or profit by foreign investors – one of the reasons the country attracts a high level of foreign investment.” In a speech this January in Utah, former US vice-president Al Gore said “the election in Canada was partly about the tar sands projects in Alberta… and the financial interests behind the tar sands project poured a lot of money and support behind an ultra-conservative leader in order to win the election... and to protect its interests.” (Under Chapter 6 of NAFTA, Canada agreed to a “proportional sharing” provision. A fixed proportion of our energy supplies to the United States are guaranteed into the future. Even in the event of a national crisis, Canada cannot reduce the 65 percent of its oil and 61 percent of its natural gas which it now exports to the US.) The suspicion that our nation is being bought out from underneath our feet, with complicit or ignorant silence of big media, appears to have little evidence to contradict it. In fact, the disassembly of Canada is proceeding on several fronts simultaneously: economic, political, cultural and military. While South American nations are disengaging from the “Washington Consensus,” (the IMF/World Bank prescription for open markets described by critics as a Trojan horse for keeping poorer nations in economic servitude), Canada’s leaders are doing quite the opposite, bringing us into tighter orbit with the US. A number of informed commentators, among them former Progressive Conservative candidate David Orchard, Connie Fogal of the Canadian Action Party, Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, and University of Ottawa economics professor Michel Chossudovsky, the overall plan appears to be nothing less than the elimination of Canada in all but name.Citing publicly available documents, these critics foresee the replacement of Canadian public and private institutions with the cuckoo’s egg of a militarized, branch-plant economy, with many of the traditional social welfare roles of government either eliminated or outsourced to private contractors. It’s a choleric vision of a future that’s two parts Orwell and one part Huxley, with a shrunken middle class toiling under the thumb of a borderless corporate oligarchy, and monitored by unrestricted electronic surveillance. In her paper The Metamorphosis and Sabotage of Canada, Connie Fogal writes “This union is planned, directed, organized and coordinated by unelected, unaccountable people of the military/industrial complex with a few academic apologists thrown in for good measure. It is being facilitated by all three elected governments. This is the same military/industrial complex that General Eisenhower warned against. This group is creating a despotic regime for the pursuit of their interest (rapacious greed and power) which is diametrically opposed to the needs and interests of the citizens in all three countries. Their plan is to make all of North America their power base acting in their interest only.”Fogal doesn’t mince words on the elites’ end game for Canada. “It is the end of a nation. It is the end of decisions by ourselves over ourselves. It is a reduction of our standard of living: a decline of the middle class, an increase in poverty, homelessness and destruction of our social safety net. It is the militarization of the country. It is the creation of a police state.”Extremist rhetoric from a fringe commentator? Whatever the overall nature of the game, it’s undeniable that over the past two decades, an alphabet soup of organizations and agreements have smoothed the path for Canada’s absorption into a single North American bloc, with public policy largely dictated by nonelected officials. The Canadian Council of Chief Executives is the nation’s premier business association, composed of the top executives of 150 leading Canadian firms. Formed in 1976, the CCCE promulgated the development of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, and of the subsequent North American Free Trade Agreement. Concerned that fortress America might retreat within its own borders after 9/11, disrupting Canada-US trade, the organization successfully pressured Ottawa to bring Canadian military and security policies in line with those of the US. A “common security perimeter” serves interests that are not just economic. The CCCE’s petitioning had the enthusiastic endorsement of the military lobby. According to Michael Chossudovsky, another piece of bureaucratic DNA for Canada’s militaristic mutation came with the formation of the Bi-National Planning Group. Accountable neither to the US Congress nor the Canadian Parliament, the BPG’s role transcended electoral governance, and as the name suggests, the BPG had members in both countries. The organization’s role was to negotiate Canada’s entry into the US Northern Command (Northcom). Its work now largely completed, BPG expired this spring and Canada is now positioned to sign on with Northcom. Michel Chossusdovsky writes that “Canada’s participation in the Bilateral Planning Group and hence the Northern Command implies Canada’s acceptance not only of Star Wars, but of the entire US war agenda, requiring significant hikes in Canada’s defence spending. The latter are intended to fuel the military-industrial complex. Canada’s defence contractors are supportive of this process.”One should not think of this as a partisan issue, or a phenomenon brought into being solely by the famously American-friendly Harper government. The federal Liberals have danced to this tune for some time, and the cross-border tango of mutual interests remains the same, even if the political venues have changed. It’s true that Prime Minister Chretien offered resistance to the more extreme aspects of this wheeling and dealing, as did Paul Martin (ie refusing to join in Star Wars and the war in Iraq), but it also appears the leaders’ public antiwar stance proved incompatible with the overall pursuit of economic and military ties with the US. The Independent Task Force for North America, organized by the business elites of the US, Mexico and Canada, was lead by Canada’s own former Liberal deputy prime minister, John Manley. Last spring, Manley’s task force released its Trinational Call for a North American Economic and Security Community by 2010. A united continental bloc will share a common approach to trade, energy, immigration, law enforcement and security. Also in March of 2005, Prime Minister Martin, President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership agreement, which is the general agreement on “deep integration’ between the US, Canada and Mexico. According to Fogal, the leaders then assigned three cabinet ministers in their respective countries to implement the deal, among them David Emerson, then Liberal minister of industry. Emerson’s bureaucratic role in the US-Canada relationship may explain his high value to the Harper government, if indeed his role transcends any partisan considerations. His primary role may be not so much governmental as extra-governmental. This offers an explanation for Emerson’s change of allegiance from Liberal to Conservative within hours of the federal election. Hence his shock at the post-election outcry from his nominal constituents, who had the audacity to believe that voting means something. The meeting of the “Three Amigos” in Cancun last March (Bush, Fox, and Harper in his Empire-friendly military jacket) was simply more of the same. The media focused on the photo ops, while politely failing to mention the particulars of the meeting. The silence was in large part due to the fact that deep integration is proceeding with the ignorance of most elected representatives. According to Jerome R. Corsi in a report in WorldNetDaily.com, working groups in all three nations are busy turning the Security and Prosperity Partnership agreement into reality. Determining the names of the officials involved in the working groups has proved to be difficult.So is this all just a conspiracy theory, a paranoid extrapolation from the US/Canada “business-as-usual? Corsi refers to a task report by The Council on Foreign Relations which presented a blueprint for expanding the SPP agreement into a North American Union that would merge the US, Canada and Mexico into a superstate/trading bloc. “The CFR task force report called for establishment of a common security border perimeter around North America by 2010, along with free movement of people, commerce and capital within North America, facilitated by the development of a North American border pass that would replace a US passport for travel between the US, Canada and Mexico.” “Also envisioned by the CFR task force report were a North American court, a North American inter-parliamentary group, a North American executive commission, a North American military defense command, a North American customs office and a North American development bank.”Sceptics may ask, so what’s is the big deal? Canada has to be “competitive” in the New World Order, and if lumbering dinosaurs like The Hudson’s Bay Co. can’t compete with neighborhood-nuking behemoths like Wal-Mart, you can’t stop globalization, right? And if we join the US missile defence shield and sign on to Northcom, don’t we stand to benefit from shared security? Again, we are being offered the polarities of economic stagnation versus global competitiveness, and civil rights versus police state safety – even though these represent false choices manufactured for us. Once we join Northcom, according to University of Ottawa economics professor Michel Chossudovsky, Canada’s “borders will be controlled by US officials and confidential information on Canadians will be shared with Homeland Security.” The bi-national arrangements will allow US troops and special forces to enter Canada, he says. “ Canadian citizens can be arrested by US officials, acting on behalf of their Canadian counterparts, and vice versa.”In this respect, the difference between the federal Liberals and Conservatives on these matters is one of degree rather than kind, although Chretien’s principled stand on Iraq looked better than the knees-to-the-floor submissiveness of our current crop of Quislings. Ottawa’s new regime has an enthusiasm for US domestic/foreign policy that is startling in its transparency. Harper has abanoned Kyoto, spoken of Canada’s “activist judges,” resumed the attack on gay marriage, barred reporters from photographing caskets returning from Afghanistan, and picked up the habit of ending speeches with a Republican-like “God bless Canada.” At this stage in the game, the Tories appear to have little concern about making their intentions plain. Their apparent sense of immunity from the press and the people is in itself alarming. Michael Chossudovsky asks if annexation of Canada is part of Bush’s military agenda. If anything, it is annexation by committee. The absorption of Canada into a North American superstate is happening incrementally, although it has sped up considerably in the past few years. There is no need for Bradley fighting vehicles to roll across the border. With the thorough integration of the Canadian and US economies through NAFTA, and a common military command and control structure, Canadian sovereignty will cease to exist by definition. Only political players like Fogal and David Orchard are discussing abandoning NAFTA, allowed in the agreement itself by either nation with six month’s notice. So why have none of the major parties touched on the issue of deep integration during the election campaign, or afterwards in the House of Commons? Even the NDP has taken a strangely see-no-evil, speak-no-evil stance. The silence not only hightlights the high-level secrecy surrounding deep integration, It also speaks volumes of our traditional political parties and the sorry state of our big media. There is very little debate in print, policy circles and in Parliament over the common security perimeter, or the mooted North American border pass with biometric identifiers. A single economic space, at last freed of all environmental and labour constraints, seems to have all the appearances of a done deal. Yet the most worrying aspect of the regime change in Canada involves a threat to those much-vaunted “freedoms” that others supposedly hate us for. In June, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day revealed that last year law enforcement agencies allowed their “helpers” to commit a broad spectrum of crimes. According to Vancouver Sun reporter Ian Mulgrew, these included “gun offences, passport forgery, counterfeiting, possession of stolen property, and theft over $5,000.” Mulgrew notes that “after 9/11, Canadian law enforcement agencies were given carte blanche to break the law if necessary… as it stands now, police, park wardens, fisheries officers, custom officials, jail guards and their agents are immune from prosecution for virtually anything short of obstructing justice, non-consensual sex or violence.” And abuses of power aren’t likely to go reported, due to the all-purpose rationale of “security.” Incredibly, the February 2002 immunity law is still on the books. With the recent arrests of alleged terrorists in Toronto, there will undoubtedly be greater enthusiasm to enlarge police powers at the municipal and provincial levels.If you still doubt the depth of Canada’s transformation, consider how quickly our role in Afghanistan went from “peacekeeping” to an open-ended, indefinite war in Central Asia against the “destable murderers and scumbags” described by General Rick Hillier. The General told The Globe and Mail “this is a 10 year mission – minimum.” Yet one ever asked the electorate if the expansion of our military role overseas was desirable or even sensible. In the House of Commons, MPs were allowed only one “note-taking” debate on the matter, with no opportunity to vote. This is not the behaviour of representative democracy, but rather of a totalitarian-lite proxy state. Manipulating people by fear and uncertainty is a time-tested way to get democratic citizens to deconstruct their own civil institutions, and quietly assume the roles of prisoners and prison guards. Is it time to start using the “f” word for both Canada and the US? As we look into the political abyss, are we seeing the darkening signs off fascism?Source: www.commonground.ca/iss/0607180/cg180_Olson.shtml************************************************** ALSO SEE:What More Could We Give You, Mr. Bush?www.truthout.org/docs_2006/070606H.shtmlMaude Barlow argues that Canada's Conservative government has already made more than enough concessions to the aggrandizing United States. Bush Plans North American Union To Replace USA? by Jerome R. Corsi www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=14965N.A.F.T.A. SUPERHIGHWAY BEGINS CONSTRUCTION NEXT YEAR (July 4, 2006) CLIP“Quietly, but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA 10 lane super highway, four football fields wide through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth. Minn. [Read]Unbeknownst to the general public because of a “George W. edict” we became a part of the North American Union. Sieg Heil!“This plan appears to have been assembled under the watchful eye of U.S government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private non-governmental organizations working behind the scenes to create this NAFTA super highway, despite the lack of comment by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming North American Union that government planners in the new trilateral region of the United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality” (Quoted from article by Jerome R Corsi in Human Events, posted January 12, 2006).The road is to be electronically checked only by the new “SENTRI” system. There is confidence in the security of the system because it will be located at off ramps and along the parallel pipelines for it entire length and it will be four football fields wide, according to Mr. Corsi’s report. The intent is to eventually run the road through Central and South America.No doubt, many key politicians, government bureaucrats and key Non-Government Organizations elite players were fully aware of this end run, but few in the general public even now have a clue that all this discussion about open borders is of little consequence, since the trilateralists headed by the Ford, Carter, H.W. Bush Administrations, the Clinton Administration und auch das Führer George W. gemeingefährlich Verwaltung are facilitators for their masters’ goals through this key component of physically linking a mega-highway from the tip of Chili to the northern most points of commerce in Canada. The long planned purpose is to implement the New World Order of borderless countries throughout the hemispheres. (...) The road’s environmental impact will be mind-boggling as well as devastating. Wetlands and forests will forever be cemented over. Corsi reported that the next tier of Interstate 69 to be scheduled crosses through Indiana and will provide a direct connection between Indianapolis and Evansville. In this stretch alone, 1150 acres of forests and the destruction of 300 acres of wetlands won’t even take into account the sprawl and development of the once peaceful area around the highway. Those farmers, environmentalists, hunters and businesspeople aware of the plan have made their complaints known in major Indiana newspapers against the proposed highway. READ IT: www.newswithviews.com/Kress/joe6.htm**************************************************** The first article above from Canada eerily reads like it was taken from the text of "The United States Takeover." I wish to take a moment to speak to not just our Canadian readers but to the global community here, particularly from developing countries where the standard of living is on the rise. Since you are reading this forum, I will assume that you have a decent job which allows you to join the ranks of consumerism. I read your blogs; you're delighted with the availability of goods and technology at your fingertips. Be wary folks, you have just been roped into the plan for world domination by "The Cabal."
"The Cabal" refers to a clique of global-scale plutocratic manipulators who use their immense wealth, prestige and power to control governments and economies to perpetuate their stranglehold on global society. This group is composed of the most selfish, megalomaniacal, and sociopathic individuals, some of whom are big-shots in the Bilderberg Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission global policy-making groups. But these groups are not synonymous with The Cabal, since BC, CFR and TLC also contain some well-intentioned individuals. The Cabal is a kind of "parallel government" to the official elected and appointed governments of the more developed countries.
While the leaders within the Cabal tend to get the most attention, it should be noted that the many thousands of rank-and-file Cabalists also make up this loose network. All of these work synergistically, using economic, political and cultural-influence power to dominate, exploit and prey on ordinary people, often in subtle and hidden ways.
As a citizen of the US, I have read your comments on how stupid we are as nation of people. Also as a US citizen, I can say do you realize how hurtful this is to us? Have you not noticed that many of the most critical writers/bloggers against the US government are US citizens? I and others like me see what has happened to the US population over the course of many decades. Our children's minds and ability to think has been systematically dumbed down. Our attention was diverted from the actions of our government through a slow metamorphous of our nightly news. This morphing of the news from journalism to Hollywood and product spotlights was easily sucked up by much of the US population because they had become absorbed into marketing strategies by corporations and our government. Our lifestyles were great, we could buy anything we wanted, and we did. It destroyed us.
My global brothers and sisters that train is headed right towards you. I warn you of this because many of you have a misunderstanding of life in the United States. Your view of Americans and the "high life" you seem to think we all engage in is totally off base. A large portion of our families have to work their asses off just to stay afloat. Our babies and kids are being raised by strangers in institutional facilities. We are bombarded by ads and commercials telling us we have to have this or that. Gone are the days of product quality where stuff lasted for a lifetime. Everything is built to break down so we keep buying. The technology of products changes/increases frequently so we always want faster bigger computers, TVs, cars, etc. And so we work ourselves to exhaustion to buy these things; even if it means the most precious part of our lives, our families, are neglected.
Now, however, we can't keep up with the pace and the cost of maintaining that lifestyle; our middle class is just about gone. Our country is a string of burnout abandoned communities where only poverty and crime are left. We aren't important to the "Cabal" anymore. They have their eyes on you, my friends. You with your developing economies, your newly acquired ability to purchase more and more are the next "STUPID AMERICANS."
Put your playthings aside and go outside and play with your kids. Enjoy the beauty and bounty that Mother Earth provides for us. This is the best advice I can give you........Michelle
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jul 12, 2006 13:52:05 GMT 4
CBPP: Treasury Report Confirms that Tax Cuts Do Not Pay for Themselves7/11/2006 4:23:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: White House Correspondent, Political Reporter Contact: Michelle Bazie of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 202-408-1080 or bazie@cbpp.org ; Web: www.cbpp.org or www.CenterOnBudget.org WASHINGTON, July 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In remarks on July 11 touting revised deficit projections in the Mid-Session Review of the Budget, President Bush once again claimed that tax cuts pay for themselves:"Some in Washington say we had to choose between cutting taxes and cutting the deficit....Today's numbers show that that was a false choice. The economic growth fueled by tax relief has helped send our tax revenues soaring. That's what has happened." These remarks mirror previous statements by the President, the Vice-President, and key Congressional leaders that the increase in revenues in 2005 and the increase now projected for 2006 prove that tax cuts "pay for themselves -- that the economy expands so much as a result of tax cuts that it produces the same level of revenue as it would have without the tax cuts. Economists and budget analysts outside of the administration have explained that these claims are not supported by data or economic theory. Now a Department of Treasury analysis presented in the Mid-Session Review itself confirms what outside experts have consistently said -- tax cuts do not come remotely close to paying for themselves. The Treasury analysis concludes that making the President's tax cuts permanent -- and paying for the tax cuts with future reductions in spending -- may ultimately increase the level of economic output (national income) in the long run by as much as 0.7 percent. (An increase in the level of economic output of 0.7 percent -- the Treasury's best-case scenario -- in 20 years would represent an increase of about 4/100ths of one percentage point in the annual growth rate of the economy.) Even if an increase in the level of economic output of 0.7 ultimately were to result from making the tax cuts permanent (the Treasury analysis concedes that the effect would be much smaller if the tax cuts are not paid for by cuts in spending), and were to occur much sooner than Treasury seems to assume (it is not clear what the Treasury means by long-run, but it probably is considerably more than 10 years), the effect of this assumed additional economic growth would be to offset only a tiny fraction of the cost of the President's tax cuts. For instance, a 0.7 percent increase in the economic output that the Congressional Budget Office has projected for 2016 would represent an additional $146 billion. If new revenues equaled as much as 20 percent of the additional output, the increase in revenues resulting from making the tax cuts permanent (assuming Treasury's best-case assumptions) would be $29 billion. That amount represents less than 10 percent of the $314 billion that the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates extending the tax cuts will reduce revenues in 2016 (not counting the effects of extending Alternative Minimum Tax relief). Thus, even if the Treasury's most optimistic assumptions are accepted (and the dynamic effect is assumed to happen much more quickly than even Treasury seems to assume), the cost of the tax cuts in 2016 -- taking into account "dynamic" effects -- would still be more than 90 percent of the cost of the tax cuts under the standard cost estimates. --- End Notes:(1) Remarks by the President on the Mid-Session Review, July 11, 2006: www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060711-1.html (2) See Richard Kogan and Aviva Aron-Dine, "Claim that Tax Cuts 'Pay for Themselves' is Too Good to be True: Data Show No 'Free Lunch' Here," Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, revised June 14, 2006. www.cbpp.org/3-8-06tax.htm(3) Ibid. (4) "A Dynamic Analysis of Permanent Extension of the President's Tax Relief," box on pages 3-4 of the Mid-Session Review of the Budget for Fiscal Year 2007. (5) Others, including the Congressional Budget Office, have concluded that cutting taxes without paying for the cuts may actually reduce output over the long term. See "Claim that Tax Cuts 'Pay for Themselves' is Too Good to be True." www.cbpp.org/3-8-06tax.htm(6) The Administration's projections of the economy only extend through 2011. This analysis is posted to the Center's web site at www.cbpp.org/7-11-06bud.htm. Please contact the Center's communications office at 202-408-1080 or communications@cbpp.org to speak with an analyst about this issue.
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DT1
Moderator
You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
Posts: 428
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Post by DT1 on Jul 16, 2006 12:25:03 GMT 4
This post was so great,I had to,um,borrow it...thedailykos.comThe Importance of Understanding Large Numbers by aprichard Fri Jul 14, 2006 at 07:16:01 PM PDT In the language of the Pirahã tribe of Brazil there are only words for the numbers one and two. There are no words for any larger numbers. As a result, when they count, they have to say "one, two, many." The rest of us are constantly bombarded with large numbers on a daily basis, but we all still reach a point at which we just think "many." Most people have little idea how much a billion is much less a trillion. I get the feeling that every time a politician says 'we have a $8.4 trillion dollar debt' or 'we spent $100 billion', all most people really hear is, 'we have "a large" deficit' and 'we spent "a jillion" dollars.' Without the proper knowledge to put these large numbers into a context we can understand, the numbers are utterly meaningless and productive debate is impossible. Of course, republican politicians have learned how to use this to their advantage. During every election cycle, all the candidates throw out a lot of numbers and they all sound very convincing. It doesn't matter that one side is giving accurate compelling arguments and the other side is making everything up. Even the media end up throwing up their hands and decide it is too complicated to figure out who is telling the truth. As a result, many people end up voting for the candidate that they would like to drink a beer with. Last year, George Bush went on a 60 city tour to convince people that we were facing an epic crisis because Social Security was projected to run a $3.7 trillion deficit over the next 75 years. But then quietly and without any fanfare, Republicans tried to permanently repeal the estate tax and add almost $1 trillion dollars to the national debt over just 10 years. I'm convinced that the only thing keeping republicans from being tarred and feathered for their hypocrisy is the public's poor math skills. Several years ago I realized that I was unable to objectively evaluate many political proposals because I didn't have the proper context to understand the numbers involved. Here are a few ways to understand large numbers that I found useful. How much is $1 trillion? If you spent a dollar a second, it would take about 11.5 days to spend a million dollars, 31.7 years to spend a billion dollars, and over 317 centuries to spend a trillion dollars. There are roughly 300 million people in the U.S., so every $1 trillion is about $3,333 per person. I also made a point of memorizing a few relevant numbers to put the ones thrown around every day into context. If you have large number phobia, just remember these and you will be much more effective in countering republican talking points. 1) U.S. GDP in 2005: $12.3 trillion 2) U.S National Debt: 8.4 trillion ($28,000 per person) 3) FY2006 Federal Budget: $2.7 Trillion ($9,000 per person) 4) FY2006 Budget Deficit: $296 billion (Not including borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund) 5) FY2006 Military Budget: $535 billion 6) Median Family Income for a family of four in 2003: $65,000 7) Amount you make working all year for minimum wage: $10,712 Another way of putting numbers in context is determining what else we could have spent the money on. The National Priorities Project does a great job of providing this information. For instance with the money we have spent on Iraq so far ($315 billion), we could have provided health care to 71,717,012 people, hired 5,472,330 elementary school teachers, or built 2,843,180 affordable housing units. The total cost of Iraq is estimated to be $1-2 trillion. If people understood how much money that is, they would be truly outraged. Our democracy depends on an informed electorate, but as the issues get more complex, and politicians become adept at the marketing tools and PR, it becomes more and more difficult to know what to believe. Putting large numbers in context will help.
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jul 30, 2006 16:48:09 GMT 4
SUNDAY READING. Forget the Sunday paper; it's all lies and half truths anyway. The following will require a chunk of your time to complete.....MichelleThe New TotalitarianismSNIPS:The depraved international cabal that has a stranglehold on American political and financial power constitutes a new type of totalitarianism, pillaging the world through barbaric annihilation and creating a World Police State. American and world citizens have not fully awakened to the monstrous, diabolical nature of this totalitarian regime; they assume it must have some modicum of concern for its people, its nation, and human decency. Wrong! Unless we arouse ourselves from this deadly self-imposed stupor of ignorance, these homicidal maniacs will destroy us and the world. (...) As this essay is being written (July 2006), Israel, the fourth most powerful military power in the world, has found an excuse to put into operation its long-standing, carefully constructed plan to invade Lebanon and escalate the Middle-Eastern "conflict" into threats against Iran and Syria. This attack by Israel--sanctioned by the American cabal--isn't about Lebanon, Gaza, Hamas, or Hezbollah. It's about Iran and Syria, the only countries in the region capable and determined to challenge Israel and the U.S. READ IT ALL:www.hermes-press.com/barbaric_annihilation.htm
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Sept 1, 2006 6:30:32 GMT 4
Rules for Changing a Republic [into a Democracy, then] into a Monarchy By: Philip Freneau
Note from Michelle: Some historical reading for you; very eye-opening. The following was written about 200 years ago; tell me this isn't the United States now. What a long sleep we've been in! Hate to tell you this America, but the undermining of 'Our Great Experiment' has been going on since the birth of our country. You think not? OK, then how did Freneau [poet, essayist, and editor, known as the "poet of the American Revolution"] know all this 200 years ago?
Volume (?) 1784-1796 Organizing the New Nation THE ANNALS OF AMERICA --------------------- Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. 100
Philip Freneau Rules for Changing a Republic [into a Democracy, then] into a Monarchy
Those who had opposed the constitution thought their fears justified by the conduct of the government that began to function in 1789. Under the aggressive leadership of Alexander Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury, economic measures were taken that favored the few, while a effective party machine was organized and the army strengthened in such a way as to suggest an intent to control rather than to represent the many. The whole tone of Washington's administration was aristocratic, favoring as it did the educated, the wealthy, the clergy, and the press, who were fearful of "mob rule" and preferred to see what Hamilton called "gentlemen of principle and property" in command. As Hamilton had at his service a newspaper - John Fenno's Gazette of the United States - to support his policies, his opponents, led by Jefferson and Madison, decided to establish a rival newspaper, the National Gazette. Philip Freneau, an experienced journalist of known democratic leanings, was chosen to edit the paper. The editorial, reprinted here, is typical of those in which Freneau criticized the Hamiltonian program from 1791 to 1793. Source: American Museum, July 1792: "Rules for Changing a Limited Republican Government into an Unlimited Hereditary One." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rules for changing a limited republican government into an unlimited hereditary one.
1. It being necessary in order to effect the change, to get rid of constitutional shackles and popular prejudices, all possible means and occasions are to be used for both these purposes.
2. Nothing being more likely to prepare the vulgar mind for aristocratical ranks and hereditary powers than titles, endeavor in the offset of the government to confer these on its most dignified officers. If the principal magistrate should happen to be particularly venerable in the eyes of the people, take advantage of that fortunate circumstance in setting the example.
3. Should the attempt fail through his republican aversion to it, or from the danger of alarming the people, do not abandon the enterprise altogether, but lay up the proposition in the record. Time may gain it respect, and it will be there always ready, cut and dried, for any favorable conjuncture that may offer.
4. In drawing all bills, resolutions, and reports, keep constantly in view that the limitations in the Constitution are ultimately to be explained away. Precedents and phrases may thus be shuffled in, without being adverted to by candid or weak people, of which good use may afterward be made.
5. As the novelty and bustle of inaugurating the government will for some time keep the public mind in a heedless and unsettled state, let the press during this period be busy in propagating the doctrines of monarchy and aristocracy. For this purpose it will be particular useful to confound a mobbish democracy with a representative republic, that by exhibiting all the turbulent examples and enormities of the former, an odium may be thrown on the character of the latter. Review all the civil contests, convulsions, factions, broils, squabbles, bickering, black eyes, and bloody noses of ancient, middle, and modern ages; caricature them into the most frightful forms and colors that can be imagined, and unfold one scene of horrible tragedy after another till the people be made, if possible, to tremble at their own shadows. Let the discourses on Davila then contrast with these pictures of terror the quiet hereditary succession, the reverence claimed by birth and nobility, and the fascinating influence of stars, and ribands, and garters, cautiously suppressing all the bloody tragedies and unceasing oppressions which form the history of this species of government. No pains should be spared in this part of the undertaking, for the greatest will be wanted, it being extremely difficult, especially when a people have been taught to reason and feel their rights, to convince them that a king, who is always an enemy to the people, and a nobility, who are perhaps still more so, will take better care of the people than the people will take of themselves.
6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt, provided enough of it can be got and it be medicated with the proper ingredients. If by good fortune a debt be ready at hand, the most is to be made of it. Stretch it and swell it to the utmost the items will bear. Allow as many extra claims as decency will permit. Assume all the debts of your neighbors - in a word, get as much debt as can be raked and scraped together, and when you have got all you can, "advertise" for more, and have the debt made as big as possible. This object being accomplished, the next will be to make it as perpetual as possible; and the next to that, to get it into as few hands as possible. The more effectually to bring this about, modify the debt, complicate it, divide it, subdivide it, subtract it, postpone it, let there be one-third of two-thirds, and two-thirds of one-third, and two-thirds of two-thirds; let there be 3 percents, and 4 percents, and 6 percents, and present 6 percents, and future 6 percents. To be brief, let the whole be such a mystery that a few only can understand it; and let all possible opportunities and informations fall in the way of these few to cinch their advantages over the many.
7. It must not be forgotten that the members of the legislative body are to have a deep stake in the game. This is an essential point, and happily is attended with no difficulty. A sufficient number, properly disposed, can alternately legislate and speculate, and speculate and legislate, and buy and sell, and sell and buy, until a due portion of the property of their constituents has passed into their hands to give them an interest against their constituents, and to ensure the part they are to act. All this, however, must be carried on under the cover of the closest secrecy; and it is particularly lucky that dealings in paper admit of more secrecy that any other. Should a discovery take place, the whole plan may be blown up.
8. The ways in which a great debt, so constituted and applied, will contribute to the ultimate end in view are both numerous and obvious. (1) The favorite few, thus possessed of it, whether within or without the government, will feel the staunchest fealty to it, and will go through thick and thin to support it in all its oppressions and usurpations. (2) Their money will give them consequence and influence, even among those who have been tricked out of it. (3) They will be the readiest materials that can be found for a hereditary aristocratic order, whenever matters are ripe for one. (4) A great debt will require great taxes; great taxes, many taxgatherers and other officers; and all officers are auxiliaries of power. (5) Heavy taxes may produce discontents; these may threaten resistance; and in proportion to this danger will be the pretense for a standing army to repel it. (6) A standing army, in its turn, will increase the moral force of the government by means of its appointments, and give it physical force by means of the sword, thus doubly forwarding the main object.
9. The management of a great funded debt and a extensive system of taxes will afford a plea, not to be neglected, for establishment of a great incorporated bank. the use of such a machine is well understood. If the Constitution, according to its fair meaning, should not authorize it, so much the better. Push it through by a forced meaning and you will get in the bargain an admirable precedent for future misconstructions.
In fashioning the bank, remember that it is to be made particularly instrumental in enriching and aggrandizing the elect few, who are to be called in due season to the honors and felicities of the kingdom preparing for them, and who are the pillars that must support it. It will be easy to throw the benefit entirely into their hands, and to make it a solid addition of 50, or 60, or 70 percent to their former capitals of 800 percent, or 900 percent, without costing them a shilling; while it will be difficult to explain to the people that this gain of the few is at the cost of the many, that the contrary may be boldly and safely pretended. The bank will be pregnant with other important advantages. It will admit the same men to be, at the same time, members of the bank and members of the government. The two institutions will thus be soldered together, and each made stronger. Money will be put under the direction of the government, and government under the direction of money. To crown the whole, the bank will have a proper interest in swelling and perpetuating the public debt and public taxes, with all the blessings of both, because its agency and its profits will be extended in exact proportion.
10. "Divide and govern" is a maxim consecrated by the experience of ages, and should be familiar in its use to every politician as the knife he carries in his pocket. In the work here to be executed, the best effects may be produced by this maxim, and with peculiar facility. An extensive republic made up of lesser republics necessarily contains various sorts of people, distinguished by local and other interests and prejudices. Let the whole group be well examined in all its parts and relations, geographical and political, metaphysical and metaphorical; let there be first a northern and a southern section, by a line running east and west, and then an eastern and western section, by a line running north and south. By a suitable nomenclature, the landholders cultivating different articles can be discriminated from one another, all from the class of merchants, and both from that of manufacturers.
One of the subordinate republics may be represented as a commercial state, another as a navigation state, another as a manufacturing state, others as agricultural states; and although the great body of people in each be really agricultural, and the other characters be more or less common to all, still it will be politic to take advantage of such an arrangement. Should the members of the great republic be of different sizes, and subject to little jealousies on that account, another important division will be ready formed to your hand. Add again the division that may be carved out of personal interests, political opinions, and local parties. With so convenient an assortment of votes, especially with the help of the marked ones, a majority may be packed for any question with as much ease as the odd trick by an adroit gamester, and any measure whatever carried or defeated, as the great revolution to be brought about may require.
It is only necessary, therefore, to recommend that full use be made of the resource; and to remark that, besides the direct benefit to be drawn from these artificial divisions, they will tend to smother the true and natural one, existing in all societies, between the few who are always impatient of political equality and the many who can never rise above it; between those who are to mount to the prerogatives and those who are to be saddled with the burdens of the hereditary government to be introduced - in one word, between the general mass of the people, attached to their republican government and republican interests, and the chosen band devoted to monarchy and Mammon. It is of infinite importance that this distinction should be kept out of sight. The success of the project absolutely requires it.
11. As soon as sufficient progress in the intended change shall have been made, and the public mind duly prepared according to the rules already laid down, it will be proper to venture on another and a bolder step toward a removal of the constitutional landmarks. Here the aid of the former encroachments and all the other precedents and way-paving maneuvers will be called in of course. But, in order to render the success more certain, it will be of special moment to give the most plausible and popular name that can be found to the power that is to be usurped. It may be called, for example, a power for the common safety or the public good, or, "the general welfare." If the people should not be too much enlightened, the name will have a most imposing effect. It will escape attention that it means, in fact, the same thing with a power to do anything the government pleases "in all cases whatsoever." To oppose the power may consequently seem to the ignorant, and be called by artful, opposing the "general welfare", and may be cried down under that deception.
As the people, however, may not run so readily into the snare as might be wished, it will be prudent to bait it well with some specious popular interest, such as the encouragement of manufactures, or even of agriculture, taking due care not even to mention any unpopular object to which the power is equally applicable, such as religion, etc.. By this contrivance, particular classes of people may possibly be taken in who will be a valuable reinforcement.
With respect to the patronage of agriculture there is not indeed much to be expected from it. It will be too quickly seen through by the owners and tillers of the soil, that to tax them with one hand and pay back a part only with the other is a losing game on their side. From the power over manufactures more is to be hoped. It will not be so easily perceived that the premium bestowed may not be equal to the circuitous tax on consumption which pays it. There are particular reasons, too, for pushing the experiment on this class of citizens.
(1) As they live in towns and can act together , it is of vast consequence to gain them over to the interest of monarchy. (2) If the power over them be once established, the government can grant favors or monopolies, as it pleases; can raise or depress this or that place, as it pleases; in a word, by creating a dependence in so numerous and important a class of citizens, it will increase its own independence of every class and be more free to pursue the grand object in contemplation. (3) The expense of this operation will not in the end cost the government a shilling, for the moment any branch of manufacture has been brought to a state of tolerable maturity the exciseman will be ready with his constable and his search warrant to demand a reimbursement, and as much more as can be squeezed out of the article. All this, it is to be remembered, supposes that the manufacturers will be weak enough to be cheated, in some respects, out of their own interests, and wicked enough, in others, to betray those of their fellow citizens; a supposition that, if known, would totally mar the experiment. Great care, therefore, must be taken to prevent it from leaking out.
12. The expediency of seizing every occasion of external danger for augmenting and perpetuating the standing military force is too obvious to escape. So important is this matter that for any loss or disaster whatever attending the national arms, there will be ample consolation and compensation in the opportunity for enlarging the establishment. A military defeat will become a political victory, and the loss of a little vulgar blood contribute to ennoble that which flows in the veins of our future dukes and marquesses.
13. The same prudence will improve the opportunity afforded by an increase of military expenditures for perpetuating the taxes required for them. If the inconsistency and absurdity of establishing a perpetual tax for a temporary service should produce any difficulty in the business, Rule 10 must be resorted to. Throw in as many extraneous motives as will make up a majority, and the thing is effected in an instant. What was before evil would become good as easily as black could be made white by the same magical operation.
14. Throughout this great undertaking it will be wise to have some particular model constantly in view. The work can then be carried on more systematically, and every measure be fortified, in the progress, by apt illustrations and authorities. Should there exist a particular monarchy against which there are fewer prejudices than against any other, should it contain a mixture of the representative principle so as to present on one side the semblance of a republican aspect, should it, moreover, have a great, funded, complicated, irredeemable debt, with all the apparatus and appurtenances of excises, banks, etc., upon that a steady eye is to be kept. In all cases it will assist, and in most its statute books will furnish a precise pattern by which there may be cut out any moneyed or monarchical project that may be wanted.
15. As it is not to be expected that the change of a republic into a monarchy, with the rapidity desired can be carried through without occasional suspicions and alarms, it will be necessary to be prepared for such events. The best general rule on the subject is to be taken from the example of crying "Stop thief" first - neither lungs nor pens must be spared in charging every man who whispers, or even thinks, that the revolution on foot is meditated, with being himself an enemy to the established government and meaning to overturn it. Let the charge be reiterated and reverberated till at last such confusion and uncertainty be produced that the people, being not able to find out where the truth lies, withdraw their attention from the contest.
Many other rules of great wisdom and efficacy might be added; but it is conceived that the above will be abundantly enough for the purpose. This will certainly be the case if the people can be either kept asleep so as not to discover, or be thrown into artificial divisions so as not to resist, what is silently going forward. Should it be found impossible, however, to prevent the people from awaking and uniting; should all artificial distinctions give way to the natural divisions between the lordly minded few and the well-disposed many; should all who have common interest make a common cause and show a inflexible attachment to republicanism in opposition to a government of monarchy and or money, why then.....
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Sept 9, 2006 5:22:33 GMT 4
Anti-WB/IMF Protestors Have Nowhere to GoNote from Michelle: The 2006 Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group is to be held in Singapore beginning on September 12-20. I will be posting, here at this thread, information on this event as time goes on.RIGHTS-SINGAPORE: Anti-WB/IMF Protestors Have Nowhere to GoKalinga SeneviratneSINGAPORE, Sep 3 (IPS) - Threatened with arrests and canings, activists planning demonstrations at the annual meet of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), to be held here this month, are organising a parallel event on the nearby Indonesian island of Batam. But, even in that ‘free trade zone' they are going to be less than free. Commander Anggaria Lopis, a spokesman for police in the Riau Islands province (where Batam is located) told the ‘Jakarta Post' newspaper on Thursday, that permits would not be issued for holding the parallel event. Freedom of expression laws, introduced in Indonesia after the fall of dictator Suharto in 1998, have done away with permits for public gatherings or demonstrations. All that is needed is to inform police three days beforehand so that security arrangements can be made. However, Indonesian law does not allow foreigners to protest on the streets. Thus, foreigners taking part in a proposed anti-IMF/WB protest rally on Sep.18 could be breaching Indonesian law. Except for the restrictions on foreigners demonstrating, Batam might have been the ideal location for the parallel International People's Forum (IPF) being planned by a consortium of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations from around the world, coordinated by the Jakarta-based International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID). Singapore and Batam present either side of the development coin. Affluent, savvy Singapore creams away the benefits of globalisation while impoverished Batam is exploited by the same forces. The two islands are living examples of how IMF/WB policies create wealth for some at the cost of others.
Thanks to easy investment rules and cheap labour in Indonesia, Batam has developed rapidly into a manufacturing centre especially for the electronics and garments industries. Less than an hour away by ferry, the island has also developed an unsavoury reputation for pandering to the needs of affluent Singaporean men who want to evade the sanitised environment of their ‘nanny state' -- fuelling the rise of sex and gambling industries. Lopis told Jakarta Post that if foreign NGOs insisted on coming to Batam, police will close down the forum. "It's not true that they have been permitted to hold the forum in Batam. The forum is of no benefit to Batam," he was quoted as saying in the newspaper. The IPF organizers believe that Singapore has put pressure on the Indonesian government to stop the protests. Singapore, with its management expertise, is formally collaborating with Indonesia to develop Batam into a major special economic zone capable of attracting foreign investors from Japan and other major industrialized countries. There already have been demonstrations outside the Singapore embassy in Jakarta urging the Singapore government to allow outdoor protests on the island republic during the meeting. In fact, the police spokesman made the statement to Jakarta Post following this demonstration. According to INFID, over 1,000 people are expected to attend the Sep. 15-18 IPF, with about 300 of them coming from some 40 countries. Donatus Marut, co-chair of the international steering committee of IPF told Singapore's ‘Today' newspaper that Indonesian government officials have suggested shifting the forum from Batam. Marut was due to discuss the arrangements for the forum with Jakarta police officials before meeting Singapore embassy officials on Monday to explain their plans. "The protests are against IMF and the World Bank and not against Singapore," he said. Over 16,000 people from 184 countries are expected to attend the week-long IMF/WB talkfest beginning on Sep.13. This is the biggest international gathering hosted so far by this affluent city state of four million people and the government has already spent some 60 million US dollars on it in the hope that it will establish Singapore's growing reputation as an efficient and safe place to hold international conventions. The event is also shaping out to be the country's biggest security operation ever, with the entire police force along with 23,000 National Servicemen deployed to prevent terrorist attacks or illegal demonstrations. Early morning drills have been held near the convention centre, where Molotov cocktail-wielding demonstrators (played out by police reservists) have been confronted by regular police officers in full battle gear. Ships entering the bustling Singapore harbour, this month, may be searched. Surveillance helicopters will be hovering overhead and residents can expect to be checked randomly on the roads. Singapore police chief Soh Wai Wah says that IMF and WB-accredited activists will be given permits and allocated a designated area at the conference venue to "gather" and "engage" the delegates. According to guidelines issued by the police, licenced activist groups must not move out of the designated areas, and are not allowed use of amplification systems or burn items or behave in a manner that would "provoke a breach of peace." A spokesman for the IPF organizers told IPS that civil society groups first considered holding the forum in Singapore but, after seeing the conditions imposed on them, they decided to hold most of the events in Batam "since the WB and IMF deliberately wanted to get a shield from a nanny state". The spokesperson said, since any event with the presence of foreign speakers needed Singapore government clearance, IPF could not risk allowing Singapore to control the agenda. "Although Singapore could have maximized our potential coverage because the big media outfits will flock there, IPF is also organizing media events in Batam and has invited foreign media there," said the spokesman, adding, "some media people will be shuttling from Singapore to Batam and vice-versa." Ramches Merdeka from the NGO Children's Protection Forum and a member of the IPF organizing committee told Jakarta Post on Thursday that even though the Indonesian police has been threatening to close down the forum, they are going ahead with preparations since they have no official word, as yet, from the police. "If they do it (ban the protests), Indonesia will revert back (sic) to the time under former president Suharto," he said. According to him the foreign ministry has said that they have no objection "as long as the protests don't target Singapore." (END/2006) Source: www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34558**************************************************** Also, reported earlier this summer:SINGAPORE: World Bank Finds Refuge in Nanny StateMarwaan Macan-MarkarBANGKOK, Jul 31 (IPS) - It was inevitable: Singapore had to bare the police state soul that lurks behind its modern steel-and-glass buildings and elegant shopping emporia. And who better to have as partner in crime than the World Bank.The occasion was the announcement by a senior police official in the affluent city-state that street protests and demonstrations, during the mid-September meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), have been banned. Reports over the weekend in the Singapore press, all of them government mouthpieces, had police chief Soh Wai Wah saying that the country's laws could not be changed for this major international event, which runs from Sep.12-20. Police permits are needed for any group of over four people to hold an outdoor demonstration and even then, as evident last year, the protestors risk being set upon by the anti-riot police. Some 16,000 delegates from 184 countries will see how authoritarianism and capitalism have become perfect bedfellows in South-east Asia's richest country. Representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) accredited to engage with the meeting's officials ''will only be permitted to express their views inside the convention centre, in a special area,'' reports the government-owned 'Straits Times'. ''Even then, they must stick to police rules, which include bans on wooden or metal poles to hold up placards.''
The police official justified this ban on outdoor protests -- now a regular feature at the annual meetings of the Bank and the IMF -- by invoking the fear of terrorism. ''The threat of a terrorist incident is a real one, and requires Singapore to take all necessary and effective measures to safeguard the meeting,'' the police chief was quoted in the 'Times'.In response to this development -- which NGO activists say will be a blow to the Bank, given the strident measures it has taken to push its message of transparency, openness, accountability and democracy -- is an attempt by the Bank's pointsman in Singapore to feign surprise. ''The World Bank learned only on Wednesday of the proposed arrangement for civil society,'' says Peter Stephens, the Bank's representative, in a three-paragraph statement. ''We have not had an opportunity to discuss them in any detail with the Government of Singapore, nor to consider the implications of such arrangements.'' They are excuses being dismissed as fake than fact by NGOs that IPS spoke with. ''The Bank had to offer a pro-forma excuse and that is what it we have got,'' says Jenina Joy Chavez, senior associate at Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based regional think tank. ''It is shameful, this attempt to look surprised. This consideration should have been a big one when the Bank chose Singapore as a venue given its record.'' Stephens' comments, moreover, go against the grain of a letter he wrote to select NGOs based in Asia around May about the Bank working with the Singapore government for many months to ''ensure that diverse civil society voices are very much heard before, during and after the annual meetings.'' ''We are trying to enable a process that is open and led by civil society, and for the issues and means of addressing them to arise spontaneously, not through a formal process that we lead or try to manage,'' that letter added. ''My understanding is that (the Singapore government does) draw the line at violence and disruption, consistent with their laws, but that is clearly an extreme case.'' What is more, the Bank's Singapore office has been exposed to a diet of uncompromising policies by the administration of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong towards any sign of dissent. In January, home affairs minister Wong Kan Seng warned that protestors during the September meeting could face severe punishment, including caning and imprisonment. In May, Wong was quoted in Singapore's 'Today' newspaper as having said, ''Those who breach our laws must be dealt with firmly''. In June, the Singapore press provided other measures that the country's police were conceiving to crackdown on any signs of dissent in public -- the installation of nearly 158 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras to monitor activity at 67 traffic intersections and at the meeting's venue.
Besides such warnings related to the international event, the government has also hounded its opponents during the parliamentary elections in May, including banning all speeches by the leader of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party, and going after bloggers and critics of the Lee administration in cyberspace. ''If the Bank wants to retain some level of credibility after what it has said about democracy and openness, it should speak up and protest the move by the Singapore government to suppress dissenting voices,'' Lidy Nacpil, international coordinator of Jubilee South, a global network campaigning to relieve the world's poor countries of international debt, told IPS. ''To remain silent or offer some rhetoric makes it a partner of Singapore's undemocratic policies.'' The annual meetings of the Bank and the IMF usually draw large gatherings of financial representatives of governments and the policies of these two international financial institutions (IFI) are discussed as also global initiatives. These range from poverty reduction to international finance. Every three years, these meetings are held outside Washington. Previous venues have included Prague, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Berlin, Manila, Nairobi and Rio de Janeiro. Protests held outside the conference venue have helped NGOs and activists from the developing and developed world give voice to concerns that matter to the world's poor that the two institutions may ignore or not give a serious hearing to. They have also helped frame the debates between the powerful within the conference halls and the powerless on the streets.
''If there are no demonstrations, how will the World Bank and the IMF hear what the people have to say about their policies?'' asks Nacpil. ''The consultations and the meetings they hold are not sufficient, because the victims of their policies are rarely given space.'' For the moment, Stephens, the Bank's Singapore representative, is seeking refuge in such words: ''We will be having further talks with the government of Singapore and board of directors of the World Bank on this matter in the weeks ahead.'' (END/2006) Source: www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34170
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michelle
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Post by michelle on Sept 25, 2006 9:48:47 GMT 4
Harper Not Just Americanizing, But Abolishing CanadaSecret North American Union Meeting in Banff 9/12-14 North American Forum held in secret at Banff Springs Hotel[/b] Did you know that the elite is planning in secret to integrate Canada, the United States and Mexico into the North American equivalent of the European Union? They just had a meeting in Banff. The name of the game for them is to create unified blocks of countries in major areas around the world and then to bring them all together under one oligarchic world government. The media are not covering this but there is a very active Canadian group - www.vivelecanada.ca - striving to bring this to everyone's attention so as to prevent the disintegration of Canada and Mexico's sovereignty under the booth of the despotic U.S. military regime.
These plans MUST be derailed just as the anti-globalization movement succeeded at blocking them at every step in the last seven years starting in Seattle in 1999.
Note: You can also refer to earlier posts at this thread for more info: Reply #37 on Jul 8, 2006, 5:39pm PAGE 3 Thinking the unthinkable about Canada’s future: Is it time to start using the “f”word? More about SO CALLED Free Trade:Reply #29 on May 29, 2006, 8:10pm PAGE 2 NAFTA, CAFTA and the FTAAPlease help to make everyone aware of this forced integration attempt
Thank you for you assistance in networking this material. On to your reading; there is much listed here......MichelleWhat is the North American Union (NAU)?Creating a new North American Union (NAU) is the end goal of deep integration. A North American Union would hypothetically be similar to the existing European Union (EU). Canada, the US and Mexico would share a common currency called the Amero (similar to the EU's Euro) and give up their sovereignty to the new political and economic entity. All agreements to harmonize and integrate Canada, the US and Mexico, such as the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), are steps towards the creation of this union. Progressives in Canada such as Vive le Canada.ca and the Council of Canadians oppose a North American Union because it would mean the expansion of NAFTA and the loss of Canadian sovereignty and democracy which the believe would harm regular citizens; progressives in the US oppose the North American Union because of similar reasons, ie the loss of democracy and the handing over of power to large corporations; while US conservatives such as Pat Buchanan oppose the idea for not only of the loss of US sovereignty but also for fear of a large influx of Mexican immigrants. From: www.vivelecanada.ca/multifaq/index.php?topic=15&qt_id=140&getlevel=019**************************************************** Maude Barlow makes the second main stream media breakthrough in the Toronto Star with a good summary of the background and the focus of last week's meeting in Banff:Getting closer to Uncle Sam Public kept in dark as business leads talks about North American integration, By Maude Barlow Sep. 20, 2006. 01:00 AM (...) The U.S. administration, anxious to keep up with its country's high energy demands, has shown great interest in this "secure" energy source located just north of its border. With corporations like Suncor involved, energy was an important item of discussion at the Banff meeting last week. Given the detrimental impacts of oil sand extraction on our environment and given that Canada currently exports 66 per cent of its oil (primarily to the U.S.) while importing 55 per cent of what we use domestically from countries like Algeria, Venezuela and Norway, it is alarming that Ottawa would discuss a "North American Energy Strategy" with the U.S. and Mexico before establishing a Canadian strategy that would ensure our ability to protect the environment and ensure a secure energy supply for Canadians. Though not as glamorous as the date between Peter and Condi, the media should pay better attention to this marriage between our governments and big corporations. Entire article: tinyurl.com/s9945********************************************** Ian Welsh does an even deeper historical background at The Agonist:Deep Integration Meeting In BanffIn Canada we call it "deep intergration", the belief that the best thing for Canada is to get as close as possible to the US. Deep integrationists have, among other things, called for North American borders along the European line (ie. once you're in Canada or the US you're in both countries), for Canada to give up its dollar and use the American one (a proposal you hear a lot less in the last few years since the US dollar has taken its slide) and making Canadian regulations match up with US regulations. It's thanks to deep integrationists that we got the Free Trade deal and NAFTA, along with its provisions that, among other things, gutted the ability of all three governments to stop companies from poisoning their citizens, set up tribunals that meet in secret, and took jurisdiction away from the Supreme courts of all three countries...... There is no popular interest in deep integration with the US in Canada as the majorities against both NAFTA and the Free Trade agreement demonstrated (nor with Canada in the US) yet it trundles along, act after act, administrative ruling after administrative ruling. Governments are always made up of people who come out of a specific world. When you want to figure out who runs the government, the question to ask is "where do they come from?" Entire article: agonist.org/ian_welsh/20060920/deep_integration_meeting_in_banff**************************************************** Deep Integration Planned at Secret Conference Ignored by the MediaContributed by: sthompson Tuesday, September 19 2006 @ 01:25 PM MDT Here's the scandal that should be outraging Canadians across the country. On September 12-14, elite proponents of deep integration from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico met at a secret conference at the Banff Springs Hotel. Stockwell Day, Tom d'Aquino and other high-profile Canadians were there. But the Hotel doesn't want to talk about it. No major media reported on the conference--not The Globe and Mail, not the National Post, not the Toronto Star, no one. Yet the topic of the conference, deep integration or the formation of a "North American Community" aka the North American Union, will profoundly affect everything in our lives from our health and security to the currency we use (soon to be the "Amero") to our very national identity. In essence, we will no longer be Canadians, but North Americans only--and worse, North Americans hog-tied in lock-step with the U.S. even as they gain open access to our energy resources. Our national media stays silent and so Canadians remain unaware that their own CCCE and most powerful politicians are pushing for integration with the U.S. and Mexico completely outside of the usual democratic process. The only newspaper to report anything on this as yet is the Banff Crag & Canyon, which is publishing an article on the conference today thanks to information provided by Mel Hurtig. See "North American Forum held in secret at Banff Springs Hotel", September 19, 2006, at www.banffcragandcanyon.com/story.php?id=255375 , or main link www.banffcragandcanyon.com. And of course here at Vive we are ready to do our part. Below please find the secret list of participants in the forum AND the agenda for the forum, thanks to Mel Hurtig's sources. I hope every one of our readers and supporters will take it upon themselves to call their local and national media and demand coverage of the conference and of integration itself. It is a scandal that this process is being conducted in secret. We must also all talk to our politicians and demand that this become an open public debate. We must call the usual suspects who were involved in this conference, especially the chairs and co-chairs, and ask why they conducted it in secret among other uncomfortable questions. And we must especially talk about this with each other, with our friends, family, and neighbours, and spread the word, asking our American and Mexican neighbours do the same. Otherwise, we will all remain in the dark--until it is too late. Source: www.vivelecanada.ca/**************************************************** NORTH AMERICAN FORUM CONFIRMED PARTICIPANTS(Internal Document, Not for Public Release) Report dated August 31, 2006 Forum Co-Chairs:Dr. Pedro Aspe Hon. Peter Lougheed Hon. George Shultz Canadian ParticipantsCol. Peter Atkinson Special Advisor to Chief of Defence Staff Hon. Perrin Beatty Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters Mr. Peter M. Boehm Assistant Deputy Minister, North America Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada Mr. Thomas d‚Aquino Canadian Council of Chief Executives Hon. Stockwell Day Minister of Public Safety, Government of Canada Dr. Wendy Dobson The Institute for International Business Mr. N. Murray Edwards Edco Financial Holdings Ltd. Mr. Ward Elcock Deputy Minister of National Defence Mr. Bill Elliott Associate Deputy Minister, Public Safety Dr. John English The Cdn Centre for International Governance Innovation Mr. Brian Felesky Felesky Flynn LLP Mr. Richard L. George Suncor Energy Inc. Dr. Roger Gibbins Canada West Foundation Rear Adm Roger Girouard Commander Joint Task Force Pacific, Cdn Forces Major Gen Daniel Gosselin Director General, International Security Policy Mr. James K. Gray Canada West Foundation Mr. Fred Green Canadian Pacific Railway Mr. V. Peter Harder Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Paul J. Hill Harvard Developments Inc. General Rick Hillier Chief of the Defence Staff Mr. Pierre Marc Johnston Heenan Blaikie Mr. James Kinnear Pengrowth Corporation Mr. Harold N. Kvisle TransCanada Corporation Hon. John P. Manley McCarthy Tetrault LLP Mr. Ron Mannix Coril Holdings Ltd. Mr. Ron Mathison Matco Investments Hon. Anne McLellan Senior Counsel, Bennett Jones Hon. Greg Melchin Minister of Energy, Government of Alberta Ms.Sharon Murphy Chevron Canada Ms. Sheila O‚Brien President, Corporate Director, Belvedere Investments Hon. Gordon O‚Connor Minister of Defense, Government of Canada Mr. Berel Rodal International Center on Nonviolent Conflict Mr. Gordon Smith Chairman, The International Development Research Centre American ParticipantsMs. Deborah Bolton Political Advisor to Commander, US Northcom Mr. Ron T. Covais, President, The Americas, Lockheed Martin Corporation Sec. Kenneth W. Dam Max Pam Professor Emeritus of American & Foreign Law and Senior Lecturer, University of Chicago Law School Mr. Dan Fisk Senior Director, Western Hemisphere, National Security Council Sec. Ryan Henry Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Ms. Carla A. Hills Chairman & CEO, Hills & Co. Ms. Caryn Hollis DASD (Acting) Western Hemisphere Affairs Mr. Bill Irwin Manager - International Government Affairs; Policy, Government and Public Affairs, Chevron Corporation Mr. Robert G. James President, Enterprise Asset Management Inc. Admiral Tim Keating Commander, US Northern Command Mr. Floyd Kvamme Chair, President‚s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology; Director, Centre for Global Security Res. Dr. Ronald F. Lehman II Director, Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Mr. William W. McIlhenny Policy Planning Council for Western Hemisphere Affairs Dr. Peter McPherson President, National Association of State Universities & Land-Grant Colleges Ms. Doris Meissner Senior Fellow, Migration Policy Institute Dr. George Miller Director, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Mr. George Nethercutt Chairman, US Section of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, US - Canada (Security) Mary Anastasia O‚Grady Journalist for Wall Street Journal (Area Specialist) Dr. Robert A. Pastor Director, Center for North American Studies, American University, Washington, DC Dr. William Perry Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project Lt. Gen. Gene Renuart USAF Senior Military Assist. to Sec. Rumsfeld Mr. Eric Ruff Department of Defense Press Secretary Sec. Donald R. Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense, US Department of Defense Dr. James Schlesinger Former Sec. Of Energy & Defense Mr. William Schneider President, International Planning Services Sec. Clay Sell Deputy Secretary of Energy, US Dept. of Energy Dr. Thomas A. Shannon Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere A Dr. David G. Victor Director, Program on Energy & Sustainable Development, Center for Environmental Science & Policy Maj. Gen. Mark A Volcheff Director, Plans, Policy & Strategy, NORAD-NORTHCOM Ms. Jane Wales President & CEO, World Affairs Council of Northern California Mr. R. James Woolsey Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton Mexican Participants:Emb Andrés Rozental (Mexican Coordinator) - Mexican Council on Foreign Relations Silvia Hernández Former Senator and Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on North America Mario Molina 1995 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Fernando Chico Pardo CEO, Promecap Juan Gallardo CEO, Grupo GEUSA Gerónimo Gutiérrez Deputy Foreign Minister for North America Luis de la Calle Consultant. Former Deputy Minister of Economy Agustín Barrios Gómez Solutions Abroad Vinicio Suro PEMEX Eduardo Medina Mora Secretary of Public Security Carlos Heredia State Government of Michoacán Jaime Zabludowsky Consultant. Former trade negotiator Manuel Arango CEO, Grupo Concord Jorge Santibañez President, El Colegio de la Frontera Norte Luis Rubio CIDAC Mónica Serrano El Colegio de México, Señor Fellow Oxford University Arturo Sarukhan Coordinator of Intl Affairs, Campaign of Felipe Calderon Juan Camilo Mouriño General Coordinator of President Elect's transition team Ernesto Cordero Coordinator for Public Policy Issues Ambassadors/Consul General:Mr. Carlos de Icaza, Ambassador of Mexico to the United States Mr. Gaëtan Lavertu Ambassador of Canada to Mexico Ms. Maria Teresa Garcia Segovia de Madero, Ambassador of Mexico to Canada Mr. Thomas Huffaker U.S. Consul General in Calgary (on DOD's list) Mr. John Dickson Deputy Chief of Mission, US Embassy in Ottawa (representing Ambassador of US to Canada) Mr. Colin Robertson Minister & Head, Washington Advocacy Secretariat, (representing Ambassador of Canada to US) --- Draft Detailed September 1, 2006 AgendaInternal Document North American Forum Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel Banff, Alberta September 12-14, 2006 Under the Joint Chairmanship of:The Hon. George Shultz, Former U.S. Secretary of State The Hon. Pedro Aspe, Former Finance Minister of Mexico The Hon. Peter Lougheed, Former Premier of Alberta Continental Prosperity in the New Security Environment Session I: Opening comments by Messrs. Aspe, Lougheed and Shultz Session II: A Vision for North America: Issues and Options Session III: Toward a North American Energy Strategy Session IV: Opportunities for Security Cooperation in North America (Parts I and II) Session V: Demographic and Social Dimensions of North American Integration Session VI: Border Infrastructure and Continental Prosperity Session VII: Roundtable Conversation with the Co-Chairs Draft September 1, 2006 AgendaNorth American Forum The Fairmont Banff Springs Banff, Alberta, Canada September 12-14, 2006 CLIP - to read this part describing the Agenda, go to: www.vivelecanada.ca/**************************************************** Also See:NAFTA Super Highway Map (Sept 20, 2006) www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/printer_4218.shtmlThis map is a conceptualization of the Super Highways now underway to connect the United States, Canada, and Mexico to help bring about the creation of a North American Union similar to the European Union The map's travel corridors show the desired routes of the new Super Highways as proposed by the North American Forum on Integration (NAFI) a group of wealthy industrialists, academics, and politicians whose aim it is to break down barriers to the North American Union. The main actors in NAFI are members of the Council on Foreign Relations or related organizations based in Mexico and Canada. NAFI, whose first objective is to make "the public and decision-makers aware of the challenges of economic and political integration between the three NAFTA countries," is following the country-integration plan of the European Union. That plan used the idea of "free trade" to make steps toward integration sound appealing to the public. Though the North American Union would devastate the American middle class, the Super Highways are being touted as facilitating free trade and bringing about prosperity in the three countries.NAFI's vision is being enacted right now. Eighty separate, but interconnected, "high priority corridors" are being initiated in the United States. To find a complete list of the 80 intended Super Highway projects, go to www.aaroads.com/high-priority/table.html
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Nov 13, 2006 17:32:59 GMT 4
Blueprint for Total Control Part 1 of 6[?]
Hello All: If you have read through the many posts here at 'Money Masters and Enslaved Taxpayers,' you should be awakening to the fact that something is very wrong with our world; that all you have been told is a lie meant to keep you under the heels of a lineage of a despotic elitist society. This really isn't so difficult to believe when you accept the fact that, in the past, monarchies worked to pass on their power. I will be posting a lengthy essay, 'Blueprint for Total Control,' in a series of posts, please watch for them. There is much within this article for you to consider. I believe that it is one of the best compilations of the history of this attempt to control the masses, and the essay continues on into our world today. I say attempt because we need not accept the ruling elite's vision for our world. You can choose to stop participating in it, thus robbing them of their power over you. As you read through this material consider the following: Michelle
"Many people don't want to know about the major cover-ups going on in our world. Feeling relatively secure and content in their personal lives, they choose to avoid matters which might disturb their contentment. Yet as long as we choose complacency over awareness, these major cover-ups will continue. In fact, they will likely grow in magnitude until people are finally forced to open their eyes and deal with the consequences. The sooner each of us decides that we do want to know, and that we are willing to invite others to open their eyes, the more easily we will be able to build a world that supports the good of all of us." ----- Fred Burks ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Blueprint for Total Control by Nick Sandberg Second Edition, 2001, ISBN 0-9538348-3-2
"The real source of the problem is the way we are treating our young. Because we prefer to give them things to demonstrate our love for them, rather than actually express this love directly, our children grow up addicted to material possessions. Because we teach them wrong from right by withholding affection, they grow up needing rules and regulations, overly concerned with control and personal power. Because they don't adequately experience affection, they grow up craving fame and adoration. And this is principally happening because we experienced the same conditioning when we were children ourselves."
"Remember, the elite are just a few among the six billion people on this planet. The entire source of their power is their ability to corrupt natural instincts and direct the subconscious needs thus created into channels of expression that further the ends of complete control. This is all they have. And once this principle is understood by more people, it will cease to be effective. Our world will change spontaneously around us, and we will be free to love one another in the way we always intended."
Introduction
"Meanwhile we shall express our darker purpose" - King Lear, Act 1:Sc1.
The purpose of this piece is to introduce the reader to the possibility that much of what we typically believe about our world, notably its history and its political structure, may be some distance from the truth. In writing it is not my intention to reveal some vast, secret government or destiny, but simply to allow interested readers to indulge themselves in the exercise of re-evaluating just what is going on around us. Whether or not anyone chooses to believe the scenario portrayed is entirely up to him or her. I make no categorical statements about "how the world is" because our interpretation of our world and the events of our lives is ultimately an entirely subjective experience.
In presenting this alternative interpretation of our world, I have simply gone straight into the "conspiracy theory" version of history with scant regard for quite viable alternative explanations for much of what has happened in recent years. Put simply, I have for the purpose of this exercise quite deliberately selected the most negative explanation or outcome for any series of events portrayed. If the reader finds following this piece stressful, then I advise him or her to always keep in mind that there are many other ways of looking at our world and, even if the "worst-case scenario" were true, then simply recognizing the problem would quickly bring about its reversal.
This piece is split into four sections. The first section consists of a basic overview of our recent history and possible destiny from the perspective of an increasingly popular "conspiracy theory." The second looks at the means by which such a plan might be being kept from our awareness. The third examines some basic concepts that can be put to use in the manipulation of large population groups. And the fourth looks at what believers or concerned citizens might do to hijack this process.
People from a wide variety of backgrounds are increasingly willing to take seriously the notion that much of what we are taught of our history is some distance from the truth. In accordance with classic "conspiracy theory" beliefs, they believe that the degree of randomness ascribed to much of what has happened in the last few centuries is excessive, and that, behind the scenes, a coherent negative force is manipulating the events of our lives for its own ends.
It is believed that there exists an "elite cabal" at the apex of banking and industry, operating through government and the media, and controlling our political, social and personal lives to ever-increasing degrees. This elite group has been pursuing its ambitions for centuries and is operating to an agenda entirely not in our interest. It has ruthlessly manipulated the political landscape via the strategic destabilization and reorganization of nation states; and its ultimate objective is to take the incredibly diverse range of human cultures once existing on Earth and slowly mould them into a single, homogenized trading and consuming block under their centralized control.
The principal means by which it is believed this group is seeking to do this is via the expansion of their own developmental prototype for world culture - America; a set of cultural values that is systematically being expanded across the world, progressively eliminating a wealth of ancient peoples and beliefs, and leaving in their place a standardized, consumerist stereotype.
The ultimate goal of this proposed elite group is to bring about a single global marketplace, controlled by a world government, policed by a world army, financially regulated by a world bank via a single global currency, and populated by a microchipped population connected to a global computer, a computer that both monitors and updates our personal location and financial status, and regulates our emotional state via transmitted electrical signals - technology that already exists.
This ambition of thus rendering the Earth a "prison planet" - a self-contained, interactive social structure under total centralized control - is chiefly being pursued via activities in two areas - commerce and culture. In "commerce," the elite group have created the corporations, the vehicles for the planet's enslavement, and in "culture," the elite group have created both the drivers and passengers of those vehicles - us.
The historical roots of this "elite group" stretch back into the mists of time. But the development of the modern banking system in Middle Ages Europe provides a useful starting point for a look at their activities. The reader should note that, in describing the activities of this proposed elite cabal, I have had to give them a name, that name usually being simply "the elite."
To be continued....Coming up next: Part One - The World Outside
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