October 24, 2009 archive

The real reason for the economic crisis

  The economic crisis has the country flailing.

That’s not a controversial statement. Since early 2008 the federal government has been trying various, and expensive methods, of jump-starting the economy and propping up the housing market. Since December 2007 the Federal Reserve has created an alphabet soup of programs to stabilize the credit markets.

 So far all of these attempts to stabilize the economy have had mixed results at best. Trillions of dollars have been spent and yet the economy is still crippled. Why?

 The problem is that the people in charge are asking the wrong question. They are asking, “How do we get back to where we were before this crisis?” The question they should be asking is, “How did this happen?”

  Unless we understand what happened and why, we will never be able to fix the economy.

Sacrificing the Economy to the Volcano God

  Hundreds of years ago the Incas would sacrifice virgins to appease their Volcano God.

  The Gods and methods of sacrifice may have changed, but the tradition remains.

  Like the Incas of old, we find ourselves helpless against forces we do not understand. The foundations of our economy shake and falter in terrifying ways.

 In our desperation for answers we turn to High Priests of Economics who tell us these evils have befallen us because of our sins. We must sacrifice the innocent to the Volcano God or it will destroy us all.

  The High Priests of Economics never explain exactly how these sacrifices will fix the economy, nor do they mention that the sins in question might be their own. Yet we still rush to offer up our children’s futures through unpayable debts while never considering that there might be better alternatives.

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Weekend News Digest

Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread

Now with World News.  53 Story Final.

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Taliban call for Afghan vote boycott

by Sardar Ahmad, AFP

Sat Oct 24, 10:34 am ET

KABUL (AFP) – The Taliban called on Saturday for a boycott of the upcoming run-off in Afghanistan’s fraud-tainted presidential election as top US and UN envoys predicted fewer problems with the second round.

While Western military chiefs say they can ensure the November 7 poll is conducted in a peaceful atmosphere, the warning from the Taliban threatens to further deflate turnout, which was less than 40 percent first time round.

“The Islamic emirate (of Afghanistan) once again informs all the people that no one should participate in this American process and should boycott the process,” said a Taliban statement emailed to AFP.

Imagine a 350 World — It IS Possible!

350 is more than a catchy slogan —

350 is a target Ceiling for a very good reason:

that reason:

+6 C

325 or 300 ppm, of worldwide CO2 levels,

would be more like what the world really needs!

Alas, what is an Oil and Coal addicted Planet to do?!?

1) Get educated

2) Don’t lose hope

3) Do YOUR part — No one else, can do that …

Dystopia 16: A Place of Her Own

The World Turned Upside Down  (One version of the Digger’s Song)

 

In 1649 to St. George’s Hill

A ragged band they called the Diggers

Came to show the people’s will.

They defied the landlord, they defied the laws,

They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs.


“We come in peace,” they said, “To dig and sow,

We come to work the lands in common

And to make the waste ground grow.

This earth divided we will make whole

So it will be a common treasury for all!

 

The sin of property we do disdain,

No man has any right to buy and sell the earth for private gain.

By theft and murder they took the land,

Now everywhere the walls spring up at their command.

   

They make the laws to chain us well,

The clergy dazzle us with heaven or they damn us into hell.

We will not worship the god they serve:

The god of greed who feeds the rich while poor folk starve.

   

We work, we eat together, we need no swords;

We will not bow to the masters or pay rent to the lords.

Still we are free, tho’ we are poor,

You Diggers all stand up for glory, stand up now!

   

From the men of property the orders came:

They sent the hired men and troopers to wipe out the Diggers’ claim.

Tear down their cottages, destroy their corn,

They were dispersed, but still the Vision lingers on!

   

“You poor, take courage, you rich take care,

This earth was made a common treasury for everyone to share.

All things in common, all people one, We come in peace…”

– The order came to cut them down.

The McKibben-Hedges “Debate” — a thought

The point of this diary is to alert the Orange-reading public to the “McKibben-Hedges debate,” from a recent piece in Alternet.  Yeah, I know, it’s not really a debate.  The Alternet piece makes some important connections and I think you should all read it carefully.  What this core contention between the two writers is really about, I argue, is power.  

The history of power is a record of how various forms of power consolidated themselves into the current global state of domination.  The outcome which the history of power has been preparing up until now will be a sort of massive humanity-wide global murder-suicide.  The fundamental leap which will make the drama of human self-extinction possible, I argue, was capitalism.  Capitalism made capitalist discipline possible as a form of power, and capitalist discipline will bring power to a point of confrontation between the global complex of control and the simplification of the biosphere which will signal our failure as a species at the art of taking care of nature.  Thus it’s time to end capitalist discipline.  Capitalism will take care of itself.

(Crossposted at Big Orange)

Go! Raise page counts and votes: Names of the Dead.com

Alan Grayspan has created a web page to:

a) Show people agree with him an want health care

b) Commemorate the 44,000 each year who die from lack of health care

c) Raise a ruckus (publicize the majority’s desire for change)

d) Get Something Done!!!

Help him out! Just takes a few seconds! You can stay on your chair, no marching, no signs to make — just an opinion to register!!

http://www.namesofthedead.com/

Pawlenty says Minnesota will Opt Out of Public Option if he has his way

     Crossposted at Daily Kos

    Today on ABC’s Top Line, co-host David Chalian asked Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) if he would “opt-out” of the public option for his state if the measure passed. Pawlenty dodged: “Well, I don’t know if we would opt out but I personally would like to opt out because I don’t like government run health care.” But Chalian persisted, and ultimately, Pawlenty said that he would oppose the public option for Minnesota:


CHALIAN: But you would lead a charge in your state to opt out if that was an option available?

PAWLENTY: I think so because I don’t like government run health care.

ThinkProgress.org

     Sorry Minnesota. Looks like your Asshat Governor wants you to buy for profit insurance and like it, if you can afford it.

     More, with analysis and my take on the Faux Reform that is the Opt Out Cop Out below the fold.

Fall of the Republic

Yes let us “fix” the enviornment.  The US,China and Russia openly admit weather modifications deliberately on purpose.  CNN didn’t tell you.

http://www.informationliberati…

New boss same wars.

http://www.informationliberati…

Jamie Lee Jones, housed in KBR tent gets gang raped after four days in Iraq.  Beat up, acid burns on her genitals her death is ruled a suicide.

Mandated vaccines and why this is genocide plain and simple.

http://www.informationliberati…

For those with dial up only this is Gary’s website.

http://www.gnhealth.com/GNnewL…

More on global climate taxation, see weather mods in item one.

http://www.campaignforliberty….

Domestic military operations, in California.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/fo…

Docudharma Times Saturday October 24




Saturday’s Headlines:

Prognosis improves for public insurance

CSI: Landon School

Arizona May Put State Prisons in Private Hands

Subpoenas issued over Countrywide VIP loan program

The Kirkuk conundrum

Iran ignores deadline and takes nuclear talks to brink

Russia cracks down on fake Kalashnikovs

Curves and home-cooked family meals are favoured by French teenagers

Korean summit not such a sick idea

Afghanistan election: Karzai rival suggests terms for fair election runoff

Ravaged by drought, Madagascar feels the full effect of climate change

Falling fish stocks raise tension on disputed Lake Victoria island

9/11 Redux (Part 2)

Part 2 of Real News Network Paul Jay’s interview of former FBI agent and whistleblower Coleen Rowley about the leadup investigations to the September 11, 2001 WTC attacks.

Part 1 of the interview is here.

The Volcano People or, Need a New Enemy? I’ve Got a Few To Spare

They were warned. They didn’t listen. They are fossils.

We are not too unlike the volcano people. All of the signs are visible. But even the most informed of us still do not grasp what exactly it is we are looking at. And as a result, we are powerless to fight it, much less to defeat it.

The gravest threat to our country in its entire history is bearing down upon us. And we fiddle.

Right now, there is a perfect storm of sorts. For the first time in the history of the human race, a sociopolitical-economic system is on the verge of gaining the ability, through great and horrifying advances in technology, to completely control an entire population.

It is both naive and irresponsible to assume that power such as this will never be used.

Think about what is being put into place right now.

– A massive and unconstitutional surveillance and intelligence infrastructure aimed at you.

Never has technology, and our reliance on it, made it so easy for us to be tracked, eaves dropped on, and monitored.

– A massive, trillion dollar propaganda-disinformation-indoctrination operation that spans several mediums including television, internet, radio and film, and has one primary objective – to control your behavior.

Many people back in the 30s, after seeing the power Hitler had gained over Germans with radio, were concerned about this new medium’s power to gain control over the public’s susceptible minds. By the 1950s, there was a veritable movement of psychologists warning that television could be used as a weapon, and steps were taken. The fairness clause, the outlawing of subliminal images. But as Al Gore writes in his book, Assault On Reason, even flashing images put people in a sort of trance. That was true in the 50s, on a 14″ black and white monitor. How effective is it on a 56″ HD system? Television is the most powerful political weapon in the history of mankind. And it is being used in ways daily that even the most savvy political minds miss.

– Unprecedented and insurmountable weapons technology not aimed at defeating a foreign nation, but aimed at threatening, controlling, and if necessary, defeating you.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the police state has gone science fiction over the last 10 years – complete with chemical weapons, sound weapons, flying surveillance robots disguised as insects.

And now, the 130 year old law restricting a standing army on US soil has been violated.

Naturally, the volcano people scoff at the notion that such power would ever be used against Americans by Americans. Things like that just don’t happen here. But this pollyannic view just isn’t supported by history. In fact, history has shown time and again that when men have such power available, THEY WILL USE IT.

But when you look at all of these developments combined, and fully grasp the scope of these changes in power and technology, it is clear that people who have shown nothing but contempt for the the American people, our laws, and our way of life are gaining this power while we sleep.

We are in the final stages of losing our country. It’s almost complete. And if we lose it all the way, we lose everything.

Believe it or not, our government still fears its people. This is the only reason we have not become a purely, openly corporatofascist state. But the second they no longer fear us, when their technology becomes so advance, their surveillance becomes so pervasive, that they can put down the most populous riot, or surveil even their most powerful political opponent, then we are done. No more progressive movement. No more get out the vote or march on the Mall. It’s over.

Can we stop it? I don’t know, especially if we waste all of our time bickering and infighting. But I have always believed we have a moral obligation to try. To not be the volcano people.

You can read the bit of Gore’s book on television brainwashing here.

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