Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Drift to World Government?
This is absolutely excellent! Courtesy of Joan Masters.
Drift to world government?
By Richard W. Rahn
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
May 31, 2005
What level of government (local, state, federal, multinational institution or none) should regulate the following: What trees you may cut on your home property; whether you may burn logs in your home fireplace; what identification you need to open a bank account in your local bank?
Traditionally, it was not considered anyone else's business, including the government's, as to what trees, flowers and other plants one grew on one's own property. Slowly, local governments and zoning authorities began regulating these decisions. As the influence of agricultural and environmental interests grew, federal laws and regulations were passed regarding which crops and trees could be grown or removed from private property.
Until roughly a century ago, every home had a fireplace, used for heat and often for cooking. The idea of restricting the burning of wood in a fireplace would have been seen as both ludicrous and unacceptable. As heating technology improved, fireplaces evolved from necessities to desirable options, and cities became more and more plagued with smog, local restrictions began appearing on burning in fireplaces.
These restrictions have been moving from the local to regional and even state levels. If the advocates of the Kyoto Treaty have their way, such limitations may move to the federal and even international level. (The Kyoto advocates have yet to figure out what to do about the occasional volcano that can toss more pollutants in a matter of days than all the power plants and fireplaces on the planet combined in a year.)
When I was a child, no identification was required to open a bank account, and almost every school kid in America had a passbook savings account.
Today, you need extensive documentation to open a bank account because of both the U.S. and internationally mandated "know your customer" regulations. We should be asking why Americans and citizens of other countries are forced to meet the requirements of unelected bureaucrats in an international organization (the Financial Action Task Force or FATF in this case), which has the effect of making it very difficult for students and other innocent people to get bank accounts. (FATF will claim it only gives recommendations; but if banks and countries don't follow those, FATF threatens to "black list" them, making difficult the conducting of necessary corresponding banking relationships.)
Over the last 80 years, we have seen the endless drift of government power from local, to state and regional to the federal and now increasingly to multinational institutions that have become quasi-governments fulfilling some government functions, particularly on trade, financial, environmental regulation and even criminal justice, given the advent of the International Criminal Court. The drift toward global statism has continued at a relentless but measured pace; so, like the frog in the pot, we don't realize we are being boiled to death.
As an example of this trend, in 1952, Illinois Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson was the nominee of the Democratic Party for president to run against General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Stevenson was considered the liberal or statist in the race.
Yet, according to the recollections of the leftist economist, John Kenneth Galbraith (as reported in Richard Parker's new Galbraith biography), Stevenson opposed "federal funding of public housing." He also said, "Schools were for states and localities to worry about, and federal aid to education should be considered only as a last resort." In addition he "opposed Truman's health proposals as socialized medicine." Today, a half-century later, such views would put Stevenson to the right of the Republican Party.
There is too little discussion, not only about the proper functions of government but about what level of government is appropriate for each agreed upon governmental activity. In the 1996 presidential campaign, Sen. Robert Dole tried to engage in a serious discussion of the issue by saying he intended to renew the commitment to the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
The citizens of Europe are now having a healthy debate, as part of the ratification process of their proposed constitution, about what level of government is appropriate for what activity. Despite this debate, the EU continues to assert extraterritorial coverage for some of its laws (as does the U.S.), and both the U.S. and the EU, and most other countries, continue ceding sovereignty to multinational institutions like the U.N. and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
These institutions now demand that American taxpayers pay more in foreign aid, even though Americans are the most generous givers in the world.
The American Founding Fathers understood that government works best when it is closest to the people. Many American small towns had direct democracy in the form of the town meeting. The Swiss still have direct democracy as they have had for centuries, and it has worked very well.
As government gets more distant from the people, it is more likely fundamental individual rights will be trampled, and the individual will feel he has less power. We should not let ourselves just drift into supernational statism but, instead, have a genuine debate about what powers may and may not be delegated to each level of government, including those of multinational organizations.
Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute.
Drift to world government?
By Richard W. Rahn
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
May 31, 2005
What level of government (local, state, federal, multinational institution or none) should regulate the following: What trees you may cut on your home property; whether you may burn logs in your home fireplace; what identification you need to open a bank account in your local bank?
Traditionally, it was not considered anyone else's business, including the government's, as to what trees, flowers and other plants one grew on one's own property. Slowly, local governments and zoning authorities began regulating these decisions. As the influence of agricultural and environmental interests grew, federal laws and regulations were passed regarding which crops and trees could be grown or removed from private property.
Until roughly a century ago, every home had a fireplace, used for heat and often for cooking. The idea of restricting the burning of wood in a fireplace would have been seen as both ludicrous and unacceptable. As heating technology improved, fireplaces evolved from necessities to desirable options, and cities became more and more plagued with smog, local restrictions began appearing on burning in fireplaces.
These restrictions have been moving from the local to regional and even state levels. If the advocates of the Kyoto Treaty have their way, such limitations may move to the federal and even international level. (The Kyoto advocates have yet to figure out what to do about the occasional volcano that can toss more pollutants in a matter of days than all the power plants and fireplaces on the planet combined in a year.)
When I was a child, no identification was required to open a bank account, and almost every school kid in America had a passbook savings account.
Today, you need extensive documentation to open a bank account because of both the U.S. and internationally mandated "know your customer" regulations. We should be asking why Americans and citizens of other countries are forced to meet the requirements of unelected bureaucrats in an international organization (the Financial Action Task Force or FATF in this case), which has the effect of making it very difficult for students and other innocent people to get bank accounts. (FATF will claim it only gives recommendations; but if banks and countries don't follow those, FATF threatens to "black list" them, making difficult the conducting of necessary corresponding banking relationships.)
Over the last 80 years, we have seen the endless drift of government power from local, to state and regional to the federal and now increasingly to multinational institutions that have become quasi-governments fulfilling some government functions, particularly on trade, financial, environmental regulation and even criminal justice, given the advent of the International Criminal Court. The drift toward global statism has continued at a relentless but measured pace; so, like the frog in the pot, we don't realize we are being boiled to death.
As an example of this trend, in 1952, Illinois Gov. Adlai E. Stevenson was the nominee of the Democratic Party for president to run against General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Stevenson was considered the liberal or statist in the race.
Yet, according to the recollections of the leftist economist, John Kenneth Galbraith (as reported in Richard Parker's new Galbraith biography), Stevenson opposed "federal funding of public housing." He also said, "Schools were for states and localities to worry about, and federal aid to education should be considered only as a last resort." In addition he "opposed Truman's health proposals as socialized medicine." Today, a half-century later, such views would put Stevenson to the right of the Republican Party.
There is too little discussion, not only about the proper functions of government but about what level of government is appropriate for each agreed upon governmental activity. In the 1996 presidential campaign, Sen. Robert Dole tried to engage in a serious discussion of the issue by saying he intended to renew the commitment to the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
The citizens of Europe are now having a healthy debate, as part of the ratification process of their proposed constitution, about what level of government is appropriate for what activity. Despite this debate, the EU continues to assert extraterritorial coverage for some of its laws (as does the U.S.), and both the U.S. and the EU, and most other countries, continue ceding sovereignty to multinational institutions like the U.N. and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
These institutions now demand that American taxpayers pay more in foreign aid, even though Americans are the most generous givers in the world.
The American Founding Fathers understood that government works best when it is closest to the people. Many American small towns had direct democracy in the form of the town meeting. The Swiss still have direct democracy as they have had for centuries, and it has worked very well.
As government gets more distant from the people, it is more likely fundamental individual rights will be trampled, and the individual will feel he has less power. We should not let ourselves just drift into supernational statism but, instead, have a genuine debate about what powers may and may not be delegated to each level of government, including those of multinational organizations.
Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute.
France to the European Union Constitution: Non!
Courtesy of Steve Lefemine of the Constitution Party, South Carolina:
France votes "NO" to new world order's proposed EU Constitution
Valid French concerns over loss of national sovereignty, loss of national identity,
and loss of control of their country's political destiny to unelected EU bureaucrats
in Brussels (Belgium) at European Union headquarters.
Americans would likewise be wise to REJECT the Bush II administration's
new world order "C.A.F.T.A." agreement (Central American Free Trade
Agreement), and even moreso, the Bush II administration's new world order* *
"F.T.A.A." agreement (Free Trade Area of the Americas) - another step after
the disastrous 1994 N.A.F.T.A. trade agreement, toward a Western Hemispheric
version of the Common Market/European Economic Community/European Union.
* * President George H.W. Bush State of the Union Address given to the U.S. Congress
at the United States Capitol on January 29, 1991:
www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0900156.html
"What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea - a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law." "The world can therefore seize this opportunity to fulfill the long-held promise of a new world order where brutality will go unrewarded, and aggression will meet collective resistance."
'Writing for The New American in the February 7, 2005 issue, William F. Jasper writes:
"Trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the GATT Final Act, which created
the World Trade Organization (WTO), have been designed specifically to destroy national independence and establish the basis for regional and global government.
"Pending trade agreements, such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement
(CAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), have been crafted to accelerate this betrayal of America's independence," Jasper concluded.'
(source: The Times Examiner, May 18, 2005, Greenville, South Carolina, p. 2)
( Jasper's entire article: www.stoptheftaa.org/artman/publish/article_173.shtml )
Just say "NO" to the "New World Order" ("Novus Ordo Seclorum" - on the reverse
side of the 1782 Great Seal of the United States, printed on the back of every U.S.
one dollar bill ! - www.greatseal.com).
"... where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 2 Corinthians 3:17
Steve Lefemine
Independent * candidate for U.S. House of Representatives
US House District #2, South Carolina
* American Christian for a Biblically-based constitutional republic
www.LefemineforLife.net
________________________________________________________
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-05-29-france-referendum_x.htm
Posted 5/29/2005 5:05 AM Updated 5/30/2005 6:49 AM
French vote against new EU constitution
By Noelle Knox, USA TODAY
PARIS The French sent shockwaves across Europe on Sunday, voting against a new constitution designed to turn 25 countries into a more united states of Europe.
Opponents of the proposed EU constitution celebrate Sunday night in Paris.
The extent of the damage to the power and the future of the European Union will become more apparent in the coming days and months. Holland will vote on the constitution on Wednesday, but with the rejection from France the treaty appears dead in the water.
"Inevitably, this creates a difficult context to defend our interests in Europe," President Jacques Chirac said as exit polls by Ipsos showed the No-vote carrying 55% of the votes vs. 45% for Yes. But he said the government would listen to the French people.
MAIS NON: In a referendum, French voters reject the European Union's first constitution, a charter that aims to strengthen the EU and needs ratification by all 25 member states to take effect.
THE IMPACT: The 'no' is a repudiation of French President Jacques Chirac and casts
doubt on increase European integration. Possible responses are a repeat vote, an
altered constitution and some even warn of the decline of the European project.
EUROPEAN ANGST: The vote reflects fears of a loss of the French identity, faltering economies in EU states and the perceived arrogance of leaders.
The repercussions for France's own government may be more immediate. France is not
only one of the founding members of the EU, as the trade and legal alliance is known, but one of the leading authors of the constitution.
Chirac risked his reputation on the referendum, and now appears to have lost all hope of standing for re-election in 2007. And his prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin may soon be out of a job, says Daniel Hofnung, the representative for the anti-globalization group Attac in the Paris suburb Ivry sur Seine. (Related story: Chirac encouraged a 'oui' vote)
"The Chirac government was very unpopular, and has already lost other regional elections," said Hofnung, who voted No.
At the EU headquarters in Brussels, there is concern that Sunday's vote could paralyze decision-making, delay the new seven-year budget and slowing the process for adding new members like Turkey.
The results also are a setback for the USA, says Ronald Asmus, executive director of the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Center in Brussels.
"If you look at the things America needs today, it's a strong, outward looking Europe that can deliver on three things: homeland security, furthering democracy and cooperation on the war on terror," he said. "These are thing the EU is increasingly doing or willing to do, and that's why we needed this."
The constitution would have given the EU a permanent president and a foreign minister, as well as changed the voting rules for the member states.
The treaty was signed by European leaders in October, and had already been ratified by nine countries before France shot it down.
In France, the EU constitution, which is more than 300 pages long, had become entangled with domestic concerns about unemployment, diminishing welfare benefits, competition from cheaper Eastern European countries and immigration problems.
"I voted 'No' in all conscience, having read the text, due to the lack of will to solve Europe's number one problem today, which is unemployment," said Armel Bompart, a civil servant in Strasbourg, France.
Many people in France also have felt the EU expanded too quickly when it added 10 new members from Eastern and Central Europe last spring. These countries all share a long, and in some cases bloody, history and the majority of French said with their votes on Sunday that they want to slow the pace of change and renegotiate the treaty.
The debate has both captivated and divided France. The opinion polls were neck-and-neck for weeks, with a large percentage of people undecided at the 11th hour.
Etienne Proust, an engineer who lives in Paris, said it was the hardest political choice he has ever made. He eventually voted yes, while his father voted no, and his mother marked her ballot both the yes and no, effectively canceling but symbolizing her ambivalence.
"I was 80% for the No (camp)," Proust said. "But I realized I would never be completely happy with any constitution, and it is important we start somewhere."
But in the end, the No-campaign was more convincing, and voter turnout was expected to top 70%.
"If you look at every sentence, every turn of phrase, practically every article has a mention of (financial) markets,'" Anne-Marie Latremoliere, a graphic designer, said after casting a "no" ballot at a polling station near the Bastille in Paris. "We want Europe to be a beautiful place, and this is certainly not it."
Contributing: The Associated Press
© Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
France votes "NO" to new world order's proposed EU Constitution
Valid French concerns over loss of national sovereignty, loss of national identity,
and loss of control of their country's political destiny to unelected EU bureaucrats
in Brussels (Belgium) at European Union headquarters.
Americans would likewise be wise to REJECT the Bush II administration's
new world order "C.A.F.T.A." agreement (Central American Free Trade
Agreement), and even moreso, the Bush II administration's new world order* *
"F.T.A.A." agreement (Free Trade Area of the Americas) - another step after
the disastrous 1994 N.A.F.T.A. trade agreement, toward a Western Hemispheric
version of the Common Market/European Economic Community/European Union.
* * President George H.W. Bush State of the Union Address given to the U.S. Congress
at the United States Capitol on January 29, 1991:
www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0900156.html
"What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea - a new world order, where diverse nations are drawn together in common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind: peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law." "The world can therefore seize this opportunity to fulfill the long-held promise of a new world order where brutality will go unrewarded, and aggression will meet collective resistance."
'Writing for The New American in the February 7, 2005 issue, William F. Jasper writes:
"Trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the GATT Final Act, which created
the World Trade Organization (WTO), have been designed specifically to destroy national independence and establish the basis for regional and global government.
"Pending trade agreements, such as the Central American Free Trade Agreement
(CAFTA) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), have been crafted to accelerate this betrayal of America's independence," Jasper concluded.'
(source: The Times Examiner, May 18, 2005, Greenville, South Carolina, p. 2)
( Jasper's entire article: www.stoptheftaa.org/artman/publish/article_173.shtml )
Just say "NO" to the "New World Order" ("Novus Ordo Seclorum" - on the reverse
side of the 1782 Great Seal of the United States, printed on the back of every U.S.
one dollar bill ! - www.greatseal.com).
"... where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 2 Corinthians 3:17
Steve Lefemine
Independent * candidate for U.S. House of Representatives
US House District #2, South Carolina
* American Christian for a Biblically-based constitutional republic
www.LefemineforLife.net
________________________________________________________
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-05-29-france-referendum_x.htm
Posted 5/29/2005 5:05 AM Updated 5/30/2005 6:49 AM
French vote against new EU constitution
By Noelle Knox, USA TODAY
PARIS The French sent shockwaves across Europe on Sunday, voting against a new constitution designed to turn 25 countries into a more united states of Europe.
Opponents of the proposed EU constitution celebrate Sunday night in Paris.
The extent of the damage to the power and the future of the European Union will become more apparent in the coming days and months. Holland will vote on the constitution on Wednesday, but with the rejection from France the treaty appears dead in the water.
"Inevitably, this creates a difficult context to defend our interests in Europe," President Jacques Chirac said as exit polls by Ipsos showed the No-vote carrying 55% of the votes vs. 45% for Yes. But he said the government would listen to the French people.
MAIS NON: In a referendum, French voters reject the European Union's first constitution, a charter that aims to strengthen the EU and needs ratification by all 25 member states to take effect.
THE IMPACT: The 'no' is a repudiation of French President Jacques Chirac and casts
doubt on increase European integration. Possible responses are a repeat vote, an
altered constitution and some even warn of the decline of the European project.
EUROPEAN ANGST: The vote reflects fears of a loss of the French identity, faltering economies in EU states and the perceived arrogance of leaders.
The repercussions for France's own government may be more immediate. France is not
only one of the founding members of the EU, as the trade and legal alliance is known, but one of the leading authors of the constitution.
Chirac risked his reputation on the referendum, and now appears to have lost all hope of standing for re-election in 2007. And his prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin may soon be out of a job, says Daniel Hofnung, the representative for the anti-globalization group Attac in the Paris suburb Ivry sur Seine. (Related story: Chirac encouraged a 'oui' vote)
"The Chirac government was very unpopular, and has already lost other regional elections," said Hofnung, who voted No.
At the EU headquarters in Brussels, there is concern that Sunday's vote could paralyze decision-making, delay the new seven-year budget and slowing the process for adding new members like Turkey.
The results also are a setback for the USA, says Ronald Asmus, executive director of the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Center in Brussels.
"If you look at the things America needs today, it's a strong, outward looking Europe that can deliver on three things: homeland security, furthering democracy and cooperation on the war on terror," he said. "These are thing the EU is increasingly doing or willing to do, and that's why we needed this."
The constitution would have given the EU a permanent president and a foreign minister, as well as changed the voting rules for the member states.
The treaty was signed by European leaders in October, and had already been ratified by nine countries before France shot it down.
In France, the EU constitution, which is more than 300 pages long, had become entangled with domestic concerns about unemployment, diminishing welfare benefits, competition from cheaper Eastern European countries and immigration problems.
"I voted 'No' in all conscience, having read the text, due to the lack of will to solve Europe's number one problem today, which is unemployment," said Armel Bompart, a civil servant in Strasbourg, France.
Many people in France also have felt the EU expanded too quickly when it added 10 new members from Eastern and Central Europe last spring. These countries all share a long, and in some cases bloody, history and the majority of French said with their votes on Sunday that they want to slow the pace of change and renegotiate the treaty.
The debate has both captivated and divided France. The opinion polls were neck-and-neck for weeks, with a large percentage of people undecided at the 11th hour.
Etienne Proust, an engineer who lives in Paris, said it was the hardest political choice he has ever made. He eventually voted yes, while his father voted no, and his mother marked her ballot both the yes and no, effectively canceling but symbolizing her ambivalence.
"I was 80% for the No (camp)," Proust said. "But I realized I would never be completely happy with any constitution, and it is important we start somewhere."
But in the end, the No-campaign was more convincing, and voter turnout was expected to top 70%.
"If you look at every sentence, every turn of phrase, practically every article has a mention of (financial) markets,'" Anne-Marie Latremoliere, a graphic designer, said after casting a "no" ballot at a polling station near the Bastille in Paris. "We want Europe to be a beautiful place, and this is certainly not it."
Contributing: The Associated Press
© Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
The Anti-CAFTA Jedi Are Still Here :-)
This was posted on www.stoptheftaa.org, and has been sent to me by several people operating independently of one another.
Help Save American Jobs and Independence by Energizing CAFTA Opposition
On May 25 House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), speaking to a pro-CAFTA coalition of business organizations, advised against running ads in congressional districts over the Memorial Day recess to avoid energizing opposition to CAFTA.
Lets reverse Blunt's advice. Let's energize CAFTA opposition by advertising in congressional districts around the nation over the Memorial Day recess (May 28-June 5) and the week following (June 6-12).
The situation is this: The Bush administration, congressional leaders, and key business organizations have organized this past week for a final push to win CAFTA approval in Congress. They plan on a vote in the House in June and a vote in the Senate in July.
This is a fight we can win, if we don't let our guard down! Strong resistance has prevented the Bush administration from introducing CAFTA in Congress for more than a year. Most recently we've helped bolster that resistance, causing proponents to miss their latest target of House approval before Memorial Day.
Please join with others across the nation to strike a blow for jobs and independence:
* Energize the CAFTA opposition by arranging to air our two, 30-second STOP CAFTA! radio ads on stations in your area during the time period of May 28-June 12. The radio ads (ad 1 job losses theme; ad 2 manufacturing losses theme) can be downloaded by you or your radio station from the Resources section of STOPCAFTA.com.
* Energize your friends, family, and associates to contact Congress through use of our other campaign tools on STOPCAFTA.com, such as Will Grigg's hard-hitting, 5-minute STOP CAFTA! video clip, Will Grigg's CAFTA article, and our online letter to Congress against CAFTA.
Lets win this one!
Help Save American Jobs and Independence by Energizing CAFTA Opposition
On May 25 House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), speaking to a pro-CAFTA coalition of business organizations, advised against running ads in congressional districts over the Memorial Day recess to avoid energizing opposition to CAFTA.
Lets reverse Blunt's advice. Let's energize CAFTA opposition by advertising in congressional districts around the nation over the Memorial Day recess (May 28-June 5) and the week following (June 6-12).
The situation is this: The Bush administration, congressional leaders, and key business organizations have organized this past week for a final push to win CAFTA approval in Congress. They plan on a vote in the House in June and a vote in the Senate in July.
This is a fight we can win, if we don't let our guard down! Strong resistance has prevented the Bush administration from introducing CAFTA in Congress for more than a year. Most recently we've helped bolster that resistance, causing proponents to miss their latest target of House approval before Memorial Day.
Please join with others across the nation to strike a blow for jobs and independence:
* Energize the CAFTA opposition by arranging to air our two, 30-second STOP CAFTA! radio ads on stations in your area during the time period of May 28-June 12. The radio ads (ad 1 job losses theme; ad 2 manufacturing losses theme) can be downloaded by you or your radio station from the Resources section of STOPCAFTA.com.
* Energize your friends, family, and associates to contact Congress through use of our other campaign tools on STOPCAFTA.com, such as Will Grigg's hard-hitting, 5-minute STOP CAFTA! video clip, Will Grigg's CAFTA article, and our online letter to Congress against CAFTA.
Lets win this one!
CAFTA: The Empire Tries to Do Damage Control
The feds' end-of-May, behind-schedule desperation to get CAFTA, the steppingstone to what the elites in both big government and big business really want: the FTAA. Now, of course, they want to get CAFTA in June. This comes courtesy of Joan Masters:
Central American trade pact OK sought
By Jeffrey Sparshott
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
Published May 28, 2005
BUSINESS SECTION
The Bush administration and its business allies are making a final push confident they can win approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, a pact that opponents insist is "dead on arrival" if it goes to Congress for a vote.
Both sides see June as a make-or-break time for CAFTA as lawmakers decide to support or oppose the deal.
"It looks like we can get this done, if we can at all, in June," Rep. Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican and House majority whip, said Wednesday.
CAFTA is the most ambitious and most controversial free-trade agreement sent to Capitol Hill since the North American Free Trade Agreement, with Mexico and Canada, in 1993. CAFTA, also known as DR-CAFTA, eases trade and codifies investment rules among the United States, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
The United States and five Central American countries signed the deal a year ago today, and the Dominican Republic was added in August. But the agreement languished, in part because of fierce opposition from organized labor, the sugar lobby and the lawmakers concerned about the trade deficit.
The Bush administration and congressional leaders had hoped for a vote before the Memorial Day recess but that goal slipped to a June or possibly July vote.
"Evidence of CAFTA's failure is found in Congress' inability to bring the agreement to the floor for a vote," said Rep. Sherrod Brown, Ohio Democrat. Mr. Brown, joined by anti-CAFTA legislators from both parties this week, called the deal "dead on arrival" unless renegotiated.
Mr. Brown said an early June vote would ensure CAFTA's defeat. Echoing Mr. Brown, groups that oppose CAFTA say they have already won the argument against the trade deal.
"CAFTA is a moldering corpse that needs burial," said Lori M. Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a Washington nonprofit founded by Ralph Nader.
But the administration's trade team counters that it is fast gaining support.
"We definitely have momentum right now," said Matt Niemeyer, assistant U.S. trade representative for congressional affairs. "This agreement should not be measured by how many members of Congress hold press conferences denouncing it but by the number of members that vote for it on final passage."
Both houses of Congress vote yes or no on trade deals, with no amendments allowed. A simple majority prevails.
Mr. Bush this month has stepped up efforts to sell the pact, including high-profile meetings with presidents from the six CAFTA countries and personal involvement with lawmakers, including a private meeting with senators on Thursday.
"This is one if his highest priorities in the near term," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy. The White House would not confirm the Thursday meeting but one source said the president met with more than a dozen senators from both parties.
The administration is emphasizing national security and strategic goals related to CAFTA.
Business allies, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers, also are telling lawmakers that CAFTA will help businesses. They plan a series of meetings in district offices with undecided lawmakers after Memorial Day.
"This is the key trade vote of the year," said John Murphy, vice president for Western Hemisphere affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Central American trade pact OK sought
By Jeffrey Sparshott
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
Published May 28, 2005
BUSINESS SECTION
The Bush administration and its business allies are making a final push confident they can win approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement, a pact that opponents insist is "dead on arrival" if it goes to Congress for a vote.
Both sides see June as a make-or-break time for CAFTA as lawmakers decide to support or oppose the deal.
"It looks like we can get this done, if we can at all, in June," Rep. Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican and House majority whip, said Wednesday.
CAFTA is the most ambitious and most controversial free-trade agreement sent to Capitol Hill since the North American Free Trade Agreement, with Mexico and Canada, in 1993. CAFTA, also known as DR-CAFTA, eases trade and codifies investment rules among the United States, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.
The United States and five Central American countries signed the deal a year ago today, and the Dominican Republic was added in August. But the agreement languished, in part because of fierce opposition from organized labor, the sugar lobby and the lawmakers concerned about the trade deficit.
The Bush administration and congressional leaders had hoped for a vote before the Memorial Day recess but that goal slipped to a June or possibly July vote.
"Evidence of CAFTA's failure is found in Congress' inability to bring the agreement to the floor for a vote," said Rep. Sherrod Brown, Ohio Democrat. Mr. Brown, joined by anti-CAFTA legislators from both parties this week, called the deal "dead on arrival" unless renegotiated.
Mr. Brown said an early June vote would ensure CAFTA's defeat. Echoing Mr. Brown, groups that oppose CAFTA say they have already won the argument against the trade deal.
"CAFTA is a moldering corpse that needs burial," said Lori M. Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, a Washington nonprofit founded by Ralph Nader.
But the administration's trade team counters that it is fast gaining support.
"We definitely have momentum right now," said Matt Niemeyer, assistant U.S. trade representative for congressional affairs. "This agreement should not be measured by how many members of Congress hold press conferences denouncing it but by the number of members that vote for it on final passage."
Both houses of Congress vote yes or no on trade deals, with no amendments allowed. A simple majority prevails.
Mr. Bush this month has stepped up efforts to sell the pact, including high-profile meetings with presidents from the six CAFTA countries and personal involvement with lawmakers, including a private meeting with senators on Thursday.
"This is one if his highest priorities in the near term," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy. The White House would not confirm the Thursday meeting but one source said the president met with more than a dozen senators from both parties.
The administration is emphasizing national security and strategic goals related to CAFTA.
Business allies, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers, also are telling lawmakers that CAFTA will help businesses. They plan a series of meetings in district offices with undecided lawmakers after Memorial Day.
"This is the key trade vote of the year," said John Murphy, vice president for Western Hemisphere affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
CAFTA: Trading Down?
Playing catch-up here, from having a friend in from out of town and other matters (e.g., the start of my summer class) preventing me from posting. Begin with this article, which ought to be destined for classic status. Goes without saying, May is less than 24 hours from being over, and there has been no vote on CAFTA. We have made a difference!
Trading down?
By Alan Tonelson
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
Published May 18, 2005
Time to face facts. The proposed Central America Free Trade Agreement isn't foundering in Congress because labor unions and sugar and textile interests oppose it. It's foundering because CAFTA confirms U.S. trade policy has degenerated from a driver of economic growth to a sick joke. And the voters Congress listens to are no longer laughing.
The claims and promises made on CAFTA's behalf are so flagrantly inaccurate, so internally contradictory and so transparently absurd even its supporters can't possibly take them seriously. But they keep filling congressional testimony and newspaper editorials anyway.
For example, CAFTA's champions contend it will create major new export markets for goods and services, and increase U.S. output, employment and wages. Supposedly, this is why the president made it the centerpiece of his trade policy this year.
But has the CAFTA lobby looked at the five Central American countries in question and the Dominican Republic lately? Their populations together total about 45 million -- roughly that of California and New Jersey combined. But about half lives below local poverty lines, and few of the rest fare much better. That's why their economies together total only some $85 billion -- about the equivalent of New Haven, Conn.
Anyone who believes opening trade with these impoverished mini-markets can boost growth in the $12 trillion U.S. economy must have bought an elevator pass in high school.
CAFTA supporters cite impressive regional import figures nonetheless. Yet the CAFTA 6's biggest imports by far aren't consumed in these countries. They consist of fabric and apparel parts sent down from American mills, sewn together in the region, and re-exported to the United States. Such shipments don't serve new foreign markets and thereby increase total demand for U.S.-made goods. They serve the same old U.S. market -- only with super-cheap Central American apparel workers replacing many U.S. counterparts.
In other words, the CAFTA 6 aren't mainly markets for real U.S. exports at all. They're sweatshops. And because they are too poor to create genuine two-way exchange, CAFTA isn't really a trade agreement at all. It's an outsourcing agreement.
Yes, American consumers will get slightly cheaper clothing. But legions of the working poor in America will lose their best hope for jobs in industries like apparel that pay decent wages.
This is a way to raise U.S. living standards? After 15 years of similar trade agreements, no wonder U.S. spending is increasingly financed by massive foreign borrowing, not wages and salaries.
Even so, the CAFTA lobby insists, the agreement will help the region, U.S. textile companies, and at least some of their American workers compete with Asian rivals -- whose garments use little American fabric. Unfortunately, such production-sharing arrangements have long been easily foiled by the Asians' willingness to do whatever it takes to protect and even increase market share -- including subsidizing exports and manipulating exchange rates. Nothing about CAFTA will change these practices.
Worse, CAFTA's numerous loopholes will allow mountains of Asian fabric and garments into the U.S. anyway, unless Central Americans lower their own wages and other costs even further.
Either way, U.S. apparel, textiles and similar imports will continue soaring and these industries' remaining U.S. workers -- often women and minorities -- will move from work to welfare or to much lower-paying service-sector jobs. Only multinational apparel companies and mega-retailers like Wal-Mart will benefit.
American farmers, meanwhile, are being told that with lower Central American tariffs, U.S. agricultural exports will surge under CAFTA. Yet even if these markets contained significant purchasing power, many agricultural tariffs will be phased out over 10, 15, and even 20 years. Budget and tax policy promises made in Washington with 20-year payoffs are all but worthless. Why believe similar tariff promises made by foreign governments?
Finally, there's the overarching argument CAFTA will increase U.S. net exports to Central America because the CAFTA 6's tariffs overall are much higher than U.S. tariffs.
Unfortunately, the CAFTA proponents then turn around and insist the agreement will expand Central America's net exports to the United States, and spur its economic development. Both claims, of course, cannot be true simultaneously.
CAFTA supporters have the nerve to dismiss the critics and a skeptical public as protectionists. But Americans clearly will support serious trade policies that deal effectively with the real challenges posed by globalization. So give them a meaningful response to predatory Chinese trade practices. Give them trade deals with regions where consumers can actually afford American-made products. Give them realistic ideas for reducing skyrocketing U.S. trade deficits and resulting international debts, and for strengthening the scores of major domestic industries losing ground to imports. Just don't waste time on thinly disguised outsourcing shams like CAFTA.
Alan Tonelson, research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, is a columnist for americaneconomicalert.org Web site and author of "The Race to the Bottom."
Trading down?
By Alan Tonelson
The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com
Published May 18, 2005
Time to face facts. The proposed Central America Free Trade Agreement isn't foundering in Congress because labor unions and sugar and textile interests oppose it. It's foundering because CAFTA confirms U.S. trade policy has degenerated from a driver of economic growth to a sick joke. And the voters Congress listens to are no longer laughing.
The claims and promises made on CAFTA's behalf are so flagrantly inaccurate, so internally contradictory and so transparently absurd even its supporters can't possibly take them seriously. But they keep filling congressional testimony and newspaper editorials anyway.
For example, CAFTA's champions contend it will create major new export markets for goods and services, and increase U.S. output, employment and wages. Supposedly, this is why the president made it the centerpiece of his trade policy this year.
But has the CAFTA lobby looked at the five Central American countries in question and the Dominican Republic lately? Their populations together total about 45 million -- roughly that of California and New Jersey combined. But about half lives below local poverty lines, and few of the rest fare much better. That's why their economies together total only some $85 billion -- about the equivalent of New Haven, Conn.
Anyone who believes opening trade with these impoverished mini-markets can boost growth in the $12 trillion U.S. economy must have bought an elevator pass in high school.
CAFTA supporters cite impressive regional import figures nonetheless. Yet the CAFTA 6's biggest imports by far aren't consumed in these countries. They consist of fabric and apparel parts sent down from American mills, sewn together in the region, and re-exported to the United States. Such shipments don't serve new foreign markets and thereby increase total demand for U.S.-made goods. They serve the same old U.S. market -- only with super-cheap Central American apparel workers replacing many U.S. counterparts.
In other words, the CAFTA 6 aren't mainly markets for real U.S. exports at all. They're sweatshops. And because they are too poor to create genuine two-way exchange, CAFTA isn't really a trade agreement at all. It's an outsourcing agreement.
Yes, American consumers will get slightly cheaper clothing. But legions of the working poor in America will lose their best hope for jobs in industries like apparel that pay decent wages.
This is a way to raise U.S. living standards? After 15 years of similar trade agreements, no wonder U.S. spending is increasingly financed by massive foreign borrowing, not wages and salaries.
Even so, the CAFTA lobby insists, the agreement will help the region, U.S. textile companies, and at least some of their American workers compete with Asian rivals -- whose garments use little American fabric. Unfortunately, such production-sharing arrangements have long been easily foiled by the Asians' willingness to do whatever it takes to protect and even increase market share -- including subsidizing exports and manipulating exchange rates. Nothing about CAFTA will change these practices.
Worse, CAFTA's numerous loopholes will allow mountains of Asian fabric and garments into the U.S. anyway, unless Central Americans lower their own wages and other costs even further.
Either way, U.S. apparel, textiles and similar imports will continue soaring and these industries' remaining U.S. workers -- often women and minorities -- will move from work to welfare or to much lower-paying service-sector jobs. Only multinational apparel companies and mega-retailers like Wal-Mart will benefit.
American farmers, meanwhile, are being told that with lower Central American tariffs, U.S. agricultural exports will surge under CAFTA. Yet even if these markets contained significant purchasing power, many agricultural tariffs will be phased out over 10, 15, and even 20 years. Budget and tax policy promises made in Washington with 20-year payoffs are all but worthless. Why believe similar tariff promises made by foreign governments?
Finally, there's the overarching argument CAFTA will increase U.S. net exports to Central America because the CAFTA 6's tariffs overall are much higher than U.S. tariffs.
Unfortunately, the CAFTA proponents then turn around and insist the agreement will expand Central America's net exports to the United States, and spur its economic development. Both claims, of course, cannot be true simultaneously.
CAFTA supporters have the nerve to dismiss the critics and a skeptical public as protectionists. But Americans clearly will support serious trade policies that deal effectively with the real challenges posed by globalization. So give them a meaningful response to predatory Chinese trade practices. Give them trade deals with regions where consumers can actually afford American-made products. Give them realistic ideas for reducing skyrocketing U.S. trade deficits and resulting international debts, and for strengthening the scores of major domestic industries losing ground to imports. Just don't waste time on thinly disguised outsourcing shams like CAFTA.
Alan Tonelson, research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, is a columnist for americaneconomicalert.org Web site and author of "The Race to the Bottom."
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
The 2005 Bilderberg Meeting Revealed!
The truth revealed? Some of this is rather disturbing, not only for what it reveals about how the power elites "have the world in the palms of their hands" but for what they cannot do, which is to solve the problem of a dwindling supply of extractable oil, without which the New World Order crashes and burns. See the section entitled "Energy" for details. This comes courtesy of both Martin Erdmann and John Adam, both of whom sent me links to this account of the meeting at Rottach-Egarn in Germany, apparently the work of an inside source who blew their cover.
Online Journal
Special Report
The world in the palm of their hands: Bilderberg 2005
By Daniel Estulin
Online Journal Contributing Writer
May 24, 2005
The annual secret meeting of the Bilderberg group determines many of the headlines and news developments you will read about in the coming months. But the Establishment media completely black it out. With the exception of half-a-dozen high-ranking members of the press who are sworn to secrecy, few have ever heard of the exclusive and secretive group called The Bilderbergers.
Mainstream news organizations boastful about their no-holds barred investigative exploits, have been strangely reluctant to lift the blackout curtain hiding a major event: the Bilderberg group's secret annual meeting for the world's most powerful financiers, industrialists, and political figures.
Two thousand-five was a bad year for Bilderberg and its future looks gloomy. Herculean efforts to keep their meetings secret in Rottach-Egern failed miserably. Bilderberg's grief is the free world´s glory—and hope for further restraining the power grabbers in the dawn of a new millennium.
One certainty is that although the Bilderberg Group has lost some of its past luster, it is meeting under its usual secrecy that makes freemasonry look like a playgroup. Staff at the hotel are photographed and put through special clearance. From porters to senior managers, the employees are warned (under the threat of never working in the country again) about the consequences of revealing any details of the guests to the press.
International and national media are said to be welcome only when an oath of silence has been taken, news editors are held responsible if any of their journalists 'inadvertently' report on what takes place.
While Clinton, Blair, Chirac, Berlusconi and Company attended the G8 summits of the world's foremost democratically elected leaders, they were accompanied by the massed ranks of the world media. In stark contrast, the comings and goings at Bilderberg take place under cover of a virtual publicity blackout.
The discussions they will engage in this year, from deciding how the world should deal with European-American relations, the Middle East powder keg, the Iraq war, the global economy and how to stave off war in Iran, and the consensus they reach, will influence the course of Western civilization and the future of the entire planet. This meeting takes place behind closed doors in total secrecy, protected by a phalanx of armed guards.
What Was on Bilderberg´s 2005 Agenda?
After three straight years of open hostilities and tension amongst the European, British and American Bilderbergers caused by the war in Iraq, the aura of complete congeniality amongst them has returned. Bilderbergers have reaffirmed and remain united in their long-term goal to strengthen the role the UN plays in regulating global conflicts and relations.
However, it is important to understand that Americans are no more the "Hawks" than the European Bilderbergers the "Doves." Europeans joined in supporting the 1991 invasion of Iraq by President George W. Bush's father, celebrating, in the words of one notable Bilderberg hunter the end of "America's Vietnam syndrome." Europeans also supported former President Bill Clinton's invasion of Yugoslavia, bringing NATO into the operation.
A much-discussed subject in 2005 at Rottach-Egern was the concept of imposing a direct UN tax on people worldwide through a direct tax on oil at the wellhead. This, in fact, sets a precedent. If enacted, it will be the first time, when a non-governmental agency, read the United Nations, directly benefits from a tax on citizens of free and enslaved nations.
Bilderberger proposal calls for a tiny UN levy at the outset, which the consumer would hardly notice. Jim Tucker of the court-killed Spotlight magazine years ago wrote "establishing the principle that the UN can directly tax citizens of the world is important to Bilderberg. It is another giant step toward world government. Bilderbergers know that publicly promoting a UN tax on all people on Earth would meet with outrage. But they are patient; it first proposed a direct world tax years ago and celebrates the fact that it is now in the public dialogue with little public attention or concern."
Bilderberg wants "tax harmonization" so high-tax countries could compete with more tax-friendly nations—including the United States—for foreign investment. They would "harmonize" taxes by forcing the rate in the United States and other countries to rise so that socialist Sweden's 58-percent level would be "competitive."
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
Then there is the rise of the NGOs, a development former President Clinton suddenly (one day after it was discussed at Rottach-Egern) calls one of "the most remarkable things that have happened since the fall of the Berlin Wall." Ironically, Clinton's statement was picked up by The Wall Street Journal, a paper always represented at the Bilderberg meetings by Robert L. Bartley, its vice president and Paul Gigot, editorial page editor.
The Bilderbergers have been vigorously debating giving, for the first time, nonelected, self-appointed, environmental activists a position of governmental authority on the governing board of the agency which controls the use of atmosphere, outer space, the oceans, and, for all practical purposes, biodiversity. This invitation for "civil society" to participate in global governance is described as expanding democracy.
According to sources within Bilderberg, the status of NGOs would be elevated even further in the future. The NGO activity would include agitation at the local level, lobbying at the national level, producing studies to justify global taxation through UN organizations such as Global Plan, one of Bilderberg´s pet projects for over a decade. The strategy to advance the global governance agenda specifically includes programs to discredit individuals and organizations that generate "internal political pressure" or "populist action" that fails to support the new global ethic. The ultimate objective, according to the source, being to suppress democracy.
The United Nations Environment Programme, along with all the environmental treaties under its jurisdiction, would ultimately be governed by a special body of environmental activists, chosen only from accredited NGOs appointed by delegates to the General Assembly who are themselves appointed by the president of the United States, who is controlled by the Rockefeller-CFR-Bilderberg interlocking leadership
This new mechanism would provide a direct route from the local, "on-the-ground" NGO affiliates of national and international NGOs to the highest levels of global governance. For example: The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a group of affiliated NGOs, recently petitioned the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO asking for intervention in the plans of a private company to mine gold on private land near Yellowstone Park. The UNESCO Committee did intervene, and immediately listed Yellowstone as a "World Heritage Site in Danger." Under the terms of the World Heritage Convention, the United States is required to protect the park, even beyond the borders of the park, and onto private lands if necessary.
The ideas being discussed, if implemented, will bring all the people of the world into a global neighbourhood managed by a worldwide bureaucracy, under the direct authority of a minute handful of appointed individuals, and policed by thousands of individuals, paid by accredited NGOs, certified to support a belief system, which to many people is unbelievable and unacceptable.
Elections in Britain
Bilderbergers are celebrating the result it wanted. The return of a much humbled Tony Blair to 10 Downing Street with a much-reduced parliamentary majority. European Bilderbergers are still angry at him for supporting America´s war in Iraq. While teaching Blair a useful lesson in international politics, Bilderbergers feel he is a far safer candidate to continue on the path of European integration than his conservative rival Michael Howard.
Neoconservative Agenda
In full force was that faction known as the so-called "neoconservatives"—those who have determined that Israel's security should come at the expense of the safety to the United States and be central to all U.S. foreign policy decisions.
Most notable among this group is the alleged Israeli spy, Richard Perle, who was investigated by the FBI for espionage on behalf of Israel. Perle played the critical role in pushing the United States into the war against Iraq. He was forced to resign from the Pentagon´s Defense Policy Board, on March 27, 2003, after it was learned that he had been advising Goldman Sachs International, a habitual Bilderberg attendee, on how it might profit from the war in Iraq.
Another neoconservative figure on hand was Michael A. Ledeen, an "intellectual´s intellectual." Ledeen serves for the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank founded in 1943, with which Richard Perle has long been associated. AEI and the Brookings Institution operate a Joint Center for Regulatory Studies (JCRS) with the purpose of holding lawmakers and regulators "accountable for their decisions by providing thoughtful, objective analyses of existing regulatory programs and new regulatory proposals." The JCRS pushes for cost-benefit analysis of regulations, which fits with AEI's (and Bilderberger) ultimate goal of deregulation.
These neoconservatives were also joined this year at Bilderberg by a handful of other top former Washington policy makers and publicists known for their sympathies for Israel, including former State Department official Richard N. Haas, president of the CFR; former Assistant Secretary of State and "father" of the Dayton accord, Richard Holbrooke; and Dennis Ross of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, effectively an offshoot of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affaris), as well as the newly chosen World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz.
Dennis Ross, Richard N. Perle, and company are itching to "transfer"—translation: to ethnically cleanse—as many Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza as possible. "Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories," former Prime Minister Netanyahu told students at Bar-Ilan University in 1989. The residents of the European Community may be clueless about the intentions of Zionists toward the Palestinians, but in Israel, to my astonishment, ethnic cleansing is a popular subject of discussion. Fifty percent or more of Israelis think ethnic cleansing is a good idea. This from a nation that supposedly remembers the Holocaust. Fiction is indeed stranger than the truth.
Energy
An American Bilderberger expressed concern over the skyrocketing price of oil. One oil industry insider at the meeting remarked that growth is not possible without energy and that, according to all indicators, the world's energy supply is coming to an end much faster than the world leaders have anticipated. According to sources, Bilderbergers estimate the extractable world's oil supply to be at a maximum of 35 years under current economic development and population. However, one of the representatives of an oil cartel remarked that we must factor into the equation, both the population explosion and economic growth and demand for oil in China and India. Under the revised conditions, there is apparently only enough oil to last for 20 years. No oil spells the end of the world's financial system. So much has already been acknowledged by The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, two periodicals who are regularly present at the annual Bilderberg conference.
Conclusion: Expect a severe downturn in the world's economy over the next two years as Bilderbergers try to safeguard the remaining oil supply by taking money out of people's hands. In a recession or, at worst, a depression, the population will be forced to dramatically cut down their spending habits, thus ensuring a longer supply of oil to the world's rich as they try to figure out what to do.
During the afternoon cocktail, European Bilderberger noted that there is no plausible alternative to hydrocarbon energy. One American insider stated that currently the world uses between four and six barrels of oil for every new barrel it finds and that the prospects for a short-term breakthrough are slim, at best.
Someone asked for an estimate of the world´s accessible conventional oil supply. The amount was quoted at approximately one trillion barrels. As a side note of interest, the planet consumes a billion barrels of oil every 11.5 days.
Another Bilderberger asked about hydrogen alternative to the oil supply. The US government official agreed, gloomily, that hydrogen salvation to the world´s imminent energy crisis is a fantasy.
This confirms public statement made in 2003 by HIS, the world´s most respected consulting firm cataloguing oil reserves and discoveries, that for the first time since the 1920s there was not a single discovery of an oil field in excess of 500 million barrels.
The oil industry at the 2005 Bilderberg conference was represented by John Browne, BP´s chief executive officer; John Kerr, director Royal Dutch Shell; Peter D. Sutherland, BP chairman and Jeroen van der Veer, chairman of the Committee of Managing Directors of Royal Dutch Shell.
It should be remembered that in late 2003, oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, announced that it had overstated its reserved by as much as 20 percent. Queen Beatrix of Holland, Royal Dutch Shell´s principal shareholder is a full-fledged member of the Bilderbergers. Her father, prince Bernhard was one of the founders of the group back in 1954. The Los Angeles Times reported that "For petroleum firms, reserves amount to nothing less than ´the value of the company.'" In fact, Shell cut its reserve estimates not once, but three times, prompting the resignation of its co-chairman. At Rottach-Egern, in May 2005, industry's top executives tried to figure out how to keep the truth about diminishing oil reserves from reaching the public. Public knowledge of the diminishing reserves directly translates into lower share prices, which could destroy financial markets, leading to a collapse of the world economy.
EU Referendum in France
The first day of secret meetings at Bilderberg 2005 was dominated by talk of the EU Constitution referendum in France and whether Chirac can persuade France to vote yes on May 29. A yes vote, according to sources within Bilderberg would put a lot of pressure on Tony Blair to finally deliver Britain into the waiting arms of the New World Order through their own referendum on the treaty scheduled for 2006. Matthias Nass wondered out loud that a no vote in France could undoubtedly cause political turmoil in Europe and overshadow Britain's six-month EU presidency starting on July 1.
Bilderbergers, hope that Blair and Chirac, whose, at times, open animosity has spilled into a public arena on more than one occasion, can work together for mutual benefit and political survival. Another European Bilderberger added that both leaders must put behind them as quickly as possible all past disputes on such topics as Iraq, the liberalization of Europe´s economy and the future of the budget rebate Britain receives from the EU and work towards complete European integration, which could disintegrate if France´s often "hard-headed and obstinate people," in the words of a British Bilderberger, do not do the right thing, meaning give up voluntarily their independence for the "greater good" of a Federal European super state!
A German Bilderberger insider said that France´s yes vote is in trouble because of the "outsourcing of jobs. Jobs in Germany and France are going to Asia and Ukraine," [to take advantage of cheap labour.] Ukraine is one of the former Soviet republics that have been admitted to the European Union bringing the total membership to 25 nations. A German politician wondered out loud how Tony Blair should go about convincing Britons to embrace the European Constitution when due to the outsourcing of jobs, both Germany and France are suffering a 10 percent unemployment rate while Britain is doing well economically.
USA Criminals
A US law, called the Logan Act, states explicitly that it is against the law for federal officials to attend secret meetings with private citizens to develop public policies. Although Bilderberg 2005 was missing one of its luminaries, US State Department official John Bolton who was testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the American government was well represented in Rottach-Egern by Alan Hubbard, assistant to the president for economic policy and director of the National Economic Council; William Luti, deputy under secretary of defence; James Wolfensohn, outgoing president of the World Bank and Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of state, an ideologue of the Iraq war and incoming president of the World Bank. By attending Bilderberg 2005 meeting, these people are breaking federal laws of the United States.
Auna Telecomunicaciones
At a Saturday night cocktail party (May 7) at the luxurious Dorint Sofitel Seehotel Überfahrt in Rottach-Egern, Bavaria, Munich, several Bilderbergers sharing the standing bar with Queen Beatrix of Holland and Donald Graham, the Washington Post´s CEO, were discussing the up-coming sale of Spanish telecommunications and cable giant Auna.
Auna operates fixed line telephone services, a mobile-phone network, and a cable television system, and is also an Internet provider. One of the Bilderbergers familiar with the matter [believed to be Henry Kravis, based on the physical description of the source at the meeting] stated that Auna´s mobile operations could bring in some 10 billion euros including debt, while another Bilderberger, a tall man with a receding hairline added that its fixed-line assets could fetch some 2.6 billion euros. Sources close to the Bilderbergers have stated off-the-record that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, a private-equity firm is interested in buying all of Auna. An abundance of cheap credit and low interest rates have made Auna an appetising target for private-equity buyers.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co was represented at the Bilderberg meetings by its luminary billionaire Henry Kravis and his small town Quebec-born wife, Marie Joseé Kravis, a senior fellow at the neoconservative Hudson Institute.
Conclusions: Expect favourable coverage and support for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co from Grupo Prisa whose Consejero Delegado Juan Luis Cebrian always attends super secret Bilderberg meetings. In case Kravis fails to put together a competitive bid, then expect the same favourable coverage for Goldman Sachs Group, whose Martin Taylor is Bilderberg's honorary secretary general and whose other Bilderberger, Peter Sutherland, is Goldman Sachs´ chairman as well as the Trilateral Commission´s European chairman.
In the past, exposing Bilderberg meetings has provided advance warning—months ahead of the mainstream media—of the US Iraqi invasion, tax increases, and the downfall of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister of Britain.
Indonesia-Malaysia Standoff
A political and military confrontation between these two nations in the petroleum-rich Sulawesi Sea (both claim the oil-rich area of Ambalat as their territorial rights) was the topic of a much-animated discussion amongst several American and European Bilderbergers during an afternoon cocktail hour. An American Bilderberger waving his cigar suggested using the UN to "further a peace policy in the region." In fact, Bilderbergers at the lounge table all agreed that such a conflict might well give them an excuse to garrison the disputed area with UN "Peacekeepers" and thus ensure their ultimate control over the exploitation of this treasure, meaning untapped oil reserves.
China
European and American Bilderbergers realising the most urgent of needs to expand into developing markets in order to help sustain the illusion of endless growth have agreed to name Pascal Lamy, a French Socialist and a fanatical supporter of a European super state as the next World Trade Organization (WTO) president. It will be remembered that Washington gave a conditional support to Lamy´s nomination in exchange for European support of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank.
According to insider sources within the Bilderberger group, Lamy was chosen to help steer the global trading system through a time of rising protectionist sentiment in rich countries such as France and Germany, both reeling from high unemployment and averse to increasingly muscular demands for market assess from emerging economies. Third World states, for example, are insisting on cuts to EU and US farm subsidies. The WTO liberalization drive collapsed in acrimony in Seattle in 1999 and again in Cancun in 2003.
The Bilderbergers have secretly agreed on the need to force the poor countries into a globalized market for cheap goods while simultaneously forcing the poor into becoming customers. The current rift with China is a good example, as the Chinese have flooded the Western countries with cheap goods, amongst them textiles, driving down prices. As a trade off, the Bilderbergers have entered into an emerging market ripe and vulnerable to superior western know-how. Similar developing countries are slowly acquiring more purchasing power and the industrialized world is gaining a foothold in their domestic economies by targeting them for cheap exports.
One can't help but wonder when the Bilderberg organisers, David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Queen Beatrix and the rest, have completed their project of enclosing all global goods and services into their own hands, what then?
Francisco Goya´s Plate 79 of Disasters of War shows the fair maid of Liberty flat on her back, bosom exposed. Ghostly figures play about the corpse while monks dig her grave. Truth has died. Murió la verdad. How is that for an alternative? Forewarned is forearmed. We will never find the right answers if we can't ask the proper questions.
Click here for List of Participants
Daniel Estulin is an award-winning investigative journalist who has been researching the Bilderbergers for over 13 years. Estulin was one of only two journalists in the world who witnessed and reported (from beyond the heavily guarded perimeter) the super secret meeting at the Dorint Sofitel Seehotel in Rottach-Egern, Munich, Bavaria, Germany, on May 5–8, 2005. Contact him at d.estulin@ctconsultoria.com
The views expressed herein are the writers' own and do not necessarily reflect those of Online Journal.
Email editor@onlinejournal.com
Copyright © 1998-2005 Online Journal™. All rights reserved.
Online Journal
Special Report
The world in the palm of their hands: Bilderberg 2005
By Daniel Estulin
Online Journal Contributing Writer
May 24, 2005
The annual secret meeting of the Bilderberg group determines many of the headlines and news developments you will read about in the coming months. But the Establishment media completely black it out. With the exception of half-a-dozen high-ranking members of the press who are sworn to secrecy, few have ever heard of the exclusive and secretive group called The Bilderbergers.
Mainstream news organizations boastful about their no-holds barred investigative exploits, have been strangely reluctant to lift the blackout curtain hiding a major event: the Bilderberg group's secret annual meeting for the world's most powerful financiers, industrialists, and political figures.
Two thousand-five was a bad year for Bilderberg and its future looks gloomy. Herculean efforts to keep their meetings secret in Rottach-Egern failed miserably. Bilderberg's grief is the free world´s glory—and hope for further restraining the power grabbers in the dawn of a new millennium.
One certainty is that although the Bilderberg Group has lost some of its past luster, it is meeting under its usual secrecy that makes freemasonry look like a playgroup. Staff at the hotel are photographed and put through special clearance. From porters to senior managers, the employees are warned (under the threat of never working in the country again) about the consequences of revealing any details of the guests to the press.
International and national media are said to be welcome only when an oath of silence has been taken, news editors are held responsible if any of their journalists 'inadvertently' report on what takes place.
While Clinton, Blair, Chirac, Berlusconi and Company attended the G8 summits of the world's foremost democratically elected leaders, they were accompanied by the massed ranks of the world media. In stark contrast, the comings and goings at Bilderberg take place under cover of a virtual publicity blackout.
The discussions they will engage in this year, from deciding how the world should deal with European-American relations, the Middle East powder keg, the Iraq war, the global economy and how to stave off war in Iran, and the consensus they reach, will influence the course of Western civilization and the future of the entire planet. This meeting takes place behind closed doors in total secrecy, protected by a phalanx of armed guards.
What Was on Bilderberg´s 2005 Agenda?
After three straight years of open hostilities and tension amongst the European, British and American Bilderbergers caused by the war in Iraq, the aura of complete congeniality amongst them has returned. Bilderbergers have reaffirmed and remain united in their long-term goal to strengthen the role the UN plays in regulating global conflicts and relations.
However, it is important to understand that Americans are no more the "Hawks" than the European Bilderbergers the "Doves." Europeans joined in supporting the 1991 invasion of Iraq by President George W. Bush's father, celebrating, in the words of one notable Bilderberg hunter the end of "America's Vietnam syndrome." Europeans also supported former President Bill Clinton's invasion of Yugoslavia, bringing NATO into the operation.
A much-discussed subject in 2005 at Rottach-Egern was the concept of imposing a direct UN tax on people worldwide through a direct tax on oil at the wellhead. This, in fact, sets a precedent. If enacted, it will be the first time, when a non-governmental agency, read the United Nations, directly benefits from a tax on citizens of free and enslaved nations.
Bilderberger proposal calls for a tiny UN levy at the outset, which the consumer would hardly notice. Jim Tucker of the court-killed Spotlight magazine years ago wrote "establishing the principle that the UN can directly tax citizens of the world is important to Bilderberg. It is another giant step toward world government. Bilderbergers know that publicly promoting a UN tax on all people on Earth would meet with outrage. But they are patient; it first proposed a direct world tax years ago and celebrates the fact that it is now in the public dialogue with little public attention or concern."
Bilderberg wants "tax harmonization" so high-tax countries could compete with more tax-friendly nations—including the United States—for foreign investment. They would "harmonize" taxes by forcing the rate in the United States and other countries to rise so that socialist Sweden's 58-percent level would be "competitive."
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs)
Then there is the rise of the NGOs, a development former President Clinton suddenly (one day after it was discussed at Rottach-Egern) calls one of "the most remarkable things that have happened since the fall of the Berlin Wall." Ironically, Clinton's statement was picked up by The Wall Street Journal, a paper always represented at the Bilderberg meetings by Robert L. Bartley, its vice president and Paul Gigot, editorial page editor.
The Bilderbergers have been vigorously debating giving, for the first time, nonelected, self-appointed, environmental activists a position of governmental authority on the governing board of the agency which controls the use of atmosphere, outer space, the oceans, and, for all practical purposes, biodiversity. This invitation for "civil society" to participate in global governance is described as expanding democracy.
According to sources within Bilderberg, the status of NGOs would be elevated even further in the future. The NGO activity would include agitation at the local level, lobbying at the national level, producing studies to justify global taxation through UN organizations such as Global Plan, one of Bilderberg´s pet projects for over a decade. The strategy to advance the global governance agenda specifically includes programs to discredit individuals and organizations that generate "internal political pressure" or "populist action" that fails to support the new global ethic. The ultimate objective, according to the source, being to suppress democracy.
The United Nations Environment Programme, along with all the environmental treaties under its jurisdiction, would ultimately be governed by a special body of environmental activists, chosen only from accredited NGOs appointed by delegates to the General Assembly who are themselves appointed by the president of the United States, who is controlled by the Rockefeller-CFR-Bilderberg interlocking leadership
This new mechanism would provide a direct route from the local, "on-the-ground" NGO affiliates of national and international NGOs to the highest levels of global governance. For example: The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a group of affiliated NGOs, recently petitioned the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO asking for intervention in the plans of a private company to mine gold on private land near Yellowstone Park. The UNESCO Committee did intervene, and immediately listed Yellowstone as a "World Heritage Site in Danger." Under the terms of the World Heritage Convention, the United States is required to protect the park, even beyond the borders of the park, and onto private lands if necessary.
The ideas being discussed, if implemented, will bring all the people of the world into a global neighbourhood managed by a worldwide bureaucracy, under the direct authority of a minute handful of appointed individuals, and policed by thousands of individuals, paid by accredited NGOs, certified to support a belief system, which to many people is unbelievable and unacceptable.
Elections in Britain
Bilderbergers are celebrating the result it wanted. The return of a much humbled Tony Blair to 10 Downing Street with a much-reduced parliamentary majority. European Bilderbergers are still angry at him for supporting America´s war in Iraq. While teaching Blair a useful lesson in international politics, Bilderbergers feel he is a far safer candidate to continue on the path of European integration than his conservative rival Michael Howard.
Neoconservative Agenda
In full force was that faction known as the so-called "neoconservatives"—those who have determined that Israel's security should come at the expense of the safety to the United States and be central to all U.S. foreign policy decisions.
Most notable among this group is the alleged Israeli spy, Richard Perle, who was investigated by the FBI for espionage on behalf of Israel. Perle played the critical role in pushing the United States into the war against Iraq. He was forced to resign from the Pentagon´s Defense Policy Board, on March 27, 2003, after it was learned that he had been advising Goldman Sachs International, a habitual Bilderberg attendee, on how it might profit from the war in Iraq.
Another neoconservative figure on hand was Michael A. Ledeen, an "intellectual´s intellectual." Ledeen serves for the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank founded in 1943, with which Richard Perle has long been associated. AEI and the Brookings Institution operate a Joint Center for Regulatory Studies (JCRS) with the purpose of holding lawmakers and regulators "accountable for their decisions by providing thoughtful, objective analyses of existing regulatory programs and new regulatory proposals." The JCRS pushes for cost-benefit analysis of regulations, which fits with AEI's (and Bilderberger) ultimate goal of deregulation.
These neoconservatives were also joined this year at Bilderberg by a handful of other top former Washington policy makers and publicists known for their sympathies for Israel, including former State Department official Richard N. Haas, president of the CFR; former Assistant Secretary of State and "father" of the Dayton accord, Richard Holbrooke; and Dennis Ross of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, effectively an offshoot of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affaris), as well as the newly chosen World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz.
Dennis Ross, Richard N. Perle, and company are itching to "transfer"—translation: to ethnically cleanse—as many Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza as possible. "Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories," former Prime Minister Netanyahu told students at Bar-Ilan University in 1989. The residents of the European Community may be clueless about the intentions of Zionists toward the Palestinians, but in Israel, to my astonishment, ethnic cleansing is a popular subject of discussion. Fifty percent or more of Israelis think ethnic cleansing is a good idea. This from a nation that supposedly remembers the Holocaust. Fiction is indeed stranger than the truth.
Energy
An American Bilderberger expressed concern over the skyrocketing price of oil. One oil industry insider at the meeting remarked that growth is not possible without energy and that, according to all indicators, the world's energy supply is coming to an end much faster than the world leaders have anticipated. According to sources, Bilderbergers estimate the extractable world's oil supply to be at a maximum of 35 years under current economic development and population. However, one of the representatives of an oil cartel remarked that we must factor into the equation, both the population explosion and economic growth and demand for oil in China and India. Under the revised conditions, there is apparently only enough oil to last for 20 years. No oil spells the end of the world's financial system. So much has already been acknowledged by The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, two periodicals who are regularly present at the annual Bilderberg conference.
Conclusion: Expect a severe downturn in the world's economy over the next two years as Bilderbergers try to safeguard the remaining oil supply by taking money out of people's hands. In a recession or, at worst, a depression, the population will be forced to dramatically cut down their spending habits, thus ensuring a longer supply of oil to the world's rich as they try to figure out what to do.
During the afternoon cocktail, European Bilderberger noted that there is no plausible alternative to hydrocarbon energy. One American insider stated that currently the world uses between four and six barrels of oil for every new barrel it finds and that the prospects for a short-term breakthrough are slim, at best.
Someone asked for an estimate of the world´s accessible conventional oil supply. The amount was quoted at approximately one trillion barrels. As a side note of interest, the planet consumes a billion barrels of oil every 11.5 days.
Another Bilderberger asked about hydrogen alternative to the oil supply. The US government official agreed, gloomily, that hydrogen salvation to the world´s imminent energy crisis is a fantasy.
This confirms public statement made in 2003 by HIS, the world´s most respected consulting firm cataloguing oil reserves and discoveries, that for the first time since the 1920s there was not a single discovery of an oil field in excess of 500 million barrels.
The oil industry at the 2005 Bilderberg conference was represented by John Browne, BP´s chief executive officer; John Kerr, director Royal Dutch Shell; Peter D. Sutherland, BP chairman and Jeroen van der Veer, chairman of the Committee of Managing Directors of Royal Dutch Shell.
It should be remembered that in late 2003, oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, announced that it had overstated its reserved by as much as 20 percent. Queen Beatrix of Holland, Royal Dutch Shell´s principal shareholder is a full-fledged member of the Bilderbergers. Her father, prince Bernhard was one of the founders of the group back in 1954. The Los Angeles Times reported that "For petroleum firms, reserves amount to nothing less than ´the value of the company.'" In fact, Shell cut its reserve estimates not once, but three times, prompting the resignation of its co-chairman. At Rottach-Egern, in May 2005, industry's top executives tried to figure out how to keep the truth about diminishing oil reserves from reaching the public. Public knowledge of the diminishing reserves directly translates into lower share prices, which could destroy financial markets, leading to a collapse of the world economy.
EU Referendum in France
The first day of secret meetings at Bilderberg 2005 was dominated by talk of the EU Constitution referendum in France and whether Chirac can persuade France to vote yes on May 29. A yes vote, according to sources within Bilderberg would put a lot of pressure on Tony Blair to finally deliver Britain into the waiting arms of the New World Order through their own referendum on the treaty scheduled for 2006. Matthias Nass wondered out loud that a no vote in France could undoubtedly cause political turmoil in Europe and overshadow Britain's six-month EU presidency starting on July 1.
Bilderbergers, hope that Blair and Chirac, whose, at times, open animosity has spilled into a public arena on more than one occasion, can work together for mutual benefit and political survival. Another European Bilderberger added that both leaders must put behind them as quickly as possible all past disputes on such topics as Iraq, the liberalization of Europe´s economy and the future of the budget rebate Britain receives from the EU and work towards complete European integration, which could disintegrate if France´s often "hard-headed and obstinate people," in the words of a British Bilderberger, do not do the right thing, meaning give up voluntarily their independence for the "greater good" of a Federal European super state!
A German Bilderberger insider said that France´s yes vote is in trouble because of the "outsourcing of jobs. Jobs in Germany and France are going to Asia and Ukraine," [to take advantage of cheap labour.] Ukraine is one of the former Soviet republics that have been admitted to the European Union bringing the total membership to 25 nations. A German politician wondered out loud how Tony Blair should go about convincing Britons to embrace the European Constitution when due to the outsourcing of jobs, both Germany and France are suffering a 10 percent unemployment rate while Britain is doing well economically.
USA Criminals
A US law, called the Logan Act, states explicitly that it is against the law for federal officials to attend secret meetings with private citizens to develop public policies. Although Bilderberg 2005 was missing one of its luminaries, US State Department official John Bolton who was testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the American government was well represented in Rottach-Egern by Alan Hubbard, assistant to the president for economic policy and director of the National Economic Council; William Luti, deputy under secretary of defence; James Wolfensohn, outgoing president of the World Bank and Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of state, an ideologue of the Iraq war and incoming president of the World Bank. By attending Bilderberg 2005 meeting, these people are breaking federal laws of the United States.
Auna Telecomunicaciones
At a Saturday night cocktail party (May 7) at the luxurious Dorint Sofitel Seehotel Überfahrt in Rottach-Egern, Bavaria, Munich, several Bilderbergers sharing the standing bar with Queen Beatrix of Holland and Donald Graham, the Washington Post´s CEO, were discussing the up-coming sale of Spanish telecommunications and cable giant Auna.
Auna operates fixed line telephone services, a mobile-phone network, and a cable television system, and is also an Internet provider. One of the Bilderbergers familiar with the matter [believed to be Henry Kravis, based on the physical description of the source at the meeting] stated that Auna´s mobile operations could bring in some 10 billion euros including debt, while another Bilderberger, a tall man with a receding hairline added that its fixed-line assets could fetch some 2.6 billion euros. Sources close to the Bilderbergers have stated off-the-record that Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, a private-equity firm is interested in buying all of Auna. An abundance of cheap credit and low interest rates have made Auna an appetising target for private-equity buyers.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co was represented at the Bilderberg meetings by its luminary billionaire Henry Kravis and his small town Quebec-born wife, Marie Joseé Kravis, a senior fellow at the neoconservative Hudson Institute.
Conclusions: Expect favourable coverage and support for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co from Grupo Prisa whose Consejero Delegado Juan Luis Cebrian always attends super secret Bilderberg meetings. In case Kravis fails to put together a competitive bid, then expect the same favourable coverage for Goldman Sachs Group, whose Martin Taylor is Bilderberg's honorary secretary general and whose other Bilderberger, Peter Sutherland, is Goldman Sachs´ chairman as well as the Trilateral Commission´s European chairman.
In the past, exposing Bilderberg meetings has provided advance warning—months ahead of the mainstream media—of the US Iraqi invasion, tax increases, and the downfall of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister of Britain.
Indonesia-Malaysia Standoff
A political and military confrontation between these two nations in the petroleum-rich Sulawesi Sea (both claim the oil-rich area of Ambalat as their territorial rights) was the topic of a much-animated discussion amongst several American and European Bilderbergers during an afternoon cocktail hour. An American Bilderberger waving his cigar suggested using the UN to "further a peace policy in the region." In fact, Bilderbergers at the lounge table all agreed that such a conflict might well give them an excuse to garrison the disputed area with UN "Peacekeepers" and thus ensure their ultimate control over the exploitation of this treasure, meaning untapped oil reserves.
China
European and American Bilderbergers realising the most urgent of needs to expand into developing markets in order to help sustain the illusion of endless growth have agreed to name Pascal Lamy, a French Socialist and a fanatical supporter of a European super state as the next World Trade Organization (WTO) president. It will be remembered that Washington gave a conditional support to Lamy´s nomination in exchange for European support of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank.
According to insider sources within the Bilderberger group, Lamy was chosen to help steer the global trading system through a time of rising protectionist sentiment in rich countries such as France and Germany, both reeling from high unemployment and averse to increasingly muscular demands for market assess from emerging economies. Third World states, for example, are insisting on cuts to EU and US farm subsidies. The WTO liberalization drive collapsed in acrimony in Seattle in 1999 and again in Cancun in 2003.
The Bilderbergers have secretly agreed on the need to force the poor countries into a globalized market for cheap goods while simultaneously forcing the poor into becoming customers. The current rift with China is a good example, as the Chinese have flooded the Western countries with cheap goods, amongst them textiles, driving down prices. As a trade off, the Bilderbergers have entered into an emerging market ripe and vulnerable to superior western know-how. Similar developing countries are slowly acquiring more purchasing power and the industrialized world is gaining a foothold in their domestic economies by targeting them for cheap exports.
One can't help but wonder when the Bilderberg organisers, David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Queen Beatrix and the rest, have completed their project of enclosing all global goods and services into their own hands, what then?
Francisco Goya´s Plate 79 of Disasters of War shows the fair maid of Liberty flat on her back, bosom exposed. Ghostly figures play about the corpse while monks dig her grave. Truth has died. Murió la verdad. How is that for an alternative? Forewarned is forearmed. We will never find the right answers if we can't ask the proper questions.
Click here for List of Participants
Daniel Estulin is an award-winning investigative journalist who has been researching the Bilderbergers for over 13 years. Estulin was one of only two journalists in the world who witnessed and reported (from beyond the heavily guarded perimeter) the super secret meeting at the Dorint Sofitel Seehotel in Rottach-Egern, Munich, Bavaria, Germany, on May 5–8, 2005. Contact him at d.estulin@ctconsultoria.com
The views expressed herein are the writers' own and do not necessarily reflect those of Online Journal.
Email editor@onlinejournal.com
Copyright © 1998-2005 Online Journal™. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
One College That Does Not Have Its Collective Head in the Sand
Courtesy of John Adam, on Calvin College's Christians, a commencement address, and a Bush Regime looking more like the Palpatine Empire with every passing day. I won't vouch for all the details in this article--the "Clinton surplus" never really existed, of course, and the debt has been building for longer than George W. Bush has been alive. But the general tenor of the article is on target. Bush has been misusing Christianity right from the start, and it is a crying shame that more Christians can't seem to figure this out!
Niagara Falls Reporter
COLLEGE FACULTY, STUDENTS OPPOSE WAR
By Bill Gallagher
May 24, 2005
"As Christians we are called to be peacemakers, and to initiate war only as a last resort. We believe your administration has launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq." -- An open letter to President George W. Bush from concerned faculty, staff and emeriti of Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich.
DETROIT -- Hallelujah! It's time for rejoicing. When one-third of the faculty members of this distinguished Christian college sign the letter denouncing their commencement speaker, telling him bluntly, "We see conflicts between our understanding of what Christians are called to do and many of the policies of your administration," you know the Busheviks are seething.
Things like that are not supposed to happen to the most thoroughly scripted, supremely orchestrated and meticulously controlling administration in American political history.
The rule is simple: George W. Bush never, in any way, sees, hears or encounters those who disagree with him. Stalin faced and tolerated more public dissent than Bush.
His rare news conferences are a joke and cheap theater. He spouts out his memorized lines and the toadies in the White House press corps sit there like a reverential audience lapping up the lies, and then repeating them.
Would just one Democrat stand up on the floor of Congress and call Bush a lying criminal who should be impeached and indicted for war crimes? Why do so many Democrats find it impossible to accuse Bush of raiding the U.S. Treasury to rob from the poor and give to the rich, and burdening our children with unconscionable debt?
Calvin College is in Grand Rapids, Mich., deeply conservative ground that provides a rich motherlode for Republican fund-raising. It's home for the DeVos family and their Amway Corp. -- a cult-like enterprise that promises riches to all participants willing to climb the pyramid of success.
The DeVos crowd dominates Michigan Republican circles these days and they would drum out Grand Rapid's own Gerald Ford from the party. The former president's views are far too liberal and inclusive for the Bush-DeVos GOP, rooted as it now is in fundamentalism and intolerance. Given that environment, it's easy to see why Bush's "brain" Karl Rove selected Calvin College as one of two schools where the president delivers the commencement address this year. The other, the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., will provide Bush with his perfect audience -- guaranteed standing ovations and no hint of dissent. But to Karl Rove's unpleasant surprise, many of the folks at Calvin don't buy Bush's radicalism wrapped in religion. They're speaking out forthrightly, teaching the wimps in the Democratic Party a lesson they should heed, but will probably ignore.
In addition to the professors' proclamation, another letter to Bush from students, faculty, alumni and friends of the college published in a full-page newspaper ad protested his visit, noting they are "deeply troubled" by it. Kicking the sanctimonious president right in his political shins, they added, "In our view, the policies and actions of your administration, both domestically and internationally over the past four years, violate the deeply held principles of Calvin College."
The modern Republican Party has laid exclusive claim on conservative religious groups as essential to its base. Any defections threaten the dynasty and must be dealt with as grievous departures from the "true faith."
The only Republican religion is Bush's claimed Christianity. The Grand Rapids Press, noted for one of the worst editorial pages on earth, praised Bush as a "fitting speaker for the college and its graduates." In an editorial gushing over the "honor," the paper sings "Hail to the Chief," noting, "A conservative and deeply Christian man, Mr. Bush's outlooks overlap broadly on those of the college and its students." The implication, of course, is that those who differ with Bush must be "shallowly Christian" or, God forbid, secular.
Many who cling to the school's own mission statement do not accept the purported congruence of Calvin College and Bush Republicanism. The statement reads, "We pledge fidelity to Jesus Christ, offering our hearts and lives to do God's work in God's world."
The faculty letter, published in an ad in the Grand Rapids Press, takes on Bush's frequent evocation of the divine to brand his work. "While recognizing God as sovereign over individuals and institutions alike, we understand that no single political position should be identified with God's will." Those words alone should get them burned at the stake, with Karl Rove proving the wood and Jerry Falwell lighting the fire.
Bush's Robin Hood-in-reverse policies take an arrow. "As Christians we are called to lift up the hungry and impoverished. We believe your administration has taken actions that favor the wealthy of our society and burden the poor," the faculty members write.
They challenge Bush-flavored faith that nurtures wedge issues to cloud more important matters and carry out a cynical political calculus. "As Christians we are called to actions characterized by love, gentleness and concerns for the most vulnerable among us. We believe your administration has fostered intolerance and divisiveness and has often failed to listen to those with whom it disagrees." Amen.
David Crump, a professor of religion at Calvin, was one of the leaders of the faculty protest. He told the Detroit Free Press he felt compelled to speak out because "the largest part of our concern is the way in which our religious discourse in this country has been largely co-opted by the religious right and their wholesale endorsement of this administration."
I spoke with Crump and discussed the faculty letter and politicians who cloak themselves in religion. He struck me as a soft-spoken, committed person whose conscience led him to action. Crump has taught at Calvin for eight years and he's up for a tenure appointment this summer. Speaking out like he does requires more guts than Bush, Rove and a division of Busheviks have ever displayed.
Crump said he's tired of all evangelicals being lumped together and people "naturally associating us with the right wing." He admires Jim Wallis, another evangelical whose "moral values" differ sharply with the Bush administration's.
Bush used to seek the advice of Jim Wallis until he told him things he didn't want to hear. In a recent interview in "Mother Jones" magazine, Wallis said, "Fighting poverty is a moral value too. There's a whole generation of young Christians who care about the environment. That's their big issue. Protecting God's creation, they would say is a moral value too. And, for a growing number of Christians, the ethics of war -- how and when we go to war, whether we tell the truth about going to war -- is a religious and moral issue as well." No wonder Wallis got kicked-off the White House A-list.
According to ABC News, protesters outside the college wore buttons saying, "God is not a Republican or a Democrat." What kind of radical theology is that? Some of the students had "No War" taped on their graduation caps.
Bush has a certain nostalgia for Calvin College, the site of one of the debates among the Republicans running for president in 2000.
At the time, Sen. John McCain was seriously challenging Bush's bid for the White House. McCain used the forum to oppose Bush's plan to deposit the entire Clinton surplus into one shaky basket. McCain prophetically said, "For us to put all of the surplus into tax cuts, it's a mistake. We should put that money into making sure the Social Security system will be there, that Medicare is helped out, most of all, let's pay that $5.6 trillion debt we've laid on future generations."
Before the students at Calvin College, and the world, George W. Bush then uttered a lie for the ages. He twanged, "I have a plan that takes $2 trillion over the next 10 years and dedicates it to Social Security. My plan has been called risky by voices out of Washington. In my judgment, what's risky is to leave a lot of unspent money in Washington. It's going to be spent on bigger federal governments."
Bush has not dedicated a dime to Social Security. He has squandered the entire Clinton surplus and created unprecedented debt, including $300 billion for the war in Iraq. His fiscal madness brings great risk of economic collapse. Bush has significantly increased the size of the federal government.
The Calvin professors are speaking eloquently and courageously and they are exposing Bush's misuse of Christianity for his selfish and destructive political agenda.
He's not listening, but let's hope evangelicals everywhere are.
Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net.
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com
Niagara Falls Reporter
COLLEGE FACULTY, STUDENTS OPPOSE WAR
By Bill Gallagher
May 24, 2005
"As Christians we are called to be peacemakers, and to initiate war only as a last resort. We believe your administration has launched an unjust and unjustified war in Iraq." -- An open letter to President George W. Bush from concerned faculty, staff and emeriti of Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich.
DETROIT -- Hallelujah! It's time for rejoicing. When one-third of the faculty members of this distinguished Christian college sign the letter denouncing their commencement speaker, telling him bluntly, "We see conflicts between our understanding of what Christians are called to do and many of the policies of your administration," you know the Busheviks are seething.
Things like that are not supposed to happen to the most thoroughly scripted, supremely orchestrated and meticulously controlling administration in American political history.
The rule is simple: George W. Bush never, in any way, sees, hears or encounters those who disagree with him. Stalin faced and tolerated more public dissent than Bush.
His rare news conferences are a joke and cheap theater. He spouts out his memorized lines and the toadies in the White House press corps sit there like a reverential audience lapping up the lies, and then repeating them.
Would just one Democrat stand up on the floor of Congress and call Bush a lying criminal who should be impeached and indicted for war crimes? Why do so many Democrats find it impossible to accuse Bush of raiding the U.S. Treasury to rob from the poor and give to the rich, and burdening our children with unconscionable debt?
Calvin College is in Grand Rapids, Mich., deeply conservative ground that provides a rich motherlode for Republican fund-raising. It's home for the DeVos family and their Amway Corp. -- a cult-like enterprise that promises riches to all participants willing to climb the pyramid of success.
The DeVos crowd dominates Michigan Republican circles these days and they would drum out Grand Rapid's own Gerald Ford from the party. The former president's views are far too liberal and inclusive for the Bush-DeVos GOP, rooted as it now is in fundamentalism and intolerance. Given that environment, it's easy to see why Bush's "brain" Karl Rove selected Calvin College as one of two schools where the president delivers the commencement address this year. The other, the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., will provide Bush with his perfect audience -- guaranteed standing ovations and no hint of dissent. But to Karl Rove's unpleasant surprise, many of the folks at Calvin don't buy Bush's radicalism wrapped in religion. They're speaking out forthrightly, teaching the wimps in the Democratic Party a lesson they should heed, but will probably ignore.
In addition to the professors' proclamation, another letter to Bush from students, faculty, alumni and friends of the college published in a full-page newspaper ad protested his visit, noting they are "deeply troubled" by it. Kicking the sanctimonious president right in his political shins, they added, "In our view, the policies and actions of your administration, both domestically and internationally over the past four years, violate the deeply held principles of Calvin College."
The modern Republican Party has laid exclusive claim on conservative religious groups as essential to its base. Any defections threaten the dynasty and must be dealt with as grievous departures from the "true faith."
The only Republican religion is Bush's claimed Christianity. The Grand Rapids Press, noted for one of the worst editorial pages on earth, praised Bush as a "fitting speaker for the college and its graduates." In an editorial gushing over the "honor," the paper sings "Hail to the Chief," noting, "A conservative and deeply Christian man, Mr. Bush's outlooks overlap broadly on those of the college and its students." The implication, of course, is that those who differ with Bush must be "shallowly Christian" or, God forbid, secular.
Many who cling to the school's own mission statement do not accept the purported congruence of Calvin College and Bush Republicanism. The statement reads, "We pledge fidelity to Jesus Christ, offering our hearts and lives to do God's work in God's world."
The faculty letter, published in an ad in the Grand Rapids Press, takes on Bush's frequent evocation of the divine to brand his work. "While recognizing God as sovereign over individuals and institutions alike, we understand that no single political position should be identified with God's will." Those words alone should get them burned at the stake, with Karl Rove proving the wood and Jerry Falwell lighting the fire.
Bush's Robin Hood-in-reverse policies take an arrow. "As Christians we are called to lift up the hungry and impoverished. We believe your administration has taken actions that favor the wealthy of our society and burden the poor," the faculty members write.
They challenge Bush-flavored faith that nurtures wedge issues to cloud more important matters and carry out a cynical political calculus. "As Christians we are called to actions characterized by love, gentleness and concerns for the most vulnerable among us. We believe your administration has fostered intolerance and divisiveness and has often failed to listen to those with whom it disagrees." Amen.
David Crump, a professor of religion at Calvin, was one of the leaders of the faculty protest. He told the Detroit Free Press he felt compelled to speak out because "the largest part of our concern is the way in which our religious discourse in this country has been largely co-opted by the religious right and their wholesale endorsement of this administration."
I spoke with Crump and discussed the faculty letter and politicians who cloak themselves in religion. He struck me as a soft-spoken, committed person whose conscience led him to action. Crump has taught at Calvin for eight years and he's up for a tenure appointment this summer. Speaking out like he does requires more guts than Bush, Rove and a division of Busheviks have ever displayed.
Crump said he's tired of all evangelicals being lumped together and people "naturally associating us with the right wing." He admires Jim Wallis, another evangelical whose "moral values" differ sharply with the Bush administration's.
Bush used to seek the advice of Jim Wallis until he told him things he didn't want to hear. In a recent interview in "Mother Jones" magazine, Wallis said, "Fighting poverty is a moral value too. There's a whole generation of young Christians who care about the environment. That's their big issue. Protecting God's creation, they would say is a moral value too. And, for a growing number of Christians, the ethics of war -- how and when we go to war, whether we tell the truth about going to war -- is a religious and moral issue as well." No wonder Wallis got kicked-off the White House A-list.
According to ABC News, protesters outside the college wore buttons saying, "God is not a Republican or a Democrat." What kind of radical theology is that? Some of the students had "No War" taped on their graduation caps.
Bush has a certain nostalgia for Calvin College, the site of one of the debates among the Republicans running for president in 2000.
At the time, Sen. John McCain was seriously challenging Bush's bid for the White House. McCain used the forum to oppose Bush's plan to deposit the entire Clinton surplus into one shaky basket. McCain prophetically said, "For us to put all of the surplus into tax cuts, it's a mistake. We should put that money into making sure the Social Security system will be there, that Medicare is helped out, most of all, let's pay that $5.6 trillion debt we've laid on future generations."
Before the students at Calvin College, and the world, George W. Bush then uttered a lie for the ages. He twanged, "I have a plan that takes $2 trillion over the next 10 years and dedicates it to Social Security. My plan has been called risky by voices out of Washington. In my judgment, what's risky is to leave a lot of unspent money in Washington. It's going to be spent on bigger federal governments."
Bush has not dedicated a dime to Social Security. He has squandered the entire Clinton surplus and created unprecedented debt, including $300 billion for the war in Iraq. His fiscal madness brings great risk of economic collapse. Bush has significantly increased the size of the federal government.
The Calvin professors are speaking eloquently and courageously and they are exposing Bush's misuse of Christianity for his selfish and destructive political agenda.
He's not listening, but let's hope evangelicals everywhere are.
Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net.
Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com
Monday, May 23, 2005
A Note on Sustainable Development In Europe
Courtesy of Joan Masters.
----- Original Message -----
From: Simone Bilman
To: EducationLoop@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2005 5:40 AM
Subject: [EducationLoop] Sustainable Development in Switzerland
Joan, Sustainable Development (SD) is "Développement Durable" in french. Since all related documents in the websites are in french, I will try to translate the general ideas into english (sorry for my english which is getting worser every day).
-I live in Lausanne and the city's official website has a page called "Agenda 21" explaining that SD is a global vision based on the decisions taken in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. It's goals are the preservation of the environment, social solidarity and partnership between citizens and the authorities. SD projects are grouped in 4 main categories:
.Social (creating quality social environment, helping citizens develop harmonious interpersonal relationships, preventing social exclusion, making citizens participate in decisions (an exemple for this is a project called "Quartiers 21" where the Lausanne administration organised "innovation workshops" inviting citizens to talk about and resolve their neighborhood's problems. People were delphied and happy to think that they decided where a new playground for their children or a new park should be built).
.Educational (Activities for children to teach them how to protect the environment, health education in schools, citizenship education, creation of "children's councils" to give kids the possibility to participate in decision making and learn children's rights.)
.Environmental (Energy consumption, building parking lots, organising a day without your car in city centers etc.)
.Financial (Fiscal policies for social equity and economical viability).
-In Geneva, the city also has an official website called "Agenda 21" which is very well documented. It even indicates the new laws that have been added to the state's legislation in order to respond to SD requirements (The terms "agenda 21", "Développment Durable (SD)" and reference to the UN's Rio conference are in the law!) According to the law, the new responsibilities of the state related to SD are: environmental managment, teacher education for SD, information and education of the society about SD, prevention of social exclusion, participation of Geneva to the Healty-Cities project initiated by the WHO, taking actions in favor if international cooperation for development.
Before the adoption of SD laws in Geneva, unelected "experts" prepared 6 reports with propositions about the changes needed to implement correctly SD. I read the report on Education and it says that in order to fulfill SD requirements, active methods of learning should be used, children should construct their own knowledge and learn by working on projects, SD must be treated in a transdisciplinary way (in every school subject), health prevention, citizenship education and a pedagogy of values must be implemented, instead of transmitting knowledge, teachers should propose to children ways of thinking and of knowing how to be and observe children's attitudes, education must be based on a systemic approach. Sadly, all of these propositions are already implemented in schools in Switzerland.
In the Geneva Agenda 21 website, I found the address of another website called Global Vision. Here is the web page (in english) of this organization explaining how Global Vision, financed by the United Nations, is proud of Geneva's efforts on SD:
http://www.global-vision.org/geneva/indexENG.html .
Best of all. Simone
----- Original Message -----
From: Simone Bilman
To: EducationLoop@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, May 22, 2005 5:40 AM
Subject: [EducationLoop] Sustainable Development in Switzerland
Joan, Sustainable Development (SD) is "Développement Durable" in french. Since all related documents in the websites are in french, I will try to translate the general ideas into english (sorry for my english which is getting worser every day).
-I live in Lausanne and the city's official website has a page called "Agenda 21" explaining that SD is a global vision based on the decisions taken in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. It's goals are the preservation of the environment, social solidarity and partnership between citizens and the authorities. SD projects are grouped in 4 main categories:
.Social (creating quality social environment, helping citizens develop harmonious interpersonal relationships, preventing social exclusion, making citizens participate in decisions (an exemple for this is a project called "Quartiers 21" where the Lausanne administration organised "innovation workshops" inviting citizens to talk about and resolve their neighborhood's problems. People were delphied and happy to think that they decided where a new playground for their children or a new park should be built).
.Educational (Activities for children to teach them how to protect the environment, health education in schools, citizenship education, creation of "children's councils" to give kids the possibility to participate in decision making and learn children's rights.)
.Environmental (Energy consumption, building parking lots, organising a day without your car in city centers etc.)
.Financial (Fiscal policies for social equity and economical viability).
-In Geneva, the city also has an official website called "Agenda 21" which is very well documented. It even indicates the new laws that have been added to the state's legislation in order to respond to SD requirements (The terms "agenda 21", "Développment Durable (SD)" and reference to the UN's Rio conference are in the law!) According to the law, the new responsibilities of the state related to SD are: environmental managment, teacher education for SD, information and education of the society about SD, prevention of social exclusion, participation of Geneva to the Healty-Cities project initiated by the WHO, taking actions in favor if international cooperation for development.
Before the adoption of SD laws in Geneva, unelected "experts" prepared 6 reports with propositions about the changes needed to implement correctly SD. I read the report on Education and it says that in order to fulfill SD requirements, active methods of learning should be used, children should construct their own knowledge and learn by working on projects, SD must be treated in a transdisciplinary way (in every school subject), health prevention, citizenship education and a pedagogy of values must be implemented, instead of transmitting knowledge, teachers should propose to children ways of thinking and of knowing how to be and observe children's attitudes, education must be based on a systemic approach. Sadly, all of these propositions are already implemented in schools in Switzerland.
In the Geneva Agenda 21 website, I found the address of another website called Global Vision. Here is the web page (in english) of this organization explaining how Global Vision, financed by the United Nations, is proud of Geneva's efforts on SD:
http://www.global-vision.org/geneva/indexENG.html .
Best of all. Simone
Sunday, May 22, 2005
More "Real ID" Commentary
So why aren't we taking to the streets in protest? LewRockwell.com's weekend edition linked to this.
SF Gate
www.sfgate.com
They Really Are Watching You
(Ready for your own all-new, sinister ID card, courtesy of Homeland Security? Shudder)
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Well, now we've done it.
Congress just passed it and Dubya has promised to sign it and the Homeland Security Department is giddier than Mel Gibson in a nail factory over it and marketers nationwide are salivating at the groin at the prospect of it, and the next big step toward America becoming an even more delightfully paranoid and draconian Big Brother wonderland has now officially been taken.
It's called Real ID. It is, in short, a new and genetically mutated type of driver's license for all Americans, replacing your current license and replacing your Social Security card and replacing your sense of well being and privacy and humanity and part of a new, uniform, deeply sinister, national uniform card system whereby every person living and breathing in these paranoid and tense times shall henceforth be much more traceable and watchable given how we will all soon be required by law to carry this super-deluxe computerized ID card with us at all times, packed as it will be with more personal, digitized info about you than even your mother knows.
Real ID is coming very soon. The legislation was passed with little outcry and zero debate by both House and Senate just last week because lawmakers snuck it into a massive $82 billion military spending bill, and therefore no one was really paying much attention and this is the way you get thorny disturbing culturally demeaning bills to pass without resistance from smart people who should know better.
The new law will, according to the Wired News story linked above, require everyone to hand over not one, not two, but fully four types of documentation to renew their driver's license, such as a photo ID, a birth certificate, proof that their Social Security number is legit and something that validates their home address, like a phone bill. DMV employees will then have to verify the documents against giant teeming federal databases and store the documents and a digital photo of you in a database. Isn't that fun? Doesn't that sound gratifying?
What's more, the card's design plan includes multiple openings for the Homeland Security Department to add on whatever features they deem necessary, with or without your knowledge, consent or who the hell cares what you think because we do what we want now please shut the hell up and quit asking questions.
Computer (RFID) microchip? Likely. Digital fingerprint? Sure. Political affiliation? You bet. Web-site-visit log and religious affiliation and recent sperm count and arrest record and drug addictions and medical history and blood type and gender orientation and parent's/children's home address and number of personal blog posts calling Dr. Phil a "slug-licking ego-bitch charlatan" and your recent purchase history on shotathome.com? One guess.
Make no mistake: Real ID, in short, takes us one happy step closer to a total surveillance state, where everyone is stamped and everyone is watchable and everyone is traceable and unless you live way, way off the grid out in the increasingly nonexistent hinterlands, you cannot escape the spazzy and twitchy and paranoid eye of Homeland Security.
Remember the scenes in that surprisingly not-awful Tom Cruise flick "Minority Report" with the ubiquitous eye scanners, installed all over the near-future city? And as poor Tommy ran around like a maniac, little scanner machines installed by the gummint would read the eye pattern of every citizen as they walked around and the system could track anyone at any time no matter where they might wander and all the info was dumped into a huge database that was studied and cross-checked and manipulated by the CIA and FBI and Banana Republic?
Real ID feels much like that, only not nearly as cool.
Real ID is, as you might expect, giving civil liberties groups and immigrant-support groups the hives. State governors across the nation are none too happy, either, as implementation of the new law will cost each state hundreds of millions of dollars, but, of course, the bill provides zero federal funds to help. Such is the BushCo way.
This is the funny thing. This is the sad thing. This is the terrifying thing. We have suffered one major debilitating act of terrorism in this nation and we have recoiled so violently, so rabidly, so desperately that we are still more than willing to give up whatever freedoms necessary in a vain and silly attempt to control chaos and plug every hole, when of course the nation is basically one giant hole to begin with.
Of course, any good conspiracy theorist worth his secret underground bootleg Area 51 videos will tell you this sort of citizen-surveillance thing has been going on for years, decades, from spy satellites to GPS to all manner of phone tracking and e-mail snooping and behavior watching and this Real ID thing only takes it a little more public, national, makes it part of the cultural lexicon because we have finally weakened so much we just don't seem to give a damn what they do to us anymore.
Don't think it's all that bad? Think BushCo's flying monkeys in the CIA and FBI and Homeland Security really have your best interests at heart and are genuinely trying to protect you from scary swarthy furriners who want to sneak into our country and poison our Cheerios and paint our flag orange and cover our wimmin in burlap? Have at it. The GOP would love to have you. Oh, and while you're at it, enjoy that tiny grain-of-rice-size bar-coded implant RFID microchip the FDA just approved, which they can permanently slip under your skin in under 20 minutes, with nary a peep.
This is what's happening now. With Real ID (and who knows what else), the government is cracking down and creating a new and improved and far more devious and exploitable system to monitor its citizens because, well, because we let them. Because millions of us have been pummeled so successfully by the fear-mongering Right. Because we have never been so lax, so blinded by warmongering and dread, so numbed to what might become of us.
Ah, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is just rampant paranoia talking and it's just a silly piece of harmless legislation and Real ID is overall a genuinely good and useful idea that will ultimately make us safer and more secure. You think?
Because hasn't BushCo proven to be reliable and honest and just reeking with integrity about privacy and security issues so far? Hasn't the USA Patriot Act been just a wondrous boon to police and CIA and our sense that we are trusted and cared for by our government? Aren't we all feeling just so much safer with this most secretive, least accountable administration at the helm?
After all, why not trust the government on this? Why not put our faith in the goodly Homeland Security Department? Maybe Real ID really is patriotic and constructive and it will be a smooth and secure and completely inviolable system, one that protects citizens while giving them a new sense of freedom to move about the country with carefree flag-waving ease, safe in the knowledge that their big, snarling gummint is watching over them like a protective mother bear -- as opposed to, say, a female praying mantis, who greedily screws her lover, and then, of course, eats him alive.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters.
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/05/18/notes051805.DTL
©2005 SF Gate
SF Gate
www.sfgate.com
They Really Are Watching You
(Ready for your own all-new, sinister ID card, courtesy of Homeland Security? Shudder)
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Well, now we've done it.
Congress just passed it and Dubya has promised to sign it and the Homeland Security Department is giddier than Mel Gibson in a nail factory over it and marketers nationwide are salivating at the groin at the prospect of it, and the next big step toward America becoming an even more delightfully paranoid and draconian Big Brother wonderland has now officially been taken.
It's called Real ID. It is, in short, a new and genetically mutated type of driver's license for all Americans, replacing your current license and replacing your Social Security card and replacing your sense of well being and privacy and humanity and part of a new, uniform, deeply sinister, national uniform card system whereby every person living and breathing in these paranoid and tense times shall henceforth be much more traceable and watchable given how we will all soon be required by law to carry this super-deluxe computerized ID card with us at all times, packed as it will be with more personal, digitized info about you than even your mother knows.
Real ID is coming very soon. The legislation was passed with little outcry and zero debate by both House and Senate just last week because lawmakers snuck it into a massive $82 billion military spending bill, and therefore no one was really paying much attention and this is the way you get thorny disturbing culturally demeaning bills to pass without resistance from smart people who should know better.
The new law will, according to the Wired News story linked above, require everyone to hand over not one, not two, but fully four types of documentation to renew their driver's license, such as a photo ID, a birth certificate, proof that their Social Security number is legit and something that validates their home address, like a phone bill. DMV employees will then have to verify the documents against giant teeming federal databases and store the documents and a digital photo of you in a database. Isn't that fun? Doesn't that sound gratifying?
What's more, the card's design plan includes multiple openings for the Homeland Security Department to add on whatever features they deem necessary, with or without your knowledge, consent or who the hell cares what you think because we do what we want now please shut the hell up and quit asking questions.
Computer (RFID) microchip? Likely. Digital fingerprint? Sure. Political affiliation? You bet. Web-site-visit log and religious affiliation and recent sperm count and arrest record and drug addictions and medical history and blood type and gender orientation and parent's/children's home address and number of personal blog posts calling Dr. Phil a "slug-licking ego-bitch charlatan" and your recent purchase history on shotathome.com? One guess.
Make no mistake: Real ID, in short, takes us one happy step closer to a total surveillance state, where everyone is stamped and everyone is watchable and everyone is traceable and unless you live way, way off the grid out in the increasingly nonexistent hinterlands, you cannot escape the spazzy and twitchy and paranoid eye of Homeland Security.
Remember the scenes in that surprisingly not-awful Tom Cruise flick "Minority Report" with the ubiquitous eye scanners, installed all over the near-future city? And as poor Tommy ran around like a maniac, little scanner machines installed by the gummint would read the eye pattern of every citizen as they walked around and the system could track anyone at any time no matter where they might wander and all the info was dumped into a huge database that was studied and cross-checked and manipulated by the CIA and FBI and Banana Republic?
Real ID feels much like that, only not nearly as cool.
Real ID is, as you might expect, giving civil liberties groups and immigrant-support groups the hives. State governors across the nation are none too happy, either, as implementation of the new law will cost each state hundreds of millions of dollars, but, of course, the bill provides zero federal funds to help. Such is the BushCo way.
This is the funny thing. This is the sad thing. This is the terrifying thing. We have suffered one major debilitating act of terrorism in this nation and we have recoiled so violently, so rabidly, so desperately that we are still more than willing to give up whatever freedoms necessary in a vain and silly attempt to control chaos and plug every hole, when of course the nation is basically one giant hole to begin with.
Of course, any good conspiracy theorist worth his secret underground bootleg Area 51 videos will tell you this sort of citizen-surveillance thing has been going on for years, decades, from spy satellites to GPS to all manner of phone tracking and e-mail snooping and behavior watching and this Real ID thing only takes it a little more public, national, makes it part of the cultural lexicon because we have finally weakened so much we just don't seem to give a damn what they do to us anymore.
Don't think it's all that bad? Think BushCo's flying monkeys in the CIA and FBI and Homeland Security really have your best interests at heart and are genuinely trying to protect you from scary swarthy furriners who want to sneak into our country and poison our Cheerios and paint our flag orange and cover our wimmin in burlap? Have at it. The GOP would love to have you. Oh, and while you're at it, enjoy that tiny grain-of-rice-size bar-coded implant RFID microchip the FDA just approved, which they can permanently slip under your skin in under 20 minutes, with nary a peep.
This is what's happening now. With Real ID (and who knows what else), the government is cracking down and creating a new and improved and far more devious and exploitable system to monitor its citizens because, well, because we let them. Because millions of us have been pummeled so successfully by the fear-mongering Right. Because we have never been so lax, so blinded by warmongering and dread, so numbed to what might become of us.
Ah, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is just rampant paranoia talking and it's just a silly piece of harmless legislation and Real ID is overall a genuinely good and useful idea that will ultimately make us safer and more secure. You think?
Because hasn't BushCo proven to be reliable and honest and just reeking with integrity about privacy and security issues so far? Hasn't the USA Patriot Act been just a wondrous boon to police and CIA and our sense that we are trusted and cared for by our government? Aren't we all feeling just so much safer with this most secretive, least accountable administration at the helm?
After all, why not trust the government on this? Why not put our faith in the goodly Homeland Security Department? Maybe Real ID really is patriotic and constructive and it will be a smooth and secure and completely inviolable system, one that protects citizens while giving them a new sense of freedom to move about the country with carefree flag-waving ease, safe in the knowledge that their big, snarling gummint is watching over them like a protective mother bear -- as opposed to, say, a female praying mantis, who greedily screws her lover, and then, of course, eats him alive.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters.
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/05/18/notes051805.DTL
©2005 SF Gate
Saturday, May 21, 2005
"Real ID": Has America Become an Unofficial Police State?
I missed this one last week. Looks like a keeper to me. Will we remember May 10, 2005 as the date America became an unofficial police state, with its becoming an official police state on May 10, 2008? Stay tuned.
Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.
P.O. Box 270143
Hartford, WI 53027
Phone (262) 673-9745
Fax (262) 673-9746
May 11, 2005
The End of America: May 10, 2005
On Tuesday, May 10, 2005, America became a true police state. Your U.S. senators voted -- unanimously, with no discussion, and without even reading the bill -- to create a national ID card.
The Real ID Act blackmails state governments into turning their drivers licenses into a draconian tool of the federal homeland security apparatus. If states refuse, their citizens lose such "privileges" as being allowed to board an airplane, enter a federal building, or apply for social security. President Bush is expected to sign the bill eagerly on Thursday. [He did. ~SY.]
In three years -- by May 2008 -- this Stalin-style internal passport will be an American reality. But your government will have more control over you than Stalin ever dreamed in his most violent, vicious, anti-freedom dreams. (See links to the text of the law and articles about it at the bottom of this article.)
But that's only the beginning.
The creator of the Real ID Act, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, smiles and tells us that his Real ID Act is all about "solving illegal immigration" or "preventing terrorists from entering the country." This is one of the biggest of the thousands of "Big Lies" we've heard from the tyrants in Washington. The Real ID Act is about tracking and controlling Americans. You. Me. Our children. Everybody.
In May 2008, barring a miracle, America as we once knew it will be in ruins. It will be gone. And the rights of gun owners will be among the first scheduled for destruction.
GUN OWNERS: PREPARE TO RESIST
Here's your future:
*
You walk into a gun store, fill out your 4473, and show your government ID just as you now do. But instead of looking at your license and taking down some information, the clerk runs the license (which is likely to contain a radio-frequency ID chip) through a scanner. Your purchase is instantly recorded in your state drivers license registry. The federal government isn't currently allowed to keep a gun registry. But no problem; the Real ID act gives them an open door into your state records.
*
Complete information on every firearm you buy will be instantly available to every police officer (and possibly every government employee, store clerk, or computer hacker) you ever encounter. You'll be an instant criminal suspect every time you deal with someone who has access to the database.
*
Just as travelers are encouraged to get background checks and give fingerprints to avoid some of the worst excesses of TSA screening, gun owners will be encouraged to get background checks and give whatever biometric ID the Department of Homeland Security requires. This will be sold as a "benefit," ensuring you'll never again experience an "instant-check" delay. In fact, Congress, the ATF, or the FBI might even "mandate" 5-day or 15-day delays for anyone not enrolled in the "Trusted Firearms Buyer" program.
*
The private purchase "loophole" will be closed, so that all gun buyers must make trackable purchases. (The ultimate goal is for every purchase of every kind to be trackable.)
*
Buying ammo? The store scans your national ID card and -- bingo! -- your purchase is registered in the state database.
*
The federal government or state governments can now also _effectively_ legislate limits on the amount or kind of ammunition you're "allowed" to purchase. Try to buy more and the database instantly rejects you.
*
The federal government or state governments can now also _effectively_ legislate limits on the number of guns you may own. Try to buy more, and the database rejects you.
*
Eventually -- after the federal government "discovers" the obvious, that national ID won't stop either illegal immigration or terrorism -- the old attack on "evil guns" will resume. When they want your .50 BMG they'll know just where to find it (because the Real ID act says your home address _must_ be revealed). When they want your evil "scoped sniper rifle" (you know, the one you hunt deer with), they'll know just how to get it. Ditto with you "Saturday Night Special" or your "assault weapon."
*
If you don't surrender your guns, well, then the Department of Homeland Security will cut off your driving "privilege," as well as your right to escape the growing police state via plane. You'll be a prisoner in your own home, in your own country. Or you'll be forced to function as an outlaw, operating and living a precarious existence beneath the government radar.
PARANOID? OR PAYING ATTENTION?
You say these projections are ridiculous? That we're paranoid?
Well, frankly, if the Real ID Act doesn't make you paranoid, you're not paying enough attention. We ask you to consider the long-term impact of a few other acts of government.
In the 1930s, Congress promised us that our social security numbers would never, absolutely never, be used for identification. Now, they're the key to everything about us -- and without a social security number you won't get a drivers license and you won't even be "allowed" to drive after May 2008.
In 1913, Congress and the media swore to us that the brand- new income tax would only affect the rich. Well, how rich do you feel after paying 40 percent of your income (or more!) in taxes?
This is the way government works. They've even got a term for it: mission creep. And there is no creepier mission than the mission the federal government has currently set itself: to track everyone, everywhere, and to control what we do.
We warned you in The State vs. the People that this was coming. That book is still relevant, still a good read, and still filled with information about what our future will be like in this new American police state.
Be forewarned. Be aware.
REAL ID: IT'S THE LAW AND IT'S CRIMINAL
Please take a moment to go to this site: http://www.rebelfirerock.com/home.html. Click on the link that leads to the song "Justice Day." Listen to the music or read the lyrics. Here's the opening of the song:
You're the boot.
Stomping on the human face forever.
You're the eye.
Staring down on everyone and ever seeing all.
You're the lie.
Twisting all our minds into your whoredom.
You are Death.
You are war.
You are slavery.
You're the law.
You're the law.
You're the LAW!
George Orwell was the first to describe totalitarianism as a "boot stomping on the human face forever." But in Orwell's day Americans would have had a hard time believing that the law -- the good old, all-American legislature -- all those smiling senators and "representatives" would be the ones to plant their iron heels in our faces. Back in those innocent days, we imagined tyranny would come from outside.
Well, tyranny is here. And it's a gift from the very people we so trustingly put into office.
Tyranny is THE LAW.
Is this a way to run a country? Tacking something as onerous as national ID onto a must-pass bill and making it law without any debate? What does this say about people the gun owners consider their friends? In the House, where the bill containing the Real ID Act passed 368-58, only three Republicans voted against it. Here's the final roll-call vote so you can see how your own congressperson voted.
In the Senate, not one person cared enough about freedom to vote against it -- or even to demand that senators discuss it.
(The Real ID Act originally passed the House in February as a standalone bill (H.R. 418) by a vote of 261-to-161. House leaders, realizing national ID would have been in trouble in the Senate, then added it to a must-pass military appropriations bill in a cynical ploy to make it almost impossible to fight national ID.)
Turning America into a full-fledged police state was just business as usual to your representatives. And, just as Adolf Hitler scrupulously followed German law while committing his horrors, so your "representatives" and the bureaucrats you face at the national-ID drivers license bureau will also be following the law -- the Real ID law that allows them to enslave you.
(To see what a real Bill of Rights leader would do, read the novel Hope by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith)
WHAT NEXT?
We have two choices now: Resist or submit.
More than 600 organizations, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Governors Association, opposed the bill. Even the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (which loves national ID and was largely responsible for an earlier attempt at such legislation nine years ago) criticized it.
We can expect lawsuits against national ID, including at least one suit led by state governments.
However, nearly all the opposition from state governments focuses on one area: They're upset because the federal government didn't offer them extra money to enslave us. If Congress bribes them with enough millions and billions, they'll gladly sell our freedom.
Ultimately, real resistance is up to us, as individuals. There are certain courses of action JPFO cannot recommend. But every freedom lover should be pleased if all the people who had a hand in creating Real ID act lost their jobs -- soon. And those individuals who truly value their (and their children's) futures should seriously consider making national ID their line in the sand.
We have already heard from many people saying they will drive without a license rather than submit to a license that has become a Stalinist control document. We just hope their resolve stays equally strong when they face a world in which it's impossible to buy, sell, retire, travel -- or buy a gun -- without national ID.
We ask you to remember men like Alexandr Solzhenitzyn and Natan Sharansky. Both stood up and boldly opposed a tyrannical regime in the Soviet Union. Both risked their lives. Both suffered horribly for their resistance and their protests. But eventually, they triumphed -- and the Soviet Union crumbled.
We are in need of such people, and such courage, today. We cannot wait for someone else to stand up and show that kind of integrity.
We must become the kind of people we admire if we are ever again to live in a nation we can trust.
G-d help us if we fail.*
- The Liberty Crew
ABOUT THE REAL ID ACT
Text of the law (this may change; you can also go to http://thomas.loc.gov and search for H.R.1268, which is the act as it was incorporated into the appropriations bill).
"No Real Debate for Real ID"
"Last Chance to Stop National ID" (written before Senate passage)
* We spell G-d this way because in Judaism it is considered a sign of respect. We spell out the name of the Creator only in sacred settings.
Copyright © 2005 JPFO, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce this alert in full, so long as the JPFO contact information is included.
Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.
P.O. Box 270143
Hartford, WI 53027
Phone (262) 673-9745
Fax (262) 673-9746
May 11, 2005
The End of America: May 10, 2005
On Tuesday, May 10, 2005, America became a true police state. Your U.S. senators voted -- unanimously, with no discussion, and without even reading the bill -- to create a national ID card.
The Real ID Act blackmails state governments into turning their drivers licenses into a draconian tool of the federal homeland security apparatus. If states refuse, their citizens lose such "privileges" as being allowed to board an airplane, enter a federal building, or apply for social security. President Bush is expected to sign the bill eagerly on Thursday. [He did. ~SY.]
In three years -- by May 2008 -- this Stalin-style internal passport will be an American reality. But your government will have more control over you than Stalin ever dreamed in his most violent, vicious, anti-freedom dreams. (See links to the text of the law and articles about it at the bottom of this article.)
But that's only the beginning.
The creator of the Real ID Act, Rep. James Sensenbrenner, smiles and tells us that his Real ID Act is all about "solving illegal immigration" or "preventing terrorists from entering the country." This is one of the biggest of the thousands of "Big Lies" we've heard from the tyrants in Washington. The Real ID Act is about tracking and controlling Americans. You. Me. Our children. Everybody.
In May 2008, barring a miracle, America as we once knew it will be in ruins. It will be gone. And the rights of gun owners will be among the first scheduled for destruction.
GUN OWNERS: PREPARE TO RESIST
Here's your future:
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You walk into a gun store, fill out your 4473, and show your government ID just as you now do. But instead of looking at your license and taking down some information, the clerk runs the license (which is likely to contain a radio-frequency ID chip) through a scanner. Your purchase is instantly recorded in your state drivers license registry. The federal government isn't currently allowed to keep a gun registry. But no problem; the Real ID act gives them an open door into your state records.
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Complete information on every firearm you buy will be instantly available to every police officer (and possibly every government employee, store clerk, or computer hacker) you ever encounter. You'll be an instant criminal suspect every time you deal with someone who has access to the database.
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Just as travelers are encouraged to get background checks and give fingerprints to avoid some of the worst excesses of TSA screening, gun owners will be encouraged to get background checks and give whatever biometric ID the Department of Homeland Security requires. This will be sold as a "benefit," ensuring you'll never again experience an "instant-check" delay. In fact, Congress, the ATF, or the FBI might even "mandate" 5-day or 15-day delays for anyone not enrolled in the "Trusted Firearms Buyer" program.
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The private purchase "loophole" will be closed, so that all gun buyers must make trackable purchases. (The ultimate goal is for every purchase of every kind to be trackable.)
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Buying ammo? The store scans your national ID card and -- bingo! -- your purchase is registered in the state database.
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The federal government or state governments can now also _effectively_ legislate limits on the amount or kind of ammunition you're "allowed" to purchase. Try to buy more and the database instantly rejects you.
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The federal government or state governments can now also _effectively_ legislate limits on the number of guns you may own. Try to buy more, and the database rejects you.
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Eventually -- after the federal government "discovers" the obvious, that national ID won't stop either illegal immigration or terrorism -- the old attack on "evil guns" will resume. When they want your .50 BMG they'll know just where to find it (because the Real ID act says your home address _must_ be revealed). When they want your evil "scoped sniper rifle" (you know, the one you hunt deer with), they'll know just how to get it. Ditto with you "Saturday Night Special" or your "assault weapon."
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If you don't surrender your guns, well, then the Department of Homeland Security will cut off your driving "privilege," as well as your right to escape the growing police state via plane. You'll be a prisoner in your own home, in your own country. Or you'll be forced to function as an outlaw, operating and living a precarious existence beneath the government radar.
PARANOID? OR PAYING ATTENTION?
You say these projections are ridiculous? That we're paranoid?
Well, frankly, if the Real ID Act doesn't make you paranoid, you're not paying enough attention. We ask you to consider the long-term impact of a few other acts of government.
In the 1930s, Congress promised us that our social security numbers would never, absolutely never, be used for identification. Now, they're the key to everything about us -- and without a social security number you won't get a drivers license and you won't even be "allowed" to drive after May 2008.
In 1913, Congress and the media swore to us that the brand- new income tax would only affect the rich. Well, how rich do you feel after paying 40 percent of your income (or more!) in taxes?
This is the way government works. They've even got a term for it: mission creep. And there is no creepier mission than the mission the federal government has currently set itself: to track everyone, everywhere, and to control what we do.
We warned you in The State vs. the People that this was coming. That book is still relevant, still a good read, and still filled with information about what our future will be like in this new American police state.
Be forewarned. Be aware.
REAL ID: IT'S THE LAW AND IT'S CRIMINAL
Please take a moment to go to this site: http://www.rebelfirerock.com/home.html. Click on the link that leads to the song "Justice Day." Listen to the music or read the lyrics. Here's the opening of the song:
You're the boot.
Stomping on the human face forever.
You're the eye.
Staring down on everyone and ever seeing all.
You're the lie.
Twisting all our minds into your whoredom.
You are Death.
You are war.
You are slavery.
You're the law.
You're the law.
You're the LAW!
George Orwell was the first to describe totalitarianism as a "boot stomping on the human face forever." But in Orwell's day Americans would have had a hard time believing that the law -- the good old, all-American legislature -- all those smiling senators and "representatives" would be the ones to plant their iron heels in our faces. Back in those innocent days, we imagined tyranny would come from outside.
Well, tyranny is here. And it's a gift from the very people we so trustingly put into office.
Tyranny is THE LAW.
Is this a way to run a country? Tacking something as onerous as national ID onto a must-pass bill and making it law without any debate? What does this say about people the gun owners consider their friends? In the House, where the bill containing the Real ID Act passed 368-58, only three Republicans voted against it. Here's the final roll-call vote so you can see how your own congressperson voted.
In the Senate, not one person cared enough about freedom to vote against it -- or even to demand that senators discuss it.
(The Real ID Act originally passed the House in February as a standalone bill (H.R. 418) by a vote of 261-to-161. House leaders, realizing national ID would have been in trouble in the Senate, then added it to a must-pass military appropriations bill in a cynical ploy to make it almost impossible to fight national ID.)
Turning America into a full-fledged police state was just business as usual to your representatives. And, just as Adolf Hitler scrupulously followed German law while committing his horrors, so your "representatives" and the bureaucrats you face at the national-ID drivers license bureau will also be following the law -- the Real ID law that allows them to enslave you.
(To see what a real Bill of Rights leader would do, read the novel Hope by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith)
WHAT NEXT?
We have two choices now: Resist or submit.
More than 600 organizations, from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Governors Association, opposed the bill. Even the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (which loves national ID and was largely responsible for an earlier attempt at such legislation nine years ago) criticized it.
We can expect lawsuits against national ID, including at least one suit led by state governments.
However, nearly all the opposition from state governments focuses on one area: They're upset because the federal government didn't offer them extra money to enslave us. If Congress bribes them with enough millions and billions, they'll gladly sell our freedom.
Ultimately, real resistance is up to us, as individuals. There are certain courses of action JPFO cannot recommend. But every freedom lover should be pleased if all the people who had a hand in creating Real ID act lost their jobs -- soon. And those individuals who truly value their (and their children's) futures should seriously consider making national ID their line in the sand.
We have already heard from many people saying they will drive without a license rather than submit to a license that has become a Stalinist control document. We just hope their resolve stays equally strong when they face a world in which it's impossible to buy, sell, retire, travel -- or buy a gun -- without national ID.
We ask you to remember men like Alexandr Solzhenitzyn and Natan Sharansky. Both stood up and boldly opposed a tyrannical regime in the Soviet Union. Both risked their lives. Both suffered horribly for their resistance and their protests. But eventually, they triumphed -- and the Soviet Union crumbled.
We are in need of such people, and such courage, today. We cannot wait for someone else to stand up and show that kind of integrity.
We must become the kind of people we admire if we are ever again to live in a nation we can trust.
G-d help us if we fail.*
- The Liberty Crew
ABOUT THE REAL ID ACT
Text of the law (this may change; you can also go to http://thomas.loc.gov and search for H.R.1268, which is the act as it was incorporated into the appropriations bill).
"No Real Debate for Real ID"
"Last Chance to Stop National ID" (written before Senate passage)
* We spell G-d this way because in Judaism it is considered a sign of respect. We spell out the name of the Creator only in sacred settings.
Copyright © 2005 JPFO, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce this alert in full, so long as the JPFO contact information is included.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Immigration is Distorting the Labor Market
Everyone paying attention knows that there are fewer "real jobs" for people with real educations now than there were even ten years ago, that they pay less, and that there were fewer jobs for people with real educations then than there were ten years before that. This was not accidental; it was the product of the manipulation of the job market on a variety of fronts, including the fact that employers, themselves mostly products of dumbed down government schools, by and large are simply not as bright today as they were in days gone by. Often overlooked, however, is the role played by immigration in driving down the wages of those jobs that are still available. Edwin S. Rubenstein rectifies this.
VDARE.COM - http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/050519_nd.htm
May 19, 2005
National Data, By Edwin S. Rubenstein
Young College Graduates Are Struggling. Guess One (Unmentionable) Reason
This spring, thousands of young Americans are graduating from college. They and their tuition-strapped parents regard the degree as a good investment—a ticket to financial independence and a better life. Unfortunately, the labor market no longer seems to share this view.
The real wages of young college graduates (ages 25 to 35) fell in 2004 for the third consecutive year. According to figures complied by the Economic Policy Institute, “Young College Graduates Face Weak Labor Market,” Job Watch, May 6, 2005.] Between 2001 and 2004, the real wages of young college graduates dropped from $23.04 per hour to $22.41 per hour.
Employment is finally turning around, but not fast enough to soak up the influx of new college grads. Thus the employment rate of young graduates in 2004 was 85.2 percent, down from 87.4 percent in 2000. It has been 20 years since the fraction of young college graduates with jobs has been as low as it was in 2003 and 2004.
It’s trendy to blame the declining economic fortunes of the college-educated on outsourcing or the post-bubble collapse of high-tech. But immigration may be, as usual, the factor that dare not speak its name.
Immigrants represent a rapidly growing share of the college educated workforce—and an even larger fraction of the educated unemployed. (Table 1.)
From 2000 to 2003 (the latest year of available data):
- The college-educated labor force grew by 10.3 percent
- The foreign-born college educated labor force grew 24.6 percent
- The U.S.-born college educated labor force grew 8.2 percent
The growth rate of college-educated immigrants was three-times that of college-educated natives.
This occurred despite the post 911 slowdown in student visa processing. This also occurred despite a doubling of the unemployment rate of college-educated foreigners.
Economists call this a “supply-shock”—a situation where excess labor causes wages to fall.
The role of college-educated foreigners in depressing wages of U.S. natives is brought home by Harvard economist (and Cuban immigrant) George Borjas. In his seminal Quarterly Journal of Economics paper [The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping:] Borjas concludes that immigration 1980-2000 reduced wages of the average U.S.-born worker by 3.2 percent in 2000.
The reduction varied dramatically among education levels. Native high-school dropouts suffered an 8.9 percent wage reduction. But even college-educated natives suffered an above-average reduction of 4.9 percent.
The impact was greatest on college graduates with 11-15 years of work experience – i.e., most likely to have young families – when it amounted to 5.9 percent. Even new college graduates, with 1-5 years of experience, faced a wage reduction of 3.5 percent.
Remember when an American college proposed that tuition payments be linked to income its graduates received while working?
That might be another victim of immigration.
Edwin S. Rubenstein (email him) is President of ESR Research Economic Consultants in Indianapolis.
VDARE.COM - http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/050519_nd.htm
May 19, 2005
National Data, By Edwin S. Rubenstein
Young College Graduates Are Struggling. Guess One (Unmentionable) Reason
This spring, thousands of young Americans are graduating from college. They and their tuition-strapped parents regard the degree as a good investment—a ticket to financial independence and a better life. Unfortunately, the labor market no longer seems to share this view.
The real wages of young college graduates (ages 25 to 35) fell in 2004 for the third consecutive year. According to figures complied by the Economic Policy Institute, “Young College Graduates Face Weak Labor Market,” Job Watch, May 6, 2005.] Between 2001 and 2004, the real wages of young college graduates dropped from $23.04 per hour to $22.41 per hour.
Employment is finally turning around, but not fast enough to soak up the influx of new college grads. Thus the employment rate of young graduates in 2004 was 85.2 percent, down from 87.4 percent in 2000. It has been 20 years since the fraction of young college graduates with jobs has been as low as it was in 2003 and 2004.
It’s trendy to blame the declining economic fortunes of the college-educated on outsourcing or the post-bubble collapse of high-tech. But immigration may be, as usual, the factor that dare not speak its name.
Immigrants represent a rapidly growing share of the college educated workforce—and an even larger fraction of the educated unemployed. (Table 1.)
From 2000 to 2003 (the latest year of available data):
- The college-educated labor force grew by 10.3 percent
- The foreign-born college educated labor force grew 24.6 percent
- The U.S.-born college educated labor force grew 8.2 percent
The growth rate of college-educated immigrants was three-times that of college-educated natives.
This occurred despite the post 911 slowdown in student visa processing. This also occurred despite a doubling of the unemployment rate of college-educated foreigners.
Economists call this a “supply-shock”—a situation where excess labor causes wages to fall.
The role of college-educated foreigners in depressing wages of U.S. natives is brought home by Harvard economist (and Cuban immigrant) George Borjas. In his seminal Quarterly Journal of Economics paper [The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping:] Borjas concludes that immigration 1980-2000 reduced wages of the average U.S.-born worker by 3.2 percent in 2000.
The reduction varied dramatically among education levels. Native high-school dropouts suffered an 8.9 percent wage reduction. But even college-educated natives suffered an above-average reduction of 4.9 percent.
The impact was greatest on college graduates with 11-15 years of work experience – i.e., most likely to have young families – when it amounted to 5.9 percent. Even new college graduates, with 1-5 years of experience, faced a wage reduction of 3.5 percent.
Remember when an American college proposed that tuition payments be linked to income its graduates received while working?
That might be another victim of immigration.
Edwin S. Rubenstein (email him) is President of ESR Research Economic Consultants in Indianapolis.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Star Wars and the New World Order
The new Star Wars movie, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, opens this week, bringing the series to an end (for now, at least). Time for some reflection on what George Lucas was trying to do with this science fiction saga that will define his career. Link courtesy of John Adam.
Darth Vader and the New World Order
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith mirrors reality
Infowars.com | May 18, 2005
Alex Jones
The Star Wars story has had, without a question, the greatest impact on popular culture of any movie in world history. We will now explore why it has resonated so strongly with so many people across generations.
At last, the mainstream media is picking up on something we've been talking about for years. The plot lines of George Lucas' six Star Wars films mirror, in many respects, the activities of western governments.
George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars saga, has said over and over again that he simply plays on subconscious archetypal symbols that evoke primeval fears and passions. Lucas has also stated on many occasions that he draws from historical examples of imperial leaders' lust for war and total power.
Lucas has said that that is why his films have such a powerful effect of people. Deep down, everyone knows that the greatest threat to life and liberty isn't the average criminal on the street, but the monolithic, all-powerful state.
The human desire to resist tyranny is one of the strongest drives we have and Lucas plays upon that instinct masterfully.
Article Synopsis
This story deals not only with parallels between Star Wars Episode III and the Iraq invasion, it also details the psychology of government-sponsored terrorism as a tool of empire, and real secret societies like the Order of Death that Darth Vader and the Sith are based on.
Most young people have been fed a false political paradigm and so are bored with history and world events.
When they learn the true nature of the global controllers in a Star Wars context we know they will join the real rebellion.
Learn who the real dark lords are in Martial Law.
While premiering his film, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, at the Cannes Film Festival George Lucas was asked if his new film was a social commentary on George Bush and the Iraq invasion (which even our own government admits is part of America's new "kindly, helpful and loving" imperialism).
How can they not ask this when Darth Vader says to his former teacher Obi-Wan Kenobi, "if you're not with me, then you're my enemy." Remember that Lord Bush, after the 9/11 attacks said, "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
Lucas responded to the reporters by saying that the original Star Wars was developed in the early post-Veitnam War era shortly after Richard Nixon left office amidst a byzantine scandal.
He continued by saying, "The issue was, how does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship...When I wrote it, Iraq (the U.S.-led war) didn't exist.. but the parallels of what we did in Vietnam and Iraq are un believable ...I didn't think it was going to get this close."
Speaking about present day America he said, "I hope this doesn't come true in our country."
There are thousands of examples of classical despotism being practiced in the US and worldwide today. Here are just a couple:
- Our new Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, in published memos told the President and military leaders that US forces could interrogate detainees to death. If the detainees died while being tortured, the military's actions would be legal as long as they hadn't killed them on purpose. The document contained examples of how to strap someone down to a table and lower them into "liquid effluent" until they began to pass out.
Gonzales had the nerve to say that President Bush is the law and that he can break any Federal or international law that he wishes because he is the President. Gonzalez openly defended his view in front of a Senate panel that still confirmed him to be Attorney General.
Remember Hans Solo in the Empire Strikes Back strapped down in a torture chair as Darth Vader administers electric shocks. According the Alberto Gonzales' logic this is good. Vader works for the Emperor and the Emperor is the law.
The Attorney General's dark views are shared by the rest of the White House. They believe that they are above the law. Coupled with the exploding American police state, this reality is the text book manifestation of dictatorship.
Combine this open demonstration of dictatorship with 63 countries on a White House invasion hit-list and tyrannical empire is the only term that fits.
-Under section 802 of the USA Patriot Act, misdemeanor non-terror related crimes are listed as terrorism. Citizens are stripped of their most basic Constitutional rights that were held sacred in the old Republic.
-George Bush has set up a draconian Department of Homeland Security, giving FEMA the power to engage in mass arrests.
-Last year, the outgoing head of CENTCOM, General Tommy Franks, told the press that if America was attacked again the Constitution would be set aside in favor of a military form of government.
-The Federal government is dismantling the last vestiges of States' rights with its new Federally-standardized National ID Card that has been integrated with thousands of private databases to track and trace our every action.
Government-Sponsored Terrorism
When I first saw Episode I, I instantly understood the plot. Being a student of history, it made total sense. But, I was amazed, time and time again, when talking to educated adults who were also Star Wars fans that they didn't get it. They'd say, "it doesn't make any sense."
This phenomenon got even worse when Episode II came out. People were totally confused. They didn't understand a plot that children could grasp.
For those who are still confused, here's a plot synopsis in a nutshell:
In Episode I, Senator Palpatine is an obscure politician from the peaceful world of Naboo. Palpatine influences Naboo not to pay its Trade Federation taxes. The corrupt mercantile Trade Federation cartel then blockades the Naboo system and begins a ground invasion of its capitol, taking its orders from the sinister leader Darth Sidious, Lord of the Sith, who is one and the same with Senator Palpatine.
By manipulating the outcome of the Naboo police action, Palpatine (who then plays the part of resisting an operation that he has launched) is able to springboard into the Chancellery of the Galactic Senate.
Episode II begins with a widening conflict that threatens to destroy the hundred thousand-year-old Republic. The newly- elected Chancellor (Palpatine) is able to use the expanding crisis as a pretext to pass police state legislation and to launch a mammoth military buildup.
As in Episode I, Darth Sidious is in control of the separatists led by the charismatic Count Dooku, who is his secret apprentice, Darth Tyrannus. Darth Sidious uses his agent (Count Dooku) to create a crisis that threatens to destroy the Republic, thus threatening the Republic's very existence and manipulating the Senate into giving him the powers of a dictator.
This is the classic use of problem-reaction-solution. Create a crisis, get the reaction of fear from the population, and offer the solution of a police state that you control.
Real-world examples of this through history are:
-Adolph Hitler, two months after being elected Chancellor, firebombed the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, blamed it on his political enemies and declared martial law in the Reich.
-Most historians now believe that the US government bombed its own ship in Havana harbor as a pretext to launch the Spanish-American war in 1898.
-The LBJ Presidential library in 2003 released taped conversations between President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in which they discussed how the Gulf of Tonkin attack never really took place and how to use it to officially kick of the Vietnam War which resulted in the deaths of over 58,000 US troops and over a million Vietnamese.
-In early 2001, the Baltimore Sun and ABC News reported on a newly-declassified operation code-named Northwoods, where the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed hijacking jets by remote control and crashing them, bombing DC, committing sniper attacks in Miami and DC, having the CIA attack the Guantanamo Bay Marine Corps base with mortars, and how to blame all of this terrorism on Cuba and the Soviet Union, giving the Pentagon the pretext to start World War III.
The plan was green-lighted all the way up to President Kennedy who vetoed the plan. The bottom line is that the US government planned to terrorize its own cities as a pretext for war.
In Episode III, the surviving Jedi realize, when its too late, that the Clone Wars have been systematically engineered by the Lord of the Sith to destroy the Republic and the Jedi.
In the end, the Emperor dispatches his dark apprentice, Darth Vader, to exterminate the Jedi and the leaders of the separatist movement (that the Chancellor controlled), leaving the enemies of the Sith dead and the Sith in control of the Central Government. The despotic Galactic Empire is born.
George Bush: Problem-Reaction-Solution
We look at the real world and the military-industrial-complex that controls George Bush, and it is clear that the government is using the problem-reaction-solution system to bring in their own empire.
Using the threat of terrorism, the Executive Branch has declared authoritarian powers unto itself. At the same time, they tell the people that they won't be safe until every "rogue" nation (nations that are sovereign) are under World Government control.
It is a fact that bin Laden has been a CIA agent since at least 1981. The highest levels of the CIA have publicly said that they do not want to catch him.
Think about who really has the motive for the September 11th attacks. None of the Arab nations have taken responsibility, although they've been falsely accused of carrying out the attacks. Who in their right mind would attack the heart of an unmatched military juggernaut with seven times superiority of any military on earth?
Who stands to gain? Who gets trillions of dollars in Iraqi and Afghan oil? What group gets to sell hundreds of billions in weapons systems? Who gets to be our hero and silence all political opposition? What group is now turning America into a high-tech police state? In the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) documents, Dick Cheney told us in 2000 that the neo-cons and their backers gain.
PNAC documents written by Dick Cheney and other top neo-cons call for a helpful Pearl Harbor-like attack to mobilize the American people in a war for empire. One of the Pentagon's chief strategists, Tomas Barnett, openly calls America an empire and has a laundry list of nations that need to be invaded immediately.
The bin Laden family has been in business with Bushes for over thirty years. Bush Senior and the bin Ladens vacation together. The Bushes and the bin Ladens are on the board of the armament dealing consortium, the Carlyle group whose profits have quadrupled since 9/11.
The press has been forced to admit that the hijackers had their houses, cars and credit cards paid for by the Federal government. They were trained on US military bases. When US Embassies tried to block their entry into the US, the CIA ordered them to allow entry.
There are over 600 pieces of evidence that show that bin Laden is George Bush's Count Dooku, which are covered in detail in my three films on 9/11, the newest being Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State.
Hollywood Movies: Art Imitates Life
I've noticed with fantasy people have trouble understanding the concept of would-be tyrants creating crises so they can offer the solution. We see popular Hollywood films peppered with this idea. For example:
In the blockbuster, The Incredibles, the evil genius, Syndrome, wants to be worshipped as a super hero, so he stages a robotic attack on a US city which he plans to then foil and become the people's savior.
In the film, Final Fantasy, a General who wants to be given dictatorial powers opens the gates so the enemy can attack New York and then discredit his peacenik opponents.
There are countless examples of this, and I've noticed that when I talk to adults who have seen these films they don't understand the plots. But, when I talk to children they completely grasp it.
From a sociological/psychological perspective, why is there this blind spot in adults? Is it being engineered into us? Are we in denial? If so many intelligent people can't grasp a children's plot line, no wonder they can't really understand what's behind 9/11.
Missing the Big Picture
Infowars.com has seen scores of mainline publications from CBS News to Japan Today drawing parallels between America's predatory militarism and the grasping empire of the Star Wars universe.
What they've missed is the central point that Lucas makes time and time again. Criminal elements within the government that seek to overthrow freedom and replace it with slavery get their power through carrying out terrorist attacks and manufacturing enemies that they fund and control.
In some cases, as with the separatists in Star Wars, they don't even know who they are controlled by, just as an Arab suicide bomber might not know that the funds and training that he received came from a western intelligence agency. He doesn't know that his attack will be used to crack down on entire populations and stop any real peace process, because the weapon dealers have no interest in peace. Chaos is the ether in which they swim.
The dominant press also misses the boat on how much Star Wars itself has been influenced by the Third Reich. The uniforms worn by imperial officers are almost identical to the German military staff. Political officers in the empire wear the black uniforms that even more closely resemble the dreaded garb of the German political police, the SS.
Star Wars also acts as a type of cultural feedback loop. Star Wars' villains are modeled after the Nazis (Darth Vader's helmet is simply a slightly more pronounced German artillery solder's head piece), and, in turn, modern governments are themselves influenced by the visigothic-style of Star Wars.
The press reported in the early 1980's that while Ronald Reagan was campaigning for President in 1979 he was camping at Bohemian Grove in Northern California with business leaders. They came up with the idea to give the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) the catchy name "Star Wars." '
Out of SDI grew the US Space Command. Today all US military forces are under the control of the ultra-secretive US Space Command.
In the 1980's military and law enforcement planners wanted to come up with intimidating uniforms for SWAT teams and militarized riot police. They came up with a design which has now been adopted thanks to federal grants in almost every major city. The uniform, which they admit is meant to strike fear into the public, is extremely similar to the suit worn by the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader.
Seattle Riot Cop
A Ringwraith
Or course, long before Darth Vader existed in our minds, every culture had a dark totem representing evil and domination that manifested itself as a tall, pitch-black hooded or helmeted sorcerer. Similar to the ringwraiths of J.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy.
We should all be concerned that our government is choosing to clothe our police in these macabre get-ups. Throughout history, secret police, torturers, inquisitors, executioners, terrorists, bank robbers and every other form of scum has worn the black mask. Of course, in the Ku Klux Klan, the black mask is only worn by the Supreme Grand Dragon.
The New World Order
In Episode III, the Emperor talks about a "New Order." How many Presidents and leaders have we heard spout off about a "New Order" or a "New World Order?" George Bush Senior, Adolph Hitler, and countless others have all called for a New World Order.
A New World Order is a worldwide dictatorship. At least that is what the encyclopedia said up until the 1960's. Now resource books, especially those for children tell you that it is a loving, wonderful thing that will keep us all safe from terror.
Secret Societies
In the Star Wars universe, the Sith are members of a self-centered secret society that has been passing down its knowledge for thousands of years. The religion revels in death and destruction. War is its sacrament, death stars and war ships its cathedrals. This is one of the central threads that runs throughout the entirety of Star Wars lore.
For over a decade, I have been studying civilization and time and time again in my research I run into the occult, secret societies and, at the top of it all, the Order of Death, known by the public as the order of Skull and Bones.
The only widely known manifestation of the Order of Death is one of its chapters based at Yale University, the Order of Skull and Bones, Chapter 322, of which both George W. Bush and his father are members. Three Presidents have been members of Chapter 322 alone. Eight CIA directors were members. George W. Bush's administration has 11 members currently at the highest levels. And 322 is only one chapter.
In July of 2000, I infiltrated what can be called the mother ship of the Order of Death, the Bohemian Grove. This is the same place where Reagan decided to call SDI "Star Wars." Major California papers have reported on the rumors that world leaders meet there and perform bizarre black magic rituals to the Caananite deity that represented death, Moloch.
While I was inside, I was able to secretly film the bizarre annual ritual, the Cremation of Care, which takes place at the Bohemian Grove every year. The footage I took aired nationally on the Trio Network.
Now, we have come full circle. Why is all of this important? Because, since infiltrating, I have become aware of and have obtained publicly available annals of Bohemian Grove and its correspondence with Skull and Bones. Many of these documents are posted on infowars.com in the Bohemian Grove section.
What we learned shocked me to my very core. Skull and Bones and Bohemian Grove are nothing but US extensions of a germanic death cult that has been operating for thousands of years. This same group, that calls itself the Order of Death, is mentioned as the Tooley and Thule society and respected, mainstream works on the rise of the Third Reich detail how Adolph Hitler was a member of his group, and how they supported his rise to power and his subsequent actions in World War II.
Then I learned that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the President, had gotten into deep trouble during World War II for trading with the enemy, and that he was on the Board of Directors of the company owned by Fritz Thyssen who was also a member of the Order of Death and the chief financier of Hitler in Germany.
In my new film, Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State I detail these facts with documents from the National Archives, the London Guardian, the New Hampshire Gazette, and Skull and Bones and Bohemian Grove's own annals.
I've really got to hand it to George Lucas. He really did his homework. It took me a decade of intense research to discover the fact that our world is dominated by members of a secret society that give themselves names like "Lord Death," "Lord Longtooth," "Lord Dragon," and "Long Devil."
Lucas was able to expose, if you think he's doing it for good, or desensitize, if you think he's doing it for bad, the entire public to the reality of what is going on, projected onto the backdrop of fantasy.
Take away the light sabers and levitation and you're left with what our world leaders really believe in, what their religion really is, what makes them tick. The global controllers, of whom Bush is just a puppet, are using the same tactics to control populations employed by the Dark Lords of the Sith.
I know this is hard to believe, but if you just research their own publications they brag about it. German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in his own autobiography, Men and Powers, A Political Retrospective bragged that they had their own secret society meeting places in German where they did rituals, but his favorite place was Bohemian Grove.
I probably shouldn't be surprised by George Lucas' insight, his understanding of this greatest of secrets. By telling his Star Wars story and interlacing it with the truth, he touched all of our subconscious minds where we deep down know the truth about the world but don't have the courage to consciously admit it.
In doing so, Lucas has made over 10 billion dollars with his films and merchandise. By telling the truth even in a screened way, he has tapped into our collective unconscious and told us a story that we know is true.
In closing, it's important to see George Lucas' first feature film, THX-1138, based on a student film he produced in college. THX, which has become Lucas' signet, appearing in all of his films and most of his products, tells the story of man totally dehumanized in a forced-drugged, shaved-head police state and how one man stands up and breaks free of that system.
That's the heart of why the public loves Lucas. Not just that he tells the truth in a way that gets past the censors, but that he reminds us that the individual can stand up against organized evil and win.
To learn about the real dark lords of the Sith, visit the links below:
Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State
Art Imitates Reality: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Bohemian Grove
W's "Uncle Bucky" (Secret Society Pal of John Negroponte and Porter Goss) Makes a Killing off Iraq War
How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power
The Bush-Nazi Connection
The New World Order elite has big plans for Arnold
In Your Face: The Globalists' Language is Hidden in Plain View
Darth Vader and the New World Order
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith mirrors reality
Infowars.com | May 18, 2005
Alex Jones
The Star Wars story has had, without a question, the greatest impact on popular culture of any movie in world history. We will now explore why it has resonated so strongly with so many people across generations.
At last, the mainstream media is picking up on something we've been talking about for years. The plot lines of George Lucas' six Star Wars films mirror, in many respects, the activities of western governments.
George Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars saga, has said over and over again that he simply plays on subconscious archetypal symbols that evoke primeval fears and passions. Lucas has also stated on many occasions that he draws from historical examples of imperial leaders' lust for war and total power.
Lucas has said that that is why his films have such a powerful effect of people. Deep down, everyone knows that the greatest threat to life and liberty isn't the average criminal on the street, but the monolithic, all-powerful state.
The human desire to resist tyranny is one of the strongest drives we have and Lucas plays upon that instinct masterfully.
Article Synopsis
This story deals not only with parallels between Star Wars Episode III and the Iraq invasion, it also details the psychology of government-sponsored terrorism as a tool of empire, and real secret societies like the Order of Death that Darth Vader and the Sith are based on.
Most young people have been fed a false political paradigm and so are bored with history and world events.
When they learn the true nature of the global controllers in a Star Wars context we know they will join the real rebellion.
Learn who the real dark lords are in Martial Law.
While premiering his film, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, at the Cannes Film Festival George Lucas was asked if his new film was a social commentary on George Bush and the Iraq invasion (which even our own government admits is part of America's new "kindly, helpful and loving" imperialism).
How can they not ask this when Darth Vader says to his former teacher Obi-Wan Kenobi, "if you're not with me, then you're my enemy." Remember that Lord Bush, after the 9/11 attacks said, "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
Lucas responded to the reporters by saying that the original Star Wars was developed in the early post-Veitnam War era shortly after Richard Nixon left office amidst a byzantine scandal.
He continued by saying, "The issue was, how does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship...When I wrote it, Iraq (the U.S.-led war) didn't exist.. but the parallels of what we did in Vietnam and Iraq are un believable ...I didn't think it was going to get this close."
Speaking about present day America he said, "I hope this doesn't come true in our country."
There are thousands of examples of classical despotism being practiced in the US and worldwide today. Here are just a couple:
- Our new Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, in published memos told the President and military leaders that US forces could interrogate detainees to death. If the detainees died while being tortured, the military's actions would be legal as long as they hadn't killed them on purpose. The document contained examples of how to strap someone down to a table and lower them into "liquid effluent" until they began to pass out.
Gonzales had the nerve to say that President Bush is the law and that he can break any Federal or international law that he wishes because he is the President. Gonzalez openly defended his view in front of a Senate panel that still confirmed him to be Attorney General.
Remember Hans Solo in the Empire Strikes Back strapped down in a torture chair as Darth Vader administers electric shocks. According the Alberto Gonzales' logic this is good. Vader works for the Emperor and the Emperor is the law.
The Attorney General's dark views are shared by the rest of the White House. They believe that they are above the law. Coupled with the exploding American police state, this reality is the text book manifestation of dictatorship.
Combine this open demonstration of dictatorship with 63 countries on a White House invasion hit-list and tyrannical empire is the only term that fits.
-Under section 802 of the USA Patriot Act, misdemeanor non-terror related crimes are listed as terrorism. Citizens are stripped of their most basic Constitutional rights that were held sacred in the old Republic.
-George Bush has set up a draconian Department of Homeland Security, giving FEMA the power to engage in mass arrests.
-Last year, the outgoing head of CENTCOM, General Tommy Franks, told the press that if America was attacked again the Constitution would be set aside in favor of a military form of government.
-The Federal government is dismantling the last vestiges of States' rights with its new Federally-standardized National ID Card that has been integrated with thousands of private databases to track and trace our every action.
Government-Sponsored Terrorism
When I first saw Episode I, I instantly understood the plot. Being a student of history, it made total sense. But, I was amazed, time and time again, when talking to educated adults who were also Star Wars fans that they didn't get it. They'd say, "it doesn't make any sense."
This phenomenon got even worse when Episode II came out. People were totally confused. They didn't understand a plot that children could grasp.
For those who are still confused, here's a plot synopsis in a nutshell:
In Episode I, Senator Palpatine is an obscure politician from the peaceful world of Naboo. Palpatine influences Naboo not to pay its Trade Federation taxes. The corrupt mercantile Trade Federation cartel then blockades the Naboo system and begins a ground invasion of its capitol, taking its orders from the sinister leader Darth Sidious, Lord of the Sith, who is one and the same with Senator Palpatine.
By manipulating the outcome of the Naboo police action, Palpatine (who then plays the part of resisting an operation that he has launched) is able to springboard into the Chancellery of the Galactic Senate.
Episode II begins with a widening conflict that threatens to destroy the hundred thousand-year-old Republic. The newly- elected Chancellor (Palpatine) is able to use the expanding crisis as a pretext to pass police state legislation and to launch a mammoth military buildup.
As in Episode I, Darth Sidious is in control of the separatists led by the charismatic Count Dooku, who is his secret apprentice, Darth Tyrannus. Darth Sidious uses his agent (Count Dooku) to create a crisis that threatens to destroy the Republic, thus threatening the Republic's very existence and manipulating the Senate into giving him the powers of a dictator.
This is the classic use of problem-reaction-solution. Create a crisis, get the reaction of fear from the population, and offer the solution of a police state that you control.
Real-world examples of this through history are:
-Adolph Hitler, two months after being elected Chancellor, firebombed the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, blamed it on his political enemies and declared martial law in the Reich.
-Most historians now believe that the US government bombed its own ship in Havana harbor as a pretext to launch the Spanish-American war in 1898.
-The LBJ Presidential library in 2003 released taped conversations between President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in which they discussed how the Gulf of Tonkin attack never really took place and how to use it to officially kick of the Vietnam War which resulted in the deaths of over 58,000 US troops and over a million Vietnamese.
-In early 2001, the Baltimore Sun and ABC News reported on a newly-declassified operation code-named Northwoods, where the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed hijacking jets by remote control and crashing them, bombing DC, committing sniper attacks in Miami and DC, having the CIA attack the Guantanamo Bay Marine Corps base with mortars, and how to blame all of this terrorism on Cuba and the Soviet Union, giving the Pentagon the pretext to start World War III.
The plan was green-lighted all the way up to President Kennedy who vetoed the plan. The bottom line is that the US government planned to terrorize its own cities as a pretext for war.
In Episode III, the surviving Jedi realize, when its too late, that the Clone Wars have been systematically engineered by the Lord of the Sith to destroy the Republic and the Jedi.
In the end, the Emperor dispatches his dark apprentice, Darth Vader, to exterminate the Jedi and the leaders of the separatist movement (that the Chancellor controlled), leaving the enemies of the Sith dead and the Sith in control of the Central Government. The despotic Galactic Empire is born.
George Bush: Problem-Reaction-Solution
We look at the real world and the military-industrial-complex that controls George Bush, and it is clear that the government is using the problem-reaction-solution system to bring in their own empire.
Using the threat of terrorism, the Executive Branch has declared authoritarian powers unto itself. At the same time, they tell the people that they won't be safe until every "rogue" nation (nations that are sovereign) are under World Government control.
It is a fact that bin Laden has been a CIA agent since at least 1981. The highest levels of the CIA have publicly said that they do not want to catch him.
Think about who really has the motive for the September 11th attacks. None of the Arab nations have taken responsibility, although they've been falsely accused of carrying out the attacks. Who in their right mind would attack the heart of an unmatched military juggernaut with seven times superiority of any military on earth?
Who stands to gain? Who gets trillions of dollars in Iraqi and Afghan oil? What group gets to sell hundreds of billions in weapons systems? Who gets to be our hero and silence all political opposition? What group is now turning America into a high-tech police state? In the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) documents, Dick Cheney told us in 2000 that the neo-cons and their backers gain.
PNAC documents written by Dick Cheney and other top neo-cons call for a helpful Pearl Harbor-like attack to mobilize the American people in a war for empire. One of the Pentagon's chief strategists, Tomas Barnett, openly calls America an empire and has a laundry list of nations that need to be invaded immediately.
The bin Laden family has been in business with Bushes for over thirty years. Bush Senior and the bin Ladens vacation together. The Bushes and the bin Ladens are on the board of the armament dealing consortium, the Carlyle group whose profits have quadrupled since 9/11.
The press has been forced to admit that the hijackers had their houses, cars and credit cards paid for by the Federal government. They were trained on US military bases. When US Embassies tried to block their entry into the US, the CIA ordered them to allow entry.
There are over 600 pieces of evidence that show that bin Laden is George Bush's Count Dooku, which are covered in detail in my three films on 9/11, the newest being Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State.
Hollywood Movies: Art Imitates Life
I've noticed with fantasy people have trouble understanding the concept of would-be tyrants creating crises so they can offer the solution. We see popular Hollywood films peppered with this idea. For example:
In the blockbuster, The Incredibles, the evil genius, Syndrome, wants to be worshipped as a super hero, so he stages a robotic attack on a US city which he plans to then foil and become the people's savior.
In the film, Final Fantasy, a General who wants to be given dictatorial powers opens the gates so the enemy can attack New York and then discredit his peacenik opponents.
There are countless examples of this, and I've noticed that when I talk to adults who have seen these films they don't understand the plots. But, when I talk to children they completely grasp it.
From a sociological/psychological perspective, why is there this blind spot in adults? Is it being engineered into us? Are we in denial? If so many intelligent people can't grasp a children's plot line, no wonder they can't really understand what's behind 9/11.
Missing the Big Picture
Infowars.com has seen scores of mainline publications from CBS News to Japan Today drawing parallels between America's predatory militarism and the grasping empire of the Star Wars universe.
What they've missed is the central point that Lucas makes time and time again. Criminal elements within the government that seek to overthrow freedom and replace it with slavery get their power through carrying out terrorist attacks and manufacturing enemies that they fund and control.
In some cases, as with the separatists in Star Wars, they don't even know who they are controlled by, just as an Arab suicide bomber might not know that the funds and training that he received came from a western intelligence agency. He doesn't know that his attack will be used to crack down on entire populations and stop any real peace process, because the weapon dealers have no interest in peace. Chaos is the ether in which they swim.
The dominant press also misses the boat on how much Star Wars itself has been influenced by the Third Reich. The uniforms worn by imperial officers are almost identical to the German military staff. Political officers in the empire wear the black uniforms that even more closely resemble the dreaded garb of the German political police, the SS.
Star Wars also acts as a type of cultural feedback loop. Star Wars' villains are modeled after the Nazis (Darth Vader's helmet is simply a slightly more pronounced German artillery solder's head piece), and, in turn, modern governments are themselves influenced by the visigothic-style of Star Wars.
The press reported in the early 1980's that while Ronald Reagan was campaigning for President in 1979 he was camping at Bohemian Grove in Northern California with business leaders. They came up with the idea to give the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) the catchy name "Star Wars." '
Out of SDI grew the US Space Command. Today all US military forces are under the control of the ultra-secretive US Space Command.
In the 1980's military and law enforcement planners wanted to come up with intimidating uniforms for SWAT teams and militarized riot police. They came up with a design which has now been adopted thanks to federal grants in almost every major city. The uniform, which they admit is meant to strike fear into the public, is extremely similar to the suit worn by the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader.
Seattle Riot Cop
A Ringwraith
Or course, long before Darth Vader existed in our minds, every culture had a dark totem representing evil and domination that manifested itself as a tall, pitch-black hooded or helmeted sorcerer. Similar to the ringwraiths of J.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy.
We should all be concerned that our government is choosing to clothe our police in these macabre get-ups. Throughout history, secret police, torturers, inquisitors, executioners, terrorists, bank robbers and every other form of scum has worn the black mask. Of course, in the Ku Klux Klan, the black mask is only worn by the Supreme Grand Dragon.
The New World Order
In Episode III, the Emperor talks about a "New Order." How many Presidents and leaders have we heard spout off about a "New Order" or a "New World Order?" George Bush Senior, Adolph Hitler, and countless others have all called for a New World Order.
A New World Order is a worldwide dictatorship. At least that is what the encyclopedia said up until the 1960's. Now resource books, especially those for children tell you that it is a loving, wonderful thing that will keep us all safe from terror.
Secret Societies
In the Star Wars universe, the Sith are members of a self-centered secret society that has been passing down its knowledge for thousands of years. The religion revels in death and destruction. War is its sacrament, death stars and war ships its cathedrals. This is one of the central threads that runs throughout the entirety of Star Wars lore.
For over a decade, I have been studying civilization and time and time again in my research I run into the occult, secret societies and, at the top of it all, the Order of Death, known by the public as the order of Skull and Bones.
The only widely known manifestation of the Order of Death is one of its chapters based at Yale University, the Order of Skull and Bones, Chapter 322, of which both George W. Bush and his father are members. Three Presidents have been members of Chapter 322 alone. Eight CIA directors were members. George W. Bush's administration has 11 members currently at the highest levels. And 322 is only one chapter.
In July of 2000, I infiltrated what can be called the mother ship of the Order of Death, the Bohemian Grove. This is the same place where Reagan decided to call SDI "Star Wars." Major California papers have reported on the rumors that world leaders meet there and perform bizarre black magic rituals to the Caananite deity that represented death, Moloch.
While I was inside, I was able to secretly film the bizarre annual ritual, the Cremation of Care, which takes place at the Bohemian Grove every year. The footage I took aired nationally on the Trio Network.
Now, we have come full circle. Why is all of this important? Because, since infiltrating, I have become aware of and have obtained publicly available annals of Bohemian Grove and its correspondence with Skull and Bones. Many of these documents are posted on infowars.com in the Bohemian Grove section.
What we learned shocked me to my very core. Skull and Bones and Bohemian Grove are nothing but US extensions of a germanic death cult that has been operating for thousands of years. This same group, that calls itself the Order of Death, is mentioned as the Tooley and Thule society and respected, mainstream works on the rise of the Third Reich detail how Adolph Hitler was a member of his group, and how they supported his rise to power and his subsequent actions in World War II.
Then I learned that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of the President, had gotten into deep trouble during World War II for trading with the enemy, and that he was on the Board of Directors of the company owned by Fritz Thyssen who was also a member of the Order of Death and the chief financier of Hitler in Germany.
In my new film, Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State I detail these facts with documents from the National Archives, the London Guardian, the New Hampshire Gazette, and Skull and Bones and Bohemian Grove's own annals.
I've really got to hand it to George Lucas. He really did his homework. It took me a decade of intense research to discover the fact that our world is dominated by members of a secret society that give themselves names like "Lord Death," "Lord Longtooth," "Lord Dragon," and "Long Devil."
Lucas was able to expose, if you think he's doing it for good, or desensitize, if you think he's doing it for bad, the entire public to the reality of what is going on, projected onto the backdrop of fantasy.
Take away the light sabers and levitation and you're left with what our world leaders really believe in, what their religion really is, what makes them tick. The global controllers, of whom Bush is just a puppet, are using the same tactics to control populations employed by the Dark Lords of the Sith.
I know this is hard to believe, but if you just research their own publications they brag about it. German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in his own autobiography, Men and Powers, A Political Retrospective bragged that they had their own secret society meeting places in German where they did rituals, but his favorite place was Bohemian Grove.
I probably shouldn't be surprised by George Lucas' insight, his understanding of this greatest of secrets. By telling his Star Wars story and interlacing it with the truth, he touched all of our subconscious minds where we deep down know the truth about the world but don't have the courage to consciously admit it.
In doing so, Lucas has made over 10 billion dollars with his films and merchandise. By telling the truth even in a screened way, he has tapped into our collective unconscious and told us a story that we know is true.
In closing, it's important to see George Lucas' first feature film, THX-1138, based on a student film he produced in college. THX, which has become Lucas' signet, appearing in all of his films and most of his products, tells the story of man totally dehumanized in a forced-drugged, shaved-head police state and how one man stands up and breaks free of that system.
That's the heart of why the public loves Lucas. Not just that he tells the truth in a way that gets past the censors, but that he reminds us that the individual can stand up against organized evil and win.
To learn about the real dark lords of the Sith, visit the links below:
Martial Law 9/11: Rise of the Police State
Art Imitates Reality: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Bohemian Grove
W's "Uncle Bucky" (Secret Society Pal of John Negroponte and Porter Goss) Makes a Killing off Iraq War
How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power
The Bush-Nazi Connection
The New World Order elite has big plans for Arnold
In Your Face: The Globalists' Language is Hidden in Plain View
