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</font><div align="center">Evolution of the Apocalypse<br>
Empire’s DemiseHuman Renaissance<br>
by Carol Brouillet<br>
</div>
<br><br>
<b>Apocalypse</b>
(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language">Greek</a>:
<i>Apokálypsis</i>; "lifting of the veil") is a term applied to
the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the
majority of humankind. Today the term is often used to refer to the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_event">end of the
world</a>, which may be a shortening of the phrase <i>apokalupsis
eschaton,</i> which literally means "revelation at the end of the
æon, or age.<a name="_ftnref1"></a>[1]"<br><br>
The unraveling of the US and global financial
system should not be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention,
doubted the news headlines over the past decade, or plunged into an
odyssey of self- and world-discovery by reading books, studying history,
or seeking the truth behind the cultural myths that cocoon Americans into
the notion that they live in the world’s beacon of democracy and
freedom. The most surprising factor is that people who have created
the crisis think that they can continue the scam by stealing another
$850,000,000,000 overtly through the bailout, and even larger amounts
covertly, to keep the game going for the world’s wealthiest people at the
expense of everyone else.<br><br>
In the past, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and Rome
fell when a small percentage of the population controlled nearly all of
the wealth. <a name="_ftnref2"></a>[2] Today, the rich have never been
richer nor the poor poorer. The concentration of wealth has been achieved
by conquest, as well as by one of the most powerful tools of
empiremoney.<br><br>
Debt-based monetary systems are the building
blocks of empires, and generally empires collapse or topple when they
have destroyed their ecological base. The current global empire
severely threatens the forests, the oceans, the climate, the fertility of
the soil, the aquifers, the bees, and innumerable other species,
including humanity. <br><br>
There is a Cree prophecy that goes as
follows<a name="_ftnref3"></a>[3]:<br><br>
“When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been
hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to
breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.”<br><br>
Caught up in the empire game, many have
forgotten the difference between money and real wealth. Money is a human
invention. It is not neutral. Who creates it, how it flows in a society,
a nation, and the world is important and subject to change. Money
is an agreement that can be backed either by force or by a spirit of
cooperation.<a name="_ftnref4"></a>[4] <br><br>
Bankers, like magicians, do not want to reveal
their secrets. Able to create money out of thin air, they have learned
that belief in the value of money is the key to their success. When
people begin to doubt the purchasing power of money, banks fail and
currencies collapse.<br><br>
The “modern” fractional reserve banking system has
evolved over centuries.<a name="_ftnref5"></a>[5] “Mortgage” literally
means “death-gamble.” When mortgages were first introduced, those who
risked their land to borrow money were literally risking the lives of
their families, their liberty, and their hopes for the future. Only
gradually, over eons of time, did the idea of a “mortgage” become more
commonplace, acceptable, and even encouraged. Mortgages became attached
to the “dream of home ownership” and provided the liquid currency to fuel
“national economies.”<br><br>
The origins of paper money can be traced to receipts
that goldsmiths provided to their customers, who would leave their gold
with a goldsmith for safekeeping. Centuries ago goldsmiths began giving
out receipts for the gold that they safeguarded, and people soon learned
that the receipts were more useful for business transactions than heavy
amounts of gold. Some enterprising goldsmith figured out that it was not
necessary to maintain a supply of gold equal to all the receipts issued,
because all the customers would never come to claim their gold at the
same time. Because large amounts of gold weren't necessary to ensure the
utility of receipts, the goldsmith was able to issue many times as many
receipts as he had gold in his vault, and the fractional reserve system
was born. Since goldsmiths began to loan gold and receipts at interest,
the system of "debt money" was born in which customers had to
pay back more money (receipts) than were in circulationthus ensuring
that the community as a whole would always be in debt to the
goldsmith.<br><br>
When money is created by the
banks and loaned to governments or business at interest, it is
mathematically impossible to pay back all the money with interest. Not
all debts can be repaid, so foreclosures occur. In this way wealth is
continually transferred from the poor to the rich. <br><br>
Kings, queens, and nations have succumbed to the
power of those who lend them money, finance their wars, pay their armed
forcesand own the means of communication, which either provide rulers
their aura of legitimacy or can just as easily demonize and dethrone
them.<br><br>
Over a hundred years ago, the populist movement
in the United States rose up in the wake of the collapse of agricultural
prices that threatened farmers and enriched bankers. The farmers
pushed for monetary reform, including the demand that dollars be backed
by silver rather than gold. The populists also argued that money should
be created by the government for the benefit of the people, rather than
by banks for the benefit of the bankers. <br><br>
In 1890 the German economist Silvio Gesell formulated
a theory of money that was as revolutionary as the notion that the earth
circles the sun, rather than the other way arounddespite appearances.
Gesell suggested securing the money flow by making money a governmental
service subject to a use fee. Instead of paying interest to those who
have more money than they need, people would pay a small fee if they kept
money out of circulation. The fee would serve as income to the government
and would reduce the amount of taxes needed to carry out public
tasks. <br><br>
Gesell's ideas were tested by the mayor of Worgl, Austria, in 1932 when
economic conditions were deplorable. The mayor proposed to substitute a
local currency for the national currencywhich he called “work
certificates.” On the first of every month the holder had to affix a 1
percent stamp of the face value of the certificate. The "taxes"
went into the community chest, to provide a relief fund for the invalids
or elderly who were unable to work. Because of the stamp tax, taxes were
paid quickly, accounts were settled without the usual delays, and even
the bank became eager to loan out money, as fast as it received it.
<br><br>
The mayor then embarked upon a
public works program "to alleviate want, give work and bread,"
which exceeded his highest hopes. The conditions of the streets of Worgl
had been a standing joke to the people in the surrounding countryside. In
less than four months, sewers and improvements were completed. Later,
other streets were paved, and even streets outside of Worgl were
repaired. Prosperity blossomed throughout Worgl. <br><br>
Inspired by Worgl’s success, a
meeting of 200 Austrian mayors decided unanimously to follow the Worgl
example in their impoverished communities. At this point, fearful of
losing its power, the private Austrian National Bank protested against
the shattering of its money-making monopoly. After a legal fight, the
Austrian Supreme Court sided with the bank, as might be expected.
Although this experiment was abruptly terminated in Austria, the Worgl
experience inspired three or four hundred scrips in circulation in the
United States, Canada, and Mexico during the Great
Depression.<a name="_ftnref6"></a>[6] <br><br>
If the Federal Reserve were actually a
part of the US government, would the US government need to borrow money?
Wouldn’t it be able to just print its own? In 1913 the Federal Reserve
Act took away Congress’s Constitutional power of regulating the value of
money and bequeathed it to private banks.<a name="_ftnref7"></a>[7]
Since then the financial plight of the US government has been dire and
under pressure from the very rich, who choose which candidates and
politicians will serve their interests and oust those who threaten
them.<br><br>
In recent times there have been numerous
communications revolutions, including radio, television, and the
Internet, and social movements have also arisen. At the same time
there has also been the consolidation and expansion of corporate power
served by new centers of supranational power, such as the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. Alex Carey
said:<br><br>
"The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments
of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of
corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of
protecting corporate power against
democracy.''<a name="_ftnref8"></a>[8]<br><br>
During this time money and resources have flowed
from poor countries to rich industrialized nations. The Structural
Adjustment Programs forced upon nations by the World Bank and the IMF
have meant shifting food production from domestic needs to export crops,
devaluing local currency to encourage exports, cutting social
spending on health and education, reducing wages, privatizing national
industries, selling off natural resources, and removing tariff
protections for local industries. Hunger, unemployment, hardship and
inequality are the direct and calculated results of these World Bank
policies.<br><br>
The vertical integration of entire industries
has taken place with the rise of giant transnational corporations whose
economies are larger than that of many countries. <br><br>
At the end of World War II, when the Bretton
Woods Agreements were signed, the dollar became the de facto “world
currency” and was backed by American gold reserves. In 1972, in the midst
of the Vietnam War, when President Nixon detached the dollar from the
gold standard, he detached the dollar from anything of real tangible
value and basically allowed the currency rates of every nation to
fluctuate in relationship to one another’s currencies. The dollar
was then backed by oil and American military might.<br><br>
In those days 98 percent of foreign exchange
transactions had to do with the exchange of goods and services and only 2
percent were speculative. Today the vast majority of foreign exchange
transactions have been speculative and less than 2 percent are for the
exchange of real goods and
services. <br><br>
Measurements have inherent limitations and
biases. The family existed before money did. Villages grew out of
interdependent relationships between families. As societies have grown
more complex, hierarchies have developed and the "public
family" or the state has created institutions that have taken over
many of the functions once met within the household, such as educating
children and caring for the sick. <a name="_ftnref9"></a>[9]<br><br>
In urban environments, basic living skills have
been lost, people are more dependent than ever on the state or a
monetized economy to meet their basic needs. In order to get slaves or
labor to serve industries, people had to be forced away from the land
where they once were able to sustain themselves. <br><br>
In the film “Who's Counting? Marilyn Waring on
Sex, Lies and Global Economics,” Marilyn unravels many of the problems in
the global system. The IMF and the World Bank were created to maintain
certain power relations and exercise control over the world's resources.
The U.N. System of National Accounts was based upon a pamphlet entitled
"How to Pay for the War." That system, imposed upon every
country that joins the U.N., enables the global elite to finance their
militaries, to engage in conflicts with other nations, and to build
internal security forces to control populations who might not agree with
the expropriation of their country's resources. <br><br>
The system assumes that the
unpaid work of womenwho are bearing children, raising them, feeding
them, carrying for the sick and aged, and maintaining a home or gardenis
of little or no importance. Nor does the system recognize the value of
forests or the natural world unless they can be chopped down and sold or
monetized in some way. Monetary transactions are measured, no matter how
devastating their effects are on the environment. The arms industry is
the most lucrative of all industries. It is in the economic interest of
the major powers that there always be a war going on somewhere. This
pathological system does not recognize the inherent value of life, peace,
or the earth itself. It does not even notice anything of unquantifiable
value; it only sees that which it
measuresmoney.<a name="_ftnref10"></a>[10] <br><br>
Maximizing profits is the
primary value in modern economics. The economic measure of monetary flow
is directly related to the rape of the earth, the amount of exploitation
occurring within a country, and how effectively the world's parasites are
expropriating the labor of others and the natural world. <br><br>
Because the greatest profit can be made through war
and drugs, the global economy is a war economy. While the importance of
oil for both energy and military purposes is enormous, dwarfing the oil
industry in monetary terms is the illegal trafficking in drugs. Laundered
drug money in enormous quantities has always found its way into the large
financial centers and into key industries. <br><br>
In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_law">criminal law</a>,
<i>fraud</i> is the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime">crime</a> or offense of
deliberately
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deception">deceiving</a> another in
order to damage them – usually, to obtain property or services unjustly.
<a href="http://www.lectlaw.com/def/f079.htm">[1]</a> …<br><br>
<i>Fraud for profit</i> is often perpetrated by industry professionals.
There are generally multiple loan transactions with several financial
institutions involved. These frauds include misrepresentations
including the following: Income is overstated, assets are overstated,
collateral is overstated, the length of employment is overstated (or
fictitious employment is reported), and employment is backstopped by
conspirators. The property value is inflated (faulty appraisal) to
increase the sales value to make up for their being no down payment and
to generate cash proceeds in fraud for
profit.<a name="_ftnref11"></a>[11]<br><br>
In the 80s, Congress paved the way for the
savings and loan scandal by loosening regulations, which cost taxpayers
$160.1 billion. John McCain was one of the “Keating Five” rebuked by the
Senate Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment" for
intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Charles Keating, who
was at the center of the scandal and convicted of fraud, racketeering,
and conspiracy. <br><br>
The history of the stock market reveals a
transition from investments in real companies producing tangible,
measurable products and services toward “financial instruments” of an
increasingly speculative nature. Electronic money, borrowed and
loaned into existence, flowing through cyberspace, can wreak havoc and
collapse entire nations’ economies. In the 90s the Multilateral
Agreement on Investment (MAI) was devised to ensure the ability of
speculators and multinational corporations to move capital in and out of
countries without governmental involvement or public interest
safeguards.<a name="_ftnref12"></a>[12] Recognizing the dangers of this
agreement to the interests of people everywhere, civil society organized
global resistance via the Internet to defeat the MAI. <br><br>
The 90s also witnessed major consolidation of the mass
media, the frenzy of speculation in the high-tech industry, and the
development and expansion of Internet commerce. New technologies
permitted local, national, and international communications and
organizing to occur, which profoundly challenged the credibility and
legitimacy of established governments, corporations, and the corporate
press.<br><br>
Global resistance to corporate globalization
broke through the mainstream media barrier in the US in 1999 in Seattle,
Washington, when tens of thousands of protestors tried to peacefully shut
down a World Trade Organization meeting. The first Indymedia.org website
was created specifically for that protest to share information from the
point of view of activists. Since then the Indymedia network has grown to
span the globeparticularly in those cities where international protests
have been organized, the main website is accessible in eight
languages.<br><br>
Under President Clinton in 1999 and the
leadership of Senator Phil Gramm (now co-chair of the McCain campaign),
Congress repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which removed Depression-era
laws separating banking, insurance, and brokerage activities and helped
pave the way for the next wave of financial integration and fraud. In
late 2000 when Gramm chaired the Senate Banking Committee, he pushed
through the Commodity Futures Modernization Actwhich prohibited federal
agencies from regulating financial products called <i>credit default
swaps,</i> which have been used to back up the mortgage-based securities.
The credit default swaps are the major reason for the 54 trillion dollar
liabilities that are threatening financial institutions
worldwide.<a name="_ftnref13"></a>[13] (After the legislation passed, the
Swiss bank UBS purchased American institutions. UBS then hired Gramm as a
lobbyist and paid him over $750,000. UBS alone issues over $18 billion in
subprime mortgages.) <a name="_ftnref14"></a>[14]<br><br>
Throughout history there has been a struggle in
all societies between a ruling class and the many who are not so
privileged. Toynbee noted that the world struggle takes place
between a few vested interests and social justice. There has always
been a struggle between tyrants and ordinary people, where the people
have made some gains and have also had setbacks. <br><br>
Social movements are born when public myths are shattered,
societal secrets are revealed, and people realize that powerholders are
acting in violation of deeply held values. In the current era, the
Internet has allowed for the increasingly rapid transmission of
information challenging powerholders, institutions, and cultural
myths.<br><br>
Social movements are collective actions that
alert, educate, and mobilize the public to redress social problems or
grievances. With all the problems confronting humanity there are
innumerable social movements, which have evolved and learned from one
another. At times they have come together in increasingly powerful
coalitions. Professor and author Anthony Hall has called them “the fourth
world,”<a name="_ftnref15"></a>[15] and others refer to them as the
“anti-corporate globalization movement” or the “global justice
movement.”<br><br>
In January of 2001 while the World
Economic Forum was meeting in Switzerland, thousands of people from
hundreds of countries met at the first World Social Forum in Porto
Allegre, Brazil, a convergence of social movements. Their points of
agreement included opposition to the policies of the IMF, World Bank, and
WTO; opposition to militarism, corporate globalization, and environmental
destruction; and support for public participation in decision-making
processes, and for the respect for people and life over profits. Social
movements are an evolutionary force that pushes people to live up to
their ideals and values and enables people to exercise their collective
power.<br><br>
When people believe that power flows
downward from those at the top of institutions towards the helpless at
the bottom of the pyramid, tyranny rules. Most people believe in this
model. Under this model, change can be achieved only by appealing to
elites, using persuasion. However, when people discover their own power
and belief in democracythat government should be “of, by, and for the
people”power flows from them through institutions to powerholders and
public servants. True democratic power comes from the bottom, results in
social progress, and powerholders and policies are changed to meet
popular social demands.<a name="_ftnref16"></a>[16] <br><br>
The strategy of the powerholders is not to broadcast
the truth about their beliefs, actions, policies, and programs. They know
who benefits from the unfair distribution of benefits and costs within
the existing system. They must keep their actual policies hidden from the
public, because they rightly fear that the majority would rebel if they
knew the truth. Powerholders habitually use myths, slogans, and
rhetoric to sell their policies and programs to the public. <br><br>
One of the great American myths that is
promulgated by powerholders is the idea that we have a watchdog press.
Over 3,000 people attended the last two National Conferences on Media
Reform, primarily because of their deep concern about the failure of the
traditional media. Lord Northcliffe said, “News is something that someone
wants suppressed; all the rest is advertising.” <br><br>
Colossal crimes have been committed and then
masked by the media for centuries. But the larger pattern in this era of
informationincluding names, dates, evidence, and various kinds of
documentationis coming to light at a staggering rate, beyond the
capacity of any one individual to absorb, read, process, and disseminate
all the details. In turn the information is gradually reaching the
most heavily propagandized target audiencethe American public, who are
increasingly losing faith in their government, the war, the Congress, and
the financial system. <br><br>
As Aung San Suu
Kyi wrote, "It is not power that corrupts, but fearfear of losing
power and fear of the scourge of those who wield it."<br><br>
Fear, war, and terror are routinely used to shut
down rational thinking processesa tactic that Naomi Klein outlines in
her book <i>The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster
Capitalism</i><a name="_ftnref17"></a>[17] (as well as in the
video<a name="_ftnref18"></a>[18]). Klein fails to recognize,
however, that 9/11 was designed to terrorize Americans and the world into
going along with the bogus “War on Terror,” to forget about the missing
$2.3 trillion on the Department of Defense
books<a name="_ftnref19"></a>[19], the stolen
election<a name="_ftnref20"></a>[20], the evidence destroyed in the
Securities and Exchange Commission’s offices in World Trade Center
7,<a name="_ftnref21"></a>[21] to not even notice the massive
insider trading,<a name="_ftnref22"></a>[22] and then to permit a
giant escalation in the military budget and the construction of the
surveillance industry. The plunge in the stock market and the “apparent
attack” on America’s financial center also prompted the Fed to lower
interest rates, which helped the housing marketand Bush encouraged folks
to “go shopping.”<br><br>
The best historical parallel to 9/11 would be
the Reichstag fire, which Hitler used to vilify and target “communists”
and pass the Enabling Act (similar to the PATRIOT Act), before launching
wars of aggression. The PATRIOT Act was mirrored by legislation passed in
Canada, Australia, and the UK, severely eroding civil rights and granting
more power to governments to chill dissentto monitor and crack down on
those they considered a threat.<br><br>
With the bust of the dot com bubble, speculative
money went into real estate, housing, and
derivatives<a name="_ftnref23"></a>[23]. Congress and the Bush
administration changed laws and regulations to lure people into borrowing
money, purchasing homes, and investing their savings in the
21<sup>st</sup> century Ponzi schemes. Elliot Spitzer was vilified by the
press the day before he wrote an article naming Bush as the
"Predator Lenders' Partner in Crime," saying <br><br>
“In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending
crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act
pre-empting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them
inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states
from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national
banks. …<br><br>
"Not only did the Bush administration do
nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and
unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents
from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a
blind eye."<a name="_ftnref24"></a>[24]<br><br>
Close scrutiny of powerholders running the
government, institutions, and corporations reveals conflicting loyalties
and economic interests. Legislators in fact represent the
millionaires and billionaires who fund them and who continually rewrite
the rules in their own favor and have decided that the Constitution is
obsolete.<br><br>
The unfolding financial crisis has been arriving in
wave after destructive wave. People have lost their homes, their
jobs, their savings, their health, their marriages, their kids, and
finally their hope. <br><br>
The housing bubble began to burst when home
prices in the US began to decline in March and April of 2007. The
IMF warned of risks to global financial markets. Bear Stearns was
in trouble in June 2007 because of its mortgage-backed securities.
In the summer of 2007 German banks were in trouble and foreclosures in
the US almost doubled. In September 2007 there was a run on Northern
Rock, which the British government nationalized, and the Fed began to
drop interest rates to help the housing market. In January 2008, UBS
reported $18 billion in write-downs due to US real estate exposure.
In February, Fannie Mae reported a $3.55 billion loss.
<a name="_ftnref25"></a>[25]<br><br>
In March, however, the Federal Reserve and the
Treasury Department directed money towards the 85-year-old investment
bank Bear Stearns, via JP Morgan<a name="_ftnref26"></a>[26] and $200
billion went to prop up Fannie Mae. By April the IMF projected $945
billion in losses. In June housing possessions doubled again, and the FBI
announced the arrest of over 400 people charged with mortgage fraud,
including two senior managers of the failed Bear Stearns Hedge
Funds.<a name="_ftnref27"></a>[27] In July Congress passed the
Foreclosures Prevention Act, which was a $33 billion hand-out to those
who helped create the problem, according to a report by the Laborers'
International Union of North America. Under the bill's little-publicized
"carry-back" provision, builders would get billions in tax
breaks and the 15 largest corporate homebuilders, who made $16 billion in
profits on $100 billion in revenues, would receive a third of the
benefits.<a name="_ftnref28"></a>[28]<br><br>
In September 2008, the Fed, in an unprecedented
move, lent $85 billion to the American International Group (AIG), the
nation’s largest insurance company, which also handled credit default
swaps and suffered losses from its subprime mortgage-backed securities
holdings.<a name="_ftnref29"></a>[29] Then Lehman Brothers filed for
bankruptcy, and Bank of America devoured Merrill Lynch. Soon there
was a run on money market funds, and short selling of financial stocks
was suspended globally. Bush made a speech acknowledging that there was a
serious crisis, and backed Paulson’s bailout plea.<br><br>
There were only a few voices
in Congress that dared to challenge the current bailout of the
speculators so intimately involved in created the current financial
crisis. Anyone could look up Henry Paulson on the internet to discover
his ties to Goldman Sachs, but these ties were not emphasized in the
mainstream media. According to Wikipedia notes:<br><br>
“Paulson was Staff Assistant to the Assistant
Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon from 1970 to 1972… He joined Goldman
Sachs in 1974… He became a partner in 1982. From 1983 until 1988, Paulson
led the Investment Banking group for the Midwest Region, and became
managing partner of the Chicago office in 1988. From 1990 to November
1994, he was co-head of Investment Banking, then, Chief Operating Officer
from December 1994 to June 1998; eventually succeeding Jon Corzine (now
Governor of New Jersey) as its chief executive. His compensation package,
according to reports, was US$37 million in 2005, and US$16.4 million
projected for 2006. His net worth has been estimated at over US$700
million. Paulson has personally built close relations with China during
his career. In July 2008 it was reported by The Daily Telegraph that:
"Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations with the
Chinese elite, dating from his days at Goldman Sachs when he visited the
country more than 70 times. … <br><br>
“There is increasing evidence that Paulson was
influential with two U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairmen,
William H. Donaldson and Christopher Cox, in receiving restraint in the
Commission's exercise of oversight requirements. In 2004…the Commission
agreed unanimously to release the major investment houses from the net
capital rule, the requirement that their brokerages hold reserve capital
that limited their leverage and risk exposure. The complaint that was put
forth by the investment banks was of increasingly onerous regulatory
requirementsin this case, not U.S. regulator oversight, but European
Union regulation of the foreign operations of US investment groups. In
the immediate lead-up to the decision, EU regulators also acceded to US
pressure, and agreed not to scrutinize foreign firms' reserve holdings if
the SEC agreed to do so instead. The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act,
however, put the parent holding company of each of the big American
brokerages beyond SEC oversight. In order for the agreement to go ahead,
the investment banks lobbied for a decision that would allow
"voluntary" inspection of their parent and subsidiary holdings
by the SEC.<br><br>
“During this repeal of the net capital rule, SEC
Chairman Donaldson agreed to the establishment of a risk management
office that would monitor signs of future problems. This office was
eventually dismantled by Chairman Cox, after discussions with Paulson.
According to the New York Times, ’While other financial regulatory
agencies criticized a blueprint by Mr. Paulson, the [new] Treasury
secretary, that proposed to reduce their stature and that of the S.E.C.
Mr. Cox did not challenge the plan, leaving it to three former
Democratic and Republican commission chairmen to complain that the
blueprint would neuter the agency.’ Only in late September 2008, Chairman
Cox and the other Commissioners agreed to end the 2004 program of
voluntary regulation.” <br><br>
With the unregulated credit default swaps posing
enormous liabilities to the financial institutions that dwarf the
global economy, Paulson’s allegiances to Goldman Sachs and AIG will help
determine which institutions will failor escape, survive, and profitin
the current turmoil.<a name="_ftnref30"></a>[30]<br><br>
Henry Paulson asked for and received over $700
billion in taxpayer money with little or no oversight as to who will
actually get the money. It is clear that it won’t be going to Main
Street, and it is more than likely to go to Paulson’s Wall Street and
foreign friends. <br><br>
Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur spoke out
bravely against the bill, explaining precisely how it was being rushed
through Congress<a name="_ftnref31"></a>[31], and Dennis Kucinich
condemned it as well. Their token resistance was swept aside, even as
Representative Brad Sherman pointed out the fear mongering and panic
pressure placed on Congress to push it
through.<a name="_ftnref32"></a>[32] The fear that was generated by
insiders and the media, as well as some token pork, helped to get the
bill passed on Friday, October 3, 2008. Democrats, Republicans, and both
presidential hopefuls were behind the bailout. <br><br>
Amongst Obama’s advisers are Franklin Raines, who was
a chairman and chief executive officer at Fannie Mae; and Tim Howard, who
was the chief financial officer of Fannie Mae; and Jim Johnson, who was
an executive at Lehman Brothers and later forced from his position as
Fannie Mae CEO. Howard was forced to retire when auditing
discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting activities.
The books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four
years, and Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion. The
Government filed suit against Raines and Howard when the scandal became
clear<a name="_ftnref33"></a>[33]. The court ordered Raines to return $50
million he received in bonuses based on the misstated Fannie Mae
profits. The government investigation determined that "Chief
Financial Officer Tim Howard failed to provide adequate oversight to key
control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae." Raines and
Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004. Howard's golden parachute
was estimated at $20 million. Raines left with a "golden
parachute valued at $240 million in benefits. A look at the Office of
Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement
and corruption inside Fannie Mae reveals that Fannie Mae had hidden a
substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public,
reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it
was $21 million." Johnson is currently under
investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as
CEO of Fannie Mae. Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28
Million.<a name="_ftnref34"></a>[34] <br><br>
Any close scrutiny
of the financial ties of major politiciansparticularly those in
office such as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Pelosi, and Feinsteinreveal major
conflicts of interest between the politicians and the military, oil, and
pharmaceutical industries. At the highest levels, however, there is no
accountability. Laws are meaningless to these people. They have the power
and influence to pass murderous legislation that enriches and empowers
them and their cronies and threatens and impoverishes the rest of us, all
of this veiled by a subservient corporate press that bestows upon them an
aura of legitimacy. Within government agencies there is corruption,
fraud, and the persecutionrather than protectionof
whistle-blowers. <br><br>
When Congress voted $87 billion to occupy
Afghanistan and Iraq, some of that money was earmarked to suppress
dissent in the US. In 2003, thousands of protestors gathered in Miami to
oppose the negotiations of the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Pre-emptive arrests, violent violation of civil rights, brutal treatment
of innocent medics, and criminalization of dissent became known as “the
Miami model.” The militarization of the police and Homeland
Security’s targeting of anti-war and peace activists have continued and
expanded since thenas seen most recently in the protests at the
Democratic and Republican Conventions where even the regular press was
arrested, and organizers were arrested and charged with
“terrorism.”<br><br>
There is a battle going ona clash of worldviews
over what is true, legal, and moral; over who is a terrorist, and who is
serving humanity; over who has the right to live, and who has the right
or duty to jail, kill, or torture anyone. Every individual will have to
decide for themselves what is true and what is legitimatewhat is best
for themselves, their families, their country, and the whole
planet.<br><br>
The strategy of all social movements is to
convince the public that a problem exists and that policies must be
changed, and to exercise the people power that resides within themselves
into a force that finds solutions to commonly recognized problems.
<br><br>
The perpetrators of 9-11 had a different
strategy. Their strategy was to terrify the American people into silence
and submission, then bully the Congress into nearly unlimited funding for
war and a greatly expanded surveillance industry (the anthrax attacks
came at a convenient time for this). The perpetrators of 9/11used a
BIG LIE to sell a “bogus protection racket” to their victimsto
institutionalize under the guise of “National/Homeland Security” a
greater concentration of wealth and power into fewer hands. Their tools
were violence, fear, criminal fraud, manipulating the financial markets,
and selling it all to the American people through the megaphone of the
mainstream media.<br><br>
Cheney, like Napoleon, believes that you don’t
have to suppress a truthjust delay it until it no longer matters. There
are a growing number of people who are challenging the lies, especially
through the Internet. It is apparent that those in power are very
much afraid of the Internet, of people’s ability to share information and
communicate so that they can organize in unprecedented ways using
emerging technologies, or simply gather together in a public space where
free speech is still possible.<br><br>
The deeply held values, symbols, beliefs,
sensibilities and traditions that are important to the public are being
violated today by the power elite. The majority of people are against the
war, torture, and the bailout of Wall Street. Those in power depend on
the public to be stupid, uninformed, disengaged, apathetic, cynical,
powerless, and silent. Social movements are dependent on empowered,
engaged, informed people at every level of society to uphold the values
and principles that are being violated by powerholders and their
policies. Will the American people continue to wake up and begin to
exercise more control over the US government to force changes in
policy?<br><br>
A major cause of social problems is the
concentration of political, economic, and military power in the hands of
relatively few people. An informed, empowered, and politicized
population is required to resolve today’s problems and to establish a
just, peaceful, sustainable world for all. Political and economic power
ultimately rests with the majority population; rulers can only rule with
the consent and acquiescence of the people. Where people put their time,
energy, and money has a greater impact on society and the world than who
they vote for. Elections have been stolen for decades; only an
awakened citizenry can oversee and ensure honest elections.<br><br>
The most important issue is the age-old struggle between the
majority of people and the individual and institutional powerholders to
determine whether society will be based on the authoritarian modelwhere
power flows from the top downor the “people power” model of genuine
participatory democracy. <br><br>
Kevin Barrett expressed the following in a talk entitled “A Folklorist
Looks at 9/11 ‘Conspiracy Theories’” (<i>folk</i> meaning “the people,”
as opposed to the “rulers and the press” who in the past have
authoritatively defined “event/reality”):<br><br>
“Marshall McLuhan’s famous line “the medium is
the message” could describe the way the 9/11 Truth movement is an
artifact of the Internet, and the radically-enhanced folk-communications
it has brought. Thanks to digital audiovisuals, email and the world-wide
web, the folk are now a leg up on their would-be manipulators, those
well-paid professionals in corporate media, public relations, marketing,
and psychological warfare or psy-ops, whose collective job is to reify
and manipulate their fellow human beings. <br><br>
“It is one thing for the content of informal,
non-institutional, “folk” communication to subvert institutional
authority. It is another and more significant thing for the very medium
of folk communication to radically shift in a way that empowers the folk
and disempowers the institutions. And that is what has happened. The
world has been turned upside-down as the old oral-transmission grapevine
has gone digital… <br><br>
“Today’s digitally-enhanced subversives and skeptics
can spread large numbers of copies of audio, video and photographic
evidence, along with an unlimited amount of writing, for pennies. This
digital awakening may turn out to be our second post-Gutenberg revolution
in half a century. Its importance may rival the emergence of writing,
which created hierarchical societies of kings, priests and scribes; with
the invention of the printing press, which created the kind of
mass-literate societies we call “democratic”; and with the invention of
television, which McLuhan suggests created a global village of creeping
Orwellian fascism. 9/11, in this view, was the last gasp of television as
a means of mind-control via mass hypnosis, while the 9/11 Truth
controversies may represent the birth pangs of the new,
digitally-enhanced democracy.” <br><br>
It is sobering to know that if the world’s population
was reduced to 100 representatives, only 1 would have a computer, or have
attended college, and he would have more wealth than all the others and
be from the United States. While 70 percent of American homes may have
access to the Internet, they are not representative of the world.
However, an enlightened American people would be a grave danger to the
advancement of the American Empire. We are uniquely responsible and able
to thwart or advance the aspirations of the US oligarchy. We are also
directly under attack by that oligarchy, who view us as a threat and are
trying to criminalize dissent.<br><br>
The financial crisis that faces America and the
world today was as orchestrated as the events of 9/11. Similar to
what transpired after 9/11, it is likely that the financial crisis will
be used to further concentrate wealth and power, crush dissent,
criminalize larger and larger numbers of people, trash civil liberties,
and generally replace the “rule of law” with the “rule of fear.”
<br><br>
There is another possibility, however, which we
the people can promote. We can join together to speak up, organize, and
challenge the lies, crimes, and illegitimacy of the powerholders and
corporations that threaten the well-being of the people of the world. We
can create and nurture new organizations to fulfill real needs and
aspirations. This is already taking place and can be seen in the rise of
nonprofit organizations over the past decade. Ignored by the corporate
media, Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, and Ralph Nader have raised key issues
that the corporate-anointed candidates won’t discuss. The public must
search the Internet for the statements of these courageous challengers to
the oligarchy, because their views are ignored, marginalized, or
dismissed in the corporate pressbut they nonetheless provide a rallying
cry for people looking for true change. At a recent press conference, the
third-party candidates clearly represented majority opinions and
interests, far better than McCain or
Obama.<a name="_ftnref35"></a>[35]<br><br>
Repression, reform, revolution or
renaissance?<br><br>
When revolutions occur simultaneously in many
different areas, the transformation of society can be called a
renaissance. We are witnessing changes happening at a rapid pace in
a multitude of areas, and few can begin to keep up with the new
technologies and research. As traditional power structures are
threatened, new possibilities and synergies are emerging. If the
traditional banking system or the dollar collapses, money will be
reinvented at the local, regional, national, and probably international
levels. <br><br>
Mike Nickerson, author of <i>Life, Money, &
Illusion: Living on Earth as If We Want to Stay</i>, wrote:<br><br>
“An alternative to panicking when GDP stops
growing is to view it as a sign of maturity. Human activity cannot expand
forever on our finite planet. Fuel prices, climate change and the
sub-prime mortgage crisis are all symptoms of one cause. When we stopped
growing as individuals, it was not the end of the world. Indeed, for most
of us, life had scarcely begun before physical maturity. Even as physical
growth ended, we became better informed, more comfortable in ourselves
and we developed the skills and relationships that define our lives. The
same can be true for civilization.”<a name="_ftnref36"></a>[36]
<br><br>
The convergence of various crisesincluding the
financial system, peak oil, climate change, population growth, resource
depletion, and mass extinctionsis forcing humanity to collectively
recognize its limits and mature as a species, simply to
survive.<a name="_ftnref37"></a>[37]<br><br>
In order to behave maturely, wisely, and
responsiblyand to make wise rational decisionspeople need to know what
is true, what is real. <br><br>
Mike Nickerson has been championing the Genuine
Progress Index to provide more accurate information about how people are
affecting the planet and one another. If economic indicators were aligned
with universal values such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, economists would ignore the marketplace and concern themselves
with the health and well-being of the environment, the health and
well-being of every person, and whether the basic human needs for food,
water, shelter, clothing, and education were being met. <br><br>
One of the heftiest charges against members of
the Bush Administration is their attack upon
science.<a name="_ftnref38"></a>[38] There is ample evidence that
they have ordered agencies to be silent about their findings, or to fudge
data to suit political purposes and shape public opinion. Only Bush
science, as exemplified in the NIST report, could explain the collapse of
all three World Trade Center buildings at free-fall speed as due to fire
alone. Hundreds of independent scientists, architects, and engineers have
rejected the conclusions of the NIST report. The scientific evidence
indicates that two planes could not have shredded three steel-framed
buildings, but that controlled demolition does explain their rapid
disintegration.<br><br>
It is increasingly challenging to evaluate
scientific studies without knowing who has funded them, and for what
particular purpose. Researchers whose findings challenge government
or corporate objectives are vilified and lose their funding.
Citizen-supported scientific research and data collection whose intention
and purpose is clearly in the interests of the health and well-being of
people and their environmentwhose data can be shared, checked, verified,
and corroborated by others in a transparent mannerwill ultimately gain
the widest acceptance. <br><br>
Satyagraha, or “the force of truth,” pioneered
by Gandhi, has inspired the social movements of today. According to
Schopenhauer, “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is
ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as
being self-evident.”<a name="_ftnref39"></a>[39]<br><br>
The individual and human journey also passes
through stages. As proposed by Abraham Maslow in his classic study
<i>Toward a Psychology of Being,</i> healthy people outgrow the
self-centered need for material acquisition and find greater joy and
purpose in more expansive activitiessuch as developing friendships,
being of service to others, expressing creativity, and joining together
with others to solve problems. The deliberate infantilization of the
public and the manipulation of the public mind has contributed to the
current crisis in values, where people seem to be concerned only for
themselves and are cynical about what is happening in the world. The cure
lies in the maturation of our species. The times that we live in
are calling to us to grow up, individually and collectively. We need to
develop a greater understanding of ourselves and our world, to develop
our talents and skills to make this a better world. Despite the dangers
and challenges of the time we live in, we can find meaning and joy
through joining together in the search for truth, peace, justice, and,
freedom. As Gandhi and others have demonstrated, the truth, combined with
love and compassion, will set us free. As we work together to pursue the
truth and expand our awareness, we are lifting the veil and awakening
from a media-induced trance so that we can more clearly see how we have
allowed our power to be taken from us. This knowledge will empower us to
reform the outmoded structures that are so oppressive and to create new
systems that truly serve the needs of the people and the planet for
current and future generations. <br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
<br><br>
<br>
<a name="_ftn1"></a>[1]
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse" eudora="autourl">
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse<br>
</a><a name="_ftn2"></a>[2] Debt Virus: A Compelling Solution to the
World's Debt Problems, 1995 by Jacques S. Jaikaran<br>
<a name="_ftn3"></a>[3]
<a href="http://www.unahi.org/quotes/native-american-quotes.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.unahi.org/quotes/native-american-quotes.htm<br>
</a><a name="_ftn4"></a>[4] Bernard Lietaer, ex-central banker, author
of The Future of Money: <br>
Creating New Wealth, Work, and a Wiser World, 2001,
<a href="http://www.transaction.net/money/bio/lietaer.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.transaction.net/money/bio/lietaer.html<br>
</a><a name="_ftn5"></a>[5] Money as Debt, Paul Grignon's video
production, available at
<a href="http://www.moneyasdebt.net/">http://www.moneyasdebt.net/</a> and
viewable online at
<a href="http://tiny.cc/z30uD" eudora="autourl">http://tiny.cc/z30uD<br>
</a><a name="_ftn6"></a>[6] Interest and Inflation Free Money, 1995 by
Margrit Kennedy,
<a href="http://tiny.cc/FQtb3" eudora="autourl">http://tiny.cc/FQtb3<br>
</a><a name="_ftn7"></a>[7] Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace
Mullins,
<a href="http://www.whale.to/b/mullins5.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.whale.to/b/mullins5.html<br>
</a><a name="_ftn8"></a>[8] How Corporations Destroyed US Democracy by
Propaganda,
<a href="http://tiny.cc/UCT9Q" eudora="autourl">http://tiny.cc/UCT9Q<br>
</a><a name="_ftn9"></a>[9] Hilkka Pietila, The triangle of the human
economy: household - cultivation - industrial production,
<a href="http://www.kasakobiet.ngo.org.pl/teksty/hilkka_pietila_eng.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.kasakobiet.ngo.org.pl/teksty/hilkka_pietila_eng.html<br>
</a><a name="_ftn10"></a>[10] Whose Counting? Marilyn Waring on Sex, Lies
and Global Economics,
<a href="http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/whoo.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/whoo.html<br>
</a><a name="_ftn11"></a>[11]
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud" eudora="autourl">
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud<br>
</a><a name="_ftn12"></a>[12]
<a href="http://www.citizen.org/trade/issues/mai/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.citizen.org/trade/issues/mai/<br>
</a><a name="_ftn13"></a>[13]
<a href="http://www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?p=608" eudora="autourl">
http://www.fuel-efficient-vehicles.org/energy-news/?p=608<br>
</a><a name="_ftn14"></a>[14]
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm" eudora="autourl">
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm<br>
</a><a name="_ftn15"></a>[15]
<a href="http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=1628" eudora="autourl">
http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=1628<br>
</a><a name="_ftn16"></a>[16] Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for
Organising Social Movements, by Bill Moyer,
<a href="http://tiny.cc/KB6W9" eudora="autourl">http://tiny.cc/KB6W9<br>
</a><a name="_ftn17"></a>[17]
<a href="http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine" eudora="autourl">
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine<br>
</a><a name="_ftn18"></a>[18]
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc" eudora="autourl">
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc<br>
</a><a name="_ftn19"></a>[19]
<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml" eudora="autourl">
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml<br>
</a><a name="_ftn20"></a>[20]
<a href="http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=248" eudora="autourl">
http://archive.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=248<br>
</a><a name="_ftn21"></a>[21]
<a href="http://www.wtc7.net/articles/kimball/thirdskyscraper.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.wtc7.net/articles/kimball/thirdskyscraper.html<br>
</a><a name="_ftn22"></a>[22]
<a href="http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/stockputs.html" eudora="autourl">
http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/stockputs.html<br>
</a><a name="_ftn23"></a>[23]
<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8634" eudora="autourl">
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8634<br>
</a><a name="_ftn24"></a>[24]
<a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8376" eudora="autourl">
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8376<br>
</a><a name="_ftn25"></a>[25]
<a href="http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3689713,00.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3689713,00.html<br>
</a><a name="_ftn26"></a>[26]
<a href="http://tiny.cc/dYeSJ" eudora="autourl">http://tiny.cc/dYeSJ<br>
</a><a name="_ftn27"></a>[27]
<a href="http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june08/malicious_mortgage061908.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june08/malicious_mortgage061908.html<br>
</a><a name="_ftn28"></a>[28]
<a href="http://tiny.cc/1dQZI" eudora="autourl">http://tiny.cc/1dQZI<br>
</a><a name="_ftn29"></a>[29]
<a href="http://tiny.cc/0WX1c" eudora="autourl">http://tiny.cc/0WX1c<br>
</a><a name="_ftn30"></a>[30]
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/business/27charts.html">
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/27/business/27charts.html</a>, <br>
<a href="http://www.crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/60-minutes-wall-streets-shadow-market" eudora="autourl">
http://www.crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/60-minutes-wall-streets-shadow-market<br>
</a><a name="_ftn31"></a>[31]
<a href="http://tiny.cc/kRIcq">http://tiny.cc/kRIcq</a> <br>
<a name="_ftn32"></a>[32]
<a href="http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/h-r-1424-brad-sherman-one-minute-speech/11766853/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/h-r-1424-brad-sherman-one-minute-speech/11766853/<br>
</a><a name="_ftn33"></a>[33]
<a href="http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/" eudora="autourl">
http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/<br>
</a><a name="_ftn34"></a>[34]
<a href="http://tiny.cc/E3K4h" eudora="autourl">http://tiny.cc/E3K4h<br>
</a><a name="_ftn35"></a>[35]
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1LMoWqXrE4" eudora="autourl">
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1LMoWqXrE4<br>
</a><a name="_ftn36"></a>[36]
<a href="http://www.shanejolley.com/2008/09/05/silver-lining-economic-downturn" eudora="autourl">
http://www.shanejolley.com/2008/09/05/silver-lining-economic-downturn<br>
</a><a name="_ftn37"></a>[37]
<a href="http://www.chrismartenson.com/peak-oil-b" eudora="autourl">
http://www.chrismartenson.com/peak-oil-b<br>
</a><a name="_ftn38"></a>[38]
<a href="http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/02/62339" eudora="autourl">
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/02/62339<br><br>
</a><a name="_ftn39"></a>[39] Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher
(1788 - 1860)<br>
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