Showing posts with label profit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label profit. Show all posts

Sunday, November 13, 2016

New Age "Prosperity Gospel" Trumps Christ?

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. 
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. 2 Corinthians 11 v 13-15  (Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing)
If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.”  Matthew 19:21
He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Matthew 16:25
Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Matthew 19:24
My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.” John 18:36
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mark 8:36
Do not love the world or the things in the world If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. 1 John 2:15
If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Luke 9:23
Enter ye into at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, bu inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Matthew 7 v 14-16b

Do they sound like the words of a God who wants you to gain the world, and lose your soul?  Yet so many "Christians"  today truly believe in the false teachings of these predatory prosperity gospel preachers, who twist the Word of God in order to gain profit and power for themselves. How do they do it?  It seems they play to that which is most narcissistic and corporeal in us. I mean, these evangelists do not even try to hide their great wealth.  Why should they? They're blessed, but certainly not by Jesus. So if not Jesus, by whom?

Moreover, considering the almost complete dominance of New Age "Christianity" in the mainstream media, not to mention the political realm, one must consider if there is an even more powerful agenda besides the greed of individual preachers.  Especially now that one of its followers has been elected president. That is the "longtime disciple of “the great Norman Vincent Peale--Donald Trump.   This, of course,  should come as no surprise when the fastest growing segment of "Christianity" in recent years has been among churches who preach the anti-Christian "prosperity gospel", an oxymoron if there ever was one.




Prosperity Gospel and The New Age:"Word of Faith" and "Positive Confession"
The fastest growing segment of professing Christianity in recent years has been among churches connected with the Positive Confession movement or Word-Faith movement (all part of the modern Charismatic movement). It has involved two distinct but closely related factions: the Norman Vincent Peale/Robert Schuller Positive-Possibility thinkers/Positive Mental Attitude, with their roots in New Thought; and the Kenneth Hagin/Kenneth Copeland Positive Confession and Word-Faith groups, which have their roots in E.W. Kenyon, William Branham, and the Manifest Sons of God/Latter Rain movement. Well-known names among its leaders are E.W. Kenyon, Charles Capps, Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Frederick K.C. Price, Robert Tilton, and David [Paul] Yonggi Cho [also: Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Paula White, Rick Warren, T.D. Jakes, Ed Young, Benny Hinn, Michael Murdoch, etc.], . It does not yet constitute a new denomination, but it certainly represents innovative teachings outside of mainstream Christianity. The situation is so serious now because of the dominance over the so-called Christian media achieved by the teachers of Positive/Possibility Thinking and Positive Confession.

D.R. McConnell points out that "any new religious movement [within Protestantism] must bear the scrutiny of two criteria: biblical fidelity and historical orthodoxy." Regrettably, the Positive Confession movement fails on both counts. The historical roots of this movement (which Charles Farah has called "Faith Formula Theology") lie in the occult, and most recently, in New Thought and its off-shoot, the Mind Science cults. Its Biblical basis is found only in the peculiar interpretations of its own leaders, not in generally accepted Christian theology.

- As the name "Positive Confession"/"Word-Faith" implies, this movement teaches that faith is a matter of what we say more than whom we trust or what truths we embrace and affirm in our hearts. The term "positive confession" refers to the teaching that words have creative power. What you say, Word-Faith teachers claim, determines everything that happens to you. Your "confessions," that is, the things you say -- especially the favors you demand of God -- must all be stated positively and without wavering. Then God is required to answer. Word-Faith believers view their positive confessions as an incantation by which they can conjure up anything they desire: "Believe it in your heart; say it with your mouth. That is the principle of faith. You can have what you say" (Charismatic Chaos, pp. 281, 285).

This is at the heart of the Positive Confession movement today, also known as the "name-it-and-claim-it" gospel. The Positive Confession movement is nothing but a charismatic form of Christian Science. This can be substantiated by simply comparing the similarities in their common beliefs. Positive Confession is basically warmed-over New Thought dressed in evangelical/charismatic language. Positive Confession's basic beliefs can be summarized as follows:

1. Faith is a force that both God and man can use: "Faith is a force just like electricity or gravity" (Copeland), and it is the substance out of which God creates whatever is (Capps). God uses faith, and so may we in exactly the same way in order to produce the same results through obedience to the same "laws of faith" (Capps) that God applied in creation. "You have the same ability [as God has] dwelling or residing on the inside of you" (Capps). "We have all the capabilities of God. We have His faith" (Copeland).

2. Faith's force is released by speaking words: "Words are the most powerful thing in the universe" because they "are containers" that "carry faith or fear and they produce after their kind" (Capps). God operates by these very same laws. "God had faith in His own words ... God had faith in His faith, because He spoke words of faith and they came to pass. That faith force was transported by words ... the God-kind-of-faith ... is released by the words of your mouth" (Hagin). "Creative power was in God's mouth. It is in your mouth also" (Capps).

3. Man is a "little god" in God's class: "Man was designed or created by God to be the god of this world" (Tilton, Hagin, Capps). "Adam was the god of this world ... [but he] sold out to Satan, and Satan became the god of this world" (Hagin). "We were created to be gods over the earth, but remember to spell it with a little 'g'" (Tilton, Hagin, Capps). "Adam was created in God's class ... to rule as a god ... by speaking words" (Copeland). "Man was created in the God class ... We are a class of gods ... God himself spawned us from His innermost being ... We are in God; so that makes us part of God (2 Cor 5:17)" (Copeland).

4. Anyone -- occultist or Christian -- can use the faith force: Because man is a little god "in God's class: very capable of operating on the same level of faith as God" (Capps), and "because all men are spirit beings" (Hagin), therefore anyone, whether Christian or pagan, can release this "faith force" by speaking words if he only believes in his words as God believes in His (Hagin). "God is a faith God. God releases His faith in Words, [and we must do the same:] ... Everything you say [positive or negative] will come to pass" (Capps). "Spiritual things are created by WORDS. Even natural, physical things are created by WORDS" (Hagin).

5. You get what you confess: The vital key is confessing, or speaking aloud, and thereby, releasing the force of faith. "You get what you say" (Hagin, Hunter). "Only by mouth confession can faith power be released, allowing tremendous things to happen" (Cho). "Remember, the key to receiving the desires of your heart is to make the words of your mouth agree with what you want" (Copeland). "Whatever comes out of your mouth shall be produced in your life" (Tilton). "They're [his two children] 30-some years of age today, and I don't believe I prayed more than half a dozen times for both of them in all these years. Why? Because you can have what you say -- and I had already said it!" (Hagin).

6. Never make a negative confession: The tongue "can kill you, or it can release the life of God within you ... whether you believe right or wrong, it is still the law" (Capps). There is power in "the evil fourth dimension" (Cho). If you confess sickness you get it, if you confess health you get it; whatever you say you get" (Hagin). "Faith is as a seed ... you plant it by speaking it" (Capps). "The spoken word ... releases power -- power for good or power for evil" (Bashan). Therefore, it is very important never to speak anything negative but only to make a positive confession -- hence the name of the Positive Confession movement.

- Positive Confession leaders have a wrong view of faith: Instead of trust in God as its object, it is a metaphysical force they trust. They have a wrong view of God: He is not sufficient in Himself, but can only do what He does by using this universal faith-force in obedience to certain cosmic laws. They have a wrong view of man: He is a little god in God's class who has the same powers as God and can use the same force of faith by obedience to the same laws that God also must obey. They also have a wrong view of redemption and the cross of Christ.

- Word-Faith teachers owe their ancestry to groups like Christian Science, Swedenborgianism, Theosophy, Science of Mind, and New Thought -- not to classical Pentecostalism. It reveals that at their very core, Word-Faith teachings are corrupt. Their undeniable derivation is cultish, not Christian. The sad truth is that the gospel proclaimed by the Word-Faith movement is not the gospel of the New Testament. Word-Faith doctrine is a mongrel system, a blend of mysticism, dualism, and gnosticism that borrows generously from the teachings of the metaphysical cults. The Word-Faith movement may be the most dangerous false system that has grown out of the charismatic movement so far, because so many charismatics are unsure of the finality of Scripture (Charismatic Chaos, p. 290).

- Linked to the Positive Confession movement is the concept of Positive Mental Attitude (PMA). PMA has become the major link between sorcery and Christianity. It is the human potential movement that incorporates the age old Eastern mystique that all men can acquire godhood, that "we can achieve anything we conceive." But the Bible says: "With God all things are possible." PMA, however, declares: "With man all things are possible," which means either that we do not need God or that we are God. Paul said, "I can do all things through Him [Christ] who strengthens me." The New Age/PMA "Christ" is a state of consciousness rather than a historic Person. The Christian has a positive attitude not because he believes in the power of positive thinking, but because he is trusting in God. The PMA that is promoted in today's New Age, however, is based upon humanistic psychology's first article of faith: "Human potential is infinite!" The real Christian is happy and positive in all circumstances because he believes that God, who alone is infinite, loves and cares for him. These two concepts -- Christian and PMA -- are mutually contradictory, in spite of the sincere people who believe they are the same thing expressed in different language.

- Those directly responsible for bringing PMA into the professing church are Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller. Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone, the originators or the PMA concept, talk about "God" in their books, but their "God" is a metaphysical "Divine Power" that can be tapped into through mind-power techniques (from visualization to positive self-talk and other forms of self-hypnosis and self-image psychology). Hill and Stone don't substitute PMA for faith, but promote an even more dangerous idea: that PMA and faith are one and the same, that believing in the power of the mind is somehow the same as believing in God; that the human mind is some kind of magic talisman that wields a metaphysical force with infinite potential because, somehow, it is part of what they call Infinite Intelligence. This is the "God" of the mind-science cults and of the New Age.

Note: There are many faithful believers who live modestly and will never have more than the basic necessities of life. Yet they are content to have what they have. The prosperity teachers ridicule such and say that they only have that little because they don't trust God for more; the fact of their contentment (which is highly regarded by God) is looked upon as a lack of faith. And they are chastised because they haven't got the faith to get more so they can give more. Ultimately, the giving is expected to go into the coffers of the prosperity teacher; they may give to others, but not apart from also giving to the prosperity teacher.

All the prosperity teachers use a particular fear tactic to establish their rule for giving -- if you don't give, God will curse you. Many also teach that if one wishes to use the prosperity gospel for selfish ends -- to acquire personal wealth without giving -- it isn't going to work. If, however, one uses the prosperity gospel with the intention of acquiring wealth for unselfish purposes (i.e., giving to the prosperity teacher, no doubt), God's promise is that He will shower abundant financial blessings upon him.

There is not a single prosperity teacher who can rightly divide the Word of Truth sufficiently to be qualified as a teacher in the Church. They are renegades who present their own theories as absolute, Biblical authority. They allegorize, theorize, and spiritualize the Word of God; the only time they approach it from a literal standpoint is if it fits in with something they just happen to be saying that's true. Bottom line, the fact is that to deny the reality and to attempt to alter reality with one's positive words and/or thoughts is witchcraft; it is not Biblical. (Source: Media Spotlight -- v.13, #1, 12/92.)

* The material in this report, unless otherwise noted, was excerpted and/or adapted from two books: Beyond Seduction (pp. 51-53) and The Seduction of Christianity (pp. 28, 217).

I will be the first to say that much of what these preachers say feels right, feels good, makes us feel secure, and much of what they say is right, and does make sense. Especially when they preach tolerance and love, preach against hate and violence and refuse to judge, etc. It doesn't seem that Jesus would have a problem with that, right? Wrong. Because at the same time they are undermining and twisting His word,  doing exactly what Jesus preached against: gaming not only gaining the world, teaching us that is what Jesus wants us to do. The material world is their kingdom...let them have it.

Links:

A Theological Analysis of the New Age Movement

General Word-Faith Articles

New World Order or Occult Secret Destiny?


Beware! the New Age Movement Is More Than Self-Indulgent Silliness

Saved From New World Religion

Read more...

Thursday, December 24, 2015

We the Toxic Assets?

The "middle class" is an historical anomaly and in my humble opinion, was artificially created to build the wealth of the ownership class until it was no longer needed. Well, this class is no longer needed, hence its current decline.

Today, as J.A. Myerson point out in the video below, "the middle class is the working class plus debt." We're now in the process of returning to the natural harmonious capitalist order which does not include a "middle class". Home ownership, college, medical insurance, etc. is a privilege of wealth

In the digital age where American workers have increased their productivity hugely with no real increase to their wages, the middle class has only been able to keep up the incredible consumption schedule it is used to by taking on a ton of debt. We go into debt to buy the home, the health care, the education, the automobile, that working class people aren’t traditionally entitled."



Links:

Who's Profiting From $1.2 Trillion of Federal Student Loans?

No FAFSA, No Diploma in Louisiana

After Math Error, Fitch Doubles Student-Debt Downgrade Estimate

Read more...

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Has The Patriot Act Metamorphosed into The Freedom Act?

US Spy Architecture Pared Back as Part of Patriot Act Expires, shouts the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times claims a decade-long shift from focus on national security to a shift on civil liberties in the post Snowden era. Yes, the corporate owned mainstream media is doing its very best to hype the expiration of the Patriot Act while extolling the virtues of its replacement, the USA Freedom Act, in the words of the NY Times:

the strongest demonstration yet of a decade-long shift from a singular focus on national security at the expense of civil liberties to a new balance in the post-Snowden era.
Not so fast!   The spotlight is on one agency, the NSA and one expiring unconstitutional body of legislation, the Patriot Act. when they have all sorts of other ways to collect the same kind of intelligence laid out in the original Patriot Act, when there are countless other, even more powerful agencies than the NSA.  It's what the profit-seeking "news" media, owned and run by a tiny elite, obscures that leads to truth.


The massive US intelligence apparatus (see above) has already figured out how to get what it needs through other means. Broadcasting the curbing of the NSA Surveillance Program just gives we, the people false hope that's something is being done. In fact, under the Freedom Act, the program of domestic mass surveillance will only intensify. The NSA is only one of the alphabet agencies under the umbrella of the colossal Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). 

It's all a game of smoke and mirrors to mask the ever-growing build-up of the surveillance and security industrial complex. This change they're trumpeting is purely cosmetic. It's basically the transference of responsibility for the retention of cell phone metadata from the NSA to telecommunication companies which now require the NSA to get a FISA stamp of approval before obtaining call records.

What about all of the spy planes equipped with technology capable of tracking and reviewing data from tens of thousands of phones in a single flight and provided to the Department of Justice, including agencies such as the FBI, DEA, ATF, etc.? 

From How you can track the FBI’s spy planes
The thing is, when you fly planes in the U.S., you have to fill out lots of official forms that become part of the public record. Because the FBI didn’t want to publicly acknowledge it was sending “spy planes” out to circle American cities (and potentially alert its targets), it created front companies for them. It seems the FBI is uncreative when it comes to spy craft; the fake companies tracked down by the AP and by Wiseman mainly had three-letter names, including FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services. Because flight records in the U.S. are public, and planes are trackable on radar, the AP was able to track down where these planes flew.
Even politicians who speak out against the ever growing surveillance state cannot be trusted. Take Rand Paul who claims victory of the expired Patriot Act "proposed hiring 1,000 new FBI agents to track potential terrorists."

Anyway, what do you need the NSA for when you've got Google and Apple and Amazon and Facebook?

Newsflash: Big corporations and government are in bed together and cozier than ever. They don't even try to hide it anymore, what with Citizens United, huge corporate bailouts,  not to mention corporations actually write the laws that government officials don't even read.   Of course, I could go on forever but that should be enough to make one, at the very least, suspicious.

Links:

Zombie Patriot Act Will Keep U.S. Spying—Even if the Original Dies

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)
EPIC is an independent non-profit research center in Washington, DC. EPIC works to protect privacy, freedom of expression, democratic values, and to promote the Public Voice in decisions concerning the future of the Internet.

Also see: http://privacy.org/
Big Brother Inc

Bugged Planet

The body-worn “IMSI catcher” for all your covert phone snooping needs


National Security Analysis Center (NSAC),

NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program
The top-secret PRISM program allows the U.S. intelligence community to gain access from nine Internet companies to a wide range of digital information, including e-mails and stored data, on foreign targets operating outside the United States. The program is court-approved but does not require individual warrants. Instead, it operates under a broader authorization from federal judges who oversee the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Some documents describing the program were first released by The Washington Post on June 6.

Read more...

Saturday, January 04, 2014

The "Warm and Fuzzy" Agenda to Control Mankind.

Smart grids, smart growth, smart phones, smart meters, smart cities, smart streets...are they trying to tell us something? That we're not smart enough to run our own lives without all of this smart technology?  Of course they are, but the real purpose behind all of this overwhelming smart and inter-connected technology is the control of individuals through steady indoctrination, and procure compliance from a centralized "government". At the same time, this smart technology is gathering all the information they can about you so they can track your every move if they so desire. Meanwhile, the proliferation of superficial and shallow "relationships" maintained by texting, tweeting and Facebooking are becoming the new normal. That may sound conspiratorial (see image above) but that's because it is. There is an agreement by powerful people in high places to deceive us into cooperating with a system that will try to control every aspect of human life. It goes by many names, often warm and fuzzy, but underneath it all, it's Agenda 21.

According to Rosa Koire,
UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development/Globalization is the standardization of systems in order to facilitate global control. ICLEI was created as a non-governmental spin-off by the United Nations in 1990 to implement Agenda 21 locally across the world. Headquartered in Bonn, Germany, it is a lobbying and policy group that is designed to influence and change local governmental policies related to all aspects of human life. By concentrating power in cities this group circumvents requirements for ratification of international treaties and gives the illusion of local control. In fact the cities then ally in regional conglomerates which break jurisdictional boundaries and will destroy local control. Ultimately this facilitates global governance by invalidating individual cities, counties, states, and nations with contractual agreements and interwoven systems.

The Kyoto Treaty is an example of this. The United States did not ratify Kyoto, a commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by adopting carbon trading, repudiating sprawl, and changing land use. But 1,055 United States Mayors did agree to Kyoto, indirectly, by signing onto ICLEI's Mayor's Climate Protection Campaign. Seattle, Bellevue, Bellingham, and many other Washington cities signed it. In fact it was the brainchild of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.
Jeb Brugmann, founder of ICLEI (International Council For Local Environmental Initiatives) says the agenda is to "re-engineer what a city is." ICLEI was created, in 1990, as a non-governmental spin-off by the United Nations to implement Agenda 21 locally across the world and ICLEI's international standards have crept into our code and regulations in all of our cities, counties, states, school districts, etc..

Common Core standards are a big part of Agenda 21.  Below, Clint Richardson explains:



So far, 45 states have passed Common Core.  It will only take five more states and Common Core will be federal law:


According to Clint Richardson, CORE Education and Technologies LTD, the "for-profit education corporation that teaches American children and teachers hails not from the United States – but from India." Their annual financial report can be found here



Moreover, speaking of control, did you know that there is a "Constitutional Free Zone" in the United States? I did not, but there is a 100 mile border around the U.S. that contain 2/3 of the population—197.4 million people! Airports throughout the country are also included no matter where they are located. The Dept of Homeland Security has the authority to stop, search and detain anyone for any reason within the constitution free zone, resident or traveler.

Constitutional Free Zone
Agenda 21

Links:

Agenda 21 Land Grab: Facts and Resources

Read more...

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The Crash of 2016?



Is the response to the 2008 financial meltdown a band-aid fix that "punished none of the financial abusers, propped up the major culprits at the expense of consumers and taxpayers, and brought us closer to an even worse disaster?" That is the question radio host Thom Hartmann, author of “The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America and What We Can Do to Stop It,” answers on NPR's  show, The Takeaway..

Hartmann claims the crash of 2008, that really began in 2006 when housing started to collapse, is still ongoing, despite the over-the-top performance of the stock market.  Millions of people have fallen out of the middle class since the 1980s, including 700,000 in the last couple of years, driving wealth inequality to an all time high. These enormous concentrations of wealth are not being used productively in the economy as they are invested internationally and stored in Swiss bank accounts.

One of the main problems is that banking has replaced manufacturing as the fundamental impetus of our economy, yet it creates no wealth, not to mention, Glass-Steagall Act (1933) has never been replaced so the banks are still gambling with our deposits.  Then there is the the quantitative easing program that's devaluing our currency more and more every day.  Half of the program is buying toxic securities--junk--from the banks to the tune of $35-$40 billion per month.  That is they're  buying junk left on the books of the banks left over from the unregulated derivatives market that Phil Gramm created in 1999 and 2000 when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) Act of 1999 was passed and even more importantly, the Commodities Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) a law that opened the door to unregulated trading of credit default swaps, the financial instruments blamed, for the 2008 economic meltdown.  The passing of this Act catapulted the derivatives market to $800 trillion in 2008! (Keep in mind, the GDP of the entire planet is $65 trillion.) Right after the crash in 2008, It fell to $500 trillion, but according to the Bank of International Settlements it's back up to $800 trillion!

Since the wheels of commerce started to spin, there's always been some sort of  commodities futures market in play, where farmers and merchants could lock in on actual physical things--pork bellies, wheat, oil, etc.--in advance at a fixed price. Up until 2000, the commodities futures market ran through the Chicago Board of Trade and has always been transparent.  For example, airlines could hedge their bets by buying futures in oil.  With the CFMA it became possible to make these kind of bets on the non-physical, and it became possible to make bets on bets on bets.  In other words, they've created an economy that has absolutely no value!

Read more...

Monday, November 18, 2013

Mycoplasma, AIDS, Degenerative Diseases: What You Don't Know Can Kill You.

John D. Rockefeller  Sr.'s merger with pharmaceutical and chemical giant, I.G. Farben (Auschwitz was a 100% subsidiary of IG Farben) in 1928 "created the largest and most powerful cartel the world has ever known. Not only has that cartel survived through the years, it has grown and prospered. Today it plays a major role in both the science and politics of cancer therapy."

It's important to know Big Pharma's "crimes against humanity" history, because that history fostered the chemical-based drug treatment basis for our "orthodox" healthcare system today. The industry claims that their aim is finding medical truth, and that may be true; nevertheless, publicizing that truth, once found, if that truth entails inexpensive solutions or remedies, will not happen for obvious reasons. There is nothing Big Pharma likes more than chronic illness, for which they can produce chronic palliative costly treatments that make the patient chronically dependent on them.

Which brings me to the seldom, if ever, publicized human pathogen: mycoplasmas. They are the smallest free-living bacteria that can assume multiple shapes including round, pear shaped and even filamentous forms because they lack a cell wall. This makes it possible for them to pass through  filters used to remove bacteria; and hide inside the cell from our immune system, as well as from common antibiotics, all the while interfering with the cell machinery. Because mycoplasmas have lost most of their genetic material; a strict dependence on the host for nutrients and refuge determines its ability to survive and grow.

Mycoplasma is the co-factor that alters the human immune system and opens the door for the autoimmune degenerative diseases such as AIDS, malignant transformation, chromosomal aberrations, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Gulf War Syndrome (military vaccine), Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig\'s Disease (every single patient shows mycoplasmal infection), Alzheimer’s, Crohns Disease, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Lupus, Lyme disease, Fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis, Type One Diabetes, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, and cancer.  Yet, these pathogenic organisms show up in vaccines.
Because certain species of the mycoplasma have an absolute growth requirement for the up-take of pre-formed sterols, including cholesterol they can cause the ‘spontaneous degeneration’ of the cells that they invade. If they do not cause sufficient damage to kill the cell, they at least compromise its capacity to defend itself from other disease agents, such as those which present as Kaposi’s sarcoma, pneumoniae carinii pneumonia, lymphadenopathy, and so on.” Donald W. Scott and William L.C. Scott,
From its inception, the biowarfare program was characterized by continuing in-depth review and participation by the most eminent scientists, medical consultants, industrial experts and government officials, and it was classified Top Secret. The US Public Health Service also closely followed the progress of biological warfare research and development from the very start of the program, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States were working with the military in weaponising these diseases. These are diseases that have existed for thousands of years, but they have been weaponized—which means they’ve been made more contagious and more effective. And they are spreading.” Donald W. Scott
Currently, Dr. Alan Cantwell is one of the most well-known popular proponents of the link between cancer and bacteria. He has written numerous articles and books on the subject after he isolated and reported cell wall deficient bacteria in breast cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma and Hodgkin’s disease. He states,
If a disease like cancer is indeed caused by microscopic bacteria, it would indicate physicians have been unable to see what was quite plain for some nineteenth and twentieth century scientists to observe using simple light microscopy."
Eventually, constantly under intense criticism, Cantwell was ostracized by many in the medical profession.

Females are four times more likely to be infected with Mycoplasmas than males. The same ratio of males to females applies to Rheumatoid Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue and other related auto-immune disorders. Men, pound for pound, have 25% more blood; hence, hemoglobin - the protein molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body's tissues - than females.

AIDS and Mycoplasma: The Crime Beyond Belief

Donald W. Scott, editor of The Journal of Degenerative Diseases (pictured above) and co-founder of the Common Cause Medical Research Foundation, reveals the true and hidden story of weaponized mycoplasma and the protracted creation of AIDS by governments and private corporations. part 1 of a series drawn from the 90 min. talk given at the 9th annual conference, Sudbury, Ontario (Aug 29-31, 2008).  JODD (Journal of Degenerative Disease); Box 133 Station B; Sudbury Ontario; Canada P3E4N5  $25/year





Links:

Fluid Mosaic Model Membrane


The Linking Pathogen in Neurosystemic Diseases

Mycoplasmas Stealth Pathogens

Campaign for Truth in Medicine

Mycoplasma Protocol

Institute for Molecular Medicine

Read more...

Thursday, November 14, 2013

House of Death Lawsuit Exposes "War on Drugs"

Mr. Peyro put his life on the line for the United States of America time after time. He is directly responsible for approximately 50 criminal convictions of upper echelon cartel members, as well as the removal of huge quantities of drugs from the streets of this country….
There is no question that Americans are some of the most naive people on the planet. In fact, even non-Americans are naive when it comes to the subject of the USA. A little naiveté is a good thing because without it no-one would attempt anything, but too much, and you're a sitting duck.

 Perhaps, I'm a bit too naive because I truly believe that most of us do the best we can, given our circumstances, but holding onto the credulous expectation of people doing right, especially of those in power--anywhere in the world, including America--can be very dangerous to one's health. Those in positions of influence have been, according to their own definition, "successful" within the system, so, of course, have an interest in maintaining the status quo at all costs. We give these people decision-making abilities who are growing increasingly remote, as local council power is removed to national government and even to international government.

But when I inform others of what's really going on behind the scenes, of the profit-before-people motivation of our decision/policy-makers, I'm often told that even if what I'm saying is true, there is nothing you or I can do to solve this problem that's plagued mankind for centuries, because the powers that want to continue have all of the wealth and power at their fingertips while the rest of us are just barely getting by. To a point, I agree. However, no-one can convince me that ignorance is bliss as it makes us vulnerable should we be unlucky enough to get caught up in the system. Many veterans can testify to the dangers of ignorance and/or naive and senseless hope based on the unawareness of the fact that all war--including the "war on drugs"--is merely a pursuit to preserve power and wealth, a redistribution schemes to finance the lifestyles of the elites. In other words, blind trust, and/or willful nescience only makes you part of the problem at the very least, and at most, can put you at great risk as you will see from the example below.

Many--unfortunately, not even close to most-- of us are aware of what happens to the enlisted. After putting their lives on the line, for what they're told is our freedom, they suffer grave consequences. If our troops are lucky enough to make it home, they confront another battle: the tangled bureaucratic web of chaos while at the same time, trying to find work in an unstable economy that is very leery of hiring veterans. All of it, to line the already lined pockets of ruling class. Then there are the "veterans" of the equally fraudulent "war on drugs." Not a pretty picture for anyone who gets caught up in it.

Take former ICE informant Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez Peyro, employed as a "Mexican federal cop who worked for a top lieutenant (Humberto Santillan Tabares) of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes drug organization in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in the early to mid-2000s" who is suing US prosecutors and federal agents as well as several county sheriffs and detention-facility officials (include past and present employees of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the US Marshals Service and various county sheriffs in Texas and Minnesota and some of the most powerful US prosecutors in Texas) for conspiring to silence him in an effort to cover up their role in the "House of Death" murders in Ciudad Juarez Mexico. Yes, this man trusted the U.S. government enough to risk his life several times over, and for his loyalty and effort, was severely punished.  The lawsuit is sealed but Narco News was able to obtain pleadings from the case.
In affidavits linked here and here,filed in prior litigation related to the House of Death murders, Fielden and former ICE Special Agent in Charge Giovanni Gaudioso, (also named as a defendant in the current case) each contend they did nothing improper in the handling of Ramirez Peyro as an informant and also stress that they had no prior knowledge of any of the murders carried out at the House of Death in Juarez.
Ramirez Peyro oversaw--assuring the house was opened whenever Santillan wanted a murder carried out, as well as being responsible for overseeing the burial of the bodies--the infamous House of Death, the site of multiple gruesome torture/murders. Between August 2003 and January 2004, Peyro "informed his US government handlers about subsequent murders at the House of Death, often in advance of them taking place."
Both ICE and the US Department of Justice had knowledge of these executions, both through the tapped cell phones and the information provided by [Ramirez Peyro],” the lawsuit alleges. “After each such execution, [Ramirez Peyro] and Raul Benecomo asked for the operation to be terminated and for arrests to be made. However [Ramirez Peyro] was instructed to continue his undercover work.”

In 2004, after the House of Death was exposed, Peyro was put in protective custody. and then placed in an isolation unit at a detention facility in Texas “under the guise of a material witness” for the pending Santillan trial that never took place due to the US Attorney cutting a deal with VCF cell-leader Santillan. But Peyro was not released. Instead, US prosecutors and agents kept him in prison "under threat of deporting his wife and children — who had been given temporary visas to stay in the US and who would have faced certain death at the hands of VCF operatives if sent back to Mexico."
In May 2005, after Sutton’s plea deal with Santillan was inked, the US government initiated deportation proceedings against Ramirez Peyro — who also faced the prospect of certain torture and murder by VCF assassins upon his return to Mexico.
So for risking his life and helping the U.S. government,  Peyro was severely punished instead of rewarded,  spending six years in prison, mostly in isolation.  Why?  In an effort to cover up the complicity of the government in the House of Death murders.

From Ramirez Peyro’s legal pleadings:
… Sutton, Gaudioso, Fielden, Leachman, Durbin [and other defendants] entered into a conspiracy to cover up the fact that they not only knew about the murders [at the House of Death in Juarez], but were listening in on devices provided to [Ramirez Peyro] by Defendants for that purpose, and to cover up the fact that they had instructed [Ramirez Peyro] to continue his work with full knowledge that he had been assigned to maintain the "House of Death" where executions on behalf of the Juarez Cartel [the VCF] were occurring.

…Fielden, Sutton, Gaudioso, Leachman and Durbin decided that if [Ramirez Peyro] was allowed to testify truthfully at the Santillan trial, that they would be implicated in the murders and that ICE … had knowledge, both before and after the fact, that individuals were being executed and buried by the Juarez Cartel at the "House of Death."

… Sutton, Gaudioso, Fielden, Leachman and Durbin hatched a conspiracy to cover up the House of Death murders.

… Sutton, Gaudioso, Fielden, Leachman and Durbin conspired to enter [into] a plea deal with Santillan so his matter did not go to trial.

During the five years after the Santillan plea deal, Ramirez Peyro was kept imprisoned by US officials while facing deportation proceedings. Ultimately, Ramirez Peyro prevailed, and was released from prison in April 2010 after securing a temporary deferral of removal under United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) due to the credible threat to his life should he be deported to Mexico.

[Ramirez Peyro] was moved from one county detention facility to another, including Wilson County Jail in Floresville, Texas; Midland County Central Detention Center in Midland, Texas; Washington County Jail in Stillwater, Minnesota; and Sherburne County Jail in Elk River, Minnesota [and ultimately the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in New York], and each of which he was sequestered in SHUs [Special Housing Units].

[Ramirez Peyro] … at each of the county detention facilities, was held in total isolation from other prisoners, deprived of his family, friends, and the outside world under conditions far more stringent than necessary.

… Said conditions did not affect any legitimate purpose of ensuring his testimony or protecting [Ramirez Peyro] from potential assassins or serve any other legitimate purpose.

… During the period [Ramirez Peyro] was confined in said county facilities, he had no access to a phone, no access to television or newspapers, was deprived of access to soap and other elementary means of sanitation, was housed in a tiny cell sometimes up to 23 hours a day, with a floor contaminated by feces and urine, and his hands and ankles were chained and shackled to his waist any time he was outside his cell.

… Each time that [Ramirez Peyro], who had no charges, criminal or otherwise, filed or pending against him, was transferred from one facility to another, his feet were shackled together, his hands were shackled to his waist, he was accompanied by at least 10 federal agents, was moved in the middle of the night, with lights and sirens on the vehicle he was transported in, and with escort vehicles closing traffic. If he traveled by airplane, it was on a private plane owned by the US government.

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Monday, September 30, 2013

Profitable Punishment: Prisoners Making Obscene Profits for Corporate America

Across the nation, thousands of new prisons are being built as the multi-billion dollar Prison Industrial Complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in America, and when you consider that most prisoners are in jail for non-violent offenses, and that their only "crime" is disobeying the government's arbitrary system of  "laws", the fact that corporate America profits so obscenely must raise the question of who the criminals really are.

From Unmasking the Prison Industrial Complex Part 1: The High Profits of Prison Labor:

The research that went into this post revealed harsh realities about the state of our country and it's deeply rooted capitalist mentality. Story after story, it was clear that real Americans were suffering in ways that simply did not have to be. It was obvious that the prison industrial complex was created and perpetuated in a way that is unprecedented. Stories such as, US Technologies, an Austin, Texas based company, who closed their doors and laid off hundreds of employees only to ship their jobs, not overseas, but to the nearest Austin, Texas Prison, where inmates work for cents a day. Many companies have begun using prison labor, such as Chevron, IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, Victoria’s Secret and Boeing. You may have had firsthand experience dealing with the hardest of criminals if you have ever called TWA to book a flight. That’s right folks; TWA uses prison inmates to book flights. Even federal prisons have gotten a piece of the action, a company under the trade name Unicor uses prisoners to make everything from lawn furniture to congressional desks. Their web site proudly displays “where the government shops first.” For private corporations, prison labor is pure gold. With prison labor there are no unions, no strikes, no insurance benefits, and no rights! This is even backed up by the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution. State Corrections agencies are even advertising their prisoners to corporations by asking them questions such as: “Are you experiencing high employee turnover? Worried about the cost of employee benefits? Getting hit by overseas competition? Then the Washington State Department of Corrections Private Sector Partnerships is for you.”

An American worker, who once upon a time made $8/hour, loses his job when the company relocates overseas where workers are paid only $2/day. Unemployed, and alienated from society indifferent to his plight, he becomes involved in the drug economy or some other outlawed means of survival. He is arrested, put in prison, and put to work. His new salary: 22 cents/hour. This fictional story, unfortunately is true of many Americans, that have not been given many options. Prison is quickly becoming the new form of slavery, as the laws against crime disproportionately affect the African American Community."


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Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Narcoland: How Massive Profits Are Being Made Out of Mexico's Bloody Drug War

Anabel Hernández's new book Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers exposes how politicians and businessmen in the U.S. and Mexico are raking it in by backing illegal plantations and traffickers.

The following is an excerpt from Anabel Hernández's new book Narcoland: The Mexican Drug Lords and Their Godfathers

My introduction to the life of Joaquín Guzmán Loera began at 6:30 in the morning of June 11, 2005. That is when I boarded a bus that would take me and photographer Ernesto Ramírez to Guadalupe y Calvo, a small, storm-prone municipality in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, deep in the “golden triangle” spanned by the towering Sierra Madre Occidental. It was the start of a five day voyage to the land of drug kingpins: Ismael El Mayo Zambada, Eduardo Quintero Payán, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Rafael Caro Quintero, Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, a.k.a. El Azul—and Joaquín El Chapo (Shorty) Guzmán, the man Forbes magazine has called “the biggest drug lord of all time” (and in their latest ranking, the fifty-fifth most powerful person in the world). I still have the notebook in which I recorded the journey. It was one that was to change forever my view of the drug trade, which is today the backbone of organized crime in Mexico.

Most of the road to Guadalupe y Calvo runs through a dreamlike landscape of serried pinewoods. The sky was that intense blue you can sense in a black-and-white photograph by Manuel Álvarez Bravo. At 10:50 in the morning we arrived at the town of Rio Verde, where they hang meat on the line like washed socks. Unfortunately it’s no longer just beef, but also the bodies of victims from the “war on drugs.”

The winding road began to climb as steeply as a big dipper. The driver was an old hand. He threw the bus round the bends entrusting our fates to Pope John Paul II, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and St. Juan Diego, whose pictures were stuck on the windscreen. At one stop a newspaper vendor called Federico Chávez got on. The youngster exchanged greetings with almost all of the passengers; we were the only outsiders. Before we left Mexico City, Iván Noé Licón, a Chihuahua education official, had warned me on the phone to be discreet about our identity. “People are cagey with strangers, because they think they’re police,” he told me. So when some of the travelers took Ernesto for a priest, we didn’t say anything. It seems teachers and priests are the only outsiders who are greeted without suspicion in those parts.

After eight hours, we finally reached our destination: the municipal capital of Guadalupe y Calvo. From there we planned to tour the surrounding villages—although that is a manner of speaking, because on the bumpy tracks that link these hamlets it takes five or six hours to get anywhere. We met up with Chava, a local official who would be our guide and friend in this world we knew so little of. It was impossible not to be moved by the majestic beauty of the place, and the tragedy of its inhabitants. They were five unforgettable days.

As a journalist I had come to investigate the story of child exploitation in the area, where minors are put often to work by their parents on the poppy and marijuana harvests. These are kids who become criminals without even realizing it. Many, from the age of seven upwards, die of poisoning by the pesticides used on the plantations. Those who survive into adolescence are already carrying AK-47s, or “goat’s horns” as these weapons are popularly known.

We entered this mountain world along its narrow dirt tracks and cattle trails, learning of its customs, dreams, and legends, as well as its poverty. We visited remote places like Baborigame, Dolores, El Saucito de Araujo, and Mesa del Frijol, where more than 80 percent of the population grow drug crops. In these communities, long forgotten by federal or state social programs, you nonetheless see four-wheel-drive Cadillac Escalades, satellite dishes, and men with walkie-talkies and a pistol in their belt.

Here I met Father Martín, a Peruvian priest with a dark, glossy complexion, an extraordinary sense of humor and a great heart, who had chosen to stay in Guadalupe y Calvo rather than accept a transfer to the safety of El Paso, Texas. He carried out his pastoral work with matchless energy, even if his sermons against the wrong kind of seeds fell on deaf ears. Talking to him helped me to understand the human dimension of the problem, as opposed to the perspective of military and police operations.

People have been doing this for decades. They don’t know any other way of life, and no one has shown them an alternative. No doubt in these humid ravines you could grow guava, papaya, or other fruits, but the lack of decent roads makes it impossible to transport such produce. To make matters worse, residents say some places here, like Baborigame, didn’t get electricity until 2001. Many illegal plantations have been supported by the Mexican and US governments. But the authorities don’t understand that being nurtured here are not just drug crops, but future drug traffickers. Kids don’t want to be firemen or doctors when they grow up; they want to become drug barons. That’s the only measure of success they know.

Stories abound of El Chapo roaming the streets of Guadalupe y Calvo, flanked by bodyguards dressed in black. People have embraced the myth of the generous godfather figure, the sponsor of baptisms, first communions, and weddings.

I climbed to the top of Mohinora, in the south of the Tarahumara range. At 3,307 meters, it’s the highest peak in Chihuahua. Below, in season, you can see the green valley flooded with red poppies. Its beauty is enough to make you cry—and so are the consequences of this trade. I had gone to research a story about child labor, but I came back with much more: the knowledge of a way of life which for these people is as necessary as the blood that runs in their veins—and that now increasingly runs in the streets.

At the end of 2005, the lawyer Eduardo Sahagún called me at the Mexico City offices of La Revista, the magazine of El Universal, the newspaper where I was working. He wanted to know if I’d be interested in the story of a client of his, Luis Francisco Fernández Ruiz, the former assistant warden of the Puente Grande maximum security prison, in the state of Jalisco. Fernández wanted to talk to me about his case. He was being tried along with sixty-seven other public employees who had been working at Puente Grande’s Federal Center for Social Rehabilitation Number 2 on the night of January 19, 2001, the night El Chapo Guzmán went missing from the prison. They were all accused of taking bribes and facilitating El Chapo’s escape. Fernández had already spent nearly five years in jail, and he still hadn’t been sentenced. “The state prosecutor’s office has always refused an on-the-spot inspection and a reconstruction of the escape, to establish how El Chapo got away and who was responsible,” the lawyertoldme.All I’d heard about the affair were the Hollywoodesque stories circulating afterwards, of how the drug baron had fled in a laundry cart. This improbable version of events was repeated so often in the domestic and international media that it had become an unquestionable truth; the same thing happened with many other stories of Mexico’s drug trade.

I finally met Fernández in the visiting rooms of Mexico City’s Reclusorio Oriente detention center. It was a short encounter, during which he expounded his innocence. The former assistant warden of Puente Grande told me of his dealings with the drug baron, and gave me his impressions of the man: “He was introverted, with a serious, withdrawn manner, not at all overbearing or rude, and he was intelligent, very intelligent.” There was no admiration in Fernández’s words, but a certain respect for the drug trafficker, who was in his custody from 1999 until the day he was sprung from Puente Grande.

“After the alarm was raised following the escape, the Federal Police took control of the prison, we were all shut into the hall, and armed personnel in balaclavas moved in,” recalled Fernández. Two years later this fact would prove crucial.

Soon after I published my interview with Luis Fernández in La Revista, he won his appeal and was released. Today there is almost no one still behind bars for what the authorities call “El Chapo’s escape.” Even the warden of the maximum security prison, Leonardo Beltrán Santana, whose path I crossed a couple of times in the VIP dormitory of the Reclusorio Oriente, was freed in 2010.

In May 2006, at the Nikko Hotel in Mexico City, I met a DEA agent who confirmed my growing conviction that Joaquín Guzmán and the drug trade were essential to understanding a key aspect of corruption in Mexico, perhaps the most important aspect of all: the one that involves top government figures putting prices on the country’s millions of inhabitants, as if they were head of cattle.

According to this agent, DEA informers infiltrated into the organization of drug lord Ignacio Coronel Villarreal had told him that El Chapo Guzmán left Puente Grande penitentiary after paying a multimillion-dollar bribe to the family of President Vicente Fox, of the National Action Party (PAN). And that the deal included systematic protection by the federal government of him and his group, the all-powerful Pacific cartel. Fox is now a leading advocate for the legalization of not only the consumption, but also the production, distribution, and sale of every class of drug.

***

I read avidly the thousands of pages of evidence in the case of “El Chapo’s escape.” Through the dozens of statements given by cooks, laundry workers, inmates, detention officers, and prison police commanders that make up the proceedings of penal case 16/2001, I learned of Guzmán’s passion for painting landscapes, how much he missed his mother, his “romantic” side, his brutality as a rapist, his need for Viagra, his taste for candy and volleyball, but above all his infinite capacity to corrupt everyone and everything in his path. Similarly, hundreds of sheets of official documents allowed me to confirm that in 2001 El Chapo did not escape from Puente Grande in that famous laundry cart: instead, high-ranking officials took him out, disguised as a policeman.

I also obtained recently declassified CIA and DEA documents on the Iran-Contra affair—something nobody seems to remember anymore—which is what turned Mexican drug traffickers from humble marijuana and poppy farmers into sophisticated international dealers in cocaine and synthetic drugs. I retrieved files eliminated from the archives of the federal prosecutor’s office, referring to the businessmen who, in the early 1990s, sheltered in their hangars the planes of El Chapo, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, and Héctor El Güero Palma. Today, these eminent entrepreneurs are the owners of hotel chains, hospitals, and newspapers. I found a different account of the air crash that killed the former interior secretary, Juan Camilo Mouriño, on November 4, 2008, which suggests that the crash was not an accident but an act of revenge by drug barons for agreements not kept.

In similar fashion, I discovered the identity of the businessmen who appear as the owners of a company supposedly run by Ismael El Mayo Zambada, which operates out of a hangar in Mexico City International Airport and transports drugs and money, with both the knowledge and consent of the Communications and Transport Secretariat and the airport administration.

The story of how Joaquín Guzmán Loera became a great drug baron, the king of betrayal and bribery, and the boss of top Federal Police commanders, is intimately linked to a process of decay in Mexico where two factors are constant: corruption, and an unbridled ambition for money and power.

Semi-illiterate peasants like El Príncipe, Don Neto, El Azul, El Mayo, and El Chapo would not have got far without the collusion of businessmen, politicians, and policemen, and all those who exercise everyday power from behind a false halo of legality. We see their faces all the time, not in the mug shots of most wanted felons put out by the Attorney General’s Office, but in the front page stories, business sections, and society columns of the main papers. All these are the true godfathers of Narcoland, the true lords of the drug world.

Often the protection given to drug barons continues until they commit a major blunder, are ratted out by others anxious to take their place, or simply cease to be useful for business. Now there also exists the option of voluntary retirement, like that taken by Nacho Coronel or Edgar Valdez, La Barbie. There will always be substitute candidates for support to continue the criminal enterprise. Many have seen their time come in this way: Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, Rafael Caro Quintero, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Joaquín Guzmán Loera alone will quit when he feels like it, not when the authorities choose. Some say he is already preparing his exit.

The current war on drugs, launched by the government of Felipe Calderón, is just as fake as that undertaken by the administration of Vicente Fox. In both cases, the “strategy” has been limited to protecting the Sinaloa cartel. The continuity of such protection has been underwritten by the shady police chief and Calderón’s secretary of public security, Genaro García Luna, and his team of collaborators: the previously unpublished documents presented here are irrefutable proof of this. García Luna is the man who aimed to become, with Calderón’s support, the single head of all the country’s police forces. He has even stated, with complete impunity, that there is no option but to let El Chapo operate freely and “bring to heel” the other criminal organizations, since it would be easier for the government to negotiate with just one cartel, rather than five. The bloody results of war between opposing cartels we know only too well.

Currently, all the old rules governing relations between the drug barons and the centers of economic and political power have broken down. The drug traffickers impose their own law. The businessmen who launder their money are their partners, while local and federal officials are viewed as employees to be paid off in advance, for example by financing their political campaigns. The culture of terror encouraged by the federal government itself, as well as by the criminal gangs through their grotesque violence, produces a paralyzing fear at all levels of society. [...] They have tried to convince us that the drug barons and their cronies are immovable and untouchable. [But] as citizens or as journalists, we must never allow the state and the authorities to give up on their duty to provide security, and simply hand the country over to an outlaw network made up of drug traffickers, businessmen, and politicians, allowing them to impose on all Mexicans their intolerable law of “silver or lead.” Pay up or die.

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Friday, March 08, 2013

$46 Trillion Mostly Held by the Top One-Tenth of One Percent of Americans

The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.”– Michael Lind
In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth, the majority of this wealth is held within the upper 0.1% of the 1% population according to the report by David DeGraw, Analysis of Financial Terror. Meanwhile an astounding 62 million Americans have a zero net worth, and 68.3 million Americans struggle to put food on their table. That's right, the very same people, the top one-tenth of one percenters, 300,000 out of 300 million people, essentially responsible for the devastating economic damage to the US,whilst benefiting greatly, have almost $46 trillion in wealth. Remember, $1 trillion is equal to $1000 billion! Imagine, what $46 trillion can do for you.

And unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, the top 0.1%--not to mention, the 99.9%--can often borrow as much as they want at very nearly 0% interest, keep profits and production offshore, store personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and greatly influence legislation in the US. They have access to the best of the best in accounting firms, attorneys, consultants, private wealth managers, and access to a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and on and on and on...

However, thanks to the absence of reporting and/or the reporting of outright lies on this issue by the mainstream media--despite growing financial hardship--most of us are left to believe the rest of the nation is coming out of this financial crisis and getting back on their feet. Add to that, statistics based on rather primitive and outdated poverty/unemployment measures. Although, all one has to do is drive around and see  the empty storefronts that line the streets of the wealthiest nation in the world.

The following excerpts come from  Michiganjf and Jon who commented on the show The End Of Middle Class Neighborhoods? on On Point with Tom Ashbrook. 
"Well, 30 years of Reaganomics and the Republican Revolution has allowed the super-wealthy to "trickle down" on the heads of the middle class and the poor in America... allow the wealthiest 1% to squeeze every penny they can out of the middle-class (those who actually spread money throughout the economy and kept it thriving for so long), and of course it eventually leads to the demise of once healthy middle-class neighborhoods!

Just check out On Points recent show on "Dirty Politics and Big Money" for an idea of the ways in which "The Club for the Rich" rigs the game for their own private and exclusive benefit, bestowing temporary Visas into the Land of the Wealthy unto politicians who "play ball" by the Club Rules.

The wealth, savings, and homes of the middle-class are fodder for the super-wealthy to milk at will:
  • The market goes down, the wealthy make a bundle while the rest of America gets wiped out
  • The market goes up, the wealthy make 99% of the profit
  • The middle class saves money, the wealthy use institutionalized gambling to leverage those savings at absurd risk for their own gain, hedging their leverage for their own gain if the poor suckers' savings get wiped out
  • Got a good job? Wait a while... the wealthy will see that your employer is liquidated for a nice tax write-off; or maybe they'll restructure and send your job off to China to improve the value of their executive preferred stock options
  • Need cheap gas or food to make ends meet? Well, a nicely cornered commodity and some specualtive maneuvering will see to it that oil gets a $30 jump to makes someone billions almost overnight; or perhaps wheat, or corn, or pork
  • You'd like to see that decaying bridge fixed so you don't end up having to add an hour to your commute? Well, Government's broke because the wealthy needed another tax cut... or perhaps a few million tossed by industry lobbyists saw to it that those infrastructure dollars were spent on corporate subsidies instead.
  • Start a brilliant business and now want to take it public? Well, you'll get in on the IPO, of course... but the rest of the IPO stock needs to be reserved for the bank's "more deserving clients..." we don't want just anybody in on this money-maker, do we?
... But Hey, let's protect those tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% who milk the rest... even if not compromising means giving up the 4 trillion in deficit reduction the Dems and the Prez offered up in exchange,
[...]
Then you wouldn't be an industry lobbyist looking for corporate subsidies at the expense of infrastructure development! Good, successful programs start to suffer at the hands of the Mismanagement Kings who would rather see taxpayer dollars go to corporate welfare, tax breaks for those who don't need them, and the military-industrial complex... after all, why spend the money on Government programs that work well for 99% of Americans."
and from Jon:
"I'm an Electrical Engineer with a Masters Degree in Biomedical Engineering. I'm 57 and was layed off two years ago when the business I was associated with went under. At my age (ageism is accepted in our sociaty) I've given up after 100+ resumes. Luckly my wife is a tenured academinc, otherwise our situation would have been quite serious. Yes we are still middle class, however if the situation was a little different we would have been catapolted into the growing ranks of the distressed. I'm now doing furniture and cabinet work that grew out of what was a hobby. I've gone from being saleried to hourly and although I own my own buisness, my revenue is joined to the hip of the failing economy. Our income was cut by more than half and I feel like the very fabric of what made this country great is being torn apart.
Not only have our values been turned upside down, exalting greed and technology to the level of god, we no longer create value. Manufacturing and even services are increasingly chase cheap labor all over the world. At the same time institutionalized gambling--the stock/bond/derivative markets--has taken over, creating nothing, or counterfeit "value". The jobs have been shipped overseas, or "in-sourced", leaving us with a feudal system of lords and serfs. A perpetual underclass and permanent overclass.

This did not happen overnight. Rising home equity and easy credit masked the ever-increasing deficit in wages and purchasing power. But now that they've crashed the housing sector and tightened credit, the veil is beginning to rise, revealing the ugly reality. Moreover, the predator class is cashing in and increasing our burden tenfold, ensuring that the next generation faces a third world society, a reality they are not prepared for, given they've been dumbed down and distracted by glitzy celebrities and super shiny technology.

Links:

Full Report: The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America


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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Undermining the Quality of Jobs in America:The Trend Toward the Part Time Work Force.

Let's face it, American jobs are much less rewarding and secure than those of our parents and/or grandparents. For one generation after WWII until approximately 1973 American workers, empowered through union contracts, achieved a somewhat harmonious balance with their employers. Good wages, benefits and expectations of job security were the norm there for a while.

In contrast, in addition to the fact that wages have not been/are not increasing in line with expenses despite increasing productivity and skyrocketing executive pay, today's employees are now viewed merely as factors of production, subject to the whim of their employer for the most part. Workers can be fired arbitrarily, forced to work off the clock,  forced to work as so-called independent contractors or part-time, etc.   American workers have truly become an afterthought or invisible. So, why, in the world's most affluent nation, are so many corporations squeezing their employees dry? The answer in a nutshell, greed.

According to New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse, since 2006, the U.S. has cut a million full-time jobs while adding more than 500,000 part-time jobs. Eager to cut costs in a very competitive global economy, the explosion of sophisticated scheduling software make it simple for today's employers to align staffing to customer traffic, therefore making it easy to increase the use of part time workLower hourly wages, unpredictable hours, and few if any benefits make this trend anything but advantageous to workers.

“Over the past two decades, many major retailers went from a quotient of 70 to 80 percent full-time to at least 70 percent part-time across the industry,” said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of the Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm.
Moreover, our national statistics underestimate involuntary part-time employment because they only ask if you work  35 or more hours per week. It doesn't matter whether or not that 35 hours is a result of one job, two jobs, three jobs or four jobs... if your hours add up to over 35 hours, you're classified as full-time.

The Affordable Care Act will only worsen this  part-time trend as employers do not have to pay that shared responsibility fee if their workers average fewer than 30 hours per week. Big incentive for employers to substitute part-time positions or full time.

The bottom line is that the fear of unemployment and the fear of falling back from the "middle class" into the ranks of the poor are being used by employers to take unfair advantage of working people. It's created an atmosphere of abusive treatment and total disrespect for working people that now permeates our society and the globe.  This increasing trend to part-time workers is of course, fueling the income gap/income inequality, funneling more profits and capital gains to those at the top.

About 50% of the population is now poor or near poor and there are not enough jobs to get them out of the hole. Gone are the days of earning a living wage with benefits.

A comment exchange from Zerohedge:
"I remember back in the 1970s that the futurists thought our biggest problem would be finding things to do with all our spare time, as computers were going to radically increase productivity and we'd all be working part-time. Of course they assumed that workers would see most of the benefit of that increase in productivity...
"Damn, I'm glad to see somebody else mention this. It was hugely accepted in the 60s and 70s that the benefits of automation would be shared throughout society and we would all be working fewer hours while also enjoying a higher standard of living.

But nobody imagined the kind of wealth accumulation that we see today. Nobody imagined something like a Walmart where one family acquires $100 billion in wealth on the backs of millions of minimum wage workers.

Also that was a more idealistic time. Back then we didn't know just how cold-blooded and greedy people can be. Most rich people are perfectly happy to put the screws down on workers and drive wages down below a subsistence level if it means they can buy a 10th luxery car or a 5th mansion or whatever. There are no limits to the greed of those who are already well off it seems.

Read more...

Friday, November 09, 2012

Profit and Politics of Genocide in Central Africa.

What is the real agenda of AFRICOM? Is there a massive loss of life in central Africa orchestrated by western powers? Are Bono, Ben Affleck, and CFR members: Angelina Jolie and George Clooney (Satellite Sentinel Project (SSP)) really the good guys they purport to be? Or merely propaganda tools used in an effort to legitimize the U.S. military’s AFRICOM unit in the region through “humanitarian” interventions?

Keith Harmon Snow, now an independent journalist, after working as a researcher/consultant and investigator of war crimes, human rights and genocide for the United Nations, Genocide Watch and Survivors Rights International--who will never work for the "system" again because he dared to expose what lurks behind the establishment narrative--says there is a massive loss of life in central Africa orchestrated by western powers, that Washington’s corporate interests--vast potential wealth in mining, agricultural commodities and oil--are hidden behind “humanitarian interventions,” and let's not forget, "promoting freedom and democracy." The US has recently invaded Libya, Uganda, Somalia, Sudan. Next up: Mali.

A 2010 UN report charged Rwanda’s army with “committing atrocities that could be classified as crimes of genocide,” backing up a report that came out in 1997. Although, keep in mind, the aforementioned "leaked" U.N. Report on Atrocities in Congo 1993-2003 is a major whitewash of western interests and their involvement in brutalization and mass murder of nearly ten million in the Congo. The primary violence in the Congo began in 1996 with the invasion of the U.S. supporting these forces

In fact, the genocide in the mineral rich Congo is the deliberate result of American and British policy. Since 1996, almost 10 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been slaughtered by Rwandan and Ugandan mercenaries, financed and protected by the United States and Great Britain. Why? The plundering of Congo’s mineral resources in order to sell to multinational corporations, most of them based in the United States and Europe.

Moreover, there is a new, but deceptive, drive to end hunger in Africa through large-scale agribusiness. Needless to say, helping poor households in rural Africa feed themselves in an affordable manner is not the goal. Corporate interests have hijacked African food and agricultural policy.

"These companies and foreign governments are primarily interested in producing food for export. Their interventions have done little to improve household food security amongst poor Zambians.

It is time we realised that, amid all the fanfare for a new green revolution in Africa, and the upsurge in donor and corporate interest in African agricultural production, the best way to address food insecurity for the poor — emphasising access and not production — has regressed. Why? The big money, for input providers, agro-processors and traders, is in building more capital-intensive and market-integrated African farming systems. There is little to no profit to be made from eradicating hunger.
The politics of genocide, genocide accusation, genocide denial, and genocide inflation are very important concepts to understand before you can truly grasp the reality of genocide. Then, we can challenge, for example, the officially sanctioned narrative in Rwanda. The people of Central Africa continue to suffer under brutal terrorism. We should be asking: who are the real victims and who are the real criminals, and what really happened in Rwanda? What is happening now in the Democratic Republic of Congo? The genocide that keeps on going, without end in sight.

More at The Real News  

Links:

 Raise Hope for Congo  

PENTAGON PRODUCES SATELLITE PHOTOS OF 1994 RWANDA GENOCIDE

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