ESM; Protest The Power Grab, For God's Sake!!!!!!

Three years ago, Congress balked at the mere thought of giving Hank Paulson's (so lovingly portrayed in Andrew Ross Sorkin's straight to HBO Too Big To Fail) proposed TARP, which came in an "exhaustive" 3 page term sheet with limited bailout powers however with virtually unlimited waivers and supervision, and voted it down leading to one of the biggest market collapses in history. Curiously, a more careful look through Europe's €500 billion (oddly enough almost the same size as America's $700 billion TARP) European Stability Mechanism or ESM, reveals that in preparing the terms and conditions of the ESM, Europe may have laid precisely the same Easter Egg that Paulson did with TARP, but failed. Because at its core, the ESM is like a TARP... on steroids. It is a potentially unlimited liquidity conduit (only contingent on how much cash Germany wants to allocate to it - which in turn means how much cash Germany is willing to let the ECB print), with no supervisory checks and balances embedded, and even worse with no explicit or implicit liability clauses - in essence it is a carte blanche for its owners to do as they see fit without any form of regulation.

As the brief but must watch video explains, the ESM "is an organization that can sue us, but is immune from any forms of prosecution and whose managers enjoy the same immunity; there are no independent reviewers and no existing laws apply; governments can not take action against it? Europe's national budgets in the hands of one single unelected intergovernmental organization? Is that the future of Europe? Is that the new EU? A Europe devoid of sovereign democracies?" Ironically even America's feeble and corrupt Congress stopped a version of TARP that demanded far less from the taxpaying citizens. Yet somehow, Europe has completely let this one slip by. Is it simply to continue the illusion of the insolvent Walfare State for a continent habituated by zombifying socialism, or is Europe by now just too afraid and too tired to say anything against its eurocrat class? One thing is certain: when the people voluntarily give up on democracy, out of sheer laziness or any other reason, the historical outcomes are always all too tragic.

Courtesy ZeroHedge

11 Ways That Amerika Is Becoming More Like North Korea

First published at "End of the American Dream" website. 

  Should we just get it over with and change the spelling of America to "Amerika"? Every single day, the United States of America is becoming more like North Korea. In North Korea, the citizens are told that everything that they do needs to be monitored, tracked, recorded and very tightly controlled so that everyone can be kept safe. No dissent is allowed at all. If government officials in North Korea even suspect that you are thinking the wrong thing, your entire extended family can be shipped off to a prison camp. And you know what? North Korea is a pretty safe place. There is not much terrorism in North Korea. But why in the world would anyone ever want to live like that? America is supposed to be a bastion of liberty and freedom, but now we are falling for the same totalitarian lies that so many other societies have fallen for throughout human history. We are witnessing the rise of the beast system - a system of control more pervasive than anything that the world has ever seen. 

We are constantly being told that the emerging "Big Brother" control grid is being put into place for "our safety", but someday we are going to wake up in a dystopian nightmare where government tyrants have absolutely unlimited control over our lives.

 Those that approve of the "Big Brother" police state control grids being constructed all over the world should really study North Korea. That country is what the end result looks like.
North Korea is a totalitarian police state hellhole. No rational human being would ever want to live there. You can see an absolutely amazing National Geographic documentary on what life is like inside North Korea on YouTube right here. If you have never seen that documentary before, it is definitely worth the time that it takes to watch it. If we stay on our current path, our country is going to become just like North Korea.

America does not have to go down this road. Right now nearly every nation on earth is implementing "Big Brother" security measures, but we could choose to be different if we wanted to.

Unfortunately, right now we seem to be leading the charge toward a world where liberty and freedom are absolutely dead.
The following are 11 ways that Amerika is becoming more like North Korea....

#1 It has been revealed that Predator drones are now being used inside of the United States to spy on American citizens. These Predator drones are equipped with the latest high-resolution cameras, very sophisticated heat sensors and incredibly advanced surveillance equipment.

Predator drones can sit up in the sky and watch you for 20 hours without stopping. If one was watching you right now you probably wouldn't even know it.

We are accustomed to Predator drones being used in the "war on terror", but now they are being used to watch American citizens. The following comes from a recent article in the Los Angeles Times....

The previously unreported use of its drones to assist local, state and federal law enforcement has occurred without any public acknowledgment or debate.
Congress first authorized Customs and Border Protection to buy unarmed Predators in 2005. Officials in charge of the fleet cite broad authority to work with police from budget requests to Congress that cite "interior law enforcement support" as part of their mission.
In an interview, Michael C. Kostelnik, a retired Air Force general who heads the office that supervises the drones, said Predators are flown "in many areas around the country, not only for federal operators, but also for state and local law enforcement and emergency responders in times of crisis."

You can see mainstream video news reports about how authorities are using Predator drones to spy on American citizens right here and right here.

#2 The Department of Homeland Security says that paying for your hotel room in cash is a sign that you could be a potential terrorist. If you do not believe this, just watch this shocking DHS video.

#3 As I have written about previously, authorities in Tennessee are going door to door conducting "assessments" of how "prepared" residents are. The following comes from a recent news article about this new program....

The Metro Public Health and the Tennessee Department of Health will be using a tool designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go door to door and check to see how disaster ready you are.
The door to door assessment will take place from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Thursday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. It will be in 30 neighborhoods in Davidson County that have been randomly selected to be the target of a door to door assessment.

#4 Today, government authorities track nearly everything that we do. For example, one woman in Washington D.C. has been fined $2000 for not properly recycling homemade cat litter made out of old newspapers and junk mail.

#5 Just like in the movie "Minority Report", face tracking technology is now being used in advertising billboards all over the nation. This type of technology is also increasingly being used for law enforcement purposes.

#6 Police are not just using tasers on hardened criminals anymore. Now tasers are even being used on young school girls. The following comes from a report about an incident that recently happened in Pennsylvania....

The mother of a 14-year-old Dieruff High School student has filed a federal lawsuit claiming an Allentown police officer used excessive force when he shot her daughter in the groin with a stun gun during class dismissal in September.
Victoria Geist says her daughter, Keshana Wilson, had her arms raised high to indicate she surrendered when officer Jason Ammary pointed a Taser at her on Sept. 29 outside the high school and fired, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court by attorney Richard J. Orloski.
The suit claims Ammary fired the Taser directly at the teen's groin and he then filed retaliatory charges against the girl to justify using the Taser.

#7 A number of very elderly women have come forward with stories of being strip-searched by TSA agents at U.S. airports. Not even North Korea treats their elderly women like this.

#8 Americans are being watched in hundreds of different ways each day, and most of them have no idea what is happening. For example, in Washington D.C. the movements of every single car are tracked using automated license plate readers (ALPRs). The following comes from a recent Washington Post article....

More than 250 cameras in the District and its suburbs scan license plates in real time, helping police pinpoint stolen cars and fleeing killers. But the program quietly has expanded beyond what anyone had imagined even a few years ago.
With virtually no public debate, police agencies have begun storing the information from the cameras, building databases that document the travels of millions of vehicles.
Nowhere is that more prevalent than in the District, which has more than one plate-reader per square mile, the highest concentration in the nation. Police in the Washington suburbs have dozens of them as well, and local agencies plan to add many more in coming months, creating a comprehensive dragnet that will include all the approaches into the District.

#9 The FBI is now admittedly recording Internet talk radio programs all over the United States. The following comes from a recent article by Mark Weaver of WMAL.com....

If you call a radio talk show and get on the air, you might be recorded by the FBI.
The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet.
The FBI says it is not playing big brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence.

#10 As I have mentioned previously, new high-tech street lights that are being funded by the federal government and that are being installed all over the nation can also be used as surveillance cameras, can be used by the DHS to make "security announcements" and can even be used to record personal conversations. The following is from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson for Infowars.com....

Federally-funded high-tech street lights now being installed in American cities are not only set to aid the DHS in making “security announcements” and acting as talking surveillance cameras, they are also capable of “recording conversations,” bringing the potential privacy threat posed by ‘Intellistreets’ to a whole new level.

#11 Congress has been debating a new bill that would officially designate the United States as part of the "battleground" on the "war on terror" and would allow the U.S. military to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial. According to U.S. Senator Carl Levin, it was actually Barack Obama that was pushing for the indefinite detention of American citizens to be included in the National Defense Authorization Act....

Senator Levin told Congress recently that under the original wording of the National Defense Authorization Act, American citizens were excluded from the provision that allowed for detention. Once Obama’s officials saw the text though, says Levin, “the administration asked us to remove the language which says that US citizens and lawful residents would not be subject to this section.”

The Obama administration has been attacking our civil liberties even more than the Bush administration did.
Unless something dramatic happens, at some point all of our liberties and all of our freedoms will be gone.

 Thankfully we can still share information like this on the Internet, but that will not last forever. Eventually, "hate crime laws" will be used to greatly restrict what we are able to say on the Internet.
If you don't that that is possible, guess again. Our northern neighbor, Canada, already has a very strict law against "hate speech" on the Internet.

So what is "hate speech"? Well, it turns out that the people almost always targeted for their speech are libertarians, true conservatives and Bible-believing Christians.

In the United States, not too many people are being put into prison for what they say or what they believe yet, but law enforcement authorities all over the nation are being instructed to be on the look out for certain kinds of bumper stickers and certain kinds of literature. If you do not believe that the government is specifically targeting libertarians, true conservatives and Bible-believing Christians just watch this video.

Amerika is not as bad as North Korea yet, but we are well on the way.

In a recent article for News with Views, author Paul McGuire described what the future could be like if we stay on our current path as a nation....

Low flying helicopters flew above us, aiming surveillance devices at us. Everywhere I looked, people stared vacantly like soulless zombies. Very few people could think, most just walked about in a trance. The drugs in the water supply, vaccinations and the endless bombardment of EMF waves, along with hypnotic suggestions through the media kept people in a trance-like state. I, like a few others, managed to retain my mind, by forcing myself to think critically. I discovered early on that you could choose not to enter the trance-like state. But, you had to always maintain that dead and vacant look in your eyes. If somebody thought you were thinking, they would report you and you would disappear.

Please wake up America.
Yes, the rest of the world is steamrolling toward a dystopian nightmare.
But America does not have to join them.
The last chapters of our history can be the most nightmarish or they can be the greatest.
It is all going to depend on the choices that we make.
Please share information like this with your family and friends while there is still time.

Reprinted, with Thanks, from End of the American Dream.

December 16, 2011

Copyright © 2011 End of the American Dream

The Failure to Investigate 9/11 Has Bankrupted America

Submitted by George Washington on 12/03/2011 12:38 -0500

Preface: This post does not discuss whether or not 9/11 was a “false flag” operation or an “inside job”.  Anything other than a discussion of the negligence of the Bush administration is unnecessary for the purposes of this essay, and is thus beyond the scope of this post.

In case you didn’t get the memo, we are currently in a depression. And see this
And given that American citizens can be indefinitely detained or assassinated at the whim of the president, it is pretty clear that we now live in a police state.

This post will demonstrate – without getting into discussions of an “inside job” one way or the other – that the failure to hold a real 9/11 investigation is a core cause of our loss of our prosperity and freedom.

THE FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE 9/11 HAS BANKRUPTED AMERICA

Top economists say that endless war bankrupts a nation.
For example, Nobel prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz says that the $3-5 trillion spent on the Iraq war alone has been very bad for the American economy. See this, this and this.

The endless wars have also been a main component of America’s soaring debt:



And huge debts exert a very real drag on the economy.

As shown below, we wouldn’t have launched the war against Iraq – or the endless panoply of wars throughout the Middle East and North America – if 9/11 had actually been in investigated.

(Even the 9/11 Commission itself admits that there was criminal obstruction of justice and a whitewash of the investigation. See this, this, this, this, and this. As such, there has never been a real investigation.)

THE POLICE STATE WAS CAUSED BY THE FAILURE TO INVESTIGATE 9/11

The police state started in 2001.

 Specifically, on 9/11, Vice President Dick Cheney initiated Continuity of Government Plans that ended America’s constitutional form of government (at least for some undetermined period of time.)
On that same day, a national state of emergency was declared … and that state of emergency has continuously been in effect up to today.

It is beyond dispute that 9/11 was entirely foreseeable, but – due to the extreme negligence and incompetence or lack of caring of the Bush administration (remember, I’m not getting into any other theories in this post) it wasn’t stopped.  Even the chair of the 9/11 Commission said that the attack was preventable.
If there had been a real 9/11 investigation, the Bush administration’s extreme negligence would have come to light.   And Americans would have learned that terrorism can largely be prevented if the military and intelligence officers are simply allowed to do their job.

As just one example, Dick Cheney was in charge of all counter-terrorism exercises, activities and responses on 9/11. See this Department of State announcement; this CNN article; and this essay.

The genius Mr. Cheney apparently scheduled 5 war games for the morning of 9/11. Specifically, on the very morning of September 11th, five war games and terror drills were being conducted by several U.S. defense agencies, purportedly including one “live fly” exercise using real planes. Then-Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard B. Myers, admitted to 4 of the war games in congressional testimony — see transcript here or video here (6 minutes and 12 seconds into the video.

False radar blips to be inserted onto air traffic controllers’ screens as part of the war game exercises, which may have confused the heck out of them (see this December 9, 2001 Toronto Star article; pay-per-view; reprinted here).  Way to let that one slip through, Mr. in-charge-of-all-war-games.

The military – under the Vice President’s command that day – didn’t scramble enough fighter jets, and then scrambled jets far over the Atlantic Ocean, in what Senator Mark Dayton called:

The most gross incompetence and dereliction of responsibility and negligence that I’ve ever, under those extreme circumstances, witnessed in the public sector.

And the knucklehead personally watched flight 77 for many miles, but – according to Secretary of Transportation Norm Minetta – stopped it from being shot down before it hit the Pentagon (and see this).

Americans would have learned through any real 9/11 investigation that Cheney’s negligence and mucking around in what should have been the generals’ jobs was partly responsible for allowing 9/11 to happen.
In other words, a real 9/11 investigation would have shown Americans that 9/11 should of, could of, and would have been stopped – and that America can protect itself against future terrorist attacks – simply by playing goalie well in our country.

And Americans – instead of being scared into immobility – would have been mad at our government for dropping the ball. And we would have demanded accountability and effective service from our elected officials.  (Indeed, experts have repeatedly demonstrated that fear of terror makes people stupid … and makes them willing to accept a loss of liberty and other abuses they would never otherwise accept.)

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Instead, of course, Americans were led to believe that Al Qaeda was going to get us unless we took the fight to the Middle East and North Africa.  The administration pretended that Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11 – one of the main justifications for that war.

Had a real 9/11 investigation been conducted before we launched the Iraq war, it would have taken away one of the two main rationales for that war. (The FBI was also instructed to blame the anthrax attacks on Al Qaeda, and high-level government officials pointed towards Iraq as the source of the anthrax, even though there was absolutely no basis for those claims. But that’s another story.)

Dan Rather was right when he wrote last week:

We have been so afraid; so hell bent on destroying enemies … both foreign and domestic … we have hurt ourselves and our democracy.

Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser also told the Senate in 2007 that the war on terror is so overblown that it is “a mythical historical narrative”.

And as I noted in 2008:

Former deputy national intelligence officer for transnational threats, a 23-year senior CIA analyst, who “drafted or was involved in many of the government’s most senior assessments of the threats facing our country [and who] devoted years to understanding and combating the jihadist threat”, writes today in the Washington Post that the neocons have whipped us into an irrational fear of the terrorism. In reality, “Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears” and our leaders.

This is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention. The BBC produced a documentary called The Power of Nightmares in 2005 that showed that politicians were greatly exaggerating the terrorist threat for political ends.

And unfortunately, many in government have intentionally whipped up fear in the American public for their own political purposes. For example, FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law expert professor Jonathan Turley, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post have all said that U.S. government officials “were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power”.

And former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge admits that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection. Fear sells.

And because 9/11 was never really investigated, the government – instead of doing the things which could actually make us safer – are doing things which increase the risk of terrorism.


As such, the threats from terrorism form even more of a “justification” for a suspension of our Constitutional rights.

The failure to investigate 9/11 has bankrupted America financially and morally, and has allowed us to stand idly by while our liberty has been destroyed.

courtesy: ZERO HEDGE

Western Democracy: A Farce And A Sham

By Paul Craig Roberts

Updated Below
November 03, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- Every day that passes adds to the fraudulent image of what is called Western democracy.

Consider that the entire Western world is outraged that the Greek prime minister announced that he is going to permit the Greek people to decide their own fate instead of having it decided for them by a handful of banksters, politicians, and bureaucrats living it up at taxpayer expense at “talks” in the French resort of Cannes on the Mediterranean.

The Greek economy is facing its fourth year of decline and lacks the revenues to service its national debt held by private European banks. The banks don’t want to lose any money, so a handful of power brokers reached an agreement with representatives of the Greek government to write off some of the debt in exchange for EU capital subsidies to be financed by inflicting severe austerity on the Greek population. Wages, salaries, pensions and medical care are being cut while the rate of unemployment rises to depression levels. Government employees are laid off. Valuable public properties are to be sold to private parties for pennies on the dollar. In short, Greece is to be looted.

Large numbers of Greeks have been in the streets protesting the austerity policy and have reached the point of anger of throwing Molotov cocktails at the police. Greece is disintegrating politically. The Greek people sense that the EU “bailout” is not bailing out Greece. It is bailing out the French, Dutch, and German banks at the expense of the Greek people.

The Greek prime minister, watching his party’s support and power crumble, announced that he would let the people decide in a referendum. After all, allegedly that’s what democracies do. But it turns out that “we have freedom and democracy” is not supposed to be taken literally. It is merely a propagandistic slogan behind which people are ruled through back-room deals decided by powerful private interests.

The Greek prime minister’s announcement that he would put the back-room bailout deal to a referendum shocked the EU hierarchy, Washington, and investors. Who does this Greek guy think he is permitting the people, who bear the cost of the deal, to have a say in it? Who let this Greek guy out of his cage? This is not the way democracies are ruled.

The EU power brokers are outraged over the Greek prime minister’s departure from normal procedure. But the Greek PM is relying on the Greek people to approve the deal, and not without reason.

The Greek people have been brainwashed for decades as to the importance of “being part of Europe.” That means being a member of the European Union. When the Greeks realize that voting down the bailout of the banksters means being thrown out of the European Union, which is what they will learn between now and the referendum, they will vote for the back room deal.

Polls already indicate this. A poll for a Greek newspaper indicates that whereas 46% oppose the bailout, 70% favor staying in the EU, which the Greeks see as a life or death issue.

If this poll is a reliable indicator, the Greek PM has made a brilliant political decision. The Greek people will vote in favor of what they have been protesting violently in the streets. As the Greek people will do themselves in, the politicians are off the hook. This is the bet that the Greek PM has placed.

Whatever the outcome, keep in mind that the entire Western political and investor world was shocked that a politician, instead of simply imposing a back room deal, said he would let the people decide. Letting the people decide is a no-no in Western democracies.

If you need more evidence of this mythical creature called “Western democracy,” consider that Western governments are no longer accountable to law. Contrast, for example, the sexual harassment charges that are plaguing US presidential candidate Herman Cain’s campaign with the pass given to high government officials who clearly violated statutory law.

What follows is not a defense of Cain. I take no position on the charges. The real point is different. In America the only thing that can ruin a politician is his interest in sex. A politician, for example, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, B. Omama, cannot be ruined by violating United States and international law or by treating the US Constitution as a “mere scrap of paper.” Bush and Cheney can take America to wars based entirely on lies and orchestrated deceptions. They can commit war crimes, murdering large numbers of civilians in the cause of “the war on terror,” itself a hoax. They can violate US and international laws against torture simply “because the president said so.” They
can throw away habeas corpus, the constitutional requirement that a person cannot be imprisoned without evidence presented to a court. They can deny the right to an attorney. They can violate the law and spy on Americans without obtaining warrants. They can send due process to hell. In fact, they can do whatever they want just like Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s secret police. But if they show undue interest in a woman or proposition a woman, they are dead meat.

Very few commentators have said a word about this. The House of Representatives did not impeach President Bill Clinton for his war crimes against Serbia. They impeached him for lying about a sexual affair with a White House intern. The US Senate, which had too many sexual affairs of its own to defend, didn’t bother to try to convict.

This is Amerika today. A president without any authority whatsoever, not in law and certainly not in the Constitution, can assassinate US citizens based on nothing except an assertion that they are a “threat.” No evidence is required. No conviction. No presentation of evidence in any court. Just a murder. That is now permissible to the Amerikan president. But let him try to get a woman who is not his wife into bed, and he is a cooked goose.

In Amerika there is no such thing any longer as torture; there is only “enhanced interrogation.” A mere word change has eliminated the crime. So torture is permissible.

In Amerika today, or in the UK and the EU, anyone who tells the truth is a “threat.” Julian Assange of Wikileaks, who made public information leaked to him by US government sources horrified by the criminal actions of the United States government, is now, as a result of Amerikan pressure on UK courts, being turned over to Sweden, which, for favors from the “world’s only superpower,” will turn him over to the US regardless of law to be prosecuted on trumped-up charges.

Western “civilization” is totally corrupted by American money. There is no integrity anywhere. For a decade Washington has been murdering women, children, village elders, and journalists in the name of the hoax “war on terror.”

What terror does the world actually see? The world sees the terror that Israel, protected by Washington, inflicts on the Palestinians. The world sees the terror that the US inflicts on Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Latin America and now Africa, with Syria, Lebanon, and Iran waiting in the wings. The “war on terror” is nothing but an orchestrated invented excuse for Amerika-Israel to achieve hegemony while enriching their armaments industries.

In Greece, at least the PM committed to giving the people a say in their fate. In America the people have no voice whatsoever. The sheeple are content to be protected by “security,” porno-scanners, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, and sexual groping. To carry on the hoax “war on terror,” the US government has elevated itself above the law.

The American effort to achieve accountability to law, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, if not shut down by cold weather, ice, and snow, is likely to be shut down by police violence. One riot begun by provocateurs is all it takes to transform protesters into “domestic extremists,” the number one concern of Homeland Security. The presstitute media will make the case against the rioters, and the sheeple will buy it.

The police have been militarized by Washington. Community police forces no
longer represent the local public that pays their salaries. Local police represent Washington’s war against America.

American citizens are all suspects. Anyone who goes through airport security knows this. The only law that the US government obeys is not even a law. It is a bureaucratic regulation that prevents, even in dire wartime, any profiling of suspects by
ethnicity or country of origin.

Consequently, all native born, flag-waving, American super-patriots are suspects when they board commercial airliners. Americans who have a life time of security clearances are subject to being porno-scanned or sexually groped. Airport Security cannot tell a “terrorist” from a CIA analyst, a Marine general or a US Senator.

Well-connected members of the ruling elite, such as Michael Chertoff, can become rich from selling the porno-scanners to taxpayers in order “to protect the public from terrorists.”

The only terrorists Americans will ever experience are those funded by their own tax dollars within their “own” government. A people incapable of perceiving its real peril has no chance of surviving. America might be a military superpower, but it no longer exists as a free country with accountable government and a rule of law.

November 04, 2011 - Addendum:  The Greek prime minister has been forced to withdraw the referendum on the bailout that he promised the Greek people.   Europe’s rulers made it clear to the Greek PM that democracy has no role to play in the decision.  Greece was told to vote the deal that was handed to you or Greece is out of the EU.  The chastened PM warned the Greek parliament that the only way to remain in the EU is to submit to the dictate.

Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Courtesy Information Clearing House