Douglas J. Hagmann

DHS Insider: “Preparations Have Been Finalized to Respond to a Crisis of Unprecedented Magnitude Within the United States”

Introductory note by Peter Schiff & Marc Faber / SHTFplan.com: One of the questions oft asked in alternative news circles is why, if elements within the U.S. government intend to collapse our economy and implement martial, no one within these circles has spoken out.

The fact is that scores of people have made it their duty to alert the American people to what’s going on behind the scenes. They’ve told us of the corruption and backroom deals. They’ve given us the warning signs to look for, many of which have already come to pass. They’ve even made us aware of the government’s response should the worst come to pass.

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John Kaminski

Banks and the State: When we endorse a system we don't understand, we guarantee our own doom.

In the Soviet Union, it was the state that swallowed up all the property, as well as tens of millions of lives, in its insane drive for total power and control. In the United States today, it is the banks who are fulfilling that function, seizing property on the premise that they are the impartial arbiters of financial power, just as the Soviet government pretended it was a legitimate authority of benefit to its people. It is no coincidence that both endeavors — these twin nightmares of capitalism and communism — were Jewish frauds, mocking all known morality with their conscienceless mayhem and mass murder that they called both legal and necessary.

Karl Marx's dictum that religion was only the opiate of the masses spelled the final end of religious authority that kings and dictators long pretended was what motivated their efforts to organize societies into coherent and secure wholes. Looking back on all this noble history we can't help but wonder if moral codes and holy writs were not just deceptive justifications for the undisguised plunder we see at work today, the snake of profit consuming everything in its path and the pleasant world as we knew it disappearing into ruin right before our eyes.

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Stephen Lendman

Israel is a racist police state. Zionist ideology espouses Jewish superiority, specialness, and uniqueness. It claims Jews are God's "chosen people." It's uncomfortably close to Nazi Aryan dogma. Master race notions are troubling. They reflect racist extremism. Israel is a prime example.

It calls itself a democratic Jewish state. Democracy is nowhere in sight. Jews alone have rights. Increasing numbers have limited ones. Neoliberal harshness denies them. Arab citizens have few rights. Bedouin Arab citizens and Occupied Palestinians have none. Israel has various Judaization plans. They feature ethnic cleansing.

David Ben-Gurion's Plan Dalet preceded Israel's War of Independence. It called for:

"Mounting operations against enemy population centres located inside or near our defensive system in order to prevent them from being used as bases by an active armed force. These operations can be divided into the following categories:

■ Destruction of villages - setting fire to, blowing up, and planting mines in the debris - especially those population centres which are difficult to control continuously.
■ Mounting search and control operations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the village and conducting a search inside it.
■ In the event of resistance, the armed force must be destroyed and the population must be expelled outside the borders of the state.

Ben-Gurion mandated ethnic cleansing. "I don't see anything immoral in it," he claimed. Bloodbath slaughter followed.

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Vincent Di Stefano

This post offers a fifth anniversary commemoration of Operation Cast Lead, the tragic and highly destructive assault of the Israeli military on the people of Gaza which commenced on the 27th December 2008 and ended on the 18th January 2009. It offers an account of pivotal events in the history of Israel/Palestine from 1947 to the present through the reflections of a number of informed and articulate commentators. — Vincent Di Stefano [IA]

And What Rough Beast Slouches Towards Gaza? - Operation Cast Lead and the Dismembering of a People

Philip Giraldi

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid, of Fearmongering Fake Terror Alerts, Fear is the Empire's Fence ■ Terrorism has become as all-American as apple pie. It is ingrained in our civic DNA, it fills our newspapers and is the backstory for every foreign policy discussion on talk radio and television. One might reasonably expect that American mothers might now cajole their children into turning out the light and going to sleep not because the bogeyman would otherwise be coming but rather because al-Qaeda might be lurking somewhere up the street.

Warning one’s children about bin Laden would be an astonishing consequence of national paranoia but for the fact that American mothers do no such thing. For something of a national obsession, Americans largely deal with the terrorism problem in an absent minded fashion by allowing the Federal government to help itself to their tax money to make the terrorists go away. Hardly anyone actually knows a victim of terrorism and I have yet to meet anyone who spends his life in fear of a terrorist attack. The disparity between an imagined threat and the actual public response would tend to indicate that the terrorist menace is phony, meant to produce a certain mind set that feeds willingness to fund big government which is promoting itself as essential to protect the country. The reality of American life post 9/11 suggests that fear of terrorism is in reality a largely contrived inside the Beltway phenomenon.

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Stephen Lendman

December 23, 1913 will live in infamy. Three days before Christmas, House members passed the Federal Reserve Act (FSA).

On December 23, Senate members did so. President Woodrow Wilson was a tool of big money. He was JP Morgan's man in Washington. He signed FSA into law straightaway. He acted disgracefully.

So did Congress. It passed FSA in the middle of the night. Most congressional members hadn't read it. They wouldn't have understood it anyway. It was cleverly worded to deceive them. Only its creators knew its purpose.

Ellen Brown explained what happened as follows:

"In plain English, the Federal Reserve Act authorized a private central bank to create money out of nothing, lend it to the government at interest, and control the nation's money supply, expanding or contracting it at will."

Weeks before FSA was enacted, the 1913 Revenue Act became law. It imposed a federal income tax. It did so to pay bankers interest on America's money. It let taxpayers do it.

The University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs calls itself a "nonpartisan research institute." It claims to seek "to expand understanding of the presidency, policy, and political history." It calls the Federal Reserve Act "one of the crowning achievements of President Wilson's New Freedom program." It lied claiming it helped "safeguard America's financial institutions, the American economy, and the supply of US currency." It turned truth on its head saying it let "a level of governmental control...monetary supply that was unprecedented in American history." It went further claiming it continues to provide "the framework for regulating the nation's banks, credit, and money supply."

Truth is polar opposite what the Miller Center's narrative suggests. Privately controlled Fed policy has been hugely destructive for 100 years. It's a financial weapon of mass destruction. More on this below.

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Ellen Brown

December 23rd, 2013, marks the 100th anniversary of the Federal Reserve, warranting a review of its performance. Has it achieved the purposes for which it was designed?

The answer depends on whose purposes we are talking about. For the banks, the Fed has served quite well. For the laboring masses whose populist movement prompted it, not much has changed in a century.

Thwarting Populist Demands

The Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913 in response to a wave of bank crises, which had hit on average every six years over a period of 80 years. The resulting economic depressions triggered a populist movement for monetary reform in the 1890s. Mary Ellen Lease, an early populist leader, said in a fiery speech that could have been written today:

Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master...Money rules...Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us...

We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the foreclosure system wiped out.

That was what they wanted, but the Federal Reserve Act that they got was not what the populists had fought for.

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John Pilger

In the late 1960s, I was given an usual assignment by the London Daily Mirror's editor in chief, Hugh Cudlipp. I was to return to my homeland, Australia, and "discover what lies behind the sunny face". The Mirror had been an indefatigable campaigner against apartheid in South Africa, where I had reported from behind the "sunny face". As an Australian, I had been welcomed into this bastion of white supremacy. "We admire you Aussies," people would say. "You know how to deal with your blacks."

I was offended, of course, but I also knew that only the Indian Ocean separated the racial attitudes of the two colonial nations. What I was not aware of was how the similarity caused such suffering among the original people of my own country. Growing up, my school books had made clear, to quote one historian: "We are civilised, and they are not". I remember how a few talented Aboriginal Rugby League players were allowed their glory as long as they never mentioned their people. Eddie Gilbert, the great Aboriginal cricketer, the man who bowled Don Bradman for a duck, was to be prevented from playing again. That was not untypical.

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Stephen Lendman

On December 18, The New Times ran a full-page anti-Iranian ad. It did so disgracefully. On December 19, the Wall Street Journal published it. It's an Elie Wiesel rant. It's hateful. It's racist. It's malicious misinformation.

It's typical Wiesel. It's titled "Iran Must Not Be Allowed To Remain Nuclear." Wiesel is no humanitarian. He's a shameless self-promoter. He's a holocaust exploiter. He made a career as a pseudo-official spokesman.

Norman Finkelstein calls him the "resident clown" of the holocaust circus. He described him as "vain, arrogant, gullible, naive about international affairs, (and defender of) the worst excesses of previous Israeli governments."

Noam Chomsky calls him "one of the major frauds of our time." He's an apologist for Israel's worst crimes. His "shameful subservience to the State of Israel (is) all the more grotesque in his case because of the pretense of saintliness," Chomsky explained.

He's a notorious Islamophobe. He ignores Palestinian suffering. "I cannot say bad things about Jews," he stresses. He claims Jerusalem "belongs (exclusively) to the Jewish people." He dismissively ignores its Islamic and Christian importance. He ignores history. Other times he reinvents it.

He perpetuates the myth about Arab nations attacking Israel in 1967. IDF forces launched premeditated aggression. It was planned long in advance. When it was too late to matter, Israeli generals admitted it.

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Michael Snyder

Would you be willing to give up what Edward Snowden has given up? He has given up his high paying job, his home, his girlfriend, his family, his future and his freedom just to expose the monolithic spy machinery that the U.S. government has been secretly building to the world. He says that he does not want to live in a world where there isn’t any privacy. He says that he does not want to live in a world where everything that he says and does is recorded.

Thanks to Snowden, we now know that the U.S. government has been spying on us to a degree that most people would have never even dared to imagine. Up until now, the general public has known very little about the U.S. government spy grid that knows almost everything about us. But making this information public is going to cost Edward Snowden everything.

Essentially, his previous life is now totally over. And if the U.S. government gets their hands on him, he will be very fortunate if he only has to spend the next several decades rotting in some horrible prison somewhere. There is a reason why government whistleblowers are so rare. And most Americans are so apathetic that they wouldn’t even give up watching their favorite television show for a single evening to do something good for society. Most Americans never even try to make a difference because they do not believe that it will benefit them personally. Meanwhile, our society continues to fall apart all around us. Hopefully the great sacrifice that Edward Snowden has made will not be in vain. Hopefully people will carefully consider what he has tried to share with the world. The following are 27 quotes from Edward Snowden about U.S. government spying that should send a chill up your spine...

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Paul Craig Roberts

What American “democratic capitalism” has brought to the world is manipulated financial markets and the absence of democracy. How long this game can play depends on the outside world.

The Federal Reserve’s announcement on December 18 that beginning in January its monthly purchases of mortgage-backed financial instruments and US Treasury bonds would each be cut by $5 billion is puzzling, as is the financial press’s account of the market’s response.

The Federal Reserve conveys a contradictory message. The Fed says that improvements in employment and the economy justify cutting back on bond purchases. Yet the Fed emphasizes that it is maintaining its commitment to record low interest rates “well past the time that the unemployment rate declines below 6.5 percent, especially if projected inflation continues to run below the [Open Market] Committee’s 2 percent longer-run goal. When the Committee decides to begin to remove policy accommodation it will take a balanced approach consistent with its longer-run goals of maximum employment and inflation of 2 percent.” The last sentence in the quote states that the Fed does not regard its announced reduction in bond purchases as less accommodation or as a move toward tightening. In other words, the Fed is saying that tapering does not mean less accommodation.

To put it another way, the Fed is saying that the economy is doing well enough not to require the same amount of monthly bond purchases, but is not doing well enough to stand any change in the near zero nominal federal funds rate. The implication is that the Fed either does not think that a reduction in purchases will result in a rise in long-term interest rates or that such a rise will not derail the economy as long as the Fed keeps short-term rates at or near zero. If the $10 billion decrease in monthly bond demand results in higher long-term interest rates, what good does it do to keep the federal funds rate at zero? If the $10 billion monthly bond purchases were not needed as part of the accommodation policy, why was the Fed purchasing them?

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Israel Shamir

What really happened in the Ukrainian crisis: Putin scores a new victory in the Ukraine

It is freezing cold in Kiev, legendary city of golden domes on the banks of Dnieper River – cradle of ancient Russian civilisation and the most charming of East European capitals. It is a comfortable and rather prosperous place, with hundreds of small and cosy restaurants, neat streets, sundry parks and that magnificent river. The girls are pretty and the men are sturdy. Kiev is more relaxed than Moscow, and easier on the wallet. Though statistics say the Ukraine is broke and its people should be as poor as Africans, in reality they aren't doing too badly, thanks to their fiscal imprudence. The government borrowed and spent freely, heavily subsidised housing and heating, and they brazenly avoided devaluation of the national currency and the austerity program prescribed by the IMF. This living on credit can go only so far: the Ukraine was doomed to default on its debts next month or sooner, and this is one of the reasons for the present commotion.

A tug-of-war between the East and the West for the future of Ukraine lasted over a month, and has ended for all practical purposes in a resounding victory for Vladimir Putin, adding to his previous successes in Syria and Iran. The trouble began when the administration of President Yanukovich went looking for credits to reschedule its loans and avoid default. There were no offers. They turned to the EC for help; the EC, chiefly Poland and Germany, seeing that the Ukrainian administration was desperate, prepared an association agreement of unusual severity.

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Fred Mazelis

Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a 41-year-old Yemeni prisoner

One of the five Guantánamo detainees facing a possible death sentence was repeatedly ejected from the courtroom during the military commission hearing at the US base when he shouted that he had been tortured by the authorities.

Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a 41-year-old Yemeni prisoner, has been held for years by the US military, and was transferred to Guantánamo, along with other “high value” detainees, in 2006.

When asked by Col. James L. Pohl, the presiding judge, whether he understood his rights at the proceeding, bin al-Shibh said,

“I totally refuse to answer this question as long as the judge is taking positions against me and my allegations.”

According to the report in the New York Times, he shouted words to the effect that, “I am not a war criminal; you are a war criminal,” as he was removed from the courtroom.

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Stephen Lendman

Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights states:

"Everyone has the right to respect for his privacy and family life, his home and his correspondence."

Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence...Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

Various other international accords affirm privacy rights. So does the US Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects against lawless searches and seizure.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Washington claims to be “exceptional” and “indispensable”
and, therefore, above law and morality. ~ Paul Craig Roberts

Years ago when I described the George W. Bush regime as a police state, right-wing eyebrows were raised. When I described the Obama regime as an even worse police state, liberals rolled their eyes. Alas! Now I am no longer controversial. Everybody says it.

According to the UK newspaper, The Guardian, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, had an angry exchange with Obama in which Merkel compared Obama’s National Security Agency (NSA) with the East German Communist Stasi, which spied on everyone through networks of informers.

Merkel grew up in Communist East Germany where she was spied upon by the Stasi, and now that she has risen to the highest political office in Europe’s most powerful state, she is spied upon by “freedom and democracy” America.

A former top NSA official, William Binney, declared that “We (the US) are now in a police state.” The mass spying conducted by the Obama regime, Binney says “is a totalitarian process.”

Perhaps my best vindication, after all the hate mail from “super patriots,” who wear their ignorance on their sleeves, and Obama-worshipping liberals, whose gullibility is sickening, came from federal judge Richard Leon, who declared the Obama-sanctioned NSA spying to be “almost Orwellian.” As the American Civil Liberties Union realized, federal judge Leon’s decision vindicated Edward Snowden by ruling that the NSA spying is likely outside what the Constitution permits, “labeling it ‘Orwellian’–adding that James Madison would be ‘aghast.’”

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