The Second Great Depression: Time to Mug Our Creditors

The US economy shrinks. The UK economy enters a third dip in four years. In Spain, government spending cuts drive unemployment to 26%.

The Western nations, including Japan, cannot compete, for the reason stated in this video:



We cannot compete with four trillion Third Worlders earning pennies an hour.

We knew that back in 1994, once the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was signed. It meant either mass unemployment, at a rate that would lead inevitably to revolution, or the equalization of incomes between the West and the Rest.

Welcome to globalization and the New World Order.

But if living standards are so much higher in the First World than the Third, how is equalization to be achieved?

There are two possibilities. One is simply to slash wages: "Hey guys, next month your pay check will be halved, but consider yourselves lucky. Chinese workers doing the same job will still be earning only a fifth or a tenth of what you'll be getting.

This, naturally, would be furiously resisted.

To make the transition more bearable, I have proposed a mechanism for adjusting wages nationally or regionally according to the unemployment rate.

But that's not the sort of thing governments do: rational, fair and effective. No, much easier just to trash the currency, which achieves three objectives at once:

• First, it lowers wages relative to the international competition. Done sufficiently, it first slows, then stops and finally reverses the off-shoring of jobs.


• Second, it robs creditors, by enabling repayment of loans in depreciated currency, e.g., China's $Trillion-plus holding of US Treasuries.


• Third, increases wealth differentials between financially naive citizens, i.e., the 99%, and the astute wealthy, i.e., the 1%, who know how to protect their wealth during an inflation.

The game's already afoot.

Japan, mired in recession for decades, plans to to flood it's moribund economy with money.

Bernanke at the Fed, has promised to print dollars ad lib.

In Euroland, loose monetary policy has seen the German, English and French stock markets rocket.

And, at the Bank of England, the newly hired top gun, Canadian Mark Carney, openly talks of "targeting GDP," which is banker-speak for, the hell with concern with inflation, we're gonna print our way out of trouble by trashing the pound, already trashed within an inch of it's life and worth less than 1% of its value of 100 years ago.

See also: CIA Adviser Warns of 'Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction'

Progress and Reaction

Tower of the Winds, Athems. Image source

There are times in the course of history when prosperity grows, peace reigns over much of the earth, class conflicts decline and the arts and sciences flourish. Such periods occurred during the long rise of ancient Egypt. Classical Greece and Rome each had their heyday. England prospered mightily in the aftermath of the constitutional settlement of 1688, and during the second half of 19th Century, Russia and the other European states experienced a long period of liberalization and economic expansion.

Votes for women.

These were times of optimism when liberals and progressives tended to assume that continued moral and material progress was inevitable. Such was the message — what came to be known as the "Whig view of history" — of Lord Thomas Macaulay's History of England Since the Accession of James II. Likewise, as Russia boomed following the emancipation of the serfs,  Leo Tolstoy believed that moral progress was leading inevitably to the undermining of the state and the creation of a world functioning in accordance with the precepts laid down by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

As we now know, both England and Russia were to suffer catastrophic setbacks. England, to lose her empire and role as the world's preeminent financial and military power, Russia to suffer the horrors of the Communist Revolution and a Soviet tyranny more murderous than that of any Tzar.

Terror war drone. Image source

In the second half of the Twentieth Century, the West enjoyed the greatest economic boom and progressive social transformation in its history. To almost every "public intellectual," university professor and cabinet minister, this progress was held to be desirable, inevitable, and perpetual. Yet today, any rational appraisal of the world must lead to the conclusion that we are in a period of stark reaction and decline, and that insofar as the liberals and progressives are still in power, they serve as agents not of genuine reform and social improvement but of  reaction and imperialism.

Muscular liberalism. Image source

Two items on the Web help focus attention on this reality. One is the speech to the Belgian Parliament by Laurent Louis, stating plainly what those in power know, that al Qaeda works for the US and NATO, which seek to impose a global empire by any means. The other is Paul Shreyer's article: The 9/11 Plan: Cheney, Rumsfeld and the “Continuity of Government”, which reveals the Machiavellian mentality of the globalist ruling elite.

Adam Lanza, Ryan Lanza? Curious Image of Unknown Origin

This image was found at the following URL: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HonMjg1ltMw/UP3GzYpT33I/AAAAAAAAKik/9BlXKp69B90/s1600/385314_4346737428738_1509913392_n.jpg

If you go to the root directory: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/, you get a Google 404 Error page.

That the Lanza's had only one son has been asserted by a highly unreliable source. As evidence, a link is provided to this page, which however, provides evidence only of the fact that David and Nancy Lanza were divorced.

The images appear to be of the same person (see the small rectangular mole on the right cheek just in front of the ear, which is evident in both pictures (for a larger image follow the link above). But if they are pictures of the same person, possibly taken at an interval of several years, that does not preclude the possibility that that person had a brother!

But if the claim that Adam Lanza changed his name to Ryan Lanza is a hoax, what is the reason for such a shameless lie? To incite those pursuing the truth to propagate theories that will in due course be debunked? That would make sense. After 9/11, the perpetrators of any psyop would know that the evidence concerning the event will receive close critical scrutiny. Almost certainly, therefore, one objective of the operation would be to confuse, mislead and ultimately discredit skeptics.


And here's a broader and more convincing scenario from Undeleted Evidence, which includes a link to the Sandy Hook Rampage Movie.

And another interpretation here: Sandy Hook Theatre, by Melanie Lamport

PostScript:

Aangirfan has reproduced a certificate of the dissolution of marriage between Nancy, Jean and Peter, John Lanza, which is dated 12/9/2008, and which indicates that they had two sons, Ryan and Adam. So unless the certificate is a fake, we can dismiss the idea that Adam Lanza did not exist, an idea probably launched by someone intent on muddying the waters and discrediting "conspiracy nuts"gullible enough to believe gossip supported by nothing more than a photographic image of unknown provenance with a misleading caption.

Post-Postscript:

December 2010 Newspaper reference indicating that Peter and Nancy Lanza had two sons: Adam and Ryan Lanza.

And concerning gun control:

MSM = Meaningless News Media

How television news creates the illusion of knowledge

By Jon Rappoport

www.nomorefakenews.com, January 27, 2013: In analyzing network coverage of the Sandy Hook murders, I had no intention of doing a series of articles on television news, but the opportunity to deconstruct the overall grand illusion was compelling.

A number of articles later, I want to discuss yet another sleight-of-hand trick. The myth of “coverage.”

It’s familiar to every viewer. Scott Pelley, in seamless fashion, might say, “Our top story tonight, the widening conflict in Syria. For the latest on the Assad government crackdown, our coverage begins with Clarissa Ward in Damascus…” .

Clarissa Ward has entered the country secretly, posing as a tourist. She carries a small camera. In interviews with rebels, she discovers that a) there is a conflict, b) people are being arrested c) there is a funeral for a person who was killed by government soldiers, d) defiance among the citizenry is growing.

In other words, she tells us almost nothing.

But CBS is imparting the impression that her report is important. After all, it’s not just anchor Scott Pelley in the studio. It’s a journalist in the field, up close and personal. It’s coverage.

Here are a few of the many things we don’t learn from either Pelley or Ward. Who is behind the rebellion in Syria? What is their real goal? What covert role is the US playing? Why are there al Qaeda personnel there?

But who cares? We have coverage. A key hole view. It’s wonderful. It’s exciting for two minutes. If we’re already brainwashed.

Read more

Re: Sandy Hook: America needs a law against law-breakers

A contributor to the Daily Paul notes:

A person steals guns, (WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW), shoots and kills his own mother (WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW), transports these guns loaded (WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW), brings guns onto school property (WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW), breaks into the school (WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW), discharges the weapons within city limits (WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW), murders 26 people (WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW), and commits suicide (WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW).

And there are people in this country that somehow think passing ANOTHER LAW banning guns would protect us from someone like this.

Jesus, Tolstoy, Gandhi and Guns

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.

... do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Matthew 5-7 (New International Version)

Leo Tolstoy held that government, of its nature, is always corrupt and oppressive, using its power to tax, conscript, fine or otherwise punish to impel citizens to participate in actions totally at odds with the principles of decency and honor that the state claims to uphold.

Tolstoy illustrated his argument by reference to the hypocrisy of the Russian state, headed by a supposedly Christian autocrat, deploying with the full support of the Christian Orthodox Church millions of men and untold wealth in the murderous pursuit of imperial aggrandizement.

But, Tolstoy argued, the evil of state tyranny can be defeated by the practical application of the Sermon on the Mount.

What importance, one might think, can one attach to such an incident as some dozens of crazy fellows, as people will call them, refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the government, refusing to pay taxes, to take part in law proceedings or in military service?
These people are punished and exiled to a distance, and life goes on in its old way. One might think there was no importance in such incidents; but yet, it is just those incidents, more than anything else, that will undermine the power of the state and prepare the way for the freedom of men. 

And the power of the Russian state was undermined, if due less to the passive resistance of Tolstoyans than to the onslaught of the German Army. But its collapse did not "prepare the way for the freedom of men," it led rather to an even more absolute autocracy, headed by men who despised Christianity, held Tolstoy's ideas in contempt and proceeded readily to the slaughter of tens of millions of their own citizens.

Which leads one to reflect on the  beliefs of Mohandas Gandhi, whose nationalist campaign of non-violent opposition to British Imperial rule in India was directly inspired by Tolstoy's understanding of of Christianity. Unlike Tolstoy's Russian followers, who had little impact on Russia's Tzarist regime and were mostly shot or imprisoned by the Soviet state, the efforts of Gandhi and his followers culminated in the attainment of Indian independence under a popularly elected goverment, which raises two questions:

What was the difference between British India and Tsarist Russia that accounted for the vastly different results achieved in the two countries by those committed to non-violent opposition to an oppressive state? And what moral and practical lessons should one draw from this difference in outcome?

One difference, it would seem, is that Christian principles are more likely to prevail if exercised against oppression by those who are at least nominally Christian and who, however degraded their Christianity, at least understand the point being made by their opponents. And indeed, during the interwar years, as the British establishment formed the intention to quit India, the British were remarkably susceptible to moral arguments against war and imperialism, desperate as all political parties were to avoid a repetition of the carnage of World War 1. In contrast, the Russian revolution was led by psychopaths with an utter loathing of the old Russian regime and a ruthless determination to stamp out any opposition to their will.

That circumstances alter cases, and that moral suasion does not trump all evil was firmly believed by Gandhi, who was by no means unconditionally committed to pacifism. During the Boer War, Gandhi served the British forces in the only capacity that an Indian in South Africa could, as a member of an ambulance unit.  And during the First World War Gandhi encouraged Indians to volunteer for military service, contending that by helping Britain, India would come to be seen as a powerful  independent nation and an ally of England's rather than a subordinate entity.

Confirming that his adherence to Tolstoy's Christian ideals was purely tactical, Gandhi wrote:

I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor.

Which leaves one to wonder how Jesus and Tolstoy would have viewed the events of the Twentieth Century, for the correct understanding of the Sermon on the Mount is not altogether clear. To say "anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment" is by no means the same as saying "anyone who is angry with a Joseph Stalin, an Idi Amin or some other monster, will be subject to judgment."

To show forbearance and love to ones brothers and sisters, or to members of ones community or tribe, must often if not always be the best policy since the kindness and generosity will surely be remembered and at some time reciprocated. But forbearance and love of a homicidal psychopath intent on one's destruction seems not only different but, well, crazy.

Jesus it is true, went to his death deliberately, calmly and with forgiveness of those who had condemned him, which was entirely consistent with his teaching. Yet did he do so under a misapprehension? That is one interpretation of those heart-breaking words, cried in a loud voice in the agony of crucifixion: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

As for Tolstoy, who served valiantly with the Russian army during the Crimean war, who loved hunting, and who was both irascible and impulsive, it is hard to believe that faced with the monstrosity of the Soviet tyranny and Lenin's ten thousand leather-jacketed Cheka intent on the extermination of all opposition he would not have contemplated resistance with an assault rifle.

To some, these speculations may seem sadly misguided, in which case I would be glad to know what they think.

Sandy Hook: No private investigators welcome

Sign at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, CT. Source.

My partner and I became fed up with the mainstream media’s depiction of what took place in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. So on January 20 we traveled there from our home in Ottawa Canada in an effort to visit the sites and respectfully approach the locals.

Continue reading

Sandy Hook: The Gun Range Myth and other media-created fantasies

Joyce Riley of the Power Hour, interviews Mike Powers, on multiple improbabilities and impossibilities concerning the mainstream media coverage of Sandy Hook. For example:

How was it that Adam Lanza used his mother's Connecticut-registered assault rifle to murder 26 people when the state of Connecticut has an assault rifle ban?

Why was it that the much interviewed Gene Rosen who claims to have sheltered six children who escaped the massacre heard the sound of gunfire from Sandy Hook Elementary school yet neglected to notify the police or anyone else?

The interview, via Brasscheck TV.

And from FederalJack.com: A Connecticut police officer: On things that don't add up

Joyce Riley interview with former US special forces commando Mike Powers: Adam Lanza must have carried his own body weight in weapons and ammunition

WillyLowman (January 28, 2013): Sandy Hook Shooting: Hocus… pocus… and PRESTO!… A motive!!!

The Sermon on the Mount As Practical Politics

In the context of the US gun control debate, I posted an excerpt from Leo Tolstoy's 1894 work, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, which makes the case that state power always tends toward tyranny, thus raising the question of how the citizen should respond to the commands of the tyrannical state: by submission, passive resistance or with an assault rifle? Here Tolstoy makes the case for passive resistance. By refusing the immoral and unChristian demands of the state, the citizen undermines the power of the state far more effectively, so Tolstoy argued, than the revolutionary intent on the resort to violence. With hindsight, we see that things are not so simple. We see, on the one hand, that the Tsarist state, though cruel and reactionary was remarkably restrained in the application of violence against those, like Tolstoy, who opposed it non-violently. On the other hand, we see that the Communist state, whose professed socialist ideals Tolstoy embraced, was utterly ruthless in dispatching tens of millions of its opponents either to the gulag or with a bullet.

By Leo Tolstoy

She who has no name: Holodomor Memorial, Kiev. Image.

Project Gutenburg: The sovereign powers of the world have in the course of time been brought into a position in which, for their own preservation, they must require from all men actions which cannot be performed by men who profess true Christianity.

And therefore in our days every profession of true Christianity, by any individual man, strikes at the most essential power of the state, and inevitably leads the way for the emancipation of all.

What importance, one might think, can one attach to such an incident as some dozens of crazy fellows, as people will call them, refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the government, refusing to pay taxes, to take part in law proceedings or in military service?

These people are punished and exiled to a distance, and life goes on in its old way. One might think there was no importance in such incidents; but yet, it is just those incidents, more than anything else, that will undermine the power of the state and prepare the way for the freedom of men. These are the individual bees, who are beginning to separate from the swarm, and are flying near it, waiting till the whole swarm can no longer be prevented from starting off after them. And the governments know this, and fear such incidents more than all the socialists, communists, and anarchists, and their plots and dynamite bombs.

A new reign is beginning. According to the universal rule and established order it is required that all the subjects should take the oath of allegiance to the new government. There is a general decree to that effect, and all are summoned to the council-houses to take the oath. All at once one man in Perm, another in Tula, a third in Moscow, and a fourth in Kalouga declare that they will not take the oath, and though there is no communication between them, they all explain their refusal on the same grounds—namely, that swearing is forbidden by the law of Christ, and that even if swearing had not been forbidden, they could not, in the spirit of the law of Christ, promise to perform the evil actions required of them in the oath, such as informing against all such as may act against the interests of the government, or defending their government with firearms or attacking its enemies. They are brought before rural police officers, district police captains, priests, and governors. They are admonished, questioned, threatened, and punished; but they adhere to their resolution, and do not take the oath. And among the millions of those who did take the oath, those dozens go on living who did not take the oath. And they are questioned:

Obama to Military: "Will you fire on Americans?"

Conspiracy Theory Isn't Just For Nuts

Professor James Tracy of Florida Atlantic University has had the temerity to say, contrary to the narrative provided by the mainstream media, that there were many peculiar facts concerning the Sandy Hook elementary School massacre, which raise the possibility that the tragedy was a state engineered crime to justify gun control measures in contravention of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Image source.

In reaction, mainstream media bullies and idiots hysterically demanded the professor be "axed" by Florida Atlantic University, not because he had said anything false or unreasonable, but because he dared to remark on the incompetence of the mainstream media, an incompetence suggesting possible collusion in a government charade aimed at deceiving and disarming the American people.

The good news is, first, that Professor Tracy retains, at least for now, his post at Atlantic Florida University; second that Professor Tracy has stuck to his guns and continues to review to the evidence of what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary on December 14, 2012; and third, that one of Professor Tracy's colleagues, Kurtis Hagen, Chair of the Department of Philosophy, State University of New York, Plattsburgh, has had the courage to explain for the benefit of the many who apparently do not realize it, that Professor Tracy's line of inquiry concerning Sandy Hook is both an aspect of his responsibility as a professor of journalism studies, and a service to society courageously undertaken.

In the end, Professor Tracy's inquiry into Sandy Hook may prove inconclusive, and even if good reasons emerge to believe that his thesis is correct, we can be certain that the government of the United States will not turn upon itself, investigate itself thoroughly and punish itself appropriately.

Independent inquiry into the events at Sandy Hook nevertheless serve several useful purposes. They help to inform the public of the remarkable incompetence and dishonesty of America's great media organizations. They may encourage a degree of caution, decency even, on the part of those who rule when contemplating means to manipulate and control the ruled. And they may encourage citizens to scrutinize more carefully the merit of government claims for ever more imperious control over citizens' speech, communications, finances, travel and right of self-defence.

Leo Tolstoy on Government and Gun Control

The title for this piece is misleading inasmuch as, In the following paragraphs, Tolstoy does not address the Second Amendment to the US Constitution or the right of citizens to bear arms. What he does assert most forcefully, however, is the tyrannical tendency of all governments. Accepting that contention, whether it is best to respond to tyranny with an assault rifle or, as Tolstoy came to believe, by turning the other cheek, is a matter that readers must decide for themselves.

By Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) By Ivan Kramskoy. Source.

 Project Gutenburg: The object of authority and the justification for its existence lie in the restraint of those who aim at attaining their personal interests to the detriment of the interests of society.

But however power has been gained, those who possess it are in no way different from other men, and therefore no more disposed than others to subordinate their own interests to those of the society. On the contrary, having the power to do so at their disposal, they are more disposed than others to subordinate the public interests to their own. Whatever means men have devised for preventing those in authority from over-riding public interests for their own benefit, or for intrusting power only to the most faultless people, they have not so far succeeded in either of those aims.

All the methods of appointing authorities that have been tried, divine right, and election, and heredity, and balloting, and assemblies and parliaments and senate—have all proved ineffectual. Everyone knows that not one of these methods attains the aim either of intrusting power only to the incorruptible, or of preventing power from being abused. Everyone knows on the contrary that men in authority—be they emperors, ministers, governors, or police officers—are always, simply from the possession of power, more liable to be demoralized, that is, to subordinate public interests to their personal aims than those who have not the power to do so. Indeed, it could not be otherwise.

The state conception of life could be justified only so long as all men voluntarily sacrificed their personal interests to the public welfare. But so soon as there were individuals who would not voluntarily sacrifice their own interests, and authority, that is, violence, was needed to restrain them, then the disintegrating principle of the coercion of one set of people by another set entered into the social conception of the organization based on it.

For the authority of one set of men over another to attain its object of restraining those who override public interests for their personal ends, power ought only to be put into the hands of the impeccable, as it is supposed to be among the Chinese, and as it was supposed to be in the Middle Ages, and is even now supposed to be by those who believe in the consecration by anointing. Only under those conditions could the social organization be justified.

But since this is not the case, and on the contrary men in power are always far from being saints, through the very fact of their possession of power, the social organization based on power has no justification.

Even if there was once a time when, owing to the low standard of morals, and the disposition of men to violence, the existence of an authority to restrain such violence was an advantage, because the violence of government was less than the violence of individuals, one cannot but see that this advantage could not be lasting. As the disposition of individuals to violence diminished, and as the habits of the people became more civilized, and as power grew more demoralized through lack of restraint, this advantage disappeared.

One of the Many Reasons Barak Obama Doesn't Need to Carry a Gun

Cadillac One, The Presidential limousine



Weight: 6.35 tons.

Amour plated with steel, aluminum, titanium and ceramic.

Five-inch thick glass.

Hermetically sealed to secure it from chemical attack and provided with its own oxygen supply.

The armour plated doors are eight-inches thicks.

The underside is reinforced with a Kevlar mat to protect Caddy One from bomb attacks.

The fuel tank is leak proof and filled with special foam that prevents it from exploding, even in a direct hit.

There are holes in the front bumper that can emit tear gas and fire smoke grenades.

There is an infrared video system for the driver to drive through smoke and night vision cameras for driving in darkness without lights.
 
There is a firefighting system located in the trunk together with a supply of the president’s blood. An ambulance follows close behind.

Defense systems include a pump-action shotgun in a compartment beside the driver.

The tires are reinforced with Kevlar and can run when flat. If the tires are missing, the steel rims have been designed to allow the car to keep on driving at speed.

Powerful people are different from you and me. They have more security. 

Source

Check the Date on this Social Security Death Index Entry for Adam Lanza, Alleged Sandy Hook School Shooter

The above image is from Before It's News: Sandy Hook Shooter, Adam Lanza, Died One Day Before School Massacre? via GeneologyBank. The story, by Sheppard Ambellas, was first published by theintelhub.com.

Is the above a genuine reproduction of the record of Adam Lanza's death? If so, it implies either that the US police/security services state is at the point of implosion, or that in place of charades to gul the masses the US will increasingly rely on a "shut up or we'll kill ya," form of tyranny.

Story via the MemoryHole Blog (see story comments).

For more about that black Honda see: CT Police Captain Mark Kordick to Radioman911

Aangirfan: Algeria attack — inside job?

Attack 'mastermind' Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who worked for the CIA in Afghanistan.

Was the January 2013 Algerian hostage crisis an 'inside job', designed to get more NATO troops into Africa, to control the mineral wealth?

1. Some of the so-called Al Qaeda terrorists 'were working for BP'.

(BP has very close connections to MI6)

2. Witnesses have described one terrorist as speaking with a 'perfect English accent'.

3. A report in Norway's Aftenposten said one of the attackers was tall and white with blue or green eyes.

Dailymail - Algeria-Al-Qaeda-terrorists-working-BP

4. Professor Jeremy Keenan of the School of Oriental And African Studies told The Huffington Post UK that Mokhtar Belmokhtar has very close links to the secret intelligence services.

 

Read more

See also: Blonde haired, blue-eyed American and Canadian 'terrorists' led international 'al Qaeda' brigade in siege on BP gas plant in Algeria

Idle No More: Canada's Restless Natives

Idle No More protesters, Huron Church Road, Windsor, Ont.,
Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013. Image source.

Canada's indigenous peoples who, exclusive of the Inuit, I will refer to for the sake of brevity as Indians, have had a brutal half millenium since the arrival of Canada's first settlers. They have been driven from many of their traditional places of residence; their forests have been logged; their open grasslands have been enclosed for agriculture; many of their fisheries have been massively over-exploited; their traditional hunting areas have been bisected by roads and railways, pipelines and power lines; their rivers have been dammed and both rivers and lakes have been made toxic with the wastes from a thousand mines; their children have been targeted for cultural assimilation by institutions that showed a reckless disregard for the health and psychological welfare of those placed in their charge; whole communities have been targeted for extermination with guns or smallpox.

Yet it could have been worse. Genocide is as old as man. Tribes and nations that failed to match the weapons and scale of organization of their imperialist neighbors, have always been in mortal peril. Yet Canada's settler state was constrained to grant Indians certain rights as enshrined in treaties signed by the Great White Queen, Victoria. Moreover, these rights are still acknowledged, even if their exact meanings remain in a seemingly endless dispute and their practical application is delayed for generations.

Cree child, Attawapiskat, James Bay, Ontario. Image

Beside treaties, Indians have two other things going for them. First, despite the tragic past, they are still here, comprising with the Méti and non-status Indians almost 5% of Canada's population and constituting Canada's fastest growing ethnic group. Second, developments in electronic communication provide Indians a means never before possessed to organize nationally and internationally, and to speak freely not only among themselves but with all of Canada and the wider world. The Idle No More movement is an expression of this new power, and makes a forceful demand of all Canadians for action that will give real effect to Indian treaty rights.

Protest, however, is insufficient to achieve action. Indians must present clear and workable proposals to achieve their objectives. The demand for Indian sovereignty is simplistic and unworkable. The Governments of Canada and the provinces will never negotiate the creation of 600 sovereign Indian states within the borders of Canada. And even if a deal were negotiable it would be a charade for sovereignty is meaningful only insofar as it is enforceable, and Indian nations with an average population of only two or three thousand would be hard put to gain the upper hand in a dispute with a middle-sized municipal government let alone a Province, the Federal Government of Canada, or a foreign state.

Thus the only possibility for Indian self-government is through the formation of an Indian federation that speaks with one voice, and which demands inclusion within the Canadian Confederation with powers comparable to, though not necessarily identical with, those of a provincial government. United under such a government, Indians would have the financial and other resources necessary to push forward with land claims negotiations, the completion of which would provide Indians with the expanded resources necessary as a basis both for economic development and for the protection of the Indian cultural heritage.

Canadians and Indians alike, should hope that Shawn Atleo, Leader of the Assembly of First Nations, and Stephen Harper are able to devise the governmental machinery that will provide Indians with prosperous self-governing future. The adoption of such a plan will be opposed by some within the Indian community, particularly some among the hereditary chiefs and elders who have enjoyed the greatest benefits under the existing system of Indian administration. But the more enlightened chiefs and elders will surely recognize that their future role in Indian society depends on adaptation. As the constitutional monarchy still serves a useful role in the government of Canada, Britain and many other nations, so the hereditary factor in Indian affairs can surely serve in a new way under a reformed representative form of Indian government.

See also

Nine questions about Idle No More

Countering Those Who Would Delegitimize the U.S. Government

CIA Document 1035-960: Foundation of a Weaponized Term

By James Tracy

The Memory Hole Blog, January 19, 2013: “Conspiracy theory” is a term that at once strikes fear and anxiety in the hearts of most every public figure, particularly journalists and academics. Since the 1960s the label has become a disciplinary device that has been overwhelmingly effective in defining certain events off limits to inquiry or debate. Especially in the United States raising legitimate questions about dubious official narratives destined to inform public opinion (and thereby public policy) is a major thought crime that must be cauterized from the public psyche at all costs.

Conspiracy theory’s acutely negative connotations may be traced to liberal historian Richard Hofstadter’s well-known fusillades against the “New Right.” Yet it was the Central Intelligence Agency that likely played the greatest role in effectively “weaponizing” the term. In the groundswell of public skepticism toward the Warren Commission’s findings on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the CIA sent a detailed directive to all of its bureaus. Titled “Countering Criticism of the Warren Commission Report,” the dispatch played a definitive role in making the “conspiracy theory” term a weapon to be wielded against almost any individual or group calling the government’s increasingly clandestine programs and activities into question.

This important memorandum and its broad implications for American politics and public discourse are detailed in a forthcoming book by Florida State University political scientist Lance de-Haven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America. Dr. de-Haven-Smith devised the state crimes against democracy concept to interpret and explain potential government complicity in events such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the major political assassinations of the 1960s, and 9/11.

CIA Document 1035-960 was released in response to a 1976 FOIA request by the New York Times. The directive is especially significant because it outlines the CIA’s concern regarding “the whole reputation of the American government” vis-à-vis the Warren Commission Report. The agency was especially interested in maintaining its own image and role as it “contributed information to the [Warren] investigation.”

The memorandum lays out a detailed series of actions and techniques for “countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries.” For example, approaching “friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors)” to remind them of the Warren Commission’s integrity and soundness should be prioritized. “[T]he charges of the critics are without serious foundation,” the document reads, and “further speculative discussion only plays in to the hands of the [Communist] opposition.”

The agency also directed its members “[t]o employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose.”

1035-960 further delineates specific techniques for countering “conspiratorial” arguments centering on the Warren Commission’s findings. Such responses and their coupling with the pejorative label have been routinely wheeled out in various guises by corporate media outlets, commentators and political leaders to this day against those demanding truth and accountability about momentous public events.

• No significant new evidence has emerged which the [Warren] Commission did not consider.
• Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others.
• Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States.
• Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it.
• Oswald would not have been any sensible person’s choice for a co-conspirator.
• Such vague accusations as that “more than ten people have died mysteriously” [during the Warren Commission’s inquiry] can always be explained in some natural way e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes.

Today more so than ever news media personalities and commentators occupy powerful positions for initiating propaganda activities closely resembling those set out in 1035-960 against anyone who might question state-sanctioned narratives of controversial and poorly understood occurrences. Indeed, as the motives and methods encompassed in the document have become fully internalized by intellectual workers and operationalized through such media, the almost uniform public acceptance of official accounts concerning unresolved events such as the Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building bombing, 9/11, and most recently the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, is largely guaranteed.

The effect on academic and journalistic inquiry into ambiguous and unexplained events that may in turn mobilize public inquiry, debate and action has been dramatic and far-reaching. One need only look to the rising police state and evisceration of civil liberties and constitutional protections as evidence of how this set of subtle and deceptive intimidation tactics has profoundly encumbered the potential for future independent self-determination and civic empowerment.

See also:

Fox Prestitutes Smear Professor Who Questions MSM Narrative on Sandy Hook

Prof James Tracy interview on Sandy Hook, January 18, 2013.

Why Is Canada Providing Logistical Air Support to French Fighters in Mali?

The answer is complicated. Extremely complicated. For an idea of just how extremely complicated, here's Pepe Escobar account of the current turmoil:
 

Niger River, Mali. Image source.

Burn, burn - Africa's Afghanistan

By Pepe Escobar

Asia Times, January 19, 2013: LONDON - One's got to love the sound of a Frenchman's Mirage 2000 fighter jet in the morning. Smells like... a delicious neo-colonial breakfast in Hollandaise sauce. Make it quagmire sauce.

Apparently, it's a no-brainer. Mali holds 15.8 million people - with a per capita gross domestic product of only around US$1,000 a year and average life expectancy of only 51 years - in a territory twice the size of France (per capital GDP $35,000 and upwards). Now almost two-thirds of this territory is occupied by heavily weaponized Islamist outfits. What next? Bomb, baby, bomb.

Girls: Inner Niger Delta. Image source.

So welcome to the latest African war; Chad-based French Mirages and Gazelle helicopters, plus a smatter of France-based

 
Rafales bombing evil Islamist jihadis in northern Mali. Business is good; French president Francois Hollande spent this past Tuesday in Abu Dhabi clinching the sale of up to 60 Rafales to that Gulf paragon of democracy, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Girl: Bamako, Mali. Image source

The formerly wimpy Hollande - now enjoying his "resolute", "determined", tough guy image reconversion - has cleverly sold all this as incinerating Islamists in the savannah before they take a one-way Bamako-Paris flight to bomb the Eiffel Tower.

French Special Forces have been on the ground in Mali since early 2012.

The Tuareg-led NMLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad), via one of its leaders, now says it's "ready to help" the former colonial power, billing itself as more knowledgeable about the culture and the terrain than future intervening forces from the CEDEAO (the acronym in French for the Economic Community of Western African States).

Read more

See also:

Canada to transport African Troops to Mali to Fight Extremists, France Says

Gun Control

Thousands rally in state capitals from New England to Texas against stricter gun control laws

Eliminate President's armed guard: White House Petition gets more than 25,000 signatures

FBI: Hammers, Clubs Kill More People Than Rifles, Shotguns

Independent Journal: NBC Admitted: No ‘Assault Rifle’ Used in Newtown Shooting

Blacks and Hispanics in New York City account for 51% of the population but 98% of all shootings. Whites, who account for 45% of the population, account for only 1.5% of all shootings. Since those who commit gun crime are criminals, and since criminals will get guns whether legally or otherwise, gun control means denying law-abiding white and Black and Hispanic Americans the right to defend themselves against armed and dangerous -- mainly black and hispanic -- criminals, seemingly a recipe for a massacre of (mainly) whites. Its this Obama's objective? Source of data — City Journal, Distorting the Truth About Crime and Race

Tony Catalucci: 3D Printed Guns Render Gun Control Moot

Carroll Quigley on On Guns and Freedom ". . . [T]he nature, organization and control of weapons is the most significant of the numerous factors that determines what happens in political life." [p. 1,200]

". . . We have democracy because around 1880 the distribution of weapons in this society was such that no minority could make a majority obey. If you have a society in which weapons are cheap, so that almost anyone can obtain them, and are easy to use — what I call amateur weapons — then you have democracy. But if the opposite is true, weapons extremely expensive and very difficult to use — the medieval knight, for example, with his castle, the supreme weapons of the year 1100 — in such a system, with expensive and difficult-to-use weapons, you could not possibly have majority rule. But in 1880 for $100 you could get the two best weapons in the world, a Winchester rifle and a Colt revolver; so almost anyone could buy them. With weapons like these in the hands of ordinary people, no minority could make the majority obey a despotic government.

Mohandas Gandhi Versus Barak Obama On the Right to Bear Arms

How Obama’s Gun ‘Order’ will Backfire After the 1987 Florida right-to-carry legislation, homicide, firearm homicide and handgun homicide rates all decreased. Eight of Florida’s 10 largest cities experienced drastic decreases in homicide rates from 1987 through 1995: Jacksonville, down 46 percent; Miami, down 13 percent; Tampa Bay, down 24 percent; Orlando, down 41 percent; Fort Lauderdale, down 53 percent; Hollywood, down 30 percent; Clearwater, down 21 percent; and Miami Beach down an incredible 93 percent.

Opponents of Florida’s right-to-carry legislation claimed their state would become known as the “Gunshine State.” But the last quarter century’s actual experience (as of mid-2011, Florida has issued a total of 2,031,106 concealed-carry permits under the 1987 law) proves Florida’s trailblazing program to fight crime has been a tremendous success. As U.S. Sen. Orin Hatch, R- Utah, put it: “The effect of that legislation on state crime rates has been astonishing. The predictions of the gun-control advocates were wrong, flat wrong.”

But no matter. Politicians and others intent on restricting or eliminating firearms ownership ignore mountains of evidence, virtually all of which points to the same conclusion – that guns in the hands of responsible, law-abiding citizens always, in all places and times, result in a safer, more secure and more civilized society.

Thomas L. Knapp: “Gun Control for the Children?” Sorry, No Sale

Jeffrey Scott Shapiro: A Gun Ban That Misfired

Image source: Freedom Bunker.

Gary North: Drudge Links Obama and Hitler on Gun Control. Left Cries, 'Foul!'

ClarionLedger: Mississippi will block Obama's federal gun actions

Judge Napolitano: "Either We Have a 2nd Amendment or We Don't"

NRA President: "Elite Schools In Washington Protected By Armed Security"

No Guns, No Violence:
 

Sam Johnson: Both a Great and a Good Man

By Theodore Dalrymple

Samuel Johnson (1709–84): Death mask. Source: the visual impairment
and inscrutable disease of Samuel Johnson.

His character illuminates every word he wrote

City Journal, Autumn 2006: A friend of mine, Russian by birth but English by adoption, who speaks English more elegantly and eloquently than most native speakers, once asked me of what, precisely, the greatness of Doctor Johnson consisted. He was asking only for information, in a spirit of inquiry; but the question took me aback, because the greatness of Doctor Johnson was something that I took for granted. If my friend had asked me to name a man whose greatness was his most salient characteristic, I think I would have named Doctor Johnson without a second thought.

“But,” my friend continued, “Doctor Johnson was a writer, and the greatness of writers is in their writing. Who reads him now, or feels the need to do so?” He added that he had never read him but still considered himself well-read in English literature.

Johnson’s quality of unreadness is not new and is equaled only by that of Walter Scott, whose once-famous historical romances are now read, I suspect, only rarely, and with a sinking heart and a sense of duty—even though Ivanhoe is allegedly Prime Minister Blair’s favorite reading. Carlyle, in his essay on Boswell’s Life of Johnson, says that the Life far exceeds in value anything Johnson wrote: “[A]lready, indeed,” says Carlyle, “[Johnson’s works] are becoming obsolete in this generation; and for some future generations may be valuable chiefly as Prolegomena and expository Scholia to this Johnsoniad of Boswell.” This was written in 1832, less than half a century after Johnson’s death, and as literary prophecy was not far from the mark. Boswell has many more readers than Johnson, and probably has had ever since Carlyle passed judgment.

Can a man be really great whose greatest claim to fame is to have been the subject of a great biography, perhaps the greatest ever written? Of the biographer himself, Macaulay wrote (one year before Carlyle): “Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no second. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth while to place them.” This despite the fact that the biography opens with the words, “To write the life of him who excelled all mankind in writing the lives of others . . . is an arduous, and may be reckoned in me a presumptuous task.”

A great biography could be written, at least in theory, about a man who was not of the first importance. Johnson himself wrote a small biographical masterpiece about the reprobate poet Richard Savage, who would by now have been entirely forgotten had Johnson not done so. But great as Boswell’s book is, it could not have been written about any man taken at random: Johnson found his Boswell, as the saying goes, but it would be truer to say that Boswell found his Johnson. By the end of the Life, most of us are convinced that the final encomium of the writer to his subject was fully justified: “Such was SAMUEL JOHNSON, a man whose talents, acquirements, and virtues were so extraordinary, that the more his character is considered, the more he will be regarded by the present age, and by posterity, with admiration and reverence.”