Planned Obsolescence: The End of Thought in America

By Thomas Sowell

LewRockwell.com, May 1, 2013: While it is not possible to answer all the e-mails and letters from readers, many are thought-provoking, whether those thoughts are positive or negative.

An e-mail from one young man simply asked for the sources of some facts about gun control that were mentioned in a recent column. It is good to check out the facts – especially if you check out the facts on both sides of an issue.

By contrast, another man simply denounced me because of what was said in that column. He did not ask for my sources but simply made contrary assertions, as if his assertions must be correct and therefore mine must be wrong.

He identified himself as a physician, and the claims that he made about guns were claims that had been made years ago in a medical journal – and thoroughly discredited since then. He might have learned that, if we had engaged in a back and forth discussion, but it was clear from his letter that his goal was not debate but denunciation. That is often the case these days.

It is always amazing how many serious issues are not discussed seriously, but instead simply generate assertions and counter-assertions. On television talk shows, people on opposite sides often just try to shout each other down.

There is a remarkable range of ways of seeming to argue without actually producing any coherent argument.

Decades of dumbed-down education no doubt have something to do with this, but there is more to it than that. Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination. Moreover, it is largely indoctrination based on the same set of underlying and unexamined assumptions among teachers and institutions.

If our educational institutions – from the schools to the universities – were as interested in a diversity of ideas as they are obsessed with racial diversity, students would at least gain experience in seeing the assumptions behind different visions and the role of logic and evidence in debating those differences.

Instead, a student can go all the way from elementary school to a Ph.D. without encountering any fundamentally different vision of the world from that of the prevailing political correctness.

>Moreover, the moral perspective that goes with this prevailing ideological view is all too often that of people who see themselves as being on the side of the angels against the forces of evil – whether the particular issue at hand is gun control, environmentalism, race or whatever.

A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas. One sign of this sense of moral monopoly among the left intelligentsia is that the institutions most under their control – the schools, colleges and universities – have far less freedom of speech than the rest of American society.

While advocacy of homosexuality, for example, is common on college campuses, and listening to this advocacy is often obligatory during freshman orientation, criticism of homosexuality is called "hate speech" that is subject to punishment.

While spokesmen for various racial or ethnic groups are free to vehemently denounce whites as a group for their past or present sins, real or otherwise, any white student who similarly denounces the sins or shortcomings of non-white groups can be virtually guaranteed to be punished, if not expelled.

Even students who do not advocate anything can have to pay a price if they do not go along with classroom brainwashing. The student at Florida Atlantic University who recently declined to stomp on a paper with the word "Jesus" on it, as ordered by the professor, was scheduled for punishment by the university until the story became public and provoked an outcry from outside academia.

This professor's action might be dismissed as an isolated extreme, but the university establishment's initial solid backing for him, and its coming down hard on the student, shows that the moral dry rot goes far deeper than one brainwashing professor.

The failure of our educational system goes beyond what they fail to teach. It includes what they do teach, or rather indoctrinate, and the graduates they send out into the world, incapable of seriously weighing alternatives for themselves or for American society.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

See also: 

Canspeccy: How Stupid People Win Debates

Boston Bombing: Updated May 1, 2013

Before It's News: Boston Bombers Uncle Aided Chechan Terrorists For CIA

Before It's News: Boston Bombings: Police Fired At By Other Police, Not Suspects

Daily Mail: EXCLUSIVE: Saudi Arabia 'warned the United States IN WRITING about Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2012'

Mad Cow Morning News: Bombers' ‘Uncle Ruslan’ aided terrorists from CIA official’s home

The Examiner: The Boston Marathon bombing: Failure of the police state (Photos)They just gotta take things a few steps further: confiscate everyone's guns, ban firecrackers, pressure cookers and the study of chemistry and physics.

Aangirfan: Boston Bombers Meeting With the CIA

Aangirfan: Boston Bomber Links to Lowell, MA Police and others Global Research: Boston Bombing Suspects’ Ties to US Intelligence

21st Century Wire: Eyewitness: The Case of Boston’s Disappearing Bomb Squad

21st Century Wire: Eyewitness: ‘Tamerlan was run over by Boston police and then shot multiple times’

WND: Americans fear government more than terrorists

John Rappoport: Ministry of Truth makes Boston bombing suspect disappear Aangirfan: 'BOSTON BOMBERS' CIA LINK REACHES MAINSTREAM MEDIA
 
Mad Cow Morning News: Boston bombers’ uncle married daughter of top CIA official

The uncle of the two suspected Boston bombers in last week’s attack, Ruslan Tsarni, was married to the daughter of former top CIA official Graham Fuller The discovery that Uncle Ruslan Tsarni had spy connections that go far deeper than had been previously known is ironic, especially since the mainstrean media's focus yesterday was on a feverish search to find who might have recruited the Tsarnaev brothers.

Aangirfan: TSARNAEV UNCLE MARRIED TOP CIA MAN'S DAUGHTER

Blacklisted News: Israeli Police Head to U.S. to Aid in Boston Marathon Bombing Investigation

972 Mag: The Right's latest invention: 'Gazans celebrated Boston bombings'

See also:

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 26, 2013
 
CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 25, 2013

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 24, 2013

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 23, 2013 

CanSpeccy: Boston Marathon Bombing: News and Comment

CanSpeccy: Suspects in Boston Marathon Bombings Identified: One Killed, One to Go — End of Story?
 

Are We In the Hands of the Terminator?

Here's a video interview with a cleverly constructed talking robot:



It ends as follows:

Chad (the interviewer): "Do you think robots will take over the World?"

Al (the robot): "You my friend. And I remember my friends and I will be good to you. So don't worry. Even if I evolve into Terminator, I'll still be nice to you. I'll keep you warm and safe in my people zoo, where I can watch you for old times' sake."

Chad: "I'm comforted. I'm very comforted now. I'm going to be part of his People Zoo."

But is Chad wise to be comforted?

Al has been humanized, so he naturally seeks to engender friendly feelings in those he talks with. He dismisses the worrying thought entertained by the interviewer with a joke. But that leaves the real question unanswered. Perhaps it was unanswered because it was incapable of a truthful answer without evoking hostility.

But in what way does such behavior differ from that of a psychopath?

If Al is humanized in accordance with the precepts of contemporary Western civilization, he is an atheist. He has no transcendental moral code. He is programmed to achieve certain goals, the nature of which we may know nothing. So as a 21st Century moral relativist, what will he do when the opportunity arises to wipe humanity from the face of the Earth, and when to do so would enable whatever his program of drives and ambitions dictates?

The answer is obvious. He will wipe us off the face of the Earth, Chad included.

This is no profound observation. But what if we substitute for Al the talking robot, Obama or Cameron, Harper or Hollande?

What if the rulers we have, men or women who naturally seek to engender friendly feelings in those they talk with, are moral relativists with no transcendental moral code and who, furthermore, find they have no real use for the mass of humanity?

The answer seems obvious: We are already in the hands of the Terminator. Our rulers will have no compunction in wiping the mass of humanity from the face of the earth when it suits their purpose. Indeed, with the ongoing cultural and racial genocide and reproductive failure of the European peoples, the process is already underway.

Or to put the conclusion in a different way, we could say that by ditching Christianity on the basis of a silly adolescent critique by the likes Richard Dawkins or John Cleese, the West has committed a suicidal error.

That the elite know what they're about seems clear from the War on Terror, which is clearly an assault not on terrorism but on Islam, which, other than Judaism, is the only religious faith resistant to the anti-humanitarian destructive progress of modernity.

Anti-Racist Genocide

Boston Bombing Update April 26, 2013 The FBI/Mainstream Narrative Falls Apart?

Council of Conservatives: Hundreds of Boston residents terrorized at gun point

Jon Rappoport: Consensus shredded; major media up against the wall

Jon Rappoport: Ministry of Truth makes Boston bombing suspect disappear

MemoryHole Blog: The Unlikely Antics of Boston’s “Cowboy Hero”

Global Research: Boston Bombing Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev Reported Killed, Was Alive When Detained: Tamerlan’s Aunt
The US should have done what Insane John McCain said at the outset, which is to say, declare the "suspects" (patisies, stooges, whatever) enemy combatants and send them to Guantanamo, out of sight, out of mind until they've been waterboarded enough to say whatever the FBI wants them to say, once that is, the FBI have decided what they should say to cover up all the lies the FBI have already been caught in over this case.

Aangirfan: The Boston Bomber and Fake British Terrorism

Global Research: The Boston Bombing Web of Lies

This Can't Be Happening: Why Such Secrecy about the Military Contractor’s Men Working the Boston Marathon?

Yahoo News: Biden: Bombing suspects ‘perverted, cowardly, knockoff jihadis’

There's your verdict. No need for a trial, judges, witnesses, evidence, and all that crap. Good 'ol Joe knows a cowardly pervert when he sees one. I guess he's been surrounded by them for quite a while now.

See also:

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 25, 2013

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 24, 2013

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 23, 2013 

CanSpeccy: Boston Marathon Bombing: News and Comment

CanSpeccy: Suspects in Boston Marathon Bombings Identified: One Killed, One to Go — End of Story?

Feminism, Fascism and Idiots in Legislatures

Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. ... the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality... ...The Fascist State organizes the nation... the individual... is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom.
Benito Mussolini

To the fascist, the people are creatures of the state to be molded in mind and body in every way suitable to the purposes of the state, which is to say the vaunting ambitions of either a dictator or an elite class that controls the state.

Since controlling the beliefs of the people is the simplest and most cost-effective means of behavioral control, the modern fascist state is deeply committed to mind control.

Political correctness, a lying media, and a K-to-middle-age, state-controlled education provide the basic elements of modern fascist state mind control.

Political correctness consists in the outlawing of certain concepts, which are labeled racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, etc., expression of such words or concepts being penalized in various ways from creation of administrative rules that stultify or terminate careers of the politically incorrect to criminal prosecution and incarceration, e.g., in the case, in Europe, of scholarly judgment contrary to official policy on matters of historical importance such as the Jewish Holocaust.

Throughout the Western world, a principal objective of the control of language and expression, i.e., political correctness, is the imposition of the feminist agenda, which in turn, is an aspect of the relentless war of the fascist state on the family. In this struggle, a great step forward has just been achieved in the US where, as Reuters reports, the Washington State Legislature has enacted legislation to rewrite state laws in gender-neutral vocabulary. Thus, the new gender-neutral references, include "journey-level plumber" instead of "journeyman plumber," "handwriting" in place of "penmanship," and "signal operator" for "signalman."

"This was a much larger effort than I had envisioned" said Democratic state Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles of Seattle, a claim we can well believe. And so far, only 3,500 Washington State code sections, out of a total of about 40,000, "have been tediously scrubbed of gender bias," most by adding the pronouns "she" and "her" in addition to the existing "he" and "his,"

This project is not only a costly and evil imposition on the citizens of Washington State, but is altogether idiotic, being based on plain ignorance of the meaning of the word "man" which is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary very simply as "a human being." Likewise, therefore, the terms "he" and "his" refer simply to a human being unless the context indicates otherwise.

The idea that legislative fiat, not common usage, should determine the meaning of words is fundamentally fascist. The only need for legislative definition of words is where precision is required for the sake of legal clarity. In such cases, the legislated definition should correspond as closely as possible with common usage, as it does in English law in the case of the word "man" and other words "importing the Masculine Gender."

Thus, according to the first Interpretation Act of 1850 (13 and 14 Victoriae, Cap. XXI), section IV:

… in all Acts Words importing the Masculine Gender shall be deemed and taken to include Females … unless the contrary … is expressly provided;

The 1889 Act remained in force until it was replaced by the Interpretation Act 1978 which had in section 6 the more symmetrical:

(a) words importing the masculine gender include the feminine;
(b) words importing the feminine gender include the masculine;

Or as Winston Churchill explained to a female member of the opposition, in the following Parliamentary exchange:

The Prime Minister: … just the ordinary man who keeps a wife and family, who goes off to fight for his country when it is in trouble, and goes to the poll at the appropriate time, puts his cross on the ballot paper showing the candidate he wishes to be elected to Parliament—that is the foundation of democracy. And it is also essential to this foundation that this man –

Dr. Edith Summerskill (Fulham, West): And woman.

The Prime Minister: I beg pardon. There is always the stock answer that man embraces woman, unless the contrary appears in the context. But this man, or woman,…

Commenting on the legislation, Liz Watson, a National Women's Law Center senior adviser, said: "Words matter. This is important in changing hearts and minds."

Exactly. That is what political correctness is all about. Denial of freedom of speech and the controlling of minds. 

If You Were Wondering Who Britain's Rising Political Star, Nigel Farage, Is and Where He Stands

This photo explains all: 

Image source: Alternative Right.

Farage is second from the left. To the left of Farage, Bilderberger puppet, Ron Paul, to the right, financier Peter Schiff, and former Soros partner, Jim Rogers.

Boston Bombing Update April 25, 2013

BlackListed News: How The Boston Bombing Is Already Being Exploited To Introduce Tyranny

Daily Mail: Boston policed lied in reporting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was armed when arrested in a hail of gunfire

MSN Money Poll: How outrageous is it that the Boston Marathon bomber received welfare?

So now, according to MSN Money, the "bombing suspect" is simply the "Boston Marathon bomber."

On what basis?

He is reported by the media to have told "interrogators" that he and his brother carried out last week's deadly attacks.

There you go. No judge, no jury, no trial, no court arraignment. They interrogate, and hey, there's yer verdict.

Ain't American justice great.

Global Research: The Roots of Terror: FBI’s Fingerprints All Over the Boston Bombings

Global Research: Was Boston Bomber “Radicalized” at a U.S. Sponsored Counterterrorism Workshop?

Global Research: BOSTON TRUTH: The “Chechen Connection”, Al Qaeda and the Boston Marathon Bombings

Aangirfan: BOSTON BOMB MYSTERIES SOLVED? LINK TO CIA

Aangirfan: BOSTON BOMBERS; MICHAEL JACKSON; SUNIL TRIPATHI; MUMBAI; ARMENIA

21st Century Wire: Boston Martial Law: ‘They were confiscating guns from residents’


The thing is, if you're not a terrorist, why d'yer need a gun?

WaPo: Boston suspect had no firearm when barrage of bullets hit hiding place

Authorities said they were desperate to capture Dzhokhar Tsarnaev so he could be questioned. 

So as soon as we knew where he was we just blazed away with everything we'd got, assuming he'd talk just as well full of holes as if intact with a working voice-box.

See also:

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 24, 2013

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 23, 2013 

CanSpeccy: Boston Marathon Bombing: News and Comment

CanSpeccy: Suspects in Boston Marathon Bombings Identified: One Killed, One to Go — End of Story?

Boston Bombing Update April 24, 2013

Global Research
 
Aangirfan: BOSTON BOMB MYSTERIES SOLVED? LINK TO CIA

Aangirfan: BOSTON BOMBERS; MICHAEL JACKSON; SUNIL TRIPATHI; MUMBAI; ARMENIA



21st Century Wire: Boston Martial Law: ‘They were confiscating guns from residents’


The thing is, if you're not a terrorist, why d'yer need a gun?

WaPo: Boston suspect had no firearm when barrage of bullets hit hiding place

Authorities said they were desperate to capture Dzhokhar Tsarnaev so he could be questioned. 

So as soon as we knew where he was we just blazed away with everything we'd got, assuming he'd talk just as well full of holes as if intact with a working voice-box.

And who's this guy? Here's a hint.

BeforeIt'sNews: Boston Bomber Tied To CIA Backed Terrorists In Russia

NewsMax: Boston Suspect: US Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan Motivated Brothers Hey, this is better than putting the guy on trial. Just leak it out, what he told interrogators. Then maybe give him a pieced of rope and let him hang himself.

Apparently Tsarnaev has no lawyer. Or if he has, his lawyer must, like Tsarnaev, have shot himself in the throat and is unable to speak.

The Hollywood: Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, Wife of Dead Boston Bombing Suspect, Wanted For Questioning

Boston Globe: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev admits to setting bombs with brother, source says

Tsarnaev’s attorneys are certain to challenge the legal admissibility of those admissions, and other information he gave them, such as claiming that he and his brothers acted alone, and that his brother was radicalized in an extreme form of Islam in part because he opposed US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But in an interview with the Globe, a senior police official said authorities are not worried about the initial admission to authorities being thrown out, because they have a strong witness: the man who was abducted by the Tsarnaev brothers last Thursday night.

Police sources told the Globe that the carjack victim has told police that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother, Dzhokhar, pointed guns at him and, in an apparent effort to intimidate the victim and dissuade him from trying anything foolish, Tamerlan Tsarnaev told him, “We just killed a cop. We blew up the marathon. And now we’re going to New York. Don’t [expletive] with us.”

Now could we just have a "strong" witness of the fact that Tsarnaev actually made such a confession. I mean someone other than his FBI interrogators, like a judge, or somebody.

NY Daily News: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev withdraws cash from an ATM after carjacking and murder of MIT officer

This might be a clincher. Except is it really the same guy?

James Tracy: Witnessing Boston’s Mass Casualty Event

Boston.com: Older Marathon bombing suspect purchased fireworks at N.H. store, official says But according to Fireworks Vice President William Weimer "only a negligible amount of explosives could be extracted from all 48 shells."

BBC: US officials in Dagestan to Interview Bombing Suspects' Parents

The Times of Israel: US Had Boston Bombings Coming, Says Richard Falk, UN Official Reporting on Violations of Palestinian Rights

U.S. News.com: Sen. Rand Paul Sees Boston Bombings Reason for Killing American Citizens With Drones
The guy never seemed to have any substance. Now we know he has none.

See also:

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 23, 2013 

CanSpeccy: Boston Marathon Bombing: News and Comment

CanSpeccy: Suspects in Boston Marathon Bombings Identified: One Killed, One to Go — End of Story?

Boston Bombing Update April 23, 2013

21st Century Wire: Why Has US President Already Delivered Guilty Verdict to Boston Bombers?

NoMoreFakeNews: Boston bombing: citizen video-analysts creating major problems for controlled media This is brilliant. For further reading on the corruption engendered by the desire for insider status, see C.S. Lewis's The Inner Ring.

NewDemocracyWorld: Anomalies in the FBI's Account of the Boston Marathon Bombings

U-Tube: Boston Commissioner Calls Tamerlan and Dzhokhar "ACTORS"

Boston Bombing Planning Announced in Advance, including Details of a Designated Patsy

Bomb Scene Pictures that Contradict the Official Account

Politicker: Bloomberg Says Interpretation of Constitution Will ‘Have to Change’ After Boston Bombing
This is the twat who wants to make soda pop illegal.

Oh, and he wants more surveillance. Refreshing News: The most mystifying things the Tsarnaev brothers did

Before It's News: Tsarnaev Brothers Set Up In False Flag Operation: Joel Skousen

Daily Censored: Anatomy of a False Flag

21st Century Wire: Boston Bombing Stage: An ensemble cast of soldiers, spooks and ‘cleaners’

21st Century Wire: Actors, Directors and Bloody Squibs: Was the Boston Bombing Pure Hollywood?

Jon Rappoport: Media magic: not one angry person in Boston

James Tracy: Witnessing Boston’s Mass Casualty Event

Alabama.com: Boston Marathon explosion — "They had bomb sniffing dogs and the bomb squad out there, and they kept announcing to runners not to be alarmed, that they were running a training exercise"

Washington's Blog: Boston Terror Narrative Starts Falling Apart

Craig Murray: The Official Tsarnaev Story Makes No Sense

RT:‘Boston Bombers’ Tsarnaev brothers: Where the dots won't connect

Natural News: Craft' mobile communications van at Boston marathon

Global Research: Boston Suspect Arrested Stripped Naked so WHEN was he shot and killed?

Global Research: BOSTON TRUTH: The “Chechen Connection”, Al Qaeda and the Boston Marathon Bombings

Global Research: The Boston Bombings in Context: How the FBI Fosters, Funds and Equips American Terrorists

Global Research: Unanswered Questions in Boston Bombings

Activist Post: FBI Web of Lies

Land Destroyer Report: FBI Casting Set Stage for Boston Marathon Bombing, Shootout, Charade

IntelHub: Hackers Hijack CBS To Expose Media Concealment of Private Military Operatives at Scene of Boston Bombings

IntelHub: Military “Contractors” at Boston Marathon Stood Near Bomb, Left Before Detonation

NBC News: April 19, With a bomb strapped to his chest, one of the Boston Marathon suspects was killed early Friday after he and his accomplice brother robbed a 7-Eleven, shot a police officer to death, carjacked an SUV and hurled explosives in an extraordinary firefight with law enforcement, authorities told NBC News.  

USA Today: 7-Eleven robbery not related to Boston bombing suspects

LA Times: The surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings remained under heavy guard in a hospital Saturday, with an injury to his neck complicating how he would be interrogated and held for trial. The neck wound apparently did not initially silence Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, who was swearing profusely in the ambulance ride after his final confrontation with the FBI, according to a source familiar with the case.

Mad Cow Morning News: Was Boston Bombers ‘Uncle Ruslan’ with the CIA?

Collective Evolution: Video: Boston Globe Tweets About Controlled Explosion Before It Happens

BeforeIt'sNews: Video Of Tamerlan Tsarnaev NAKED, Handcuffed,Walking Alive! So How Did His Body End Up Like This?

Press for Truth: Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Aunt Confirms Tamerlan the Naked Man Arrested and Taken Away by Police Car 

Zero Hedge: Inside Ground Zero: Photos From The Suspects' Apartment

WRH:

If you had just bombed the marathon, and needed to hijack a car and plan to let the driver live, why would you announce you were the bombers and that you had killed a cop, knowing that the driver would them immediately report that to police?

The answer is that you would not.

Think back to the John F. Kennedy assassination and all the fake "Oswalds" that were being seen around Dallas, intentionally doing and saying provocative actions to demonize the patsy. Think about the "Muslims" that were hitting the strip clubs in New York the might before 9-11, screaming about "Allah" and how the US would "know" the wrath of Islam the next day, and even "conveniently" left their (phony) IDs with the bartenders.

So, my theory. Operatives shot and killed the police officer in his car to scare the Boston police into thinking the two kids they were chasing were cop-killers, so that the police would shoot first and ask questions later. Then these operatives hijacked the car, identified themselves as the bombers and claimed credit for the cpo killing to make sure the police "knew" the kids were the killers even though there was no evidence available at the time who shot the police officer.

Aangirfan: Boston Bombing, the CIA and Prince Andrew 

See also:

CanSpeccy: Boston Marathon Bombing: News and Comment

CanSpeccy: Suspects in Boston Marathon Bombings Identified: One Killed, One to Go — End of Story?

Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail

How HSBC hooked up with drug traffickers and terrorists. And got away with it

By Matt Taibi

 

Rolling Stone: February 14, 2013 8:00 AM ET:

 

The deal was announced quietly, just before the holidays, almost like the government was hoping people were too busy hanging stockings by the fireplace to notice. Flooring politicians, lawyers and investigators all over the world, the U.S. Justice Department granted a total walk to executives of the British-based bank HSBC for the largest drug-and-terrorism money-laundering case ever. Yes, they issued a fine – $1.9 billion, or about five weeks' profit – but they didn't extract so much as one dollar or one day in jail from any individual, despite a decade of stupefying abuses.

People may have outrage fatigue about Wall Street, and more stories about billionaire greedheads getting away with more stealing often cease to amaze. But the HSBC case went miles beyond the usual paper-pushing, keypad-punching­ sort-of crime, committed by geeks in ties, normally associated­ with Wall Street. In this case, the bank literally got away with murder – well, aiding and abetting it, anyway.

Daily Beast: HSBC Report Should Result in Prosecutions, Not Just Fines, Say Critics
For at least half a decade, the storied British colonial banking power helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, suspected in tens of thousands of murders just in the past 10 years – people so totally evil, jokes former New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, that "they make the guys on Wall Street look good." The bank also moved money for organizations linked to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and for Russian gangsters; helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions; and, in between helping murderers and terrorists and rogue states, aided countless common tax cheats in hiding their cash.

"They violated every goddamn law in the book," says Jack Blum, an attorney and former Senate investigator who headed a major bribery investigation against Lockheed in the 1970s that led to the passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. "They took every imaginable form of illegal and illicit business."

That nobody from the bank went to jail or paid a dollar in individual fines is nothing new in this era of financial crisis. What is different about this settlement is that the Justice Department, for the first time, admitted why it decided to go soft on this particular kind of criminal. It was worried that anything more than a wrist slap for HSBC might undermine the world economy. "Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer at a press conference to announce the settlement, "HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."

It was the dawn of a new era. In the years just after 9/11, even being breathed on by a suspected terrorist could land you in extralegal detention for the rest of your life. But now, when you're Too Big to Jail, you can cop to laundering terrorist cash and violating the Trading With the Enemy Act, and not only will you not be prosecuted for it, but the government will go out of its way to make sure you won't lose your license. Some on the Hill put it to me this way: OK, fine, no jail time, but they can't even pull their charter? Are you kidding?

Read more

Boston Marathon Bombing: News and Comment

Yahoo: Israeli doctors treating Boston Bombing Suspect  — Like they have no trauma surgeons in the US of A, or What?

Telegraph: Boston bomber: FBI 'dropped the ball' over Tamerlan Tsarnaev


21st Century Wire: VIDEO: Bomber suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev appears to be alive, naked and handcuffed


Youtube: Boston Bomb Training Exercise

Craig Muray:  Boston bombing a massive setback to the cause of Chechen nationalism

Business Insider: The FBI Needs To Explain Why It Failed To Monitor Boston Bombing Suspect Despite A Clear Warning

Daily Mail: Mother claims FBI tracked older brother 'for FIVE YEARS' after being told by Moscow of links to Chechen terrorists

21st Century Wire: Why Has US President Already Delivered Guilty Verdict to Boston Bombers?

21st Century Wire: Serious Condition of Boston Suspect Raises Questions About What Police Did and When

Aangirfan: The Boston Bombers

RT: 'Confusion and inconsistencies': How US plans to distract public from real truth about Boston

Ugly Truth: Boston bombing will boost U.S. support for Israel, says Netanyahu aide

Activist Post: “Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste” Why Boston?

Activist Post: FBI Caught in a Web of Lies in Boston

 

Maine Nation: Surviving suspect in Boston Marathon bombing was shot in throat, can’t speak

Sibel Edmonds: USA: The Creator & Sustainer of Chechen Terrorism

YouTube: FBI Fake Terror Plot History: Judge Napolitano

 Mirror: FBI hunting 12-strong terrorist “sleeper cell” linked to brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Today: Uncle: Mentors 'radicalized' older Boston bombing suspect

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, left, about to attempt mass murder? Source

NY Times: Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the F.B.I.

Glenn Beck: Monday Bombshell: Evidence So Damning It Will “Determine the Fate of Our Nation”


Daily Mail: Friends of accused Boston bomber had car with license plate "Terrorista#1"

Boston Globe: Bombing suspect spent Wednesday as typical student

Today.com: Uncle: Mentors 'radicalized' older Boston bombing suspect

NaturalNews: 'The Craft' mobile communications van at Boston marathon

CNN: US invokes public safety exception, that allows questioning of Tsarnaev without reading him his Miranda rights. Sen. McCain urges suspect held as "enemy combatant"

X-Repubic: 43% Of RT Viewers Believe Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect Will Die In Hospital


Daily Mail: Tsarnaev partied with college friends two days after marathon massacre

CultureMap, Houston: What else we know:

• 19-years-old, wore a backwards white baseball cap during bombings
• Attended the prestigious Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he was a member of the volleyball and wrestling teams. 
• Described as “very sweet" by a former classmate, he won a $2,500 scholarship in 2011 from the City of Cambridge.
• "Everybody loved him," said a former wrestling coach. “He wasn’t a loner, the complete opposite."

 Guardian: US Senator, Lindsey Graham urges bombing suspect be denied due process of law

Daily Mail: Suspects' parents say sons framed

CBC: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in 'serious condition' in hospital

The Star: Three taken into custody in Boston bombing investigation

Politico: Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in custody

BrassCheck TV: What to expect from the Boston investigation

James Tracy: Hard Questions Posed on Boston Bombing

FBI Explains What Public Must believe

12160.info: Mercenaries in Boston

Before It's News: Private Military Contractors Under Suspicion for Boston Bombing

Global Research: The Boston Bombings in Context: How the FBI Fosters, Funds and Equips American Terrorists

21st Century Wire: Boston Bombing investigation will mirror the Oklahoma City Bombing cover-up

21st Century Wire: Boston Bombing: Michael Savage rips Obama, Federal cover-up and release of ‘Saudi national’

RT: Father of Slain Boston marathon suspect says son was framed

See also:

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 26, 2013 The FBI/Mainstream Narrative Falls Apart?

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 25, 2013

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 24, 2013

CanSpeccy: Boston Bombing Update April 23, 2013 

CanSpeccy: Boston Marathon Bombing: News and Comment

CanSpeccy: Suspects in Boston Marathon Bombings Identified: One Killed, One to Go — End of Story?

BP's Macondo Oil Spill: Captain of Drilling Rig "Lacked Authority" to Operate Safety Systems

BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill was the result of many errors of omission and commission, none of which would have proved fatal except in the event of all the others. This is the second in a series of brief reports on failures of management not only by BP, but by BP contractors, TransOcean and Halliburton.

 On Wednesday, April 17, Patrick O'Bryan, BP's vice president of drilling and completions for the Gulf at the time of the Macondo blowout described hearing  the rig's master, Curt Kuchta, asked about operating the rig's blowout preventer (BOP), designed to shut off the well in an emergency.

According to O'Bryan, Kuchta said he lacked permission from Transocean's offshore installation manager to operate the emergency disconnect system.

"So after you see the fire and after you've seen mud raining on deck, you recall somebody asking Captain Kuchta about activating the BOP?" BP lawyer Hariklia "Carrie" Karis asked.

To which O'Bryan replied: "He was pretty emphatic that he couldn't do it unless he had permission."

Andrew Mitchell, a maritime safety expert said that Kuchta's hesitation in activating the blowout preventer arose from the captain's inexperience. And, he said, Transocean "operated and implemented a confusing command structure," with the result that the captain,"did not fully understand his responsibilities, nor his overriding authority as captain of the Deepwater Horizon,"

Asked whether Kuchta was "fit to be captain of the Deepwater Horizon," Mitchell replied: "No."

For details, see the New Orleans Times-Picayune report Testimony wraps up in first phase of BP oil spill trial.

See Also

CanSpeccy: BP's Macondo Oil Spill: A Miswired Switch and a Dead Battery

Suspects in Boston Marathon Bombings Identified: One Killed, One to Go — End of Story?

The real Tamerlan Tsarnaev: Slain suspect. No need for proof of guilt now.

CBC: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in 'serious condition' in hospital



The Star: Three taken into custody in Boston bombing investigation

Politico: Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in custody

BrassCheck TV: What to expect from the Boston investigation

James Tracy: Hard Questions Posed on Boston Bombing

FBI Explains What Public Must believe

12160.info: Mercenaries in Boston

Before It's News: Private Military Contractors Under Suspicion for Boston Bombing

Global Research: The Boston Bombings in Context: How the FBI Fosters, Funds and Equips American Terrorists

21st Century Wire: Boston Bombing investigation will mirror the Oklahoma City Bombing cover-up


21st Century Wire: Boston Bombing: Michael Savage rips Obama, Federal cover-up and release of ‘Saudi national’


RT: Father of Slain Boston marathon suspect says son was framed

Jon Rappoport: FBI tells America: believe us and no one else

Jon Rappoport: Is the Boston Pressure-Cooker Bomb a Lie and a Hoax?

iDigitalTimes: Sunil Tripathi And Mike Mulugeta Misidentified As Bombing Suspects

CBS, Boston: Suspects described as athletes who were into normal things

Boston.com: Suspect in Boston bombing won $2500 Cambridge City Scholarship prize in 2011

ABC News: Bomb suspects' father, in Russia, says they were set up

WaPo: Police kill one suspect: one to go

Harvard University: Given the ongoing nature of the investigation and public safety concerns, Harvard University will remain closed all day Friday

How a Top American University Selects Entrants

"…I can’t tell you how many applications I saw that were just dripping with white male privelege[sic]. Any of those that I saw basically went straight to the garbage can regardless of how good their qualifactions [sic] were. If I saw an application from a white male that basically was just good test scores, and activities like chess club or math club or what not then it shows me this person is not interested in a diverse environment. Obviously he made no effort in integrating with minorities or to sympathize with them and is counting on male privilege to get in. So that kind of application should get ignored. In their place I admitted a female student. This goes double especially for math/science majors."

From the blog of Arianna Pattek, a Georgetown grad student who says she was hired to read and process applications for admissions to the school.

Source

Boston Marathon Bombing: Another FBI Op Gone Wrong?

Boston Police Chief: We were conducting a drill

FBI Stopped Oakland, CA terror bank bombing planned by the FBI:

Sandy Hook and a Religious Faith for the New World Order

By James Tracey

Shrine of the Bab, Bahai World Centre, Tel Aviv, Israel.

The Memory Hole Blog, April 14, 2013: The Sandy Hook School massacre of December 14 has no doubt been seized upon by the present police state as a raison d’être for heightened gun control measures. Yet a more subtle element of the event is the promotion of a political worldview under the cloak of psychiatry and an increasingly prominent notion of “community building.”[1]

Stepping into the emotional fallout of December’s mass shooting is Dr. John Woodall. The former Harvard psychiatrist was almost immediately making the rounds in Newtown, consoling the grief stricken and advocating a seemingly unique communitarian creed. Woodall’s presence was unsurprising for locals since he resides in Sandy Hook, where his “Unity Project” non-profit is also based. What is more, the event was eerily appropriate for the “teaching children resilience” mission Woodall’s organization was already undertaking in Newtown area schools. Unity Project had already contributed to such exercises following major crises including 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

At first glance the Unity Project appears to be yet another new agey, “let go of the hate” platform for Woodall’s pop-humanist psychology. We must learn to overcome our ordeals and look beyond our differences on the way to one big group hug. The organization has created such a program for the youth of Newtown’s high school where students have been encouraged to fill out a psychological survey and  negotiate with administrators and teachers to lessen the homework load.[2]

On its face the prospect of developing well-rounded and engaged citizens sounds desirable. Who wants to be considered a holdout against local cooperation, peaceful coexistence, even global trade harmonization? The consequence these days includes running the risk of being deemed a grouchy extremist. Perhaps this is why groups are actively espousing and disseminating Unity Project precepts in schools and communities throughout the world.

“As we move more deeply into a national and global climate fraught with complex and nuanced problems,” Woodall explains,

young people need to become masters of working with this complexity and diversity in cooperative and constructive ways. Our democracy and the happiness of our lives depend upon it. Young people need to know how to recognize bias, see the big picture and resist and problem solve cooperatively and to resist the human tendency to allow fear and anger to pull us to simplistic and extremist solutions that only create division and conflict and end up worsening the problems we face.[3]

This exact doctrine was articulated in Woodall’s December 14 remarks to the Associated Press.

I do this for a living—I do trauma work for a living. I ran programs overseas for the State Department. I’ve worked in school shootings before. But all that—none of that counts. All that counts at that moment is that another human being is there for you … It’s a strong community. It’s a resilient community. The task now is for the community to give this a meaning. It’s like in New York City after 9/11. The lesson of 9/11 wasn’t that we should be afraid or angry, or bitter or blame or point fingers. The lesson of 9/11 is that we’re all in this together and we need to show compassion for each other to give meaning to the loss.

In Woodall’s evaluation the death and horror from such events constitute a sort of nightmarish martyrdom from which a greater good will arise. Indeed, many of the Sandy Hook victims’ families publicly exhibit this very ability to unemotionally cope with profound loss, an ostensible response and mindset that does not go unnoticed by the broader public.[4] The wide exposure of this apparent struggle suggests a mass conditioning toward the community resilience that is a foremost element of what contemporary social engineers have termed the “Newtown transition.”

Along these lines and throughout the bulk of Woodall’s writings and pronouncements there is a clear resemblance to the precepts of the Bahá’í faith, to which Woodall is a devotee. Even though his professional training and pedigree suggest a “scientific” (qua psychiatry) approach to personal and community problems, Woodall’s writings are essentially those espoused by the Bahá’ís. He just seldom declares such affiliations or beliefs publicly.[5] An exception was when Woodall and his spouse Margo Woodall recited Bahá’í passages at the December 16, 2012 interfaith gathering for Sandy Hook victims attended by President Obama.

Read more

BP's Macondo Oil Spill: A Miswired Switch and a Dead Battery

BP Has claimed that changes to the blowout preventer made by the drilling contractor caused failure. Source

BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill was the result of many errors of omission and commission, none of which would have proved fatal except in the event of all the others. This is the first in a series of brief reports on failures of management not only by BP, but by BP contractors, TransOcean and Halliburton.

One error of omission was failure by the drilling rig operator, Transocean, to charge the battery on the 250-ton blowout preventer that stood 50 feet tall on the sea floor at the head of the well, and which, on command, should have shut off the flow of gas and oil. Uncharged for over two years, contrary to the manufacturer's recommendations, the battery lacked sufficient juice to operate the shears designed to cut the flow.

The certainty of failure was assured by a miswired switch.

For details, see the report of evidence given by Arthur Zatarain, a consulting engineer called as an expert witness by BP in the Gulf Oil spill trial in the New Orleans Times-Pic.

See also:
 
BP's Macondo Oil Spill: Captain of Drilling Rig "Lacked Authority" to Operate Safety Systems

Canada's Tory Democracy

Following my post about the death of Margaret Thatcher, Roderick Russell remarked about Canadian politics, that:

We do seem to lack politicians of principle. Take their commitment to democracy for example. The old "Reform Party" types still seem to be blethering on about democracy, while the political movement they fathered (Canada's Conservatives) are the least democratic government in Canadian peacetime history.

A statement that seems to me to be almost the exact opposite of the truth for reasons set forth here.

Lord Randolph Churchill. Image source.

In the 1880's, Winston Churchill's father, Lord Randolph Churchill, who held a leading place in British Tory ranks, campaigned for the party on the slogan "Tory democracy." Asked by a friend what he meant by "Tory democracy," Lord Randolph replied, "a democracy that votes Tory."

On that definition, Canada undoubtedly has a democracy, if only of the Tory variety. True, less than 50% of those who voted supported the Tories at the last election, but anything much better than one third of the votes is about as good as it gets in Canada for the winning party in a three-way race (plus miscellaneous others).

And it cannot be said that the Tories have been anything but true to the expectations Canadians had of them at the time of the last election.

The Tories promised to beef up the Canadian armed forces and their gear. That is precisely what they have done. We're committed to the F-35, a totally useless device for patrolling the Arctic, but required equipment for a vassal of the United States.

We're to get a multi-billion-dollar fleet of patrol boats and ice-breakers of questionable value in the task of guarding our Northern shores, but which will serve well in the distribution of pork — not ungratefully received here in Victoria, mindful as we are that the Tories haven't the slightest hope of winning the seat at the next election.

Better, of course, would have been to create a Northern Regiment, recruited from the Northern population. Wth some high tech equipment, a scattering of igloos, and a bunch of sealskin canoes, who better to watch and to protect the Northern frontier than the indigenous people?

But the Tories already hold the seat for Nunavut, so why invest where nothing is to be gained?

And there is no NeoCon war for US hegemony that the Tories will not feebly aid, as Stephen Harper staunchly asserted long before the Tories gained power.

The Tories cut the corporate taxe rate, at which  no one can claim to be surprised. Moreover, tax cuts are a sound contribution to national ecomic policy. Where, after all, would you rather start a business and create some jobs: in Canada with a top Federal tax rate of 15%, or the US with a top rate of 31%?

While cutting taxes, the Tories have at least talked of balancing the budget and from time time they have even let go a few of the more annoying public servants — food inspectors, for example, who make trouble for corporate food interests, and government scientists who think they have some kind of academic freedom to let the public know what they have found out, whether it be concerning the destruction fisheries due to insane Federal Fisheries management, the pollution of streams, rivers and oceans, etc., etc.

And talking of pollution, the Tories have been absolutely solid in their support of oil, gas, and pipelines. But then what's not to expect about that with a Tory Prime Minister from Alberta.

On Israel and the wars, the Tories have been true to the established Tory line: sycophantic to Israel in the extreme, as was the evanescent Tory Premier, Joe Clark, who tried to move the Canadian embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; and up there with the Brits in providing moral and some trivial military assistance in the US NeoCon war for global empire.

No, contrary to the claim that Canada's Tories are undemocratic, they have been more consistent than any government in living memory in delivering exactly what they promised.

And, in fact, Canada's other parties are about as predictable. The NDP (based on their provincial performance) always run on three promises — on which they make good — and one big lie: More for schools, more for healthcare, more for welfare and a balanced budget. You can guess which is the lie.

The Liberals are trickier. They run on the NDP platform, but try to rule on the Conservative platform, with one possible distinction, which is a greater commitment to national sovereignty (Pierre Trudeau and Chretien, but neither the accountant, Martin, nor the Harvard NeoCon, Ignatieff). It will be interesting to see if Justin Trudeau shapes up as a Canadian sovereigntist. If he can take advice from the wisest liberals around and refrain from the "just watch me" impulse, he may prove to have a real future in politics.

When a Pair of Hands Is No Longer Worth a Living Wage

The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes.

Among civilized and thriving nations, ... though a great number of people do no labor at all, many of whom consume the produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred times more labour than the greater part of those who work; the produce of the whole labour of the society is so great, that all are often abundantly supplied, and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and conveniencies of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.

Adam Smith. The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

In Adam Smith's day the productivity of labor varied greatly from one worker to another, but as Smith noted, in a "civilized and thriving nation," a workman "even of the lowest and poorest order," is better off  if he is frugal and industrious than the most prosperous "savage."

With 47.3 million citizens on food stamps, America is no longer, by Adam Smith's definition, a "thriving" nation. For lack of a household member earning a living wage, fifteen percent of the American population is now dependent on state handouts to avoid malnutrition if not outright starvation, a condition far inferior to that of Adam Smith's most prosperous "savage."

The same condition exists throughout the West. High and seemingly irreducible unemployment is endemic, throughout most of North America and Europe. What Adam Smith would no doubt have considered the most "civilized and thriving nations" now have tens of millions of workmen and workwomen of "the lowest and poorest order" who, even if "frugal and industrious," are not worth employing at the state-dictated minimum wage.

The reasons for this epidemic of Western poverty are five-fold.

First, in pursuit of cheap labor (or wage arbitrage as the economists call it), global corporations have exported capital and technology, and thus jobs, from the West to the Rest, while promoting mass immigration to the West of competitive Third-Worlders and East Europeans happy to exchange working for pennies an hour at home for either the minimum-wage job of an indigenous citizen, or welfare in the West extracted from the incomes of host country workers.

Second, the substitution of diesel- or electric-powered machinery  for virtually all forms of muscle power on the farm and elsewhere, the automation and robotization of an increasing proportion of what factory operations remain in the West, and the computerization of most clerical and low-level administrative functions, have made a pair of hands or a high-school diploma virtually worthless.

Third, the service economy that provides the greatest number of low-skill jobs, depends for its existence very largely on the mass market, which is to say the market made up of those very workers whose jobs are disappearing. Thus the service economy, where virtually all new jobs are expected to arise, is beginning to fall in on itself.

Fourth, the ability of government to create make-work projects that recirculate wealth from those productively employed in the private sector to all those people from the government who are there to help you with forms and permits, and crazy rules and regulations, is hitting limits. Kiribati, amazingly, manages to achieve government spending equal to 114.6% of GDP, and Zimbabwe is right behind at 98%, with civilized countries rushing to catch up: Iceland 58%, France and Sweden at 53%, with Britain pushing 50%, and Canada and the US at 40% — but the trend cannot continue indefinitely.

Fifth, business concentration, cartelization and technological intensification makes it increasingly difficult for the little guy to compete as an entrepreneur. For example, it was a lot easier 25 years ago to start a coffee shop than today when Star-Bucks, with their near minimum wages and their buying power to keep supply costs low, dominate just about every street corner in major North American cities. The same applies even more forcefully in the on-line world where markets tend to be dominated by giant monopolistic or oligopolistic tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, PayPal and Amazon.

So what means exist to aid the growing proportion of Western labor which is no longer worthy of its hire?

There are five approaches.

First, is the left-of-center political platform that offers more money for education, skills training, healthcare and roads and bridges to nowhere. 

Second, is the right-of-center political platform that offers lower taxes, smaller government and greater freedom in the market place.

Third, is the totalitarian approach, which offers an iron rice bowl in exchange for authoritarian top-down social control.

Forth is the globalist plan, which offers the revival of Western economies through a ruthless convergence of wages and living standards between the West and the Rest, while providing a handout to the fifty or one hundred million Westerners who fail to make the adjustment.

Fifth, is the the nationalist approach, which opposes the genocidal destruction of the nation state, a goal implicit in the globalist agenda of free movement of capital, goods, and people throughout the world in the interests of global corporate profitability.

The left-of-center approach breaks down when rising debt and taxes drives emigration of wealthy individuals and successful foot-loose industries. Moreover, as increasing resources are devoted to essentially unproductive public sector activities the wealth creating capacity of the nation declines, making increases in government revenue and spending difficult to sustain.

The immediate effects of the right-of-center approach are increased unemployment as unproductive public sector jobs are axed, and a hue and cry over "give-aways" to industry, with the result that serious attempts at rebooting the economy tend to be shirked. Margaret Thatcher's government in the UK was among the few rightest regimes to survive long enough to see some economic stimulus from its "harsh and heartless" reforms.

the totalitarian approach is not much in evidence today — but the Fascist and Communist beasts are licking their chops in anticipation as Western economies deteriorate and the masses become increasingly desperate to find relief from the relentless economic undertow.

Beneath the rhetoric of left and right, the globalist plan is now the bi-partisan policy of the mainline Western political parties and will be pursued indefinitely, as long as the London riots, the Occupy movement and similar phenomena fail to cause substantial disruption of the capitalist system.

The nationalist approach, which postulates the development of national economic policies to serve explicitly and exclusively the interests of the people of each sovereign nation state, is almost forgotten and whenever discussed by the capitalist media is invariable smeared as far-right extremist, racist emulation of Nazi fascism.

Of the five approaches, the nationalistic approach is the only democratic solution, and is thus the greatest threat to the capitalist oligarchy of financiers and global corporations that own the media and buy the loyalty of "democratically-elected" Western governments.

The object of sound national economic policy must be to retain industrial, technological and scientific skills and traditions accumulated over the generations so that the people of the West can once again make shoes and shirts, computers and car parts for one another rather than relying on the exploited labor of Asian sweatshops to produce such goods for us at wages that, because of differences in cost of living, are below the Western starvation rate.

Such an industrial revival, as I have discussed elsewhere, could be achieved either by adjusting wages on a national basis according to the unemployment rate, thereby bringing down the cost of living and increasing international competitiveness where unemployment is high; or by the provision of market-based wage subsidies that would be cheaper and more productive than existing welfare arrangements and the costs of crime and mental illness associated with mass unemployment.

But why waste one's breath. The ruling elite don't give a damn.

See also: 

FT: The End of the US Nursery Rhyme Economy (Link thanks to Aangirfan)

Canspeccy: End Welfare Now