Let's take a moment to review some of the tactics on display here, which may go a long way towards illustrating why modern drug war apologists have been losing traction in the growing public debate over American drug policy.
How to Write a Clichéd, Unpersuasive Argument Against Drug Legalization
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This piece by Manon McKinnon at The American Spectator is so perfect an exhibit in pompous drug war cheerleading that one can construct a fairly comprehensive crash course in bad drug policy writing based entirely upon its contents. Let's take a moment to review some of the tactics on display here, which may go a long way towards illustrating why modern drug war apologists have been losing traction in the growing public debate over American drug policy. |
Step 1: Attempt to marginalize supporters of drug policy reform by claiming they are "pot heads." |
Every so often, alas, the subject of drug legalization reappears. This time it is back as one of many bad ideas from presidential candidate Congressman Ron Paul and is cheered on by the usual fans, from libertarians to pot heads. |
Step 2: Frame legalization as a plan for "surrendering" or "giving up" and letting drugs defeat us.
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"Paul deserves full credit for endorsing drug legalization," writes Ms. Charen as she goes into all the reasons she thinks the U.S. should give up and give in to corrosive drugs. |
Bill Moyers explores how America’s vast inequality didn’t just happen, it’s been politically engineered.
Bill Moyers’ new show made its debut this past weekend, and it looks like it’s going to be a winner. The first episode was on economic inequality. Here’s how it’s described: Bill Moyers explores how America’s vast inequality didn’t just happen, it’s been politically engineered. |
Why Do Most Americans Know Nothing About These Issues  A Long Day’s Night for Us All
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Why Do Most Americans Know Nothing About These Issues |
This is not intended for those who follow these issues, but as a primer for a general public (especially Americans) who do not follow them, and in fact are not even aware that they are issues! |
So much links Israel to 9/11 – Only a public confession is missing, e.g. |
- Many key Bush Administration officials came from PNAC (Project for a New American Century). All were Zionists (Israeli partisans). They wrote about the need for a “catalytic event” to mobilize the American people.
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- Eight months after coming into office, they got their catalytic event on 9/11, followed by the wars their agenda required.
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- The company providing 24/7 electronic & personal security to the WTC, Kroll Associates, was owned & operated by Zionists, as was the WTC itself as of July 2001.
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- The owners and their immediate relatives seem to have been uncharacteristically absent on the morning of 9/11. Hundreds of American Jews died at the WTC & the Pentagon, but as best as can be determined, only 3 Israelis out of some 4,000 normally there, plus 2 more on the planes.
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So just what is the US supporting? |
And we wonder why they, and so many others, hate the US |
So why do most Americans know nothing about these things? |
And just WHO is in charge here? |
Epilogue: Costs & Consequences |
And what we have done to others |
WOW! This man explains so much! He touches on many subjects that bother me and has given me a sense of comprehension concerning these most incomprehensible and troubling times- if you have 3 hours to listen to the program I highly recommend that you do. Is The American Empire Over? Chris Hedges on the Corporate Destruction of America |
Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Chris Hedges doesn't hold back. He argues that the American empire is in terminal decline. Much of his recent interview/discussion on C-SPAN2's Book TV is more focused on big picture politics and the age-old battles between left and right than it is on environmental issues. Yet it is an important piece for environmentalists to watch. Because tackling corporate abuse of power and reinstating true democracy have to be central to any movement to pursue true sustainability. |
Most crucially, Hedges makes a connection between the breaking of liberal institutions and progressive movements in the first part of the 20th Century, with a transition to an unsustainable model of consumption and economic growth at all costs: |
And for folks who are worried this is going to be an anti-right wing rant, do not be too concerned. Hedges saves his most viscious criticisms for the failures of the left and the ineffectiveness of the liberal class. |
James Madison wrote disapprovingly in 1792 of “a government operating by corrupt influence, substituting the motive of private interest in place of public duty” where eventually “the terror of the sword, may support a real domination of the few, under an apparent liberty of the many.” The corporations that occupy Congress |
Some of the biggest companies in the United States have been firing workers and in some cases lobbying for rules that depress wages at the very time that jobs are needed, pay is low, and the federal budget suffers from a lack of revenue. |
For the amount spent lobbying, the companies could have hired 3,100 people at $50,000 for wages and benefits to do productive work. |
The report – “For Hire: Lobbyists or the 99 percent” – says that while shedding jobs, the 30 companies are “spending millions of dollars on Washington lobbyists to stave off higher taxes or regulations.” |
These and other companies have access to lawmakers and regulators that are unavailable to ordinary Americans. |
Federal Express spent $25 million lobbying to protect a rule that makes it virtually impossible for its express delivery workers to unionize. That’s 67 percent of what it paid in taxes. |
FedEx says it was “educating lawmakers” about a proposal “that would cripple competition in the express delivery industry and hinder our nation’s future economic success.” |
...Every keystroke, log-in and file upload initiated over DoD networks will be under strict scrutiny in hopes of breaking up any more Bradley Mannings from making their way into the military. DARPA Surveillance... Spying on US Military Personnel 24/7 |
The Pentagon will soon be prying through the personal
correspondence and computer files of US military personnel, thanks to a
$9-million program that will put soldiers’ private emails under Uncle
Sam’s microscope. |
Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has awarded the grant to five
institutions led by Georgia Tech to help develop a system of spying on
solders’ Internet and computer habits, a multi-million dollar
investment that they say will serve as a preemptive measure to make sure “insider threats” can’t materialize in the military. |
The
Pentagon is calling the project “Proactive Discovery of Insider Threats
Using Graph Analysis and Learning,” or “PRODIGAL,” and it will scour
the e-mails, text messages and files transfers of solders’ “for unusual activity,” writes Georgia Tech, using “a suit of algorithms” that will be able to weed out any weirdness within the Department of Defense that could become a security threat. |
A
spokesman for DARPA deferred to answer to the Army Times how, exactly,
they plan on conducting the surveillance over the correspondence.
Wired.com’s Danger Room writes, however, that every keystroke, log-in
and file upload initiated over DoD networks will be under strict
scrutiny in hopes of breaking up any more Bradley Mannings from making
their way into the military. |
In the past year, DARPA has announced other
plans to pry into military personnel, including the Narrative Networks
project to find out who is most susceptible to propaganda, and Power
Dreaming, an initiative that will scan brainwave patterns of sleeping
soldiers to try to determine what causes what dreams. |
He's right to be worried. Growing or possessing small amounts of pot has been decriminalized or protected by 25 states and the District of Columbia, but the scale of cultivation in Dan's garage remains a felony punishable by up to three years in state prison. And while California police agencies have been hammered by budget cuts, generous federal anti-drug grants have helped fill that gap. Last year, Powell's boss, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko, told the Wall Street Journal that marijuana eradication (for which his department received almost $720,000 in federal support this past year) is "where the money is." Family, kids, minivan—and drug dealing. How the recession has driven average Americans into the game. |
For some time, I'd been hearing stories from my sources in the interstate marijuana racket about law-abiding "civilians" turning to the game because of the recession, and so, armed with introductions, I hit the road to meet some of these unlikely criminals face to face. That's how, on a hot evening in June, I found myself in Dan's Northern California kitchen. |
Dan isn't his real name. Nor are any of the names in this story, for obvious reasons. But his situation is a familiar, harsh reality for many Americans, as I learned while doing research for my recent novel on this subject. Dan is in his early 40s, a slim, soft-spoken former short-haul trucker who once owned all the toys: a used Mercedes, snowmobiles, Jet Skis. When they were both employed, he and his wife—a retail manager—easily cleared $100,000 a year. "We ate out breakfast, lunch, and dinner," Dan, now a minimum-wage laborer, tells me with folded arms. "That's the way life was for 17 years." |
Today, Dan's toys are gone, sold to support an underwater mortgage. His wife, who kept her job, left him three years ago, driving away in the Mercedes. "She didn't like the fact that I sat at home and she was going to work," he tells me. "There were no jobs. I filled out a thing for the city, and 400 people were there for one opening—a garbage truck driver." |
Two days after leaving Dan's place, I'm riding shotgun in a small car bound south for Sacramento, as the Central Valley blurs past outside my window. The commercial rice fields here are so vast they're fertilized by crop dusters, which buzz alongside the interstate like gigantic, low-flying bees. My driver, Colin, is a well-groomed white guy who lives with his wife and kid near the capital city. He keeps his hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel, stays with the flow of traffic, and glances in the rearview from time to time. I've warned him, just in case we get pulled over, not to tell me whether he's hauling a shipment. In turn, he's asked me not to publish too many details about him or his car. |
The gig was transporting high-grade weed from California to far-flung Eastern states. Colin has since driven "thousands and thousands of miles," he says, and gotten to know everyone from big-time dealers who "roll with guns" down to working-class guys with families trying to make ends meet. "Cobbling together a full load between a bunch of different schools, plus teaching summers, I'd pull in about $20,000 a year," he says in edgy, rapid speech that hints of excessive caffeine, or nerves. "I made double that in a month driving East twice. When my wife lost her job, it just felt bleak. I would only have ever done this because of the recession." |
Our current debt-based monetary system was devised by greedy bankers that wanted to make huge profits by creating money out of thin air and lending it to the U.S. government at interest Debt-Free United States Notes Were Once Issued Under JFK And The U.S. Government Still Has The Power To Issue Debt-Free Money
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 Most Americans have no idea that the U.S. government once issued debt-free money directly into circulation. America once thrived under a debt-free monetary system, and we can do it again. The truth is that the United States is a sovereign nation and it does not need to borrow money from anyone. Back in the days of JFK, Federal Reserve Notes were not the only currency in circulation. Under JFK (at at various other times), a limited number of debt-free United States Notes were issued by the U.S. Treasury and spent by the U.S. government without any new debt being created. In fact, each bill said "United States Note" right at the top. Unfortunately, United States Notes are not being issued today. If you stop right now and pull a dollar out of your wallet, what does it say right at the top? It says "Federal Reserve Note". Normally, the way our current system works is that whenever more Federal Reserve Notes are created more debt is also created. This debt-based monetary system is systematically destroying the wealth of this nation. But it does not have to be this way. The truth is that the U.S. government still has the power under the U.S. Constitution to issue debt-free money, and we need to educate the American people about this.
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Slowly , Slowly, their plans come to fruition... Military to Designate U.S. Citizens as Enemy During Collapse |
FEMA Continuity of Government Plans Prep Total Takeover of Society, |
NOTE: Within an hour of posting this article and linking to the pertinent document, the feds at FBO.gov have pulled the link and implied that it was a classified posting. We believe this was public and of interest to American citizens, taxpayers and peoples of the world and are in the process re-establishing an archive link of the material. Obviously, however, this information is revealing and certain parties do not wish it to be widely known. If you believe this material is important, please archive it and share it with your contacts. In the meantime, here are links to many of the pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8, Page 9, Page 10, Page 11 |
To put it simply: once the economic depression has sunken in completely, the population will willingly head in droves to government centers for basic requirements like food. As Henry Kissinger bluntly quipped, “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.” FEMA’s response will in hinge, in part, on just that– encouraging people sign up for their own enslavement. |
Citigroup seems to be perfectly happy with the rule of the rich. They are also perfectly happy to suppress these explosive memos. What if Americans don't believe into the American Dream any more? What if the thoughts of OWS-protesters slip into the mainstream? (Fortunately, this is already happening). The rule of the 1% is not a conspiracy theory, it's a fact, as the Citigroup analysts explain in great detail.
The Citigroup Plutonomy Memos: Two bombshell documents that Citigroup's lawyers try to suppress, describing in detail the rule of the first 1%
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So Citigroup did their duty and published two explosive memos, which should have become mainstream news, but eventually did not. The first memo is dated October 16, 2005 (35 pages) and is titled: "Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances." |
However, Citigroup seems to have been successful in preventing a wider discussion about the memos, due to their legal actions. This needs to stop, as every American and every citizen in the western world needs to know what people like the analysts of Citigroup really think about the inequalities which exist within the societies, how the rich should preserve their domination, and what possible "backlash" can be expected - and what the consequences are of living in a "plutonomy." |
At the beginning of the first memo "Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances", the analysts introduce the subject: |
Little of this note should tally with conventional thinking. Indeed, traditional thinking is likely to have issues with most of it. We will posit that:
1) the world is dividing into two blocs - the plutonomies, where economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few, and the rest.
Plutonomies have occurred before in sixteenth century Spain, in seventeenth century Holland, the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties in the U.S. What are the common drivers of Plutonomy?
Disruptive technology-driven productivity gains, creative financial innovation, capitalist- friendly cooperative governments, an international dimension of immigrants and overseas conquests invigorating wealth creation, the rule of law, and patenting inventions. Often these wealth waves involve great complexity, exploited best by the rich and educated of the time.
2) We project that the plutonomies (the U.S., UK, and Canada) will likely see even more income inequality, disproportionately feeding off a further rise in the profit share in their economies, capitalist-friendly governments, more technology-driven productivity, and globalization. |
Citigroup explains how the "non-rich" consumers become increasingly irrelevant within the "plutonomies": |
4) In a plutonomy there is no such animal as “the U.S. consumer” or “the UK consumer”, or indeed the “Russian consumer”. There are rich consumers, few in
number, but disproportionate in the gigantic slice of income and consumption they take.
There are the rest, the “non-rich”, the multitudinous many, but only accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national pie. Consensus analyses that do not tease out the profound impact of the plutonomy on spending power, debt loads, savings rates (and hence current account deficits), oil price impacts etc, i.e., focus on the “average”consumer are flawed from the start. It is easy to drown in a lake with an average depth of 4 feet, if one steps into its deeper extremes. Since consumption accounts for 65% of the world economy, and consumer staples and discretionary sectors for 19.8% of the MSCI AC World Index, understanding how the plutonomy impacts consumption is key for equity market participants. |
The analysts of Citigroup then invent a new term - "The New Managerial Aristocracy": |
THE UNITED STATES PLUTONOMY - THE GILDED AGE, THE ROARING TWENTIES, AND THE NEW MANAGERIAL ARISTOCRACY
Let’s dive into some of the details. As Figure 1 shows the top 1% of households in the U.S., (about 1 million households) accounted for about 20% of overall U.S. income in 2000, slightly smaller than the share of income of the bottom 60% of households put together. That’s about 1 million households compared with 60 million households, both with similar slices of the income pie!
Clearly, the analysis of the top 1% of U.S. households is paramount. The usual analysis of the “average” U.S. consumer is flawed from the start. To continue with the U.S., the top 1% of households also account for 33% of net worth, greater than the bottom 90% of households put together. It gets better(or worse, depending on your political stripe) - the top 1% of households account for 40% of financial net worth, more than the bottom 95% of households put together.
This is data for 2000, from the Survey of Consumer Finances (and adjusted by academic Edward Wolff). Since 2000 was the peak year in equities, and the top 1% of households have a lot more equities in their net worth than the rest of the population who tend to have more real estate, these data might exaggerate the U.S. plutonomy a wee bit.
Was the U.S. always a plutonomy - powered by the wealthy, who aggrandized larger chunks of the economy to themselves? Not really. |
Society and governments need to be amenable to disproportionately allow/encourage the few to retain that fatter profit share. The Managerial Aristocracy, like in the Gilded Age, the Roaring Twenties, and the thriving nineties, needs to commandeer a vast chunk of that rising profit share, either through capital income, or simply paying itself a lot. We think that despite the post-bubble angst against celebrity CEOs, the trend of cost-cutting balance sheet-improving CEOs might just give way to risk-seeking CEOs, re-leveraging, going for growth and expecting disproportionate compensation for it. It sounds quite unlikely, but that’s why we think it is quite possible. Meanwhile Private Equity and LBO funds are filling the risk-seeking and re-leveraging void, expecting and realizing disproportionate remuneration for their skills. |
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