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en-us Tiki RSS feed for weblogs Last posts to weblog on JoinTheRevolution.us. http://www.jointherevolution.us/img/tiki/Tiki_WCG.png Feed logo http://www.jointherevolution.us/ Mon, 21 May 2012 01:46:31 +0000 Zend_Feed_Writer 1.11.11 (http://framework.zend.com) http://www.jointherevolution.us/ admin@jointherevolution.us root@jointherevolution.us admin@jointherevolution.us root@jointherevolution.us Step Into The Circle Jonathan Livingston Seagull where the avian protagonist is told to "step into the circle for shame." This is frequently the fate of iconoclast individualists and non-conformists, when their activities have drawn the negative attention of their more conformist peers and the "powers that be" in their society.

Longtime freedom activist and software entrepreneur Phil Zimmermann, the celebrated author of Pretty Good Privacy some two decades past, has recently teamed up with some bright associates to produce a new privacy-enhancing crypto-product called Silent Circle

. It promises to supply an all-in-one integrated product for secure email, text, video, and phone (including cell). Details are still sketchy because the beta isn't even due to start until mid-July, but given the past history and credentials of the team it promises to be worth watching. Their slogan is Come Into The Circle — not for shame, but for privacy. The indicated target market is: "security conscious individuals, human rights groups, oppressed dissidents, NGOs, special operations units, small businesses and corporations."

Which could include just about anybody these days. Probably even seagulls flying alone and out of formation. smile

]]> Tue, 01 May 2012 03:06:00 +0000 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=10 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=10 no turn of the tide testifying

before the Senate Armed Services committee. In his remarks, he denied that even the fig leaf of obtaining congressional assent to military action was no longer required, and that the President can legitimately start wars solely on his own initiative, so long as he has a standing invitation to do so from the UN, NATO, or some other international body. Congress can then be informed, rather than consulted, about the deployment of US military forces.

This brazen declamation has raised quite a few eyebrows, and provoked the ire of Senator Sessions, who does a fair job of looking incredulous at what he is hearing. However, this position is fully consistent with policies adopted by the Obama administration from the get-go. In 2009 President Obama gave a speech at the National Archives in which he addressed the issues of the blatant unconstitutionality of the policies regarding torture and indefinite detention at Gitmo which had been adopted by the Bush administration.

According to Obama, the problem was not what was being done, but how. The key issue was that there was no formalized process. Under Bush, one man could just consign someone on a whim, with no procedures or required approvals. Therefore, as the new President he was adopting new procedures to be followed in the future, so that the signatures of multiple persons would always be placed on forms authorizing the use of torture, indefinite detention, etc. Obama then took credit for defending the due process requirements of the constitution — and the audience applauded! Apparently, illegal acts are fine so long as there's a proper form to fill out to authorize them.

This view is echoed in Panetta's testimony, in which he points out that "due process" does not necessarily imply "judicial process." So long as there is still a process, even if it's performed entirely within the wheels of the executive branch, the due process requirement is adequately met.

While this might sound startling, it isn't even a new idea. For example, statutes require that in order for the IRS to seize money, assets, or even mere records from any party, they are required to apply to a US federal district court for an enforcement order. (See Schulz v. IRS, 04-0196, 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, January 25, 2005.) And yet of course they do not actually do this; indeed, the AUSA representing the IRS in the Schulz case actually testified on the record that if the Service was required to follow due process in its operation, it wouldn't be able to do its job. The collections "process" is therefore conducted entirely within the agency itself, and the courts be damned.

The only difference here is that the ongoing perversion of "due process" is now being extended into fresh territory. However this is mere escalation, not some fundamental or radical departure from established practice. The executive branch has long since rendered the judicial branch effectively irrelevant, a result only exacerbated with the Patriot Act. The Congress itself is now going down the same route.

That they should actually be surprised by this is frankly amusing. There is no turn of the tide here, despite the fact that some members of the government may only now be beginning to comprehend where that tide is actually flowing.

The true turn of the Tide today is to be found here

]]> Wed, 14 Mar 2012 19:42:00 +0000 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=9 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=9 Greece and the EU: going off the rails on a crazy train
The EU bailout of Greece seems to have gone off the tracks again:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/setback-greece-bailout-meeting-canceled-190042881.html

Really, it's not surprising that the Athens government is unable to deliver what's being demanded, or perhaps unwilling to demand it of the public. Because what's being demanded is actually more severe than what was demanded of Germany post WWII. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard recently noted:

"The US, Canada, Britain, France, Greece, and other signatories at the London Debt Agreement of 1953 granted Chancellor Konrad Adenauer a 50pc haircut on all German debt, worth 70pc in relief with stretched maturities. There was a five-year moratorium on interest payments. The express purpose was to give Germany enough oxygen to rebuild its economy, and to help hold the line against Soviet overreach ...

"Greece has less strategic relevance, and must comply with tougher terms ... Some 60,000 small firms and family businesses have gone bankrupt since the summer, the chief reason why VAT revenues dropped 18.7pc in January. The violence of the slump is overwhelming the effects of fiscal retrenchment. So much Sisyphean effort for so little gain.

"The policy cannot command democratic consent over time. The once dominant Pasok party has collapsed to 8pc in the polls. Support is splintering to the far Left and far Right, just like Weimar Germany under the Bruning deflation.

"The next Greek parliament will be packed with "anti-Memorandum" fire-breathers, and any attempt by Greek elites to prevent elections taking place must push street protests towards revolution. In a sign of things to come, the Hellenic Police Federation has called for the arrest of Troika officials on Greek soil for attacks on "democracy and national sovereignty"."

Regarding the police union, he's referring to this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-greece-police-idUSTRE8190UC20120210

The point is that the tremendous trouble is leading to resurgent nationalism, even among the security forces. So who will the eurozone bankers and bureaucrats look to in order to enforce their diktats? Some 80% of the continued bailout money will go to banks, not to Greece or to Greeks — and the Greeks know it. The resulting reality is grim:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/pictures-greek-soup-kitchen

In sum, the absurdity of European integration is becoming increasingly apparent:

http://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/the-disintegrating-european-union/

Events are marching toward the Untied States of Europe, not a United States of Europe. Centralization is encountering significant entropy. This is unquestionably a good thing for human liberty.

]]> Thu, 16 Feb 2012 00:15:00 +0000 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=8 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=8 Ron Paul and the Trajectory of Freedom
What does Paul's ascendancy in the public eye mean for the cause of freedom generally? What is likely to happen if he wins, or conversely if he loses? In the past there has never been a question of “if he wins,” because there was essentially no chance of that occurring. Today however, one would be foolish to discount this as a possibility, even if still a remote one.

The Paul candidacy has progressed steadily through Gandhi's famous stages leading to ultimate victory: first they ignore you

, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. His campaign is clearly now entering the third stage of “then they fight you.” That doesn't mean the attacks won't succeed, but there is a growing note of desperation evident. Every supposedly serious recent interview invariably digresses into attempts to embarrass Paul on the basis of what somebody else said: an alleged supporter on YouTube

, a Tweeting staff member, some wacko campaign donor, or even an anonymous ghostwriter of some twenty-year-old newsletter. This is evidently what you resort to when you cannot embarrass the candidate with his own words or positions any longer, due to his lifelong consistency, and because those views have now been proven to enjoy significant popular support.

In this recent interview

, Fox News' Chris Wallace (who previously said that if Ron Paul won the Iowa Caucuses, then it would serve to discredit Iowa voters!) actually brings up some things Ron Paul wrote in a book published in the 1980s. This strategy suggests that the slime from the racist comments in the antique newsletters isn't sticking, probably because Paul can simply point out that those weren't his words

and have plainly never been his views. (Indeed, the culprit has recently been outed as a contributing freelance writer named James B. Powell.) One gets the impression that Fox must have numerous paid hacks desperately speed-reading through every word Paul has ever written, and poring over the transcript of every speech he's ever given in Congress over the last thirty years, looking for something, anything which can be taken out of context and used to confront and hopefully embarrass him with some apparent deficit of political correctness.

The trouble is that Paul is typically able to defend his words of years ago, since he's not in the habit of staking out ground he cannot defend in the first place, nor of changing his basic position over time. Of the two quotations dredged up here for Wallace's interview (from Paul's 1987 book Freedom Under Siege), the first is cited to attempt to depict him as homophobic because he objects to government subsidies for care of AIDS patients. Paul is able to defend this by bringing up the issue of personal responsibility for behavioral consequences, by impugning the morality of socialism which transfers that responsibility onto society, and by invoking market forces expressed in differential insurance rates based on behavior; other less inflammatory examples include smoking and drinking.

Seeing that he isn't getting the desired result, Wallace cuts him off and segues to the next item, which is a quote suggesting that the victims of workplace sexual harassment share responsibility for its continuance if they do not exercise their right to quit the hostile environment. Again, Paul is able to make this sound reasonable by pointing out the difference between an actual sexual assault (a crime to be reported to the police) and mere boorishness, which does not warrant government intervention. Basically, no one has a right to bring government thugs into a situation simply because they feel offended, and federal laws against mere rude behavior are inappropriate and overreaching.

Having thus struck out twice and failed to portray the congressman as either anti-gay or anti-women, Wallace then moves on to allegations that Paul's effectiveness in Congress has been extremely small, and finally ends with a rather ludicrous charge that his campaign paid a Michelle Bachmann staffer to defect. It's self-evident that while “Dr. No” is only one nay vote in the House, as President, his veto would be worth two-thirds of both houses. So the question about how anyone could believe that his effectiveness would suddenly increase if elected, is laughably foolish. As for the campaign staffer, no rat ever needs to be paid to abandon a sinking ship. This kind of straw-grasping desperation is now prevalent in mainstream media interviews with Paul; a quick sampling on YouTube provides many additional examples.

Why are they so desperate to discredit him? Because, just as his own campaign staff has publicly stated

, three tickets emerged out of Iowa, and one of them (Rick Santorum) lacks the money or campaign organization to go the distance. Which means it's now a two-man race, between the principal establishment candidate, Mitt Romney, and the people's candidate, Ron Paul. Romney's campaign presumably knows this too, which is why they've joined Paul in attacking Gingrich and Perry, to push them out and consolidate all the establishment support behind Romney's banner. Then they'll take on Paul down the stretch. This may be more difficult than it sounds however, since some 3/4ths of the GOP are known to be searching for an alternative to bland moderate Mitt Romney.

Such a race between a “freedom candidate” and another candidate (who must by definition be the anti-freedom candidate), an us/people's candidate vs. a them/establishment candidate, is potentially very dangerous for “them.” In the present climate, a race with this general character could very easily go to the pro-change, populist candidate. This is precisely why libertarians are always ignored, not included in debates, kept off the ballot when possible, their vote totals unreported, and so on. (None of which is new; this has been standard operating procedure for decades.) Because if the people ever get a chance to vote between freedom and slavery, they might just opt for freedom. Such a clear choice is the deepest electoral fear of the imperial establishment. And yet, oddly and remarkably, this kind of perfect storm appears to be exactly what is brewing. The primary establishment defense has always been to belittle the freedom candidate as a crank who simply has no chance of winning. But after finishing third in the Iowa Caucuses, that dog just won't hunt anymore. Moreover it looks like Paul will come in second in New Hampshire.

Of course, Ron Paul still has to sell freedom to a Republican Party that long ago abandoned liberty for totalitarianism, money for debt, peace for war, and reason for madness. Winning in a state-worshiping party overrun with gray-haired neocons, bloodthirsty chickenhawks, hateful bigoted Christian fundamentalists, and flip-flopping influence peddlers, is no small task. By analogy, consider pitching sanity within an institution for the criminally insane. In fact the general election would be a cakewalk by comparison, since non-Republicans can vote in a general election. But in a closed caucus or primary system (rules vary widely by state), only registered Republicans can participate. Still, the Paul campaign is going all out to expose the others as status-quo tweedle-dums. Consider these hard-hitting ads against Newt Gingrich

, Rick Santorum

, and the Washington machine

in general, not to mention this hip ad which openly depicts exploding entire federal departments

, poof! Breathtakingly good stuff.

It's easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm for sticking it to the enemies of freedom through their own rigged and degraded political process. Everyone paying attention who's thought about it knows that the the two major US parties are just wings of the same bird of prey, and the purpose of elections is to shape public opinion

, not sample it. To see the process turned around on them, just for once.... But would it truly be a good idea?

What if Ron Paul wins the Republican nomination, either outright or at a deadlocked convention after the third ballot? In that case — and assuming Paul escapes convenient assassination by some neo-John Hinkley, Jr. supposedly trying to impress some contemporary actress — Obama would probably prove to be little more than a speed bump in the road to the Offal Office. The “Us vs. Them” election would simply be repeated writ large. So let us imagine further that Paul is elected President, and indeed, let us even suppose that the members of Congress are actually frightened into enacting his proposed program. (Not impossible to imagine, since as a group they have no clear principles anyway.) What happens then?

Potentially, some very positive things. American imperialism overseas would pull in its horns, which couldn't help but be good for the overall peace and prosperity of the world. The debt would be reduced, or at least its rate of increase, and the value of the dollar would be supported. Particularly egregious legislation such as the Patriot Act and the NDAA would be discontinued, or no longer enforced. Routine sexual assaults in airports by TSA personnel would cease. Gitmo and other islands in the gulag archipelago might disgorge their prisoners, or at least put them on trial. FEMA and its infamous camps awaiting dissidents might close their doors before they got started. Some federal gun and drug laws might die on the vine. While the outright abolition of the IRS or Federal Reserve and restoration of the gold standard seems unlikely, allowing free market commodity money to compete openly with the central bank's money could easily be achievable.

So what's not to like? The point that Ron Paul and his supporters fail to grasp is that government is hostile to liberty by its very nature, and merely seizing momentary control of the juggernaut of the state is ultimately no substitute for demolishing its power. This cannot be done whilst wielding it, not even in the cause of greater freedom. Paul and his supporters are like the character of Boromir, who urges that the One Ring be used against the Dark Lord by “the Free Lords of the Free.” Tolkien's wiser characters all refuse to have anything to do with this idea, since the Ring's power is to corrupt the ends of the one who wields it, and ultimately the wielder himself. As the wizard Gandalf says: “We should seek a final end to this menace, even if we do not hope to make one.” While incredibly apt at pointing out the growing threat posed by Mordor-on-the-Potomac, when asked what the purpose of government should be, Ron Paul invariably responds: “to protect liberty.” This the great fallacy of classical liberalism. It is akin to claiming that the purpose of foxes is the protection of hens.

To supply a less mythical and more historical analogy, Ron Paul finds himself in much the same position as Claudius following the assassination of the corrupt and insane Emperor Caligula. Claudius always wanted to restore the Roman Republic, but is persuaded by his friends that he cannot refuse the opportunity of the crown when it falls into his lap. By the end of his reign, Claudius comes to understand that he has made a mistake. When he became Emperor, Rome was weary of overbearing autocrats, after the detached Tiberius and the demented Caligula. But by ruling wisely and justly, Claudius reconciled Rome to monarchy again, and thus ironically ensured the continuance of the imperial system he despised for another 300 years. Dr. Paul is most unlikely to achieve the continuation of the US federal government for any such length of time, because the contradictions, debts, and stress-fractures in that system are simply too great; but he could very well succeed in kicking the can down the road for a few more years, if his reforms were adopted. Another possible historical analogy would be to Mikhail Gorbachev, whose efforts to reform the Soviet system in order to save it proved to be too little, too late.

Let us turn now to the scenario if Dr. Paul fails to win the Republican nomination. (And frankly, this remains the most likely outcome, despite the fact that establishment attacks on Paul so far appear to be making him stronger.) In that case, the general election will be between two slick “hairspray” candidates, empty suits Obama and Romney, both of whom will dutifully read their teleprompters and say anything at all to win votes, while meaning none of it. In that case, the Wall Street candidate wins regardless, and the people's candidate simply does not exist. (Goldman Sachs and other financial firms have been the top contributors both to Romney's campaign in 2012, and to Obama's super-PAC in 2008, and again in 2012.) In that case, voter turnout would presumably be low. In that case the freedom-loving public, the people who are fed up with being treated as slaves (in equity, if not in legal title), and all those who supported Ron Paul's campaign, will receive a clear and unequivocal message: “You have no representation in government, and you will never have any. Our system belongs to us and is closed against you and anyone who might seek to help you. We own you. Accept your fate. Resistance is futile.”

It could perhaps go without saying that this message will incite resentment. It will not be meekly accepted. To make matters worse, Paul himself will be leaving Congress in 2013 and going into retirement from politics. So there won't be another round in four years, either. Ironically, the only way the establishment can now save itself from significant damage is by defeating the candidate whose defeat will serve to undermine the very legitimacy of the establishment. In winning, they potentially lose worse than they would if Paul got elected. After all, if Paul gets elected, his supporters will stay in the system. They'll go on voting and paying their taxes. They'll retain their belief in America's experiment in “republican democracy.” They'll pat themselves on the back for saving their country. They'll keep cheering their military heroes, and keep using banks and Federal Reserve notes. It will be possible for the statist establishment to bounce back from the damage inflicted by a Ron Paul administration, when the worm turns in 2014 or 2016, as it inevitably will.

But if Paul isn't elected, his supporters will gain instead a more truthful understanding of the real nature of government, and of their own status as its slaves. They'll figure out that the military they like to thank for their service may soon be “serving” them by rounding them up and tossing them in camps. They'll grasp that their faltering economy will remain hagridden by the special interests of the 1% for the foreseeable future. They'll understand that their currency may soon inflate into worthlessness. These sober realizations will manufacture anarchists and refuseniks by the million. Sic transit gloria democracy.

What will these newly minted free market voluntaryists do, now that they're thoroughly disillusioned about working within the system to reform it? Now that they're perforce following a trajectory toward lasting freedom, instead of transient freedom of the merely political variety? Many of them will join the real revolution, by moving their economic lives into the underground economy, also known as “System D

.” The global gray market underground economy is bigger than China's at $10T per year. Nearly half the workers in the world are already working in it, at least to some extent, some 1.8 billion people. System D is growing faster than any other part of the global economy, and the OECD projects that by 2020, the number will have grown to two-thirds of the workforce. These statistics are shocking to most people in developed countries like the USA. Why? Because their citizens are still shambling off to their system jobs every morning (those that still have jobs), and spending their spare energies begging their corporate/government masters to let them have a little more freedom. This is one area where the “developing” world is actually way ahead of the “developed” world. Their citizens get it; ours don't.

As appealing as a successful Ron Paul campaign might appear, in the long run it's surely better for freedom if he loses. The establishment will expend and forfeit a lot of its legitimacy in beating off his attack, and many of his supporters – particularly the young ones – will learn their lesson about politics and turn their attention to more practical and rewarding concerns, while turning their backs with contempt on the corrupt system they leave behind. It will slowly burn itself out, while they get on with their lives.

All of which is not to say that the eloquent and always forthright Dr. Paul isn't making headway for the ideas of liberty within the limited context of his campaign, ultimately misguided though it is. Even such a hardened left liberal as Phil Donahue has felt the power of the message. In this CNN interview

, Donahue is clearly moved by the observation that Ron Paul is virtually the only sane voice in the political landscape these days. For all the rest, they appear to perceive no conflict between being a proud American, and then waterboarding somebody. Whether Donahue perceives that the policies he has long supported have contributed to the erasure of that conflict isn't clear; but it obviously bothers him that the only spokesman left for the America he once believed in is now marginalized and derided as “dangerous.”

By forcing his opponents to call names and demagogue the issues, Ron Paul exposes the intellectual poverty and moral depravity of the very state he seeks to lead. That's the strategy which could get him elected. If he isn't elected, it's also the strategy which will subsequently recruit millions of Americans into the real Revolution. Hats off to Dr. Ron Paul!

]]> Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:01:00 +0000 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=7 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=7 caucuses and warehouse receipts: They Don't Count Openly Shafting the Public
Apparently the political powers that be are getting nervous that despite all their constant dissing and ignoring of Congressman Ron Paul, he might just win the Iowa Caucuses next month. But not to worry: in that case, the result wouldn't count, and in fact would serve to "discredit" the Iowa Caucuses. In other words, if the people don't anoint one of the acceptable candidates provided to them by the establishment (Gingrich, Romney, Perry, Bachman, et al) then their wishes are irrelevant. Fox News commentator Chris Wallace makes this announcement, incredible only because of its brazenness, while being interviewed

by Neil Cavuto on 14 December. His justification lies in claiming that the Republican party leadership "doubts that Ron Paul will be the nominee." Eloquent proof, if any were needed, that elections are nothing but an expensive, divisive charade in which the will of the people is meant to be shaped, rather than sampled.

Into the classification of things that don't count, we must add bonded warehouse receipts for Comex gold and silver. In this Barrons story

, a new wrinkle is described in the ongoing story of the failure of the MF Global brokerage. Bad enough that Jon Corzine got treated with kid gloves on Capitol Hill, but now we discover that MF Global account holders who owned warehouse receipts for gold and silver slated for delivery are going to recover only 72% of the market value of their bars. The reason is that the liquidation trustee, James Giddens, has elected to lump all assets held by the firm into one big pile, and subject all creditors to the same 28% haircut. In this way secured creditors, such as those who held warehouse receipts for bars in allocated storage, are being treated the same as unsecured creditors.

Funny how the con-mingling of customer accounts with company funds, which has been so much in the spotlight, is now continuing during the liquidation. Even funnier how Giddens’ law firm has done considerable business with J.P. Morgan Chase — one of MF Global’s biggest creditors. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that if the secured creditors owed specific metal bars are given less, unsecured creditors such as JPM will be given more. So far, CME Group, owner of Comex, is refusing to backstop anyone's losses. Future litigation can doubtless be expected, whee!

It's getting to where the breakdown of the supposed rule of law in the Empire is becoming total. Voters who won't be dictated to don't count. And neither do basic property rights.

]]> Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:20:00 +0000 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=6 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=6 Then And Now What a difference a couple of decades makes!
There was a time when the U.S. Federal Reserve was globally respected and implicitly trusted by Americans to wisely and competently manage the country's monetary and banking system. In those days "the Fed" was hardly the household word it is today, let alone a laughingstock. Indeed the Fed found itself in need of propaganda to explain its existence, origins, and operations to a public which, for the most part, didn't really care about it.

A series of comic books were created by the New York Fed for the purpose of public relations, and distributed free to anyone who requested a copy. We've scanned one of them called "The Story Of Money," and uploaded it into a file gallery on this site. (You might need to expand the display window size to be able to read the text.) Although our copy is dated "Fifth Printing, 1998," the characters and their surroundings — including a cameo of a young Clint Eastwood in one frame — suggest that it was produced somewhat earlier.

In any event, the sneering condescension with which this book was written is frankly amazing. The dorky teenage boy who serves as the protagonist in the beginning pages has a haircut quite literally suggesting that his mother placed a bowl on his head and trimmed around it. Commodity money is derided as the resort of primitive societies and ignorant savages. A farmer is shown chasing escaping cows, exclaiming "There goes my savings!" Other members of the public are shown milking a cow's ear, planting a banana tree in the snow, and stuffing sardines into a wallet. A businessman is depicted blowing his money on a fortune teller. The elderly are gleefully shown as penniless and helpless.

Amusingly, the most scorned item, the object of least value, is an introductory economics textbook. The only person who places any value on it is an old kook with long fingernails and a manic expression. (No doubt the type who reads dead Austrian economists.) The puns throughout are simply horrific. The Fed building in D.C. is shown surrounded by clouds and greenery, labeled with a floating angelic banner — as if it were a heavenly palace. In the end, the public is reassured that all is well in America under the benevolent eye of the Fed overseeing the vast complexity of the economy. Even the Three Bears rejoice that the money supply is "just right," and the cows are grateful that they no longer need fear being cut up to make change.

In short, no mistake can possibly be made about the overweening contempt that this institution has for the public it supposedly "serves." We'll never really understand how it all works, and should simply live out our lives on the farm doing the best we can and trusting our wise masters to figure out and deal with all the difficult stuff.

Which brings us to present day. It turns out that the public is, after all, wising up not only to what the central bank does but for and against whom it does it. Here is some more modern content to prove it. These two one-minute TV ad spots were produced by Swiss American for the USA television market. However the advertising departments of Fox News and Fox Business, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC, CBS, CNN/HLN and the Discovery Channel, all uniformly rejected them. Apparently the subject matter was too hot. (We figure it was either that, or it was the creepy 3D animation of Pat Boone, which might give kids nightmares after all!)

Flash player not available.

]]> Thu, 08 Dec 2011 04:52:00 +0000 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=5 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=5 Gold and German fetishes A Modest Proposal
Someone in the UK is floating a trial balloon concerning cannibalizing the gold reserves of Euroland nations in order to give credibility to their future bond issuance:

Could gold-backed bonds be the answer to the eurozone crisis?

The interesting bit here is that gold is explicitly recognized as the "asset of last resort," something the mainstream has been reluctant to do up to this point. Remember Fed Chairman Bernanke's testimony that he did not consider gold to be money? He did however reluctantly admit that it was still considered a reserve asset, and that notion is resurfacing here.

Actually it's not surprising that the credibility of gold would be invoked to bolster efforts to salvage the crumbling euro. Whatever it takes to reduce opposition as the United States of Europe is rammed down the throats of the public. Here's an article describing what's going on, and admitting just how frankly undemocratic the whole thing is:

Eurozone crisis: European Union prepares for the 'great leap forward'

Quite apart from the Maoist connotations of a 'great leap forward,' Lucas Papademos is an ex-GSax guy who was responsible for leading Greece into the euro to begin with (or more accurately, sneaking it in after GSax helped them cook the books). Mario "Full" Monti is another GSax alum who, according to the article, hasn't bothered to include a single elected official in his new Italian cabinet. Whose interests should we suppose they are serving?

An unnamed "senior EU official" (probably someone like Hugh Jim Bissel) actually offered up this very revealing bit of tripe:

"We have seen democracies outstripped by the markets, which have forced decisions on elected governments. So that democratic freedom has been curtailed. How do you respond? Do you let that continue, or do you move towards stronger economic governance? And which is more legitimate, the rule of the markets or economic governance by representative institutions in which governments have a say?"

Well there you have it, folks. Markets and democracy are antagonists, and by golly he wants "democratic freedom" to come out on top. No amount of regulation or power-grabbing or pillaging is off limits to make that happen. Funny how his prescribed solution leaves no room for popular approval, though. It's quite ironic that occupation by the Soviets is invoked by EU technocrat José Manuel Barroso as a ghost bogey for comparison purposes.

Here's hoping the globalists in Brussels don't manage to parlay the current crisis into more power for themselves. They understand clearly that crisis equals opportunity. Consider these quotes from EU "founding fathers":

"The size of the solution has to be in proportion to the problem we're solving." — Robert Schuman

"People are ready to change when they understand there is no alternative." — Jean Monnet

That, of course, is what they want everyone to think. Redistribute a letter 'n' from one of these gentlemen to the other, and you'd have two genuinely creative geniuses.

Meanwhile across the Atlantic, Germany is being pressured to give up its bleating resistance to mortgaging its economy in order to save the euro:

Germany's Inflation Fetish Is A Major Global Economic Threat

Germans apparently have a hangup — derided as a "fetish" — about inflation, which is making Germany more dangerous to global stability than Iran or North Korea. Incredible language, replete with semantic bludgeons! Of course, the politicians who borrowed and spent their way into debts that whole future generations of serfs couldn't possibly pay off, deserve no portion of responsibility for the fact that their interest rates are now going up. It's all the fault of those damned bond traders, and recalcitrant politicians with hangups who just don't get it. Reason and reality are whipped together from the temple.

]]> Wed, 23 Nov 2011 02:35:00 +0000 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=4 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=4 Move (Out) Your Money! Customers Keeping Their Doggies Moving Gives the Banksters Raw Hides
In this time of dissatisfaction and protest, you can try to occupy banks or public buildings, and possibly get teargassed by the police

. Or, you can take your money out of the banks and watch them get hurt instead.

There's a national movement afoot to punish the "too-big-to-fail" banks, known as Move Your Money. During the month of October, a very impressive 650,000 customers moved a total of $4.5 billion out of these big-name banks. The funds mostly went into smaller local banks and credit unions. Of course due to fractional reserve leverage, the pain of shrinking deposits is magnified at least 10 times. As noted in a previous post, plenty of people are also embarking upon "strategic default," that is ceasing to pay on their mortgages even though they might have the money. HSBC took a $1.8 billion charge on their books last quarter for "loan impairment charges."

Internationally, the picture is similar. The Fed was recently hit with withdrawals of $83.3 billion just on November 2nd, the largest withdrawals coming from its deposit accounts. This single day removal was the largest since February, 2009. This essentially amounts to a run on US Treasury Bonds by angry foreign creditors, sick of being cheated by US inflation.

If you're ever inclined to believe, or if you ever hear anybody say, that agorism

couldn't possibly work to increase freedom, just think about what a tiny fraction (not even 1%) of the public is accomplishing here. What if those 650 thousand citizens stopped using banks altogether? What if they began using cash, threw away their plastic cards, and then moved up to digital cash

? What if 650 thousand taxpayers who owed a payment at the end of the year all told the IRS they weren't going to pay, absent collection action? How long would it take the IRS to process that many levies and garnishments?

Now consider what if 650 thousand people became 6.5 million people? Or 65 million people? Even 65 million is only about a fifth of the US population. While that's not nearly enough to outvote the other four fifths, it's certainly enough to bring the tyranny and exploitation to a halt, purely on practical grounds.

It really is true that we, the productive, the customers, the market, can all vote with our money every day, not just once every two years. Since this is the case, why all the focus on politics? If you want to get rid of the bastards, step one is to stop doing business with bastards.

]]> Fri, 18 Nov 2011 03:23:00 +0000 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=3 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=3 Euroland Debt Comi-Tragedy Continues You'd pay to see it if it wasn't free!
In just about a week since our last post, the Euro zone debt crisis has worsened significantly. Greek PM Poppin-Fresh-Dreo is out. Italian PM Burlesque-oni is out. MF Global has ceased operations, with hundreds of millions still missing from customer accounts, and stiffing JP Morgan into unsecured creditor hell.

Italy's bond market is hitting the same wall

that Greece's did, except that Italy is much too big to bail, and everybody knows it.

Lest there be any doubt as to the general character of the people in charge, have a look at this chart of actual remarks made by Euroland leaders to or about one another:

Euro Trash Talking

Really! These people could be construed as failures as human beings, much less as important "leaders" of millions of other human beings.

All is not sweetness and light back in the USA, however. Jefferson County, which includes Birmingham, Alabama, has just filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy

in history. Again, JP Morgan stands to be a big loser here.

In other news, HSBC has recently needed to take $1.8B in "loan impairment charges" just last quarter, as large numbers of mortgage customers simply stopped making their payments. There comes a point at which, if enough of the "99%" do this at the same time, the "1%" will be absolutely helpless to do anything about it. No need to occupy Wall Street, just occupy your home and stop paying them.

In sum, MF Global and Greece look to be only the beginning.
]]> Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:23:00 +0000 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=2 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=2 big boys running scared
Furthermore, it appears that while in the throes of a severe cash crunch, the company succumbed to the temptation to cannibalize customer client accounts, which is a big no-no:

FBI to probe MF Global's use of client money

Speaking of PIIGS debt, the pig in charge of Greece, Prime Minister Papandreou, has grown so frightened of his own voters that he is no longer willing to try to force austerity measures down their throats. Instead he is, incredibly, submitting the grand bailout plan recently agreed among the uncrowned heads of Europe not only to a vote of confidence in Parliament, but to a public referendum as well! Undoubtedly the rioters and occupiers will approve that, probably right after the USA elects the late Harold Stassen President (never mind Ron Paul). Which suggests Papandreou mainly wants the deal exploding and Greece defaulting to be someone else's fault. Yessir, it's all about plausible deniability when the fecal missiles start impacting the rotating blades.

The globalists, the predators in government and finance, are watching it all spiral out of control just as they were closing in for the kill. They want a United States of Europe and have been assiduously beating those drums for decades. And yet they're much more likely to get an Untied States of Europe first. (Dyslexia is a bitch.) The elites are marching in one direction and the world is marching in the other. The gap is becoming too big to straddle, as Papandreou has discovered.

Those who will assume the unraveling is all part of some master plan behind all the plans, are falling prey to the same Hayekian knowledge fallacy to which the Fabian predators are original subscribers. Perfect knowledge to foresee and anticipate all events and consequences does not exist. Brittle overreaching systems thrash ever more wildly as one crisis remedy precipitates another crisis, in ever-quickening succession. Today their insider clique firms are imploding and their career politicians are running scared. While we can logically expect opportunistic responses, it's difficult to believe there's an overall script being read here.

The question before us is not how to topple the state; it's toppling of its own rotten weight just fine without any help. The question is how do we get out from under? To this end, we need to build an alternative agorist economy. And quickly. Will we be ready for prime time when the wheels really come off in a couple more years? Every day's news increasingly suggests that we don't have nearly as much time as we may have thought.

]]> Wed, 02 Nov 2011 02:52:00 +0000 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=1 http://www.jointherevolution.us/tiki-view_blog_post.php?postId=1