Do You Smell That?

This morning, much of the alternative media is hair-ablaze because of the "Free Speech is a Felony" law, the "Peacetime Martial Law" order, the deployment of mass assets to the Persian Gulf that may lead to a war with Iran, etc., etc., etc.

Oddly, I'm calm. Eerily calm. I think that's so because in the last couple of weeks, I'm seeing that, try as they might, the powers that be just can't seem to get their narrative to sprout wings and fly. No matter what else is going on, it seems that light is illuminating dark. Here are just some examples:

~Yesterday, Italian Police arrested 16 tax court judges and 31 others who are accused of connections to the Italian Mafia and widespread corruption involving big business and government. Story here.

~The rats seem to be abandoning ship in great numbers. Before stopping tracking the bankster resignations last week, American Kabuki's list reached 358 banksters who resigned since September, with over 200 of those since February 1.

~Other ultra-fat cats seem to be turning on one another. Aussie mining muckety-muck Clive Palmer has accused the Australian Green Party and Queensland environmental campaigners of conspiring with the American CIA to destroy the Australian coal industry. In doing so, he accused the US government and other American interests of meddling in and funding Australian politics through a secret budget. I bet we'll be hearing some more about that.

~Word is leaking out through alternative and foreign media that the recent Afghan massacre in which 16 Afghani civilians including 9 children was not in fact the work of a crazed lone gunman. An Afghan Parliamentary investigation has obtained evidence from witnesses and survivors that point to "two groups" of American soldiers--15 to 20 men--as the perpetrators of the violence. The US media may be complicit with the US government in the pinning of the atrocities on one madman, but doubts about the veracity of that account are creeping into the common consciousness.

~One of the richest organizations on the planet, the Vatican Bank, has recently been named as an entity "at risk" for money laundering, suspected of holding or distributing proceeds of drug trafficking and other organized crime. The Bank has had one of its accounts closed by JPMorgan/Chase for failing to respond to requests for information about suspicious transactions, and has had another account--over $30 million--frozen by an Italian judge. Its president is also under criminal investigation.

~Whistleblowers, both current and former employees of Big Banking and Finance, are coming forward with tales of illegal, unethical, and conspiratorial schemes at some of America's largest financial institutions. From manipulation of markets to scamming of investment clients, the whistleblowers are whistling about it, and some is even making it into mainstream news media.

~The UKs News of the World phone hacking scandal has continued to move, in spite of all Rupert Murdoch's billions. Last week, British police arrested six people, including Murdoch's protege and BFF, Rebecca Brooks, and her hubby, for the British equivalent of obstruction of justice, apparently for covering up evidence of criminal wiretapping, etc.

~The recent Kony 2012 furor was quickly questioned, crashed, and then met a fiery demise, as it became rapidly apparent to most that the film, which rightly brought attention to an awful chapter in recent African unrest, was nonetheless being used as a propaganda tool to justify more American military occupation of African nations who happened to have LOTS of OIL. And then of course there was the interesting exit from public view of the filmmaker, Jason Russell, who is taking a break for some quiet time after running the streets of San Diego naked, raving, vandalizing cars and publicly masturbating. Poor guy.

There are lots of others, including that the public is openly dubious about the government's and media's concerted and continuing efforts to say that the economy is getting better and so we can all go back to our Dancing With the Stars.

I've been saying for months that I predicted the wheels were about to come off the corrupt, slimy and stinking bus that is our government and its big business and big banking puppet-masters. Seems well underway.

So, the smell? I'm thinking that's some nice fat, meeting the fire.

A Light Bulb Moment

This little video pretty well tells us where we are. Pass it on.

The Intersection of Compassion and Naivete'

KONY 2012! The words have blared out at us in the past week. Complete with celebrity endorsements from P.Diddy to George Clooney, the cause is major "news."

We're told that millions have watched the video and cried out for troops to go to Uganda to find and stop the monster, Joseph Kony, who it is said kidnaps thousands of children and turns them into killing machines and/or prostitutes for the Lord's Resistance Army. I don't know if millions cried out--I can only take their word for it. But if they did, it's because they've been duped once again by slick media, owned and controlled by the same handful of companies who own and control big business, big oil, and the big war machine of the United States.

It's pretty much undisputed that Kony and his atrocities have been around for many years, and barely registered a blip on the radar of concern by the American government--until now. And suddenly, with one heartstring-pulling propaganda piece, Kony and all those poor children are a cause celebre, and the Congress has passed a resolution to dispatch American troops anywhere in Africa to stop Kony and "protect" civilians.

Now, I know I may seem a bit of a cynic when it comes to these things, but is it a coincidence that, more than 20 years into Kony's LRA miscreations, more than 5 years after he fled Uganda, we've suddenly seen the light and have to get serious about finding and stopping Kony. Just now.

Just shortly after the largest land-based oil reserves in the world, about 2.5 billion barrels, were found under Uganda.

Just after a scandal arose in which it was exposed that officials in the Ugandan government were accepting bribes from big, multi-national oil companies.

Just after President Obama sent military "advisors" over to Uganda, Sudan, and Democratic Republic of Congo. In fact, the Kony 2012 film says directly that it's point is to demand that the advisors stay right where they are--occupying yet another country with oil. From the film's narration:

We know what to do. Here it is, ready? In order for Kony to be arrested this year, the Ugandan military has to find him. In order to find him, they need the technology and training to track him in the vast jungle. That's where the American advisors come in. But in order for the American advisors to be there, the American government has to deploy them. They've done that, but if the government doesn't believe the people care about Kony, the mission will be cancelled. In order for the people to care, they have to know. And they will only know if Kony's name is everywhere.

And, it seems, just as it looks like we're going to get our collective heinies thrown out of Afghanistan for all the protecting of civilians our "training advisors" have been doing--by urinating on bodies, burning Qu'rans, and murdering children in door-to-door massacre parties (gosh, we're awfully sorry about all that).

So, the whole Kony 2012 campaign looks suspiciously like a manipulation--one concocted at the intersection of Compassion Street and Naivete Boulevard--one designed to get well-meaning, but uninformed Americans to beg to get into yet another bottomless, ill-defined, and unending military adventure--over oil. And if there is another war, it will be because we've once again bought the ridiculously worn idea that war breeds peace, and bombing and shooting at people protects them. George Orwell is currently rolling over in his grave. Some days I envy him. He got to tell people about this stuff from a safe distance of years.


For more information, read the article here, and watch the very good video by James Corbett of the Corbett Report.

How To Be A Thief, For Fun and Profit

The answer is actually surprisingly simple--be rich to start out with. An article on Salon.com yesterday, provides the outline.

Remember MFGlobal? That's the big trading firm who went belly up a few months ago after supposedly making a real lot of really really bad bets on the value of foreign currencies. When the piper came to the door to be paid on these bad bets, MFGlobal didn't have enough money to pay their pals at other big financial firms, so they took it from their customer accounts--$1.6 BILLION worth of money that belonged to someone else. Most of this money, the bankruptcy trustee says, will never be recovered. Jon Corzine, former Goldman Sachs fat cat and Democratic party fat cat, was boss man there at the time.

Neither Corzine nor anyone else from MFGlobal is in jail, or has been charged with any crime, even though it is "illegal" to use segregated client funds except as directed by the client. You know how they're thwarting the supposed efforts of prosecutors to hold someone accountable. They said they didn't mean to. Yep. That's their story. You can't make this up. It was apparently an "accident" that they took money out of customer accounts--those dang accounts, always slipping in there and tossing money onto your computer screens when you least expect it!

Now, it seems, MFGlobal executives are going to get BONUSES for being so clever as to get away with taking $1.6 billion of other people's money. Three of the fattest cats from MFGlobal are slated for bonuses of six figures each!

So, there you go. Make lots of money and cultivate lots of political connections. Take other people's money without their permission (most of us call that stealing, but apparently not the federal authorities). Get paid a big bonus. Cool.

Makes you wonder why anyone actually works for a living, doesn't it?

Humbled

I have just run across a YouTube video by Charlie McGrath of wideawakenews.com. If only I could be so clear. His reasoning is impeccable, and it's a call to you, and me, and every American. Two minutes of brutal truth, of why NOT to participate in one more minute of what our nation is up to, is here for the taking:

"... enough is enough. There is no more blood for oil, or blood for treasure, or blood for whatever. If you want to spend YOUR blood, Washington DC, New York City, City of London, YOU go over and fight these battles. That's enough American men and women being butchered, and it's enough citizens of this planet dying in the name of 'spreading democracy." -Charlie McGrath

We need a new Congressional bill--one that says that no military action can be taken without Congressional approval, and that your vote for the military action also serves as your enlistment in the military branch of your choice, at the lowest rank in that service, in the combat operations you voted for. I'm betting the world turmoil would calm right down.

UPDATE: The story McGrath refers to about having to disarm the troops before a visit from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is here. You suppose that having to disarm the military before your SecDef will get out of the car is a sign that something is seriously amiss with our military policy?

Not On the News

Seems that there's a rather big something out there that the news isn't telling us about. Surprise! After you see what it is, and no matter where you stand on the substance of the matter, maybe you can tell me, WHY is it not being reported?

The something is House Concurrent Resolution 107, introduced March 7, 2012, by Rep. Walter B. Jones, R, NC.

The resolution's purpose is to express, "the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution,' except when there's been an actual attack on American territory, or there's an imminent attack. In other words, if passed, this resolution could form the basis for impeachment of President Obama for using military force (in Egypt and Syria, for example) without Congressional approval.

Now, I've been rather clear about my liberal leanings, and I'll even cop to having voted for the President with high hopes that he'd operate differently than his predecessors. But I'm going on record now--the House and the Senate should pass this resolution, because:

A) The Constitution pretty clearly and expressly requires exactly what the resolution says; and

B) What Obama, and Bush before him, and a whole line before them, have been doing is systematically usurping authority to such an extent that by the order of one person, the entire nation can be tossed into war, for years or decades; can be required to pay back the debt financing of the same; and can be forced to live with the economic and practice consequences of war (as we have been for some time), without that person ever having to convince another human that it's necessary or a good idea. That illegal and immoral process is killing this country, and it should stop now.

It's just a pity they didn't do the same thing years ago.

The Problem

I ran across this chart, which seems to show a whole bunch about the trouble with America, in an article in that bastion of liberal thought, Mother Jones. But after you absorb it, allow me just a moment to observe that the chart shouldn't actually lead where you think it does.

A few years ago, I probably would have thought that these results mean we need higher taxes on the wealthy, period. I still wouldn't kick and scream about higher taxes on the super-wealthy, but I'd like to observe that, when something is this out of balance, the "remedy" isn't a bumper sticker.

In fact, we've seen over the past several years exactly what causes this mess. Our system, both the liberal side and the conservative side, is set up to achieve exactly what this chart shows. For example, the financial crisis. Banks for years made oodles of money creating cash from the ether on their black screens. They then made more oodles of money trading 'derivatives,' which is a pretty word for financial fraud. Then, they crashed the derivatives market and scared the beejeebers out of everyone, who bought their line that if we just bailed them out, it would 'save' the world economy. And although it was wildly unpopular, our government voted to turn over all the money to them. TRILLIONS of dollars of money that we borrowed from them, that we have to pay back, with interest, to them, so that we could give it to them, so that they could stay in business and foreclose on our houses.

In light of this, traditional 'liberal' causes, like welfare and social security, where the government pays people a pittance to buy their consent to remain happily in poverty, while the real money gets siphoned off to the top 1%, doesn't actually seem to do much to fix the problem, does it?

We don't need higher taxes on the rich. We don't need more welfare and social security. We need a system that isn't bought and paid for, operated for the benefit of, and totally skewed in favor of--the rich.

And the start lies right here--when regular people stop thinking that the system isn't as ridiculously unfair as it is.