St. Kitts & Nevis

The recent discussions of birth certificates and citizenship have rekindled my interest in living and working abroad, and, consequently, my frustration at just very how hard this is for the average person to accomplish. Each government jealousy guards its citizenship and work permits, even from friendly countries with whom it shares close cultural and economic ties. “I want to immerse myself in Europe’s culture and history,” I reflected, “not pop its cherry. Is there any country in the world which is even a little, you know…easy?” That’s how I learned about St. Kitts and Nevis.

If my coveted United Kingdom is an ice princess that does not deign to look down upon me from her ivory tower, St. Kitts and Nevis is her busty niece who is a sucker for men with flashy cars. St. Kitts and Nevis is a tiny English-speaking island state in the Caribbean; an independent Commonwealth realm whose Governor-General answers to Queen Elizabeth II. If you Google citizenship for that country, you do not immediately come across an government site, as you might expect, but a host of shady businesses operating under domain names like “offshoreinfo.com” and “offshore-services.biz.” The latter purports to teach you “how to legally escape taxes of your home country, and how to get a new life and citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis.”

St. Kitts and Nevis boasts the world’s oldest “citizenship-by-investment” program. With a clean background/HIV check, the purchase of some real estate on one of the country’s two tropical islands, and an investment of $250,000, these companies will put you on the fast track to citizenship. Many countries now have some type of citizenship-by-investment program—the UK sells her wares for £1,000,000 or more—but she has a right to expect nice things from her suitors, doesn’t she? As an offshore tax shelter, St. Kitts and Nevis’s citizenship program is more about what your country can do for you. Escapeartist.com writes:

As a citizen of St. Kitts & Nevis, you can live and work in the islands anytime, although there is no obligation to so. You also enjoy special rights and privileges in the United Kingdom. You are not liable to taxation in St. Kitts & Nevis as there is no income tax, capital gains tax, wealth tax or inheritance tax!

The whole procedure—from submitting the application up to the issue of the citizenship certificate and passport—takes about three months. You don’t need to travel to St. Kitts & Nevis for this purpose, but we highly recommend that you do so you may personally choose the property you would like to invest in.

Your St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship is not only a shrewd financial investment, but it affords you the opportunity to travel without the hassle of acknowledging your true nationality:

A passport from a peaceful, neutral and non-controversial country…carries many benefits. It lets you travel more freely and discreetly; protect yourself and your affairs from privacy invaders…And if you’re ever in the hands of someone with a grudge against your home nation, being able to present yourself as a citizen of another country may even save your life.

…

In an unsettled world, acquiring real estate outside your home country, along with an alternative citizenship and passport, is a wise investment in your personal security, freedom and privacy.

Think of how easily you will sleep knowing that the door is always open for you to abandon your home country in its time of need.

St. Kitts and Nevis probably has some sort of culture and history. Offshoreinfo.com gives brief mention to a “well-educated, English speaking and friendly” workforce that offers “good opportunities for investors and manufacturers,” but little else said of the people who actually inhabit the tiny islands. After all, what does a love of a country for its people and culture have to do with earning citizenship?

With the Senate preparing to debate filibuster reform, now is a good time to consider a similarly daunting challenge to democratic representation in the House: its size. It’s been far too long since the House expanded to keep up with population growth and, as a result, it has lost touch with the public and been overtaken by special interests.

Indeed, the lower chamber of Congress has had the same number of members for so long that many Americans assume that its 435 seats are constitutionally mandated.

But that’s wrong: while the founders wanted to limit the size of the Senate, they intended the House to expand based on population growth. Instead of setting an absolute number, the Constitution merely limits the ratio of members to population. “The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every 30,000,” the founders wrote. They were concerned, in other words, about having too many representatives, not too few.

When the House met in 1787 it had 65 members, one for every 60,000 inhabitants (including slaves as three-fifths of a person). For well over a century, after each census Congress would pass a law increasing the size of the House.

But after the 1910 census, when the House grew from 391 members to 433 (two more were added later when Arizona and New Mexico became states), the growth stopped. That’s because the 1920 census indicated that the majority of Americans were concentrating in cities, and nativists, worried about of the power of “foreigners,” blocked efforts to give them more representatives.

By the time the next decade rolled around, members found themselves reluctant to dilute their votes, and the issue was never seriously considered again…

[Read the rest at the NY Times]

Four things happened recently that I think require attention. They speak to not just the world that we live in as it is, but the direction where we are headed. It’s a cliche to repeat, but that won’t stop me–the Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times” applies now more than ever.

We do, indeed live in “interesting” times. Times as interesting as 1914, 1929 or 1939. We will live to see days like 1905, 1936 and 1968. Only time will tell if they blossom into 1789, 1871 or 1917, but the alternative is too terrifying to even contemplate.

Full Article at Red Star Times

From Nick Pell at Red Star Times

“The Communist Party cannot fulfill its mission except by preserving, completely and unconditionally, its political and organizational independence apart from all other parties and organizations within and without the working class.” – L. Trotsky

I am frequently maligned and attacked for not supporting “the left.” Slings and arrows thrown my way include admonishments to “get behind the real movement” and appeals for a “united front” from people who clearly don’t understand what the term means. However, it’s worth pointing out (once again) that I don’t consider building “the left” to be the task of a socialist. The task of a socialist is to help the working class organize to take power. Rather than building block along the road towards this end, the left is perhaps the largest impediment to working class politics both domestically and internationally. Whether you think of the left as being the Democratic Party or any number of social democratic and Stalinist parties internationally matters not at all. The point is, wherever you go in the world the left plays an indispensable role in keeping the working class shackled to the capitalist state.

Full Article at Red Star Times

My friend Bill is wont to say that humanity hasn’t quite figured out that it could do something so bad that it couldn’t be fixed. From a certain point of view, I agree. Our ability to fix the messes we create is finite. Never before the last 50 years has humanity been in a position to utterly and totally destroy itself and drag a large amount of other life forms down with it.

Chernobyl was bad, to be sure. However, the damage was largely regional. The BP disaster is creating an Exxon Valdez crash every four days, with no end in sight.

Forget about the very real possibility of a third world war, one that could irreparably render the planet uninhabitable for humans. The fact that multinational oil cartels are building things capable of creating disasters without solutions should be of concern to everyone who likes the planet being populated with hairless monkeys and other endearing life forms.

Full story at Red Star Times

The message being conveyed is that there is something kind of off about the existence of hundreds of millions of people (the first world/outer party) who assume that they are democrtic citizens when the power to literally topple governments and start world wars is handed down dynastically into the hands of very few people. I’m aware that I am largely preaching to the converted, but if you’re interested, please read on.

The whole of human history may be considered as a broad narrative detailing the aggregation and evolution of small human communities into city-states, nation-states, super-national states and perhaps ultimately – a global state. It is perhaps the case that the current rate of social aggregation has exceeded the rate at which societies are willing to adjust economic and regulatory conditions within the emerging global community. The discrepancy between the economic condition of a global “free-market” and the severe lack of regulation and cooperation between world governments has allowed for the creation and proliferation of a new ruling class which may be referred to as the Global Aristocracy. Oligarchy occurs when the power to rule becomes concentrated within the hands of a few (Oligarchy, 2010). When a society’s controlling class consists only of the wealthy, it has entered a state of plutocracy (Plutocracy, 2010). The sum of these two realities can be referred to as “plutarchy”. The existence of the Global Aristocracy represents a major step in the previously gradual transition from diverse national autonomy towards a common global condition of total and abject plutarchy.

The Global Aristocracy became increasingly permitted to congeal into a highly entrenched existence throughout the second half of the twentieth century (Haseler, S., 2000). A consequence carried with the wave of free-trade legislation in the 1990’s was the ability of the wealthy to freely mobilize their wealth and invest it across national borders (Mcnally, D., 2006). Concurrently, the use of the internet to transfer money electronically greatly contributed to the ability to mobilize capital (Haseler, S., 2000). Historically, the wealthiest citizens have been inhibited from accumulating capital at today’s rapidly accelerating rates by progressive tax legislation, requiring citizens to pay income taxes proportionate to the amount of their income (Haseler, S., 2000). Over time, the wealthy have fought persistently and tirelessly against such measures, but with the emergence of free-trade and mobile capital also came many legal loopholes enabling wealth to concentrate and accumulate at unprecedented rates (Anderson, S., & Pizzigati, S., 2008). Transnational corporations – the primary consequence of globalization and tools of the elite – use a tactic known as transfer pricing to avoid paying taxes, effectively having the option to choose the nation to which taxes will be paid, always opting for the cheapest country (Haseler, S., 2000). Such tactics have provided many governments with motivation to loosen their tax regimes on the highest earners (Haseler, S., 2000). The result of this massive economic climate-change is that over ninety-five per cent of citizens are paying a significant amount of taxes relative to their income while those at the top of the economic food-chain are not (Anderson, S., & Pizzigati, S., 2008). It was noted in 2006 that the top four hundred highest earning taxpayers in America kept eighteen times more income than the top four hundred in 1955 (Plutocracy Reborn, 2008). It has also been shown that the top five hedge-fund managers took home thirteen thousand times more income than the top five military leaders, and roughly forty-three times as much income as the top five corporate Chief Executives (Plutocracy Reborn, 2008). These comparisons illustrate the phenomenon of social mobility existing primarily at the margin between the Global Aristocracy and their faithful instruments on Earth; the Executive Managerial Class, who tend to be situated at the head of corporations and higher levels of government (Haseler, S.,  2000). Capitalism is inherently prone to developing plutocratic traits (McNally, D., 2006). Wealth plays a significant role in the political process and the amount of money one possesses directly translates to political influence (Etzioni, A. 2004). Those finding themselves relatively impoverished in comparison to economic deities such as the Global Aristocracy cannot afford to assert and lobby for their rights in the political arena on an equivalent level, if at all (Schalit, J., 2002). The confluence of these conditions allowed those who could afford to do so to cement positions atop the mathematically-based capitalist system.

The Global Aristocracy – or those with a net-worth of over one billion U.S. dollars – numbered approximately four-hundred members in 2000 (Haseler, S., 2000) and has since risen to roughly one thousand and one hundred, jumping sharply during 2009, a year marked by economic recession (Li, K., 2010). Members of the Global Aristocracy do not earn money through the provision of a good or a service like the other social classes; rather they accumulate their capital passively, through investment (Haseler, S., 2000). While a net worth of one billion U.S. dollars accumulates an average annual income of fifty million dollars, considerable numbers of the Global Aristocracy are drawing in much higher unearned incomes enabling them to live in absence of financial limits while being completely free from any obligation to work (Haseler, S., 2000). Despite the focus of the media on the outrageously high corporate salaries of those in the Executive Managerial Class, much of the wealth present within the Global Aristocracy is generated through inheritance (Haseler, S., 2000), alienating many of the members from the work process from the time of their births. Notable exceptions to the inheritance rule do exist, but these members cease doing any work once enough wealth has been accumulated to diversify investments to a self-sustaining degree (Haseler, S., 2000). The emergence of mobile capital and the prevalence of transnational tax-dodging have freed the Global Aristocracy from any national loyalty (Haseler, S., 2000). Akin to the corporations that they collectively own, members of the Global Aristocracy are transnational beings, unfettered by loyalty or obligation to any mere nation (Gray, J., 1998), for many nations are beneath them in power and in status (McNally, D., 2006). The coupling of the expanded ability to diversify investments and the massively accelerated accumulation of capital potentiates mathematically-certain entrenchment within the Global Aristocracy, and the element of inheritance lends a strong dynastic component which has been referred to as the “Achilles’ Heel of Capitalism” (Haseler, S., 2000), and is largely ignored as a potential threat to democracy by the mainstream. The result of these characteristics has been the removal of the Global Aristocracy from participation in society (Haseler, S., 2000).

The Global Aristocracy’s recently acquired ability to inject unprecedented amounts of capital into formerly quaint foreign economies has led to the creation of “emerging superpowers” which has in turn initiated an equalization of living standards between competing countries (Haseler, S., 2000). The implicit and ever-present threat of withdrawing their investments allows the Global Aristocracy to control the actions of the transnational corporations and national governments of which – when combining their investments – they own controlling stakes. Duress over governments and ownership of mass media outlets amounts to the rendering of the political process as mainly symbolic (McNally, D., 2006). Using finance capitalism to hold economic prosperity and social order hostage, the Global Aristocracy has converted most national governments into “handmaiden states” which service the needs of capital over the needs of citizens (Haseler, S., 2000). The massive and accelerating accumulation of capital by the Global Aristocracy is without a known purpose, serving only to devalue the labour of the rest of the population, while the value of passively accumulating wealth and manipulating markets to profit from the changes rises proportionately (Haseler, S., 2000). A notable consequence of the Age of Globalization is falling wages for the vast majority of people due to the international competition for labour (Gray, J., 1998). The machinations of the Global Aristocracy are not only serving to widen the rich-poor gap at both ends, but are also contributing to the erosion of the middle class (Haseler, S., 2000). These forces are driving the quality of the common life downward.

The vast power and control wielded by the Global Aristocracy is evident from the consequences of its mere existence. The remaining question to be examined is one of whether or not global plutarchy need necessarily be considered a negative phenomenon. As clairvoyance does not lie within the province of this paper, no prophecies will be documented presently, what must instead be acknowledged is the growing potential for a truly negative scenario to occur. Recognized factors that have contributed to the past development of totalitarianism are conspicuously present today. Political emancipation of the wealthy elite such as the eroded political loyalty held by the trans-national Global Aristocracy is one such factor (Arendt, H., 1958). Imperialism is described as the hallmark of the political rule of the wealthy (Arendt, H., 1958). One need only look to the all too relevant example of present day American imperialism occurring in the middle-east and worldwide to observe this phenomenon (Mcnally, D., 2006). Fulfillment of the current imperialist agenda would not be possible were it not for another marker of totalitarianism; an alliance between the mob and wealthy elite (Arendt, H., 1958). This alliance is commonly referred to as the military-industrial complex (Mcnally, D., 2006) and represents the concentration of enormous power (Arendt, H., 1958). Powerful propaganda must be employed in order to effectively rule populations which are not completely subdued (Arendt, H., 1958) and it is known that members of the Global Aristocracy own and control the mainstream media and use it to legitimate their imperialist, perhaps totalitarian agenda (Mcnally, D., 2006). It has long been argued that the current state of democratic failure represents an inexorable end on the path of capitalism (Mcnally, D., 2006), bringing with it the erosion of individual rights and autonomy, and the disappearance of the middle class (Mcnally, D., 1988). The global elite continue to bring in record incomes, while most people are earning record lows (Anderson, S., & Pizzigati, S., 2008). The presence of these social factors demonstrates a growing totalitarian potential which should give citizens of all nations pause to consider its implications.

Due to the evidence demonstrating the purest forms of greed motivating its members, and due to the deplorable social consequences of said greed, the Global Aristocracy has qualified itself to receive increased public scrutiny. Regrettably, the level of scrutiny needed to inhibit the Global Aristocracy’s more destructive behaviours is sharply incongruent with the level of public awareness regarding its existence, activities, and impact. The mainstream media cannot be relied upon to generate this awareness; therefore the responsibility falls upon individuals who inhabit the more conscious end of the spectrum of sentience to make others more aware.

Thank you for reading.

While the essay is heavily critical of the ruling elite, you may have noted that it does not demonstrate the pretention of knowing what to do next or exactly which measures may fix this lost situation.

The responsibility is ours to ensure our own freedom, and we cannot currently rely on external entities to supply it for us.

Spread the word.

References

(2008). Plutocracy Reborn. (cover story). Nation, 286(25), 24. Retrieved from MAS Ultra – School Edition database.

Anderson, S., & Pizzigati, S. (2008). Ending Plutocracy: A 12-Step Program. (cover

story). Nation, 286(25), 30. Retrieved from MAS Ultra – School Edition database.

Arendt, H., (1958). The Origins of Totalitarianism. Cleveland Ohio: Meridian Books.

Etzioni, A. (2004). The American Slippage toward Plutocracy. Phi Kappa Phi Forum, 84(1), 26-29. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Gray, J., (1998). False Dawn. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press.

Haseler, Stephen., (2000). The Super-Rich. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press.

Li, Kenneth, (2010). In The Financial Times. Retrieved March 20, 2010 from http://www.ft.com

Mcnally, D., (2006). Another World Is Possible. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press.

Mcnally, D., (1988). Political Economy and the Rise of Capitalism. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press.

Schalit, J., (2002). The Anti-Capitalism Reader. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press.

Oligarchy. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved March 20, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online

Plutocracy. (2010). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved March 20, 2010, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plutocracy

Karl Marx has received a bum rap. Some see him as the godfather of the modern revolutionary movement while others see him as the architect of Stalin’s gulags. I’m in the former camp rather than the latter. This is not to say his he is infallible, his texts are sacred, or his supporters haven’t committed any errors. In fact I think that last point is the cause of most of the controversy.

Few people have bothered to read his works and instead point to the horrors committed by his followers mainly Lenin and the Bolsheviks. After Karl died three main voices appeared in the socialist movement of the 20th century all claiming the mantle of Marx — Bernstein, Lenin, and Luxemburg.

Bernstein who lead the democratic socialists, said revolution was unnecessary and pursed reforms within a democracy (this is the model of a number of European parties). Lenin believed in the revolution and thought a highly disciplined party could succeed even in a backwards country like Russia (these are the scary communists we’ve all been raised to fear). Then there was Rosa Luxemburg who believed that workers by seizing the means of production and by running themselves could create a new society (this is least talked about bunch of Marxists, but the ones I find most interesting).

Full Article at Black Sun Gazette

A new poll reveals what you already knew: the economy is fucking depressing. You can’t help but wonder how many people have committed suicide over losing a job or a house, or how many relationships have been strained to the breaking point by a lack of money.

It’s proof that we live in Bizarro world that we even take such things for granted. Much like the tenets of organized religion, if you simply lay out the reality in simple terms — you and I are subject to the whims and vagaries of a tiny group of social parasites who produce nothing while taking everything, and when their investments tank our lives go in the shitter — it’s patently ludicrous.

To those suckling at the teat of corporate control, however, it seems as natural as sunshine.

Full Article at Black Sun Gazette

Almost a century and a half ago, Senator Stephen Douglas told Abraham Lincoln, who had just defeated him for the presidency, “Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.” Well, in that same spirit, I say to President-Elect Bush that what remains of partisan rancor must now be put aside, and may God bless his stewardship of this country.

— Vice President Al Gore’s concession speech on December 13, 2000, after the Supreme Court decision Bush v. Gore, effectively ending his hopes of becoming the 43rd president of the U.S.

Full text of Vice President Al Gore’s concession speech here.

The First Church of Mutterhals

I recently saw graffiti written on a train that said “80% of the internet is pornography.” While I don’t normally give much credence to random statistics scrawled on the sides of fast moving freight trains, I have to say this one struck me as fairly accurate. I would even go as far as characterizing the remaining 20% as being comprised of cat pictures, celebrity gossip and social networking sites appealing to the emotional retard in all of us.

Yeah, I said it. Retard.

Facebook is a place for puerile rumor mongering and passive-aggressive pronouncements made from the safety of your profile page. For all the talk about connecting to people around the world, social utilities really only serve to foster the increasing sense of isolation and narcissism already rampant among humanity.

Am I the only person who thinks every update is a provocation aimed directly at me? And isn’t it uncomfortable when two people have an argument wall-to-wall? It’s like watching a couple have a vigorous spat in public, while you remain en guard for the unfortunate moment when violence is initiated and you will be forced to step in.

Except on Facebook there is no threat of physical violence, just the utterance of some brutal truth that will make the assailed hang their head in shame for the next few days, until the slight is pushed off the front page by a lot of other pointless bullshit.

Read More: The First Church of Mutterhals

I love to watch the lunatic fringe squirm as they realize that their little kingdom is falling apart. Its not that I get jollies knowing the demoRAT party will probably increase the next election round overall, even if the ObamaMeister will force the reTHUGlicans back into the Whitehouse. It is all crazy shit and I blame Americans for being too partisan, stupid, scared or gullible to clearly back away from those “parties” and the devastation the participation brings to our way of life.

Full Article at Black Sun Gazette

I think in the year 2000 we actually entered through the looking glass. It’s almost absurd — left is right, up is down, fight terrorism by going shopping and Afghans are “Enduring Freedom” is an incredible Orwellian mind fuck. A sizable minority live in Fox News World and swallow up conservative dribble, because Bush “kept us safe for eight years” except for the day between 9-10 and 9-12 (snap).

Another sizable liberal minority live in Futurama and believe all would have been fine had Al Gore been elected (no terrorism, no war, no hurricanes, no government corruption) unlike the rest of American history. The fact that the two men were both from old political families that served the interests of the elite didn’t phase most people. One was the son and great grandson of presidents; the other a vice president and son of a powerful senator. The majority of eligible voters have grown wise to the game and didn’t even bother to vote.

Full Article at Black Sun Gazette

We have been conditioned from birth to believe that everything wrong in our society is about Greed: The inordinate desire to acquire or possess more than one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.

However, my research concludes the earth’s environmental damage and pollution was not the result of greed and the unintended consequences of our capitalistic consumer society, but was the goal.

Until the common man became “civilized” he had almost no environmental impact on the earth. Hunters, foragers and gatherers are unable to upset the ecological structures of the planet. [1]

The first civilized societies and their agrarian economies had an environmental impact but the damage was negligible because only 3% of the population, Kings and Lords were consumers.

The earth wasn’t in trouble until the House of Rothschild unleashed the middle class on the planet when they financed and fomented the American and French Revolutions. [2]

Now the Third Estate (97% of the population) was freed to become the consumers of useless and toxic products from the Industrial Revolution.  And thanks to those scoundrels behind the Federal Reserve, former serfs and slaves could now have their own castle with a Sport Utility Pollution Vehicle (SUPV) in the driveway.

The first industrial revolution, the textile industry, based on the one plant that does more damage to the environment than coffee or tobacco…cotton, marked the last time the earth would be in ecological balance. [3]

A Theory of Ecocide Explains the Unexplainable

To support my theory, I point out that the Federal Reserve isn’t evil because they print our money and make us pay interest on the principal.

They are evil because Rockefeller, Kuhn, Loeb and Morgan, all connected to the House of Rothschild’s global financial empire, directed the Federal Reserve (until October of 2008) to create money out of thin air to pay for the American Dream, an environmental nightmare for the planet. [4]

These scoundrels, at the beginning of the 20th century owned or controlled 1/6^th of the world’s real wealth: raw materials, commodities, copper, iron ore, petroleum, lead, silver and gold.

And when I write, “So how do they get rich exchanging real wealth for about $500 trillion of the Monopoly money they printed?”

I assume the answer is intuitive because their real wealth has been used up; they are the losers, not the middle class!

And I remind anyone still listening:

Remember those trees we chopped down and mountains we blew up so we could experience unprecedented prosperity for the last 60 years?

All of those resources (raw materials for the American Dream) “now used up”, were once owned or controlled by the scoundrels of our history books.

Their real wealth, not yours or mine has been “cut, mined and hauled away so consumers could trash the planet with houses, second houses, cars, RVs, TVs and DVDs— the material possessions we associate with the good life that put the planet on the downward spiral to ecocide.

Although this premise first appeared in Dem Bones is Connected To De Debt Bone (published at The Market Oracle and G. Edward Griffins website January 2009 [5]), the Internet is not buzzing about a theory of ecocide, which would explain the failure of public policies, government actions and inactions to protect the environment.

A theory of ecocide would allow hot, flat, and crowded Thomas L. Friedman to know what planet George W. Bush is on. Our last president Bush (we hope) wasn’t “stupid” if his goal was Ecocide.

At the G8 summit, Dubya was deadly serious about Ecocide when, after rejecting the global climate change targets of the July 2008 G8 summit, he said, “Goodbye, from the (then) world’s biggest polluter.”

He proposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, which would trash America’s last arctic wilderness. Sonar testing is about torturing whales and dolphins, and the border fence that keeps everything out but the illegals is disrupting an extraordinary source of biological diversity along a 2,000-mile-long region that includes deserts, mangrove forests, plains, mountains, river valleys and wetlands.

Bush lost the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq, but is winning the war waged on the environment.

A theory of ecocide is also the solution to the enigma of China’s economic policy, which resulted in every person in the (rich) U.S. borrowing about $4,000 from someone in the (poor) People’s Republic of China. China wanted to be the Air Pollution champion of the world and be able to say “Goodbye, from the world’s biggest polluter.” [6]

Cognitive Dissonance could explain why no one is jumping on a theory of ecocide.

After all, the premise that anyone would intentionally damage the planet, which future generations will inherit, contradicts a strongly held belief system that those responsible would have to live with the polluted air, fouled water and a poisoned food chain. [7]

Recently I debated a “critical thinker” trying to convince her the rich aren’t getting wealthy printing their own Monopoly money.  She articulated what we are conditioned to believe from birth:

“When we have more, it is never enough. Everything is about money, it doesn’t matter how much you have you want more, that’s just the way it is and if you are telling me the Federal Reserve isn’t getting rich printing their own money then I can tell you for sure you haven’t looked into this enough.”

And a nearby listener offered up his manly wisdumb, “After all everyone knows, “he who dies with the most toys wins.”

This got me thinking: I should be agreeing with them:

“You guys are right everyone wants more, that’s our nature. But wait, in 1910 they already had 1/6th of the world’s real wealth (some estimate ½): copper, iron ore, petroleum, lead, silver and gold silver, therefore, according to your Greed theory they should have MORE copper, iron ore, petroleum, lead, silver and gold NOT Less.”

Are you saying they didn’t know their real wealth would be “used up” and the planet would be damaged when we went shopping?

Footnotes:

[1] Civilization is a complex society in which many of the people live in cities and get their food from agriculture, as distinguished from tribal societies where people live in small settlements or nomadic groups and make their subsistence by foraging, hunting, or working small horticultural gardens.

[2] Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité – Providence, Miracle or What Really Happened, Robert Singer

[3] By 1850 the United States following the lead of England built their industrial revolution around textiles.  There arose a great demand for the one crop that does more damage to the environment than planting coffee or even tobacco… Cotton. Today, our planet is in desperate trouble. Earth is suffocating as large tracts of rain forests disappear. Pollution, poisons and chemicals are killing the planet. These problems could have been avoided if the British textile industry hadn’t “suddenly” discovered Cotton. What is Cotton doing in The Game?, Robert Singer

[4] During the last 100 years those swindlers were able to distort the structure of relative prices; generate misallocations of labor and capital throughout the economy; rationalize new governmental interventions in the face of the market “instability” manipulate the patterns of and the profits from international trade which resulted in the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, the stagflation of the 1970’s, the dot-com and the housing market bubbles…all of which created unprecedented prosperity for the middle class, $500 trillion of Monopoly money for the House of Rothschild and ecocide for the Planet. “We don’t want your tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to trash the planet” The Federal Reserve, 2009, Robert Singer

[5] Dem Bones is Connected To De Debt Bone, Robert Singer

[6] Meat, Milk and Motors: The New China Syndrome, Robert Singer

[7] Cognitive Dissonance (CD is the discomfort felt at the discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation that contradicts a strongly held belief system – It’s that queasy feeling that rises in your gut and screams, I Don’t Believe That! Because, if you accepted the new information, you would have to admit you been ”had,” or ”conned,” in this case into shopping for stuff to trash the planet.

______________________________________________________________________

Robert Singer is an Entrepreneur and the author of a forthcoming book on the Federal Reserve. His articles cover politics and the financial and environmental implications of our consumer society.  The articles have been main headlined and can be found on numerous popular websites: Marketoracle, Silverseek, Pakistan Daily, Silver Bear Café, Goldseek, Dissident Voice, The Peoples Voice, LAprogressive, Canadafreepress, Opednews, and many of the Wordpress sites. Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru, proclaimed him a Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR).

From Black Sun Gazette

I wanted to recommend two articles to my readership from my most favorite news source, the World Socialist Web Site. I consider this website to be nothing short of the New York Times or The Economist for working class socialists. The two articles I am about to refer people to here express quite succinctly why I consider their analysis to be head and shoulders above anything else on the phony left. In addition, I believe that these two articles really cut to the heart of two problems that plague the fake left. Namely, anti-communism and toadying for the “union” bureaucracy.

Full Article at Black Sun Gazette

Overweight people are fucking abhorrent, which seems like an obvious and uncontroversial statement, but you cannot turn your head these days without gawking at the vile cascades of shapeless distended flesh that ubiquitously engulf your grotesque countrymen.

Look at these nauseating statistics:

1. 33 percent of Americans are overweight, according to the federal government.

2. Another 34 percent are obese, which is even worse.

3. Six percent are “extremely obese,” which is code for “must be airlifted by helicopter to leave their goddamned trailers.”

4. Nearly a fifth of American children are overweight, three times more than in 1994 when the Internet replaced playing outside, and by “outside” I mean “Super Nintendo Entertainment System.”

The horrendous bovine masses cost the rest of us $147 billion per year, twice as much as a decade ago, which is more than enough to cover a universal health care system for people who do not plan on dying from a heart attack by the time they reach the ripe old age of thirty-six. These repulsive fat fucks require 41 percent higher medical costs on average, which screws everybody who does not get horny at the thought of KFC’s unholy Double Down sandwich. (No bread! Just fried chicken, cheese and bacon! As fatty as three Big Macs! This is exactly why George Washington and Thomas Jefferson risked their fucking lives to give Americans freedom!)

We are squandering the precious remnants of our broken economy to keep these worthless sacks of shit alive; it’s not as if they cover their disproportionate share of the tab, which would require actually getting off their colossal asses. Public health experts have proposed taxes on soda and unhealthy food to curb this epidemic, but their “solutions” are a load of ineffective, half-assed bullshit. Zoning restrictions on fast food “restaurants” and mandatory nutrition labeling have likewise failed; you cannot save people from themselves, especially when they have zero respect for their physical appearance and estimated lifespan.

We are Rome in decadent, self-indulgent decline. The corpulent hordes are never going to willingly sacrifice their extravagant caloric intake—even if it costs a few cents more—which leaves a solitary, mildly objectionable option:

We need to kill the fatties. We need to kill the fatties as soon as humanly possible…

From Black Sun Gazette

This is an article I’ve wanted to write for a long time. I considered the subject to obscure until my special lady friend assured me that it was not. If you’ve ever been within 50 miles of a college campus you probably know who the International Socialist Organization are. They’re the obviously middle-class kids shilling a banal newspaper in really large type font who curl into a ball and start crying if you ask them a question harder than “but is socialism really possible / aren’t people naturally selfish / didn’t socialism fail in the Soviet Union?” If the ISO weren’t running around claiming to be socialists, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have any problem with them. If they just fessed up to the fact that they’re garden variety radical liberals who want good people to do good things in the world, I wouldn’t have the same level of hate for them. It’s their insistence that they represent some kind of political and theoretical continuity with hard as nails American socialists (or at least the popular ones everyone already knows about) and the first people to successfully overthrow capitalism that makes me rage at an almost uncontrollable level.

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“for his extraordinary efforts to strengthem international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”

I don’t really need to get into why this is insane, Orwellian, and farcical. But I’m going to anyway. The refusal to dawn down troops in Afghanistan, the continued threads against Iran, the expansion of the War on Terror Truth into Pakistan (using tactics at home in Pinochet’s Chile) and Somalia (while simultaneously cutting food aid), continuing Bush-era police state operations, defending Bush-era torturers while leaving the framework of their policies in place, attacking health care for working class Americans, offering no relief to unemployed workers while giving the bankers who caused the crisis whatever they want at the expense of you and me, and generally fiddling while Rome burns.

Yeah. Dude is really doing his bit to increase the peace.

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Nick P at Black Sun Gazette

I know. You’re totally flabbergasted and think that I’ve gone off the deep end. Well, I haven’t. You’ve just stomached so much blue covered propaganda throughout your life that the title of this entry sounds insane. But I assure you that it is not. Once again, this isn’t a question of “playing radical” and trying to be the most arch. It is an important political question. I’m not advocating that people start voting Republican, nor am I endorsing their politics. What I am advocating is that people make a clear break with both corporate parties and stop pretending that one is the nicer face. It isn’t. Keeping progressive, radical, and working class forces chained to the Democrats is the main impediment to social progress in America.

Read More At Black Sun Gazette

One year after the near-collapse of the global financial system, mutual pledges of multi-lateral coordination and rejection of protectionist policies proclaimed at last November’s G20 summit in Washington and the April summit in London are being overshadowed by divisions over economic policy. These differences correspond to the national interests of the ruling elites of the US, Europe and rising economic powers in Asia and Latin America—above all, China.

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Home values have collapsed, more than two million homes have been foreclosed on, retirement nest eggs are decimated, seven million jobs have been lost. Hard-won feelings of financial security now seem like a distant memory. The economy is turning around, they say, but where are the jobs? And what about all the money that’s been lost?

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They are objects of ownership, forgotten as children in need of love, nurturing and protection; forgotten as flesh and blood creatures that bruise and bleed and are more than vessels for sex; forgotten as individuals with the desire for purpose and peace and protection from the violence and intimidation they face every day. If they are not a source of revenue for those who own them, they are a useless, expendable tool. The physical pain and the psychological scars that result are indelible. Globally, some 24 percent of victims of human trafficking are children, and 66 percent overall are women. Not surprisingly, 79 percent of the victims are subjected to sexual exploitation.

None of this is acceptable on any level, but it goes on at such staggering levels every day. How? We know that no human being should be the property of another. So how can this be happening? Didn’t we learn anything from the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the 400 years of injustice that has followed for its African victims? Why do we need so many dedicated organizations at work every day addressing human trafficking? The world needs to know about the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and their intensive work to begin to understand the scope and patterns involved, including the governmental, criminal and legal ramifications of human trafficking. We need to support NGOs and grass-roots efforts for victim’s rights/recovery and global awareness such as Free the Slaves world-wide, Somaly Mam Foundation in Cambodia, and Touch a Life Foundation in Ghana. It is inspiring to see some efforts are founded or shaped by the direct involvement of those formerly enslaved, who are determined to help others suffering the same fate.

While we are getting a handle on how big the issues of human trafficking are from a humanitarian, economic and criminal perspective, we can’t escape the truth that this will not go away without addressing the root causes of poverty and ignorance. To heal the wounds inflicted on survivors of human trafficking we can’t look away. We have to demand as the human race, at bare minimum, we must make a human being endowed with the inalienable right of dignity so that they cannot be bought or sold.

A few months ago, I was appointed the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Permanent Memorial to Slavery and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, which will be erected on the grounds of the UN in New York City. It’s an honor to be of service in memorializing such a defining chapter in human rights and history. But that’s just the thing — it’s a chapter. We’ve got to be focused on writing the rest of the book and we’ve got to make sure that humanity does better than allowing the continued slavery of our sisters and brothers who need their race to care.

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Then comes Jimmy Carter’s assertion that Joe Wilson’s recent outburst worthy of the NSDAP (who were always ready to disrupt parliamentary procedure in the Reichstag and then cry out that “democracy doesn’t work”) was “racist.” The common thread is the disruption of normal democratic forms in favor of goonism. From the health care town hall disruptions to the recent display of blatant breach of parliamentary decorum, the ripe stink of fascism seems to be in the air. And I haven’t even mentioned Blackwater and the Family.

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Then comes Jimmy Carter’s assertion that Joe Wilson’s recent outburst worthy of the NSDAP (who were always ready to disrupt parliamentary procedure in the Reichstag and then cry out that “democracy doesn’t work”) was “racist.” The common thread is the disruption of normal democratic forms in favor of goonism. From the health care town hall disruptions to the recent display of blatant breach of parliamentary decorum, the ripe stink of fascism seems to be in the air. And I haven’t even mentioned Blackwater and the Family.

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“The Singularity” is seen by some as the end point of our current culture, when the ever-accelerating evolution of technology finally overtakes us and changes everything. It’s been represented as everything from the end of all life to the beginning of a utopian age, which you might recognize as the endgames of most other religious beliefs.

While the definitions of the Singularity are as varied as people’s fantasies of the future, with a very obvious reason, most agree that artificial intelligence will be the turning point. Once an AI is even the tiniest bit smarter than us, it’ll be able to learn faster and we’ll simply never be able to keep up. This will render us utterly obsolete in evolutionary terms, or at least in evolutionary terms as presented by people who view academic intelligence as the only possible factor. Because that’s how people who imagine the future while talking online wish the world worked, ignoring things like “Hey, this is just a box” and “What does this power switch do?”

There’s no question that technology is progressing at an ever-accelerating rate — we’ve generated more world-changing breakthroughs in the last fifty years than the entirety of previous human history combined. The issue is the zealous fervor with which some see the Singularity as the end of all previous civilization, a “get out of all previous problems” card which ignores the most powerful factor in the world: human stupidity.

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This hit an arguable peak in the last election as white guilt, media distortions, and eight years of Bush added up to the perfect storm of prostration before the Democratic Party. Even to this day, friends of mine, intelligent friends who ought to know better, take the tone of a frightened child when referring to John McCain bleating without thinking “but at least he was better than McCain.”

Not getting scared into voting for the puppet on the left hand of our corporate masters every four years is precisely why I am proud not to be a liberal. As a helpful guide to all BSG readers on precisely why they shouldn’t believe the Hope — not now, not four years from now, not twelve years from now — I present the following review of the more egregious sins of the Obama Administration.

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Fictional characters have a habit of popping up again after unpopular deaths. From comic ­book superheroes to sultry soap opera stars, you just can’t keep a good hero down. Leaf through history books and you’ll find any number of legendary kings and saviors slated for an eventual return as well.­

But what if death weren’t the end in real life, too? What if we could bring back some of the world’s most extraordinary figures? Could Albert Einstein help us to solve the energy crisis? What kind of album could Ludwig van Beethoven produce in a modern recording studio?

While such notions were previously the domain of fantasy and mysticism, modern science has finally reached the point where such tales of resurrection might have a real-world counterpart: human gene banks. After all, much of who we are boils down to our genes. These little tidbits of information are located on strands of DNA in every cell in the human body. This means that if you had a sample of Einstein’s DNA, you’d essentially have a biological blueprint for his brain.

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“The bankers plan to buy ‘life settlements,’ life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person,” Times correspondent Jenny Anderson reports. “Then they plan to ‘securitize’ these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds,” to be sold to investors.

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Soon, Mr. Gerkey’s skin also yellowed, and it itched so fiercely that taking a shower or pulling on his socks became agonizing. Eventually, a liver specialist at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit figured out the pills’ ingredients list included the name of a steroid, which he linked to the liver damage that was the main cause of Mr. Gerkey’s symptoms. Mr. Gerkey, 40, ended up losing 35 pounds before he recovered.

“I was shocked,” says Mr. Gerkey, who says he had avoided buying supplements online because of worries about what they might contain. The pills “seemed legitimate to me,” sold in a sealed bottle at a shop selling supplements that he’d visited before. Now, he won’t even take vitamins.

Extreme cases like Mr. Gerkey’s are unusual. But dietary supplements have long raised safety worries, with high-profile examples including ephedra…

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With the economic downturn, there’s been a fresh boom across the country in volunteer cadres of citizens taking on some of the routine duties of short-staffed police departments. While a court will decide who did what to whom in the ticket dispute between the 39-year-old Ms. Miller and 70-year-old volunteer George Coleman, the standoff shows how civic involvement isn’t always civil.

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