"It's the DEBT!"
We're Doing Something About it!Come Join the Swarm!

Mortgage Bankers Assn. Defaults on Headquarters Loan and Rep. Grayson educates Wall Street and Banksters on Capitalism

By Martin Andelman 02/11/2010
Mandelman Matters.com

The CEO of the powerful Mortgage Bankers Association, John Courson, has said that underwater borrowers should keep paying on their mortgage loans and “should not walk away from lawful debts”. In an interview this past year, Courson appeared genuinely concerned adding: “What about the message they will send to their family and their kids and their friends?”

Obviously, Mr. Courson was not just speaking as a defender of financial institutions. Clearly, he was showing how much he cares for people and their personal relationships. He believes the children are our future. He thinks we should teach them well and let them lead the way. That we should show them all the beauty they posses inside. Give them a sense of pride. To make it easier… let the children’s laughter… remind us how we used to be.

Thank you John… you’re no Whitney Houston, but you’ve got me all teary eyed over here.



There’s just one little, teeny-tiny, almost insignificant smidgeon of a problem with what the Mortgage Bankers Association’s CEO was saying: He was completely full of shit.

This past week, the Co-Star Group, Inc., indicated that it had agreed to buy the MBA’s 10-story headquarters building in DC for $41.3 million. The only problem is that $41.3 million comes up a skosh shy of the $75 million first mortgage on the building that the MBA took out from PNC Financial Group way back in 2007, when they purchased the property for $79 million.

You remember 2007, don’t you John? That was the last year that all of those irresponsible homeowners, thinking real estate prices would go up forever, kept over leveraging themselves, buying properties without the traditional 20% down payment. What a bunch of irresponsible idiots, right Johnny Boy? Now that the bubble has popped, those homeowners should just be taking their medicine like men, don’t you agree John? The last thing they should do is walk away from their lawful debts, isn’t that what you said?



So I mean, what kind of message are YOU now sending to your family, your children, and your friends by walking away from your lawful $75 million debt? Are they being morally harmed by your decision to stick the bank with close to $25 million? And why aren’t you simply paying your mortgage as agreed, Mr. Courson? You’re not trying to destroy prices of commercial properties in Washington D.C. are you?

Just last year, you pointed out that defaults hurt neighborhoods by lowering property values, so borrowers would do less harm to our society were they just to repay what they owe. You know… like the responsible homeowners.

(Oh, and this just in from my favorite bankruptcy attorney and all-around thought leader, Max Gardner, the MBA also defaulted on their payments and secured a forbearance agreement, prior to the short sale. Nicely done, Johnny-O. Maybe you should open a loan mod firm and start helping homeowners.)

Well, I think I’ve got your message, Mr. Courson. I know exactly what you wanted to say to your family, your children and your friends…

Do as I say. Not as I pay.

Does that about sum it up for you, Mr. John Courson?

Yeah, I thought so.

Jackass.

Rep. Grayson educates banks on Capitalism

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Great News Only 14% of the nations 130.6 million homes are vacant.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported this week that 18.9 million out of the nations 130.6 million homes are now vacant. The Obama Administration was quick to claim victory claiming that this new data represents clear proof that the president’s plan to stabilize the U.S. housing market is working beyond anyone’s expectations.

“At this rate, our banks will have successfully foreclosed on a full one third of all of the homes in the country by 2014. We didn’t think we could get this many people bankrupt and on the street during the president’s first term,” said Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. “With this kind of success under our belt, we may even try to kill a few million more jobs this calendar year, in stead of waiting until next year as we had originally planned.”

Obama Lives, only, at the pleasure of the Military elite

John Hankey is the author of the following compelling analysis that considers if President Obama is under threat to comply with US military orders for supporting war escalation (and its funding). This is part one of two.

John is the creator of the stunning and historically accurate documentary, "Dark Legacy: George Bush and the assassination of JFK." A 10-minute excerpt from the video is at the end of the article.

This documentary is the historical favorite of my history students and the single-best JFK assassination analysis that I’ve reviewed. “Dark Legacy” walks viewers through the independently verifiable evidence that has two-thirds to three-fourths of Americans conclude the US government story of President Kennedy's assassination is provably false (these polls include ABC, CBS, FOX, PBS).

John did not start out as an Obama admirer; he wrote that Obama looked hand-picked by the darkest fascist forces within our government and was surrounded by them in his campaign. John currently observes that perhaps Obama has burned them; leaving them behind when he became President.

John had an interview with veteran JFK assassination analyst and author, Jim Fetzer, to discuss this topic. Jim also interviewed me to discuss unlawful wars in Iraq, Iran, and the role of the CIA.

John's article, printed with his permission; part one of two:

The parallels between the administrations of Barack Obama and John Kennedy are stunning:

1. Both engaged in what might be called "Election Deception" During the 1960 election, Kennedy attacked Nixon for being soft on communism, particularly Cuba. In his book, 6 Crises, Nixon complained, bitterly and accurately, that this was an unscrupulous deception on Kennedy's part. Kennedy had been briefed that Nixon and the CIA were planning a full scale invasion of Cuba. So, even though he knew it wasn’t true, Kennedy attacked Nixon from the right, claiming that he, Kennedy, was more of a hawk on Cuba than Nixon. As soon as he got in, Kennedy told the CIA to forget their invasion plans; the CIA went ahead anyway at the Bay of Pigs; and Kennedy fired the top three men at CIA for disobeying his orders.*1 The military shared Nixon's perception that Kennedy was a liar and a traitor.

During the 2004 election, Obama surrounded himself with hawks like Zbigniew Brzezinski, and attacked Bush from the right, saying that he had neglected "the right war," the war in Afghanistan, and that he, Obama, would transfer troops and treasure to the effort in Afghanistan. However, once he got in, Obama brought none of the Brzezinski people with him. None of them. Not Richard Clark. Not Anthony Lake (both of whom were very active in Obama's campaign, and are very deep-cover operatives for the darkest side of the Pentagon). And, as you will see, Obama fought bitterly with the military over their desire for more troops.

2. Both Kennedy and Obama experienced a dramatic change of attitude toward the military early in their presidencies. Even if Obama did not perpetrate a deception to win the election, after he was sworn in got in, his thinking and attitude toward the military began to change dramatically, sharpen and harden against them. This directly parallels what happened to Kennedy.

I don't regard Bob Woodward as a fundamentally reliable source, but to be an effective liar he has to tell important truths sometimes. And I believe there is good reason to credit the story he tells below, inadvertently revealing the development of Obama's thinking on the war in Afghanistan. It describes a briefing given by Obama's National Security Advisor, Jim Jones, to the military commanders in Afghanistan:

During the briefing, [Marine Brigadier General] Nicholson had told Jones that he was "a little light," more than hinting that he could use more forces, probably thousands more. "We don't have enough force to go everywhere," Nicholson said.

But Jones recalled how Obama had initially decided to deploy additional forces this year. "At a table much like this," Jones said, referring to the polished wood table in the White House Situation Room, "the president's principals met and agreed to recommend 17,000 more troops for Afghanistan." The principals -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Gates; Mullen; and the director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair -- made this recommendation in February during the first full month of the Obama administration. The president approved the deployments, which included Nicholson's Marines.

Soon after that, Jones said, the principals told the president, "oops," we need an additional 4,000 to help train the Afghan army.

"They then said, 'If you do all that, we think we can turn this around,' " Jones said, reminding the Marines here that the president had quickly approved and publicly announced the additional 4,000.

Now suppose you're the president, Jones told them, and the requests come into the White House for yet more force. How do you think Obama might look at this? Jones asked, casting his eyes around the colonels. How do you think he might feel?

Jones let the question hang in the air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted room. Nicholson and the colonels said nothing.

Well, Jones went on, after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have "a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment." Everyone in the room caught the phonetic reference to W-T-F -- which in the military and elsewhere means "What The F(expletive) ?"
-- Bob Woodward; The Washington Post; Jul 1, 2009; A.1;

My take on the above is that Obama came in somewhat open minded on Afghanistan. In his first month in office, he asked the military what they needed; they told him, and he gave them 17,000 troops without a blink. When they turned around and asked for another 4,ooo just a few months later, Obama was disconcerted. If these guys knew what they were doing, they should have been right the first time about how many troops they needed. But without a complaint, he gave them another 4 thousand men. When the generals started to press for more, Obama had his w-t-f moment, and sent Jones to straighten them out. Jones was telling the generals that requesting more troops would be showing Obama that they are clueless. Obama has tried to show his awareness that there are thousands of lives in the balance.

Kennedy had his Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment at the Bay of Pigs, and again during the Cuban Missile Crisis*2. He came to see his military advisors and commanders as blind-to-the-point-of-insane ideologues. And the quote above I think shows that Obama's developing vision of the military has closely paralleled the development of Kennedy's vision of these professional killers.

3. Kennedy faced, and Obama faces a military full of ideologues
Curtis LeMay is the most infamous of the insanely rabid military advisors Kennedy had. LeMay, against specific orders, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, sent a U2 spy plane flying into Russian airspace, apparently hoping that the Russians would think this was an attack and push the red button. LeMay was confident that in the full-scale nuclear exchange that would follow, the US would suffer 30 to 50 million casualties, tops, but the Russians would be wiped out. Hurray! We'd win! LeMay and his peers were livid that Kennedy was refusing to send troops to Vietnam.

For the past eight years, Bush has forced into retirement those military leaders with an objective approach to fighting "terrorism"; and he has promoted Muslim-hating Christian ideologues who seek a new-age Christian Crusade against the Muslim heretics. *22

An objective military observer must question the idea of equating "insurgents" with "terrorists": There has never been even a suggestion that the Taliban were involved in attacks on the US. The Taliban government of Afghanistan offered to hand over Osama if the US could provide evidence of his guilt. But the US invaded instead of providing evidence. In this context, the "insurgents" are, essentially and merely, patriots who oppose the domination of their country by foreign troops. This is a common view within the Obama administration:

Supporters of (Vice-President Joe) Biden's view (that no more troops should be sent) argue that adding more troops would actually make the problem worse, not better, because the Taliban draw support from the fiercely nationalist Pashtun ethnic group in Afghanistan and Pakistan, who will mobilize to resist a long-term occupation. "The real fact is, the more people we put in, the more opposition there will be," says Selig Harrison, a longtime observer of Afghanistan at the Center for International Policy. (Rolling Stone *3)

One need not agree with this view to recognize that it is reasoned and legitimate. But this viewpoint is not represented in the military that Obama inherited from Bush. Senior officers with this point of view were forced into retirement under Bush. And Obama is faced with commanders such as Lt. Gen. David Barno, a "counter-insurgency" advocate who served as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan: "We're going to be involved in this type of activity in a number of countries for the next 15 to 20 years." Barno does not just want to wipe out the Taliban. He wants to expand the conflict to other countries and carry it on for generations. What does Barno's plan, to kill Afghan patriots, have to do with eliminating "terrorism"?

And a more terrifying question: These trained killers from the military currently have the blood of hundreds of thousands of Muslims on their hands. They have watched at close range as 1000's of young American soldiers have been slaughtered. How do you supposed they feel about a Black president, born to a Muslim father, trained in Muslim schools, telling them they can't have any more troops for their holy war against Muslims? "Rabid" seems a likely answer.

I am not the first to see the parallels between Kennedy’s and Obama’s conflicts with the military.

The first article I saw on this topic was by Berkeley Professor Peter Dale Scott. *3 Robert Parry has written importantly on the topic (see *12).

Lawrence Wilkerson, a former top aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell, observed in the Rolling Stone article*3, "It's going to take John Kennedy-type courage to turn to his Curtis LeMay and say, 'No, we're not going to bomb Cuba’. It took a lot of courage on Kennedy's part to defy the Pentagon, defy the military — and do the right thing." I must assume that Wilkerson is not familiar with the details of how John Kennedy's conflict with the military ended. See section 8 below for some of those pertinent details. There can not be a reasonable doubt that the military killed JFK.

4. Kennedy sought out Military advisors not committed to or dominated by the Pentagon. Obama has done likewise. The "Jim Jones" from the long quote (in section 2 above), is a familiar figure; that is, he reminds me of the kind of man that Kennedy brought in to advise him. He is a former Marine general. He has impeccable "toughness" credentials. But he is not a Muslim-hating ideologue, out to wage a modern crusade against Islam, to win back the holy land, I mean the holy oil, for Jesus. So he was forced into retirement by Bush. But Obama picked him up out of retirement and made him National Security Advisor. Kennedy had such people in his administration. Roger Hillsman was a WWII hero, who Kennedy made his undersecretary for South East Asian affairs. Hillsman looked at Vietnam, and saw what Kennedy saw; and he saw what many observers of Afghanistan see today:

1) an utterly corrupt, inept, cowardly, self-interested puppet regime with no constituency among the local people;
2) a dedicated, heroic, entrenched opposition with roots 1000 years deep among the locals; and
3) an ideology-driven military willing to make ridiculous promises of success, "if only we can get just one more troop increase"; with a nearly unlimited thirst for "insurgent" blood; and with no understanding of the limits of their power.

5. The military overtly challenged Kennedy’s right as commander-in-chief to set policy. Their treatment of Obama has been similarly outrageous.
Kennedy rejected the military’s recommendation for an invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs; and the military, led by the CIA, went ahead with it anyway. JFK rejected the military’s suggestion that the US should overthrow Diem, the president of South Vietnam; the military not only organized Diem’s overthrow, they assassinated him. And of course, for three years Kennedy steadfastly refused their pressure to commit combat troops to Vietnam. Obama's military has similarly challenged his right to set military policy.

After Obama sent Jim Jones to Afghanistan to let his generals know that they had gotten all the troops they were going to get (as described in section 2 above) Stanley McChrystal began a campaign for more troops that was insubordinate to the point of being illegal. The endnote below (*3) contains the full story as outlined in Rolling Stone. McChrystal responded to Jones' visit and message by writing a demand for 40,000 troops, which he immediately, and illegally, leaked it to the press. The Republican leadership demanded that McChrystal be brought before the Senate to have a national stage for his defiance of Obama's attempts to set policy. McChrystal went on 60 Minutes to complain that Obama was not listening to him; and then flew into London to publicly call Obama "shortsighted". Obama flew to Europe and ordered McChrystal to meet with him on his plane. Two days later, Jim Jones rebuked McChrystal for failing to “follow the chain of command."

But on December 1st, Obama caved in to McChrystal and committed to send an additional 30,000 troops; even though the American public, the Democratic leadership in the Congress, and his closest advisors were overwhelmingly dead set against it. What happened? Obama tried, in this speech, to maintain a shred of dignity and authority by saying that the primary role of these troops would be to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people; and he promised that they would begin to head home in 18 months. Eight days later, he was roundly contradicted on every score, simultaneously, by a quartet of men we ought to regard as his underlings:

Hamid Karzai, the US installed, officially illegitimate "president" of Afghanistan, who owes his position, security, and daily bread to the US, overtly contradicted Obama's statements about the limits of the US commitment, telling a press conference that "Afghanistan's security forces will need U.S. support for another 15 to 20 years"*5

On the same podium, on the same day, Robert M. Gates, US Secretary of Defense (and Karzai's apparent puppet master) echoed this same affront to Obama, saying "it will be some time before Afghanistan is able to sustain its security forces entirely on its own ... whether that's 15 or 20 years".*5 (It should be noted in red letters that Gates was appointed by Bush, and carried over by Obama.)

On the same day, the LA Times reports McChrystal told the Senate, "that the U.S. needed to signal a long-term commitment in Afghanistan".*5

Such calls for a long term US commitment not only contradict the stated policy of the President, but they are overt provocations to legitimate Afghan nationalists. They not only undermine official US policy, but they serve the recruiting efforts of the "insurgents;" thereby putting the lives of American soldiers at greater risk; and not only constitute insubordination, but speeches by the military constitute an illegal and anti-democratic attempt by unelected military officials to dictate political policy, a virtual military coup of the President’s powers and duties.

6. Both Obama and JFK were faced with faced with overt threats of assassination. On November 22, 1963, Dallas was filled with wanted posters calling for Kennedy to be given the death penalty for treason. The NY Times carried an op-ed on September 29, 2009 talking about the “very dangerous” climate now in America, “the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.” Four days later, on October 3rd, the Wall Street Journal pointed to three overt physical threats to Obama: a poll on Facebook asking whether the president should be assassinated, a column on a conservative Web site suggesting a military coup is in the works and Rep. Trent Franks (R., Ariz.) calling Mr. Obama "an enemy of humanity." *7

JFK felt, and Obama feels, threatened by the military
JFK encouraged and assisted Hollywood in the making of "Seven Days in May," a fictional account of a military coup in the US. Kennedy wanted this story to be told. He thought the American people needed to be alerted to the threat to democracy posed by the military. No one knows what went on in his head, but it is reasonable to conclude that he felt this was a real and important threat. Robert Parry has written that Obama had a “Seven Days In May moment”, meaning that he felt the threat of a military coup, when he began trying to withdraw troops from Iraq. (This is another critically important news article. see *12)

The Rolling Stone article says that in October, "the Pentagon and top military brass were trying to make the President an offer he couldn't refuse." Now - "an offer he can't refuse" is a reference to the movie, The Godfather. In the movie, the man who receives the "offer he can't refuse" wakes up and finds that the head of his prized horse has been cut off and put in the bed next to him while he was asleep; in order to send the message: "We are brutal. We are killers. We got into your bedroom. If we had wanted to kill you, we would have. Next time we will. If you want to live, don't let there be an next time." The author of the Rolling Stone article does not have superhuman powers of perception. But he has written a detailed article on the relations between Obama and his military. And he has included this suggestion of overt threats of death made to Obama by the military. And the article goes on, "They (the generals) wanted the president to escalate the war — go all in by committing 40,000 more troops and another trillion dollars to a Vietnam-like quagmire — or face a full-scale mutiny by his generals." And what is "a full-scale mutiny"? It means a coup. That is what it means, clearly, plainly, and simply.

The insightful author of this insightful article, Robert Dreyfus, clearly feels that the military wants Obama to feel threatened.

7. Kennedy was plagued, and Obama is plagued, with a Secret Service that is grossly incompetent. If you need proof beyond Kennedy's murder, see the endnote*8 The failures of the Secret Service to protect Obama are worse. At the very least, it can be said in favor of Kennedy’s Secret Service that they did not allow the shooters onto the White House grounds. The incident of the so-called "Party Crashers," has to give Obama pause. The Salahis, the uninvited guests, the husband and wife team who walked into White House reception for the Indian Prime Minister, easily penetrated the most high-security affair to take place at the White House in recent memory. The Indian Prime Minister is regarded as a prime target for Muslim extremists, and everyone present could be considered at great risk from a security lapse. Whatever else can be said of the Salahis, they presented a starkly clear message to Obama: "you are not protected. Your Secret Service is criminally negligent, if not just criminal.”

8. Is the Military threatening to kill Obama? The evidence of the involvement of the military in the assassination of JFK is, I think, beyond dispute*9. Certainly, this evidence has given every president since Kennedy nightmares about the risks involved in taking on the military Kennedy, like Obama, was under fierce pressure to send troops to Vietnam.*10 And as you will see, the military has taken steps to make Obama feel that his life is in grave danger at their hands.

Vice president Biden, and Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, have both been outspoken in their opposition to sending troops to Afghanistan. They are both Obama spokesmen. It may be assumed that at all times they speak for the president. And yet they spent the 10 months before the President's Dec. 1 speech, undercutting the President's final decision to send troops. *11 Does that make any sense? Two weeks before the President’s speech, Obama’s ambassador to Afghanistan wrote Obama a memo in which he warned against sending troops to support a regime so corrupt that it enjoyed no popular support. This ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, is a retired Army general and former commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan. He is one of the not-insane commanders that Bush pushed into retirement; and Obama brought back him back in. Eikenberry’s memo against sending troops was immediately leaked to the press, and showed up on the front pages of the LA Times and NY Times. There was no outcry from the White House about the leak, suggesting that Obama approved it. Does that make any sense? It appears that the President was undercutting his own position, 2 weeks before taking it? Pelosi and the other Democratic leaders have taken similar positions as Eikenberry. They might be accused of pandering to the American people, who are broadly opposed to sending more troops; but it would be unusual for congressional Democratic leaders to undercut their president in this way. The Bob Woodward article, presented in section 2 above, reveals a President with no plans to send troops, taking steps to confront those military leaders with desires for more troops, and telling them to forget it. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!! What happened? Why did Obama suddenly change the position that his spokesmen had been taking for nearly a year; the position that he was promoting, through his ambassador, just two weeks before; that other leading Democrats had been promoting; and that he had stated so forcefully to his commanders in the field? Why did he suddenly decide to send 30,000 troops to kill and be killed in a cause he knows to be hopeless?

This is NOT a small deal. No? It can’t have been a whimsical decision on his part. It must have been based on something. We should be able, then, to look at the events in the news and identify some major occurrence that would cause such a shift. No? Let's see. The central feature behind Biden’s and Emmanuel’s position was that the Afghan puppet regime was too corrupt to win popular support. *13 Just recently, the regime proved too corrupt to even stage an election, even after the UN ruled the last election fraudulent and illegitimate. Could this miserable failure, to stage an election, have changed Obama's mind? No. In fact, reports from Afghanistan are that the corruption and incompetence of the puppet regime have only gotten worse. *14

When you come up with an answer, for any of these questions, I would be very grateful if you would let me know. Because I don’t like my answer. But here it is:

A military coup, of sorts, has taken place. This coup, this wresting by force of power from the hands of the President was accomplished in two separate events.

The first event involves the so-called "Party Crashers." The Salahis managed, not only to enter, but they proceeded to first shake hands with the two most outspoken opponents of sending more troops: Joe Biden, and Rahm Emanuel. And the Salahis then they shook hands with Obama himself. They had gained entrance through the intercession of the Pentagon*21. Whether or not they told the President, "Send troops or die", they unquestionably told him, through their actions, "The Secret Service can’t, or won’t, protect you. Your life is over when the Pentagon says it's over." This is not speculation; or interpretation. It is clear; unequivocal; basic. No?

But wait! There's more! The Rolling Stone article is so much better than the author intended! I know that he did not mean a "coup" when he wrote that the generals were threatening a "full scale revolt". I don't think he meant a death threat when he wrote "an offer he couldn't refuse". And I don't think he grasped the import of this remark:

Even worse, the administration has to take into account the possibility of a terrorist attack, which would allow the GOP to put the blame on the White House. "All it would take is one terrorist attack, vaguely linked to Afghanistan, for the military and his opponents to pounce all over him," says Pillar.

Robert Dreyfuss, the Rolling Stone writer, is saying that Obama caved because of the threat of another "terrorist" attack. Now. The suggestion that US military was complicit in the crimes of 9/11 is similar to saying that the Secret Service was complicit in the crashing of the Obama’s White House party: it’s indisputable. The Salahis could not have entered if the White House had the Secret Service not let them in. Indisputably. And none of the planes could have hit any of the buildings on 9/11 if the US air defenses had not gone completely to sleep. The Pentagon attack is particularly egregious. The official story is that 50 minutes after the 1st plane hit the World Trade Center, US air defenses, on flaming red alert, designed to defend against supersonic missiles and jet fighters, not only failed to stop a slow moving humongous 757, they failed to get off a shot! Not a single shot in defense of the most highly defended building on the planet. The following week, Richard Meyers, who was in charge of US air defenses on 9/11, instead of being court-marshaled and shot, as he clearly ought to have been, was promoted, to the highest position in the military: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.*15

Footnotes:
*1 Kennedy's cancellation of the invasion is not widely known; but it is documented in the US Government publication of the official investigation, a document entitled Operation Zapata.
*2 During the missile crisis, Kennedy's advisors told him that the Russian missiles in Cuba were not armed, and advised an attack and invasion. It has come out from the Russian side, that the missiles were ready, armed with nuclear warheads, and the local commanders were authorized to use them. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense at the time, has made much of this his book and DVD The Fog of War.
*3 P.D. Scott: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15752
Robert Parry: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/022009.html See also *12
The following are highlights from the Rolling Stone article depicting the efforts by McChrystal to force Obama to implement McChrystal's foreign policy, rather than Obama's:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30493567/the_generals_revolt
The military's campaign to force Obama's hand started in earnest in September, when the Commander's Initial Assessment of the war — a highly classified report prepared by McChrystal — was leaked to The Washington Post. In the report, McChrystal paints a dire picture of the American effort in Afghanistan, concluding that a massive increase in troop levels is the only way to prevent a humiliating failure.
On Capitol Hill, hawkish GOP congressmen seized the opening to turn up the heat on Obama by demanding that he allow McChrystal and Petraeus to come to Washington to testify at high-profile hearings to ask for more troops. "It is time to listen to our commanders on the ground, not the ever-changing political winds whispering defeat in Washington," declared Sen. Kit Bond, a Republican from Missouri. Attempting to usurp Obama's authority as commander in chief, Sen. John McCain introduced an amendment to compel the two generals to come before Congress, but the measure was voted down by the Democratic majority.
As the pressure from the military and the right built, McChrystal went on 60 Minutes to complain that he had only talked to Obama once since his appointment in June. Then, upping the ante, the general flew to London for a speech, where he was asked if de-escalating the war, along the lines reportedly suggested by Vice President Joe Biden, might work. "The short answer is: no," said McChrystal, dismissing the idea as "shortsighted." His comment — which bluntly defied the American tradition that a military officer's job is to carry out policy, not make it — shocked political observers in Washington and reportedly angered the White House.
For his part, Obama moved quickly to handle the insurrection. One day after McChrystal's defiant London speech, the president unexpectedly summoned the general to a one-on-one meeting aboard an idling Air Force One in Copenhagen. No details of the discussion were released, but two days later Jim Jones, the retired Marine general who now serves as Obama's national-security adviser, publicly rebuked McChrystal, declaring that it is "better for military advice to come up through the chain of command."
"Petraeus and McChrystal have put Obama in a trick bag," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a former top aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "We had this happen one time before, with Douglas MacArthur" — the right-wing general who was fired after he defied President Truman over the Korean War in 1951.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/30493567/the_generals_revolt
*4 Eichenberry, 18 days before Obama's Dec. 1 speech announcing 30,000 more troops, wrote a memo to Obama urging him not to send Americans to die defending a regime as utterly corrupt and worthless as the puppet regime in Afghanistan. latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-obama-afghan12-2009nov12,0,2561752.story
*5 LA Times 12/9/09 http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-afghan-mcchrystal9-2009dec09,0,224382.story
*6 LA Times, 12/16/09 latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-afghan-special-forces16-2009dec16,0,2135079.story
*7 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125452861657560895.html
*8 The secret service manual requires the planners of a motorcade to pour on extra protection when there is a sharp turn in the route, which requires that the car slow down. Agents should, therefore, have been positioned all over Dealey Plaza to insure that there were no open windows. That is standard procedure. Instead, there were no secret service agents at all on the ground in Dealey Plaza. The protective motorcycle escort was ordered to stay behind the President's vehicle. The limo is equipped with handles on the rear trunk lid, and steps built into the bumper, to accommodate agents riding on the back. The agents were waived off this position and moved into a following car. The driver should have stepped on the gas when the first shot was fired. Instead, the driver braked and slowed, for the next 6 seconds. Only after Kennedy was shot in the head did the driver take off.
*9 I've spent 40 years researching, and 10 years making a documentary that makes this point in spades. (I'll gladly provide you with a copy. It is available on Amazon if you'd like to read the reviews.) In the video, you will see a video interview with Aubrey Rike, the man who loaded Kennedy's body into a bronze casket. You will also see a video interview with Paul O,Neil, the Bethesda Naval Hospital sailor who unloaded the body from a grey shipping casket, 20 minutes before the bronze casket arrived at the facility. An FBI memo, shown in a section of the video narrated by Walter Cronkite, says that it was obvious that Kennedy's wounds had been altered. Pre-autopsy photos also show this mutilation of the body. And one of the doctors from the Dallas emergency room, in an excerpt from a NOVA special, points to an autopsy photo of the entrance wound on Kennedy's right temple and says that the photos show it was altered before the autopsy began. The military had complete control of the body and the autopsy. They, and no one else, altered the critical head wound. This was an entrance wound to Kennedy's right temple. It was fired from the so-called "grassy knoll". It exited the back leaving a gaping 4-inch hole in the rear of Kennedy's head. The wound to Kennedy’s temple was altered to disguise it’s characteristic appearance as an entrance wound. But the alterations were done at least 5 hours before Oswald was charged. The autopsy room was full of admirals and generals. These men were acting as part of the conspiracy to murder. There is no room for reasonable debate on any of these points.
*10 The movie JFK does an amazing job of making this point. The movie presents a "Mr. X." This is not a fictional character. The man's name was Fletcher Prouty. He was the Pentagon liaison to the CIA. And he was deeply and directly involved, as shown in the movie, in the dual efforts of JFK both to eliminate the CIA, and to withdraw from Vietnam.
*11 Biden:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/09/biden-begs-obama-no-more-troops-to-afghanistan.html
Emanuel: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/world/asia/19afghan.html
Eikenberry: latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-obama-afghan12-2009nov12,0,2561752.story

*12 Robert Parry says the same things has happened to Obama's stated plans to withdraw from Iraq http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/022009.html

*13 You can NOT win a war against an insurgency that is more popular than you. You can go on fighting forever, which is what the generals have stated is their anticipated outcome. But you can not win a peace without a government that is a just and fair and popularly supported.
*14 In fact, conditions in Afghanistan continue to deteriorate. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091211/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
Dec. 11, 2009
Top UN official in Afghanistan to leave in March
Gareth Price, head of the Asia program at Chatham House, a think tank in London, said “it's clear now that the Afghan government isn't working."
*15 My favorite is a lecture given by a physics professor, Steven Jones. Jones was a tenured, admired physics professor at Brigham Young University. Jones is a devout and conservative Christian and Mormon. He voted for Bush. But his physics students asked him to explain the collapse of the buildings at the World Trade Center, particularly building 7. He enthusiastically approached the question as a teachable moment. At first he approached the question as one of basic physics: "Can the heat from jet fuel and office supplies explain the collapse of a steel structure?" He concluded, with enormous anguish, that it cannot. He was tortured by the implications for many months. And then he woke up one morning and remembered that he was a leading expert, on a world-class level, at chemical analysis. (The first time I googled his name, his published papers on his techniques for determining the chemical content of crystalline structures is what came up first.) And, having determined that the official story of airplanes and jet fuel could not account for the collapse of the buildings, he determined to use his expertise to analyze samples of dust from the World Trade Center to search for evidence of what did, in fact, bring down the buildings. He found abundant of evidence (metallic microspheres) of steel having been evaporated (such tiny microspheres are created when steel is evaporated) and also abundant samples of the military grade demolition explosive, thermate, including the wrappers for the explosive. Thermate is virtually the only way that steel can be heated to sufficiently high temperatures that it evaporates. But I have several other DVD's besides the one by Professor Jones. All of this information, including the videos, are available online.

Local perspective: Part of my professional duties as a teacher of economics and government is to produce competent adult citizenry. This includes realization that our nation’s policies and money are managed at a broad community level, and these issues have tremendous local impact. Of course, we all want human beings to be individually successful and enjoy their unique, beautiful and powerful self-expressions. Concurrently, we recognize our commitment to local success is strongly dependent upon the success of the community, and that government policy and economics are drivers.

Our status in early 21st Century human history is that we suffer from a long history in government and money of human interrelationship well-described as vicious antagonism. Governments frequently use war as a foreign policy, despite its illegality and dependent upon public ignorance, with horrific consequences.
John Hankey is the author of the following compelling analysis that considers if President Obama is under threat to comply with US military orders for supporting war escalation (and its funding). This is part two of two; for part one, click here.

John is the creator of the stunning and historically accurate documentary, "Dark Legacy: George Bush and the assassination of JFK." A 10-minute excerpt from the video is at the end of the article.

This documentary is the historical favorite of my history students and the single-best JFK assassination analysis that I’ve reviewed. “Dark Legacy” walks viewers through the independently verifiable evidence that has two-thirds to three-fourths of Americans conclude the US government story of President Kennedy's assassination is provably false (these polls include ABC, CBS, FOX, PBS).

John did not start out as an Obama admirer; he wrote that Obama looked hand-picked by the darkest fascist forces within our government and was surrounded by them in his campaign. John currently observes that perhaps Obama has burned them; leaving them behind when he became President.

John had an interview with veteran JFK assassination analyst and author, Jim Fetzer, to discuss this topic. Jim also interviewed me to discuss unlawful wars in Iraq, Iran, and the role of the CIA.

John's article, printed with his permission; part two of two. For part one, click here:

So the military, under the Bush administration, was indisputably complicit in the events of 9/11, if only by the most jaw-dropping incompetence; incompetence that was warmly rewarded by the Republican White House. So when the Republican leadership says Obama's attempts to reduce troops and spending in Iraq and Afghanistan threaten to unleash a new terrorist attack, this is a genuine threat from genuine blood-covered terrorists.

The Fort Hood shooting is this “terrorist” threat made real. There is much in the story of Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, to suggest that he was a Manchurian Candidate, that he was “programmed,” through hypnosis, to do what he did. Though such a thing can never, by it's very nature be proved. (If you have ever seen a demonstration by a professional hypnotist, you already know that anyone will do anything under hypnosis and that they will have no recollection afterward) *16. However, there are a number of things about the case of Malik Hasan that are especially persuasive that he was under military control: *17

1) Hasan had at least 13 email contacts with a radical Muslim imam. The Imam told Al JaZeera that the first of these emails, sent 11 months before the shooting, sought the Imam’s approval for Hasan’s shooting his fellow soldiers. *17b Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee's intelligence subcommittee, said that he has confirmed that Hasan wired money to Pakistan. *18 There has been much discussion in the “news” about the fact that the FBI took no steps to apprehend or otherwise stop Hasan. But the contents of his emails have not been released. That is highly suspicious. Can we conjecture that if the contents were innocuous, that they would have been released? Sure we can. The Imam found his house under attack within 24 hours of his publicizing the contents of those emails. But this discussion is a distraction from the flashing red light: the FBI did not even open a file on Hasan. That is not preposterous. It is very clear in its meaning. There is only one conceivable explanation, and an obvious one. If the FBI failed to take steps as basic as opening a file, it is because they were ordered not to do so; by another agency of the federal government. Again, that is hardly speculative. It should be basic common knowledge: if a drug dealer gets picked up by some police agency in possession of a bag full of drugs; and walks out the door, without being arrested, with his bag of drugs, and without a file being opened, it’s because he’s undercover. Apparently some agency of the federal government ordered Hasan to send these emails. That is speculative, but no other explanation will suffice.*19 And certainly, the FBI was ordered not to open a file. Of this there cannot be any doubt.

2) Similarly, the FBI's excuse for not opening a file, was that they discovered that Hasan was doing research on the attitudes of Muslims serving in the US military. How they made this determination, without opening a file, is a mystery to me. But let that alone for the moment. For whom was Hasan doing this research? Duh. No? But the attitude of the media to such obvious questions is “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

3) Lee Harvey Oswald had been set up by the CIA to appear to be an agent of Fidel Castro. But the FBI investigated all this evidence and determined that it was a fraud. *20 So for Hasan to have been set-up in a similar fashion would be par for the course. Fletcher Prouty (see endnote 11) was tipped off that Kennedy's murder was a military plot by the fact that Oswald's entire bio appeared in the papers in Australia, where Prouty was when he learned of the crime, before Oswald was even charged. The NY Times and Fox news were spreading the contents of the FBI's non-files / non-investigation, showing Hasan to be an Arab terrorist, while they were still reporting that he was dead, before they knew that he was still alive. That is, someone on the inside was distributing this insider knowledge about a guy who supposedly was of no interest. It seems clear as day to me that it was a set-up.

4) Now, this is my favorite part. In the 1944 detective movie, "Double Indemnity”, Edward G. Robinson, the detective, is alerted that something foul is going on because the insured dead man had an insurance policy with disability as well as death benefits; but when he broke his leg, he didn't try to use the disability benefits in his policy. Why didn't he use it? He must not have known he had an insurance policy. His wife purchased the policy behind his back, and then killed him. OK. Now answer this:
If Obama actually wanted to send troops to Afghanistan; if he actually wanted to move the American people to see the necessity of "fighting terrorism there before it becomes terrorism here;" why did he not wave the bloody shirt from the Fort Hood shooting? Why did he not claim Hasan to be a terrorist? Why did he not use him as an example of the continued threat? Obviously, then, Obama was not part of any plot to kill soldiers at Fort Hood to justify a continued war on "terror".

And now, you do the math. Add 1 + 1. Add “Party Crashers” to “programmed shooter” and what do you get? You get Nancy Pelosi as president.

But things have changed since 1963, haven’t they? The military has matured. It is not so rabid, blood thirsty, and wild, as it used to be. They wouldn’t overtly threaten to kill the President in this way, would they? The threats to which Obama caved were political threats, not physical ones. No? No. 1) Obama is a master politician. He’s not afraid of a political fight. He is more capable of winning support for his position than any of his opponents. And besides, the American people are against sending troops, so this is an easy victory. I don’t see how political threats could force him to send young men and women to their deaths, for a cause he and everyone around him knows is hopeless. Counter insurgency in support of a corrupt regime is killing for the sake of killing. 2) The military was, at the very least, complicit in the 9-11 murders of 3,000 Americans. 3) They were apparently involved in the murder of 13 soldiers at Ft. Hood. 4) So it doesn’t seem times have changed for the better. Eisenhower said that the greatest threat to our national security came from what he called “the military industrial complex” in this country; a ruling elite with enormous political power. These people had the deepest support for Hitler during WWII. And they orchestrated a performance by the media, the Secret Service, the FBI, the mafia, and the military that murdered JFK; and they have kept the truth suppressed ever since, the ridiculousness of their cove-story not withstanding. They just passed a 630 billion dollar defense budget, in a world where the primary threat is a few hundred men with hand-held weapons. What reason is there to think that they would hesitate to kill Obama? Do you suppose they like having a Black man as President?

So. Perhaps you are convinced that Obama was persuaded, by threats against his life, to send troops. If so, there is a more terrible question lurking out there. Were they threatening? Or were they practicing? Or both?

When I was first confronted with these ideas, my impulse was to see Obama as a coward, as lacking the courage that Lawrence Wilkerson suggests Obama needs to stand up to the generals (see the end of segment 3 above). But a "full scale revolt" of the generals does not merely imply the death of Obama. A military seizure of the government would entail far more deaths than his, certainly many thousands. President Johnson, in choosing not to pursue Kennedy's killers (no-doubt well known to him), faced a similar choice: the threat of a full scale revolt – that is, a military coup; civil war, death and prison camps for many thousands, if not millions. But Johnson and Obama are not the only ones confronted with difficult choices. The information presented here suggests that your democratic government has already been seized. It is not in the hands of your democratically elected President. And what are YOU going to do about it, Patriot? Are you going to be a sheep and a traitor, a collaborator? Or an insurgent?

In our political system, it is virtually a given that all politicians are corrupt. The politician wants to get elected; so he takes money from thieves; the best do small things to help the people; but they all do what they think they have to to keep the money flowing in. But people are people. They occasionally get carried away by an idea, or by the moment, and they get inspired to think that real virtue is possible, even for them. And for such people, at such times, there are other forms of coercion. Blackmail, for example. Further, all politicians know, and the media too, that to admit certain truths means, at least, political death. And on occasion, there is the real murder of an individual who thinks he can, and does, serve the interests of the people. John Kennedy was such a one. And such a murder is a great lesson to all the living about the facts of life. My point is that “coercion with the threat of death” is a real tool used by the ruling elite. Typically its use is extremely low key, I’m sure. But on occasion its use may be sufficiently high profile to be identified. And I think we can see this clearly with Obama. I believe that the evidence shows that the military has overtly threatened, at the very least, to kill Obama. I believe they are also, in preparation for the day that he stands up to them, practicing to kill him. I would ask you please to disseminate this as widely as possible, as the most practical way to oppose their ability to do this. I apologize for its length.

I’m full of misgivings about this article. It seems plausible that Obama is a Kerry-like operative, and this “threat” provides Obama a pretext to explain to people in his immediate base the reason for his actions. When I see his continuation of Bush policies at every level and in every area (I’m sure you have your own list) it disheartens me to the point of despair. But a close study of John Kennedy’s history is useful; and demonstrates that it is plausible that, like Kennedy, Obama is choosing his battles and trying to accomplish what he feels he can without throwing away the midterm elections. It is certainly the case that if this were 1963, the people who are criticizing Obama and calling him a sellout, would be criticizing Kennedy, and calling him a sellout. It is not unimportant that 40 million people who were without xxxare going to have medical insurance.

John Hankey is the author of JFKII, the Bush Connection; a 103-minute documentary detailing the evidence linking George Bush Sr. to the assassination of John Kennedy. The video is available for free on the web, at BushKilledJFK.com, and at Amazon.com. You can reach him at xjhankeyx@yahoo.com

Footnotes:

*16 The assassin of Robert Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan, is the best example, since his case was the most thoroughly examined. The papers splashed the idea of his being a radical West-hating Palestinian across the front page. But Sirhan was a Christian. He and his family liked the Kennedys. He had no recollection of the shooting. And every eye-witness says that his gun never got with 3 feet of Kennedy’s front, while Kennedy had powder burns on the back of his head, that the coroner said were left by a shot from not more than 1 inch. Photographs showing CIA operatives, known Kennedy haters, around the Biltmore hotel that night, have been recently uncovered.

The shooters of John Lennon, George Wallace, and Ronald Reagan fit similar profiles, but their cases have not been so carefully investigated.

The CIA spent 30 years researching hypnotism, but they learned nothing and there are no files. As I said, if you’ve ever seen a hypnotist at work, you will see that a person under hypnosis can be gotten to do anything. But that not everyone is susceptible. Sirhan was hypnotized by court appointed psychiatrists. He was demonstrably susceptible.
*17 The link will take you to a stunning report on the shooter from the NY Times. You have to read through to the end to get to the most amazing quotes from his neighbors. He was, apparently, a friendly, lovable guy.
The tenants generally saw him leave early and come home late in the afternoon, usually in his fatigues. He never had visitors, they said, but he was friendly with his neighbors.
“The first day he moved in, he offered to give me a ride to work,” said Willie Bell, 51, who lived next door. “He’d give you the shoes and shirt and pants off him if you need it. Nicest guy you’d want to meet. (Boy! you sure don't find that quote in the headlines.)
“The very first day I seen him, he hugged me like, ‘My brother, how you doing?’ ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/us/09reconstruct.html?scp=3&sq=%22Why%20the%20War%20on%20Terror%20Is%20a%20War%20on%20Islam%22&st=cse
17b http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9410718 “Fort Hood: Hasan Asked Awlaki If It Was Okay to Kill American Soldiers” Please note that this is ABC news online. This story has been utterly suppressed. It was never broadcast by ABC, or carried by any major newspaper. Within 24 hours of the publication of this report, Awlaki’s home was bombed by Yemeni war planes. You didn’t know Yemen had an airforce?
*18 http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/111309dnentcharges.4179b70.html
"I have confirmed through independent sources that there were communications and wire transfers made to Pakistan," McCaul said in a prepared statement provided by his spokesman. "This Pakistan connection just raises more red flags about this case and demonstrates why it's important for Congress to exercise its oversight authority."
*19 Curiouser and curiouser. Obama ordered the FBI to investigate themselves to determine “whiskey tango foxtrot” they were doing in this case. And the day they finished their investigation, he ordered them to do it again, only this time with outside supervision. Immediately after the shooting, Obama ordered a total clampdown on leaks of information about the case. There is clearly much more going on here than meets the eye: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-fort-hood9-2009dec09,0,399074.story
*20 John Connally, who is implicated in the JFK assassination, called LBJ to urge him to pursue this avenue in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. The call was recorded and is available on line both in transcript and audio form. The CIA claimed to have a photo of Oswald visiting the Cuban embassy. But the photo does not remotely resemble Oswald, and the FBI investigation says Oswald was elsewhere at the time. Further, Oswald's representation of himself as a member of the genuine pro-Castro "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" (FPCC) proved to be a complete fraud. He was the only "member" of his local chapter. He set it up without authorization from the actual FPCC. The address he used on his leaflets for the FPCC was that of a CIA office run by the former head of the Chicago FBI, Guy Bannister.
*21 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/30/AR2009113004420_pf.html
“People familiar with the inquiry into how the Salahis were able to attend Tuesday's gala, even though they weren't on the official guest list, said the Salahis exchanged e-mails with Michele S. Jones, special assistant to the secretary of defense and the Pentagon-based liaison to the White House. It was unclear how well the Salahis know Jones, but Jones includes the Salahis' lawyer, Paul W. Gardner, as one of her 50 friends on Facebook.
*22 Both Obama’s National Security Advisor, Jim Jones, and his ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eichenberry, were pulled by Obama out of retirement, where Bush had forced them. The most egregious case of the promotion of Christian ideologues is that of Lieutenant-General William "Jerry" Boykin, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Intelligence under Bush and a leading figure behind the prisoner abuses in Iraq and at Guantanamo.

Writing for the Los Angeles Times on October 16, 2003, columnist William Arkin pointed out that Boykin sees the "war on terror" as a religious war between Judeo-Christian civilization and Satan, with Islam of course cast in the latter role. According to Arkin, Boykin told a religious group in Oregon, in June, that radical Islamists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan." He continued to say that "our spiritual enemy will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus".
Boykin, a 30-year veteran of the US Army's Delta Force, the Central Intelligence Agency and Army Special Forces, told another audience, in reference to operations he was involved in in Somalia in 1993, that "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol." Arkin further reports that Boykin believes that President George W Bush was not elected to the White House by mere mortals, but chosen by God, and that he himself received his orders from God. Arkin also noted that Boykin's concept of "war on terror" is quite different from the way the US president looks at it. Boykin sees it as a war against Muslims.

Though most individuals in the military have the common sense not to speak as openly as Boykin did, the entire notion that "insurgents" need to be killed, held by all the leading brass, is fundamentally similar. That is, upon what basis do we condemn these men to death? Because they are insurgents against a foreign occupier? How can that be? There is a justification that is not stated. Clearly. And why not? Because it is racist, and/or religious.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FE11Aa04.html

That concludes John's essay. Thank you for your attention.

Local perspective: Part of my professional duties as a teacher of economics and government is to produce competent adult citizenry. This includes realization that our nation’s policies and money are managed at a broad community level, and these issues have tremendous local impact. Of course, we all want human beings to be individually successful and enjoy their unique, beautiful and powerful self-expressions. Concurrently, we recognize our commitment to local success is strongly dependent upon the success of the community, and that government policy and economics are drivers.

Our status in early 21st Century human history is that we suffer from a long history in government and money of human interrelationship well-described as vicious antagonism. Governments frequently use war as a foreign policy, despite its illegality and dependent upon public ignorance, with horrific consequences.

Indict Secretaries of The Treasury Geithner & Paulson

Bad decisions or intentional economic collapse??

Is The U.S. Economy Being Tanked By Mistake or By Intent?

by Bill Sardi

Recently by Bill Sardi: Who Is Left Holding the Bag on US Debt?



The government wants Americans to believe the greatest economic collapse in history was the result of ineptness and mistakes yet still have confidence in their financial institutions.

Should American bankers be let off the hook because they self-declare, before an investigational panel, that the failure of their newly invented risk swaps and other highly leveraged investment schemes was simply due to "mistakes"? Not malfeasance – just every-day mistakes? Bankers just fell asleep at the helm at a critical juncture in American history. Is that what we are being led to believe?

Oh well, it’s just 18 million American homes that now lay empty in the wake of unprecedented foreclosures, and the bankers have collected obscene bonuses for reckless lending of their depositors’ money. It’s like the captain and crew of a ship saying, not to worry, twenty-percent of the passengers were lost overboard, but this was due to unavoidable mistakes, and then being rewarded with bonuses when they reach port.




Are Americans to believe that the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to create a false bubble in the economy, at the same time the Securities Exchange Commission allowed investment banks risky reserve ratios and exerted lax control over investment tycoons like Bernie Madoff, and in lock step, the credit rating agencies (Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s) handed out sterling A+ credit ratings on risky mortgage-backed securities, while the US Treasury Department stood by and did nothing?

Shall Americans conclude the world’s largest economy is beyond the management skills and regulation of virtually every financial arm of government and the private sector? If so, widespread incompetence would suggest Americans had better come up with some institution or instrument of their own invention to protect their money.

Whatever or whomever did bring down the American economy, it appears to be an orchestrated effort. If one arm of the financial industry had objected or performed their job responsibly, the whole economic collapse could have been averted. The credit rating agencies alone could have put an abrupt halt to what amounts to a financial collapse of western civilization.

Lenses into the future: a planned default?

Americans cannot see the economy as the elites do. The elites have lenses into the future. They have access to information that foretells the future of our economy. They can see a better picture of when mounting debt will rise beyond the ability to repay.

They certainly can see pension funds, private and public, are under-funded and there is no way, with Baby Boomers now entering their retirement years, these obligations can be met. Medicare expenses are totally out of control with enrollees able to rack up bills in the tens of thousands of dollars beyond what they ever paid into the system.


At some point, seeing no way out, maybe a decision was made to default on our debts. There are rumblings that the world economy is being intentionally brought to its knees in order to usher in a one-world currency.

There are other hints that the US is intentionally tanking its economy.

Normally the US Patent & Trademark Office could be seen as a pathway to jump-start the economy. Some 6300 patent examiners hold the future fate of the American economy in their hands. But the patent office is backlogged. It embarrassingly has 6 years of patent applications, what amounts to over 1 million filings, waiting to be evaluated. Over $700 million of fees have been siphoned off by Congress to pay for other extraneous government projects, slowing the patent approval process to an agonizingly pace. About 7 of every 10 applicants were granted a patent in the past. But today, less than half are approved.
In the past decade there also appeared to be an effort to drive States into debt. Colorado, a State that had a mandated spending limit, was belittled for stifling its economy. Lies were told that Colorado was so bogged down with this limitation that it repealed its spending limit bill. That was far from the truth.
Another business stifling practice has been to limit the amount of large funds actually available to the economy in what is called M3 money supply. M1 is the amount of currency and traveler’s checks in circulation outside banks, along with demand deposits and other checkable deposits. M2 is M1 plus savings deposits, such as money market accounts. M3 is M2 plus large time-restricted deposits, institutional money-market funds and other large liquid assets. M3 is the best official measure of the total supply of money.
As of March 23, 2006, the M3 money supply is no longer published by the US central bank. So Americans can’t get a full view of what government is doing with the total money supply. The M3 is now estimated by two websites – ShadowStats.com and NowAndTheFuture.com. A severe contraction in the M3 money supply began to be reported in August of 2008. It appears there has been a sudden downturn in M3 funds, which could choke the economy at a critical time.

"Total money"
M3 plus credit, recent time
http://www.nowandfutures.com/key_stats.html



By plan or mistake?

It would be difficult for the American public to even contemplate the idea that their government may be intentionally tanking the economy. So we are left with the commonly-heard claim that people in government are just incompetent, there is no conspiracy of any kind. Regardless, heads should roll, and we still have the same derelict captains (Bernanke, Geithner) at the helm.


Whatever is planned for the future US economy, there certainly must be contingency plans in place to devalue the dollar, issue new currency, declare banking holidays, reappraise the value of real estate to true market value (~ 30% drop), sell off government-held real estate assets to hedge funds, confiscate guns, invoke marshal law, etc. If these events occur, they won’t be without forethought. Call it conspiracy if you will.


On November 21, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt stated, "The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the United States since the days of Andrew Jackson."

Few Americans recognize the merger of state and corporate powers, with the news media also subservient to those in power. How gullible the public has been over recent decades to not see how government and business have conspired to raise the price of goods.

The oil embargo of the 1970s

I can recall the gasoline crisis/OPEC oil embargo of the 1970s. I was traveling around the US on business at the time and I noticed that shortages of gasoline were not nationwide but were actually being staged in different regions. In Seattle there was no shortage of gasoline, but there were long lines at gas stations in Los Angeles. There was no scarcity of gasoline in Atlanta, but later there were long lines at gas pumps throughout Georgia. TV screens around the nation made it falsely appear the shortage was nationwide.

The 1970s gasoline crisis was a concerted effort between government, oil producers and the news media to fool Americans into thinking there was a pervasive shortage of gasoline despite the fact OPEC, the oil-producing cartel, was founded because of an over-abundance of oil.

I recall reading an article in Fortune Magazine in 1963 how oil companies longed to find a way to raise the price of gasoline to European levels. Pre-OPEC, oil was sold at competing prices. That couldn’t be tolerated. A spot-price had to be introduced. Then one country couldn’t undersell another and prices would "stabilize." The OPEC cartel eliminated competition, except for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela in recent times. Of course, Chavez is demonized. We do not have free markets, we have controlled markets based upon contrived events.



Graph of oil prices from 1861–2007, showing a sharp increase in 1973, and again during the 1979 energy crisis. The orange line is adjusted for inflation.



Examine this map of failed banks in 2008–2009. There are over 2000 failed banks the FDIC indicates it needs to dissolve. Notice how evenly the bank failures are spread geographically across the US. The geographical locus of home foreclosures is centered in California, Nevada, Arizona and Florida. But bank closures appear to be more evenly spread, as if to create public awareness (and fear) in every geographic region that banks are in trouble. This is eerily similar to the geographically revolving gasoline shortages in the 1970s.

Tax cut or payoff to oil companies?


Another example of complicity between government and industry is the most recent run up in gasoline prices which began early in the past decade. The news media failed to note that when GW Bush passed his first tax cut in 2001, early in his first term in office, it was rapidly followed by an increase in gasoline prices at the pump. Had President Bush cut taxes in order to put money into consumers’ hands so they could then pay ghastly high gasoline bills? The tax cut appears to have been a hand-in-hand arrangement between oil producers and the federal government. Gasoline prices rose till the public began curtailing their driving. The oil companies had now determined the top price they could get for their refined oil without collapsing demand.

There is nothing wrong with companies determining the top price consumers will pay for their goods, but there is something wrong when government secretly schemes with oil companies to create false market value, as they have also done in real estate.


Looking back in recent American history, there were also shortages of coffee and bananas in the 1970s and 80s, all staged events blamed on storms in South America that ruined crops. In those days, Americans didn’t have easy access to weather maps and information via the internet. These shortages were prolonged and prices rose until usage declined. Then the barons who ruled the coffee and banana industries had found the top price they could sell their products at without dampening demand. Suddenly, the shortages disappeared. The public never imagined these shortages were all artificially created.

Just as the price of oil, bananas and coffee were covertly engineered by a hidden alliance between government, industry and news outlets, is currency being gamed in the same fashion today? If so, current economic events are not by mistake.

Since President Roosevelt banned citizens from owning gold in 1933, the people were left holding increasingly worthless pieces of paper.

Americans can’t imagine how monetary policy has eroded their purchasing power. The US was officially taken off the gold standard in 1971. Issuance of silver certificates ceased in 1964. Had the US dollar continued to be backed by gold, the rise in the value of gold would have offset recent increases in gasoline prices at the pump, a fact Ron Paul has brought to the public’s attention.

For example, a portion of the rise in oil prices in recent years is due to erosion in the value of the dollar. Had the dollar remained strong the relative price of a barrel of oil would only have been around $65 in 2007-2008. If you compare the spot price of oil to gold, there has been almost no increase. Imagine what a gold-backed currency would do for America? Again, government (the Federal Reserve) has now admitted that it has arranged gold swaps with foreign banks in a prearranged way to suppress the value of gold.



Is inflation inevitable? Or is it planned? Will the American public ever imagine the value of their money has long been manipulated just as the price of coffee, bananas, gasoline and gold have been engineered in an unholy alliance between government and bankers and corporate enterprise? Will the American public ever realize their government is working against them, plunder their wealth, in a growing fascist alliance with American corporations? The enemy is not the underpants airplane bomber as we are falsely being led to believe. The enemy is not a towelhead in Afghanistan. The enemy is not China. As Pogo once said, "we have met the enemy, and he is us."


January 19, 2010

Bill Sardi [send him mail] is a frequent writer on health and political topics. His health writings can be found at www.naturalhealthlibrarian.com. He is the author of You Don’t Have To Be Afraid Of Cancer Anymore.

Copyright © 2010 Bill Sardi Word of Knowledge Agency, San Dimas, California. This article has been written exclusively for www.LewRockwell.com and other parties who wish to refer to it should link rather than post at other URLs.

The Best of Bill Sardi

There is no genuine economic recovery happening. There will be no recovery for those who lost their jobs!!

By: Julie Crawshaw

Author, investor and longtime Wall Street observer James Dale Davidson says our government is lying to us: There is no genuine economic recovery happening.

“I think what we have seen ... is a simulated recovery which has been generated by the government faking it in a lot of different ways," putting out what he calls statistical falsehoods on economic numbers "to make it seem that the economy is stronger than it is,” Davidson told Newsmax.

For example, calculations for the recently released unemployment figures released failed to include the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had undercounted the number of unemployed people in 2009 by 824,000 persons.

Video — Davidson: Obama White House Is Lying to You

“They’re supposed to be doing a benchmark adjustment ... and if they do, the unemployment rate will shoot up even higher,” Davidson says.

"A lot of the supposed improvements have been faked by the government," Davidson says.

Davidson believes the government secretly used quantitative easing as an excuse to funnel money into U.S. capital markets.

“It’s not a coincidence that the market started to rally in March at the same time they announced they were going to do the quantitative easing,” he observes.

“In my view, it’s all created by the government as a hoax.”

The whole administration is based on one lie after another, he says.

As revealed in recently uncovered e-mail correspondence with AIG, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner effectively told the huge insurer to violate U.S. securities laws.

“I think the way he (Geithner) handled the AIG bonuses last year is a very telling story,” Davidson notes, referring to the media uproar over the bonuses that distracted the public’s attention from the billions of dollars that were being poured into AIG.

The uproar over those bonuses kept people from getting excited over the real issue, Davidson notes. Investors can get excited about only so many AIG-related scandals at once, he says.

At some point, Davidson believes that AIG’s having violated practically every securities law there is will be revealed.

“They’ve done everything they can to create a false impression of stability and strength in a rebounding economy, and I can understand that from the point of view of public policy they want people to think the economy is strong," he says.

"But if you hoax people into going out and spending money on false assumptions … a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money,” he points out.

Davidson believes all investors should hold some gold in their portfolios because the dollar is on its way out as the world’s reserve currency.

“The dollar is cooked,” he says.

“Our ratios are much worse than Brazil was 15 years ago when they had hyperinflation. When you have this kind of spending out of an empty pocket, there’s never anything good as a result. You can’t go on forever spending money you don’t have.”

“It has to stop, and when it does, you’ll be glad you have some gold.”

The heart of the matter, Davidson points out, is that there are huge, gaping holes in everyone’s balance sheets.

“We’ve lost a couple of decades of demand in the U.S. economy because of the de-leveraging that’s happened,” he says.

Americans’ debt loads are still high, and government encouragement to consumers to spend more now is a major misdirection.

As far as other investments go, Davidson feels there’s a strong case to be made for small, special situation companies.

"There’s one company called interCLICK that I like a lot,” he says, “and I’m also invested in Brazil.”