Editor's Note

In today's issue I want to illustrate several trends, and show how they blend together into a meta-trend. This is our shadow. An amalgam of hysteria, fear, anger, racism, willful ignorance, and a sense of affronted victimization. Each of these stories illustrates an aspect of this meta-trend. By putting them together I wanted to give a sense of how broad this trend is. It is an act of intentioned self-sabotage of historic proportions. For other examples read Jared Diamond's Collapse, or Barbara Tuchman's March of Folly. We are coming to a crisis. I want to be clear here. This is not about partisanship, this is about attitudes and priorities. Finally, I close the edition with a different world, the one that could be, if we would only make national wellness a first priority. [Denmark, not the USA, is the gold standard for secular Western democracy.]

— Stephan

Letters at 3AM: An Arbitrary Nation
MICHAEL VENTURA – The Austin Chronicle

Is Democracy in Trouble?
E.J. DIONNE, JR. – Truthdig

Washington Gets Explicit: Its ‘war on Terror' Is Permanent
Glenn Greenwald – The Guardian (U.K.)

Beltway Scandal Machine Breaks, Knows Nothing About America
JOAN WALSH , Editor-at-Large – Salon

Rand Paul: UN has Secret Plot to ‘CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL’ of America’s Guns
Eric W. Dolan – The Raw Story

Right-wing Radio Host: I Want to Shoot Clinton Right in the Vagina
ERIC W. DOLAN – The Raw Story

And finally let me close the edition with this… What we could do, what we could be… if socially progressive adults who had national wellness as a first priority made policy.

America Needs Denmark's
Senator Bernie Sanders, (I-Vt) – Reader Supported News

2013/05/18

Owl: Why Obama Will Survive Five Scandals, Persist on Syria, & Risk WWIII

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, Blog Wisdom, True Cost

The real story here is not whether Obama will survive five Watergate-type scandals, but it is rather about his response to scandals in his administration will lead to WWIII. Here are key take-aways from this first article:

“In the last eight months, I have repeated the mantra that most of what drives this government today is the preservation of the Petrodollar on behalf of the Federal Reserve. I have also detailed how Iran is selling its oil to Russia, China and India for gold, thus threatening the preeminence of the Petrodollar in which the other countries of the world must first purchase dollars from the Federal Reserve for the “privilege” of purchasing oil. This process provides the only backing that our dollar possesses. Iran, China, Russia and India are destabilizing the dominance of our currency…”

Syria is key to attacking Iran:

“On the surface, Syria seems so very insignificant on the global chessboard. However, the key to invading Iran and seizing their oil fields is to first control Syria because the occupation of Syria is an insurmountable checkmate against Russian ground troops intervention. If the US takes over the Syrian revolution that we started through our al-Qaeda proxy forces, the US will gain a huge tactical advantage in the Middle East. The installation of short and medium range missile batteries in Syria will serve as a deterrent and a blocking mechanism for Russian ground troops ability to intervene in Iran. If Russia allows the US to control Syria, Russia will lose any chance of preventing a US/NATO takeover of Iran. Russia and China have heavily vested themselves in gold. If Iran is stopped from selling its oil for gold, China, Russia and India will have wasted a enormous amount of the respective GNP’s in acquiring gold. And the acquisition of gold will be for naught if the US is above to re-establish the dominance of the Petrodollar as the world’s reserve currency through a successful invasion of Iran. For awhile, it appeared as if Russia did not have the stomach for WWIII and they were going to let us topple Assad with so much as a whimper. I have been shocked as I watched Russia apparently acquiesce to an impending takeover of Syria by US led forces. However, recent Russian events make it clear that WWIII is on the horizon.”

Intervening in Syria may result in some remarkable black swans if this author's contacts are correct:

“My military and intelligence sources were telling me last year that Alaska and Taiwan were at risk of a Russian invasion with regard to this conflict as is the North Pole if we intervened directly in either Syria or Iran. The North Pole? The North Pole’s melting glaciers has exposed the world’s greatest oil supply as well as untold amounts of gold and other precious metals. This is another story for another time except to illustrate that the Russians are talking world war if we topple Assad and invade Iran. This means WWIII is near and this reality is evidenced by the fact that the Russians are drawing a clear line in the sand and this is why Obama is not concerned about any thought of impeachment. The one thing that will distract the country from the five present “Watergates” will be the commencement of World War Three.”

More:

Why Obama Will Survive the Equivalent of Five “Watergate Scandals”

Continue reading “Owl: Why Obama Will Survive Five Scandals, Persist on Syria, & Risk WWIII”

2013/05/092013/05/09

Benjamin Fulford: ZIonists Defeated, China and Russia Playing Smart, Western Banking in Panic — $1 Billion Bet on US Stock Market Crashing Soon — Internal War within USG Between DHS and Everyone Else

Blog Wisdom, Communities of Practice, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Officers Call, Policies, Threats

Cabal purge starts in the UK, what about the US?

By Benjamin Fulford　

9 May 2013

One of the world’s leading terrorists, the mass murderer Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has been summoned to China where he will be confronted with evidence of his involvement in the March 11, 2011 nuclear and tsunami terror attack against Japan, according to Chinese government sources.

The evidence is a tape recorded phone call to then Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan in which Netanyahu threatened to destroy all of Japan’s nuclear reactors if Kan did not order the Japanese government to write off its holdings of US government debt, according to Japanese military intelligence. In exchange for sweeping this issue under the carpet, the 180 nation BRICS alliance will demand an end to all further war-mongering in the Middle East.

The Israeli use of a nuclear bunker buster bomb against Syria just before Netanyahu’s departure was a futile gesture of defiance as the worldwide crackdown on the Sabbatean Satanic mafia unfolds.

In a related development, the UK Police and Crime Commission have opened an investigation into the Thames Valley police, Sara Thornton in particular, concerning, among other things, the murder of bio-weapons specialist Dr. David Kelly. This is part of a wider police investigation into the cabal that fooled the UK government into participating in the invasion of Iraq.

The heads of MI5, the London Metropolitan Police counter terror squad and of UK Special Forces have all left their posts, according to an MI5 source. Several journalists have also been arrested, he said. Many witnesses of substance (military) are coming forward in support having realized the UK police have been acting outside correct procedures in many instances, according to an MI5 source. “The emphasis will now be on internal investigations of corruption in the Police and Civil service,” the source said.

The Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, Head of the Civil Service, will also find his position under close scrutiny. Then Prime Minister Tony Blair has already been investigated and has basically sung like a canary. Blair has already implicated many EU leaders as having accepted bribes in exchange for allowing the Soviet Union modeled EU to gradually usurp the sovereignty of European nation states.

This of course, is a preliminary to investigations that will finally bring justice to the perpetrators of the 911 terror and mind-control attack against the US. The wheels of justice will roll towards George Bush Jr., Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Frank Carlucci, Michael Chertoff and the entire fascist cabal that seized control of the US following the rigged year 2000 election, according to patriotic CIA and Pentagon sources.

Continue reading “Benjamin Fulford: ZIonists Defeated, China and Russia Playing Smart, Western Banking in Panic — $1 Billion Bet on US Stock Market Crashing Soon — Internal War within USG Between DHS and Everyone Else”

2013/04/282013/04/28

Zahir Ehrahim: A Note on the Mighty Wurlitzer: Anatomy of Modern Propaganda Techniques

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Commerce, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Media, Officers Call

A Note on the Mighty Wurlitzer: Anatomy of Modern Propaganda Techniques

Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, began his seminal 1928 book simply titled Propaganda, with these ominous words:

‘The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.' — Edward Bernays, 1928, pg.1, Propaganda

Aldous Huxley, on the 30th anniversary of his own seminal 1931 allegorical novel Brave New World, made the following dreadful observations in the very opening segment of his talk on the Ultimate Revolution upon which mankind and modernity are perilously perched:

‘You can do everything with bayonets except sit on them! If you are going to control any population for any length of time you must have some measure of consent. It's exceedingly difficult to see how pure terrorism can function indefinitely. It can function for a fairly long time, but I think sooner or later you have to bring in an element of persuasion. An element of getting people to consent to what is happening to them. Well, it seems to me that the nature of the Ultimate Revolution with which we are now faced is precisely this: that we are in process of developing a whole series of techniques which will enable the controlling oligarchy who have always existed and presumably always will exist, to get people actually to love their servitude! This is the, it seems to me the ultimate in malevolent revolution shall we say.' — Aldous Huxley, 1962 speech at UC Berkeley, minute 04:06

Read full article with photographs and many links.

Continue reading “Zahir Ehrahim: A Note on the Mighty Wurlitzer: Anatomy of Modern Propaganda Techniques”

2013/04/282013/04/28

DefDog: Self-Inflicted Terror – An Illustrated Essay About Boston, NATO, & the USA

07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, DHS, Government, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Media, Military

For reflection — a number of well-sequenced photographs are included. Concludes that only three people actually died across entire event, virtually all those injured were actors.

‘The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an
invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.' — Edward Bernays, 1928, pg.1, Propaganda

Domestic Terror and Police-State

Zahir Ebrahim | Project Humanbeingsfirst.org

April 18, 2013 | Last updated April 28, 2013 01:32 am

Reflections of a tired activist

Read full article with links and photos.

Continue reading “DefDog: Self-Inflicted Terror – An Illustrated Essay About Boston, NATO, & the USA”

2012/06/06

Tom Atlee: Six Faces of Wholeness

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Collaboration Zones

Six faces of wholeness

I offer here a framework for understanding what I might call “big” wholeness – a sensibility I have about wholeness that I can never articulate but which continually demands that I try. This framework attempts to embrace the manifestations of that inarticulable “wholeness” that I find myself sensing into and out of as my work emerges or as I evaluate each new idea, initiative, possibility, etc., that comes to my attention as I do my work.

In this model I am calling the overall categories of such manifestations “faces of wholeness”, as that is the way they present themselves – in the same sense that many mystical traditions see every person, thing, or phenomenon as “a face of God”. Beneath each overall category, I list “facets” or ways that wholeness manifests itself as parts or aspects of that larger face of wholeness.

Many faces and facets overlap, contextualize, include, and can even colonize some or all of the others. When I say “colonize”, I mean that certain holistic advocates may assert that a favorite face or facet is what wholeness is all about and that the other faces and facets are at best subsidiary phenomena. This is why I call wholeness that manifests through ALL the faces and facets “big wholeness”.

One of the future tasks in making this framework useful is to identify important applications of each face and facet. I sense that most if not all of people's efforts to make the world better – from art to politics, from education to medicine, from religion to science – are (or at least originally were) grounded in one or another aspect of wholeness. My co-intelligence work is definitely driven by a sense of wholeness and its potent, even sacred value.

So I offer this framework in my belief that the more we can understand about the nature of wholeness, the more able we will be in our work for the world. I especially hope it will help us co-create a world that works, as William McDonough says, for the children of all species for all time.

Of course, this framework is, itself, an example of the kind of wholeness it talks about. That is, it is only one tentative effort to weave diverse phenomena into a coherent whole which is inherently limited and will undoubtedly evolve. So feel free to do with it what you will.

Now here are the faces that I see so far:

Continue reading “Tom Atlee: Six Faces of Wholeness”

2012/06/052012/06/05

Paul Craig Roberts: Collapse at Hand – and ONE THING an Honest Government Could Do To Make It All Right

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Blog Wisdom, Budgets & Funding, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, General Accountability Office, Government, Law Enforcement, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Office of Management and Budget

Collapse At Hand

Ever since the beginning of the financial crisis and quantitative easing, the question has been before us: How can the Federal Reserve maintain zero interest rates for banks and negative real interest rates for savers and bond holders when the US government is adding $1.5 trillion to the national debt every year via its budget deficits? Not long ago the Fed announced that it was going to continue this policy for another 2 or 3 years. Indeed, the Fed is locked into the policy. Without the artificially low interest rates, the debt service on the national debt would be so large that it would raise questions about the US Treasury’s credit rating and the viability of the dollar, and the trillions of dollars in Interest Rate Swaps and other derivatives would come unglued.

In other words, financial deregulation leading to Wall Street’s gambles, the US government’s decision to bail out the banks and to keep them afloat, and the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy have put the economic future of the US and its currency in an untenable and dangerous position. It will not be possible to continue to flood the bond markets with $1.5 trillion in new issues each year when the interest rate on the bonds is less than the rate of inflation. Everyone who purchases a Treasury bond is purchasing a depreciating asset. Moreover, the capital risk of investing in Treasuries is very high. The low interest rate means that the price paid for the bond is very high. A rise in interest rates, which must come sooner or later, will collapse the price of the bonds and inflict capital losses on bond holders, both domestic and foreign.

The question is: when is sooner or later? The purpose of this article is to examine that question.

Continue reading “Paul Craig Roberts: Collapse at Hand – and ONE THING an Honest Government Could Do To Make It All Right”

Category: Blog Wisdom

SchwartzReport: The End of the Republic