Rob Obringer

As a lifelong political junkie I’m a little surprised at myself that during the homestretch of this Presidential election I’m getting fatigued of it all. Sure, it’s gone on forever, a good year and a half now. There was a lengthy primary battle which was interesting, but then it lasted until June so we didn’t really get a break before the general election shenanigans started. And now, 8 days away, I’m dreaming of watching the news or reading the paper without seeing one of the candidates at a podium spewing the same old lines we’ve heard already.

I’m even sick of the comedy shows. I used to live for Saturday Night Live, and the skits skewering each of the candidates. But I’ve seen it, and am now done with it.  Even Tina Fey, she’s great as Sarah Palin, but I’m done.

Anderson Cooper 360, Larry King, Hardball, Keith Olberman…Blah Blah Blah. Done with them all.

Something needs to be done about the elections for our politicians in this country. It’s too long of a process. It’s too much money. It’s too much time. Some politicians, like our House Representatives, are constantly running for office because their terms are only two years.  I don’t even remember Senator Obama being my Senator, he’s been running for office for so long. John McCain has been running for the last decade, and he looks a little too comfortable doing it.

The length of this election has turned excitement into apathy for me. It’s turned promise into bitterness. The excess of this election as our country suffers an economic collapse makes me sick. Hopefully I will be able to walk to my voting place and cast my vote on November 4th. It won’t be the pundits, the attacks, and the unending election season that gets me there. In many ways I will be voting to end the election cycle, so we can move on.

Allison Bricker

Have you ever really been a fan of something only to find out it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, i.e. the classic bait and switch? My partner and I enjoyed watching the original Zeitgeist last year as it railed against the establishment, the Federal Reserve, and threw a critical eye to the origins of modern religion. We applauded what seemed to be a philosophy based in challenging the status quo.

This past Summer, while leaving a comment on a friend’s MySpace profile, I stumbled across the trailer for “Zeitgeist II: Addendum”.  The trailer indicated it would premiere on October 3rd, 2008 and as such I eagerly awaited its online release.  However, having researched further into the Zeitgeist website, its source material, and underlying philosophical motivations, this blogger is thoroughly convinced it is yet another finely crafted slick marketing piece advocating globalism.

The Zeitgeist homepage has a link beneath the Addendum place holder image, listed as
“-IMPORTANT REFERENCE SOURCES-”.  Clicking the link takes you to a page that states:

Note: We at Zeitgeistmovie.com promote the following “Zeitgeist: Addendum”
reference material because of our belief in the importance of the message. We
make absolutely no money off of sales.

Following their fervent non threatening statement of “belief in the message” the site then points viewers to “One of the Most Important Books you will ever read”, entitled “The Best that Money Can’t Buy” by, Jacque Fresco. Peter Joseph, director and producer of ZeitGeist I and II further reinforces his adamant support for the aforementioned book stating:

This book was a critical influence for Parts 3 and 4 of “ZeitGeist: Addendum”

Unfortunately, this book is nothing more than another half-ass attempt at “perfecting human society” through a “resource based economy”.  This same “goal” has been advocated relentlessly by the plutocratic oligarchs in their veiled attempt to market humanity oppression, disguised in benign gift wrapping.  This is the same ultimate goal as the failed “League of Nations” and its predecessor, “The United Nations” which also advocates, one world governed without borders for the benefit of humanity. (insert Kum-Ba-Yah chorus here).

Following the link to the “Venus Project”, one is taken to what looks like a Star Trek junkie’s bad acid trip, who is obviously stuck in some bizarre 1970’s science-fiction-midlife crisis.  Behind the gaudy rendering of future buildings, home, bridges etc, is the real bowl of crazy behind “The Venus Project”. Clicking on the Venus Project’s statement on a “Resource Based Economy”, one is greeted by the insidious goal of the group.  The 6th paragraph or setup, of the group’s statement, utterly contradicts subsequent paragraphs, stating:

We must emphasize that this approach to global governance has nothing whatever in common with the present aims of an elite to form a world government with themselves and large corporations at the helm, and the vast majority of the world’s population subservient to them. Our vision of globalization empowers each and every person on the planet to be the best they can be, not to live in abject subjugation to a corporate governing body.

However, just two paragraphs down, they state their philosophy’s mean to achieve its end:

At present, we have enough material resources to provide a very high standard of living for all of Earth’s inhabitants. Only when population exceeds the carrying capacity of the land do many problems such as greed, crime and violence emerge. By overcoming scarcity, most of the crimes and even the prisons of today’s society would no longer be necessary.

So since we as intellectual, intelligent, individuals, who do not live under rocks know; resources are already less than balanced for a population of 6.8 Billion and rising.

So how exactly does Mr. Jacque Fresco expect to “balance the carrying capacity of the land” and do away with prisons? Furthermore,  how is it any different than this Council on Foreign relations globalist asshole?

Or this statement from the United Nations 1994 International Conference on Population and Development:

Full Document

With these changes, the focus of United Nations population conferences shifted from expertise to policy. In the minds of donor governments and population activists, the main purpose of population conferences became, arguably, the effort to make governments more aware of their population problems and to encourage and assist them in lowering the birthrate.

So while I am all for getting rid of the Federal Reserve and the debt based economy, challenging those in power, questioning the origins of modern religions, abolishing the Income Tax, etcetera. My philosophy does not align with yet another example of elite statism, disguised by Peter Joseph and his movie as revolutionary.  My great hope is that there will be a second age of reason, whereby humanity regains its inherent rights and liberty by throwing off the oppressive hands of tyranny, not merely replacing one group of elitist plutocrats with another.

Don’t Tread on Me!

Source(s): ZeitgeistTheMovie.com - TheVenusProject.com -  United Nations: 1994 International Conference on Population and Development

Allison Bricker

In the self aggrandizing banter following last night’s Vice-Presidential debate, the punditocracy’s own, Chris Matthews committed a giant verbal faux pas.  As soon as the word “depression” left his lips, Mr. Matthews froze. Viewers could literally witness his face glaze over, trying to process the gravity of his own words.  Mr. Matthews then attempted a course correction, nervously fumbling over, “recession”.

Make no mistake, now that this bailout bill has passed and is on its way to the President, our American republic is headed towards a multi-year economic depression, instead of just a shorter less painful recession. Contrary to the condescending tones from the financial “gurus” about how “We the average People” just do not understand the complexities or necessity of the bill, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that you do not fix a debt problem by shoveling on more debt.

Americans knew all too well twice before that central banks were bad for the country.  Both “The First and Second  Banks of the United States” were ripe with corruption, caused wild speculation in markets and, were not renewed at the times their 20 year charters came up for review before Congress¹.

However, unlike “The Third Bank of the United States”, i.e “The Federal Reserve” the first two central banking schemes utilized sound money to back the currency.  Where once the American Dollar bore the words “Gold” or Silver Certificate”, meaning the Dollar was legally convertible into actual gold or silver on demand of the bearer.  Today’s Dollar only bears “Federal Reserve Note” on its face, and are thus nothing more than paper backed by the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

From 1800 to 1933 the average daily price of one Troy ounce gold, chugged along steadily at $20.00/ounce². Thus a Dollar in 1800 basically bought the same amount of goods in 1912. However, on March 9, 1933, in an effort to “stabilize agricultural crop prices”, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt signed Presidential Executive Order 6102 which invoked his authority to make it unlawful to own or hold gold coins, gold bullion, or gold dollar certificates³. By the end of that year gold rose 62% to $32.00/Troy ounce.

As the “Great Depression” continued, the government tried all sorts of measures, such as the 1933 “Agricultural Adjustment Act”⁴. The AAA even paid a subsidy to farmers to plow under their crops in order to “stabilize crop prices”, whilst 7 million+ Americans starved.  All so “Prices” could remain stable on the “open” market. Only after inflating the currency even further via the “Lend/Lease” scheme of World War II and being in charge of the massive rebuilding of a devasted Europe, would America climb out of the “Great Depression”.

Following World War II, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Government continued its effort to move totally away from a sound currency.  Finally, in 1973, President Nixon put the final nail in the coffin, and removed the dollar completely, 100% off the Bretton Woods gold standard⁵.

Since that day, our money’s value has been based on one thing; the peoples ability to perpetuate the borrow/repay cycle needed to sustain a wholly fiat currency.  This time however we are propping up “home prices” by buying up these failed mortgage backed securities at an over valued price, from the criminal financiers who recklessly packaged said instruments in the first place.  It sometimes seems like we never learn, and hence why my philosophy on the importance of history is: “You cannot know where you are going, if you do not know where you have been.”

Please do not misconstrue my analysis that we are headed into another depression as yet another condescending statement to “We the People”.  The difference now is that in previous borrow/repay cycles, the creditors were fellow Americans, in the form of local banks, business, etcetera, etcetera.  However, now the creditors are wholly foreign as we no longer produce much of any real assets,  instead we consume.  We consume all the wonderful distracting gadgets, such as plasma televisions, iPhones, and clothing to name a few.

In the final analysis, let us say you take a credit card with a $50,000.00 limit and spend until the card is completely maxed to its limit.  You then fall behind on a couple of “minimum payments on the National Debt”.  Which leads you to the bright idea to call the credit card company and explain to them to raise your credit limit so you can buy/invest in some more consumable not durable goods or real assets, which will then allow you to make a profit to pay off the originally purchased items “sometime in the future” - maybe.

What do you think that credit card company would say? This is exactly what this bailout is in essence requesting.  However, even more despicable, is that this bill will print the money out of thin air and then try to sell these Treasury I.O.U’s to our master creditor, the Chinese government.

My fellow Americans, this is the situation we now find ourselves in thanks to the wholly uncaring, selfish, corrupt, and deviant government that runs amok in Washington.  It spread its “Consume until bloated” mentality to both the state governments and the American people.  Unfortunately, the “United States Credit Card” has officially just been Declined” for the inability to repay.  My fellow readers, our country is bankrupt.  Perhaps Mr. Peter Schiff’s words from an interview on Thursday says it more succinctly, stating “we’re screwed” in response to the question, “What will happen if the bailout passes?”  Mr. Schiff, as our loyal readers already know, warned us two years ago exactly where this current debt based bubble was taking the U.S. economy.

Unfortunately, I have no direct answer on how to solve this crisis.  If our family was wealthy enough we would invest in foreign gold and silver markets.  However, this malfeasance threatens our Republic’s very existence, and even if that opportunity were available, it is only a matter of time before the government outlaws the possession of gold yet again.

Perhaps there will be a groundswell of Americans finally ready to repeal the charter of the Federal Reserve and thus a demand to return to sound money.  If not, there is always that tree, and it seems more and more to be in need of a serious refreshment.

Source(s): ¹ Central banking functions of the United States Treasury, 1789-1941 published: 1943- ² World Gold Council - ³The American Presidency Project/University of California - ⁴The Depression in the United States–An Overview/University of Illinois - ⁵Commanding Heights by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, Published 1997 - “Purchasing Power of Federal Reserve Notes”/Consumer Price Index/Bureau of Labor Statistics

Mandy Hyndman

I have, since her nomination as running-mate to John McCain, made no bones about criticizing Sarah Palin at every turn. She has shown no evidence whatsoever of understanding life outside of her home state of Alaska, and let’s be frank, life in Alaska is wholly dissimilar to life in the rest of the United States. She has stumbled embarrassingly through the very few interviews she has deigned to accept, and her cookie-cutter acceptance speech (written a week prior to her nomination for whomever may have been chosen, then tailored to fit Palin’s biography) for the Republican National Convention left me nauseous.

That being said, after last night’s Vice Presidential debates, I find myself for the first time impressed with Sarah Palin’s performance. Aside from mistaking the long dead civil war general McClellan for the (probably very offended) General McKiernan, and her overuse of the words “Maverick”, “Alaska”, “Main Street”, and “Shoring up” not to mention her offensive insinuation that she is just like any other middle class American (who lives in a mansion), Palin at least seemed to be quick with her responses. This is not to suggest that I am impressed as I would be by the invention of the cure for cancer, or by the government allotting my constitutional civil rights to me as a homosexual, but more impressed the way I was when my 3 year-old niece learned to use the grown-up potty for the first time. Yes, Mrs. Palin, you did do it all by yourself! Good job! Sure I’ll wipe for you, you can’t be bothered with such difficult things at an exciting time like this!

As quickly responsive and focused as Sarah Palin was last night she by no means convinced me that she would be qualified to hold the venerable position of Vice President of the United States or, God forbid, President. She summed it up herself, “I’m a Washington outsider and someone just not used to the way you guys operate.” Is that supposed to be comforting? I sincerely hope that I can have faith in my fellow Americans to avoid the catastrophe that would be a McCain-Palin administration.

Oh and, Mrs Palin, it’s pronounced nu-clee-er not nu-cue-ler. Pass that on to your God-King Bush, would you?

Kelly

Did Sarah Palin’s tutors instruct their female pupil to use “the wink” during tonight’s Vice Presidential debate? Or did she pull that out of an old Alaskan etiquette book? Was it Sarah just being Sarah? Maybe, it was a Carol Burnett, tug of the ear? Did she think she made a funny, or was she proud of herself for remembering the answer to the question?

For all of the lowered expectations going in to this thing, she winked did okay. When she forgot to mention something from her cliff notes, she found a place to insert the McCain talking points. Those talking points mostly consisted of John McCain being a ”Maverick”, and Sarah Palin being from the great oil-filled state of Alaska. But, for the time in between the words “Maverick” and Alaska, there was such little substance, that I can hardly recall an answer she gave that had any real moose meat to it whatsoever. She was tough, and ready to speak, but lost at the same time.

And then, just when I thought Sarah Palin’s entertainment value couldn’t go any higher-she winked, right in to the camera as though she were winking at the American people. I found it odd to say the least. But also, seemingly gender biased. It seems to me that Sean Hannity and the ties that bind aren’t likely to mention this on air during their fair and balanced debate commentary. However, I’m certain that if Senator Joe Biden had looked into the camera and winked to the viewers at home, a continuous loop of that one wink would overwhelm the Fox News airwaves.

Watch the wink for yourself.

Allison Bricker

“Face the State” has obtained a confidential internal memo from Colorado Democrats detailing strategic plans relating to fundraising, Get Out the Vote” efforts, and “Wedge Issue” management.  In the secret memo, titled, “STRATEGY GROUP & 527 Coordination Operatives”, Colorado Democratic operatives list Carolyn Siegel of the AFL/CIO as the primary contact for handling the issue of minimum wage, dubbing the campaign, “Educate the Idiots”.  The confidential memo goes on to list minorities, high-school dropouts, and those with GED’s as the primary targets of the strategic effort.

Source(s): Face the State, STRATEGY GROUP & 527 Coordination Operatives memo

Mandy Hyndman

Consider, for a moment, that the financial deficit we are suffering currently has a reasonable and logical cause. Let’s just say that it is something we have been amply aware of, yet at the same time, unwilling to recognize. It reminds me of a woman who will ignore the ever-growing lump in her breast for fear that it may be cancer. That lump, though it may be completely benign, may very well be the devastating end of her existence if she continues to believe that it will go away if her denial is strong enough. The logistics of history dictate that the purposeful ignorance of a blatant fact does nothing but exacerbate its negative effects.

We, as a nation, have allowed the rampant abuse of our economy. We stand aside as our social security benefits are raped, our tax dollars are increased, and our interest rates skyrocket to the point that they outweigh even the original sum we’ve borrowed–but why? The answer is as simple as a weekly breast exam in the shower and as rare:

We ignore these things because as long as McDonald’s has a dollar menu, and as long as NBC carries “Must see TV”, and as long as our politicians nod their heads and contradict themselves at every turn with whatever is more comforting than the last lie they coughed up on the dinner table of the American dream, we will swallow it. If we devote ourselves to superstition and refuse to acknowledge the things that make us afraid, they will not exist. The problem is–they do exist.

We have been ignoring our problems for so long that they are starting to become ‘right now’ instead of ’some day’. Perhaps, if nothing else, the fact that our economy is being seen worldwide for the gilded, cheap, and disintegrating piece of trash that it is will force some sense into the populace. That is, at least until the next episode of “Dancing with the Stars.”

Allison Bricker

By a margin of 74 to 25 the United States Senate passed House Resolution 1424 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 a rehashed 450+ page version of the Emergency bailout to Wall Street.

The House of Representative is set to vote as early as this Friday on the Bailout Bill 2.0.

Allison Bricker

Protesters continue to gather en mass to rail against the proposed $700 billion dollar taxpayer funded bailout expected to come up for a vote again on Thursday.  Yet a quick check of main stream media news websites, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, New York Times, Washington Post, nor even the Drudge Report are reporting on the massive amounts of people overflowing up and down Wall and Broad Streets in New York’s famed (or infamous depending on your personal view) Financial District. The only prominent outlet reporting on the protests came from the wholly independent “Democracy Now” which receives no government, corporate, or Corporation for Public Broadcasting grants or funding.

On Tuesday, stocks rebounded 485.21 points after a panic ensued on Monday which saw markets plunge 777.68 points after H.R. 3997, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 failed to pass the United States House of Representatives.  Additionally, Wednesday saw the Dollar’s highest jump against the Euro since its inception.

Also on Wednesday, many “financial talking heads” continued their condescending attempt to convince Americans that the reason the bailout failed was simply due to it being far too complicated for “regular people” to understand.  Politicians also made the rounds on the cable news shows, stepping up their attempts to recast the bailout and redefine it as a “financial rescue plan”.  Nevertheless emails and phone calls continued to inundate Congressional Representative’s offices at a rate of 100 to 1 against the bailout.

Source(s): Democracy Now©, Time©, Bloomberg.com.  Video supplied from user content uploaded to YouTube©

Kelly

Though, many of our so-called leaders on Capitol Hill would love to insist that they never saw the current economic crisis coming, former Ron Paul economic adviser, Peter Schiff is not surprised one bit.

The following video is a debate segment on “Kudlow & Company” from August 28th, 2006 featuring Peter Schiff and Art Laffer.  Mr. Schiff warns of the coming crash due to a lack of personal savings and immaterial paper wealth from sub-prime Adjustable Rate Mortgages Backed Securities while Mr. Laffer pompously postulates how we have nothing to fear beacause of “excellent monetary policy by Greenspan and Bernake”.

Peter Schiff Debating Art Laffer in 2006

The second video is an appearance by Mr. Schiff on Glenn Beck’s television program on CNN Headline news.

Peter Schiff on Glenn Beck - September 30th, 2008

Source(s): CNBC’s “Kudlow & Company”© and CNN Headline News’ “Glenn Beck”©