What is a Bilderberger?... , and why it matters

Taylor Caldwell wrote a novel called Captains and The Kings back in the 70s that dealt with history as made by a cabal of the rich and powerful. Its a good read.

Here is an article describing exactly how this theme is operating in today's world and the effects it has had and will have on our lives:

http://www.truth-out.org/standard-poors-and-bilderbergers-all-part-plan/1313765245

Note that the Canada meeting mentioned in the article happened at the newly opened Brookside Hotel in Kanata. Gee, doesn't that make one proud!

More on surveilance/ privacy issues

Here's Glenn Greenwald summing up the state of the art in government snooping on and persecution of its citizens:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/08/19/surveillance/index.html

Big Brother is watching and arresting transgressors.

Subservience ueber alles!!

Where have all the Dollars Gone

Study this chart:



This comes from The Grey Matter Blog.

Q: How can our politicians allow this to exist?
A: Those who donate money to politicians call the agenda, not voters. If fact, attempts to redistribute wealth, (ie change things from the actual current situation) are not even allowed to be discussed openly by our politicians, unless the goal is to provide more wealth for the richest in our society, such as has occurred during the last 30 years.

Where the money is being held

This article points out the extent to which corporations are holding onto the cash that governments wanted spent on job creation, mortgage relief, small business loans, etc., etc.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/18/271513/29-companies-more-cash-than-treasury/

It's amazing that this situation isn't more widely talked about. People don't seem to realize that the cash has been vacuumed out of the economy straight into corporate bank accounts and it is not being spent on things of benefit to the economy which continues to be sucked dry of cash.

On another note, the price of gold reached a new record yesterday of over $1600 per ounce. Maybe people are starting to realize that government money is not as valuable as it once was.

Time to feature the dudes!

D'Arcy just looks too worried about things sometimes -


Can you believe that Keegan was considered 'unhomeable' by the first vet who saw him after Anna rescued him from his feral colony? Look at this wild guy -

PaiKwa is very attentive to certain generous people at the dinner table -

Wylie, constantly on the alert for something to investigate -

Ka-Bloom!!

Anna's garden responded to the sun and rain and is now officially struttin' its stuff!


The walkgarden is pushing its way up around the flagstones.


And here's the butterfly bait in full bloom ...


Now we wait for butterflies.

Banks & Governments & Wars linked

Here's a very interesting theory put forward by Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com that seems to be vindicated by the behaviour of our world in the last ten years:

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/07/14/the-banksters-and-american-foreign-policy/

I find the thesis compelling because it rang true as I read through the article. It certainly means I have to re-evaluate some of the long-standing credos that have been drummed into our little heads since childhood.

Just who are the good guys nowadays?

I wonder what the price of gold is today ...

Just as I was descending into chronic cynicism ...

... along comes this article in the Guardian (UK) to reaffirm the existence of people who give a damn about civilization and basic morality. It deals with the behaviour of the American government and its lapdogs (read Canada) over the last ten years, and actually recommends trials for some political leaders, for a change. Read the details:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/12/george-w-bush-torture

We can only hope.

Too bad Spain is in such deep financial doo-doo that it has to curry favour with US banks and the IMF. They were the one country to go after and secure a conviction against Pinochet for torture etc., after all.

A soldier to admire

In this article in Glenn Greenwald's blog, we get a welcome glimpse into the mindset of one of the soldiers who participated in the infamous "Collateral Murder" video that was released by Wikileaks. It is instructive to compare the soldier's comments with the 'official' reactions to this video's release.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/07/11/manning/index.html

Once again, governments and established media are revealed as propaganda sources, whose prime efforts are devoted to keeping the public ignorant of the actions of those with the power to disperse taxpayers' dollars.

Good News ... for a change

Check out this article regarding the soon to arrive glut of aging hippies:

http://www.care2.com/causes/aging-artists-engaged-productive-and-far-from-retirement.html

So it's not too late to take it on the road! Yahoooo!

Now I just need some kid to carry the stuff.

Tom Englehardt State of the Union essay

This pretty well sums up Osama's victory:

http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/05/30/welcome-to-post-legal-america/

The America we thought we knew has been destroyed, and it is also happening to Canada, thanks to the efforts of our recent governments.

Some old Randolph Bourne thoughts ...

I ran across these ideas at Justin Raimondo's Antiwar site. A feast for thought one might say:

“War is the health of the State,” Randolph Bourne wrote in that discarded essay, which he probably died believing would never see print, “and it is during war that one best understands the nature of that institution.” For

it cannot be too firmly realized that war is … the chief function of States. … War cannot exist without a military establishment, and a military establishment cannot exist without a State organization. War has an immemorial tradition and heredity only because the State has a long tradition and heredity. But they are inseparably and functionally joined.

Moreover, Bourne argued,

it is not too much to say that the normal relation of States is war. Diplomacy is a disguised war, in which States seek to gain by barter and intrigue, by the cleverness of wits, the objectives which they would have to gain more clumsily by means of war. Diplomacy is used while the States are recuperating from conflicts in which they have exhausted themselves. It is the wheedling and the bargaining of the worn-out bullies as they rise from the ground and slowly restore their strength to begin fighting again.

Randolph Bourne believed that informed citizens needed to realize the implications of what he was saying. For

if the State’s chief function is war, then the State must suck out of the nation a large part of its energy for its purely sterile purposes of defense and aggression. It devotes to waste or to actual destruction as much as it can of the vitality of the nation. No one will deny that war is a vast complex of life-destroying and life-crippling forces. If the State’s chief function is war, then it is chiefly concerned with coordinating and developing the powers and techniques which make for destruction. And this means not only the actual and potential destruction of the enemy, but of the nation at home as well. For the … calling away of energy into military pursuits means a crippling of the productive and life-enhancing processes of the national life.

Randolph Bourne believed that “we cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State. And we cannot expect … to end war, unless at the same time we take measures to end the State in its traditional form.” Bourne had reason to be wary when writing sentences like those in 1918. People were being imprisoned and, in some cases, deported for writing things like that. There was a particular prejudice against anarchists and against people who sounded as though they might be anarchists. Perhaps this is why Bourne added the following caveat to his call for ending the State: “The State is not the nation, and the State can be modified and even abolished in its present form, without harming the nation. On the contrary, with the passing of the dominance of the State, the genuine life-enhancing forces of the nation will be liberated.”

More on your government's contempt for your privacy

This is worth a read:

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12715

Just make sure nobody's watching you.

Now, this is interesting: Gold as cash!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/23/utah-gold-standard-silver-currency/

There has been a lot of talk about buying gold bullion as a hedge against inflation. That a state government would alter its laws to permit this is astounding.

What this does is repudiate the current practice of governments paying off their debts by printing more paper money backed by nothing tangible. This effectively forces those at the bottom of the economic chain (that's you & me) to pay for government excess by accepting the new lower value dollars as our wages.

Keep an eye on this to see if Utah is allowed to get away with it.

Remember when your daughter getting groped by some goon at a high school dance...

... was something you worried about ? Now the school board hires the groper!

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S2122102.shtml

Something about a society that tolerates this is profoundly obscene! Not just the groping, but the official sanctioning of the groping as a valid function of government.

Remember, the government is only doing this for your own good.

... and then they came for me ...

Here's an article describing the latest freedom to be destroyed in America:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/kentucky-v-king/

I just think that you should all know these things, as you curl up in a safe, secure little ball in the corner of your now-public living room.

Where have all the dollars gone ....

If you like crime stories, here's a great one for you:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511

Al Capone was small change compared to these guys.

Of course, the much-vaunted rule of law will soon be applied to the perpetrators by the very government that they have bought and for which they have paid, n'est-çe pas?

Don't hold your breath waiting for justice.

Privacy discussion

Why you need to be able to hide your "nothing to hide" stuff from all the nosy government geeks busy collecting your life's activities:

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/

The current surveillance situation

Here's a bit of sustenance for your paranoia addiction:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

Remember, the government is your friend. ... really ... it is ... really ...

Only those who value privacy have anything to worry about.

The shape of things to come

Here's an interesting approach to funding government: take all the money going into pension funds and spend it!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/16/u-s-hits-debt-limit-starts-dipping-into-pensions/

I predict that our new improved Harper government will copy this idea with great enthusiasm, just as it has done with so many of the brilliant ideas that America has tried in the last decade.

Almost reminds one of an empire in decline.