© Unknown
The planet is undergoing dramatic changes. Snowstorms and floods, tornadoes and premature heatwaves abound; swarms of powerful earthquakes are collapsing societies; technological achievements are turning against us because of greed and negligence; and the skies are filled with marvels and portents of the kind we have only read about in the accounts of bygone eras.
The human masses are one more element in the picture of the cosmos, and as such, they are playing their part, quite in tune with the 'battle of the gods' above. Is it because they instinctively feel that the planet's history is reaching a climax? Or have they been provoked by their leaders, who think it's time to tighten the screws of control out of fear of losing their resources and privileges during the trying times now on our doorstep?
Victor Clube, author of The Cosmic Serpent and The Cosmic Winter, commented during a lecture:
I'd like to remind you now that one of these peaks [of cometary activity] that you are looking at here - the 1601 occurs round about 1640 through 1680, and it coincides with the end of the Thirty Years War in Europe, and the Civil War in England. I mentioned this briefly last night. Cromwell, and others of that time - I only name him because, of course, he's a familiar name to you, but there are many others - described all the upheaval of the time, in millennarian terms, as due to "God's revolution" only a century after Copernicus' De Revolutionibus.As we have seen in Part I, Earth Changes Are Upon Us, 'angels, demons and invisible gods' are back in the form of earthly and cosmic changes. At the same time, the world of men is marked by control, revolts and wars. We do not believe it is a coincidence. Still, whether the elite knew what was coming and whether the masses sensed it or not, we want to map out the details of how this happened at the level of society, politics and economy. It is a story that can be traced at least as far as 11 September 2001, from the beginning of the War on Terror™ - a diabolical stratagem of distraction, terror and oppression to prevent people from seeing the signs of cosmic threats - to the genocide of whole nations and the manufactured economic crisis, all of which Sott.net has followed closely. In this follow-up to Part I we will attempt to bring our readers up to date with the orchestrated chaos unfurling across the planet.
My point here is that the word "revolution" is popularly used nowadays in a social sense. It didn't have that at the time Copernicus was writing; it acquired it. It acquired it at the time of the English Civil War. And it was because of the perception that things in the sky were driving things, terrible things, that were happening on the ground. Only three hundred and fifty years ago, then, mankind was still in the era of an invisible sky god from a once visible heaven associated with angels, fallen angels, and dangerous demons hurling thunderbolts.
We have to get rid of the idea that our ancestors thought that space was empty. They didn't have [the] specialized astrophysical knowledge that has allowed me to build the Taurid stream for you; they just knew it was there. That's really rather a remarkable thing. We've had to unlearn that knowledge in the last three hundred and fifty years in order to put ourselves in the state of rediscovering it.
©Samuel Coccius Basel, Switzerland, 1566
So, what was The Enlightenment only forty years after Cromwell? It was the pragmatic English decision to get rid of all the angels and demons, invisible sky gods, and a once visible heaven. It was the decision to stop worrying about the evidence of fireballs and the supposed behavior of comets. It was a decision to reconstruct the cosmos without heaven in the solar system and put it in the ether or outside the cosmos altogether of infinity a la Bruno. It was the decision to create a purified, less frightening cosmos in much the same way as Aristotle did after Plato. On both occasions we shifted from astrology to physics, and from a sky of foreboding to a sky of inspiration, from prison and terror to freedom and hope.
Indeed, the cry of the revolutionary periods of 1640 to 1680 and 1760 to 1800, the time of the American War of Independence, was the cry of freedom from heavenly oppression, demons, and fireballs.
For the last two hundred years of Enlightenment we have been rewriting history so that the cry of freedom is from earthly oppressors. No wonder the world has gone wrong and the astrophysicists today cannot come to terms with the Taurid torus. I'm really trying to say that this is just not an astrophysical discovery that we are talking about. Everything has got to, sort of, turn around in order to come to terms with what is being said. And this, in a way, is rather like what Irving was describing beforehand. There is a paradigm shift involved in recognizing that it's not just ancient history we have got wrong - it's all history.
2010: Totalitarian Pressure Cooker
Just three months into 2011 and we already suspect that a second major threshold has been crossed. The sporadic global social unrest of the last couple of years has finally exploded and is manifesting in full force in the Middle East. The Arabs have arguably been one of the most oppressed groups of the twentieth century; the solidarity they share within their culture is spreading the fire in the region. However, the way the revolts develop in each country is a complex matter. Social movements are susceptible to infiltration and corruption, and the response of the pathocracy can range from concession and negotiation to repression and genocide. One lesson from history is that revolutions can be steered and used as weapons. Or they can go beyond the control of the defenders of the status quo. Compare Egypt, Libya and Bahrain. It's all game theory for the elite. And in spite of their efforts, the tremors are expanding into the heart of western civilization; people are reaching their limits of pavlovian endurance in places like the UK and the US too.
Let's pull on a few social and economic threads towards understanding what pushed people's patience over the edge.
Closed Skies
© Nordic Photos/Getty Images
The whole episode was so extraordinary that we need to ask if its ultimate purpose was not to test or condition the masses to accept further travel restrictions. It is after all in line with the pathocratic mindset to aspire to control everything and everyone. In paranoid fashion, our pathological leaders are afraid that the masses will finally put two and two together and go knocking on the palace door, torch in hand. The irony is that ambitions of control may actually give reasons for the masses to reach for that torch after all. Or perhaps that was the idea? Perhaps angry mobs are the excuse needed to shoot the threat down?
Fascist Lockdown
Fascism is sailing particularly well in the US, where the executive branch has declared its right to murder anyone - including US citizens - it considers a threat. Yes, the executive branch is now represented by Obama, a man in which many people still have blind faith. Why people give the benefit of doubt to a person who is doing his best to mimic George W. Bush can only be explained by a deadly mixture of ignorance and wishful thinking. Indeed, Prez Obama has a list of American citizens whom he intends to murder without arrest, presentation of evidence, trial and conviction. The American silence on this matter has been deafening.
Adding insult to injury, DNA unzipper machines, also known as "perv-scanners", were deployed in airports last year. The main objective, apparently, is to humiliate travelers with 'enhanced pat-down techniques'. But outright humiliation would be unacceptable were not spiced up with ludicrous manufactured 'terror' threats, such as underwear bombers, printer cartridge bombs, and teenagers induced by the FBI into fabricated 'terrorist' plots.
© unknown
One faction of this organization is the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The TSA, under the guise of "protection" and "security" have repeatedly tarnished the civil rights of people since 9/11 and have turned air travel into a living nightmare for every passenger.
In December 2001, because of the antics of Richard Reid a.k.a. the "shoe bomber", shoes were added to the list of potential terrorist weapons and we were forced to take them off and have them screened. Following the ludicrous claim that a plot was foiled to blow up an airliner with liquid explosives in plastic bottles, we had to endure the bizarre act of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab a.k.a the "knicker bomber" in December 2009. This was used as an excuse to trigger the TSA's crusade to hunt down other potential Captain Underpants by foisting the 'Backscatter' X-ray scanner, otherwise known as the full-body scanner.
Both the shoe and knicker bombers attempted to use PETN (a military explosive) on their flights. The problem with that story is that PETN, either in shoes or strapped to any part of the body, cannot be detected by airport scanners. A chemical test is needed. Unless authorities plan to drastically reconfigure the number and availability of international flights, there is no chance that chemical tests can be introduced for every passenger. Therefore, the billions of shoes and underpants that have been scanned at airports since 2001 have nothing to do with airport security or preventing terrorism.
According to a study by Los Alamos National Laboratory, the full-body scanners are very harmful to DNA and may potentially cause cancer. The study showed that the scan could... "unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication." It is difficult to think of anything more evil than to mess up people's DNA's for the purpose of psychologically inducing them to submission. But who knows - perhaps we misread their intention and the main goal is to unzip our DNA! It would not be the first time they quite consciously sought to ruin or health, would it?
In addition to the harmful effects of the body scanners, there are other privacy issues such as the storing and sharing of naked images of your body in the TSA database. No one in their right mind would feel comfortable with the possibility of having such images stored in any government's database. So in order to give the illusion of choice, the TSA inserted the option of "enhanced pat downs" for those opting out of the body scan, ensuring many opportunities for Kafkaesque situations. For example:
The TSA has already spent $80 million on body scanners, including $73 million received in "stimulus funds" and are not planning on stopping this charade, but rather seek to expand it into subways, metro, bus depots and more.
We often wonder if the plan is to effect a complete ban on international travel one step at a time. Israel just upgraded its international travel "security" with a new high-tech biometric screening system that requires fingerprint sampling and facial imaging, as well as issuing 'smart cards' in place of paper boarding passes. Those 'ingenious' Israelis are also developing a system that projects images and symbols onto large screens at airports that supposedly only 'terrorists' would recognize and thereby betray their 'terroristic' intentions with subtle behavioral reactions. The idea is that while people might not have done anything wrong at the airport, this device will demonstrate that they nevertheless thought about doing it! But of course, with airports making people increasingly nervous, this technology would only entrap someone with potential for a conscience because only psychopaths could remain ice cool and escape the mind-reading scanners unnoticed. On that note, it's funny that the name of the company selling this technology is WeCU Technologies... We see you, get it? Oh how clever.
The Imperial Advance
A unemployed, undereducated, drugged US teenager guards the empire's heroin supply in a field somewhere in Afghanistan
Could this mean that U.S. is planning an extended engagement in Afghanistan?(It is a similar story in Iraq. Of that country, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that US troops could stay for years to come.)
Indeed, with the November NATO announcement to end operations in Afghanistan by December 2014, the military seems to be abandoning July 2011 [as the troop withdrawal date]. Vice President Joe Biden, an advocate of a more CT centered strategy, has sent mixed messages about both July 2011 and December 2014. Most recently, VP Biden stated that "if the Afghan people want..." the U.S. will "not leav[e] Afghanistan" in 2014.
Just how long will the U.S. stay, Mr. Biden? [...]
Most alarming, yet, is the Pentagon requested much more money for Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 than it is currently spending. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), average DoD spending in September 2010 reached $5.7 billion per month, a 63% increase over September 2009. At this pace, FY 2011 should cost U.S. taxpayers around $68 billion. The Pentagon actually requested $119 billion to fund Afghanistan war for FY 2011.
The $119 billion request for Afghanistan was granted by Congress in December. As per current monthly spending, that's somewhere between $40-50 billion more than the General Petraeus should need. As the CBO report says, the FY 2011 request is most likely "overstated." One Congressional Staffer told me, Congress has "repeatedly overfunded the war."
We would like to ask, yet again, what exactly are the US and NATO doing in Afghanistan? In case anyone out there is still under the impression that they are defending us westerners from a terrorist threat, we would like to refer you to psychopath General Stanley A. McChrystal, former NATO commander in Afghanistan, who had this to say about the daily duties of his troops in the Afghan killing fields:
"We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat."There you have it, straight from the horse's mouth. If you still have trouble believing it, we refer you to a report by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the world's "leading think tank" for military affairs:
The report, presided over by the former deputy director of Britain's foreign intelligence agency, MI-6, says the threat from al-Qaeda and Taliban has been "exaggerated" by the western powers. The US-led mission in Afghanistan has "ballooned" out of all proportion from its original aim of disrupting and defeating al-Qaeda. The US-led war in Afghanistan, says IISS, using uncharacteristically blunt language, is "a long-drawn-out disaster".Indeed, there is little al-QaedaTM threat anywhere on the globe because it is as real as Austin Power's nemesis Dr. Evil. Where the hell was "al Qaeda" when the Egyptian people needed some mujahideen to ride in on horseback and save them from despots beholden to the wicked west? You would think that the world's leading terrorist organization would at least attempt to profit from the situation. But then, it's hard to do anything when you only have 50 fighters hiding in Afghan mountains and your leader has been dead for years.
Just recently, CIA chief Leon Panetta admitted there were no more than 50 members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Yet US President Barack Obama has tripled the number of US soldiers there to 120,000 to fight Al Qaeda.
The IISS report goes on to acknowledge the presence of western troops in Afghanistan is actually fuelling national resistance. I saw the same phenomena during the 1980's Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Interestingly, the portion of the report overseen by the former MI-6 Secret Intelligence Service deputy chief, Nigel Inskster, finds little Al Qaeda threat elsewhere, notably in Somalia and Yemen. Yet Washington is beefing up its attacks on both turbulent nations.
Terrorists in the skies: Over 1,100 Pakistanis were killed in unauthorized US drone attacks last year.
Some newspapers cited unnamed sources to link Davis with "terrorist activity" and the Pakistani Taliban.The Star adds:
"CIA agent Davis had ties with local militants," read the headline in The Express Tribune.
The Tribune quoted an unnamed "senior police official" as saying Davis was suspected in masterminding terrorist activity.
"His close ties with the TTP (The Pakistani Taliban) were revealed during the investigations," the paper quoted the police official as saying. "Davis was instrumental in recruiting young people from Punjab for the Taliban to fuel the insurgency."
In a story published Tuesday, the English-language Express Tribune quoted a Punjabi police official who said Davis was actually working with the Pakistani Taliban in a bid to stoke insecurity in Pakistan and support the argument that its cache of nuclear weapons isn't safe.A different report claims that Davis was providing al-Qaeda terrorists with "nuclear fissile material" and "biological agents." Well, don't worry about losing any sleep over that one if you are worried about "al-Qaeda". Do worry though, if you have grokked that al-Qaeda is just a front for CIA and Mossad black operations - as should be blatantly obvious from reading about Davis' case. Davis was said to be providing nuclear and biological material to their (false-flag) terrorist friends "to be used against the United States itself in order to ignite an all-out war in order to re-establish the West's hegemony over a Global economy that is warned is just months away from collapse." Adding to the intriguing revelations is former ISI Punjab chief Brigadier (retired) Mohammad Aslam Ghuman, who has alleged that the insurgents in Balochistan are Indians operating in connivance with Blackwater, aka Xe.
Call records of Davis's cellphone allegedly establish his link to 27 Taliban militants and a sectarian group known as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the police source said.
He claimed that days after the Russian federation collapsed, US' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and Israel's Mossad carried out a comprehensive analysis and recommended launching a major operation inside Pakistan, especially Balochistan, to shake the state.
"Yes, the CIA in connivance with RAW and Blackwater is operating in Balochistan and other parts of the country," he remarked, adding, "They cannot absorb any Islamic atomic state."
© Kate GeraghtyInternational waters... Activists look on as Israeli boats close in on the Mavi Marmara.
They believe it is their right - their Yahweh given right - to be the exception to all the rules and to do as they please. Would any other country be treated with such a mild response as Israel received when details were revealed of the murder of Hamas member Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at the hands of a Mossad hit-team in a Dubai hotel in January 2010?
Recently we heard that Israel and Hamas were considering a cease-fire. Unsurprisingly, the real nature of what such a deal might be became apparent a mere two days later when Israeli military sources revealed to Ynet that the "relative truce in south will be followed by wide-scale confrontation. 'Hamas has been busy rebuilding its forces for the past two years, and this can only mean we're facing an all-out clash,' says senior officer." Although the unnamed officer blames the next confrontation on Hamas even before it has happened, you can bet that if they are so certain about it coming it is because that was the plan all along. In that light, truces and cease-fires are simple propagandistic and time-buying maneuvers.
Grand Theft Economics
The pattern of Grand Theft Economics which has been well established in recent years continued unabated across the globe in 2010 with spreading credit problems in the Eurozone, stagnation in the United States, with the economy neither collapsing nor growing enough to lower unemployment, the imposition of austerity by the economic Powers That Be, protests against austerity in Europe only (the public in the United States has been too brainwashed to understand at whom and to what it should direct its anger), healthy profits for corporations, big banks and the super-rich, and the odd combination of deflation and inflation caused by currency devaluation, sinking labor costs and rising commodity prices. Some observers expect the US dollar's reserve currency to come under attack,and there are some under-reported events that may foreshadow that, notably an agreement between China and Russia to begin their own currency exchange, sidestepping the US dollar. The US national debt now tops a staggering $14 trillion.
The richest and most powerful continue to consolidate their gains, leaving ordinary people everywhere with a shrinking piece of the collective pie. According to most recent studies, the wealthiest 5% of the US population own 75% of the financial wealth. That leaves 25% to be shared among the vast majority - 95% of the population. This general trend is true in Europe as well, as it is for much of the rest of the world. A quick look at the US gives no reason for optimism at the federal government's talk of an "economic recovery": over 60% of Americans receiving state unemployment benefits are now paid with federal government funds because more than half the states are officially bankrupt. As a consequence, the governors of California, New York and many other US states are proposing drastic budget cuts for fiscal year 2011. The newly elected Republicans in Washington DC are already taking aim at labor unions, health care reforms and Social Security in order to fund 'budget shortfalls'. Rarely is there any mention of the elephant in the room: America's expanding imperial ventures. Where is the public outcry? For how much longer will people accept being squeezed into serfdom while unlimited war funding finds "new markets"?
© neopren @deviantart.com"War Economy"
They succeeded. As is always the case, the people are responsible for paying for the broken dishes in the form of austerity programs that take money away from social security - never a popular one. It is no surprise then that the European Commission will rigorously supervise the Greek austerity program. The bureaucratic machine of the European Union spent three weeks examining the plan and intends to review its implementation every one to three months. If the Greek government deviates in any way from the programme, Brussels will fine Greece with compounding austerity measures.
The Greek people reacted to the austerity measures by staging a series of protests against deficit-cutting measures and a national public sector strike. Rolling strikes in February 2011 grounded flights at airports, closed schools and put hospitals into emergency-only service. The private sector joined the strike and farmers have been blocking major roads across the country for the past month to demand subsidies from the government.
Riots and mass demonstrations became commonplace in late 2010. Other places include Thailand, Toronto (during a G20 summit), Germany, France, UK (in protest over student fees), Ireland (over the banking collapse) and Italy (over the blatant corruption of thief-in-chief Berlusconi).
Another fine example of elites acting with impunity in secret which (somewhat) came to light in the past year is the stock market. Markets can be rigged with computers using high-frequency trading programs (HFT), which now comprise 70% of market trading; Goldman Sachs is the undisputed leader in this new gaming technique. Matt Taibbi maintains that Goldman Sachs has been "engineering every market manipulation since the Great Depression." When Goldman does not get its way, it is in a position to throw a tantrum and threaten to crash the market. We saw this in evidence in the Flash Crash of May 6th, 2010, when the Dow Index saw the biggest one-day point decline - 998.5 points - in its history. Who was behind the so-called "Flash-Crash"? In searching for clues, we should ask what else was going on at this time. For one, the Obama administration was pressing the Senate to alter a provision pushed by Senator Bernie Sanders that would have largely repealed a 32-year-old law protecting the Federal Reserve's monetary policy from congressional auditors. The Fed won this match as the Senate yielded under the banksters' pressure and agreed to a compromise. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a letter to Congress that the measure would "seriously threaten monetary policy independence, increase inflation fears and market interest rates, and damage economic stability and job creation." A not-too-veiled threat, perhaps? As David DeGraw points out, the Fed has pumped nearly $4.3 trillion in bailout funds into the banking system since the beginning of the current 'crisis' in 2008. Almost nothing was known about where and who that money went to at the time, though we have since learned that many foreign banks were beneficiaries. Sanders' amendment would have finally revealed to the public the full extent of Wall Street's bailout operations. Later that same day Congress voted and rejected an amendment which would have forced the break-up of the six largest US financial giants into banks that can fail without wrecking the economy, including Goldman Sachs. As DeGraw puts it, the United States has been taken over by a financial terrorism network. Not only are they friends of criminals, they are themselves criminals.
When the Irish government was pressured into accepting terms for an IMF/EU bailout in November 2010, the prevailing attitude was that failure to do so would result in imminent catastrophe for the Irish economy and the Eurozone at large. That government has since fallen on its sword and been voted out of office, while its then finance minister has just recently gone public with the revelation that the European Central Bank practically put a gun to his head and threatened to orchestrate a run on Irish banks if he did not sign on the dotted line. It's not capitalism, it's not socialism; it's just the psychopathic few causing misery for the many because they deliberately indebt countries in order to control them.
Now, with all this in mind, what are we to reply to the President of the World Bank Robert Zoellick who has very recently warned that the world is "one shock away from a full-blown crisis"? Excuse us, Mr. Zoellick, but the world is already in a full-blown crisis. Zoellick, of course, knows what he's talking about because he's in the business of manufacturing crises in tune to an agenda.
"I can't eat an iPad!"
We have been hitting the alarm button on the food issue for at least two years (and we were not the only ones). As noted in our previous installment, Russia's heatwave and fires forced it to freeze its wheat exports, which is bad news for the rest of the world since the country is one of the largest wheat producers in the world. We don't think wheat is fit for animal or human consumption anyway, but that is besides the point. It is one of the staples upon which the world's food supply is based.
The Russian crop disaster signaled a new phase in the ongoing food crisis. Abdolreza Abbassian, an economist for the Food and Agriculture Organization, recently explained that world food prices hit their highest level on record in January 2011. The FAO Food Price Index rose for the seventh month in a row to reach 231, topping the peak of 224.1 last seen in June 2008. "These high prices are likely to persist in the months to come," he warned. Indeed they did, as the index reached 236 points in February, an increase partially explained by high oil prices. The World Bank foresees "a broader trend of increasing commodity prices, including food commodity prices". According to the Food and Agricultural Organization, the price of cereals increased by 70% in one year.
Michael Snyde listed in a recent article twenty signs that the food crisis can only get worse ("horrific", in fact, was the term he used):
It is openly recognized that snowstorms in the US, floods in Australia and other weather anomalies are part of the reason for the increase. It is also no secret that they are an important factor for the revolts in the Middle East and elsewhere, which is why some governments are purchasing wheat and rice to avoid shortages (Algeria, Indonesia), freezing prices in local markets (Honduras) and increasing anti-poverty programs (El Salvador). It seems that some governments remember that it is their duty to care for the people as long as they have reason to believe those people can revolt! Others, however, react in "let them eat cake" fashion - or rather "let them have cheap iPads" - and by doing so are courting disaster. The United Kingdom is one such nation. Apparently neither supermarkets nor authorities foresee any problem with food prices in Britain rising at three times the rate of the world's seven biggest economies. According to a HSBC senior economist, the result will be civil unrest and food riots. The Royal Family had better come up with another Royal WeddingTM soon to keep Brits distracted from their own hunger, or things might get ugly sooner rather than later.
- According to the World Bank, 44 million people around the globe have been pushed into extreme poverty since last June because of rising food prices.
- The world is losing topsoil at an astounding rate. In fact, according to Lester Brown, "one third of the world's cropland is losing topsoil faster than new soil is forming through natural processes".
- Due to U.S. ethanol subsidies, almost a third of all corn grown in the United States is now used for fuel. This is putting a lot of stress on the price of corn.
- Due to a lack of water, some countries in the Middle East find themselves forced to almost totally rely on other nations for basic food staples. For example, it is being projected that there will be no more wheat production in Saudi Arabia by the year 2012.
- Water tables all over the globe are being depleted at an alarming rate due to "overpumping". According to the World Bank, there are 130 million people in China and 175 million people in India that are being fed with grain with water that is being pumped out of aquifers faster than it can be replaced. So what happens once all of that water is gone?
- In the United States, the systematic depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer could eventually turn "America's Breadbasket" back into the "Dust Bowl".
- Diseases such as UG99 wheat rust are wiping out increasingly large segments of the world food supply.
- The price of oil may be the biggest factor on this list. The way that we produce our food is very heavily dependent on oil. The way that we transport our food is very heavily dependent on oil. When you have skyrocketing oil prices, our entire food production system becomes much more expensive. If the price of oil continues to stay high, we are going to see much higher food prices and some forms of food production will no longer make economic sense at all.
- At some point the world could experience a very serious fertilizer shortage. According to scientists with the Global Phosphorus Research Initiative, the world is not going to have enough phosphorous to meet agricultural demand in just 30 to 40 years.
- Food inflation is already devastating many economies around the globe. For example, India is dealing with an annual food inflation rate of 18 percent.
- According to the United Nations, the global price of food reached a new all-time high in February.
- According to the World Bank, the global price of food has risen 36% over the past 12 months.
- The commodity price of wheat has approximately doubled since last summer.
- The commodity price of corn has also about doubled since last summer.
- The commodity price of soybeans is up about 50% since last June.
- The commodity price of orange juice has doubled since 2009.
- There are about 3 billion people around the globe that live on the equivalent of 2 dollars a day or less and the world was already on the verge of economic disaster before this year even began.
- 2011 has already been one of the craziest years since World War 2. Revolutions have swept across the Middle East, the United States has gotten involved in the civil war in Libya, Europe is on the verge of a financial meltdown and the U.S. dollar is dying. None of this is good news for global food production.
- There have been persistent rumors of shortages at some of the biggest suppliers of emergency food in the United States. The following is an excerpt from a recent "special alert" posted on Raiders News Network....
Look around you. Read the headlines. See the largest factories of food, potassium iodide, and other emergency product manufacturers literally closing their online stores and putting up signs like those on Mountain House's Official Website and Thyrosafe's Factory Webpage that explain, due to overwhelming demand, they are shutting down sales for the time being and hope to reopen someday.
The nuclear disaster in Japan is yet another factor that will push food crisis even higher. Who would like to buy Japanese rice or fish these days? And what domino effect will the collapse of the Japanese economy have over the rest of the world?
There is no escaping the reality that people are already reacting and will do so even more. What sort of thing should we expect? One possibility is illustrated by the following video:
Indeed, people may fall back on their animal instincts. But what happens if the masses (rightly) identify the problem as their own leaders or the unjust socio-economic system? Suppose that the food scarcity has not yet reached the point of making looters out of our neighbors. Perhaps it is already enough to set the mood for political change and to take to the streets to demand it. Which leads us straight into...
2011's Revolutionary Road
Early this year, a wave of protest and revolutionary unrest spread rapidly from northern Africa across the Middle East, including the oil-rich Gulf States, carrying over from the Tunisian unrest that started in December 2010. The Muslim Arab people have been one of the most oppressed and harassed groups in modern history, undoubtedly a significant contributing reason to why the Middle East became the epicenter of the global revolution.
As the shockwaves passed through each country along North Africa and across the Sinai, we have seen genuine expressions of people power alongside fake provocateurs, local repression, propaganda and foreign intervention ('fun and games'), all are mixed together and producing different results. There's alot of smoke and mirrors out there, but let's try to discern the most probable truth of each story. The situations in Egypt and Libya are particularly interesting and dramatic. It's also a fun exercise paying attention to the hypocritical reactions of the US and European governments, whose allegiances switch sides according to whatever happens to be more convenient for the Empire.
Let's cover each country by following a rough chronological and regional order.
Tunisia
© UnknownA picture released in December by the Tunisian government shows ousted Tunisian president Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali during a visit to Mohamed Al Bouazizi, a Tunisian who set himself alight last month during a protest against unemployment. Bouazizi's death sparked an uprising that led to Ben Ali fleeing the country after 23 years in power.
The "unity" government, formed by Mohamed Ghannouchi, who was a satrap of Mr Ben Ali's for almost 20 years, seemed to signal to its colonial masters that Tunisia will be in safe hands; one who would have the international elite's interests - rather than his people's interests - at heart. Tunisia had always been praised as "a friend of Europe" for keeping Islamists in line with repeated human rights violations and torture. Is democracy really possible in a country where large segments of the adult population work in some way or another for the secret police?
Protestors returned to the streets and Ghannouchi was soon forced to resign as he became implicated in a conspiracy involving officials close to the old administration spreading chaos to take back power. The fallout spread to France as well, with embattled French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie announcing her resignation after weeks of criticism over her contacts with the former Tunisian regime. The regime still stands today as police continue to fire into crowds of protesters and as the military responds by calling up reservists to maintain order.
Kuwait
© UnknownStateless Arabs, known as "Bidoons", are confronted by armed riot units outside Kuwait City
Hoping to preempt trouble in his country, Kuwait's ruler late in January gifted money and food coupons to all his subjects; 1,000 dinar ($3,559) grants and free food coupons for every Kuwaiti citizen, up to and including newborn children in February 2011. The food programme is expected to include free staples such as rice, eggs and milk until March 2012. A bribe is a bribe in any language, and like all pathological types in power, the Kuwaiti emir suffers from acute wishful thinking; food coupons are no substitute for freedom. Not even a tsunami of sandstorms, which blanketed Kuwait during this period, could prevent protests erupting in Kuwait for the first time, with more than 1,000 stateless Arabs - many of them descendants of nomads - demonstrating in Jahra, west of Kuwait City, demanding citizenship, free education, free health-care and jobs - benefits available to Kuwaiti nationals. Security forces used smoke bombs and water cannons to disperse the demonstrators, who were not in on the mass bribe. At least bullets weren't involved. Kuwait hosts key US military bases that act as an important waystation for imperial conquest in the Middle East.
Oman
Anti-government protests in the Omani capital of Muscat
What began with an peaceful hour long protest march in January about low salaries and soaring food prices, one month later had become more agitated, with 2,000 anti-government protesters beaten down by Omani security forces. Omani ruler Sultan Qaboos changed six ministers in his cabinet and raised stipends for university students in an attempt to prevent further protests, but the following day government buildings were set alight and rubber bullets fired into the crowds, resulting in two dead and five others injured.
Egypt: Saladin Rides Again
Egypt is the main US ally in North Africa, second only to Israel in terms of military assistance, the Arab world's natural leader and biggest nation with a population of 80 million, and the personal playground of 'dictator' Hosni Mubarak who had been in power since 1981. Egypt also has a pact with Israel and the US 'tolerates' the regime's anti-democratic excesses in the interest of stability. In other words, as long as Egypt fulfills its role as a convenient buffer for Israel's southern border and opens the gates of the Suez Channel, who cares about its population? Approximately 60% of the population is under 30 and make up 90% of those unemployed.
In January, hundreds of Egyptians gathered outside the Tunisian Embassy in Cairo to show solidarity with Tunisians and, facing similar hardships, called for protests similar to those in Tunisia. They were surrounded by heavy security - bear in mind that Egypt has been under a state of "emergency" for three decades. A week later it all exploded as demonstrators called for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak and two protesters killed in Suez and one policeman killed in Cairo as protesters gathered for a day of demonstrations against torture, poverty, unemployment, corruption, and the oppression of living under a thirty-year dictatorship.
A protestor holding a placard in French reading "Mubarak, get out", identical to ones used in protests last week in Tunisia, is surrounded by riot police during a demonstration in downtown Cairo, Egypt, January 25, 2011.
Meanwhile, Mubarak's son and most likely successor, fled the country along with his family to London. On the third day of protests there were reports of continuing police brutality and attempted media blackout. The mood of the protesters suggested that they believed that it was a seminal moment in Egyptian history; that Egyptians' desire for freedom had reached the point of no return. Hilary Clinton had a different 'assessment of the situation' on the night of the first protests:
"Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people."That is the usual doublespeak for "We will continue to support tyranny and dictatorship over democracy and liberation." The position changed (slightly) when President Barack Obama said.
"It is very important that people have mechanisms in order to express their grievances."and
"I've always said to [Mubarak] that making sure that they're moving forward on reform, political reform and economic reform, is absolutely critical to the long-term well-being of Egypt."Soon all Internet traffic was shut down and the government deployed an elite special operations force in Cairo, hours before an anticipated new wave of anti-government protests. The counter-terror force, rarely seen on the streets, took up positions in strategic locations, including central Tahrir Square, site of the biggest demonstrations. Support for the protesters increased with Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei returning to Egypt (or had he been there all the time?), and the biggest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood - seeking regime change - backing them after security forces arrested at least five Brotherhood leaders and five former Members of Parliament, as well as taking large numbers of Brotherhood members into custody. As expected, violence escalated outside of the capital. During afternoon prayers on the Friday of the first week of protests, thousands took to the streets in protest and were met by heavily armed riot police and Egyptian military units.
"And you can see these pent-up frustrations that are being displayed on the streets."
Defying an overnight curfew the crowds grew and became more emboldened. Protesters ransacked party headquarters in several cities, while in Suez a police station was by overrun large crowds. Throughout the week of protests Mubarak had remained out of sight. Interestingly, the Israeli government remained quiet too despite their concern that the Muslim Brotherhood might take over in Egypt and cancel the 1979 peace treaty. Could they be tempted to retake part of the Sinai strip to create a buffer zone? Meanwhile on the streets, after six days of protests, demonstrators became increasingly frustrated at the lack of response from the US and other world leaders; focusing their wrath on both the US and Israel. Later that day, the Egyptian cabinet formally resigned at the command of Mubarak. Israel made its first statement the day after three Israeli planes landed at Cairo's Mina International Airport carrying hazardous equipment for dispersing large crowds, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stating that, "Our efforts aim at the continued maintenance of stability and security in the region..."
In response to the mass protests, Mubarak appointed his first Vice President in his over 30 years rule, intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, a man 'respected' by US officials for his cooperation with their rendition-to-torture program, among other initiatives. Despite all this, the protests continued in both Cairo and in Alexandria. As a concession to the protesters, Mubarak stated that he would not run for another term in office. It made little difference as the clashes - now quite violent - continued between his opponents and supporters, with more than 250,000 people flooding into Tahrir, (since renamed Liberation) Square. Police were nowhere to be seen, only the army. However, foreign journalists were being targeted, with some beaten, bloodied, harassed and detained by men, most of them, apparently, aligned in some way with Mubarak, be it secret police, pro-Mubarak supporters or the army. In several cases, news personnel were accused of being 'foreign spies'. Let it be noted that there were no 'real' pro-Mubarak supporters, only police and security services that had disappeared from the streets, thousands of prisoners released amongst all the chaos - relaxed security - and youths paid US$50 each to attack the crowds.
© Getty ImagesLiberation Square, Cairo
Obama must have understood that there was no turning back, as he reinforced the message that a transition to representative government "must begin now", that this was a "moment of transformation" in Egypt and that "the status quo is not sustainable." It's almost funny how politicians can so passionately change their point of views depending on their game-plan. Midway through this second week of demonstrations, the plethora of protest groups came together to forge a common ground for their future aims - united rather than divided - a more radical position than previous proposals put forward by a group of senior judges, diplomats and businessmen in the Egyptian daily newspaper Al Shorouk. Egypt's vice president met a broad representation of major opposition groups and offered new concessions including freedom of the press, release of those detained since anti-government protests which began nearly two weeks ago and the eventual lifting of the country's hated emergency laws. The opposition groups included the youthful supporters of ElBaradei, who were one of the main forces organizing the protests, the Muslim Brotherhood and a number of smaller leftist, liberal groups. On the twelfth day of continuous protests, Mubarak resigned as head of the National 'Democratic' Party. At this point in time, according to the United Nations, at least 300 people had so far been killed and thousands more injured.
Talks which took place between the Egyptian government and opposition seemed to collapse as the regime balked at surrendering power to a transitional administration in the hope that mass protests would die down. Instead, the protests spread with even larger demonstrations in the major cities, accompanied by a series of strikes as trade unions joined in. Many protesters stated that they would not go home until Mubarak stepped down. On the seventeenth day of continuous protests, nearly a million people found their way to Tahrir Square, despite Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit's warning that the military could intervene if demonstrations continued. While refusing to resign or leave the country, Mubarak gave most of his powers to his torture-enthusiast vice president, hours after the military made moves that had all the markings of a coup and military leaders pledged that the country's emergency law would be lifted - but only with the end of "current circumstances".
Had Mubarak's usefulness come to an end; was he still compliant? The protests had yet to end, as protesters were unhappy with the army's timetable of transfer to a civilian government. The army responded by threatening to arrest them unless they left Liberation Square, and insisted on continued military rule until the next Presidential election. Inevitably, the army cleared the Square by force. A sign of things to come, perhaps, just about a month later the Egyptian government passed a law criminalizing protests and strikes. Not such a brilliant ending, after all, with reports of the US and Israel being in complete control of the Egyptian military. Attempts in early April to restart protests in Cairo were met with bullets as the army shot dead 6 and hospitalized another 71.
The following extract from the Cassiopaea Superluminal Experiment session of February 13th 2011 may help clarify things. Even though it relates specifically to Egypt it may be applied across the whole region and further.
Q: [...](L) What's next? (Andromeda) Were the protests in Egypt orchestrated by the US and Israel?Yemen
A: No, but once started they certainly put their team in position. Global revolution is desired by them exactly as Reed described.
Q: (L) Douglas Reed? As in "The Controversy of Zion"?
A: Yes.
Q: (Andromeda) So that leads to the next question: How close are the Zionists to fulfilling their biblical end time scenario?
A: They expect things to ripen within two years.
Q: (Perceval) Is it possible that it's a preparation for a war of some description in the Middle East with Israel vs. the Arabs?
A: Possible but not likely as you imagine it.
Q: (L) I think he's imagining that they're really adversarial. The people are being made to be adversarial, but I think the powers in control even in the Arab world are all in cahoots. (Perceval) I was thinking in terms of basically where there would be a major conflagration in the Middle East and the Jews and the Palestinians and everybody would be destroyed. They would set scene where there would be a sort of pan-Arab nationalism that would turn against Israel... (L) Yeah, I think that's really possible, but they think they're going to be able to do a controlled burn and I think it's going to get out of control in ways they don't suspect.
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Israel is a country that's full of the most concentrated bunch of psychopaths probably on the entire planet, and they certainly don't want to destroy their own kind. But they do want to destroy the Arabs. (Perceval) And in their hubris, they may end up destroying themselves. (L) Well, that's usually what they do. Lobaczewski said that the germ doesn't understand that it's going to be killed and destroyed and burned along with the death of the body it's infecting. And I also think that they don't take into account real earth changes. It's not that they can't think about preparing for some of these things, because obviously some of them do and they are preparing. But they don't seem to have this ability to really understand... they're able to plan for something that's going to happen, like if scientists tell them there's going to be some kind of comet or whatever, they can build some seed bank. Okay, so they can do that. But they're not ABLE to understand the implications and outcome of an action they're taking right now as an immediate response to something that they think is going to turn a certain way. They think that what they're going to do is totally rational - it's like game theory. They've found that game theory doesn't work on everybody! I think it's like Lobaczewski said: they're trying to fish out all of these people who are going to respond the way they think they are, and then they are repeatedly disappointed that so few actually do when push comes to shove. In real human beings, something responds in them. (Perceval) So, they can't imagine how normal human beings could react when their backs are against the wall and they're in a real state of chaos. (Ailén) Or if there's a real food shortage. (Perceval) They've never been there really, what they're planning for.
Yemen is the poorest nation in the Arab world with unemployment soaring, particularly among the young, and about 40% of the population lives on less than $2 (£1.25) a day. Yemen is also a strategic ally of the US, with military plans for a $75 million training program with Yemen's counterterrorism unit enabling it to expand its capabilities in the nation's mountainous terrain. The uprising there began at the end of January with thousands of people taking to the streets demanding change. Ahead of a day of mass protests, President Ali Abdullah Saleh stated that he would step down in 2013 after more than thirty years in office and refrain from passing power on to his son. In addition, Saleh made a series of concessions: halving income tax, introducing control of prices, and a pledge to raise the salaries of civil servants and military personnel by around $47 (£29) a month.
© Muhammed Muheisen/APAn anti-government protestor reacts as he and other demonstrators shout slogans during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sanaa, Yemen, Tuesday, March 1, 2011. Yemen's embattled president has accused the United States and Israel of trying to destabilize his country and the Arab world.
Developing into civil warfare, confrontations next turned into clashes between pro-government supporters and pro-democracy protesters. The scale of the protests reached such a size that it was impossible for Saleh to openly crush them. It's interesting that Saleh accused Israel and the US of being behind the protests. The US fanned the flames when James Jones, a former White House National Security advisor, warned a Washington conference that Yemen's crisis "could deepen the current vacuum of power in Yemen on which al Qaida has thrived." Having lost the support of key tribal chiefs, and in an attempt to silence critics, Saleh fired five of the country's 22 provincial governors.
About 75 people have been shot dead by Yemen's security forces since the protests began in January. March saw some of the biggest turnouts at demonstrations, with security forces once again firing on protesters. Clashes have continued to escalate, with security forces making a pre-dawn raid on a central square in Sana'a, where thousands of pro-democracy protesters have been camped out. The escalations continue despite resignations from a top military commander and at least 18 other senior officers, who defected to the opposition movement and demanding the ousting of Yemen's embattled president. Rival tanks being deployed in the streets of Yemen's capital have created a potentially explosive situation. An explosion did occur after the government army apparently deserted the town of Jaar following a weekend of deadly clashes with gunmen who the government claimed were "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula." The following day a series of explosions occurred at the munition factory in Jaar, killing over 120 people. Again this was blamed by the government on "al-Qaida factions." The bloodshed continues with no sign of Saleh intending to step down before the end of the year. With the west now starting to turn their back on him, the question is, has Saleh outlived his usefulness to the West?
Bahrain: American Approved Brutality
© Hamad I Mohammed / ReutersWe can just imagine the meeting that took place between the psychopaths-in-chief of Bahrain: "So, they keep meeting at this landmark monument... even though we shoot at them, they keep returning... what can we do to prevent it turning into another Tahrir Square?... We could blow it up?... That's a brilliant idea!..."
Security forces took a very heavy-handed approach towards the peaceful protesters, the numbers of which had swelled to tens of thousands. The protests were met with a barrage of choking tear gas, shotgun blasts, grapeshot, and craven police brutality in a vicious attempt to crush the demonstrators' solidarity. The security forces, composed almost entirely of foreign mercenaries brought in to serve and destroy precisely because they have no local sympathies, are thoroughly beholden to the royal family and are not just willing, but eager, to do its bidding. With the media's eyes elsewhere, Bahrain's rulers opted to terrorise its own people, undoubtedly with its large neighbour Saudi Arabia's approval. The protests and excessive force used against protesters have continued into April. Bahrain's government, as expected, called for more than a thousand Saudi troops and equipment to put down the uprising, a move fully sanctioned by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. You see, killing civilians in Bahrain is okay for Mrs. Clinton because it is Saudi Arabia's turf. Killing them in Libya (or having reports of civilian deaths in Libya - see below) is not okay because Libya has oil and we could never really rely on Gaddafi anyway.
The Iranian government urged restraint, to which US Defense Secretary Robert Gate reacted by insinuating that Iran was attempting to "meddle in Bahrain's politics amid sectarian tensions." The rich irony, of course, is that these tensions across the Middle East are the culmination of decades of US "meddling."
Bahrain's king has imposed a three-month state of emergency. This could bring about a stand off between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the latter stating that military intervention (Saudi Arabia) was unacceptable. Despite this, the carnage continued with a series of brutal crackdowns and the destruction of Manama's Pearl Square by the Bahraini authorities, the epicenter of anti-government protests. This didn't prevent protesters from gathering elsewhere, so government brutality changed tactics and Bahrain's two main hospitals were attacked, with doctors arrested and prevented from tending to the wounded. Hospital patients were also targeted, while protesters or bystanders were severely harassed or beaten.
How did the US react to this brutality, and destruction? By ordering the silence of US media over Bahrain, of course! It wouldn't do to have the Bahraini royal family receive dirty looks when they attend Will and Kate's Royal Wedding in the UK later this week.
Jordan
© ReutersThousands took to the street across Jordan demanding the prime minister step down
In Jordan, thousands of protesters took to the streets angered by rising prices, inflation and unemployment, demanding that prime minister Samir Rifai step down over his unpopular policies, and demanding changes in how the country is run. Whilst King Abdullah II has promised some reforms, it was thought unlikely that he would bow to their demands, since it is he who traditionally appoints such officials. Once again, it's the working class who bear the burden of excessive taxes in a country with spiralling deficits, while the elite spends lavishly. A key US ally and heavily dependent on US and other foreign aid, Abdullah has been working to create a more open-market economy. Abdullah has insisted on the need to move forward with 'clear and transparent programs of political and economic reform'. Now where have we heard that before? Luckily for Abdullah, Obama has assured him of US support, while giving lip service to "the need for Jordan to move toward reform". During a telephone call to Abdullah,
Obama said "democracy will bring more - not less - stability in the region," the White House reported.That would be democracy, western style, as in US foreign policy that in reality is about control through waging war on social justice. Presumably, that stability will be just as it is in other countries where the US has brought in such measures, such as Iraq. What would be more convenient for the management of a country that lies on Israel's doorstep: to provide 'stability' with an iron-grip, or to push it into disintegration by internal social conflict? At least in Jordan a new prime minister has been installed, but will that bring about what the protesters are asking for: democratic changes, an end to corruption and halting collaboration with Israel?
Iraq
© Unknown
At least nine people were killed in anti-government protests as thousands took to the streets in cities across the country for a "day of rage", calling for reform, but not regime change. About 4,000 people protested outside a governor's office in Iraq's second city of Basra, knocking over concrete barriers and demanding the chief lawmaker resign. This came after weeks of protest as Iraqis vented their frustration over poor living conditions, widespread corruption, poor wages and lack of jobs. Prior to the protests, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urged people not to join the protests "for security reasons", and accused the protest organizers of being, wait for it, "al-Qaeda insurgents and Saddam Hussein loyalists". Sound familiar? The implication, of course, is that Iraq's ailments couldn't possibly be a consequence of its people living in hell since they were blasted back to the stone age by western armies just eight years earlier.
Iran
© APA rubbish bin is set on fire in Tehran.
Thousands of defiant protesters in Iran's capital clashed with security officials as they marched in a banned rally. Supporters of the pro-democracy Green Movement protested in small groups, scattered in various locations across central Tehran and other big cities.
[Government-sponsored plainclothes] Basij [militia] commander Mohammad Reza Naghdi said the protests in Tehran had been ignited by "western spies". He was quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency as saying: "Western intelligence agencies are searching for a mentally challenged person who can set himself on fire in Tehran to trigger developments like those in Egypt and Tunisia." He added: "They [the west] are very retarded and think by imitating such actions they can emerge victorious."Despite government efforts to control internet access, protesters have been active on social networking sites, aided by the US. We do not doubt genuine grievances with the theocratic regime in Iran, but context is everything and the US is on record as saying it is actively pursuing regime change in Iran through a combination of media psy-ops and proxy terrorist groups. The reality is that a majority of Iranians fully support their government, something that cannot be said for most of the countries we're looking at here.
Algeria
© EPAAlgerian protesters chant slogans during a demonstration in Algiers
Algeria, rich in natural gas and oil, suffers mass unemployment, chronic lack of housing, high prices and widespread poverty, as well as political corruption and a repressive regime. Under the country's long-standing state of emergency, protests are banned in the capital, Algiers. Inspired by events in Egypt and Tunisia, a demonstration was held the day after Egypt's authoritarian leader was toppled. During the pro-democracy rally, estimated police numbers outnumbered demonstrators by three to one as they tried to prevent the rally by blocking off streets and setting up security barricades, firing rubber bullets and using tear gas, leading to confrontations and over 400 arrests.
Protesters called for reforms including greater democratic freedoms, more jobs, an end to the police state and the removal of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Yet again, the stick of repression came with the carrot of cutting the prices of household commodities, and promising to lift a 19-year-old state of emergency in the 'very near future'. Learning from what had happened in Egypt, the authorities shut down the Internet. They also used state-sponsored thugs and police to target journalists in an effort to prevent reports reaching the outside world.
Libya: Wag the Mad Dog
© UnknownLibya is about to be democratised into oblivion
Can you recall US President Obama stating explicitly while on the campaign trail in the run-up to the US presidential elections of 2008 that he would end "end the wars" and bring US troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan? That's ok, we can't blame you for forgetting. Here's a man who made ending, or at least curbing, the NeoCons' war party the cornerstone of his campaign. Then what happened? He relocated US troops to permanent garrisons in Iraq, doubled the number of troops in Afghanistan, launched a bombing campaign in Pakistan, ordered bombing raids on Yemen and now leads the charge in the bombing of Libya. Never could a person's words and deeds be more clearly contradictory.
Republican or Democrat, it doesn't matter of course. In the age of scientific dictatorship a fine-tuned machine rules every aspect of our material life on Earth. Did you notice that shock and awe against Libya began 8 years to the day that the US government and friends plunged Iraq into hell? It's been said that the super-elite, the Rothschilds and Rockefellers of the world, pick their dates carefully for precipitating events. That Operation Odyssey Dawn began 8 years to the day does leave you wondering whether the initiators of events use star charts or something to plot the course of their agenda. At the very least we might say that the 9/11's, 7/7's and 3/19's show a penchant for numerology and dabbling in the occult.
But before we give them undue credence as evil magicians and "enlightened ones" capable of mastering the elements, let's just consider the one simple timing that really does stand out and which should make any thinking, feeling person's jaw drop all the way to the floor: the US and NATO countries launched an indiscriminate bombing campaign against Libya just 6 days after one of the largest earthquakes and tsunamis in modern times obliterated the Japanese Pacific seaboard, leaving some 20,000 people dead within minutes and hundreds of thousands more homeless. Tens of millions of people in the Tokyo area and surrounding metropolis are living in fear of nuclear meltdown as a result of these enormous flashing neon billboard signs from the Universe of imminent Earth Changes... surely this awesome display from Nature would make even the most soulless psychopath realize how redundant warfare is at this juncture and force everyone, no matter how recalcitrant they were previously to join the human race previously, to pool survival strategies and cooperate?
© UnknownWar propaganda has come on a bit since the First World War, but it's essentially the same: "We have to kill that madman by killing his own people, or else he will kill his own people."
But no, they're apparently incapable of logic. They not only ignored the Japanese people, they took advantage of the global shockwaves to catapult their own agenda into the revolutionary momentum in the Middle East and North Africa. They want Libyan leader of 40 years Muammar Gaddafi dead, they want Libya's oil and they want to terrorize Muslims across the region who have been rattling their cages since the beginning of 2011. What's that you say? Gaddafi is an evil tyrant who slaughtered his own people during the initial uprising as it spread from Egypt? Hundreds of thousands fled Libya from his army's brutality? The majority of Libyans have waited decades for this opportunity to come? Yes, that's what we too initially thought. But let's back up and examine recent events in Libya to see if we can discern what's really going on. The idea that the US and British governments are "humanitarian" warmongers all of a sudden just doesn't sit right with us.
The first thing to take note of is the fact that Gaddafi welcomed "this time of popular uprisings" and encouraged Palestinian refugees to return en masse to Israel's shores. That can't have gone down well in Tel Aviv. Of all the countries overdue an uprising of discontented people, Libya would appear bottom of the list for Africa. Libya has the highest income per capita and highest living standard in Africa thanks to Gaddafi's welfare programs in which oil money is ploughed back into the country's development.
If you look back at the initial reports of "Gaddafi slaughtering his own people", you will notice that they are largely based on the testimonies of members of anti-Gaddafi organisations located in Switzerland, the US and UK. One name that was repeated through the world's newswires on February 21st, when the propaganda ramped up to fever pitch, was Adel Mohamed Saleh, a self-proclaimed "political activist". His testimony is included in this Australian broadcaster's reporting of the initial fighting in eastern Libya in late February:
Australian Broadcasting CorporationHere is the emotional plea from "Saleh" broadcast by Al Jazeera:
The World Today with Elanor Hall
Tuesday February 22, 2011
[...] Despite the leader's assurances poor communication into the country and a ban on foreign journalists are contributing to a series of conflicting reports. [...]
Many residents spoke of their fears to the BBC and Al Jazeera television."We think it is not Libyans, these are not Libyans. They are mercenaries coming from all over the world. I've seen some white people killing. I've seen some black people killing people all over the streets. There is a (inaudible) are killing people."With few foreign reporters in Tripoli - it's difficult to confirm the cause of the explosions or whether the video is authentic.
But at least one man - identifying himself as a Tripoli resident - claims that Libyan warplanes have been bombing indiscriminately across the city.
Adel Mohamed Saleh calls himself a political activist. He told Al Jazeera the war planes had initially targeted a funeral procession, but were now bombing one area of the capital after another.What we are witnessing here today is unbelievable. We have never seen anything like this before. Now there is an aerial bombardment all over the city even in the alleys. In the Feshlun (phonetic) neighbourhood, our neighbourhood where I am there is an aerial bombing, intense shelling.And he went on to say he'd seen quote, "many, many dead".
This is a very small area with a population of no more than 10,000. We tried to help the injured people but there are too many of them and anyone who dares to go out to help is being shot at by mercenaries and snipers.People are crying. Death is everywhere. Why is the world silent on these atrocities? Why? This is the question. Why the Arab countries are keeping silent, why. Within the next few hours the entire Libyan population can be wiped out if this continues.
In retrospect, that last line is precisely the idea we were all being led to believe. Intervention was urgently required in Libya to protect ordinary people from a madman. If there were no foreign journalists in Libya at the time, whose word do we have to go on that a.) war planes really were carrying out indiscriminate bombing and b.) those war planes were Gaddafi's? Opposition groups based in Switzerland, London and Washington seeking regime change, whose "estimates" lurched to "thousands dead" by the end of February.
The other thing that jumps out at us in the above article is the report of "mercenaries coming from all over the world... white, black... killing indiscriminately." Early on Gaddafi was accusing "al Qaeda and hallucinogenic drugs" of being behind the uprising. Yes, we laughed at that one too and figured the man had lost the plot, as we're consistently reminded by the western media. Let's suppose for argument's sake that "al Qaeda" is really al-CIA-duh, what to make then of the fact that Libya was the first country to request an Interpol arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden, back in 1998? The request was turned down because Britain's MI6 intervened on bin Laden's behalf. A few months later "al Qaeda" killed 200 people in US embassy bombings in Africa and the rest, as they say, is history. The Guardian article on this story goes on:
British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.Remember the headlines? "Gaddafi's army will kill half a million, warn Libyan rebels." Did you know that the leader of the "rebels" is a known CIA collaborator? Its two leading spokespeople live in Washington and London. Ever wonder why the western media called them "rebels" from the start, and not "terrorists" or "insurgents"?
Writing for Global Research, Julie Lévesque explains that the Benghazi region from which these "rebels" emerged just happens to be a hotbed of armed Islamic fanatics. Not only that, but Sarkozy, Obama and Cameron's Coalition of the High and Mighty are fully aware that the Benghazi rebels' ranks comprise real, actual - to use their own term - "Islamo-fascists". Then there was the report of Israeli arms company CST Global paying some 50,000 mercenaries from central Africa to bolster Gaddafi's suppression of the uprising. Factor in the reports of Libya crawling with British, Dutch and American intelligence agents before and during the initial stages of the uprising/civil war and we then have the perfect recipe for some fun and games in the desert for the Secret Team.
This is why the Obama administration threatened to veto the UN resolution if a clause granting the mercenaries blanket immunity from prosecution was not inserted into the final draft. Minimal digging is required to see the blatantly obvious: the "terrorists" (al Qaeda), the "rebels" (now the legitimate government of Libya, if you are to believe that moron, Sarkozy), the "white and black mercenaries" shooting demonstrators while pretending to be Gaddafi loyalists and the NATO invading forces... ARE ALL THE SAME ENTITY! Even the US mainstream media is scratching its head wondering how the US got itself into a position where it is rushing headlong into another Iraq in order to defend avowed anti-American extremists!
The most high-profile defection from the Gaddafi regime was that of Musa Kusa, the Libyan foreign minister. He "fled" to London, where it emerged that he had "been in close contact with British MI6 and the CIA since the 1980s". He was one of theirs, in other words. He also oversaw whatever torture took place under the regime, so demonising Gaddafi on the basis that he "tortures his own people", then using this to justify an air (and soon to be ground) invasion is so absurd, it makes the head spin!
The fact that the largest military undertaking since the Iraq war walked through the UN this time around shows how much worse things have become since then. There was a least some resistance left in people then. All of the anti-Gaddafi rhetoric was pre-invasion psy-ops to clear the way for shock and awe. The Russian military has stated that it could not verify a single airstrike had taken place against protesters.
Those reports of Gaddafi "bombing his own people" could have actually been his air force taking out the rebels' (CIA et al's) weapons storage facilities. These "rebels" were conscripted to play their part for the empire. Check out this examination of the photos parading the unknown heroes in the world's media (see how many times you can spot the guy wearing goggles). The whole thing is staged. With practically no western media on the ground, who can tell the difference between Pentagon-approved press releases, complete with sound effects and CGI flames (like in the movie Wag the Dog), and objective reports coming from Libya?
The peak of civilization and the end of the road for the human race.
Lévesque called it correctly when she wrote that the prelude to Odyssey Dawn was a
psychological operation designed to galvanize global public opinion in favour of the NATO intervention and to demonize the Libyan regime [...]So we have seen chaos breaking out in Libya as a result of the Secret Team's agents on the ground priming their "rebels" and mercenaries. Gaddafi's response to the initial demonstrations, whether genuinely disproportionate or wildly exaggerated, has played right into the hands of the script for regime change. Don't mind the tripe about precision-bombing; we know better than to believe THAT lie by now. NATO war planes are bombing everything in sight: hospitals, schools, infrastructure, utilities, factories, food sources, you name it. They know that the more they destroy, the more money can be made from issuing contracts for rebuilding (even though nothing will actually be rebuilt - see Iraq). The powers that be are a law unto themselves, launching more wars and using depleted uranium-tipped weaponry even as rainfall right now wherever you are reading this is delivering nuclear poison from Japan. In fact, there is a strong possibility that some form of nuclear weapon has already been used by the Axis of Evil in Libya.
There was the "butcher of Bagdad", the "butcher of Belgrade" and now it's the "butcher of Tripoli". Always the same tactic. Always the same saviours. And people always fall for it.
Morocco
© APDemonstrators build road blocks against riot police during protests in early February
Morocco boasts that it is more liberal and tolerant than other countries in the region. As a series of earthquakes rattled the country in mid-February, some 40,000 people turning out in 57 towns and cities to take part in peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations. Inevitably, protests gave way to rioting and violence, leaving five killed and 128 injured. However, it is suspected that secret police mingled with the protesters. Were agent provocateurs doing their usual thing? Once again, the demands were about a new constitution, a fresh government and an end to corruption.
Saudi Arabia
© ReutersProtesters during a demonstration on March 11 demanding the release of prisoners they say are held without trial, in the Gulf coast town of Qatif, Saudi Arabia
On his return from receiving medical treatment abroad, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah announced extra benefits for his subjects, such as extra funds for housing, studying abroad and social security. Once again we see a bribe to buy time, in an attempt to avoid unrest. Will it placate the populace, or does it only work for the leaders who take handsome bribes from Washington? Leading intellectuals in Saudi Arabia have warned that grand financial gestures are no substitute for meaningful political reform, after King Abdullah unveiled a US$36 billion social welfare package in advance of planned anti-government protests for 11 March. They suggested that it's time to start listening to the kingdom's disenfranchised young people, whose high percentage of unemployment contributes to a situation which goes beyond economics to touch the core wants of social justice - freedom, dignity and democracy.
Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter and staunch US ally, remains an absolute monarchy with few outlets for dissent, with public policy-making concentrated almost entirely in the hands of the ruling family, with the current laws and social mores working predominantly to the benefit of ethnically Saudi males following the Sunni branch of Islam. Some analysts have estimated that up to 20 million of the kingdom's 27 million people - including women, Shia Muslims and some 7.5 million guest workers from Asia - feel completely detached from the state, amounting to a potentially potent groundswell of opposition. Not taking any chances, the king had up to ten thousand troops mobilized to quell Saudis' "day of rage". Abdullah is widely reported to have told Bahraini authorities that if they do not crush their own Shia revolt, his forces will step in to do it for them. Within the Saudi kingdom, thousands of emails and Facebook messages have encouraged Saudi Sunni Muslims to join the planned demonstrations across the ultra-conservative and highly corrupt kingdom. Don't expect another Egypt there, and don't hold your breath waiting to hear any western indignation as the monarchy puts the boot in against public unrest.
Syria: Next in Line
Pages on Facebook have been urging Syrians to stage anti-government demonstrations after Friday prayers
Syria is next in line for the Iraq treatment. This centre of Arab nationalism balances being friendly towards Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran with being compliant to western security co-operation demands, who would like to wean Syria off of Iran and make it more amenable to Israel's designs. Syria is under the rule of the mainly Alewite (Shia) elite. The Sunni majority holds the economic power, although they have little interest in unrest or discontinuity. However, it is said that Syrians do not follow rules, and it shows in their regime's not following other lemmings in the Arab League. Like others they are looking for freedom, an end to corruption, human rights and the end to emergency law, which has been in place since 1963. Demonstrations have until now unlawful unless authorised by the government in advance. In a move similar to the other countries, the Syrian government announced late last month that it had increased the heating oil allowance for public workers by 72 percent to the equivalent of $33 a month.
Initially, reports of protest were muted. However, following three peaceful demonstrations in as many weeks, the most recent one was violently broken up when fourteen people were arrested and others beaten up by uniformed and plainclothes policemen while staging a peaceful sit-in outside the Libyan embassy to show support for Libya's protesters. The unrest continued with police sealing the city of Daraa, letting people out but not in while government buildings burned. President Bashar Assad is trying to contain the situation by freeing detainees and promising to fire officials responsible for the violence. He has also pledged to consider protesters' "legitimate demands" such as ending Syria's emergency law and revising legislation for political parties and the media. However, this has been heard before to no effect.
The Syrians responded by protesting in even greater numbers. Major hypocrite Robert Gates, US secretary of Defense argued that Syria should follow Egypt's lead by letting the Syrian army "empower a revolution". The protests spread across Syria's south and into Damascus and Aleppo where they were met troops opened fire. Countering the protesters were regime supporters who took to the streets, possibly organized by the regime. Clinton added fuel to the fire by stating that both parties in the US Congress believed Assad was a "reformer". What that suggests is that Syria won't be going the way of Libya. At least, not until they begin portraying Assad as a "madman who kills his own people."
The violent turn of events in Syria in late March and into April culminated in mass slayings of protesters at the hands of security forces following Friday prayers and over the Easter weekend. The death toll continues to rise, but as we go to press it currently stands at over 120 killed in just two days. As we've seen in Libya, there are conflicting reports about the identities of the shooters. Syria's state-run news agency blamed the deaths on an "armed gang" and claimed that "one million SMSs were sent from outside Syria, most... from Israel inciting Syrians to use the mosques as launchpads for riots". The mainstream media made big noises over whether or not Assad would "lift Syria's emergency laws", but when we think about it, most countries in the west have been living functioning under a permanent state of emergency since 9/11.
© Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesA picture taken by a mobile phone shows anti-government protesters in Banias in northeastern Syria on Friday.
Finally speaking in public for the first time since the start of the demonstrations, President Bashar Al-Assad claimed that "Syria today is being subjected to a big conspiracy, whose threads extend from countries near and far." His government blamed the violence on outsiders and armed gangs. But what if there is some truth to this? Could it even be completely true? Bashar Al-Assad remains popular among many in the Arab world because he is seen as one of the few Arab leaders willing to stand up to Israel. Syria and Israel have been disputing the Golan heights for decades. Knowing how Israel likes to deal with its enemies "by way of deception", we should at least consider the possibility that Mossad (and the CIA) will do their best to provoke violence and chaos erupt in Syria. We have no doubt that reports from each of the countries undergoing upheaval are distorted to fit one agenda or another. Recall that in all likelihood, it was the Mossad who murdered Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, while the blame was placed on Syria. Remember as well that the chaos of the past few years in Iraq was largely brought about by bombings and shootings blamed on extremists and sectarian enmity, while much of the violence was the work of western operatives.
Hugo Chavez for one thinks that a conspiracy from without may indeed be in progress against Syria. Again, this would not necessarily invalidate legitimate grievances of the people. But do not assume that if the country finds itself in a civil war scenario or being bombed by NATO in the near future it was by mere accident, social forces out of control or "just a fact of human nature".
Elsewhere in Africa
© Luc Gnago/ReutersFrench forces advance on the residence of Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo, who has been captured by opposition forces.
Political unrest has been reported across a swathe of Africa recently, taking in Mauritania, Gabon, Khartoum, Sudan and Ethiopia. The situation receiving most coverage in western media is the coup d'etat in Ivory Coast, where the official story is that incumbent president Dr Laurent Gbagbo (the bad guy) lost an election and won't cede power to Alassane Ouattara (the good guy), who won that same election and has an army of rebels helping him earn his rightful place on the throne. But on closer inspection, the violence unfolding in this small African country is actually the work of imperial powers, particularly the French government, whose colonial past never really became "past" and is ever-present in the last days of the reign of Nicholas Sarkozy.
The US, EU, AU (African Union) and UN have declared Ouattara undisputed winner of last year's elections, even though the matter is far from resolved. Serious efforts to remove Dr Gbagbo from office began in late February large US, British and French banks unilaterally placed sanctions on Ivory Coast's economy by closing many of their local franchises. The government was unable to pay its workers as a result and in the ensuing panic ordinary people withdrew whatever savings they could during a devastating run on the banks. Ouattara tried to capitalise on this economic shock therapy by encouraging people to strike (they didn't). The European and American media wants us to believe that Dr Gbagbo's troops are the ones cutting people's hands off, raping women and slaughtering everything that moves... but the hundreds of thousands of refugees crossing over into Liberia are reporting the very opposite: it is Ouattara's heavily-armed and crazed militias who are responsible for the slaughter of up to 1,500 by late April. This is all a horrific case of déja vu for the Ivory Coast: an earlier disputed electoral result between Dr Gbagbo and Ouattara in 2000 resulted in a year-long civil war which briefly split the country until a peace treaty was brokered in 2007.
© ReutersIvory Coast's Dr Laurent Gbagbo's final humiliation: the President of Ivory Coast is stripped naked by French Special Forces before being handed over to Ouattara's vicious "rebels."
Why did Dr Gbagbo have such powerful interests ranged against him? If we compare his background with Ouattara's, we might begin to see why: he lectured as a history professor in Paris before entering politics by working up through Ivory Coast's trade union movement. Ouattara, on the other hand, is a personal friend of Sarkozy's and was Deputy Managing Director of the IMF from 1994 to 1999.
The UN resolution, airstrikes and removal from power of Ivory Coast's democratically elected leader were justified on the basis that they were necessary to prevent a bloodbath and civil war, but as Ann Talbot explains, just as we have seen with respect to Libya, the exact opposite is the case:
The UN resolution has given the green light for a civil war with disastrous consequences for the civilian population. [...] France's policy in Ivory Coast follows the pattern set in Libya, where France and Britain secured a UN resolution for a no-fly zone under the pretext of protecting civilians. The military action in Libya and Ivory Coast reflects the increasingly aggressive attitude the Western powers are taking in Africa, where they find themselves in an ever more intense competition for resources with China and other emerging economies.Incidentally, the power struggle has pushed cocoa prices to record highs because the crop is one of Ivory Coast's main exports. In fact, the country is rich in resources. Dr Gbagbo's expanding trade relations with Asian countries and other African countries undoubtedly played a major role in his selection for elimination from the chessboard. Colonial powers don't yield their turf easily. Today's "scramble for Africa" is every bit as dreadful as the pure evil unleashed by European powers on the Dark Continent in the 19th century because nothing has changed. The platitudes about "protecting civilians from a bloodbath" while "dropping democracy from 40,000 feet" and arming crazed militias with heavy artillery and machetes is beyond hypocrisy. It is disgusting and it is done consciously and with evil intent to keep the masses compliant and ignorant.
Europe
How has all this revolutionary fervor and rapid escalation of events in the predominately oil-rich regions affected the rest of the world? Is global revolution underway? Reduced government spending and the rising cost of food and goods have undoubtedly left Europeans worse off and led to increased social and economic oppression in an effort to contain and vector rising anger against the political classes.
Greece
Police in Athens fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators hurling petrol bombs and stones during yet another 24-hour general strike which brought Greece to a halt in February. More than 30,000 angry, desperate workers rallied against the government's far-reaching budget cuts in the wake of the 110bn-euro (£93bn; $150bn) bail-out from the EU and IMF last year. This Faustian deal locks Greeks into long-term "austerity" (code word for economic strangulation), long-term unemployment and the resulting destabilised social structure. This is essentially the IMF's real goal when the it rides in to save the day by "rescuing Country X from economic collapse": accept our terms or we, incollusion with our bankster friends, will ruin your economy by pulling the plug on your stock market and initiating a run on your banks (see Ireland's case in Grand Theft Economics above).
Portugal
© UnknownProtesters shout slogans as they take part in a demonstration in central Lisbon on March 11.
300,000 people rallied across Portugal in March after the Portuguese government announced a series of further spending cuts and tax amendments aimed at bringing its budget deficit down to 4.6 percent in 2011. The most powerful country in the world plunders on $14 trillion in debt, yet the ordinary people of little Portugal must "reassure the markets" that Portugal can "solve its problems" without needing an international bailout such as those extended to Greece and Ireland. Half of Portugal's employable population is either unemployed or close to it, and are experiencing falling living standards.
Serbia
Tens of thousands of disenchanted Serbs protested in central Belgrade in the biggest anti-government rally since the destruction of Yugoslavia by the US/NATO. The protest's organisers wanted to show the opposition's strength ahead of elections scheduled next year, but the impetus behind the mass gathering was the same as everywhere else: politicians promised milk and honey as Serbia prepares for EU assimilation, but the people see nothing but increased hardship.
Croatia
Street protests in Croatia started on 22 February 2011 after a call to protest was issued over the Internet. Approximately 15,000 anti-government protesters rallied in Zagreb only to be met by police who used tear gas and batons to disperse some of the protestors, and metal fences to corral other parts of the crowd, injuring at least 25 people. Prompted by a succession of corruption scandals, shared fears with their Serbian neighbours of impending assimilation into the EU and solidarity with the rebellions across the Middle East, Croatians have been protesting almost daily since February.
Britain
© Tim Mitchell/Press AssociationProtester washing eyes A man washes his eyes after police used CS gas on tax protesters in London.
Things came to a head at the end of March with a Trades Union Congress (TUC)-organized March for the Alternative in London, protesting about the coalition government's planned cuts of social welfare programmes. Around 4,500 police officers were drafted in and the man in charge of the operation, Commander Bob Broadhurst, stating that his forces will use the extremely unfriendly "kettling" tactic "as a last resort". On the day itself, an estimated 500,000 people marched against savage austerity cuts. 200 people were arrested as "hardcore anarchists" fought police. The protest appeared to take two forms: a peaceful TUC march with people from all walks of life, from all over the country, including members of UK Uncut who peacefully occupied a Fortnum and Mason store in London; and an organised mob of "anarchists" masked in balaclavas who hijacked the march and caused significant damage to buildings.
These so-called "anarchists" had spent weeks preparing their course of action via Facebook and Twitter latter group of anarchists. They broke off from the main protest and broke into banks, smashed windows and sprayed graffiti on walls and attacked the Ritz Hotel with paint and firebombs. Fires continued to burn well into the evening, as did the violence as police officers were pelted with ammonia-filled light bulbs. The Anarchist group appeared small in number, mostly kids led by well-built young men. Curiously, the police appeared to show little interest in stopping them, with only 11 charged for the more blatant acts of vandalism. Could it be that the young kids were charged and the leaders untouched, possibly because they were 'known', i.e. they were police spies or even MI5 officers who had infiltrated the group as provocateurs? We feel entitled to speculate about this given their known involvement in co-opting protest groups of all shades towards violence and ultimately self-destruction.
UK Uncut members, specifically those who peacefully occupied Fortnum and Mason, comprised the majority of arrests and are facing criminal charges of aggravated trespass. But many of the 'black balaclava' group were also present, spraying the outside of the store with slogans. The peaceful protesters were told by a policewoman on duty at the store, at an early stage of the sit-in, that they could leave if they wanted and that they would not be detained because there had been no criminal damage and their behaviour was non-violent and sensible. She must have been lying through her teeth because the UK Uncut protesters were next prevented from leaving while London Metropolitan police prepared a 'kettle' for them outside. They were then taken to various police stations around London and detained for 24 hours. Were the arrests politically motivated? Their mobile phones were confiscated, probably in order to gain information on the group. In the House of Commons the following Monday, the Home Secretary told MPs:
"Just as the police review their operational tactics, so the Home Office will review the powers available to the police. I have asked the police whether they need further powers to prevent violence before it occurs. I am willing to consider powers which would ban known hooligans from rallies and marches and I will look into the powers the police already have to force the removal of face-coverings and balaclavas.and,
"If the police need more help to do their work, I will not hesitate in granting it to them," she said.
"I say to them [UK Uncut] that they certainly have not been misrepresented and I think that what we need to do at this point in time is make it absolutely clear; the police are right in what they were doing in trying to prevent violence for taking place in our streets," May said.Yeah, right.
United States
© DesconocidoProtestors occupying the State capitol building in Wisconsin
People in Wisconsin are not happy. Republican Governor Scott Walker has been pushing a budget measure curtailing the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions. Without these rights, unions are effectively destroyed. It is not hard to figure why Walker would have it this way. If we follow the money, we find that billionaire oil tycoons Charles and David Koch - known tea party financiers - gave Walker roughly $100,000 in campaign contributions during his successful 2010 election campaign.
"Koch-backed groups like Americans for Prosperity, the Cato Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Reason Foundation have long taken a very antagonistic view toward public-sector unions," Mother Jones noted. "Several of these groups have urged the eradication of these unions. The Kochs also invited Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, an anti-union outfit, to a June 2010 confab in Aspen, Colorado;" .Walker's bill would also force government workers to more than double their out-of-pocket contributions to health care and pensions funds, resulting in pay cuts of between 8 and 20 percent. Pay raises would be locked at or below increases in the Consumer Price Increase. The measure also arrogates to the governor new powers to fire workers if he declares a state of emergency. As a result, hundreds of thousands of teachers, students and supporters have been staging a series of demonstrations since February. Inspired by their Egyptian counterparts, they have continuously occupied the capitol building. By organizing walkouts, Wisconsin schoolteachers have managed to close 200 Milwaukee public schools for a day.
A similar bill was being considered in Ohio, where it drew a similar reaction from workers.
Wisconsin voters have also launched a campaign to recall the Republican Senators who have stood with Walker.
Reacting like a true pathocrat, Walker has increased police presence on the streets and has threatened to deploy the National Guard. In neighboring Indiana, Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Cox couldn't hide his colors and 'tweeted' that riot police in Wisconsin should "use live ammunition" to clear out pro-union demonstrators. Happily, he lost his job. Yet it is a sign of the times that a person in such a position so casually suggests the murder of civilians demanding their rights.
The (Koch's) tea party has been calling for counter-demonstrations, which thankfully have not had much success, judging by the 3,000 pro-labor supporters who booed conservative heroes Sarah Palin and Andrew Breitbart at a tea party gathering in Madison, Wisconsin, while chanting "shame!" and "tax the rich!" This one is a joy to watch:
But beware not to think that this is a Republican or conservative thing only. Democrats have been notorious for their hypocrisy. Obama himself is preparing a budget which will deliver over $1 trillion in cuts to be overwhelmingly directed against the working class.
Protests are spreading to Ohio, Indiana and Detroit. The following report by RT News suggests that the US may be heading for Molotov cocktails on the streets or martial law. We would not rule out either.
As Above, So Below
We have written elsewhere about the enormous electrical discharges from the alignment of celestial bodies and their known and hypothesised effects on Earth's systems. The extreme weather on Earth, mysterious cosmic manifestations in space, strong solar activity, magnetic field fluctuations, flocks of dead birds falling out of the sky, mass animal deaths the world over, etc. are all bound to the upswing in revolutionary fever, which commenced shortly after lunar and solar eclipses just two weeks apart over the Gregorian New Year.
It is our contention, based on the evidence of past correlations of societal upheaval and cyclic catastrophes, that the upheaval in the heavens is reflected by humanity's experience of same. It is not yet possible for anyone 'down here' to determine which causes which, but a case can be made for humanity "creating its own reality". Not along the lines of the narcissistic wishful thinking propounded in the New Age movement, in which I can have or be anything I want simply because it is me; rather that the aggregate effect of billions of people experiencing misery and suffering is a homing beacon for the comets heading our way.
Besides oil, domestic incentives for foreign distractions and the no-bid clean-up contracts, we think the primary incentive for launching Operation Odyssey Dawn against Libya was, as always, for control. Earth Changes are underway in earnest. The global elites are going to try everything they can to distract humanity from their imminent extinction by exploiting existing fault lines within countries to create fake wars (sadly with very real consequences for those caught up in them) from which they enrich themselves further by arming both sides, steal the natural resources and line their underground nests from where they anticipate riding out the cosmic storm.
World Revolution is the name of the game, the ultimate conflagration as laid out in the Bible. Study Douglas Reed's The Controversy of Zion and you will see that every event of any significance going back to the late 19th century (at least) is tangential to this predominant line of force leading humanity to oblivion. The fulfillment of Zion is not simply the fulfillment of Israel's political aspirations. After all, Israel itself will ultimately be sold out and "cut loose". Zionism is an ideology which attracts adherents of all backgrounds from every country. Stripped of its fine words and the cloak of religion, Zionism is the 'ideology' of domination by, for and of psychopaths. People of Jewish ancestry and Judaism are as much prisoners to this blueprint of death as anyone else.
© SOTT.net
The stark, alien pathology shaping events seems to have really had its mask loosened by all these societal and planetary quakes in 2011. There is hope in this. Connecting the dots facilitates ever greater numbers of us to see psychopathy for what it is, and to call it out for what it is. However, the time for taking to the streets to do so is over. At this point, public demonstrations of righteous anger will only feed back into the World Revolution of the Powers That Be. They will use it to foment more crushed uprisings, more engineered wars, more economic slavery, more invasive technologies and thus more misery for the majority of people inclined towards creative freedom.
Psychological, emotional and spiritual awakening to feeling part of a fellowship of normal human beings who stand against psychopaths in power may prove to be much more important for our collective future than any temporary political change in any one place. The collective energetic expression of men and women becoming the human beings they were born to be, and confronting 'them' with the truth, might just bring about a game-changing outcome.
In spite of the obviousness of the truth before their eyes, most continue to believe the propaganda and continue to create the reality they have always known. Energy spent trying to directly wake them up from their slumber is wasted. They will turn against you for "attacking" them with "your hateful words". If there's no one around with whom you can share what you see, try instead to give truth to the lie inwardly. When you see something, name it for what it truly is, then watch as new energies present you with opportunities for new creative endeavours. The task of connecting the dots might seem gloomy at first, but remember always that there is balance in all things and that joy follows suffering.
Until next month, be excellent to each other.
What an eye opener. I'm so glad the "Connecting the Dots" series is back. Great work! Thank you!