SOTT Focus:

Coffee

SOTT Focus: Rescuing Capitalism or Grand Theft & Military Dictatorship?

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© Matson

World stock indexes fell the week ending 16th February led by the Dow losing more than 5% while gold continued to inch its way towards the psychologically important $1,000/oz level, driven by the approach of what looks like another emerging market crisis in Eastern Europe which is driving the Euro and Sterling lower, sending - it would seem - mobile money towards gold. The big US news, however, was the passage of the almost $800 billion stimulus package in the United States and the decidedly lukewarm reception to US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's much heralded $2 trillion bank rescue plan.

The G7 finance ministers met in Rome in an exercise in hot air generation, stating, as if we needed reminding, that the "downturn" will persist through 2009 and that the various "stimulus measures" won't have any noticeable effect for a while as they "build over time". The ministers did pledge to restore confidence to financial markets and growth to the world economy but didn't happen to mention how they plan to do it. Timothy Geithner demanded "exceptional measures" from his counterparts which we can only assume means "exceptionally large amounts of money" to prop up the international banking system so that it can continue to concentrate even greater wealth in even fewer hands.

Bad Guys

SOTT Focus: Netanyahu, Israel's Mussolini



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Andrew Lobaczewski studied at close range a deviant category of humans who, when they manage to grab pivotal positions of power, hold a devastating potential for raining death and destruction down on humanity, simply to further their own interests. These individuals are known as psychopaths, and they move skillfully and purposely throughout the higher echelons of the global body politic. And like clockwork, they slot themselves into all the significant seats of power.

One such individual interests us today. It seems that dangerous moves are afoot which threaten the safety of the entire planet, and that he plays a key role.

Eye 1

SOTT Focus: Big Brother Digest - Steady Creep into an Orwellian Nightmare

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© Banksy
'There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment . . . It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time." - George Orwell's 1984
Under the pretense of the 'War on Terror' the creep towards total control of every aspect of the lives of the World's Citizens continues. No change in America under Obama except greater support for private contractors and further use of wiretapping. The House of Lords speak out against the violation of civil liberties but seem powerless given the EU's role in determining UK legislation. You can't even escape Big Brother UK for a holiday with new travel spying laws. Google latitude causes a stir with it's latest product for stalkers. RFID technology looks poised to facilitate the imposition of a carbon footprint tax despite the flawed global warming science it is based on.

Clock

SOTT Focus: Republicans and Free Marketeers Fiddle while the World Burns

In Nigeria oil workers are protesting the ongoing wave of violence against their industry which operates with legal impunity among the poorest people on earth.

Unemployment soared in the US and Canada; while Obama's dreams of bipartisan support for the rescue of the US economy took a beating as the pathological Republicans in the Senate played their usual games of economic dogma and political mendacity seemingly oblivious to the risk that when the whole house of cards comes down they might not have that cozy seat in an underground bunker they think is reserved in their name. But at least one US politician has had the courage to tell defaulting homeowners to resist eviction for as long as possible.

Unemployment is rising the world over while the social infrastructure in many countries, weakened by years of deliberate destruction from pernicious application of Friedmanite free market ideology, is already struggling under the strain. We are living the Shock Doctrine in real time.

Evil Rays

SOTT Focus: The Baltic Dry Index Panic

fear
There has been a recent flurry of agitated and panic laden emails and articles coming our way pressing the global trade collapse scenario and how we should all head for the hills with our tins of beans, automatic weapons and ammo.

The basis on which these dire warnings are being made is the dramatic drop in the Baltic Dry Index. The article that seems to have set this wave off is posted on one of the less reliable alternative news websites which gives us immediate cause for concern.

We agree that the free market capitalist system is in the process of collapsing from its current form into a new form. It seems to us that there are forces at work that wish to see a total collapse into financial, and ultimately social, anarchy while there are other forces that are seeking to establish a new world economic order modeled to their design. In the midst of such immense events it is important to remain sober and calm and not succumb to the agitation and panic that many commentators seem eager to generate.

Heart - Black

SOTT Focus: Free Market Capitalism - Morally and Financially Bankrupt

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© Unknown

While the world slithers into the black hole of economic collapse, those that head the institutions that sit astride its nations and peoples met in Davos, Switzerland last week for the World Economic Forum. Attendance was, as always, by invitation only and that included the press so we can be sure that whatever came out of Davos 'on-the-record' was intended to. In case you doubt the ability of conference organizers to manage the information flow consider two things; there are numerous "off-the-record" briefings throughout the conference the details of which we never hear, and all those attending, including journalists, want to be invited back for they are members of the Inner Circle and rely on their membership for their place in life.

We were not invited which is somewhat galling given that in October 2005 (The Economic Collapse: An Insider's View) and then again in August 2006 (Signs of the Economic Apocalypse - Update) sott.net (or signs-of-the-times.org as it was then) was hosting podcasts in which the forthcoming collapse of the free market capitalist system was discussed in detail as well as our consistent warnings over the last five years. It is even more galling to find that Nouriel Roubini is being treated as some sort of god for saying exactly the same thing as sott.net after we said it. The upside of not being invited is that you, dear reader, can rest assured of our continued independence of both mind and spirit.

Alarm Clock

SOTT Focus: Connecting the Dots: Israel's Blood Fest Meets the Voice of the People as the Obama Show Begins

Gaza girl
© Maan News Agency
January 2009 will go down in human history as the month when the leaders of the state of Israel showed their true colors. If anyone doubted that Israeli politicians deserved a place next to the likes of Stalin, Hitler or Pol Pot, their storm troopers put those doubts to rest by displaying a brutality and callousness to shock even the most apathetic. To add insult to injury, the Zionist PR machine went into top gear, using all the tricks in the big book of government propaganda. Lies through mass media and lies through their paid 'Hasbara' trolls on the Internet.

But for once a considerable number of the world population - including some in Israel itself - actually saw the genocide for what it was and demonstrated against it. This brought shame on Western governments and on the US in particular as it highlighted Obama's timidity and ultimate compliance, and the Bush administration's grotesque submission to the Zionist agenda.

Comment: All the Connecting the Dots articles can now be accessed here.


Book

SOTT Focus: The Controversy of Zion - One of the most controversial books ever written

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"For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion."

~ Isaiah 34:8.

"An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak and impossible to be silent."

~ Edmund Burke, 1789
In his own time Douglas Lancelot Reed (1895 - 1976) was widely-read. Nowadays he is either pretty much forgotten, or the mere mention of his name evokes outrage among those Establishment experts who have heard of him. The reason for this outrage isn't hard to find: he drew attention to what he saw as a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world, and wrote about its history at length in his book The Controversy of Zion. This was completed in 1956 - but not submitted for publication until 1978, two years after his death.

In the obituary for him which appeared in The Times, Douglas Reed was described as a "virulent anti-Semite". A careful reading of The Controversy of Zion, however, shows this to be questionable - even though Reed himself may on occasion have described himself as a writer of anti-Semitic material. In saying that, Reed seems rather to have been referring to his ardent anti-Pharisaism, anti-Talmudism and anti-Zionism. He doesn't however seem to have been an anti-Semite, in the sense of being a hater of Jews, as there are many, many instances where he shows considerable sympathy for ordinary rank-and-file Jews.

Alarm Clock

SOTT Focus: Dazed and Confused - that's because you're being mugged.

Global financial events seem to be moving with such speed and complexity that it can be difficult to see just where we are headed. Using an imperfect scientific analogy, we seem to be experiencing a Phase Transition, a change from one economic state to another. Just as in a Phase Transition in the physical world, a great deal of heat/energy is involved in the transition. In the economic phase transition this heat is felt keenly on both a personal material and emotional level while the intellect struggles to make sense of it all.

Naturally, we all seek to explain what we perceive in terms of the phase we have been in rather than in terms of the phase we are moving towards. We are like water molecules trying to understand the process of boiling and evaporation in the absence of any concept of being in a gaseous (vapour) state.

What is important is that we understand that we are in a controlled Phase Transition. It may seem chaotic to us but there is an underlying order to it. We are being taken to a new economic phase or Economic Order. The separation between the state and big business is long gone, we find ourselves with increasingly narrow options as our environment changes around us in ways increasingly unfamiliar. We have to apply ourselves in seeking to understand as exactly as possible the new economic environment so as to be better able to navigate our way through it.

We are moving, without doubt, towards totalitarian government first on a national, then regional and ultimately global scale. Totalitarianism has to be resisted on the street, in the market place and in our hearts and minds. Protest is crucial to resistance for it shows us that we are not alone. Similarly economic boycotts at an individual level seem as a drop in the ocean but when added together the economic actions we all take are the economy; if we all boycott a country's products then there will be no market for them; if we all take our bank deposits from the banks there will be a real banking crisis.

Sheeple

Flashback SOTT Focus: Barak Obama - Judas Goat




Cute, cuddly, harmless-looking, liberal Barack Obama. Now there's a guy to get the U.S. back on track! If he can just 'win' the primary (s)election process, and then the (s)election process after that, what's it called...oh yeah, the (p)residential (s)elections, he'll bring an end to the mindless massacring of innocent civilians for profit that has come to define the "war on terror", and the American people need never again be stirred out of their mind-numbing complacency by stories of small brown children being decapitated by a brave American teenager with a .50 caliber machine gun. I mean, Viet-nam and My Lai was containable, it was successfully pitched as an "American tragedy", but this Iraq business is getting out of hand! After all, the harsh realities of war 'over there' are meant to stay 'over there', not ooze out of the carefully manipulated American daily broadsheets and into the fragile mind of the average American.

So Obama's the man to fix it all, right? He'll stop the Republican rot! Or am I missing something?