Showing posts with label FEMA camps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FEMA camps. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Recession/Depressions: How the GOP 'Soaks' the Poor and Middle Classes

'Depression' is the word used to describe how the working classes get soaked. Austrian-born economist Joseph Schumpeter as quoted in Robert Heilbronner's "The Worldly Philosophers" regaled his Harvard students in the mid-1930s
Chentleman, you are vorried about the depression. You should not be. For capitalism, a depression is a good cold douche. [By which he meant shower.]
Scrooge put it even more bluntly:
"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons...then let them die and decrease the surplus population."

—Scrooge
There have been fears that the US economy was perched to jump off into a 1930s-style depression. Thanks to Schumpeter, many have said that a recession or a depression may not be such a bad thing. That depends, of course, upon whether or not you have enough reserves to ride out a recession. It has been argued that the international 'banking establishment' manufactures recessions/depressions to give investors a chance to pick up bargain stocks or entire businesses. But --is this a good thing as Schumpeter implied?

I hate to say 'I told you so' but I told you so! Here is an excerpt from my previous article.
  1. Recessions, though not caused by declining stock markets, are always accompanied and often predicted by a plunging stock market. Republicans sell out at the peak, taking their profits. Enough selling will trigger the plunge; less knowledgeable investors begin to follow suit from fear but too late. Last man out loses.
  2. Having taken their profits on the upside, a depressed market is but an opportunity for the rich Republican to get back in at lower prices. Guess who sells at the lower price: the poor schmuck who is 180 degrees out of phase and can only dream of being a rich Republican. In reality, those he aspires to join are exploiting him.
  3. Very knowledgeable investors make money "selling short", buying "put options". These investors get peak prices for stocks even as the price declines. Illegal insider information is executed with "calls" and "puts." The perpetrators of 911, for example, made millions, possibly billions, selling short the stocks of UA and AA. I defy anyone to come up with an 'innocent' explanation. The recipients of those profits had guilty foreknowledge of 911. The name 'Buzz' Krongard comes in connection with a known terrorist organization: the CIA.

    Now --a planned financial meltdown might have presented the same opportunities. Historically, 'elites' have always emerged richer, stronger from recessions. On the other side of Ronald Reagan's recession of some two years, the rich had gotten richer while the middle class was all but wiped out. The ill-effects of that recession are still seen in the decline of middle class neighborhoods, the permanent loss of manufacturing base and the jobs it created.The profits and volume were most certainly outside norms, proof that those executing the options had precise foreknowledge of the attacks. Those making those profits had "guilty knowledge" of the attacks; they were at the very heart of a murderous conspiracy.
  4. Unemployment always goes up in a recession. At the end of a longer recession, companies have the luxury of hiring from a larger labor pool at lower wages and/or salaries. Some companies --citing hard times --may reduce benefits, cut vacation or sick time. Big business must hate good times; it is only during times of full employment that workers have any leverage at all. Offhand I can think of only two times in history that have come close: the Clinton years, and, interestingly, Europe after the Black Death. The labor supply had been depleted by plague. Employers were often forced to accede to worker demands for better conditions, money, a place to live! Serfs had been freed and it marked the beginning of the end for Feudalism and set the stage for 'corporate feudalism', an age in which we still labor and suffer.
  5. Admittedly, many businesses go belly-up during recessions. While lip service is given to 'free markets' and Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', die hard robber barons hate the 'free market'. They prefer 'monopoly' when they can create one and 'oligopoly' when they can't. Free competition among many sellers is the last thing they want. Recessions are welcomed. It's the 'cold douche', a ruthless flush, so beloved by Schumpeter and the robber barons of American capitalism.
  6. Don't expect recessions to bring down prices. More often, higher prices are the light that is seen at the end of the long, dark tunnel. In other words, those businesses fortunate enough to survive a 'downturn' are in the enviable position of raising prices on the other side. Higher prices benefit businesses that manage, even with government help, to stay in business during a recession. So much for laissez-faire capitalism. Those fortunate businesses now make more money per unit produced and will do so with fewer employees. The world is not so kind to everyone else, primarily smaller businesses and entrepreneurs, freelancers, and worker bees. Prices, we learned in Economics 101, are determined by supply and demand. If the demand is such that the market is quite willing to pay any price for it (prescription drugs, gasoline, certain rents) then demand is said to be inelastic.
  7. At the expense of over-simplifying, consumer demand is the arbiter of price only in markets characterized by diffuse competition. Recessions militate against a market of this sort, weeding out all but 'privileged' businesses, primarily those with juicy government contracts or GOP cronies in office. Only in the textbook model, is it assumed that the oligopolist's market demand curve becomes less elastic at prices below a certain point. In markets characterized by the continuing decline in the number of 'sellers', it is obvious that there are fewer motivations for oligopolists to reduce prices. In such a market, the oligopolist (an aspiring monopolist) makes more money selling fewer units at higher prices than could be earned selling more units at lower prices. How many people are out of a job makes no difference to the American right wing for whom Scrooge is their abiding inspiration.
The American right wing, consulted by slick Madison avenue whiz kids, will never call the American gulag of FEMA camps by the names 'work houses' or 'prisons'. By any name, they are presumably open and ready for those who fall through the gaping cracks. A perpetually depressed economy is a good source of slave labor. Who benefits? KBR? Halliburton?

Recessions/depressions are paid for with the 'blood, toil, tears and sweat' of the working classes without whom nothing would ever get produced and no profit would be realized. This would be a high price to pay even if the benefits were fairly distributed at the end of what is euphemistically called the 'business cycle'. But they never are. It is always the upper classes, recently, the top one percent of the nation, that benefit. It is the 'lower classes' who pay for the recession by suffering the Four Horsemen of Economic Apocalypse: unemployment, lower wages, higher prices and bankruptcy.

The GOP exploits convenient rationalizations that benefit Bush's 'my base'. Some in the GOP will choose to believe, as did Joseph Schumpeter, that depressions are but 'a process of creative destruction' that weeds out 'inefficiencies' in the economy. Others know that not to be true butrepeat it anyway just as they had espoused 'supply-side' economics during the Reagan years. It is not 'inefficient firms' that are weeded out. It is the competition, it is what is left of the America's working class, it is the millions who will be deprived of education, opportunity, future.
Are there no FEMA camps? Are there no prisons? Then let them die and decrease the surplus population.

—Scrooge (updated)

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Sunday, October 12, 2008

The End of the Rule of Law in America

US troops are back home in America to wage war upon the people of the US. New laws make public dissent of any kind --however peaceful --an act of 'terrorism'. Congress was threatened with martial law, literally blackmailed, into passing the infamous and ineffective bailout! The threat of martial law, therefore, is not only in the official record, it is made clear with the arrival of US troops withdrawn from Iraq to patrol US streets, control crowds, deal with 'civil unrest'. Bluntly --they are here to wage war on you unless you happen to be among the one percent who owns more than 90 percent of the nation's total wealth.

It was in 1999 that the government contracted to Kellogg, Brown and Root [KBR], a subsidiary of Dick Cheney's Halliburton, huge contracts to build a FEMA archipelago of 800 camps in secret locations across the US. They have ovens. They have --at their disposal --the government's recent acquisition of about 500,000 plastic coffins. What is the 'innocent' explanation for this secret that is no secret?

There is no innocent explanation! The new laws seem designed to fill up the camps. Peaceful activists may be arrested, detained and denied 'Due Process of Law' if anyone in authority but 'deems' one to be a 'terrorist'. Any public dissent of any type --however peaceful --is defined to be an act of 'terrorism'. Free speech is dead. You may no longer express a contrary opinion where it can be heard and thus 'deemed' to be an act of terrorism. This has been true in airports for some time now.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists."

--SF Gate, San Francisco Chronicle, Rule by fear or rule by law?
The Army Times --hardly a 'conspiracy site' --issued a complete story about a combat brigade that has been withdrawn from Iraq to civilian duty in the US --duty that will include shooting at American citizens with 'rubber bullets', tasering folk, stopping vehicular traffic, using shields' and 'batons'!
The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.”

They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.

...

The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and, beanbag bullets.

“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 throughout your whole body.

“I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds ... it put me on my knees in seconds.”

--Army Times, Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1
What does the the government fear from citizens who would otherwise be happy with their governments if they were not daily threatened and blackmailed with martial law?


The Congress was literally blackmailed and threatened. There were warnings of drastic drops in the stock markets. The bailout was passed --under duress --but the stock market collapsed anyway!
Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton. But the real question is: What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people?

Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law. For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order."

The Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies. The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.

Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government." This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51.

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combatting it.

According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it.

--

--SF Gate, San Francisco Chronicle, Rule by fear or rule by law?
Perhaps the 'new programs' referred to are the sweeping laws which, in fact, create a police state. A new program is most certainly the use of the US military for 'crowd control' and 'civil unrest'. I would have expected this criminal affront to the Constitution from a gopper --but from a Democrat, it is the unkindest cut of all! Et tu, Brute!
Earlier this week, Congressman Michael C. Burgess from the 26th District of Texas, went public on Monday stating live on Infowars nationwide radio broadcast, that House speaker Nancy Pelosi had declared House Rule 136A, effectively putting the House under "Martial Law" rules, a dictatorial measure only activated during times of national emergency.

Analysts and Congressmen alike have equated these threats;to "fearmongering" and described as a form of "economic terrorism" carried out powerful banking interests in order to secure the record $850 billion payout to the banks by the American people.

Physical Martial law may be invoked by the President of the United States in case of any deemed "state of emergency". Martial Law has not been put into practice since Lincoln, where several Congressmen were arrested or put under house arrest. In 1878, Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids military involvement in domestic law enforcement without congressional approval. However, both the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and USNORTHCOM has increased its direct involvement with US civilian administration. Additionally, the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, and President Bush's recent PD51 may possibly rescind previous limits by suspending Government as well as other Constitutional guarantees such as habeas corpus.

--Representatives Were Threatened with "Martial Law" if Bailout Bill Did Not Pass

That US troops are deployed in order to wage war upon the people of the US is evidence that the Police State has already been declared. It's a Bush fait accompli. US Troops have no legitimate business patrolling US streets in the absence of a 'real' emergency. A Bush pretext will provide one!

If the high court had not been packed with the likes of Scalia, Alito, Roberts, and Thomas one might might have believed that such draconian, totalitarian measures would be struck down. One is no longer confident. The measure will stand because our once free nation is no longer. It will stand because what previous courts had declared to be protected rights under the First Amendment have been trashed by Bush and his co-conspirators in the judiciary.

The use of US troops against US citizens is, in fact, against federal law and the Constitution. Everything that the Army Times says the Brigade is trained for violates the original prohibition against the use of the military as a Posse Comitatus.

Has this nation already acted in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act? The horrifying use of tanks, armored personnel carriers and other weapons of war in the military-style assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco was but a preview, a harbinger of things to come.
The allegations of child molestation were investigated in the intervening two years, twice, by Texas welfare department authorities and found to be baseless. The Sheriff's department investigated the allegations of illegal guns and these claims were found to be baseless. The investigations were peaceful. There were no problems.

Mark Breault, however, continued to make his baseless and slanderous allegations against the Branch Davidians. The Cult Awareness Network turned up the pressure.

The newspapers called Breault a "private investigator who has tracked the Davidians for two and a half years." "Tracked"? They had lived at the Mt. Carmel Center since 1935. How much "tracking" did it take? "Investigator"? Ha. He's a self-proclaimed "prophet" with a vendetta against the Branch Davidians. And who paid him so handsomely that he could afford to "track" them for 2-1/2 years, anyway? Did the media bother to check any of this out? Never.

...Calling a religion a "cult" and putting out false information across the media about "child molesting" and "weapons caches" is exactly the same technique that was used by the Nazis to portray the Jews as filthy, disgusting people, so they could be killed. It is the same technique used by every tyrannical government, to kill an unpopular and potentially vocal adversarial group. But in this country, we are supposed to have freedom of religion. It would seem that is a pipe dream.

...

So, America, we have cold-blooded killers running our country. Isn't it about time you put down your beer, got up off the sofa, and did something about it?

--Linda Thompson, What Hapened at Waco
The ATF attack on Mt. Carmel should have been a wake up call. If anyone in the Clinton administration deserved impeachment, it should have resulted from what happened in Waco. But --no! There was no GOP outrage because the GOP might have ordered worse themselves and did not wish to establish a precedent that they didn't want to live with later. I can't recall a single word uttered by the GOP in defense of the Constitution. I cannot recall a single GOP voice raised in defense of the guaranteed right of religion or free speech!

I cannot recall a single GOP voice raised to protest the violations of Due Process of Law! I cannot recall a single GOP voice in opposition to the jack-booted thugs who brought to an end a rule of law in America! The GOP would, instead, try to impeach the president for a blow job --an act that is not even a crime!

The GOP coveted Clinton his position because, as the record has proven, they intended to make of the White House a platform from which they would establish their own dictatorship. Under Bush, it is a fait accompli.

In the meantime, some 800 FEMA camps are readied --with ovens and Nazi-like barracks --to receive dissenters. Here's an excerpt from one person's report of a visit to a KBR FEMA camp:
"The first one we observed was in Palmdale, California. It is not operating as a prison at the moment but is masquerading as part of a water facility. Now why would there be a facility of this nature out in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no prisoners?

The fences that run for miles around this large facility all point inward, and there are large mounds of dirt and dry moat surrounding the central area so the inside area is not visible from the road. There are 3 large loading docks facing the entrance that can be observed from the road. What are these massive docks going to be loading?

We observed white vans patrolling the area and one came out and greeted us with a friendly wave and followed us until we had driven safely beyond the area. What would have happened had we decided to enter the open gate or ask questions?

This facility is across the street from the Palmdale Water Department. The area around the Water Department has fences pointing outward, to keep people out of this dangerous area so as not to drown. Yet, across the street, the fences all point inward. Why? To keep people in? What people? Who are going to be it’s occupants? There are also signs posted every 50 feet stating: State of California Trespassing Loitering Forbidden By Law Section 555 California Penal Code."
I believe that the 'goddamned piece of paper' --otherwise known as the Constitution of the United States --makes the use of armed forces against American citizens on American soil a matter of 'high treason' i.,e the government waging 'war' upon the people, a matter that is expressly forbidden by the "Goddamn Piece of Paper", Article III:
Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

--US Constitution, Article III
Under the 'goddamned piece of paper' (know to us as the US Constitution) the people of the US are the 'sovereign'. We ARE the United States --by law! By waging war upon us --the people of the United States --Bush has already committed mass murder and high treason. [See: Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution]

Additionally --
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

--US Constitution, Amendment III
There is also the matter of the abusive use of military personnel to violate the Constitutional rights of US citizens:
Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

US Codes, § 1385. Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus
of the U.S. Army against the American people?

-- Of course, none of this means anything to George W. Bush, a would be dictator for whom the rule of law means nothing, the Constitution is 'just a goddamned piece of paper". Bush is the price we pay for our failure as a nation to value the gift of intelligence. We might have done better had we paid attention to the great philosopher who wrote of the 'moral imperative to be intelligent'.

Bush is an incompetent boob who has, in fact, bankrupted the nation, violated the Constitutional rights of US citizens and has waged war upon them with acts of high treason and mass murder --capital crimes for which he should stand trial for his life. The charges to include thousands of violations of US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441.
(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

--TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441. War crimes

Winston Churchill wrote:
""The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist."

-- Winston Churchill, Nov. 21, 1943"
Bush repeatedly asserts a power to imprison anyone without charges --no phone call, no lawyer, no hearing, no trial! The Army Times stated that the troops --formerly in Iraq --will be used domestically for 'crowd control' in cases of civil unrest. And within days of the Army Times 'story', it was revealed that the Bush administration had threatened 'Martial Law' if the bailout bill was not passed. Therefore, we are already living in a police state. And there is likewise a warning.
People must see clearly the futility of maintaining the fight for social goals within the framework of civil debate. When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law; peace is considered already broken.

--Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Guerilla Warfare
It was stated recently that the troops will be on 'our side'. Well --our troops will be taking their orders from the government. And the government is NO LONGER on our side.

And --on our side against whom? More phony terrorists?

The 'terrorists' ARE the government and, as Che would have put it: the peace is already broken.

Government is legitimate ONLY to the extent that it lives up to its SOCIAL CONTRACT with the people. The government of the US has broken that contract! Repeatedly and with impunity. This 'government' is illegitimate!


Scott Ritter: "Pick Your City"

The war waged upon the people of the US will get worse and the people will push back. The people --as a body -- must declare now that no decree now issued is valid, no unjust law enforceable! The revolution has begun and the illegitimate government in DC has won the first several rounds. With US troops in the streets, it is naive to believe that upon a landslide win by Obama, the entrenched militarists will simply fold up their tents and ride willingly into that dimming sunset.

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