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The Case for Nationalizing Monsanto
The Case for Nationalizing Monsanto
Ridding the world of Monsanto via a state buy-out would be a boon to humanity.
Capitalism fails in two situations: monopoly and state-capital cronyism. Monopoly extinguishes competition and that effectively extinguishes capitalism.
When the elites of the state and private capital collude, i.e. crony capitalism, the few gain power and wealth at the expense of the many.
The state (broadly speaking, government) fails when it serves the few at the expense of the many, while claiming to serve the interests of the many. The state only fulfills its purpose when it serves the interests of the many at the expense of the few who control the majority of the political power and private wealth.
Monsanto is the epitome of monopoly and crony-state collusion. But Monsanto’s grip is not only on the throat of the nation– through its monopoly on seeds that it enforces globally, its grip is strangling the entire world.
Monopolies on food, energy and water (what I term the FEW resources) are not like monopolies on discretionary goods and services. People have to pay whatever the monopoly charges, as substitutes are either unavailable, very expensive or under the control of the same cartel/quasi-monopoly.
Before Monsanto extended its grip as the state-enforced seed monopoly, state universities and extension services developed seed strains and provided the seeds for a nominal cost. Over time, this publicly owned and managed system of providing low-cost seeds has eroded under pressure from for-profit private firms such as Monsanto and the benign neglect of a government that has been captured by private interests and self-serving elites.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Clintons and Their Banker Friends
The Clintons and Their Banker Friends
The past, especially the political past, doesn’t just provide clues to the present. In the realm of the presidency and Wall Street, it provides an ongoing pathway for political-financial relationships and policies that remain a threat to the American economy going forward.
When Hillary Clinton video-announced her bid for the Oval Office, she claimed she wanted to be a “champion” for the American people. Since then, she has attempted to recast herself as a populist and distance herself from some of the policies of her husband. But Bill Clinton did not become president without sharing the friendships, associations, and ideologies of the elite banking sect, nor will Hillary Clinton. Such relationships run too deep and are too longstanding.
To grasp the dangers that the Big Six Banks (JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) presently pose to the financial stability of our nation and the world, you need to understand their history in Washington, starting with the Clinton years of the 1990s. Alliances established then (not exclusively with Democrats, since bankers are bipartisan by nature) enabled these firms to become as politically powerful as they are today and to exert that power over an unprecedented amount of capital. Rest assured of one thing: their past and present CEOs will prove as critical in backing a Hillary Clinton presidency as they were in enabling her husband’s years in office.
In return, today’s titans of finance and their hordes of lobbyists, more than half of whom held prior positions in the government, exact certain requirements from Washington. They need to know that a safety net or bailout will always be available in times of emergency and that the regulatory road will be open to whatever practices they deem most profitable.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Our Crazy-Making Economy’s Endgame: Festering Frustration Seeking an Outlet
Our Crazy-Making Economy’s Endgame: Festering Frustration Seeking an Outlet
The consequence of policies that exacerbate injustice, inequality and double-bind demands is a madness that will find a social and economic outlet somewhere, sometime.
We all know crazy-makers: people who make contradictory claims about reality, who say one thing and do another, who change their stories constantly to justify their own pursuit of self-interest, who demand the impossible of others while giving themselves unlimited excuses.
When they can’t change reality to suit their purposes, they change their accounts of reality, and stick with the revised stories even when they are contradictory.
This describes the entire financial structure of the U.S.: crazy-making.
We all know the U.S. economy is diseased, and the Powers That Be are attempting to mask the sickness with contradictory accounts of reality.
To get ahead, you need a 4-year college diploma. But oops, the student debt you’ll need to shoulder acts as a brake on getting ahead. And it turns out many of those who became debt-serfs to get a diploma actually end up in jobs that don’t require a college education.
One reality–soaring student loan debt and diminishing value of the product, a college diploma–and two contradictory stories.
Systems theorist/anthropologist Gregory Bateson developed (with others) the concept of double bind, a psychological and social conflict in which contradictory demands generate a form of schizophrenia:
Unlike the usual no-win situation, the subject has difficulty in defining the exact nature of the paradoxical situation in which he or she is caught. The contradiction may be unexpressed in its immediate context and therefore invisible to external observers, only becoming evident when a prior communication is considered.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Global Trade Corporatocracy Slams into Local Resistance
The Global Trade Corporatocracy Slams into Local Resistance
Not everything seems to be going according to script for the self-anointed architects of the new global order. For years lobbyists and representatives of the world’s largest corporations and banks have been meeting with government trade negotiators from Europe, North America and Asia to patch together what could soon be the world’s two biggest ever “trade” deals, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The problem is that as more and more people learn about them, public opposition continues to grow — and with good reason.
If signed, these new deals will enshrine into international law a new system of semi-global, technocratic governance for the exclusive benefit of the world’s largest, richest multinational corporations and private investors. What’s more, in the eternal words of the U.S. Trade Rep Michael Froman, once they are passed, agreements like TTIP will become “the global benchmark for standards in a globalized world.”
For the world’s uber-class of super wealthy individuals and corporations, this is great news.
A Two-Tier Global Justice System
Thanks to the inclusion of the investment protection charter – A.K.A. the Investor State Dispute Settlement (or ISDS) – foreign companies and big investors will be able to sue national governments in private arbitration tribunals for profits they might lose as a result of local or national laws or regulation.
As The Guardian columnist George Monbiot writes, “while the rest of us must take our chances in the courts, corporations across the EU, US and vast swathes of the Asia-Pacific region will be allowed to sue governments before a tribunal of corporate lawyers.” They will be able to challenge the laws they don’t like, and seek massive compensation if these are deemed to affect their “future anticipated profits.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
India Plans to Build 100 “Smart” Cities for the Elites
India Plans to Build 100 “Smart” Cities for the Elites
Have you ever wondered what would happen if the rich kept getting richer? I’m not talking about the 1%. They mostly consist of upper-middle-class business owners and real estate agents. No, I’m talking about the 1% of the 1%. The real power behind the throne. The financial and political elite. If their wealth and power continued to grow by leaps and bounds at the expense of everyone else, how do you think they would live their lives?
If you’re curious about the nature of this dystopian future, then look no further than India, where the government is preparing to break ground on the new “Gift City” which will segregate the elites from the rabble, and should be completed by 2021. It will be a glittering enclave with top-notch building codes, 24-hour electricity, and clean water.
High-speed sewage pipelines will rocket their waste out of the city at speeds of 90km per hour (you can’t make this stuff up) and the wide uncongested streets will carry an efficient public transport system. At the center of this gilded settlement, will be a “Command and Control Center” that monitors traffic, and utilizes an extensive system of CCTV cameras. Despite the sprawling surveillance that would make most sane people uncomfortable, compared to the rest of this impoverished nation it will be a veritable utopia.
What’s more, India plans to build 100 of these “smart” cities, while restructuring another 500 smaller towns in their image. Obviously, these will not be built for the benefit of the common man. If anything, they will be more like feudal estates that lord over the wider population.
– See more at: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/india-plans-to-build-100-smart-cities-for-the-elite_052015#sthash.T3p23TWd.dpuf
How to Change the World Overnight
How to Change the World Overnight
Making a Difference
Mark Twain said:
If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.
In other words, if the government is not trying to stop something, it must not be very important.
On the flip side of the coin, the great historian Howard Zinn noted:
Protest always looks futile at the time it takes place, but protest mounts up.
If they thought protest is futile they wouldn’t send the police out every time there’s a demonstration. [Examples of what Zinn is talking about here, here, andhere.]
You set up a picket line somewhere of 7 people, and 12 policemen show up. They must worry about protests. Because they know that small protests lead to large ones.
We noted in 2009:
As MSNBC news correspondent Jonathan Capehart tells Dylan Ratigan, the main problem is that people aren’t making enough noise. Capehart says that the people not only have to “burn up the phone lines to Congress”, but also to hit the streets and protest in D.C.
Even though most politicians are totally corrupt, if many millions of Americans poured into the streets of D.C., a critical mass would be reached, and the politicians would start changing things in a hurry.
As [liberal] PhD economist Dean Baker points out:
The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Johnson and Nixon’s conduct of the Vietnam War was constrained by the huge anti-war movement. It was the civil rights movement, not compelling arguments, that convinced members of Congress to end legal racial discrimination. More recently, the townhall meetings, dominated by people opposed to health care reform, have been a serious roadblock for those pushing reform….
A big turnout … can make a real difference.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
When The Elites Wage War On America, This Is How They Will Do It
When The Elites Wage War On America, This Is How They Will Do It
The recent exposure of the nationwide Jade Helm 15 exercise has made many people suspicious, and with good reason. Federal crisis exercises have a strange historical tendency to suddenly coincide with very real crisis events. We may know very little about Jade Helm beyond government admissions, claims and misdirections. But at the very least, we know what “JADE” is an acronym for: Joint Assistance for Deployment and Execution, a program designed to create action and deployment plans using computer models meant to speed up reaction times for military planners during a “crisis scenario.” It is linked with another program called ACOA (Adaptive Course of Action), the basis of which is essentially the use of past mission successes and computer models to plan future missions. Both are products of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The 2014 Elections by the Numbers – Who are the 1% of 1% Driving American Politics?
The 2014 Elections by the Numbers – Who are the 1% of 1% Driving American Politics?
That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.
The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, and ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importances of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ballgame irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.
– Commentary by Baltimore Orioles COO, John Angelos, on the root causes of the unrest
Earlier this week, I published a post titled, Charting the American Oligarchy – How 0.01% of the Population Contributes 42% of All Campaign Cash, which I think is one of the most important articles I’ve written all year. The key point of the piece is that demonizing the 1%, or 3.2 million American citizens, is divisive and counterproductive. Strategically it’s stupid because there will be many decent, intelligent, motivated people within this class who should be recruited as allies rather than demonized with superficial slogans. Moreover, you should never judge anyone based on their wealth and status alone, you should judge each person by their individual actions.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Hillary Clinton: Elitist, Imperialist, Politician Extraordinaire
Hillary Clinton: Elitist, Imperialist, Politician Extraordinaire
The Democratic Party continues its illicit love affair with presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, when asked about then Senator Clinton’s vote authorizing President George Bush’s disastrous and murderous invasion of Iraq, said this: “Elections are about the future. They’re not about what happened 13 years ago. They’re about the future, and that’s really what people want to hear.” Yes, this is the same Mrs. Pelosi who took the possibility of the impeachment of Mr. Bush ‘off the table’, because the evidence wasn’t there, she said, and she apparently had no interest in looking for it. So, as with Mr. Bush, with Mrs. Clinton we need not look at what she’s actually done, only at what she says she will do in the future. One is reminded of the abusive husband who, during the remorse stage, swears that he’ll never again strike his wife. No need to look at a long pattern of abuse; simply take his word that there will be no more.
Unfortunately, we must, as voters and potential victims of a Hillary Clinton presidency, look back, forward and to the present. And it is that alarming present, put in context by the not-too-distant past, that should give everyone pause.
Mrs. Clinton either has, or is expected to raise, upwards of $2 billion dollars to purchase a four-year lease to the White House. She might wish the public to believe that hard-working United States citizens, toiling at the shop or office every day, are scraping together $5.00 and $10.00 donations, all of which, in total, achieves that $2 billion. However, such is not the case.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Opinion: How this debt-addicted world could go the way of the Mayans
Opinion: How this debt-addicted world could go the way of the Mayans
Paying a high price for too many elites and their ‘frivolous cravings’
Nowadays many countries’ social and political structure relies on debt-driven consumption and increasing levels of entitlements.
Blame the policy makers. To drive economic growth, boost living standards, and manage growing inequality, policy makers have used debt and monetary tools to create economic activity. This has resulted in excessive borrowing and imbalances in global trade and capital.
Governments played a part, too, allowing the buildup of social entitlements to win or maintain office. Private companies also encouraged the growth of employee benefits to avoid immediate pressure on wages as well as boost current earnings and share prices.
But such expensive commitments were rarely fully funded.
Rather than deal with the fundamental issues, policy makers substituted public spending, financed by government debt or central banks, to boost demand. Strong growth and higher inflation, they hoped or believed, would correct the problems.
Barron’s Buzz: Who’s optimistic now?
This week’s Barron’s features the result of a survey of money managers and a look at Amazon’s cloud services. Barron’s Jack Hough discusses. Photo: Getty Images
The current state of affairs echoes Archaeologist Arthur Demarest’s observation about the Mayan civilization: “Society had evolved too many elites, all demanding exotic baubles…all needed quetzal feathers, jade, obsidian, fine chert, and animal furs. Nobility is expensive, non-productive and parasitic, siphoning away too much of society’s energy to satisfy its frivolous cravings.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Gen. Petraeus: Too Big to Jail
Gen. Petraeus: Too Big to Jail
From the Archive: Retired Gen. David Petraeus confessed on Thursday to giving sensitive government secrets to his mistress and then lying about it to the FBI, but will get no jail time, only two years probation and a fine, showing that he is too big to jail, as ex -CIA analyst Ray McGovern predicted in March.
By Ray McGovern (Originally published on March 5, 2015)
The leniency shown former CIA Director (and retired General) David Petraeus by the Justice Department in sparing him prison time for the serious crimes that he has committed puts him in the same preferential, immune-from-incarceration category as those running the financial institutions of Wall Street, where, incidentally, Petraeus now makes millions. By contrast, “lesser” folks – and particularly the brave men and women who disclose government crimes – get to serve time, even decades, in jail.
Petraeus is now a partner at KKR, a firm specializing in large leveraged buyouts, and his hand-slap guilty plea to a misdemeanor for mishandling government secrets should not interfere with his continued service at the firm. KKR’s founders originally worked at Bear Stearns, the institution that failed in early 2008 at the beginning of the meltdown of the investment banking industry later that year.
Despite manifestly corrupt practices like those of subprime mortgage lenders, none of those responsible went to jail after the 2008-09 financial collapse which cost millions of Americans their jobs and homes. The bailed-out banks were judged “too big to fail” and the bankers “too big to jail.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Noam Chomsky: “The Idea Of A Media Which Does Not Repeat US Propaganda Is Intolerable To American Leaders”
Noam Chomsky: “The Idea Of A Media Which Does Not Repeat US Propaganda Is Intolerable To American Leaders”
Few individuals polarize the public with their opinions, statements and mere presence, like Noam Chomsky. The 86 year old linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator, social justice activist, and anarcho-syndicalist advocate, has strong opinions (and in some cases, entire schools of thought) on everything from philosophy, to sociology, to linguistics, but he is perhaps best known in recent years for his political activism which has led to death threats due to his staunch and far-reaching criticism of US foreign policy (allegedly the Anti-Defamation League “spied on” Chomsky’s appearances).
His broader outlook is a peculiar version of libertarianism (he describes himself as an anacrho-syndicalist), in which he asserts that authority is inherently illegitimate, and that the burden of proof is on those in authority. If this burden can’t be met, the authority in question should be dismantled. Authority for its own sake is inherently unjustified. He contends that there is little moral difference between chattel slavery and renting one’s self to an owner or “wage slavery.” He holds that workers should own and control their workplace.
He is has also repeatedly stated his opposition to ruling elites, among them institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and GATT.
In other words, the present, in which ruling elites (whether the BIS and “Troika) and ubiquitous US intervention in every possible foreign affair (courtesy of a State Department which, as it has now been revealed, had until recently worked on behalf of the highest foreign bidder) determine the fate of the entire world, should provide Chomsky with endless material for contemplation.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How Trustworthy Are U.S. & Western ‘News’ Media?
How Trustworthy Are U.S. & Western ‘News’ Media?
During the days of the Soviet Union, and in all dictatorial countries, the ‘news’ media were and are actually propaganda-media, which filter out information that the aristocracy (the people holding the real power, which in the Soviet Union were the Communist Party bosses) don’t want the public to know. Is the United States like that now?
I first came to the conclusion that the U.S. is a dictatorship in 2002, when I found proof that George W. Bush was lying to claim that he possessed proof that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his WMD (weapons of mass destruction) stockpiles, and when the U.S. and UK ’news’ media hid this crucial fact that their heads-of-state were lying. Bush and British Prime Minster Tony Blair were arguing in 2002 against sending IAEA inspectors back into Iraq in order to verify whether or not Saddam was rebuilding his WMD stockpiles; they alleged that they (Bush-Blair) already possessed proof that he was accumulating WMD.
Here is how I found out that they were lying about that: On Saturday 7 September 2002, the White House issued “Remarks by the President and Prime Minister Tony Blair in Photo Opportunity Camp David” (still googlable at here), with the following exchange between a journalist and Bush-Blair:
THE PRESIDENT: AP lady.
Q Mr. President, can you tell us what conclusive evidence of any nuclear — new evidence you have of nuclear weapons capabilities of Saddam Hussein?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Portrait of the American Oligarchy – The Very Troubling Income and Wealth Trends Since 1989
Portrait of the American Oligarchy – The Very Troubling Income and Wealth Trends Since 1989
One of the primary purposes of Liberty Blitzkrieg is to dispel the myth that America is politically a democracy and economically a free market, and prove that it is in fact a centrally planned oligarchy. If the people were well aware of this and fine with it, that’s one thing, but my contention is that the vast majority of the public is merely buying into the myth. This is why the population is so passive and easily controlled. They simply don’t understand what is happening to them. The proverbial frog slowing boiling to death.
Whenever I note that real median incomes in America haven’t increased for decades, many people have a hard time believing it. Nevertheless, as John Adams famously proclaimed: “facts are stubborn things.” Indeed they are, and an article published today by Bloomberg View provides some disturbingly stubborn facts that must be admitted to and faced. We learn that:
If you worry about the declining fortunes of the U.S. middle class, take heed: It might be worse than you realized.
Tracking the middle class can be difficult, because the group is hard to define. Typically, researchers look at households with incomes or net worth in the middle of the entire population. This approach, though, might provide a falsely rosy picture.
Two economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — William Emmons and Bryan Noeth — sought to address this shortcoming by focusing on households’ demographic characteristics, rather than income or wealth. Specifically, they looked at families whose breadwinner was at least 40 years old and had achieved a level of education that would typically allow a middle-class standard of living. Whites and Asians needed exactly a high-school diploma to qualify. For blacks and Hispanics, it took a two-year or four-year college degree — a stark recognition of persistent racial inequality.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
When It Becomes Serious, First They Lie–When That Fails, They Arrest You
When It Becomes Serious, First They Lie–When That Fails, They Arrest You
When lying is no longer enough to gain compliance, then the organs of security are unleashed on dissent and resistance.
“When it becomes serious, you have to lie.” Jean-Claude Juncker simply gave voice to what the world’s leaders practice on a daily basis, because now it’s always serious.
And why is it now serious? Persuading tax donkeys and debt serfs that everything is going their way is now impossible without lies. Persuading the populace that the leadership is working on their behalf was jettisoned in the wake of the 2008 bailout of bankers and parasites.
Stripped of the artifice that they care about anything other than preserving the wealth of their cronies, global political leaders now rely on propaganda: narratives designed tomanage expectations and perceptions, bolstered by carefully tailored official statistics.
Reliance on lies erodes legitimacy. As the rich get richer and the burdens on tax donkeys and debt serfs increase, the gulf between the official happy-story narrative and reality widens to the breaking point, and faith in the narrative and the leadership espousing it declines.
When 20% of the populace no longer believe the lies and begins questioning the state’s enforcement of the status quo, the government devotes its resources to punishing dissenters and resisters. Whistleblowers are charged with trumped-up crimes; those publicly refuting the status quo’s narrative of lies are harassed and discredited, and those who resist state enforcement of parasitic cronyism are set up, beaten, entrapped, investigated, interrogated and arrested once suitably Kafkaesque charges can be conjured up by the apparatchiks of enforcement.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…