A Palestinian State?

by Ron Paul

Congressman Ron Paul

The Palestinian Authority’s recent announcement that it would seek UN recognition as an independent state dominated the news and the political debate in the United States last week, though in truth it should mean very little to us. Only a political class harboring the illusion it can run the world obsesses over the aspirations of a tiny population on a tiny piece of land thousands of miles away. Remember, the UN initiated this persistent conflict with its 1947 Partition Plan.

Unfortunately the debate is dominated by those who either support the Israeli side in the conflict, or those who support the Palestinian desire for statehood. We rarely seem to hear the view of those who support the US side and US interests. I am on that side. I believe that we can no longer police the world. We can no longer bribe the Israelis and Palestinians to continue an endless “peace process” that goes nowhere. It is not in our interest to hector the Palestinians or the Israelis, or to “export” democracy to the region but reject it when people vote the “wrong” way.

America’s breathtaking ignorance on our decline

World According to America

By John Blythe

The photograph above is one that I found on the internet and it is meant to be funny, although it certainly illustrates how ignorant America has become on just about everything, while we continue to experience increased decline at an accelerated basis.

Newsflash: We’re not a superpower anymore and we’re not number 1 anymore!

For the third year in a row, we have had an annual budget deficit of over $1.3 trillion. Unfortunately, many Americans have no idea how staggering this is becoming. Since 1976, we have had negative trade deficits every single year because the United States does not produce enough of its own product. In other words, we spend more than what we take in. America has become the principal world consumer, if you will.

Currently, the U.S. federal tax revenue is roughly over $2.2 trillion, while our national debt is more than $14 trillion and the unfunded liabilities is now more than $116 trillion.

Does anyone have any idea how much $116 trillion is? It is unsustainable. This is the money that is supposed to be used for Medicare and Social Security programs. So for someone that is currently 25 years of age, by the time they turn 65, that is if the United States is even in existence at that point, they will most likely not receive any of those benefits.

According to the National Inflation Association, even if you taxed everyone in this country 100% of their personal income, it still would not be enough to fully fund the U.S. Federal Government. Even if the antisemitic sycophant himself, George Soros gave his entire multi-billion fortune to the government, it would only fund this nation’s budget deficit for about two weeks. But we have people out on Wall Street shouting tax the rich!

Wall Street protests spread worldwide

Rome protests (AP)

By John Blythe

The Occupy Wall Street movement spread worldwide this weekend. The protests, which started in New York City about a month ago with people on the left, on the right and down the middle, are calling for reforms to government, stopping corporate corruption, voicing social inequality and providing the redistribution of wealth.

On Saturday, protests in the United States continued in cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Louis and Oklahoma City; and spread rapidly across the globe to Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax, Tokyo, Seoul, Manila, London, Sydney, Paris, Munich, Madrid and Cape Town.

While a majority of these protests were peaceful, this was not the case in Rome. The protests turned into a mass riot, as participants set fire to vehicles and the Italian police had to use tear gas to maintain civility, while in London, there were reports that the British police use batons to beat some of the activists who were too out of control.

In Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, some protesters held up photos and signs of the “so-called” Cuban revolutionist Che Guevara. Do any of these protesters realize that Guevara, despite being a communist, was also a racist and a fascist? Besides, Bosnia seceded from Yugoslavia to escape the collapse of communism during the 1990’s and now here we have protesters calling for communism to return.

Or am I wrong?

Global economy showing no signs of improvement

Global Economy

By John Blythe

In case you didn’t hear, the stock market has been doing well. On Monday, the Dow was up 330 points and has been rather mixed the last two days. In fact, economist Scott Brown of Raymond James, said “after this weekend, the market is expecting something big and concrete that will put the crisis behind us.”

This should be a huge sigh of relief, right?

Not so fast.

If anything, the global economy is on the brink of becoming a much worse scenario than was initially projected. The only reason why the stock market was up the last two days is because German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, presented a plan to solve the European debt crisis by the end of this month.

Well that’s great. The only problem is that both Merkel and Sarkozy are rather reluctant to say much about their approach to solving the crisis. If they have real solutions, they should simply inform the global public about the plan.

CHANGE

by Jessica Contreras

Bringing the End The Fed message to OccupyLA

By Jason Mahakian

FrontierlandPost.com

October 8, 2011

 No more than 15 people along with myself from the EndTheFed Group of Los Angeles held a Protest at the Federal Reserve Branch in Los Angeles On Saturday, October 8.  I’m happy to report that there were two members of Oathkeepers with us as well.  We held our picket signs there for about an hour and a half, under the watch of private security guards, no LAPD here.  What I first noticed was that there was no signage on the building save an engraved brass door handle, obviously wanting to draw little attention to itself.   On the sidewalk, the organizer with a bullhorn led the rest of us with raised voices proclaiming various facts pertaining to The Fed, receiving support from cars that honked as they passed by.

Dow drops over 390 points amid Fed's plan

Wall Street

By John Blythe

As the world continues speculating its growing concerns over another economic recession, well today’s stock market news did nothing to soften those fears. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 500 points and closed at 390 points, amid the Federal Reserve’s “new plan” to address the economic issues here in the United States.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s brilliant new strategy is to try to get the U.S. economy moving forward by moving $400 billion of its own holdings to reduce interest rates on loans.

It must be nice to do whatever the hell you want with money that you print out thin air with virtually no oversight from Congress. I guess we should break out a bottle of champagne for Mr. Bernanke.

With Mr. Bernanke announcing this plan, he has insisted on keeping the Fed’s artificial interest rates near zero. But this is not doing anything to calm the fears of Wall Street. Additionally, while investors decided to delay buying up stocks today amid the Fed’s fantasy plan, there has also been growing speculation with Europe’s financial woes, specifically if Greece is going to be able to avoid a potential default.

Here’s some shocking news. Last week, CNBC reported that “the European Central Bank, along with the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of England, Bank of Japan and Swiss National Bank announced they would offer three month dollar loans to Europe’s commercial banks, easing dollar funding constraints.”

Monopoly Money

by Michael Calpino

Michael Calpino

In case you haven’t heard, the hundreds of billions of dollars we have printed and borrowed to bail out our own banks and businesses that are “too big to fail” has now reached a whole new level of insanity. Our freshly printed dollars are now leaving our own shores to bail out the banks of Europe and their investments in the failed welfare states of Europe. Yes, “Helicopter Ben” Bernanke is now working with European central banks to infuse liquidity and prop up European banks that are heavily invested in bonds from Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, affectionately known in the investment community as the “PIIGS.” No doubt pig slop is worth more than bonds from these bankrupt countries.

 

So without any input from you or I or our elected representatives, the gods at the Fed are going to send hundred of billions or trillions of our dollars to Europe in an attempt to forestall the inevitable collapse of their failed socialism, an experiment made possible by our military welfare. Our dollars are going to ensure the generous pension checks, free health care and the salaries of all those bureaucrats necessary to keep their nanny states running and the eternal adolescents from rioting. And we can’t forget the generous welfare benefits given to a those Muslim immigrants so that instead of working they can sit around and plan jihad against the self-loathing and deteriorating European states and culture. With all our own economic problems and mountains of debt, is this really where our money should be going?

 

Of course, the Obama administration doesn’t engage in any activity for altruistic reasons. It does so either for ideological reasons or to help or pay back supporters. In this case, one of the companies which will experience devastating losses if European banks and countries start defaulting is Obama’s favorite American company, General Electric. GE’s balance sheet looks much like America’s, way too much debt and not enough cash. It has a lot of exposure to credit cards and mortgages in Europe and losses of tens of billions in those markets wil

l put it on the verge of bankruptcy. Of course it won’t fail, we the people have generously guaranteed its debt through 2012 and another bailout would not be hard to get. The only reason Jeff and Co. can run GE like this is because they know they have friends in high places and they are only interested in getting the highest compensation they can while they can as their business model dooms an American icon. Its the Solyndra model writ large.

 

It is important to understand that there is no real wealth available to bail these banks out. Europe is broke. Now that we have joined the European economic club of anemic growth, we don’t have trillions of dollars in wealth lying around either. That means only one thing. The money for these bailouts is brand new off the printing presses. To understand why this is not only horrible economically but just plain immoral, I have reprinted the following excerpt from the Fed section of “Leave Me Alone; A Patriot’s Plan for Restoring Pride and Prosperity in America” available at www.leavemealonenow.webs.com

 

“There is a very simple reason why we intuitively know we are being screwed by this system, a system that benefits those at the top, or the insiders, and leaves the rest of us holding a bag of excrement. To understand why this wholesale printing of money benefits the government and their friends in the banking industry and hurts the rest of us, we need to look at it honestly for what it is-legalized counterfeiting. Counterfeiting is illegal for you and I and for good reason. It erodes confidence in, and the value of, the currency. Remember one of the primary premises of this work, what is wrong/bad/immoral for the individual is wrong/bad/immoral for the government. When the government, through the Fed, prints money, the effects are the same. The currency loses value and eventually, people lose confidence in it.”

 

The question is, who benefits from counterfeiting? Obviously, the counterfeiter does because he goes out and exchanges his fake money for goods and services at their current value, based on the amount of money in circulation. Think of it in a closed neighborhood. In that neighborhood there was one million dollars in circulation and all goods and services were based on that amount of money. The counterfeiter prints another million. He goes out and spends it all, buying a new house, a car and whatever else he wants. He buys everything at current prices based on the one million dollars in circulation. However, he has now doubled the money supply which means money becomes cheaper and goods become twice as expensive. Each time that fake money changes hands, it loses buying power and the average people in the neighborhood suffer from inflation. The crook got his stuff when the currency had twice as much value but everyone else had their purchasing power cut in half.

Now elevate it to the national level. The Fed prints two trillion dollars and trades it for treasuries so the Federal Government now has an extra two trillion dollars to spend. Who gets that money first? Obviously, anyone who works in government receives that money before anyone else. After that, it goes out to all those who have lobbied for and received government contracts and benefits. It goes to bailouts to those whose friendship with Washington has “merited” them such treatment. The banks receive that money as deposits that they use to lend to their friends and clients. They all get to spend that “new” money at current values. However, as that money makes its way through the system, as those union workers and contractors spend it and banks loan it, money becomes cheaper because there is more of it. The rest of us who receive it last find our dollars buy less than they did last year, last month or even last week. It is redistribution of income from the middle class and the poor to the rich and connected.

Of course, the way all that happens in practice is not so simple. Tim Geithner doesn’t walk over to the Fed and hand Ben Bernanke a suitcase full of

treasuries and leave with a suitcase fill of freshly printed hundred dollar bills. The Federal Reserve buys and sells treasures on the open market through a broker, or a series of brokers like Goldman Sachs, not from the treasury directly. These brokers compete with one another under the New York Fed through an auction process, keeping the whole process neatly confined among the Wall Street elite.

The fact is this, wherever power is concentrated, corruption is rampant. The bigger the government, the more corruption. With the amount of money flying around and out of Washington, a process only made possible by the Fed, corruption is precipitated on an unheard of scale where billions of dollars are paid out to those with the best paid lobbyists and more intimate connections. It is a system that is based on an immoral premise, counterfeiting, and therefore it breeds immorality. The only way we are going to even begin to change Washington is to eliminate the very foundation for this perverse and wicked edifice.“

“Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis for society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.” John Maynard Keynes

Mike Calpino

 

New tensions brewing in Serbia and Kosovo? What can history teach us?

By John Blythe

John Blythe

When Josip Tito controlled the multinational former Yugoslavia for some 30 plus years, he held the federation together by keeping the diverse ethnicities in certain republics which included Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovnia and Serbia.

Of course after Tito’s death in 1980, the country’s communist regime eventually fell apart and all of the ethnic regions of Yugoslavia wanted their own independent country, resulting in civil war throughout the 1990’s with Serbia falsely accused of nationalism lead by Slobodan Milosevic.

Since the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, the six former Republics have lived so-called “peaceful” lives, with the exception of Serbia. The reason why Serbia continues to have tension is because of its province, Kosovo.

The issues between Serbia and Kosovo go all the way back to the 14th century, when the Islamic Ottoman Empire expanded its Caliphate into Eastern Europe. Upon seeing that the Serbians were Orthodox Christian and not followers of the Qu’ran, the Ottoman Empire seized control of Kosovo because this area within Serbia had monasteries. The Ottoman Empire burned the churches down and killed thousands of Serbs and ever since then, Muslims from the Islamic Ottoman Empire have resided in Kosovo.

Interestingly, in the 1940’s, Adolf Hitler, with the help of Palestinian leader Haj Amin al-Husseini utilized Muslims from Bosnia and Kosovo to fight against the Serbian military in World War II in his attempts to take over Yugoslavia, which back then, was an ally of the U.S. Military.

But ever since President Clinton launched an unncessary NATO bombing campaign over Yugoslavia in 1999 and accused Slobodan Milosevic of dispatching his Serbian army to “ethnically cleanse” in Kosovo, much of Serbia now harbors resentment against the United States. In fact, the “ethnic cleansing” was the other way around. The Kosovo Liberation Army, a secret militia group, began attacking and killing Serbians. The KLA had been identified as a terrorist organization in 1998 by the U.S. State Department over its ties with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and members were trained in the militia within Kosovo. The KLA wanted the Serbs out of Kosovo, which was why Milosevic fought back.

Had it not been for the war criminal Clinton, his chief cohort General Wesley Clark and everyone’s favorite communist grandma Madeline Albright, the Kosovo problem could have been solved peacefully. The NATO bombing itself did more damage and killed more people,  than the Serbian army was accused of. If anyone is guilty of crimes against humanity, it was NATO.

Well after the 1999 Kosovo War, and after Milosevic was pushed out, everyone thought that Serbia and Kosovo would live in harmony. In fact in 2008, Kosovo declared independence, but it was not recognized by Serbia. Since its independence, Kosovo has created forms of destabilization in the southern eastern parts of Europe, as it has become a breeding ground for Islamic extremism.

Now, there are reports of new tensions brewing between Serbia and Kosovo. According to Russia Today, Kosovo has sent special forces to the Kosovo-Serbia border to stop Serbians from entering. Hundreds of people blocked main roads in response to Kosovo police forces seizing control of two disputed border crossings, which resulted in the death of at least one police officer. There are some 60,000 Serbians living in Kosovo that do not recognize it as a legitimate country, and this has further stoked ethnic tensions.

Kosovo insists that it is trying to enforce a ban on Serbian imports, but the truth of the matter is that Kosovo, like many of the countries in Africa, is poverty stricken and has no real economy. It was a false country set up to make the United States happy about its investment of oil pipelines, not to mention the massive military base that was established in the post-Milosevic regime. It turns out that Kosovo is a horrible mistake to declare independence, when in fact, Kosovo has (and always will be) a part of Serbia.

Having seen what Kosovo and Serbia have gone through in the last 700 years, I think history has shown that this conflict of Islam and Orthodox Christian residing in the same region is incompatiable and simply, not possible. Furthermore, drawing evidence of the previous wars in the former Yugoslavia, is the United States ever going to learn from history?

Already, NATO peacekeepers have been dispatched to the Kosovo-Serbia region and if the tensions continue, well we may very well have another Balkan War on our hands…

 

 

Banned from Youtube: Neo-con highjacked foreign policy

 

 

This video was banned from youtube. It is back up, for now.