'We are apparently betting the nation’s (perhaps the planet’s) economic future on a service that essentially enables petabytes of frivolous banality to flow through the world’s data pipes. The critics are not wrong. Facebook is frivolous. Incredibly so. What they get wrong though is assuming that old economy stuff is not frivolous. Take the auto industry. For a century people have used cars for completely frivolous things like taking road trips, going to dumb B-movies, going over to visit friends to play board games, or to a workplace to sit in a cubicle and be bored for 8 hours. Drag races, NASCAR, random drives to feel the wind in your face (why not go running so you can lose some weight at the same time?): what is so “serious” about any of this? Still think the old economy is more serious than Facebook? Suddenly, Farmville seems very green and eco-friendly. Ultimately, to a scary degree, everything in the American economy is about sustaining frivolity. Much of it obesity-inducing, gas-guzzling, non-renewable, planet-destroying frivolity. If we’re going to do this, we might at least do it more efficiently. Enter Facebook. By digitizing much of the frivolous banality in our lives that currently takes expensive physical infrastructure, gasoline and tens of millions of jobs to sustain, Facebook is showing us the true value of the fading American industrial economy itself. -- The Facebook IPO is ultimately unsettling for just this reason. It shows us that even those who toil away today at apparently noble, uplifting professions that elevate minds and nourish souls, ultimately do so in service of a fundamentally frivolous economy. An economy that is basically one giant feedback loop between frivolous consumption driven by television and complicated production systems that absorb the talents of millions. It is really a huge circus of sound and fury signifying almost nothing.'

'Nothing makes people more neurotic than the expectation that they should be enjoying themselves. -- “To some extent the needs and wants of people have to be continuously stirred up,” [Dichter] argued, so that everyone will work hard to buy what they desire. In the early 1950s he discerned that, when Americans borrowed money, they preferred to do so from loan sharks at high interest rather than from a bank, because they saw bankers as judgmental father figures, whereas loan sharks lacked the authority to moralise. He advised one bank to advertise checking accounts with overdraft facilities, recognising that people wanted more money than they had but didn’t want to take out loans. As for credit cards, Dichter presciently called them “magic” for the way they provided “the American consumer with a symbol of inexhaustible potency.” One can only imagine what he would make of America’s latter-day spendthrift habits. -- “Recent published findings in neuroscience indicate it is emotion, and not reason, that drives our purchasing decisions,” reported Mobile Marketer magazine earlier this year. The quantitative trends that tossed Dichter aside have ultimately led back to his ideas.'

'The phrase petrodollar warfare refers to a hypothesis that one of the driving forces of United States foreign policy over recent decades[when?] has been the status of the United States dollar as the world's dominant reserve currency and as the currency in which oil is priced. #The hypothesis: Most oil sales throughout the world are denominated in United States dollars (USD).[1] According to proponents of the petrodollar warfare hypothesis, because most countries rely on oil imports, they are forced to maintain large stockpiles of dollars in order to continue imports. This creates a consistent demand for USDs and upwards pressure on the USD's value, regardless of economic conditions in the United States. This in turn allegedly allows the US government to gain revenues through seignorage and by issuing bonds at lower interest rates than they otherwise would be able to. As a result the U.S. government can run higher budget deficits at a more sustainable level than can most other countries. A stronger USD also means that goods imported into the United States are relatively cheap. Political enemies of the United States therefore have some interest in seeing oil denominated in euros or other currencies. -- In 2000, Iraq converted all its oil transactions under the Oil for Food program to euros. When U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, it returned oil sales from the euro to the USD. The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran takes this theory as fact. As retaliation to this policy seen as neoimperialism, Iran has made an effort to create its own Iranian Oil Bourse which has sold oil in Gold, Euros, Dollars, and Japanese Yen since its opening. The theory is supported historically by Iranian intellectuals as a move made by the American elites after World War II with the Bretton Woods Act, taking away Gold backing from the Pound Sterling and discreetly starting the eventual pegging of Gulf Arab Oil producers' currencies after Britain gave them independence in 1961 and 1971. These countries were further secured militarily after the Gulf War in 1990. This pegging of the currencies along with the exchanges being exclusively in USD in only two places, the IPE in London and NYMEX in New York City, has given the United States a near monopoly, with growing economies such as India and China waiting in line for orders. Critics say this revolutionary move by Iran in creating a rival market may also be one of the reasons for the ongoing energy-related US competition with Iran.'

'The war rhetoric from Washington towards Iran is again being ramped up - just ahead of the second round of high-level international talks on the country's nuclear program. US military top brass claim they would need just three weeks to defeat Iran's armed forces.' -- Let the dollar circulate

'Thousands of US soldiers are going into battle fueled by all sorts of prescription medications, be they amphetamines, antidepressants, sedatives or others. Largely unmonitored consumption of drugs can lead to aberrant behavior and mental disorders. Over 110,000 American service personnel took prescribed medications in 2011 to battle through everyday military routine.'

Cool zombie flick, bro!

'...there have been no substantial retrenchments of the US government, and the situation is getting worse, on a hyperbolic curve. Trends in motion tend to stay in motion until a genuine crisis changes them, and this trend has been gaining momentum for over a century. The fact is that when a government collapses, especially when the government is providing all the things the US government does today, people want somebody to fix it; they want their goodies back. It's well known that over 50% of the US population are net recipients of state largess. And the degree of state support and involvement in the US is far, far greater than it was in France, Russia or Germany. After a period of chaos, it's always the people who are most political, who have the most rabid statist ideas who get the public's attention and rise to the top. It seems highly likely that the US will get a savior, someone full of bravado, who assures the booboisie that he can straighten things out – if he is given sufficient power. Perhaps it will be an arrogant windbag like Gingrich, perhaps some general. The government won't wither away; it will reassert itself. I don't see any way around it, actually. We are already moving into a police state...' -- There's no stopping what can't be stopped, no killing what can't be killed.

Changeable. Alterable. Mutable. Variable. Versatile. Moldable. Movable. Fluctuate. Undulate. Flicker. Flutter. Pulsate. Vibrate. Alternate. Plastic.

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called. -- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

'"It's truly fascinating—after spending a certain number of hours performing assigned tasks, the so-called 'employees' at such facilities would receive monetary compensation that allowed them to support themselves and their families," said archaeologist Alan H. Mueller, citing old ledgers and time-keeping devices unearthed at excavation sites in the region. "In fact, this practice seems to have been the norm for their culture, which consisted of advanced tool users capable of exploiting their skills to produce highly valued goods and services." "It's a complex and intriguing set of rituals we're still trying to fully understand," Mueller added. "But it appears as if their entire society was centered around creating, out of thin air, actual jobs that paid an actual living wage."'

'As of 2011, there are 1.4 m people in US gangs. That's 40% higher than 2009 (FBI: 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment). Why the rapid growth? Lots of little factors, but the big driver: 17% unemployment (with treble that in areas where gangs are prevalent) and the growing illegitimacy of the current power structures. With the ongoing deterioration of the US system, young people are going to increasingly opt to give their primary loyalty to organizations that will take care of them. More interestingly than simple gang growth/spread, is the increasing presence of gang members in the military (primarily the Army) and the transfer of combat skills gained in Iraq/Afghanistan to the street. The US, currently running a $1.5 trillion a year deficit with the spectre of HUGE cuts in the military (reduction in force) as a certainty, will dump hundreds of thousands of combat vets onto the street w/o an economy able to absorb them.'

'...the US is bankrupt and on the verge of complete collapse. If the US government defaults by going bankrupt and refusing to pay its debts we would see turmoil and a deflationary depression that would make the 1930s look like Disneyland. Granted, if the government stayed out of the way it would be a brief, harsh depression... but it would be so dramatic and terrifying to most people that they'd likely call for the most dictatorial of all politicians to "fix it" which would only make it go from weeks or months to lasting years and decades. Alternatively, if they continue to print dollars to paper over the ongoing default then we will soon go into hyperinflation, which is even worse, and we could be headed for a few years, or more, of a Mad Max style environment in the US. In either case, I'd rather see someone like Obama sit there and be president when they have to announce there is no more Social Security and Medicaid or when the US dollar becomes worthless. My nightmare is that Ron Paul becomes president and a few months later the US collapses and the powers-that-be convince people that the reason it all collapsed was because of his free-market policies and we enter into a deeply dictatorial form of communism in the US.'

'As we walked through the winding path in the park, I was handed materials from various occupants. One leaflet was titled “ARE YOU AN ANARCHIST?” After reading it, I’d have to say yes. I liked the quote at the end of the leaflet – “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” – Emma Goldman. There were some Chinese people protesting AGAINST the communist oppression in their country. I explained to my sons that this entire protest was really about their futures. The past and current generations in control had saddled their generation with unpayable debts and a system that will eventually collapse under the weight of military expenditures and entitlement promises that can never be honored. Young people have done what they were told to do by their parents and are left holding the bag, as the jobless recovery enters its third year. Meanwhile the Wall Street bankers are paying themselves billions in bonuses because somehow bank profits are “soaring”. The crowd was made up of normal people. It was made up of young, middle aged and old people. It was made up of men and women. It was made up of white people, black people, asian people, and hispanic people. It was made up of Republicans and Democrats. It was made up of you and me.'

'Was this all the "free market" at work? Absolutely not! Here’s the question when you get down to it: Do you want to fix this or not? If you do then the demand is not for “single-payer health care” or “free college educations” or “debt forgiveness.” Those demands, if you succeed in obtaining them, will make the problem worse. You will become more of a slave through those demands, not less. The demand you must issue is that all the special protections that are currently afforded by government are to be dropped. The government props under home lending are taken away. The government mandates that people be treated medically irrespective of ability to pay and are able to cost-shift their care to others go away. The non-dischargable nature of student loan debt goes away. You can’t fix this any other way folks. I am well-aware that this goes against the grain of “I need it right damn now” that has imbued our society, but mathematics simply doesn’t care about whether you agree or disagree. It just is.'

'According to the historians, by looking at things that have already happened, Americans can learn a lot about which actions made things better versus which actions made things worse, and can then plan their own actions accordingly. While the new strategy, known as "Look Back Before You Act," has raised concerns among people worried they will have to remember lots of events from long ago, the historians have assured Americans they won't be required to read all the way through thick books or memorize anything.'

'That Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster, made in collaboration with the Pentagon, came out in the mid-1980s, when polls showed many Americans expressing doubts about the post-Vietnam military and about the constant saber rattling from the White House. But the movie’s celebration of sweat-shined martial machismo generated $344 million at the box office and proved to be a major force in resuscitating the military’s image. Not only did enlistment spike when “Top Gun” was released, and not only did the Navy set up recruitment tables at theaters playing the movie, but polls soon showed rising confidence in the military. For every “Hurt Locker”—a successful and critical war film made without Pentagon assistance—American moviegoers get a flood of pro-war agitprop, from “Armageddon,” to “Pearl Harbor,” to “Battle Los Angeles” to “X-Men.” And save for filmmakers’ obligatory thank you to the Pentagon in the credits, audiences are rarely aware they may be watching government-subsidized propaganda.'

'Paul’s strategy failed because he failed to recognize that Santorum just gave the audience a blue pill: a narcissistic narrative scaled up for a whole nation. They were just reassured that the entire issue was really about who they were and how they stand for American Exceptionalism (wait, does that contradict the other thing “we” stand for?), and not about any sort of vulgar details like foreign policy decisions or what the military did when. The natural antidote would be a red pill, but Dr. Paul can’t write that prescription because he’s a still a politician. Even though the odds of him becoming President are slim, he still has play by the rules of the game he’s playing, just like everyone else on stage. Here is what Ron Paul could have said that could have dispelled the effects of the blue pill: ***Do you really believe that you are important enough for people you’ve never met from a far away land to end their own lives in an attempt to kill you?***'

'A majority of Americans also agreed that the spate of roadside bombs, suicide attacks, and ethnic murders might—and this is just an opinion, they claimed, which may or may not actually hold water—cause one to deduce that the federal government had sacrificed 4,500 troops, not to mention more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians, in a campaign that ultimately, perhaps, proved ruinous for both nations. "Sure, through the narrow prism of the violence that has resulted, I guess it'd be possible to conclude we accomplished nothing and threw away a staggering number of human lives as well as trillions of dollars for no real reason," Boise, ID resident Tricia Booth said. "This latest carnage almost makes it seem as if this war were something we shortsightedly got ourselves into and were woefully underprepared to conduct. Fortunately, I have the benefit of all the facts."'

'Rule #1: Go where the food is! Regardless of the state you live in, get out of the city and into a rural area. Next, a community’s proximity to urban environments must be considered. Many rural retreats are still vulnerable to being flooded by unprepared city dwellers in search of food at the onset of collapse. ... [live] at least one tank of gas distance from major metropolitan areas. Just as there are better places to live in each state, there are also better states to live in; what we call “Safe Havens.” Safe Havens are meant to consist of a large number of people, with a diverse membership, living in relative proximity. Safe Havens are NOT compounds, communes, or any other such nonsense that requires too many people in too small an area with too many rules. A Safe Haven will not be dictated or micromanaged through pyramid structures, military hierarchy, or “community tribunals”. It is a designated area of free cooperation, not a creepy village of collectivists...'

'"Even if I did somehow make enough money to keep my head above water, I haven't the slightest clue what I'd do with it anymore," Bowman added. According to the survey, 63 percent of Americans said they had come to rely upon the familiar sense of dread that came from knowing the country was quickly losing its place as an economic superpower, while 71 percent described finding a kind of tranquility in the steady, predictable cuts to local, state, and federal funding.'

'WASHINGTON—Sitting patiently in their chairs with their nappies on their lappies, the residents of the United States announced Wednesday they were ready for their din din. "Yummy yummy num nums," exclaimed a Nashville, TN–area big boy, 42, digging into a mound of macaroni and cheese as soon as his plate touched the table. "Mmmmmm." After din din, the nation will reportedly have its bath, get its jammies on, and then it's time for beddy-bye.'

'The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself — anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.' -- Nineteen Eighty-Four

'You CANNOT, as a society, witness a couple of guys pull a trillion out of their back pockets without feeling, well ... snookered. And after feeling snookered, something else begins to percolate. "Hey," you say, "wait a minute. I sit here with my debts and my job and my house in foreclosure and this guy – THIS GUY – throws around trillions? Wait a minute. WHEN DO I GET MINE!" And so it begins. You have seen the essential immorality of the system. You have felt it deep in the gut... Human beings, among other things, live within various ethical environments. When these are shown to be false, there is trouble brewing. We've written this over and over, that the old financial order, based on central banking, is basically finished. But THIS is WHY. The moral order that supported this sort of society is kaput. It's been found out. On the way is increased chaos, increased immorality and eventually A NEW MORAL ORDER.'

'The colossal miscalculation made by Washington and Wall Street is that they could control the moral hazard genie once they removed it from the bottle. They assumed that the people would be too stupid to see what was going on. And that even if the people did figure things out, they would willingly wear the thick, choking chains of debt being welded to their necks... Instead, thanks to the Internet and the democracy of information and insight it affords, the people were instantly wise to what was happening, and it stirred them. ...the moral hazard virus is now loose and swiftly propagating throughout society. The American psychological landscape has been parched by the searing winds of financial desperation, surging inequality and dying hopes. And the tinder of the desiccated American Dream, once the great calling and aspiration of a nation, is now piled so high that a spark igniting it would unleash raging flames reaching up to and scorching an astonished Sun.'

"You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make shit in this country, build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket." -- Frank Sobotka, The Wire

'The federal government has not yet issued any plans for dealing with the mass exodus, which is expected to have wide-scale economic repercussions in the abandoned regions, including a complete collapse of consumer trading and a short burst in hardtack sales. However, the House of Representatives will begin debate on bipartisan measure H.R. 3492, which would declare a state of emergency on the East Coast and provide tax breaks to those who remain behind, as soon as Congress reconvenes next month at a cabin in Rock Springs, WY. "Everywhere across this land, hard-working men and women have come to see that anyplace is better than here," said Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), who is giving up his $169,300-a-year job in search of work in the railroads. "No matter how bad things get or how dark tomorrow may seem, the one thing Americans can always count on is the promise of a better life somewhere else."'

'"They've been giving us the runaround on this money for a long time now, so we had no choice," said Victor Migliore of the Bayonne, NJ-based collection agency. "We mailed them four warnings and called the Capitol and White House at least 10 times each, but they just ignored us. Maybe now they'll finally realize we're not fooling around about that $5,498,415,904,232.05 they owe." "The United States is certainly not acting like a country that is serious about settling its account with us," Migliore said. "Last Wednesday, I asked them for the money, and they said they didn't have it yet. The next day, I read in the paper that they just bought a brand-new $350 million Stealth fighter. How does that make them look? Not very good, that's for sure."'

'The image of the traveling snake oil salesman of 19th century America is by now a familiar trope. It is the image of the heartless huckster who preys upon the trust of the general public to swindle them out of their hard-earned savings. With a bottle of useless tonic and the help of a plant in the audience, the snake oil salesman made a living out of lies and deceit. In these respects, William Levingston was your average snake oil salesman...' -- "Competition is a sin!"

'The City of London has a big problem. Once you have fallen back on the immoveable rigor of brute force you have to make sure that people understand that you will not back down. Not now. Not ever. If people cannot be frightened into supporting one-world-government (the point of it all) by fear-based memes, then they must be panicked into supporting it via military power. They must be made to feel that they have no other choice. But what if the biggest war – the most important war of the past 100 years – is also the war that you are evidently and obviously LOSING? What then? Well, if you are the top honcho of the Pentagon or Hillary Clinton, you will do ANYTHING to make sure your pending defeat does not become common knowledge and tabloid fodder. No, you cannot admit it! No how, no way! It will lead to a chain reaction, or so you fear. If people begin to understand that the entire Western world HAS LOST ITS MOST IMPORTANT WAR TO A BUNCH OF GOAT-HERDERS AND POPPY GROWERS ... what then?'

'Bin Laden's supposed death is tied into the unfortunate reality that the US (and NATO) is losing the Afghan war. The Afghan war is a critical power elite meme. The US needs Pakistan to attack the Pashtun/Taliban. If they do not, the war is likely lost. Enter bin Laden and his "death." Whatever else it may be, it was likely supposed to shove Pakistan into an aggressive posture against the Pashtun/Taliban. With bin Laden's "death" there were few rhetorical alternatives. Either Pakistan's leaders had been terribly incompetent in letting the terror master live in Pakistan for years or the military had been horribly incompetent – or perhaps both. Either way, the Pakistanis had much to apologize for. And the biggest way for Pakistan to atone was to attack, the Taliban. For a while, it must have seemed like a stroke of genius. And yet ... something went horribly WRONG. The result in this increasingly bipolar world was only to push the Pakistanis into the waiting embrace of China.'

"I'm feeling pretty inspired. I'm feeling pretty rejuvenated. I feel like maybe Osama Bin Laden had a deeper psychological impact on me over the past ten years than I'd like to admit. I know I usually try to run from my problems and hide behind things. I'm just a bro in suburbia making consumer decisions. You see, Osama Bin Laden, you want the same things I want. I want to be famous. I want to be rich. I want to be controversial. I want to live in some sort of multimillion dollar compound. I want to be so buzzworthy that I have to go underground to preserve my authenticity and to preserve my life. I want to be remembered forever. I want people to remember that I believed in something even if what I believed in was totally wrong and I totally messed up. I just wanted people to know that there was a moment in time that I believed that I can make the world a better place, that my vision of the world was worth imposing on everyone else. I'm just trying to be an all-American Chill Bro."

'One needs a problem in order to provide a solution. And the move is on, most obviously, to create ever-closer global governance and perhaps an alternative currency. Modern central banking has done its work, throwing Western economies into confusion and disarray. Europe is already suffering from IMF-style austerity tactics and Britain is implementing them now. The US is next on the list. The IMF austerity message is being "prepped" by the S&P warning... The result is a controlled social implosion that the powers-that-be can capitalize upon to introduce a new system, presumably a more globalized one, complete, perhaps, with a global central bank administering a new currency. IMF provisions featuring privatization, tax hikes and public sector "austerity" are designed in my view to provoke the very public anger that Western elites are counting on to fuel a conversation about yet MORE centralization and MORE governmental control...'

'As America and China grow more economically and financially intertwined, the two nations have also stepped up spying on each other. -- Cyber-espionage isn’t being discussed directly, according to one participant, because “the Chinese go rigid” when the subject is raised. One reason: for China, digital espionage is wrapped into larger concerns about how to keep China’s economy, the world’s second largest, growing. “They’ve identified innovation as crucial to future economic growth – but they’re not sure they can do it,” says Lewis. “The easiest way to innovate is to plagiarize” by stealing U.S. intellectual property, he adds. -- Chinese participants have sought to allay U.S. concerns about a Chinese cyber-attack on the U.S. financial system. With China owning more than $1.1-trillion in U.S. government debt, Lewis says China’s representatives acknowledged destabilization of U.S. markets would, in effect, be an attack on China’s economy, itself.' -- Attachment of Earnings

'There is no escaping the arithmetic.' -- Left + Right = Collapse

'Rap News, Episode 7: It's 2011 and amid a flurry of political leaks and revelations, revolutions have rolled across North Africa and The Middle East, sweeping regimes and dictatorships before them. Join your host Robert Foster for long overdue analysis of these events, asking the question that's on everyone's lips -- where will revolution spark next? But when a news flash comes in from a special embedded correspondent, the episode takes an unprecedented turn, as that very question is answered in dramatic fashion. How will the world treat the latest courageous country to throw off the yoke of oppression? Is any cow sacred in this time of massive upheaval? Can there be any doubt that History Is Happening?'

"This communication is protected by Anonymous" -- 'We are a decentralized non-violent resistance movement which seeks to restore the rule of law and fight back against the organized criminal class.'

'In Los Angeles, we meet five people who are going through a transformation in their lives during this crisis. Justin and Christine lost their jobs and are now living in a van with their two young sons. Charles has gotten out of prison after fourteen years. Mizuko prepares her children for the future by making them at ease in virtual reality. Laura has taken advantage of the crisis by buying land cheaply and starting an urban farm and artists collective Fallen Fruit maps the abundant free 'public fruit' available in the city. Who are the pioneers who are reinventing the new America and how do they see the future?'

!!!

'It's one thing to say the poor/uneducated can't find work, it's another thing to say the explicitly desired outcome of this country's social and educational system can't find work. The supply is there; but there's no demand. And there's no demand because there's not enough people who create stuff creating stuff which would justify the other jobs. They never were creating new drugs, they were only creating new markets. ...markets were created to sustain both Lexapro and Zoloft; not one market with two products, but a doubling of the market. In a perfect world, Lexapro wouldn't have been invented, they would have worked on something else. But since they knew they could create a market for "another Zoloft," they took the easy route. And they hired a salesforce, accordingly. While that was good for Lexapro, it's terrible for the country. Temporarily – and ten years is temporary – hiring all these people to essentially duplicate efforts catabolizes resources from other industries.'

'...the Chinese government has "liberalized" – allowed the average Chinese to earn a living and even to become rich so long as these activities do not threaten government power. Chinese do not own their real estate but lease it from the government. And the government censors at will, using a gigantic force of employees to monitor the Internet for anti-government sentiments. ...the Chinese government controls most if not all of the larger country's larger financial and industrial institutions, often behind the scenes. The real free-market is to be found much farther down on the street for the most part where Chinese entrepreneurs compete against each other within a retail context. The ChiComs therefore retain control of the means of production, including the Chinese central bank. Only within carefully monitored parameters, is the Chinese economy a competitive one. This is actually similar in many ways to the growing EU superstate and to the way America is evolving as well...'

'New York Republican Peter King has introduced a bill that would protect the army of citizen spies Homeland Security hopes to recruit under Janet Napolitano’s “See Something, Say Something” snoop campaign from lawsuits brought by innocent people wrongly accused of being terrorists or extremists. “A top US lawmaker unveiled legislation on Wednesday to protect individuals who tip off authorities to potential extremist threats from lawsuits, in the event that they turn out to finger innocents,” reports AFP. See Something, Say Something has little to do with combating terrorism, and everything to do with implanting the notion that Americans are constantly under surveillance from each other and may be reported to the authorities for any minor example of aberrant behavior no matter how benign.'

'V for Victory campaign a mark of defiance against Homeland Security’s takeover of society' -- Poster: 'We are all in danger. A police state control grid is being established in the United States. Now is the time for all lovers of liberty to stand together and speak out against the growing tyranny destroying our republic. We WILL be victorious against the New World Order. Post this V for Victory flyer to warn others and show your peaceful resistance. Learn more at infowars.com.' -- 'Show me a case in history where the government recruiting the citizens to spy on each other led to a more secure, happy, free and prosperous society and I’ll show you a chicken with teeth. The best possible outcome, as in East Germany, was a despotic society in which free speech was silenced and political dissidents were imprisoned. The usual outcome, as in Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany – was outright tyranny and death camps. Neither have any place in America.'

"The average yuppie, the average professor, the average 'liberal', the average 'conservative'... they think tyranny is cool!"

'A new feudalism is being born. It is a quite deliberate effort of the power elite in our view, but people don't notice it – or haven't verbalized it – because it is difficult to analyze something when one is in the middle of it. But the feudal evolution is surely occurring. There is a sense of entitlement, even arrogance, among TSA employees, or so it seems; and this is evidently and obviously shared by other government workers in the US, including law enforcement officials. There are endless reports in mainstream media of inappropriate use of tazers, and of outright shootings; the drug-war has been especially corrosive to American civil rights, encouraging government "takings" of private property without due process. Government service is increasingly glorified, if not rhetorically than through compensation. The average government worker apparently makes up to 50 percent more than the average individual in the private sector. Gradually a two-tier society is created.'

'This is the issue: "How can the US cease its warring when so many people in that beleaguered country depend on conflict for their employment?" The US unemployment or under-employment rate (the real one) is somewhere between 25 and 30 percent. To reduce or eliminate garrisons in both Iraq and Afghanistan would inject hundreds of thousands of additional individuals into an economy that is struggling to provide employment to available workers. (Not to mention the private-sector "defense" jobs that would be made redundant.) And assuming that the additional workers find jobs; wouldn't they be at substantially lower salaries than their existing military compensations?" Were the US to suffer such an influx of unemployed as a result of adopting a sensible foreign policy rather than acting as the policemen for global morality, it is likely that trade unions and other leftist organizations would demand the existing wages of the military workers be maintained at current levels.'

None dare call it Communism.

'What will happen when food disruptions occur, the currency collapses or social chaos breaks out in U.S. cities? This video answers that question by revealing how everyday people can transform into crazed animals who trample other human beings in order to get what they want. A shocking video that reveals a part of human nature that society tries to keep caged.'

"No warning!" QT2D-7 said. "No warning! No severance!" As the cost-saving benefits of globalization become increasingly clear to CEOs and investors, more businesses are laying off their domestic robotic workforces and relocating mechanical jobs overseas, a robot-labor expert said. "[QT2D-7]'s been in the job so long, it couldn't see that the future was upon it," U.S. Chamber of Commerce chairman Werner Diedrich said. "[QT2D-7] is a relic from a bygone era, when American robots were a manufacturer's only choice." Diedrich said market forces alone were not to blame. "American robots have gotten lazy, stuck in their ways, unable and unwilling to adapt to meet the needs of a changing global workplace," Diedrich said. "In the past decade, what has QT2D-7 done to upgrade its efficiency or output? Nothing. In the competitive world of robotic assembly, complacency is death."'

'RT's Anastasia Churkina met Reverend Billy - a man with a mission to break the American addiction to shopping.' -- "Woo!"

'Fox Insists Woman Made 'Anti-American Comments' in Emails. ...the article delves into serious kookiness as the author complains that Mrs. Smith refused to “friend” her on Facebook and was discovered to have clicked “Like” on a profile for Anwar al-Awlaki, a US born cleric tapped for assassination by President Obama. The “case” against Mrs. Smith however is not really the relevant factor here, so much as the fact that Fox News took it upon themselves to build a case against some random convert in Indianapolis and then “turned her in” to the feds. The effort against Smith closes with a chilling comment from the grandmother, who notes “I am exercising my right, as an American citizen to freedom of speech, religion, and the right to bare arms. I have the right in America to say what ever I want. That is what makes America so great, right?” The report then immediately segues into a comment from an unnamed “consultant” claiming that Smith’s comments are “classic signs of extremism.”'

'[Tyler Kent] was a rabid anti-communist who believed that the Jews had been behind the Russian Revolution. He was convinced that Germany should be allowed to destroy both Communist Russia and the Jews. And America should not get in the way of that being allowed to happen. Looking back, most people now feel that Daniel Ellsberg was right in 1971 because the Vietnam War had become a horrible disaster that needed exposing. Today, we are not sure of Bradley Manning’s motives (and it hasn't been proven that he is the source of the leak), but again there is a general feeling that it was good thing because the cables have exposed an empty nihilism at the heart of America’s foreign policy. But the perspective the Tyler Kent story brings is the realisation that diplomatic leaks are not automatically a good thing. It just depends on who is using them. And why.'

"We are entering into Mordor."

'If you select map type “More…/Real Estate”, and check “Foreclosure” as the listing type, Google will map out all the foreclosures for you. Every dot in the below map is a foreclosure in the Washington DC region (yikes!).'

'Why are the neocons going insane with bloodlust? It's not about the past - it's about the future...' -- Bank of America balance sheet implosion scenario

'Where does it end? Americans must undergo virtual strip-searches when they try to take a plane. And DHS is expanding both X-ray devices and "pat-downs" to other venues. These will include subways, ferries and even sporting events. As war-on-terror paranoia seeps into the body-politic like a poison, people increasingly distrust each other. Perhaps one day America will resemble Cuba with its block leaders designated to report anything suspicious. Ordinarily we would be gloomy about America's prospects, and the West's in general. But despite what the Anglo-American power elite seems to have in mind – a gradual removal of every kind of human and civil right – there is much in our view that was NOT planned for. The Internet itself is working powerfully against the kind of rights abuses taking place throughout the West and notably in America. It is organizing opposition in ways that the elite doubtless never expected. The Internet loses nothing and forgets nothing.' -- Expect us.

"Alex, you live in a penal colony called the United States of America. You've got all these Americans stampeding on themselves to go shopping on Black Friday, killing themselves to be a spectacle for Network TV, who have utter contempt for Americans and treat them like performing stunt pigs. It's a joke!"

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.

'Big Sister recites the totalitarian message of the day from conscripted TV screens; meanwhile, we have the two-minute hate against Julian Assange. Oh, and we have always been at war with ______ (fill in the blank). AmSoc–love it or leave your life.'

"The American poor understands now what happened to the American Indians."

'The sacrificial war ritual, then, had three main elements: #1. A sinful, polluted world, with a leader who is depicted as becoming more and more impotent in containing the nation's depressed, angry feelings. #2. Terrifying mommy fantasies, with images of angry goddesses threatening to devour the country unless a ritual sacrificial victim is provided, and #3. Sacrificial child victims, whose blood will revitalize the country's emotional life and who ultimately represent the "guilty" child who was the victim of the original traumas. -- 2:1 America felt sinful after the peace and prosperity of the 1980s; 2:2 America felt polluted in 1988; 2:3 Child sacrifice suggestion prior to the Middle East crisis; 2:4 Children were felt to be so naughty they deserved electrocution; 2:5 Bush was seen as a killing doctor; 2:6 Terrifying women were featured in the media; 2:7 Saddam Hussein as Terrifying Mommy; 2:9 Americans felt reborn by war. The war was vicious, as promised. The stock market soared.'

'Black Friday is the most important shopping day of the year in the United States. Big bargains are to be had and the one-day extravaganza brings out the competitive spirit in American consumers. So much so, that Black Fridays past have been marred by violence. Fueling the hype are media that give relentless coverage to Black Friday in their efforts to discern the mood of the American consumer and, thus, economy. Of course, Black Friday is enormously important to Asia and its export-dependent economies.'

"Don't come back."

'An RT news crew has been freed on bail - after spending around 32 hours in a US jail. They were taken into custody in the state of Georgia, while filming an annual rally near a military base nicknamed the 'School of Assassins'. RT's camera was rolling throughout the arrest.' -- RISPEKT MAI ORTHITAH!

'You like being sheep? Government property? Your own children no longer have a right to be with you because some TSA goon wants to get cute and play God? Now here's the kicker. Look at the date on the original story. It's more than a year old. Yep. Congratulations America - it took being grabbed in the nuts to get you pissed - some "faceless" woman having her baby stolen wasn't enough.'

@13:25... LOL

'A special 'Crash JP Morgan' edition of the Keiser Report. This time Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, look at the call from Eric Cantona to withdraw money from the banks and at the viral 'Crash JP Morgan Buy Silver' campaign by Max Keiser. In the second half of the show Max talks to Alex Jones about Google bombs, naked body scanners and 'Crash JP Morgan Buy Silver'.'

TERRORIST!!!

'The TSA is not going to do sex to me.'

'Their stated mission isn't to decide right and wrong, but to clear cases and blast human beings out of their homes with ultimate velocity. They certainly have no incentive to penetrate the profound criminal mysteries of the great American mortgage bubble of the 2000s, perhaps the most complex Ponzi scheme in human history — an epic mountain range of corporate fraud in which Wall Street megabanks conspired first to collect huge numbers of subprime mortgages, then to unload them on unsuspecting third parties like pensions, trade unions and insurance companies (and, ultimately, you and me, as taxpayers) in the guise of AAA-rated investments. Selling lead as gold, shit as Chanel No. 5, was the essence of the booming international fraud scheme that created most all of these now-failing home mortgages.' -- And all because a central bank was price-fixing interest rates to make politicians' promises look vaguely plausible. Symptoms vs Cause. The pointing finger is pointing at "government".

'The consumers of last resort.'

'For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. To pursue its underground interest in America's lefty avant-garde, the CIA had to be sure its patronage could not be discovered. This was the "long leash". The centrepiece of the CIA campaign became the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a vast jamboree of intellectuals, writers, historians, poets, and artists which was set up with CIA funds in 1950 and run by a CIA agent. It would be the official sponsor of touring exhibitions; its magazines would provide useful platforms for critics favourable to the new American painting; and no one, the artists included, would be any the wiser.' -- Art?? We have no need of art! We simply do everything as best we can.

PCR: "Our political system is broken and it can't be fixed and it will have to fail. And I think the same will be the result of the economy. Generals always fight the last war. And [the politicians] are still thinking in terms of the Great Depression or Post-War Recession and they're still trying to deal with the economy in that way – but it's been offshored – those economies worked!"

'America is still mired in the Great Recession, but the people responsible for the mess have elected to award themselves a record-high $144 billion in compensation and benefits for 2010.' -- Gimme the loot, gimme the loot.

What have you bought into; how much will it cost to buy you out?

In Soviet America...

'The US is technically bankrupt. It is fighting two, three or four wars, mostly unsuccessfully, and maintaining something like 1,000 bases overseas. It is threatening to unleash kill squads in Yemen, to penetrate Pakistan with helicopters and troops and to start a new war by bombing Iran. Domestically, spending continues to outstrip revenues, the "real" unemployment rate hovers between 20 and 30 percent, 40 million children and adults are on food stamps; foreclosures are at an all time high; famous cities like Detroit are literally being bulldozed to remove squalor; the entire "red" interior of America is dilapidated, filled with empty factories and crumbling infrastructure. The dollar itself, once the world's proud reserve currency is worth about a penny... and eroding still further every time Bernanke launches another quantitative easing—prints another trillion in phony money to "stimulate" the economy. And what does the American stock market do? It goes UP.'

'The American electorate seems to be writhing in a kind of agony. Americans are not angry at a political class but at the system itself. They are seeking to regain control of it by "throwing out" incumbents, and this is a comment about how the system is working—and not the people that function within it. Americans, both and right and left are increasingly seeking the party that is not being offered to them. It is a party that rejects the economic meddling of the left and the behavioral/moral constraints on the right. The elite intended to use economic difficulties and the "war on terror" as a way to move toward global government. But they are doing so under the lens of a new communications technology, and this is exposing its secrets and undermining its plans. In Europe, we believe the unrest that has occurred will continue as something of a class war. In America, because of cultural differences, electoral dissatisfaction is increasingly emphasizing a small-L libertarian viewpoint.'