Stephen Views the News February 27, 2009
http://stephenviewsthenews.blogspot.com/
* When the cards are stacked against you - Capital One just sent me a “Dear Stephen” notice informing me that outstanding credit card balances can now be charged a 24% interest rate and that they have first rights to my testicles. Some credit card companies are charging up to 32% interest on outstanding balances. I pay my credit card balances in full so fortunately, I do not to need to pay their exorbitant interest rates, rates that should be illegal in any sane and reasonable society. When such loan rates are charged outside of the hallowed banking industry the loaner is generally associated with the word “mob.” The question is, “How much longer are we as a nation going to stand for such usurious and abusive acts by the financial industry?” The financial crisis that embroils our nation is part and parcel of this under-regulated, unconstrained and free-wheeling industry. Left unchecked, the greed of the financial industry damaged all of us. The greed was so great and so widespread that ironically, it has even led to its own destruction.
What has taken place in the financial world reminds me of a rare disease that inflicted the brother of someone I know. He has a disease known as Prader-Willi syndrome. One aspect of this disease is that it does not allow an individual to feel full when eating and results in eating binges. “Parents of children with the syndrome often have to lock the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator to restrict the child's access to food.” Perhaps we can characterize what has inflicted the financial community as the Prader-Willie Sutton Syndrome.
How did the financial deterioration of our nation occur? Can you say “special interests?” The Wizards of Wall Street hired sophisticated influencers of congress (lobbyists) to convince OUR representatives to enact laws and regulations that benefitted only the interests of the financial industry. An example of this special interest inter-marriage with elected officials is the likes of former Senator Phil Gramm. It was Gramm who spearheaded much of the legislation that contributed to the easing of restrictions on the financial industry and that subsequently contributed to the financial crisis we face today. When Gramm left “public service” he took very lucrative jobs lobbying for members of the financial industry. One such interest he represented was Swiss bank USB, up to its Swiss cheese in deceptive practices. In a settlement last week with the U.S. Justice Department USB agreed “to pay a fine of $780 million and to disclose about 250 names of U.S. clients it said had committed tax fraud.” USB also agreed to provide information about 19,000 other accounts held by U.S. citizens. Gramm is not an exception to how special interests corrupt the fiduciary responsibility of elected officials. They fund their political campaigns, hire family and friends and further reward such officials with lucrative positions when they leave congress. It is especially prevalent in the fields of banking, energy, telecommunications, insurance and defense. It has proven especially damaging to the country.
The financial crisis in America was no accident. It was an accident waiting to happen. The core had been rotting for some time and eventually the structure had to collapse. Both Democrat and Republican politicians are culpable. They allowed themselves to be bought like prostitutes who hawk their wares on street corners. I offer an apology to prostitutes for associating them with politicians who too often exhibit less veracity and integrity in plying their trade than hookers. I expect that we will see reforms since they usually follow crises that reach critical mass. A call for reform has already begun. European Union leaders have met and called for sweeping financial regulations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at this meeting of Europe’s largest economies, "All financial markets, products and participants including hedge funds and other private pools of capital which may pose a systematic risk must be subjected to appropriate oversight or regulation." The U.S will soon follow - as it did after other financial debacles like the Market Crash of 1929 and the savings and loan failures in the 1980s.
Some say that “it is the way government works” and “politicians are always in the pockets of the privileged.” I will accept the reality that the privileged will have more influence than the working stiffs but one cannot accept the overabundance of influence they exerted over our government representatives for the last two decades. If we as a nation accept such a reality, a reality that plagues third world countries, we deserve no better. And let us not totally excuse ourselves. To be a member of a democracy, by its nature, requires responsibility on the part of citizens. We keep re-electing too many leeches. Perhaps we are too busy with our Blackberries, DVDs, Hi-Def wide screens, Blu-Rays, Ipods and Face Books to pay attention. As the ability to communicate has increased, our communication seems to have decreased. It would certainly make for an interesting sociological analysis to graph the ability to communicate with actual communication. How prescient is Verizon’s long-standing tagline to their commercials, “Can you hear me now?”
While on the subject of credit card companies it is worth noting that their possible failure could be the next financial disaster facing the American economy. One of the best articles I have read on the subject was penned this week by Arianna Huffington at the Huffington Post.
Late last year congress passed a weak credit card reform bill that does not even go into effect until the middle of 2010. Once again congress offers us too little too late. Consumers Union is providing a petition to congress urging them to pass credit card reform legislation NOW. At the site consumersunion.org one can click on the tab Take Action to sign the petition.
* Obama Watch ~ transparency - Contrary to conservative opinion a very pro-active program is needed to reverse the economic downturn crippling our country. Despite virtual unanimity among Republican congressmen who oppose the legislation, coupled with their usual plethora of untruths, the legislation has passed and we await its influence. I have followed the comments by a large number of economists who feel the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act takes us in the right direction. Regardless if one is pro or con relative to the legislation, the public will know what is happening. And unlike the machinations of the previous administration, the stimulus bill is open to public view. Details can be found at recovery.gov. The oversight will be spearheaded by a former Secret Service agent and recent Inspector General of the Department of the Interior who exposed mismanagement, non-management and illegal activities at Interior during the Bush administration. Earl Devaney will be chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. Vice President Joe Biden also will be given a role coordinating oversight of stimulus spending. Such actions can only enhance a democracy that in recent times has exhibited more pomp than circumstance.
* Reining in the Pentagon ~ a formidable foe – We have seen much written recently about the billions of dollars the Pentagon spends on weapons and systems that only benefit the defense industry and their lobbyists, not U.S. security. Congress is finally holding hearings on the tremendous cost to and waste of America’s over-extended financial resources. TruMajority.org is providing a petition to congress urging the elimination of such unnecessary bloating of the federal budget. Already an army of well-funded defense lobbyists and defense contractors are descending on Washington to ensure their cash cow is not endangered. It is time that our votes and voices be cast against the power of the greenbacks that have been shaping the conversation.
"The moneychangers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization." Franklin D. Roosevelt, from his 1933 inauguration speech
McThief-McLawless-McKeating-McEnron-McBush/Cheney Mc$ame As It Ever Was GOP (Grand Oil Party) Motto: 'County' Club First - People LastPeace, Best Wishes and Hope
McThief-McLawless-McKeating-McEnron-McBush/Cheney
Mc$ame As It Ever Was
GOP (Grand Oil Party) Motto: 'County' Club First - People Last
Peace, Best Wishes and Hope
Wall-Street Casino Owners Hold Public Wallets (Fundamentals) Hostage
Wall-Street Casino Operators got drunk......Wall-Street should stop their whining and get over their self induced mental recession. Beware of Confidence Men! Remember - Fraud is Fraud; no matter how you slice it or dice it, a pig with lipstick, is still a pig!
In Los Vegas, not unlike Wall-Street, the house is rigged to always come out on top. This is not a solution, only a sturdier yoke...a new and improved mousetrap, if you will!
Please read book review at link: Secrets of the Federal Reserve
For the past six years of relentless media pounding, the malleable public mind has been rendered into mush, brow-beaten into accepting the premise for the invasion and occupation of Iraq as, somehow, in fact, being based on a legitimate war. It is not a war and never has been. If you proceed from a false assumption, you will end up with a false argument. In this case, any reference to the term ‘Surge’ is a misnomer, and by default, an attempted extension to justify an already illicit deed. Therefore, any argument for, or against any kind of SURGE as working, or not, is simply a vain, elaborate attempt to mask and justify the mass slaughter and displacement of millions of people the current misconception has already left in its wake. This can not be dismissed, or condoned by a simple play on words. The architects should not be allowed, so easily, to wash from their hands the spilt innocent blood and wryly walk away!
Iraq never attacked the U.S., nor did it ever pose a threat. It was already occupied; cornered and bludgeoned by an already ongoing occupation initiated by Bush I. Bush II simply utilized the chaos that issued forth from the psychodrama of 9/11, as a means to escalate its belligerence against the Iraqi people to satisfy neocon agenda, seize the oil fields and restore U.S. Dollar supremacy. The U.S. Congress never declared war against Iraq, it simply signed off, giving Bush abusive powers to escalate existing aggressions of occupation; technically it has been nothing more than a congressionally sanctioned police action from the very beginning.
Now that the neocon warmongers wish to play a shell game with a ‘redeployment’ of troops from one illicit invasion: Iraq; transferring the focal point of its aggression by escalating those actions into the, long forgotten, initial invasion of Afghanistan, perhaps it would benefit all if we were to revisit the timeline encompassing the events of: Cheney/Enron – Taliban – Afghanistan – leading up to 9/11.
The Enron scandal runs so deep into the Bush/Cheney regime that evidence shows Enron may have been a major factor in Bush/Cheney complicity in 9/11 as pretext for the present "global war on terror" a war for the control of Central Asian oil, gas reserves and pipelines implicating the Bush/Cheney neocon regime in both the Enron scandal and 9/11, as Enron also had its interests in the Afghanistan/Central Asia energy grab.
From 2001 to 2003, Dick Cheney continued to openly break the law by defying GAO requests to turn over his records of meetings with Enron. The General Accounting Office decided not to challenge a judge's decision to dismiss the watchdog agency's lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force.
The decision by GAO ended a nearly two-year battle with the White House over documents detailing meetings Cheney held with the National Energy Policy Development Group in 2001. The meetings resulted in the president's national energy policy and many of the officials there came from Enron Corp., the Houston-based energy company that filed for bankruptcy in December 2001 amid accusations of hidden debt, inflated profits and improper accounting methods.
There are indications that Enron and the White House were working closely with the Taliban -- including Osama bin Laden -- up to weeks before the Sept. 11 attack. Why was the bin Laden family, swiftly whisked out of the country, immediately following the events of 9/11?
The Bush Oil Team, and their neocon drivers can momentarily rely on the support of the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, may think that war and oil profits mix, but there is simply too much evidence that the War in Afghanistan was primarily about building UNOCAL's pipeline, not about fighting terrorism.
How does McCain fit into the Enron ball game? Following Enron’s collapse in December of 2001, it was McCain’s financial guru, Phil Graam, the evil genius of world high-way robbery, whose UBS interests scavenged the remnants of Enron’s energy and oil interests throughout the Middle East. In other words, the chameleon UBS is the new Enron. (The following material will allow you to see the Enron scandal and its ties to Bush-Cheney in a whole new light: Center for Research on Globalization.)
Since the Democrats continue buckling under the weight of their own invertebrate skeletal structure when it comes to defending the Constitution, perhaps the public would best be served, by enlisting the services of those members of courage, who still have eyes, ears and a backbone; to investigate Cheney’s Enron agenda prior to 9/11 and the secretive deals between Big Oil, Bush, and the Taliban in the early months of 2001. If the spineless majority continues to lay prostrate in the face of such questions, perhaps we should raise the specter of their own criminal malfeasance.
What ever the opinions may be regarding the sanitized version for its causes, much weight outside of the anointed pronouncements, suggest that 9/11 may very well have been a rouge GLADIO-CIA styled false-flag operation utilized to ignite the necessary psychodrama that has permeated, and swept the public mind into accepting the all consuming ‘global war on terror’, a bloody cover for imperial madness…money and power!
Think Oliver North type covert ops run by then VP (CIA) Bush-I, in sleepy Reagan’s basement, but this time, Cheney’s basement, along with all of the same Iran/Contra neocon planners. A pliable Bush II, still a complicit traitor, has simply been the epitome of Marx’s ‘useful idiot’ for the neocon agenda, to plunge the world into a clash of civilizations and force into existence a fascist order.
GLADIO - false-flag operations are quite frightening as they are, in fact, quite real! Many will ask, "Well, what happened to the passengers seen boarding the aircraft?" These folks are psyops specialists, mind-benders, who study deception and distraction. My response is, "how did the famous magician, David Copperfield, manage to make the statue of liberty disappear before a, massive, live audience?"Interestingly, numerous NORAD, and its eastern counterpart, NEADS gamers, were performing live, what if, hijacking scenarios at that very same precise moment; to add a fog of confusion, the actual event was piggybacked into these live games. Suspicion has it that the 'aircraft' may have been outfitted with a DARPA designed electronics mechanism 'Global Hawk', which had the capacity for disabling and over-riding onboard pilot control of the craft and placing it into the hands of a remote crew. (Webster Tarpley - 9/11 Synthetic Terror-Made in USA) “Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the state.” - James Jesus Angelton - Director of CIA Counter Intelligence (1954-74)“The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.” - William Colby - Director of the CIA (1973-76)
The corporate media, along with its PR firms, have done a masterful job in turning upside down the intended original meaning for the idiom ‘conspiracy’. With the association of negative thought patterns, evoked by images bound to such statements as: fringe, lunatic, left-wing, conspiracy-nut, etc, the public mind has been convincingly conjured into suspecting that it is the truth seeker that is fact the conspirator instead. The negative coloring of the word ‘conspiracy’ has effectively become a psychological repellant to any serious prying; as something beyond the pale of ordinary, rational thought; unworthy of consideration; a subliminal mental stop sign, impugning the rational mind that only lunatics and fringe elements dwell therein! Very effective indeed!
The fact of the matter is that history is replete with conspiracies. The American Revolution was a conspiracy against the King of England, a premiere example.
Con – meaning against; Spire – from the Latin, to breath -- giving us the result: to breathe against; from this, have evolved terms such as: con-job, con-artist, or confidence man, all of which are individual conspirators. The only difference being that, a conspiracy involves a 'group' of individual confidence men, or con-artists – think big, think Federal Reserve and Wall Street, both involve 'consumer confidence'. The con builds its subject’s confidence, for the purpose of bilking the supplicant out of something that it has; something of value and which the con desires to take by slight of hand. In 1913, when the money powers centralized their control, consecrated in the creature of the Federal Reserve, the popular press from that bygone era criticized it as a, “den of vipers and thieves”, in other words, a sanctuary of con-artists.
If you tell a little lie, you’ll get caught, but if you tell a BIG lie, and tell it often enough it and teach it as the truth, eventually it will be perceived and accepted by all as the truth. (In other words, the larger and more magnificent the con, the more difficult it is to see through it, especially if it is sanctioned and cloaked in the respectable shroud of one’s own government.)
I’d be willing to venture a ten-fold return on your every dollar, that there are currently, and have been from the very beginning, numerous false-flag fires set off all over the Middle East landscape. To this bloody thought process, the ends justify what ever means are at its disposal.
If these things are not openly vetted, the House can only remain under the dark cloud it has gathered itself under, while innocent blood continues to spill and scream from the ground to haunt the ears of the living.
I say, reopen the investigations into Enron/Cheney (currently, morphed into the UBS of McCain/Gramm/Cheney) because this might very well be the thread to pull that will unravel the cloak, which was 9/11.
In 43 BCE, Cicero spoke these words to the Senate: A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is well known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.
Referenced Material-----
Afghanistan, the Taliban and the Bush Oil Team
ENRON Entanglements to UNOCAL Taliban to Texas and Controlling Afghanistan
UBS Is Enron
GLADIO-Death Plan for Democracy
The Flight of the Global Hawk
The Power of Nightmares - Why We Fight
9/11 Synthetic Terror-Made in the USA
The Annotico Report (former president of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, reveals 9/11 as rouge GLADIO-CIA op)
