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September 28 2011
The Onion -- Historians Politely Remind Nation To Check What's Happened In Past Before Making Any Big Decisions
'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.'September 19 2011
The Washington Post -- 25 years later, how ‘Top Gun’ made America love war
'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.'Partial Objects -- Ron Paul Forgot that America is a Blue Pill Nation
'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?***'August 29 2011
The Onion -- Ongoing Iraqi Violence Almost Makes American Invasion Seem Pointless
'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."'August 23 2011
ZeroHedge -- Guest Post: Getting Off The Globalist Chess Board: Safe Haven Relocation
'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...'The Onion -- Report: At This Point, Most Americans Feel More Comfortable In Dying Economy
'"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.'August 01 2011
July 27 2011
The Onion -- Nation Ready For Its Din Din
'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.'July 22 2011
The Vigilant Citizen -- New Homeland Security Video Depicts US Citizens as Terrorists...and Encourages You to Snitch on Them
'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-FourJuly 16 2011
The Daily Bell -- Have the Immoral Actions of Central Bankers Precipitated the Decline of the West?
'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 Market Oracle -- The Metastasis of Moral Hazard and its Effect on Gold
'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.'Business Insider -- 14 Cities That Are Being Eaten Alive By Public Sector Workers
"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 WireJuly 01 2011
The Onion -- Nation To Try Its Luck Out West
'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."'June 27 2011
The Onion -- Creditors Repossess New England From Debt-Ridden U.S.
'"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."'June 22 2011
YouTube -- CorbettReport: The Last Word on Snake Oil
'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...' -- Rockefeller Family -- "Competition is a sin!"
'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...' -- Rockefeller Family -- "Competition is a sin!"
May 28 2011
The Daily Bell -- Turning Points of Empire's End? by Anthony Wile
'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?'The Daily Bell -- Turning Points of Empire's End? by Anthony Wile
'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.'May 02 2011
HIPSTER RUNOFF -- I am Proud to Be An American. We Got Him. We Killed Osama Bin Laden.
"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."April 23 2011
The Daily Bell -- IMF Austerity Is Headed to America – Watch Out!
'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...'April 14 2011
The Globe and Mail -- In cyberspy vs. cyberspy, China has the edge
'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
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