tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16245615021407033942024-03-14T02:42:24.583-07:00Take the Red PillThe world isn't as it seems.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-50901387092280934322010-01-17T13:33:00.000-08:002010-01-17T21:34:17.314-08:00Psychopaths Have (Mis)Shaped History and Rule the WorldWhen I wrote the blog post on <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/psychopaths-corporations-and-government.html">Psychopaths, Corporations, and Government</a>, and <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/04/rise-of-imps.html">Rise of the IMPs</a>, I had inferred that psychopaths rise to power in government in the same way they are attracted to the corporate structure as described in the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Suits-When-Psychopaths-Work/dp/0060837721">Snakes in Suits</a>". At the time I did not know that there was an entire book written about psychopaths in government.<div><br /></div><div>Here is the book:</div><div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Political-Ponerology-Science-Adjusted-Purposes/dp/1897244258">Political Ponerology</a></div><div><div><div><div><br /></div><div>"Ponerology" is the study of evil, from the greek word for evil,<i> Poneros.</i> Evil can be studied outside of theology, in the same way ethics can. Author Michael Shermer discusses this in his book "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ws_HtuMoWHsC&pg=PP1&dq=science+of+good+and+evil&sig=6A7YBB9gJV6nPYVPltokjDPAdGE">The Science of Good and Evil</a>". The basic premise is that the desire to help others is hard-wired into the species, in order to help preserve it. However, Shermer misses the fact that 0.8% of the population, the psychopaths, do not have this desire.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Political Ponerology</i> studies how psychopaths take over political systems, which is then called a <i>Pathocracy</i>. (The term <i>psychopath </i>has a more specific meaning than <i>sociopath</i>, which is a more colloquial term.) The Polish author, Andrew Lobaczewski, was part of a group of psychologists in Poland who were secretly studying pathocracies while under Soviet rule. They were doing this research in fear of discovery and harsh punishment. Psychopaths don't like being studied and are afraid of being discovered. He escaped to the U.S.A. and showed a manuscript to an influential fellow Pole, who praised the work, but somehow got the book suppressed for many years. This Pole is Zbigniew Brzezinski, Obama's Foreign Policy Secretary, <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/02/truth-about-obama.html">whom I've written about before</a>. He authored a <a href="http://www.wanttoknow.info/brzezinskigrandchessboard">book about the U.S. strategy for controlling the oil in Eurasia</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1572304510">Without Remorse: The Disturbing World of Psychopaths Among us</a>", psychologist Robert Hare explains that born psychopaths comprise about 0.8% of the population and are not "insane" - they understand what society considers "right" and "wrong", understand the consequences of their actions, but have <i>no conscience, remorse, guilt, nor empathy</i>. They are completely callous and self serving, but they have free will and make conscious choices. </div><div><br /></div><div>They <i>consider themselves superior to the rest of us</i>, who are "weak" because we are subservient to our emotions, and thus "deserve" to be taken advantage of. They consider people around them as objects, including spouses and children, if they have them. At the same time <i>they feel oppressed</i>, because they desire some things which "normal" people find reprehensible and would punish them for. As an example, an <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=4738806&page=1">Austrian man was arrested for imprisoning his daughter for over 20 years in the basement</a>. In his mind, all he wanted was to keep his daughter in the basement, nothing wrong with that, but normal people came and took her away and jailed him. A psychopathic convict in jail for nearly killing someone in a bar fight, said, "It's not fair, he only spent 2 months in the hospital, while I'm in jail for 2 years!".</div><div><br /></div><div>Many psychopaths become con artists, or go to jail, but many stay just below the radar, moving through society, taking advantage of everyone around them. Only about 1 in 25,000 become serial killers. Not all of them particularly enjoy killing people. Some of them become priests, lawyers, doctors, managers, or politicians. These are the "successful psychopaths". They become master manipulators, using their skill at feigning emotions. They are fascinated by psychology, which many study in order to improve their manipulation skills. Many prison psychiatrists have been fooled by their psychopathic subjects. They are glib and are expert, smooth liars. They are obsessed with manipulation and power over others. They move like predators among us.</div><div><br /></div><div>At a young age, they realize they are very different, and practice making the proper emotional expressions in the mirror. They become actors on the stage of life. (They sometimes invoke the wrong, puzzlingly inappropriate emotional expression due to the lack of real emotions other than "proto emotions" such as rage and pleasure.) This is what psychologist Hervey Cleckley called "<a href="http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/sanity_1.PdF">The Mask of Sanity</a>", in his downloadable <a href="http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/sanity_1.PdF">book</a> of the same name. <i>This Mask of Sanity can be turned into the <b>Mask of Ideology</b> </i>- psychopathic politicians can say and do the "right" things in the public light to attract voters, things which they do not care about in the slightest. Think of the caricature "god-fearing" politician who in his private life, hires homosexual prostitutes, snorts cocaine, and accepts bribes. Think of the caricature "progressive" politician who preaches saving the environment and helping the poor, while jetting in a private plane and screwing people over by voting for the Mother of All Bailouts.</div><div><br /></div><div>Communist and "cult of personality" totalitarian regimes, the Nazis, and historic baddies such as Pol Pot, Genghis Khan and Mao Tse Tung, are some very obvious psychopaths and pathocracies. However, remember that not all psychopaths would be as extreme as those, and there are probably many more "moderate" ones. Remember they are obsessed about power and manipulation, and not necessarily about killing (however they may find the death of one, or of thousands,"necessary" for their personal aims, and will have no qualms about it).</div><div><br /></div><div>Here are a few things some politicians have done which suggest psychopathy</div><div><ul><li>Bush's wars of aggression, which have killed 10s or 100's of thousands.</li><li>Clinton lying smoothly under oath (no I don't care that he got a blowjob from an intern), and his and Hillary's Whitewater scam</li><li>Madeleine Albright saying that the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children was "worth it"</li><li>Margaret Thatcher saying that her dream was to lead the nation into war and win (we are like pawns to psychopaths)</li></ul></div><div>And then here are 2 articles about Obama's narcissism (many narcissists are psychopaths and other narcissists can be considered as mild psychopaths):</div><div><ol><li><a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/994408/barack_obama_narcissist_or_merely_narcissistic.html?cat=9">Is Obama a Narcissist?</a> The article is written by Sam Vaknin, the world's only known "successful psychopath" who has come forward, and is the subject of the documentary <a href="http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/i-psychopath/">I, Psychopath</a>.</li><li><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/when_our_military_is_attacked.html">This one</a> discusses his callous, inappropriate reaction to the Fort Hood Massacre.</li></ol></div><div>In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Political-Ponerology-Science-Adjusted-Purposes/dp/1897244258">Political Ponerology</a>, Lobaczewski describes the structure in a Pathocracy. It is like a pyramid, like most hierarchical stuctures. Psychopaths are capable of functioning in hierarchies as long as they think it lets them achieve their goals. At the top are the true psychopaths. Below them are the "new bourgeoisie" - those that benefit from the Pathocracy - many are probably the borderline psychopaths. Then below them are whom Lobaczewski calls the "Right wing Authoritarians" (an unfortunate choice of words). I prefer calling them the "A<i>uthoritarian Ideologues</i>", because authoritarians can be either right wing or left wing (as per today's nomenclature). Ideologues are those who strongly believe in ideology, such as those Lenin referred to as "useful idiots", those that spread ideology to help you gain power. </div><div><br /></div><div>Lobaczewski says that these "authoritarians" comprise 15% of the population, who have the personality type which have a need to <i>follow and to exert authority</i>. They are the types who believe very strongly in ideology, such as the caricature "liberals" and the caricature "conservatives", and want to tell everybody how to live their lives; they are the busybody judgmental types, the little-Nazi HOA types, and the TSA types - the bossy types who order you around and are obsequious in the face of authority above them. </div><div><br /></div><div>The rest of the population, or about 80%, are along for the ride, living their lives, oblivious to the wholesale manipulation they are subject to.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have seen discussions of Lobaczewski's book on "liberal" or "progressive" forums - they make the predictable mistake of calling Bush a psychopath then being blind to the psychopaths who spew "progressive" ideology. They do not understand the philosophy of the <a href="http://www.nolanchart.com/article4425.html">Fabian Socialists</a> (who are members of the elite of society), who latched onto the idea of spreading Welfarism as a means of gaining more power, because the elite control government, Welfarism requires more government power, and "helping the less fortunate" tugs at your heartstrings and is thus difficult to argue against because the desire to help others is hardwired into the species. e.g. "You don't like welfare, you must be heartless!"</div><div><br /></div><div>The Progressives do not realize that all Progressivism requires Authoritarianism and Centralization of Power, which attracts psychopaths. They do not realize that the Progressives of the 1930s were admirers of the National <i>Socialist </i>party of Germany (Nazi party) for their desire to shape society in the <a href="http://www.freedomforceinternational.org/pdf/futurecalling1.pdf">collectivist mold</a> (but distanced themselves when the Nazis started killing Jews). They do not realize that Progressivism was fueled by PR campaigns of Big Business, in order to enable "regulation" which was actually <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/attack-on-free-market.html">Corporatism</a> and Cartelization. (See page 82 of this PDF: <a href="http://mises.org/books/fed.pdf">The Case Against the FED</a>) They do not see that while Bush is an obvious war-monger, the Democrats supported the war with votes and that <a href="http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/08/27/obamas-road-to-war/">Obama is the same</a>, and <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/03/obama-fabian-socialist-oped-cx_jb_1103bowyer.html">is a Fabian Socialist</a>. (This is not to say that the <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5010.htm">Neoconservatives </a>don't promote Socialism - <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/reps-and-dems-are-pushing-authoritarian.html">their voting supports it</a>).</div><div><br /></div><div>The "liberals" do not understand that the mass media controls the debates and feeds a <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/reps-and-dems-are-pushing-authoritarian.html">false left-right paradigm</a> which is meant to control thought and distract from the real issues of erosion of liberties. They do not understand that any attempt to shape society from the top-down is a form of Elitism and Utopianism. Those that believe in it do so because they feel superior and better than the rest (elitism), and that everyone else should be forced to act the same way (authoritarianism), in order to make society better by force (Utopianism), <i>led by the most moral members of society</i>. <b> And there is the conundrum - the psychopaths will rise to power, not the virtuous. </b>If two people run for the same office, and one is a good person and the other is evil and doesn't play by the rules, who would win? <i>How can you expect that the ruling elite will be comprised of individuals that are more morally upright than the masses they rule?</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Picture the bible-thumping "right wingers" who want government to force everyone to their way of thinking, and their nemesis, the "liberals" or "left wingers", who want government to force everyone to *their* way of thinking. They think their enemy is each other, but they are played against each other. (And most of the 80% along for the ride think the truth is between the two sides, not realizing that the answer is neither). The "wingers" are all from the 15% portion who are Authoritarians. <i>They are an important tool for the psychopaths to exert their control over society.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The science of psychopathy as researched by Lobaczewski and Hare shows that positions of power attract the psychopaths, and thus any top-down method of shaping society, regardless of good intentions, by means of centralization and use of power, is doomed. The correct solution is <i>self-rule and de-centralization or dismantling of power </i>- and the only significant power is that which is backed by violence or threat of violence. Remember that in any government system, only government has the legal monopoly on violence. (e.g. you break its laws, and men with guns and badges arrest you.) </div><div><br /></div><div>This pervasive thinking is the <i>Myth of the Benevolent Dictator</i> - the belief that "if only the right person gets into power, everything will be better". The "liberals" believe that "if only those true to the progressive ideology" get into power, everything will be better. Even if you could get a "good"person into office there wielding power righteously for a while, <i>the next one will likely be a psychopath and will use that exact same power for evil</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>This reviewer of Lobaczewski's book had <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Political-Ponerology-Science-Adjusted-Purposes/product-reviews/1897244258/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_5?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addFiveStar">this to say</a>:<br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; "><blockquote>In this book I have learned that <b>most, if not all of the governments of the world, have been taken over by a pathological infection from just a small group of psychopaths who understand the psychology of normal people to a very high degree and they have corrupted these governmental structures to the very core</b>. These psychopaths have silently, but with mind boggling persistence and stealth moved in and taken over and hollowed out the very soul of humanity using lies and deception as their weapons of choice. These psychopaths, this inhuman race of pathological deviants, who do not have the capacity to feel conscience and feel the pain of another, now literally rule the world.<br /><br />One psychopath can terrorize an entire town, even an entire city.<b> The majority of normal people are now ruled by a minority of psychopaths and they have basically made our governments criminal networks. Criminal governments. Those working for these governments are now working for what basically is a criminal enterprise and they don't see it because they are in it and profit by it, yet it is these people who are determining our future and the future of our children. </b><br /><br />Mankind is becoming a willing slave to the pathocratic structures created by the inhuman obsessive greed of this small percentage of humanity that cannot feel conscience. This book is a MUST READ. Only by knowing what we are dealing with can we do anything about it without going in circles. We are dealing with an intelligent predator that feeds on the soul of humanity. It seems to me that there are only a very few who are now speaking of psychopathy and (macrosocial) Evil in the way Lobaczewski speaks of it, since it has been suppressed for so long, but knowledge of the behavior of these deviants, these snakes in suits, is essential so we can recognize this "predator within our midst" and then do something about it with any real and lasting results</blockquote></span></div><div>History has been disproportionately shaped by psychopaths - it makes sense that wars happen because of psychopaths. However, not only overt war-mongers had to have been psychopaths, but every stinking empire-hungry conqueror and power-hungry leader in history had to have been one - including the first caveman who convinced his fellow cavemen to take over the next cave by force. The sorry state of today's world with the seemingly <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/12/consumerism-and-3rd-world-oppression.html">intractable poverty and hunger</a> despite our <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/pyramids-food-production-and-economic.html">technological prowess</a> is most easily explained by the fact that governments are pathocracies.</div><div><br /></div><div>One may argue that psychopaths are produced by a recessive gene which the human species <i>needs </i>in order to progress, that the large-scale organization required by the rise of the early great civilizations such as Mesopotamia, Sumeria, and Egypt would not have happened without psychopaths. This may be so, but given today's technology and telecommunications, such large-scale organizations are possible <i>without </i>the power backed by violence that governments (and their psychopaths) have. Just look at Sony, Apple, or Toyota. They are large scale organizations capable of organizing tens or hundreds of thousands of people through mutually agreed voluntary contracts, in order to achieve a common goal - create products which customers voluntarily purchase. This, by the way, is the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/05/free-market-is-like-internet.html">essence of the free market</a>, which is based on freedom to trade and to enter into voluntary contracts. In the absence of violence or coercion, all agreements are reached voluntarily, through persuasion and reason.</div><div><br /></div><div>Freedom and Free Markets produce the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialist_libertarianismv">best possible outcomes for the majority</a>. Freedom and Free Markets are not perfect and do not produce a Utopia - it is not about shaping society - and it cannot produce the ideal result for everyone at any given time. But given the science of psychopathy there is nothing better.</div><div><br /></div></div></div></div>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-15013155726396597552008-08-04T22:58:00.000-07:002008-08-21T17:24:35.153-07:00The Media's Memory HoleIn George Orwell's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four">1984</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_hole">Memory Hole</a> was the tube into which workers placed documents to be sucked and destroyed. This way, if no documents of an event existed, the event never occurred.<br /><br />The <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">Corporate Media</a> commit the lies of omission instead of the lies of commission. In a lie of omission, the liar withholds certain pieces of information in order to mislead the audience, instead of saying an outright lie (which is the lie of commission).<br /><br />Some of the media's lies of omission are outright censorship.<br /><br />Here are a few examples.<br /><br />In the Boston Globe online, the original story about a man who was arrested for placing a sticker in an airplane lavatory that said "9/11 was an Inside Job - prisonplanet.com", included a mention of Alex Jones and his website, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.prisonplanet.com">www.prisonplanet.com</a>, and a link to it. A few days later, the prisonplanet.com phrase in the sticker's quote was removed, and the link and mention of Alex Jones were deleted.<br /><a href="http://www.infowars.com/?p=3704">http://www.infowars.com/?p=3704</a><br /><br />Recently Obama delivered a speech in Berlin, where he said that the U.S. needs a "civilian national security force" that would be "as powerful, strong and well-funded as the military". (Taken alone and out of context, this line sounds decidedly like he was wanted a Gestapo - the meaning in the speech is a bit different, but still it is very strange to be using a line like this). In the online transcripts such as on the Wall Street Journal and the Denver post, the line is missing:<br /><a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69784">http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69784</a><br />You can watch the speech here. The line was at the 16 minute mark:<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df2p6867_pw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df2p6867_pw</a><br /><br />Several months ago, in a presidential debate, Ron Paul was given a bullshit question meant to embarrass him. He answered it extremely well, and in the subsequent Fox replays of the debate, the question and his answer <a href="http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/the-16-minutes-edited-out-of-foxs-debate-replay-videos/">were edited out</a>.<br /><br />Very recently, the media has reported that Russia invaded Georgia without provocation. In reality, the Georgian president, emboldened by <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/08/blowback_from_bear_baiting.html">thinking he had NATO and U.S. support</a>, had invaded South Ossetia and attacked Russian peacekeepers. Russia launched a massive counterattack. In declaring that it was all Russia's fault, the Mainstream Media <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/latulippe89.html">dropped the Ossetians into the Memory Hole</a>.<br /><br />Here is a video of Fox News abruptly cutting off a 12 year old girl from California when she started thanking Russian troops for saving her. She was visiting relatives in Ossetia when the Georgian army attacked:<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/ySWm76IZ0No">http://www.youtube.com/v/ySWm76IZ0No</a><br /><br /><br />One of the biggest events of the 20th century in the Memory Hole, was the <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">attempted military coup against the civilian government of the USA</span>, in the 1930's, when FDR was president. I'll bet most of you haven't heard of it. If such a military coup attempt happened, surely it would be big in the history books!<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler">Smedley Butler</a> was the most decorated Marine Major General at the time. A group of people in government and big business plotted an overthrow of the civilian government. He was recruited to lead the military, chosen because of his popularity among his men. He played along until the last minute, then exposed the plot.<br /><a href="http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=883">http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=883</a><br />What followed was a whitewash. The media ignored it, and the one person who could corroborate his story died mysteriously.<br /><br />Smedley Butler was a true patriot. Today, few people have even heard of him. Why are he and the "Business Plot" not well known?<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot#Historians.E2.80.99_treatment_of_the_Business_Plot">From Wikipedia</a>:<br /><blockquote>These reasons were proposed to explain why the Business Plot did not become a cause célèbre:<br /><br />The story embarrassed politically influential business people, who felt it best to deflect attention from themselves.<br /><br />In 1934, newspapers were controlled by an élite — according to then-Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes, 82 per cent of daily newspapers monopolized their communities; the media down-played Gen. Butler's testimony to protect the interests of advertisers and their owners.<br /><br />Some of President Roosevelt's advisers were plotters, and downplayed the matter, avoiding exposure.<br /></blockquote><br />If in 1934, newspapers were controlled by the elite, what more today that they've had more time to consolidate their power? Today,<a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html"> 5 Corporations own the mass media</a>.<br /><br />There is one more reason I believe that Smedley Butler is ignored in mainstream history. It's because he wrote the book <a href="http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm">War is a Racket</a>. In this book, he said that the U.S. Military is the attack dog of Wall St.<br /><blockquote>"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."</blockquote>Today, the US Military is <span style="font-style: italic;">still </span>the attack dog of Wall Street. In addition, funding the military with taxpayer money means immense profits for the military suppliers. Never-ending wars such as the Vietnam war, and the Iraq War, are not meant to be won, but to be <span style="font-style: italic;">waged</span>...<br /><br />On the subject of the Iraq War, when the WMD weren't found, the media had simply forgotten that that was the supposed reason for going into the war in the first place.<br /><br />When Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats were campaigning to be elected into Congress, they vowed to end the Iraq War. That was 2 years ago...<br /><br /><br />We must not allow the media <a href="http://www.thememoryhole.org/">make us forget</a> just because they don't remind us.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-8131519073292471092008-05-16T19:46:00.000-07:002008-05-30T18:20:06.075-07:00The Free Market is like the InternetThe internet is a web that isn't controlled by a single person or a single group. If there is a defect, data gets routed around it.<br /><br />If I were a baker and my flour supplier screws up, I can find another flour supplier.<br /><br />The Free Market is self optimizing. If I had 2 flour suppliers I'd go with the one that offered the best combination of price, quality, and service. If the less favored supplier figured out a way to cut cost, he would become the favored supplier. Let's say he figured out that he could cut cost by switching his delivery vans to vegetable oil / diesel. The other guy would then have to figure out a way to cut his costs too.<br /><br />The beauty of this is that everyone figures out a way to be most productive, because he gets rewarded. I don't need to tell the flour supplier that he should switch his delivery vans to diesel. No bureaucrat needs to decide who gets how many rolls of toilet paper that week.<br /><br />The free market in a way is also like distributed processing. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry would get to decide how to best run their business. A million individual brains is better than one single bureaucrat.<br /><br />The opposite of this is centralized economic planning a la the Soviet Union. Their shortages of basic necessities were legendary. In contrast, when were you ever worried that your favorite coffee shop would have no coffee one morning?<br /><br />The idea of the free market as self-optimizing is espoused in the classic essay, "I, Pencil":<br /><a href="http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Essays/rdPncl1.html">http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Essays/rdPncl1.html</a><br /><br />The most curious thing of all though is, despite the fact that many people realize that central economic planning is ridiculous, they allow the very core of the economy, the monetary system, controlled by a central planner, the central bank, aka the Federal Reserve (in the United States).<br /><br />How does the monetary system work? Here is a fantastic 45 minute cartoon video making it easy to understand:<br /><a href="http://www.moneyasdebt.net/">http://www.moneyasdebt.net/</a>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-73754345841428029882008-05-15T20:09:00.000-07:002008-05-16T00:14:10.555-07:00The GatekeepersMost of the population fall for the Left vs. Right argument, believing that the Democrat vs. Republican debate is valid. They are simply playing out the role of <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/democrat-republican-good-cop-bad-cop.html">Good Cop / Bad Cop</a>.<br /><br />If the left/right axis were simply socialism vs. capitalism, then I am a right winger. (Note that today we have <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/attack-on-free-market.html">CORPORATISM and NOT true capitalism</a>).<br /><br />However, many issues are mixed into the "left/right" axis, seemingly at random. The human tendency to identify with a group makes them want to identify with either the left or the right, at first due to their pet issue, and are brainwashed later into accepting all the other stands of that side on all the other issues.<br /><ul><li>Who decided that the right would be pro gun rights?</li><li>Who decided that the right would be "pro life"?<br /></li><li>Who decided that the left would be pro civil liberties? </li><li>Who decided that the left would be anti war?</li><li>Who decided that the left would be pro gay marriage?</li></ul>(Missing from this is the most important issue, the fact that <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/compound-interest-paradox.html">the monetary system is fundamentally flawed, and inherently corrupt</a>. )<br /><br />In reality ...<br /><ul><li>The Democrats in Congress have voted overwhelmingly to support the Iraq war. (They aren't anti war)</li><li>The Democrats have voted overwhelmingly to support the Patriot Act. (They aren't pro civil liberties)</li><li>The Republicans have increased spending as much, if not more than, the Democrats. (They aren't pro small government)</li><li>The Republicans (more accurately, the NeoConservatives) have continually increased government power (They aren't pro small government)</li><li>The Republicans (the NeoConservatives), have been pushing for more war (How is that pro-life?)</li><li>Republican Ronald Reagan bought into Keynesian Economics (tax less but spend more, which of course increases deficits, and <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/compound-interest-paradox.html">benefits the bankers</a>).</li></ul>As you can see, the "Left" and the "Right" each have some valid points, but on the valid points, they say one thing and do another - such as the Democrats voting to support the war and the Republicans increasing government spending.<br /><br />An example of how people are manipulated by the Left/Right illusion is that all the pro gun rights people, who have forgotten that the 2nd Amendment is there so that an armed populace is a deterrent and the last stand against a tyrannical government, did NOT make a stand against the Patriot Act, an act by a tyrannical government! All because they were led to believe that the Republicans were on "their side".<br /><br />And of course when someone gets it right, like <a href="http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/">Ron Paul</a>, the "Left" and the "Right" attack him by simply screaming about his points that don't agree with the Establishment Right/Left. e.g. the "Right" screamed he's antiwar and therefore doesn't care about "national security", and the "Left" screamed that he's anti-human because he's anti-welfare. And then on Abolishing the Federal Reserve, they'll both just call it "loony".<br /><br />Part of this left/right issues hodgepodge is the belief that we are screwed today by corporations and their lobbyists (true), but that the solution is <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/history-of-government-regulation-and.html">more government regulation</a> (false) and <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/attack-on-free-market.html">more socialism</a> (false), because <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/12/consumerism-and-3rd-world-oppression.html">corporate abuses</a> are a result of capitalism (false).<br /><br />One other issue of the "extreme left" is that the US Government is abusive overseas (true), but that it's simply a result of simple politics (false).<br /><br />Which brings me to the GATEKEEPERS, who are a potent method of making people believe in the left vs. right hoax.<br /><br />Noam Chomsky for example is a LEFT GATEKEEPER.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=NoamAsset">http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=NoamAsset</a> :<br /><blockquote><a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=ChomskyN">Noam Chomsky</a> is often hailed as America's premier dissident intellectual, a fearless purveyor of truth fighting against media propaganda, murderous U.S. foreign policy, and the crimes of profit-hungry transnational corporations.<br /><p> His formula over the years has stayed consistent: blame "America" and "corporations" while failing to examine the hidden <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=Definitions#Collectivist">Globalist</a> overclass which pulls the strings, using the U.S. as an engine of creation and destruction. Then after pinning all the worlds ills on American imperialism, <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=ChomskyN">Chomsky</a> offers the solution of world government under the <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=UnitedNations">United Nations</a>.</p><a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=ChomskyN">Chomsky</a> steadfastly denies the role of the <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=CFR">Council on Foreign Relations</a>, <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=Bilderberg">Bilderberg Committee</a>, and <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=TrilatComm">Trilateral Commission</a> in the creation and management of the wars and poverty he claims to condemn. When speaking on such "conspiracies," he said the following: <blockquote><p> "It's the same with the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, all these other things the people are racing around searching for conspiracy theories about -- they're "nothing" organizations. Of course they're there, obviously rich people get together and talk to each other, and play golf with one another, and plan together-that's not a big surprise. But these conspiracy theories people are putting their energies into have virtually nothing to do with the way the institutions actually function." (Understanding Power, p. 348)</p></blockquote> <p> The <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=CFR">CFR</a> has been the dominant roundtable group pushing for a <a href="http://www.infowars.com/articles/nwo/north_american_union_already_starting_replace_usa.htm">Panamerican Union</a> by 2010 which would dissolve national borders and unite Mexico, Canada, and America under a single currency, with biometric ID cards and GPS-tracked vehicles on camera-strewn superhighways. How can <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=ChomskyN">Chomsky</a> seriously claim the CFR is a "nothing organization" when their role in crafting policy is so clear? Whom is he trying to protect in denying the treasonous goals of the CFR?</p> <p> <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=ChomskyN">Chomsky</a>'s stonewalling on the <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=Bilderberg">Bilderberg Group</a> raises even more suspicions. Since 1954 the Bilderberg has served as the central brain of the New World Order, the major secret gathering for Globalist agents from across the globe. Bilderberg chairmen like <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=LippeB">Prince Bernhard</a> and <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=RockefellerD">David Rockefeller</a> have pushed for total global government, eugenics population control, engineering wars, and controlling the worldwide economy. Top politicians from America and Europe also undergo a grooming process at the Bilderberg [meetings]. <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=ClintonWJ">Bill Clinton</a> went in 1991 as Rockefeller's personal guest, and <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=BlairT">Tony Blair</a> attended in 1993 before becoming Prime Minister. <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=KerryJF">John Kerry</a> attended in 2000, and <a href="http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=EdwardsJR">John Edwards</a> did two weeks before becoming the VP nominee in 2004.<br /></p></blockquote><br />Gatekeepers have two functions:<br /><ol><li>Limit discussion so that fans think that's all there is to the issues</li><li>Make "extreme" bullshit statements so that the opposite side (the right in this example), will summarily dismiss his valid arguments, such as Chomsky's arguments against Corporatism, by way of the Ad Hominem logical fallacy, (which <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/">FSK</a> groups under what he calls the "<a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/07/strawman-fallacy.html">Strawman Fallacy</a>")<br /></li></ol><p><br /></p><p>Another example of a left gatekeeper is Lyndon Larouche.</p><p>Larouche has dug up and published obscure stuff like CIA involvement in the overthrow of certain foreign governments. With respect to (2) above, he says things like:<br /></p><p></p><blockquote>“The Beatles had no genuine musical talent, but were a product shaped according to British Psychological Warfare Division specifications.”</blockquote><p></p>And so by means of the Ad Hominem logical fallacy, the pro-right people will dismiss the notion that the CIA has overthrown legitimate foreign governments.<br /><br />Larouche by the way endorses the "Alexander Hamilton" banking model -a central bank, like the Federal Reserve, which makes him a New World Order asset.<br /><br />The Right Gatekeepers, most common of which are the obnoxious radio talk show hosts,<br />will say stupid things like "we need to invade Iraq", and then the pro-left will dismiss valid points like "we need to get rid of welfare".<br /><br />Lou Dobbs is another kind of Gatekeeper. He <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65f3q_Lm9U">rails against Corporatism and the North American Union</a>, and claims that none of the presidential candidates ever talks about it, despite the fact that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ccxQRaLIOM">Ron Paul has talked against both many times</a>! This is to prevent any real progress on these issues.<br /><br />The way to identify gatekeepers is to see if they push any of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8DpKKSmaa8">NWO (New World Order)</a> agenda:<br /><ul><li>central banking</li><li>claim that the free market is the cause of recessions and/or poverty<br /></li><li>more government power or more centralization of power</li><li>more government regulation</li><li>more government spending</li><li>more war / conflict<br /></li><li>less individual freedom<br /></li></ul>Or if they rail against some of the agenda but limiting discussion to prevent real progress (e.g. Lou Dobbs not talking about Ron Paul).redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-88519856486119557572008-04-22T22:04:00.000-07:002008-04-23T08:38:35.106-07:00Rise of the IMPsFirst I'd like to say that I've been in a sort of funk so I haven't been posting much recently. I don't know if I can go back to my former pace. Some bloggers say you should post several times per week, but my blogs take so long to research and write, and takes so much energy out of me, that that was never possible. Maybe if I made my blogs shorter, I can blog more often. That aside...<br /><br />----------<br /><br />If you have been reading my other posts, you know that I believe that there is a power elite in the world that operates hidden from the public eye, with selfish interests.<br /><br />John Perkins calls it the <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/9/confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man">Corporatocracy</a>.<br />Carroll Quigley calls it an <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/reps-and-dems-are-pushing-authoritarian.html">Anglophile elite</a>.<br /><br />Quigley was a well-respected Georgetown University historian and professor. He was an elitist who agreed with the elite's secretive agenda of oppression. Bill Clinton was his protege. Clinton is quoted as saying:<br /><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">"I heard that call clarified by a professor I had named Carroll Quigley"</blockquote><br />If one can easily believe that in a small town the sheriff, the mayor, and the judge are all corrupt and in cahoots, why would it be hard to believe the same to be true in the national level, namely the executive, judicial, and the legislative branches of government? And that people in power from different countries collude?<br /><br />Government today resembles Fascism aka Corporatism:<br /><ul><li> Government regulation <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/history-of-government-regulation-and.html">favors big business over small</a></li><li> Government regulation <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2008/03/bear-stearns-takeover.html">bails out businesses that are "too big to fail"</a> despite risky business practices; and yet said businesses <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/05/distributed-costs-and-concentrated.html">keep their earnings to themselves when times are good</a></li><li> Government regulation in the form of the Federal Reserve (and all central banks around the world), confer a <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/06/compound-interest-paradox.html">massive subsidy on the entire financial industry</a></li><li>There's a revolving door between the highest positions of power in government and in the large corporations (e.g. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc.)<br /></li></ul><br /><br />The history of mankind has always been of <span style="font-style: italic;">hegemony.</span> A group always rises to the top. This group always tends to step on others to get to, and to stay at, the top.<br /><br />In the past this group tended to be royalty.<br /><br />In about the 1700's the world saw the rise of liberal democracies, with the French Revolution and the American Revolution, and that was supposed to be the end of royalties. (The term here is loosely defined, as the USA is supposed to be a republic, <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/usa-is-not-democracy-and-isnt-supposed.html">not a democracy</a>).<br /><br />Great idea - that government officials are elected by the people, and that laws are written by their representatives. However, the democratic processes are simply being manipulated behind the scenes by a hidden power elite. <span style="font-style: italic;">The corporatocracy has replaced royalty.</span><br /><br />This same corporatocracy <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">controls the mass media</a>, creating the illusion that people control their government and their destiny through the democratic process.<br /><br />This same corporatocracy controls the economy via the money supply creation process. People never question the banking system. They just accept it like space and time and the weather. In reality it is a great scam known as the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/compound-interest-paradox.html">Compound Interest Paradox</a>. <br /><br />This same Corporatocracy <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/03/deliberate-dumbing-down-of-america.html">controls the educational system</a>. This is the reason the Compound Interest Paradox is never discussed in economics class or in college.<br /><br />This same Corporatocracy exerts huge control on the direction of public and private money expenditure in scientific research. The Ford and Rockefeller foundations get to pick and choose what research projects get funded, just like they got to <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4446387174017711777&q=reece+dodd&ei=hdsOSJijHpzQ4gLAirSiBA">pick and choose which historians and professors</a> got grants, in order that <a href="http://www.thedyinggod.com/">history books frunctions as propaganda</a>.<br /><br /><br />I have posted that 1% of the population have varying degrees of psychopathy, and that the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/psychopaths-corporations-and-government.html">corporate structure attracts them</a>, because ruthless behavior that non-psychopaths would have trouble doing, is rewarded. The <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/9/confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man">corporatocracy</a>, is basically comprised of the people who own and control the world's largest corporations, and the people in government are basically subservient to them, via the lobbyists. The lines between the highest echelons of the wealthiest corporations and government are blurred. Therefore, psychopaths run the government.<br /><br /><br />What if 1% of the 1% of the population that are psychopaths, are also very intelligent? What if 1% of those were also megalomanic? 1% of 1% of 1% equals 1 in a million. Of the 1 billion or so people on the planet who didn't grow up in poverty, there are 1,000 of them.<br /><br />They are the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Intelligent, Megalomanic Psychopaths</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">IMPs.</span><br /><br />They are our rulers.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-73599375506510509392008-03-16T22:28:00.000-07:002008-03-16T22:56:37.722-07:00Spitzer SchmitzerThe corporate media is all over NY Governor Eliot Spitzer. The thing that riles me the most over this whole thing is not that prostitution is illegal; it's the fact that he was caught because of "suspicious wire transfers":<br /><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4424507&page=1">http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4424507&page=1</a><br /><br />If one transfers $5,000 or more from his bank account more than once, the banks automatically forward the information to the FBI and the DEA. These laws that allow government to spy on its citizens' money transfers isn't really about drug laundering, it's about taxation. The <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-your-taxation-rate.html">IRS wants its pound of flesh</a>, and taxes practically everything.<br /><br />Ironically, Spitzer was the victim of the very police state tactics that he himself had used when he was Attorney General. His entrapment consisted of the wiretapping and recording of 6,000 private phone calls, and the interception of 5,000 emails:<br /><a href="http://blog.mises.org/archives/007915.asp">http://blog.mises.org/archives/007915.asp</a><br /><br />Much as I dislike the WSJ, this article is worth quoting:<br /><a href="http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB120536943121332151-lMyQjAxMDI4MDE1MzMxNjM5Wj.html">http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB120536943121332151-lMyQjAxMDI4MDE1MzMxNjM5Wj.html</a><br /><blockquote>"Lavrenti Beria, the head of Joseph Stalin's KGB, once quipped to his boss, "show me the man and I will find the crime." The Soviet Union was notorious for having accordion-like criminal laws that could be adjusted to fit almost any dissident target. The U.S. is a far cry from the Soviet Union, but our laws are dangerously overbroad."</blockquote>His prosecution looks like a vendetta.<br /><br />It's very interesting that one of his last attempted victims with his police state tactics was Maurice "Hank" Greenberg:<br /><a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson208.html">http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson208.html</a><br /><br />Greenberg is a director of the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">CFR </a> and a member of the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/02/truth-about-obama.html" title="Trilateral Commission">Trilateral Commission</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_R._Greenberg#Other_public_positions">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_R._Greenberg#Other_public_positions</a><br /><br /><br />Finally, regarding the illegality of prostitution...<br /><br />I heard the argument that prostitution should stay illegal because of the "abuse" of women by their pimps. However, the reason that prostitutes can't go to the police when they get abused is precisely because prostitution is illegal! If it weren't illegal they could go to the police when they get abused.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-34519383657017504062008-03-07T19:57:00.000-08:002008-03-08T16:37:25.797-08:00The Deliberate Dumbing Down of AmericaThis post has the same title as a book by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education, who blew the whistle in the 80's on government activities withheld from the public:<br /><a href="http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/book.htm">http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/book.htm</a><br /><br />This terrific book is available for downloading:<br /><a href="http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/MomsPDFs/DDDoA.sml.pdf">http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/MomsPDFs/DDDoA.sml.pdf<br /></a><br />The public school system is one of the most important ways that the people in power (via the government) have, in brainwashing the populace in preparation for the future. <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/public-schools-and-propaganda.html">I have written about this before</a>.<br /><br />The Preface of Iserbyt's book alone, pages xiii to xx, talks about a lot of the things I have touched on in the past:<br /><ul><li><span><span>children are <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/dumbed-down-by-educational-system-pt-2.html">not taught how to think</a></span></span></li><li>that the educational system is designed to turn out <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/dumbed-down-by-educational-system-pt-2.html">good little workers</a><br /></li><li>turning the USA into a <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/usa-is-both-fascist-and-communist.html">socialist/fascist nation</a> subservient to the UN and not the Constitution</li><li>children are brainwashed to reject individualism and <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/assault-on-individual.html">embrace collectivism</a></li><li>the principle of <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/search?q=frog">gradualism</a> - slowly changing the "accepted" norms over time by the use of propaganda, like the frog slowly being boiled to death</li></ul>The Foreword (page xi) talks about preparing the USA to <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/public-schools-and-propaganda.html">join a One World Government</a>.<br /><br />Page 5 discusses<span><span> that the Rockefellers and Morgans had a hand in the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/dumbed-down-by-educational-system-pt-2.html">early days of public shooling</a>.</span></span><br /><br />Page 12 discusses Bernays, propaganda, and <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/roots-of-public-opinion.html">the real roots of "public opinion</a>", and <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">the CFR</a>.<br /><br /><span><span>Before I end this post, I want to apply Kung Fu monkey's EEBC - "<a href="http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2005/06/elllllloooo-clinton.html">Extrapolated Everyday Bullshit Comparison</a>" - turn bullshit words into what they really are. Manuel Lora blogged it:<br /><a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/019718.html">Government this, government that</a>:<br /><br />"Public Schools" should be called "Government Schools".<br /><br /></span></span>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-20550652384184186992008-02-24T18:36:00.000-08:002008-02-24T18:45:53.315-08:00linking to my postsI received some feedback:<br /><blockquote>"I think you ought to consider putting each post on its own page, that way I could post the link for others to read without them feeling overwhelmed by a whole page of text."</blockquote>This is a function of blogger's templates. I couldn't find one that shows the titles of the posts. The best I could do was change the archive on the left to show all the various month's archives. If anyone knows a blogger template that lists all the post titles, let me know.<br /><br />If say you want to send someone a link to my post about the Pyramids, without showing the other 7 posts from January, here are 3 ways:<br /><br /><br />1) If you know what month the post is in:<br />- Click January on the left<br />- Scroll down to the title of the post on the pyramids.<br />- Right click on the title, and click "copy link". That link is the direct link to the post.<br />- Paste the link into your email.<br /><br />2) Another way, if you don't know what month the old post is in, is to do a direct google search:<br />- "site:rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com pyramids"<br /><br />3) A 3rd way is to use the search box in the upper left of the blog template: <br />- Type in "pyramids"<br />-click "search blog", and all the posts with the word "pyramids" will show.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-73379503569569647712008-02-04T08:09:00.000-08:002008-02-04T09:54:40.668-08:00The Truth About ObamaMany people think Obama is an outsider, an anti-war candidate, and whose rise to stardom is something for Americans <a href="http://www.jewishpress.com/displayContent_new.cfm?mode=a&sectionid=56&contentid=29367&contentName=Obama%20Should%20Be%20Treated%20Like%20Any%20Other%20Candidate">to be proud of</a>:<br /><blockquote>"Sen. Barack Obama’s amazing climb from relative obscurity to the pinnacle of American politics is something that all Americans can feel good about. It is one thing to say that any American can grow up to be president, and another to see a black man have a more than reasonable shot at doing just that."</blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">These are all lies.</span><br /><br />First, Obama is far from squeaky clean. He made the judicialwatch.org top ten list, along with Hillary:<br /><a href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/judicial-watch-announces-list-washington-s-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2007">http://www.judicialwatch.org/judicial-watch-announces-list-washington-s-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2007</a><br />And he's been linked to a Federal corruption trial:<br /><a href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/obama-linked-federal-corruption-trial">http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/obama-linked-federal-corruption-trial</a><br /><br />Second, when the mass media promotes someone from zero to hero, be very suspicious. The mass <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">media is controlled by the CFR</a>. Any presidential candidate promoted by the corporate media - basically anyone in the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/11/campaign-contributors-of-media-anointed.html">media-anointed "top tier"</a>, is an insider. Obama is indeed <a href="http://www.nowpublic.com/obama-cfr">a member of the CFR</a> , and his wife is on the board of directors of Chicago's CCFR.<br /><br />(This 1 hour video about the CFR and the corporate media is very telling:)<br /><a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6632255652046262625">http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6632255652046262625</a><br /><br />Third, <a href="http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12306">Obama is not antiwar</a>.<br /><br />Fourth, Obama tapped Zbigniew Brzezinski as his top foreign policy adviser. Brzezinski was Henry Kissinger's protege. Kissinger was responsible for the overthrow of the democratically elected Allende in Chile for the dictator Pinochet, the extending of the Vietnam war, the bombing of Cambodia, and many, many other crimes:<br /><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/carlkiss.html">http://www.counterpunch.org/carlkiss.html</a><br /><br />In the late 90's, Brzezinski wrote a book "<a href="http://www.wanttoknow.info/brzezinskigrandchessboard">The Grand Chessboard</a>". In this book Brzezinski talks about the geopolitical importance of Eurasia, and that America must dominate Eurasia to ensure its hegemony.<br /><blockquote>"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.” (p.30)<br /><br />"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on <span style="font-style: italic;">Pearl Harbor</span>.</span>” (pp 24-5)<br /></blockquote><br />"The Grand Chessboard" is eerily similar to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century">PNAC's</a> 2000 document "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#Rebuilding_America.27s_Defenses">Rebuilding America's Defenses</a>". PNAC promotes "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_hegemony" title="American hegemony">American hegemony</a>" and "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-spectrum_dominance" title="Full-spectrum dominance">Full-spectrum dominance</a>" in its own publications featured on its website.<br /><blockquote>Section V of <i>Rebuilding America's Defenses</i>, entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force", includes the sentence: "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new <span style="font-style: italic;">Pearl Harbor</span></span>"<br /></blockquote><br />In <a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/zbig.html">this article</a>, Michael Rupert connects Brzezinski's book, 9-11, and the invasion of Afghanistan to make the way for an oil pipeline from the region's untapped oil deposits. 9-11 has been called "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/New-Pearl-Harbor-Disturbing-Administration/dp/1566565529">The New Pearl Harbor</a>".<a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/zbig.html"></a><br /><br />Brzezinski's other famous deed is founding the Trilateral Commission, which is the worldwide official organization for a One World Government:<br /><a href="http://www.augustreview.com/issues/globalization/the_trilateral_commission:_usurping_sovereignty_2007080373/">http://www.augustreview.com/issues/globalization/the_trilateral_commission:_usurping_sovereignty_2007080373/</a><br /><br />In closing, I will leave a quote from this article which summarizes Obama well:<br /><a href="http://moderate.wordpress.com/2007/09/15/obama-brzezinski-and-the-neolib-neocon-family-feud/">http://moderate.wordpress.com/2007/09/15/obama-brzezinski-and-the-neolib-neocon-family-feud/</a><br /><blockquote>Let’s call Barack Obama what he is—a sock puppet for the ruling elite. Obama made this plainly obvious recently when he tabbed Zbigniew Brzezinski as his top foreign policy adviser. In addition to his affiliations with the Council on Foreign Relations (as director), the Trilateral Commission, and the National Endowment for Democracy, Brzezinski was the architect of Carter’s Afghanistan policy, that it to say he is responsible for killing thousands of innocents and organizing the Afghan Arabs, later to become “al-Qaeda.” It is said David Rockefeller asked Brzezinski to create the Trilateral Commission and details were hammered out at Rockefeller’s Pocantico Hills estate outside New York City. Rockefeller later introduced the idea to the <a href="http://bilderbergbook.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=1">Bilderberg group</a> in Knokke, Belgium in the spring of 1972.<br /><br /><br /></blockquote>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-81120378338093213052008-01-31T22:37:00.000-08:002008-02-13T20:54:14.474-08:00The Roots of "Public Opinion"Almost everything that is "accepted" as "public opinion" is, in reality, carefully crafted propaganda.<br /><br />Take Bacon and Eggs for breakfast. One would think that this is a cultural thing since antiquity. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays">Edward Bernays</a>, the "father of Public Relations", came up with a campaign showing survey results of doctors recommending hearty breakfasts, and came up with publicity touting bacon and eggs. This was to promote the sales of bacon.<br /><br />Bernays wrote the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970312598">Propaganda</a>", wherein he wrote:<br /><blockquote>The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.</blockquote>From the customer reviews in the Amazon link:<br /><blockquote>During World War I, he was an integral part of the U.S. Committee on Public Information (CPI), a powerful propaganda apparatus that was mobilized to package, advertise and sell the war to the American people as one that would "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Make the World Safe for Democracy.</span>" The CPI would become the blueprint in which marketing strategies for future wars would be based upon.<p>Bernays applied the techniques he had learned in the CPI and, incorporating some of the ideas of Walter Lipmann, became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic and corporate manipulation of the population. His 1928 bombshell <i>Propaganda</i> lays out his eerily prescient vision for using propaganda to regiment the collective mind in a variety of areas, including government, politics, art, science and education. To read this book today is to frightfully comprehend what our contemporary institutions of <span style="font-weight: bold;">government and business have become in regards to organized manipulation of the masses.</span></p></blockquote><p></p>Sound familiar?<br /><br />The book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Us-Were-Experts-Manipulates/dp/1585421391">Trust Us We're Experts</a> outlines the way by which media-touted "experts" push the agenda of the corporations that hire them:<span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica;"><span style="font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica;"><br /></span></span></span><blockquote> Fearless investigative journalists Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber (<i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567510604/$%7B0%7D">Toxic Sludge Is Good for You!</a></i> and <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1567511112/$%7B0%7D">Mad Cow U.S.A.</a></i>) are back with a gripping exposé of the public relations industry and the scientists who back their business-funded, anti-consumer-safety agendas. There are two kinds of "experts" in question--the PR spin doctors behind the scenes and the "independent" experts paraded before the public, scientists who have been hand-selected, cultivated, and paid handsomely to promote the views of corporations involved in controversial actions. Lively writing on controversial topics such as dioxin, bovine growth hormone, and genetically modified food makes this a real page-turner, shocking in its portrayal of the real and potential dangers in each of these technological innovations and of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">"media pseudo-environment"</span> created to obfuscate the risks. By financing and publicizing views that support the goals of corporate sponsors, PR campaigns have, over the course of the century, managed to suppress the dangers of lead poisoning for decades, silence the scientist who discovered that rats fed on genetically modified corn had significant organ abnormalities, squelch television and newspaper stories about the risks of bovine growth hormone, and place enough confusion and doubt in the public's mind about global warming to suppress any mobilization for action. Rampton and Stauber introduce the movers and shakers of the PR industry, from the "risk communicators" (whose job is to downplay all risks) and "outrage managers" (with their four strategies--deflect, defer, dismiss, or defeat) to those who specialize in "public policy intelligence" (spying on opponents). Evidently, these elaborate PR campaigns are created for our own good. According to public relations philosophers, the public reacts emotionally to topics related to health and safety and is incapable of holding rational discourse. Needless to say, Rampton and Stauber find these views rather antidemocratic and intend to pull back the curtain to reveal the real wizard in Oz. This is one wake-up call that's hard to resist. <em></em><br /><br /> <b>From Publishers Weekly</b><br />Recent surveys show that "national experts" are the third most trusted type of public figure (after Supreme Court justices and schoolteachers). Hard-hitting investigative journalists Rampton and Stauber (Toxic Sludge Is Good for You!) ask whether that trust is misplaced. They assert that, with highly technical issues like environmental pollution and bioengineered foodstuffs, "people are encouraged to suspend their own judgment and abandon responsibility to the experts." The authors examine the opinions of many so-called experts to show how their opinions are often marred by <span style="font-style: italic;">conflicts of interest</span>. Peering behind the curtain of decision making, they catch more than a few with blood money on their hands. From spin doctors with dubious credentials to <span style="font-style: italic;">think tanks</span> that do everything but think and <span style="font-style: italic;">scientists who work backwards to engineer desired experimental results</span>, Rampton and Stauber present an astonishing compendium of alleged abuses of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">public's willingness to believe.</span> Particularly sobering is their summary of the historical use of "experts" by the tobacco and mining industries, which, they reveal, have suppressed and manipulated information in order to slow industrial reform. Their allegation that industry flaks may be purposely clouding the current debates swirling around <span style="font-weight: bold;">"junk science" and <span style="font-style: italic;">global warming</span> issues should provoke readers to reexamine these matters</span>. Rampton and Stauber's impassioned call for skepticism goes beyond rhetoricAthey also offer practical guidelines for separating propaganda from useful information. Agent, Tom Grady.</blockquote>A review on books.google.com:<br /><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=KWHNJwAACAAJ&dq=trust+us+we%27re+experts">http://books.google.com/books?id=KWHNJwAACAAJ&dq=trust+us+we%27re+experts</a><br /><blockquote>Over the past decade, corporations and public-relations firms have seized upon a remarkable new way of influencing opinion called the "third-party technique." The method is simple-just put your words into the mouth of someone who appears impartial, such as a doctor, professor, watchdog group, or an "expert" of some kind. Written with biting humor and penetrating insight, Trust Us, We're Experts! exposes the current and very effective methods of opinion manipulation practiced by the corporate powers that be.</blockquote><br />This webpage has an interesting set of videos:<br /><a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=8339">http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=8339</a><blockquote><a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=8339"><blockquote></blockquote></a><span style="font-style: italic;">The Century of the Self: The Untold History of Controlling the Masses Through the Manipulation of Unconscious Desires</span></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>The first of four videos, "One: Happiness Machines":<br /><blockquote>The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.<br /><br />Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.<br /><br />His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.<br /><br />It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world. <span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;color:black;"><span class="Arial10" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Arial12" style="font-family:Arial;color:black;"></span></span></span><br /></blockquote>Video #4 of this series is called "<span style="font-style: italic;">Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering</span>". It is about how politicians have used propaganda to appeal to the masses.<br /><span><br /><br />I believe all this is the root of </span><span><a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/12/consumerism-and-3rd-world-oppression.html">today's consumerism</a></span><span> which I've written about before. I also wrote that the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/dumbed-down-by-educational-system-pt-2.html">real purpose of public education is to produce good little consumers</a>.<br /><br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-63998409781292046352008-01-25T22:48:00.001-08:002008-01-25T23:07:53.363-08:00More on the Compound Interest Paradox, and why Corporations are Obsessed About GrowthI found a great article:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"Is This the Beginning of a Worldwide Depression?"</span><br />by <a href="http://www.opednews.com/author/author8665.html">Paul Rye</a>,<br /><br /><a href="http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=5751">http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=5751</a><br /><br />The coming economic crisis is "due to the nature of our monetary and banking system and Government’s relation with it", and is completely foreseeable.<br /><br />I wrote that because of the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/compound-interest-paradox.html">Compound Interest Paradox</a>, the money supply is gradually being replaced by debt - IOW the money in circulation is owed to the banks. He says that <span style="font-weight: bold;">only 3% is NOT owed. 97% of the money in circulation is OWED TO BANKS. </span>Think about it. <span style="font-style: italic;">How many middle class people do you know have more assets than debt?</span><br /><blockquote>"The crux of the problem is that mathematically, credit-based money is lent into existence at interest by a fractional reserve banking system that does not create the money needed to pay the interest. All debts cannot be repaid, because not enough money is lent into existence to repay both the principal and interest. Therefore, the interest must come from the existing pool of money. No matter what the quality of the participants, there must be losers."</blockquote>He touches on something I'd wanted to blog about - how the Paradox drives corporations to be obsessed about growth.<br /><blockquote>"The pressure on the losers to pay their debts <span style="font-weight: bold;">makes the economy unnaturally competitive and growth-oriented, leading to excessive exploitation of natural and human resources. </span>And, the only way to avoid an excessive number of losers is to keep increasing the total amount of debt, continually pumping more money (credit) into the system. Therefore, monetary inflation is necessary and endless.</blockquote><blockquote>If you do not want to be a <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/debt-is-slavery.html">debt slave for the rest of your life</a>, if you do not want to see generations of people in the U.S. and the third world be debt slaves for the rest of their lives, if you do not want to see the human and natural resources of this planet squandered simply to pay interest on loans that are not even necessary to create a workable monetary system, <span style="font-weight: bold;">then you need to learn about how the existing system works, who perpetuates it, and how the whole system could be re-thought and re-designed.</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />The article is excellent and well worth reading. <br /><br />I think the word is spreading on the lies of the monetary system.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-2726246222042906652008-01-21T20:55:00.000-08:002008-01-27T16:17:34.388-08:00Public Schools and PropagandaI have blogged about <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/dumbed-down-by-educational-system-pt-2.html">this before</a>. The public school system does not teach critical thinking, and produces dumbed down masses that are "good little consumers".<br /><br />John Lott in his <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=4JLPkjRUvM4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=freedomnomics&sig=CpAuQU68c5Q689NCFOEXJzQT6Y8">book Freedomnomics</a>, has a subchapter titled "<span style="font-style: italic;">Government Control of Information: From Public Schools to Television</span>".<br /><blockquote>Public Education was actually designed to spread government-approved values. In totalitarian countries, in order to instill the proper adherence to the ruling ideology, totalitarian leaders must attach the most common locus for spreading oppositional values - the family. To weaken parental influence, the soviet union during the 1920's and again in the 1950's experimented with raising children in communal children's houses that would decrease the importance of the individual household.<br /><br />This is not limited to totalitarian countries.<br /><br />Take the creation of Sweden's extensive nursery school system. Declaring that "school is the spearhead of socialism", Ingvar Carlsson, Sweden's education minister from 1969 to 1973 (and later prime minister), insisted that removing children from the home through "pre-school training is essential to eliminate the social heritage of undesirable, reactionary parental views. Swedish education theorists even advocated tax and government employment policies that would "get both parents out of the home, so that children are forced out as well".<br /><br />By abolishing the very concept of the family, totalitarian governments hope to create a government monopoly on the transmission of social values. The main avenue [being] the educational system. By instilling in young students the idea that the regime is legitimate and acts fairly, totalitarian governments seek to reduce potential opposition to their rule. They invest enormous resources in these endeavors for a very rational reason - evidence shows that government provided schooling reduces political opposition and predisposes students to support the government when they get older.<br />..<br />While the degree of indoctrination in American schools never reached totalitarian levels, an brief history of the evolution of American public schooling reveals that public schools, in fact, did develop specifically as a method to inculcate values supported by the government.<br />..<br />So what are these government values spread in the educational system? Teaching the young to believe that government policies can effectively solve problems. Teachers have a natural incentive to teach this axiom. Public high school teachers face the same incentives. They have a personal interest in perpetuating the growth of government, which is the source of their own livelihood.<br /><br />Government spending on education is widely views as a positive endeavor. But public schools have been aimed at instilling government values. Thus it should not be too surprising to learn that totalitarian nations on average spend twice as much on education per student as do free countries with the same total income.<br /><br />This isn't because totalitarian countries care more about their children. Totalitarian states have spent less on health care than freer countries.<br /><br />It's interesting to note that countries with socialized medical care usually allow much more competition between government hospitals or doctors than they allow between schools. If patients can pay to travel a long distance to see a certain doctor, they're typically allowed to do so. Students, however, can't so easily choose which public school to attend. While competition between hospitals or doctors produces better health care, competition between government schools reduces the effectiveness of government indoctrination efforts.</blockquote>Ingvar Carlsson, the Swedish education minister who said "school is the spearhead of socialism", is a member of the <a href="http://www.augustreview.com/issues/globalization/the_trilateral_commission%3a_usurping_sovereignty_2007080373/">Trilateral Commission</a>, which is a sister group to <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">the CFR</a>, and a major player in the UN. The CFR and TC are pushing socialism and one world government. The UN was the world power elite's 2nd attempt at a supra-national body (the first being the <span style="font-style: italic;">League of Nations</span>)<br /><br /><br />Aaron Russo, the Hollywood director of "Trading Places" fame, made <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173">the movie "Freedom to Fascism"</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://prisonplanet.com/articles/january2007/290107rockefellergoal.htm">In an interview</a>, Aaron Russo recounted his conversations with Nick Rockefeller:<br />"After his popular video <em>Mad As Hell</em> was released and he began his campaign to become Governor of Nevada, Russo was noticed by Rockefeller and introduced to him by a female attorney. Seeing Russo's passion and ability to affect change, Rockefeller set about on a subtle mission to recruit Russo into the elite. <p>During one conversation, Rockefeller asked Russo if he was interested in joining the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) but Russo rejected the invitation, saying he had no interest in "enslaving the people" to which Rockefeller coldly questioned why he cared about the "serfs."</p>In a later conversation, Rockefeller asked Russo what he thought women's liberation was about. Russo's response that he thought it was about the right to work and receive equal pay as men, just as they had won the right to vote, caused Rockefeller to laughingly retort, "You're an idiot! Let me tell you what that was about, we the Rockefeller's funded that, we funded women's lib, we're the one's who got all of the newspapers and television - the Rockefeller Foundation."<br /><p>Rockefeller told Russo of two primary reasons why the elite bankrolled women's lib, one because before women's lib the bankers couldn't tax half the population and two because it allowed them to get children in school at an earlier age, <span style="font-style: italic;">enabling them to be indoctrinated into accepting the state as the primary family, breaking up the traditional family model.</span><br /><br />This revelation dovetails previous admissions on behalf of feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem (pictured) that the CIA bankrolled Ms. Magazine as part of the same agenda of <span style="font-style: italic;">breaking up traditional </span><span style="font-style: italic;">family models</span>."</p>The book <span class="sans"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0894202782">Educating for the New World Order</a></span><b class="sans"> </b>discusses a woman's fight with the educational system:<br /><p>Copying from one of the book's Amazon <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2ULQOGN59LDNK/ref=cm_cr_dp_pdp">reviews</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote>"This is the story of how Anita Hoge investigated and uncovered how the state of Pennsylvania was implementing a psychological test to measure the students' beliefs, yet calling it "educational testing" to unsuspecting students and parents. Those with the "wrong" opinion receive extra "treatment" and the field of education turned away from teaching the basics (Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic). Anita stood up to the education establishment and forced it to obey the law."</blockquote><p></p>and:<br /><blockquote>I read this book in 1992. When I told my friends and relatives what was coming in education (teaching homosexuality and bestiality, global citizenship, etc.), they thought I was a kook. They're not laughing now! All American schools are now obliged to teach kids how to be a multi-cultural, non-judgmental, citizen of the world. I also recommend her book, "Cloning of the American Mind." Her books are long on details, and not real entertaining, so you're going to have to work at them -- but it's worth it. -- RustyMason.com</blockquote><p>The educational system is responsible for the spread of "liberalism" aka socialism, and "political correctness". More on this in another blog.</p>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-20558382608226054392008-01-17T20:00:00.000-08:002008-01-22T07:30:11.659-08:00The Pyramids, Food Production, and Economic Inefficiency5,000 years ago the civilization of ancient Egypt had signs of wealth... in their pyramids, the temples, the medicine they practiced.<br /><br />Civilizations arose in areas of the world where agriculture allowed farmers to feed a large number of people, freeing others to specialize in other areas such as development of technology and philosophy. Egypt for example occupied the fertile banks of the Nile river.<br /><br />Jared Diamond is an evolutionary biologist with a theory of how civilizations came about and how it is that modern civilization sprung up in Eurasia. Eurasia had a combination of plant and animal life that was very conducive to agriculture.<br /><br />The following is a summary of his book Guns, Germs and Steel. It is fascinating and well worth reading:<br /><a href="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/diamond/diamond_p1.html">http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/diamond/diamond_p1.html</a><br /><br />One question that comes to mind is, how much more efficiently can we produce food, as compared to ancient civilizations such as Egypt? It stands to reason that if we can produce food 5x as efficiently as the Ancient Egyptians, we would need to work 1/5th as much for the essentials, if cost of the other essentials such as housing were reduced the same amount.<br /><br />This <a href="http://www.gourmetspot.com/know/farmerfeeds.htm">webpage </a>says 129 people, today, working 8 hours a day. (In 1960, it was 25.)<br /><br />That would suggest that if one's economic output were roughly equivalent to a farmer, one would need to spend less than 1% of their time (if working 8 hours a day), working in order to pay for food. That number probably does not include the cost of a farmer's machines and land; let's just pretend for a very rough calculation that the cost of a farmer's labor in food production is 30%; that would still suggest that 3% of a person's economic output would be needed to pay for food.<br /><br />Let's look at the other essentials - shelter and clothing.<br /><br />It took one guy 9 weeks to build a 1200 sq ft log home:<br /><a href="http://www.loghomebuilders.org/faq/56#56n43">http://www.loghomebuilders.org/faq/56#56n43</a><br />Out of 40 weeks per year and 40 years, that's not even 1% of a person's economic output. Let's just assume that that cost is doubled by the cost of tool rental. That's still less than 2%.<br /><br />Clothing is probably less expensive than food and shelter.<br /><br />So if food is 3%, housing is 2%, and clothing is say 1%, that brings the total to 6%. Let's just say medical care will cost the same as food, and energy, the same as housing. The total is 11%. This pie in the sky calculation says that the basic necessities of life can be purchased by working less than an hour a day. Let's pretend there is a taxation rate of 50% in a socialistic society. That's still only 2 hours a day. Or, put another way, with today's technology, we should be able to get the basic necessities just working 60 days a year. Anything over that should just be fluff.<br /><br />Let's say the Ancient Egyptians worked 8 hours a day 300 days a year. Today the average worker works 8 hours a day, something like 220 - 240 days a year. Has 5,000 years of technology only allowed us to work 25% less??? Or, why have we not benefited from technology in the form of reduced workloads?<br /><br />The answer I believe is incredible economic inefficiency today. There is much waste. Think of all the people in industries that really are parasites on society. Everyone's favorite example is lawyers. Think of nuisance lawsuits. Think of how much economic output is wasted not only by lawyer's fees, but also by the time spent by jurors. Another example are the tax accountants. They are being paid to do a job simply because the tax code is onerous and byzantine.<br /><br />In many ways, wealth is destroyed simply by wasting people's time that could have been spent being productive - basically when people have to take time off from work in order to do things such as <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker91.html">going to court for a traffic ticket</a>.<br /><br />The largest wastage of economic productivity is government. In the example above I used a tax rate of 50%. However, taxes are probably much higher. The average Federal income tax rate is 25%, but Social Security and Medicare is another 15%, and in some states, the state income tax is 5%. Then there is regulatory compliance cost of <a href="http://mwhodges.home.att.net/regulation.htm">16% of GDP</a>. That brings the total to 66%. Some may say "but those costs are for some necessary services". Government is incredibly inefficient at spending money to provide services. They simply have no motivation to spend money wisely, unlike <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/attack-on-free-market.html">the free market</a>. FSK has said that the <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-your-taxation-rate.html">resulting total tax is even greater than 66%</a>.<br /><br />There is another parasite that is living off of the middle class. These are the beneficiaries of the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/compound-interest-paradox.html">corrupt monetary system</a>. The tax they foist on the middle class is in the form of <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/debt-is-slavery.html">interest payments on debt</a>, and inflation because of the central banking system. Note also that the income tax pays for interest on the loans made by central banks to government, using money created out of nothing.<br /><br />Even if my calculations are off, the reasoning stands. A heck of a lot of wealth is confiscated or destroyed by government and by debt.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-14887077910527800572008-01-14T22:18:00.000-08:002008-01-28T23:52:03.977-08:00Psychopaths, Corporations, and GovernmentIn the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Suits-When-Psychopaths-Work/dp/B000QW7Q72">Snakes in Suits</a>", the authors claim that the corporate world attracts psychopaths because the corporate structure rewards ruthless behavior. 1% of the general population are psychopaths. It is mostly genetic, like dyslexia.<br /><br />Contrary to popular belief, most psychopaths don't become serial killers, as they don't necessarily enjoy killing.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html">http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/96/open_boss.html</a><br /><br /><blockquote>[Psychopaths are not] burdened by conscience. Psychopaths have a profound lack of empathy. They use other people callously and remorselessly for their own ends. They seduce victims with a hypnotic charm that masks their true nature as pathological liars, master con artists, and heartless manipulators. Easily bored, they crave constant stimulation, so they seek thrills from real-life "games" they can win -- and take pleasure from their power over other people.<br />..<br />This is where you're likely to find such people as Ebbers, Fastow, ImClone CEO Sam Waksal, and hotelier Leona Helmsley. We put several big-name CEOs through the checklist, and they scored as "moderately psychopathic"<br />..<br />There are certainly more people in the business world who would score high in the psychopathic dimension than in the general population. You'll find them in any organization where, by the nature of one's position, you have power and control over other people and the opportunity to get something."<br />..<br />Indeed the 2003 documentary <em>The Corporation</em>, <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/12/consumerism-and-3rd-world-oppression.html">corporations are "sociopathic"</a> (a synonym for "psychopathic") because they ruthlessly seek their own selfish interests -- "shareholder value" -- without regard for the harms they cause to others, such as environmental damage.<br /><br />Psychopaths succeed in conventional society in large measure because few of us grasp that they are fundamentally different from ourselves. <span style="font-weight: bold;">We assume that they, too, care about other people's feelings. This makes it easier for them to "play" us.</span></blockquote>If corporations attract psychopaths, then by extension government attracts psychopaths.<br /><br />When one rises above a certain level in a large corporation, one rubs elbows with government and enter the "<a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">revolving door</a>" between the corporate world and government.<br /><br /><br />One of the ways people "debunk" a <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">conspiracy theory</a> is, "why would these people want more money and power than they already have?" Well, there's the answer, <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/three-kinds-of-establishment-people.html">they</a> are psychopaths.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-85212705042619177242008-01-06T18:20:00.000-08:002008-01-14T23:34:09.997-08:00"What About the Children?!!"One of the easiest ways to influence people is to appeal to emotion. I mentioned fear in my previous post "The Ministry of Fear":<br /><a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/mass-media-ministy-of-fear.html">http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/mass-media-ministy-of-fear.html</a><br />and I mentioned this book:<br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Fear-Americans-Afraid-Things/dp/0465014909/ref=sr_1_1/002-7796140-1312852?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188282710&sr=8-1"><span class="sans">The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things</span></a><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span>But the most effective emotional appeal is "What about the children?!" It combines fear and concern for children; to be afraid for the little ones.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span>American parents show slavish devotion to children:<br /><a href="http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2006/08/swaddling_cloth.html">http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2006/08/swaddling_cloth.html</a><br /><blockquote><p>"..many people don't understand how kiddie-centric America has become. To me, this is one of the central givens of contempo American life. It seems so blazingly evident to me that I tend to assert it as established fact, and am amazed to encounter people who dispute it. </p> <p>What's my proof? .. impressions, really. .. what has jumped out at me most during my times abroad is the way that other cultures don't organize themselves around children to the same extent that the U.S. does. </p> <p>I spent a school year in Rennes, Brittany in the early 1970s. Here are a few examples of how their attitudes towards kids differed from ours. </p><ul><li> They never took vacations for the kids -- .. the idea of devoting a few weeks of one's treasured time-off to a kiddie destination would have been found laughable. Vacations were to be spent where the parents could enjoy their well-earned leisure. </li><li> Days and weeks weren't organized around the kiddies' obligations and plans: playdates, music lessons, soccer games, SAT-coaching appointments, etc. Life was organized around the parents' rhythms. </li><li> Grownups didn't choose neighborhoods to live in strictly for the sake of the kids. They might (or might not) move someplace because they knew the schools there to be better. But that was rare. And, in any case, parents certainly wouldn't sacrifice anything in the way of their own dignity and pleasure for the sake of, say, a big backyard."</li></ul></blockquote><br />Given how crazy parents are about their children, appealing to that emotion is very effective.<br /><br />It's a standard media propaganda trick. If the day ever comes that the Internet will be censored, it will have started because of child porn or to "protect" children from porn. That will be the nose of the camel in the tent. Indeed, mandatory child porn filters are now required in Australia:<br /><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm">http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/31/2129471.htm</a><br /><br /><br />When smearing Ron Paul, the media often used the fact that he wants to get rid of the Department of Education. It of course elicits the reaction "What about the children?!" In the sound bite, of course the media doesn't explain Ron Paul's stand, that the parents in a community should decide how a school is run, not some bureaucrat in Washington. After all, local property taxes pay for schools, not the Federal income tax.<br /><br />Many stupid laws, regulations, and even behavior, are about "What about the children?!" Sometimes in the morning I drive by a school. Traffic always backs up at the crosswalk, and it's the crossing guards' fault. Instead of making the vehicles and the children take turns, the crossing guards <span style="font-style: italic;">immediately</span> stop the cars when even a single child approaches, so that the child <span style="font-style: italic;">doesn't even break stride, nor even look to see if cars have stopped</span>. . The guards do this even if there is a large group of children 10 seconds behind the lone one, where he could have stopped the one child in order to continue to let cars pass until the large group arrived. The ridiculousness of this situation is so obvious to me, that I yell my displeasure at the crossing guard, who then of course yells back at the impatient ogre who just wants to mow down little children.<br /><br />Not only does this system force everyone else to waste time and be slaves to the little children's whims, but <span style="font-style: italic;">it does not teach them the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/assault-on-individual.html">individual responsibility</a> of watching out for their own safety to check the street for oncoming cars</span>. People are so busy child-proofing the world, that they forget the more important task of world-proofing the child!<br /><br />A friend was a juror in a child abuse case. The defendant was accused of abusing his girlfriend's child. The child had fallen and hit his head while the mother was away, so the worried defendant took the child to a doctor. The doctor said the kid was fine, but noted minor bruising on the kid's arms. The doctor was <span style="font-style: italic;">required by law</span> to report this to Child Protective Services. And so the circus began.<br /><br />All the witnesses said they never thought the defendant would hurt the child. The cops who had seen the child did not think so either. The only person accusing the defendant was an employee of Child Protective Services who filed suit based on pictures that the cops took. <span style="font-style: italic;">She had never even seen the child.</span> After several days of testimony, the big day finally came where the incriminating photos would be shown to the jury. Squinting at the blurry, badly exposed polaroids, the jurors all shook their heads and could barely see any bruising.<br /><br />The defendant had explained that the kid liked to rough-house, which explains the slight bruising on his arms. The jurors thought there was no way this guy was guilty. Then suddenly, surprise! The defendant accepted a plea bargain! In exchange for pleading guilty and paying for expensive "child rearing seminars", the charges would be dropped. My friend was so shocked he approached the defendant's lawyer and told him "why did you not wait for a verdict, we were gonna find him not guilty". The lawyer shushed him and explained "we're never sure which way the jury goes".<br /><br />So much for justice. All in the name of "What about the children". Part of the deal too was that the guy move at least 300 miles away. All this could have been prevented if the law did not require a doctor to report <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> cases of bruising to Child Protective Services, but instead relied on a doctor's or cop's common sense to make the decision whether to report it or not.<br /><br />Read this story about how young children can have false memories implanted by a child psychologist, leading to convictions of child molestation. It starts with a fascinating experiment where a false story of a mousetrap accident is implanted in a child, about 40% of the way down the page: <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1625239/posts">http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1625239/posts</a><br /><br />On this page about 1/3rd of the way down is a chapter entitled "Child Sexual Abuse"<br /><a href="http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume6/j6_2_4.htm">http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume6/j6_2_4.htm</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial,Arial,Helvetica;"><blockquote>..rape and sexual harassment pattern — expanding definitions, rapidly increasing accusations, intensely politicized publicity campaigns, and significantly high percentages of false allegations — has also appeared in still another arena, <span style="font-style: italic;">the agencies which deal with the sexual molestation of children.</span></blockquote></span><blockquote><span style="font-family:Arial,Arial,Helvetica;">We are now learning that children can be manipulated into supplying dramatic testimony of sexual abuse and that in most cases the accusation originates not with the child but with the mother.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial,Arial,Helvetica;">Allegations of child abuse, both divorce related and in general, are flying out so frequently that those who believe themselves victimized by false charges have organized a nationwide support group, <a href="http://www.vocal.org/">VOCAL</a> (Victims Of Child Abuse Laws), ... In 1989, its summary of relevant statistics cited 23 studies ... the lowest assessment of false allegation was 35%, the highest 82%, averaging at 66%.<br /><br /></span><p><span style="font-family:Arial,Arial,Helvetica;"><b>Recovered Memories</b></span></p> <span style="font-family:Arial,Arial,Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family:Arial,Arial,Helvetica;">Those joining VOCAL are finding that an even more dramatic form of child abuse allegation is now sweeping the country. It originates with a "recovered memory" of sexual atrocity, often involving incest or satanic ritual abuse, usually made by an adult daughter against her father, and almost always discovered in therapy. This form of allegation made the headlines when celebrities such as Roseanne Arnold, La Toya Jackson, and Suzanne Sommers declared they had suddenly remembered a long repressed victimization.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial,Arial,Helvetica;">Other sources suggest that the kind of child abuse caused by satanic ritual cults is almost totally a myth. There may be a satan and he may have followers but, contrary to widely held belief in the mid-eighties, they did not surface all over middle America. Where accusations actually led to trials, as in Jordan, Minnesota and in Los Angeles in the McMartin Preschool Case, prosecutors suffered embarrassing defeats.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial,Arial,Helvetica;"> A strong phalanx of professional opinion has raised significant doubts about the veracity of long repressed memories even within a carefully disciplined therapeutic context.</span><br /><br /></blockquote>The media's overhyping of child molestation has created a fear of being accused of child molestation. The reaction is that people who work with children don't touch children anymore. This may have a tragic side effect:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newfrontier.com/asheville/American-boys.htm">http://www.newfrontier.com/asheville/American-boys.htm</a><br /><p align="left"><b><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" ></span></b></p><blockquote>In a cross-cultural study of affection and aggression done at McDonald's playgrounds, pre-schoolers in France playfully touched each other twice as much US children did, but while the French children acted aggressively only 1 percent of the time, the US youth did so 29 percent of the time. Anthropologists have long known that cultures that shower physical affection on young children have little adult violence, dating back to Margaret Mead's studies in New Guinea."There's got to be some relationship between a lack of touching and violence," said Tiffany Field, MD of the University of Miami Medical School, who conducted the study at the McDonald's playgrounds especially since international statistics have consistently shown that France has the lowest homicide rate of developed nations, while the United States has the highest. Dr. Field said she fears there will be even less physical affection toward children in our society as a result of teachers and day care providers <span style="font-style: italic;">worrying about accusations of sexual abuse</span>.<br /></blockquote><br /><br />All of this I believe, is part of <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/statism-begins-at-home-aka-land-of-free.html">creeping statism</a>, and the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/there-oughtta-be-law.html">death of common sense</a>.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-69613388156091453062008-01-04T18:13:00.000-08:002008-01-08T23:40:36.517-08:00The Attack on the Free MarketThere has been a constant attack on the Free Market since the turn of the last century, just as there has been a constant <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/assault-on-individual.html">attack on Individual Freedom</a>. The crash of the stock market in '29 and the ensuing Great Depression have been blamed on "excessive capitalism". These are myths.<br /><br />Every incidence of so-called "excessive capitalism" is actually <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/12/consumerism-and-3rd-world-oppression.html">Corporatism</a>. Corporatism is when big business and government collude so the latter will pass laws that benefit the former. (Think lobbyists.) Most government regulation is a result of this. A free market system is not the only system susceptible to government corruption. A socialist system is just as susceptible. The bigger the government, the worse it would be; because a socialist system requires a big government, it would be worse with respect to corruption.<br /><br />I've written about <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/history-of-government-regulation-and.html">the history of government regulation</a>. The meat packing and steel industries at around 1900 got government to write regulation whose real purpose was to erect artificial barriers to startup competition. Free market competition is the best "trust buster". Whenever a cartel starts to form, outsiders will find it attractive to start a competing business because of unusually high profits, and they will bring prices down, to the benefit of the consumers.<br /><br />The problem with letting the government write regulations in the free market, is that government is corruptible. The bigger government is, the more a corrupt government will impinge on our daily lives and distort the free market, to the detriment of the consumer. The bigger and more centralized the government, the easier it is for the lobbyists to go to a central place to push their agenda. The smaller the government, the less likely government will corrupt the free market. <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/09/agorist-philosophy-overview.html">Agorists</a> of course, would say that zero government means zero free market distortion.<br /><br />The crash of '29 was caused by the biggest banks of the time, calling in all their margin accounts at once. The margin account was invented during the roaring 20's. A margin brokerage account is where you can borrow money from the brokerage in order to buy stocks with. If the brokerage suddenly calls the loan in, you will have to sell stocks to repay them. So the big banks calling in their loans all at once had the intended effect of causing a huge stock selloff, at a time when the stock market bubble was inflated by nearly a decade of low interest rates. Voila, stock market crash. The racketeers then of course made immense profits after buying up stock at rock bottom prices.<br /><br />The Federal Reserve was created in 1913, ostensibly to prevent boom and bust cycles. However, the greatest bust happened right after their creation... the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Fed itself was the result of government regulation. President Woodrow Wilson and several senators were bribed to create a banking cartel. The Federal Reserve Act itself was drafted by a group of bankers, both local and international, at Jekyll Island in Georgia.<br /><br />The income tax was implemented the same year as the Fed, as a means to pay the interest on the money loaned by the Fed to the government, which they create out of nothing. <a href="http://hubpages.com/hub/Colonel_House">Colonel Edward House</a>, a known Marxist, and Woodrow Wilson's best buddy and top adviser, pushed the idea to him, and got the idea of a graduated income tax from Karl Marx. The top tax bracket in the beginning was 3%; today the average bracket is something like 25% (edit: <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/">FSK</a> pointed out I did not include 15% for Social Security and Medicare, <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-your-taxation-rate.html">bringing the total to 40%</a>). This of course effectively enslaves the middle class, effectively re-directing 25% of their economic output directly to the financial industry. People are slowly being boiled like the proverbial frog in a pot. Colonel House would go on to found the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">Council on Foreign Relations</a>. House had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_M._House">4 pet projects</a>: the UN, a graduated income tax, a central bank, and the CIA. He was also a member of the Cecil Rhodes Round Table Group, which is extensively discussed by <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/reps-and-dems-are-pushing-authoritarian.html">Carroll Quigley</a>.<br /><br />The Great Depression itself should not have happened after the '29 stock market crash. There should have just been a short, shallow recession. The Depression was caused by the Federal Reserve shrinking the money supply by raising interest rates. Even Greenspan has said "misguided policies" extended the Depression. The money supply is readily shrunk when the Fed lowers interest rates - it's part of the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/compound-interest-paradox.html">Compound Interest Paradox</a>. The net effect is a massive subsidy on the entire financial industry, in the form of the income tax and inflation.<br /><br />Milton Friedman the Nobel prize winning economist, has shown that every recession has been accompanied by a shrinkage of the money supply, and vice versa. The 2 go hand in hand; you don't get one without the other.<br /><br />The Great Depression was deepened and lengthened by the anti-free-market policies of Hoover and FDR: <a href="http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3097">http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3097</a>:<br /><br /><br />If you want to study more about the lie that the Fed is, here are 2 books:<br /><ol><li>The Creature from Jekyll Island: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/0912986395">http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/0912986395</a></li><li>The Case Against the Fed:<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Fed-Murray-Rothbard/dp/094546617X"> http://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Fed-Murray-Rothbard/dp/094546617X</a></li></ol><br />Today government meddling in the free market is so endemic that:<br /><ul><li>Laws are constantly passed that <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/laws-benefit-corporations.html">benefit corporations</a>, large over small, or over mom and pop type small businesses. This has created an atmosphere that...<br /></li><li>It's <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/07/its-hard-to-start-business.html">hard to start a small business</a>. The system is <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-state-destroys-small-businesses.html">rigged against the small business owner</a>.</li></ul><br />Finally, philosophically, the Establishment does not like Capitalism, because Capitalism gives power to the individual. This is the antithesis of the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2008/01/assault-on-individual.html">Collectivism</a> that they want. It gives people the power, literally, to vote with their wallets:<br /><br />"Why People Hate Capitalism"<br /><a href="http://www.stonemarmot.com/rantrave/rantscap.html">http://www.stonemarmot.com/rantrave/rantscap.html</a><br /><blockquote>"Capitalism is the most democratic economic system there is, for every time you spend a dollar, or refrain from spending a dollar, you are casting a vote. That is why so many people hate capitalism, because, with capitalism, the world people live in is the sum total result of each of their individual actions. In other words, capitalism <span style="font-style: italic;">makes people responsible for their own actions</span>, whether they like it or not.<br />..<br />But most people are too lazy and/or selfish to properly exercise this incredible power. Most people feel that they can and should be able to do whatever they want and that it is up to others to make sure that all is possible and no harm is done. <span style="font-style: italic;">This attitude is continually reinforced by our media, educational systems, and our legal system, particularly the US tort judgments</span>.<br /></blockquote>Before I end this post I will leave you these thoughts, also from the above link:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>"If you don't like Microsoft or think Mr. Gates is too rich, then quit using Microsoft products. .. If you think professional athletes (or movie stars, or rock stars, or whoever you're presently jealous of) make too much money, then quit supporting them by attending their events, watching their shows on television, and buying their products and those they endorse.<br /> </p> Whatever there is in this world that you think needs to be changed, first honestly examine your own life to see if and how you are contributing to the very problem you are condemning. Once you clean up your life to minimize your contribution to the problem, then you can ask others to make a similar change in their lives."<br /><br /></blockquote>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-84524564685033899122008-01-03T12:46:00.000-08:002008-01-03T17:26:04.888-08:00The Assault on the IndividualWoman spills coffee on herself, wins millions from McDonald's.<br /><br />Child gets sick right after vaccination; tests show strain of disease is different from vaccine; court orders vaccine maker to pay millions anyway.<br /><br />Man dives off a cliff despite a sign "<span style="font-style: italic;">No diving</span>", gets paralyzed, and sues the town; he wins because the sign didn't underscore the danger by saying "<span style="font-style: italic;">Danger: no diving</span>".<br /><br />Drunk woman backs into a lake and couldn't unlatch her seatbelt and drowned; her companion got out. Court orders Honda to pay dead woman's family for designing a seatbelt that couldn't be operated underwater by a drunk woman.<br /><br />Sound familiar?<br /><br />In all of the above cases, people pass on the costs of their stupidity or misfortune onto others, for their profit. In the vaccine case, the court took pity on the child and decided "someone must pay for the poor child's misfortune, and it may as well be the company with its deep pockets". <br /><br />What they are forgetting is that now, the company that makes the vaccine, needs to cover the cost of the lawsuit and future lawsuits, by increasing the price of its vaccine. Ironically the increased price of the vaccine means that now there will be a number of children who will not receive the vaccine because of the increased price, increasing the number of children who will catch the disease that made them take pity on the child in the first place.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">They are symptoms of the erosion of personal responsibility.</span><br /><br />Raising the drinking age to 21 is another example of erosion of personal responsibility. "We don't serve teenagers" say signs at bars. Society doesn't seem to want teenagers to learn to drink responsibly. (Aside: 18 year old males are called "men" in the military recruitment posters.)<br /><br />Why is there such an erosion of individual responsibility? Probably for the same reason there is an erosion of individual liberty. <br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Individual responsibility and individual liberty are two sides of the same coin</span>. </span><br /><br /></span>You can't have one without the other.<br /><br /><br />The above frivolous lawsuits are a means of wealth redistribution - wealth moves from the public who pay for the products and the town's taxes, to the few who were stupid or unfortunate; and to the lawyers involved in the case. The cost is passed on to the collective. The collective is responsible for the individual. It is part of the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-have-right-to.html">march towards collectivism</a>. <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/left-vs-right-illusion.html">Collectivism is the opposite of individual liberty</a>.<br /><br />Individual liberty has been attacked for a long time now. A progressive income tax is an attack on individual liberty. The direct tax of <a href="http://mwhodges.home.att.net/mwhodges.htm">45% of your wages</a> means that 45% of your economic output is taken from you and used in ways you may not agree with. It means that from January to May you are enslaved by the government. This 45% figure is conservative; it doesn't include the fact that <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/compound-interest-paradox.html">part of your income is stolen by inflation</a>, and <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/debt-is-slavery.html">interest payments on any debt</a>.<br /><br />The Patriot Act <a href="http://www.alternet.org/story/15770/">tramples on the 4th amendment</a>. <br /><br />Likewise the <a href="http://gonzomuckraker.blogspot.com/2007/07/bush-kills-5th-amendment.html">5th amendment was recently trampled on</a>.<br /><br />There is a pattern to all this:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Bigger, more powerful government, less individual liberty.</span><br /><br />The societal trend towards reduced individual responsibility is part of the big picture of attacking individual liberty, and <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/statism-begins-at-home-aka-land-of-free.html">creeping statism</a>. <br /><br />Even the entertainment industry fills our heads with "group identity". Cliched images of urban hip hoppers, rap artists, drug dealers, nerdy teenagers, skateboarders, executives, and white suburban housewives come to mind. <span style="font-style: italic;">The obsession with group identity is inherently <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-have-right-to.html">collectivist</a></span>.<br /><br />Who benefits from bigger government and reduced individual liberty? The <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/12/consumerism-and-3rd-world-oppression.html">corporatocracy</a> which virtually runs the government. Who are these people who form the corporatocracy? The people who <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">run the biggest corporations</a>, which include Big Oil, Mass Media, Big Defense, Big Finance, the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/compound-interest-paradox.html">Federal Reserve banks</a>, and the Entertainment Industry. Some of these people also go in and out corporations and government.<br /><br />By owning the Mass Media and the Entertainment Industry, they could have huge control over "public opinion" and popular culture.<br /><br />Indeed, writers like Ken Adachi, John Coleman, Byron Weeks, and Thomas Dye have said that "public opinion" <span style="font-style: italic;">is carefully molded propaganda</span>.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-37961046078250001852007-12-27T20:26:00.000-08:002007-12-27T20:29:18.860-08:00What would happen if Ron Paul were "removed"?A sleeping giant would awaken, the likes of which the world has never seen before:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newswithviews.com/Stang/alan21.htm">http://www.newswithviews.com/Stang/alan21.htm</a>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-77859038612179973312007-12-27T10:35:00.001-08:002007-12-27T10:48:27.797-08:00Human See, Human DoI got a great link in a reply to my previous post "<a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/12/knee-jerk-reactions-monkey-see-monkey.html">Monkey See Monkey Do</a>".<br /><br /><a href="http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/aschs-conformit.html">http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/aschs-conformit.html</a><br /><br />Below is an excerpt:<br /><h3 class="entry-header">Asch's Conformity Experiment</h3> <div class="entry-body"> <p><a href="http://scienceaid.co.uk/psychology/social/images/asch.png"><img src="http://www.overcomingbias.com/images/2007/12/25/asch2.png" title="Asch2" alt="Asch2" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; float: right;" border="2" height="148" width="200" /></a> Solomon Asch, with experiments originally carried out in the 1950s and well-replicated since, highlighted a phenomenon now known as "conformity". In the classic experiment, a subject sees a puzzle like the one in the nearby diagram: Which of the lines A, B, and C is the same size as the line X? Take a moment to determine your own answer...</p> <p>The gotcha is that the subject is seated alongside a number of other people looking at the diagram - seemingly other subjects, actually confederates of the experimenter. The other "subjects" in the experiment, one after the other, say that line C seems to be the same size as X. The real subject is seated next-to-last. How many people, placed in this situation, would say "C" - giving an obviously incorrect answer that agrees with the unanimous answer of the other subjects? What do you think the percentage would be?</p> </div> <p> Three-quarters of the subjects in Asch's experiment gave a "conforming" answer at least once. A third of the subjects conformed more than half the time.</p> <p>Interviews after the experiment showed that while most subjects claimed to have not really believed their conforming answers, some said they'd really thought that the conforming option was the correct one. </p> <p>Asch was disturbed by these results:</p><blockquote><p>"That we have found the tendency to conformity in our society so strong... is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our ways of education and about the values that guide our conduct."</p></blockquote>...... <p>Conformity increases strongly up to 3 confederates, but doesn't increase further up to 10-15 confederates. If people are conforming rationally, then the opinion of 15 other subjects should be substantially stronger evidence than the opinion of 3 other subjects.</p> <p>Adding a <span style="font-style: italic;">single dissenter</span> - just one other person who gives the correct answer, or even an incorrect answer that's different from the group's incorrect answer - reduces conformity <em>very </em>sharply, down to 5-10%. ....</p><p>When the single dissenter suddenly switched to <em>conforming to the group,</em> subjects' conformity rates went back up to just as high as in the no-dissenter condition. <span style="font-style: italic;">Being the first dissenter is a valuable (and costly!) social service, but you've got to keep it up.</span></p><p>This reminds me of a quote from Goebbels:<br /></p><blockquote><span class="sqq">“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes <span style="font-style: italic;">vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent</span>, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”</span></blockquote><span class="sqq"></span><p><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>This is why a dissenting voice, or someone playing Devil's Advocate, is so important.<br /></p>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-45911935999601381962007-12-25T23:42:00.000-08:002007-12-25T23:46:25.842-08:00Knee Jerk Reactions: Monkey See Monkey Do<p>I've written about <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/knee-jerk-anger-at-radical-ideas.html">knee jerk reactions before</a>, and how people seem to be conditioned to react in certain ways to anything that's "outside the mainstream".<br /></p><p>Here's an interesting psychological experiment. I'm not sure if it's real or if it's an urban legend, but it makes sense.</p><p><br /></p><p>-----------------------------<br /></p><p>Start with a cage containing five monkeys.<br /></p><p>Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a stepladder under<br />it. Before long, one of the monkeys will spot the banana and start to<br />climb the ladder. As soon as he does, spray the other four monkeys with<br />ice-cold water.<br /></p><p>Replace the banana.<br /></p><p>After a while another of the monkeys will go for the banana. Again,<br />spray the other four monkeys with cold water. Monkeys are fairly smart,<br />so pretty soon whenever one of the monkeys tries to climb the ladder<br />all the other monkeys will try and prevent him doing it. When this<br />happens, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and<br />replace it with a new one. Then put another banana at the top of the<br />ladder.<br /></p><p>The new monkey will spot the banana and make for the ladder. To his<br />surprise all of the other monkeys will attack him! After a couple more<br />attempts result in beatings, the new monkey will not make any further<br />attempt to go for the banana.<br /></p><p>Remove another of the original monkeys and replace it with another new<br />one. Then replace the banana. As before, the newest monkey will make a<br />grab for it. Like his predecessor he will be amazed to find that all<br />the other monkeys attack him. (The previous newcomer is likely to take<br />part in this punishment with great enthusiasm.)<br /></p><p>One at a time, gradually replace all of the original monkeys with new<br />ones. Each of the newcomers will go for the banana. Each one will be<br />attacked by the other four, although none of the newer monkeys will<br />have any idea why they are not allowed to climb the ladder, or why they<br />are participating in the assault on the newest monkey.<br /></p><p>When all of the original monkeys have been replaced, none of the<br />remaining monkeys will ever have been sprayed with cold water.<br />Nevertheless no monkey ever approaches the ladder.<br /></p><p>Why not?<br /></p>Because that's the way we've always done it around here.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-51375399794888667792007-12-17T10:01:00.001-08:002007-12-17T10:02:23.258-08:00"Remove" Ron Paul?If the report below is true, it suggests that Ron Paul is truly the only serious anti-establishment presidential candidate:<br /><a href="http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/121407_assassinating_paul.htm"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2007/121407_assassinating_paul.htm</span></a><br /><blockquote>"Best-selling author and Bilderberg sleuth Daniel Estulin says he has received information from sources inside the U.S. intelligence community which suggests that people from the highest levels of the U.S. government are considering an assassination attempt against Congressman Ron Paul because they are threatened by his burgeoning popularity."</blockquote><a href="http://prisonplanet.com/audio/141207estulin.mp3">Here is the MP3</a> of the Estunil interview. They discuss more interesting topics, such as Bush being told to back down from Iraq.<br /><br />The most common method for "removing" dissenters is with a small plane crash. This is what may have happened to <a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110102_wellstone.html">Paul Wellstone</a>, and to <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2004/11/9/confessions_of_an_economic_hit_man">Jaime Roldos, and Omar Torrijos</a>.<br /><br />Daniel Estulin is the author of a very recently published book on the Bilderbergers:<br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0977795349/ref=nosim/bookfindercom0e">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0977795349/ref=nosim/bookfindercom0e</a><br /><br />Here is a bit about the Bilderberg group:<br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group</a><br /><br />And a BBC article:<br /><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4290944.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4290944.stm</a><br /><br />The chairman in the above article is quoted as saying:<br /><blockquote>"I don't think (we are) a global ruling class because I don't think a global ruling class exists. I simply think it's people who have influence interested to speak to other people who have influence," Viscount Davignon says.</blockquote>The members may or may not agree on all issues, but then on those that they agree on, then they would have huge influence, and thus act as a virtual global ruling class on said issues. The other possibility is of course, that they agree to disagree on most issues and agree to implement their concensus, in which case they ARE a virtual global ruling class and Davignon is downplaying it.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-63916001115873702962007-12-08T08:15:00.000-08:002007-12-26T23:49:56.276-08:00Consumerism, Corporatism, and 3rd World OppressionI recently spent several weeks vacationing in a 3rd world country with several friends. This 3rd world country was well known for their ancient civilization which was very advanced for its time. I had a wonderful time, and also had a life-changing realization.<br /><br />While I was there I read John Perkins's book "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=dKqyAAAACAAJ&dq=title:secrets+american+empire+author:perkins">Secret History of the American Empire</a>", which is a follow up to his bestseller "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=nJFFrLX-924C&printsec=frontcover&dq=title:confessions+economic+author:perkins&sig=-lkcpfpbHvGgSRqPwlbmJov1nZg">Confessions of an Economic Hit Man</a>". Reading his book while in a 3rd world country, seeing all the poverty, makes it very in-your-face. That was the reason for my realization.<br /><br /><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ></span>Economic Hitmen are international consultants whose main job is to convince the corrupt elite of LDCs (less developed countries) around the world to accept multibillion-dollar loans for infrastructure projects and to see to it that most of this money ends up at Halliburton, Bechtel, Brown and Root, and other United States engineering and construction companies.<br /><br />The loans, which come from the IMF/World Bank, are designed so that the poor nations will never be able to repay them, but will forever be enslaved by only being able to pay interest on the loan. (This is a lot like the US middle class, and the Federal government's debts - ultimately unpayable - because of the Federal Reserve and the fundamentally corrupt monetary system. The root is the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/compound-interest-paradox.html">Compound Interest Paradox</a>, aka the "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Debt-Virus-Compelling-Solution-Problems/dp/0944435351">Debt Virus</a>". <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/11/ron-paul-federal-reserve-and-gold.html">Here's an excellent summary</a>.) Indeed the IMF and WB are simply <a href="http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=79">a part of, and controlled by, the central banks, most especially the Federal Reserve</a>. Many, many poor nations spend more on paying interest on their foreign debt, than they do on education, basic medical care, micro-loans, and other grassroots programs for the poor.<br /><br />John Perkins goes on to say that this system relies on corrupting the elite in these poor nations. These elites benefit directly by siphoning a small portion of these multibillion dollar loans, and by remaining in power. <span style="font-style: italic;">This is the carrot.<br /><br /></span> The system is driven by the <span style="font-style: italic;">corporatocracy </span>- a term coined by Perkins to mean the collective of the transnational corporations. Wall Street benefits directly from the enslavement of the 3rd world, as they are able to tap the natural resources of these 3rd world nations at low cost. Carrol Quigley had written in his book, "<a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/reps-and-dems-are-pushing-authoritarian.html">Tragedy and Hope</a>", that the world's elite keeps the 3rd world poor in order to keep the prices of natural resources low.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1119-24.htm">http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1119-24.htm</a>:<br /><span style=";font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><blockquote>“The system is set up such that the countries are so deep in debt that they can’t repay their debt,” Perkins said. “When the U.S. government wants favors from them, like votes in the United Nations or troops in Iraq, or in many, many cases, their resources – their oil, their canal, in the case of Panama, we go to them and say – look, you can’t pay off your debts, therefore sell your oil at a very low price to our oil companies. Today, tremendous pressure is being put on Ecuador, for example, to sell off its Amazonian rainforest -– very precious, very fragile places, inhabited by indigenous people whose cultures are being destroyed by the oil companies.”</blockquote></span><br />John Perkins goes on to say that if the elite of a 3rd world country begins to resist or go nationalistic, <span style="font-style: italic;">the stick comes out</span> - the CIA jackals are sent in. This is the fate that befell Jaime Roldos in Ecuador, Omar Torrijos in Panama ,and Allende in Chile. They were assassinated. <a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/dontblink.html">Note that the CIA and Wall Street are intertwined</a>. The jackals then install a new puppet government.<br /><br />If the jackals fail, the US Military is sent in to finish the job. Young men and women are sent in to die "for their country", to kill people who "hate us for our freedoms", and to "spread democracy". This is what happened to Saddam Hussein, who, ironically, <a href="http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html">was trained by the CIA to assassinate his predecessor Qasim who was anti-corporatist</a>, and to be a counter balance against Iran. And don't forget that in 1953, Iran's popular democratically elected Mossadegh was ousted, and the Shah put in power, by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Mossadegh">CIA, at the behest of British Petroleum</a>, because Mossadegh wanted his people to get a larger share of BP's oil income.<br /><br />The US Military as Wall Street's attack dog has been written about back in the 1930's. Smedley Butler, perhaps the most decorated major general in the Marine Corps, wrote a book, <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1119-24.htm">"War is a Racket"</a>.<br /><br />Such activities are those of an empire. Of all the characteristics of an empire, only one doesn't describe the USA - the presence of an emperor. However, Perkins points out that the <span style="font-style: italic;">corporatocracy </span>acts as a virtual emperor. The root is that corporations have been conferred the rights of an individual, and none of the responsibilities. As an entity, they always look out for the bottom line. If the bottom line is helped by oppressing people in other nations, and transparency is not required, they will do it. The result is that the American Empire is hated by many people in the world.<br /><br />All of this empire building is completely unbeknownst to the vast majority of the American public. This is because the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">mass media is controlled by the same corporations that run the corporatocracy</a>, by the same people that run the government. <span style="font-style: italic;">This is a crucial point to understand</span>. America is not hated for her people, who are misled by the so called free press. America is hated because of her government's foreign policy and covert operations; her government that is run by the corporatocracy; a government that does<span style="font-style: italic;"> not</span> represent "we the people".<br /><br /><br />Reading Perkins's book while visiting a 3rd world county gave me a new perspective. It doubled the intensity of my feeling that needless human suffering is very, very offensive. As a technologist, I feel there is no good reason that anybody on this planet should not have access to food, clean water, shelter, and basic medical care. The poverty in this world is a man-made, artificial creation of the people in power. They believe in materialism - that in order to have a bigger piece of the pie for themselves, they have to steal someone else's. They believe that life and economics is a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum">zero-sum game</a>.<br /><br />I believe that wealth comes from knowledge, as Plato said. If we need more wealth, we can make the pie bigger for everyone. Almost all the wealth we have today comes from technology - medicine, transportation, communications, mass production of goods, and so on. Keeping huge swaths of the world poor, results in tremendous swaths of untapped human potential. Human potential that could have been generating more wealth for everyone.<br /><br />If parts of Asia and Africa were not desperately poor and had access to higher education for the past 40 years, then technology, which is accelerating, would probably be 20 years ahead today - we'd probably have had the Internet boom in the 80's, and have the technology of the 2020's here today. The world's power elite are killing the goose that lays the golden egg, so to speak. Keeping the 3rd world poor is counter-productive. Even though natural resources would be more expensive, technological advancements continually make use of smaller and smaller amounts of natural resources to make the same product, offsetting the increased prices of resources. Ironically, by now some bright young scientist in Asia or Africa may have discovered the cure for a fatal cancer that one of the elite in the first world may be dying of today.<br /><br /><br />During my trip, an incident struck me. We had just come from a 4 day boat cruise where our group had had a discussion about how much to leave as a tip for the crew. We had settled on $8 from each of us for 4 days. This was a very paltry sum given the wonderful service we got from the crew, and the local culture's very warm-hearted manner.<br /><br />The next day, while our group was hailing a taxi, some rejected a taxi because the driver wanted to charge $0.50 more than what was considered to be a good price. Our destination was Hard Rock Cafe, because 2 women in our group had wanted to purchase a Hard Rock cafe shirt or blouse with the name of the city we were vacationing in. When we got there, I was shocked at the price of the blouse - $60, in a 3rd world country. It struck me that these same women had haggled our taxi fare for 4 of us down by $0.50, and had only wanted to give $8 total tip for 4 days on a boat cruise. This was money for people who were working to feed their families. And yet, they readily coughed up $60 for a blouse made by a wealthy corporation, for a product that probably cost them $1 to make.<br /><br />It was offensive to watch. I asked them about wasting time haggling $0.50 for a cab ride - they said they "don't want to be ripped off". Yet they didn't feel ripped off paying $60 for a $1 blouse.<br /><br />I understand that they are exercising their own freedom and that was their free choice. However it struck me just how pervasive consumerism is. The constant barrage of "buy buy buy", and the brainwashing and instilling in consumers the idea that acquisitiveness is a good thing, is disgusting. I have posted about this before, <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/dumbed-down-by-educational-system-pt-2.html">that the educational system and the media turn people into good little consumers</a>.<br /><br />I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to have high quality stuff to enjoy per se - but making <span style="font-style: italic;">what-you-have</span> a substitute for <span style="font-style: italic;">who-I-am</span> is creepy. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Me, me, me</span>", "<span style="font-style: italic;">Look at me in my enormous 4,000-lb SUV, which I bought on credit, for carrying my 30-lb child</span>", while soldiers die for the gas that runs it. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Look at my fancy $1,000 signature purse which I bought with my credit card, because I have been brainwashed into thinking that having some Italian fashion guru's name on my bag makes me feel good about myself</span>", all the while a big chunk of the world lives on less than $1 a day. And all this consumerism is the result of brainwashing, to enrich the loan and credit card companies and the corporatocracy.<br /><br />I'm not saying you should live the life of a pauper and be happy you don't have to walk 10 miles a day to fetch water. All I'm saying is you should see through the consumerism and think twice about useless "feel-good" purchases. <span style="font-style: italic;">Especially if you have to borrow money to "afford" it.</span><br /><br /><br />John Perkins' proposal to end the oppression by the corporatocracy, is to effect a legal change in corporations' charters, basically requiring them to have the same responsibilities as a person, to go with their rights. Another is to greatly increase corporate transparency, so that consumers are aware of their activities, and can vote appropriately with their wallets. I have a proposal to add, that managers and members of boards of directors have reduced liability protection for a corporation's actions which are a direct consequence of their decisions.<br /><br />Despite all the horror stories, Perkins is positive. He says we can turn the empire into a good thing. When an empire collapses a new one takes its place - he says we can instead turn the corporations into good corporate citizens. Corporations have many strengths - such as efficiently turning scarce resources into products that consumers want.<br /><br /><br />Today, Ron Paul is the <span style="font-style: italic;">only </span>presidential candidate that has called a spade, a spade. He said the USA <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul369.html">cannot afford to continue empire building</a>. All Empires end. The ancient civilization of the country I was visiting ended, and today they are a 3rd world country. Empires end <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=-R0tAAAACAAJ&dq=title:empire+of+debt">because they go bankrupt</a>, from printing too much fiat money, and forgetting the principles that made their pre-empire nation great to begin with. In the USA, these are the <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/statism-begins-at-home-aka-land-of-free.html">principles of Individual Freedom</a>, <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/history-of-government-regulation-and.html">limited government</a>, and <a href="http://www.mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae8_1_6.pdf">the free market</a>. Ron Paul has <a href="http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/war-and-foreign-policy/">always voted</a> against meddling in the internal affairs of other nations. He voted against the Iraqi Freedom Act, signed by Bill Clinton in 1998, which paved the way for the Iraq invasion. He has consistently voted against the Patriot Act, the spying powers act, and all the other acts that increase the power and spending of the government and all acts that reduce our freedoms; all of this while Hillary and Obama and most of the Democrats voted the opposite.<br /><br />I believe that if Ron Paul gets elected, and if John Perkins's suggestions come to fruition, that America, followed by the rest of the world, will enter a new golden age. America can again become the shining beacon she once was, leading by example.<br /><br /><br />Before I end this post I need to say a caveat - Perkins seems to confuse capitalism and corporatism. There is a pervasive myth that capitalism always leads to corporatism. Corporatism happens when big business and government collude so that government writes laws and <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/09/history-of-government-regulation-and.html">regulations that favor certain corporations</a>, or <a href="http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-state-destroys-small-businesses.html">favor large corporations, over small business</a>. This leads to cartelization, which is the goal of any "regulation" that is pushed by corporations. This could either happen by government being misled, or bribed, by lobbyists. Government meddling in the free market is almost always corporatist. Many industries in the USA are heavily regulated, thus, the free market does not truly exist.<br /><br />Here is a good book review that says exactly this:<br /><a href="http://www.mises.org/story/2416">http://www.mises.org/story/2416</a><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;">Perkins's primary problem is in assuming that all global capitalism is sinister in the sense described in his book. Any creation of wealth that depends on coercion can hardly be considered market capitalism. It truly is sinister when a US firm, funded indirectly by taxpayer dollars, forces indigenous people offs their land in South America because geological tests suggest that oil deposits there surpass those of the Middle East. It is sinister because it violates the property rights of both the taxpayers who fund the politically well-connected firms and of the displaced peoples and cultures whose property rights are violated when they are removed from their land (often with much suffering).<br /><br />But Perkins's anticapitalism really shows when he equates such activity with (say) the opening of a Nike plant a third world country. No one dies, and no cultures are killed off, when a factory opens and workers living near it can voluntarily sell their labor for wages that (economic theory tells us) exceed their next-best opportunity for work.<br /><br />In developing countries, a new Nike plant is a godsend, not only because it increases capital flows to a region, but because it means that families can become autonomous, or that daughters do not have to resort to prostitution to put food on the table.<br /><br />In this sense, it is perverse to assume that a Wal-Mart in China or a McDonald's in South Korea is analogous to a Bechtel in India or a Halliburton in Iraq.<br /><br />Perkins's biases also show when he assumes that the West stays rich because poor countries are kept poor. This zero-sum thinking ignores those factors that cause wealth to become created in the first place. The America of the Founding Fathers — whose anti-imperial instincts Perkins rightly lauds throughout Confessions — didn't depend on international development loans or the expansion of social welfare programs to fuel the industrial revolution, but on the protection of property rights, which then rewarded saving and attracted capital. For that reason, it is no coincidence that poor countries that eschewed such loans and nurtured property rights institutions 20 years ago are those that are quickly joining the wealthy countries of today.</span></blockquote>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-20023056639547111622007-12-06T22:43:00.000-08:002007-12-06T23:25:40.416-08:00Reader comments on "Media Anointed"Anonymous said in reaction to my post <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/11/campaign-contributors-of-media-anointed.html"><span style="font-weight: normal;font-size:100%;" >The Campaign Contributors of the Media Anointed</span>:</a><br /><blockquote>It seems the media is guilty of ignoring any candidate that isn't in their owner's pocket, like say Ron Paul.<br /><br />But they are ignoring others even more, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Alan Keyes, Mike Huckabee, etc...<br /><br />However, you do the same thing! You have the candidates you want to bring down because they are in the pocket so to speak, but you mention only Ron Paul. He isn't the only other candidate. Perhaps you should be including the data for or at least mentioning the other candidates so we can see the whole picture instead of a "media" prepared "sound bite".<br /><br />What are the contributions for the other candidates? To be truly concerned with our having the whole story, shouldn't you have included them? Your choice to only include Ron Paul, begs you bias toward him, which in itself is fine. I have a problem with you not including ALL the candidates.<br /><br />I am also interested to so the armed forces as some of the biggest contributors to Paul as well as technology companies. Those both concern me.<br /><br />Finally, I am curious how popular each candidate is compared to their spending and compared to their receipts especially the average and median size of their receipts.</blockquote><br />It takes an incredible amount of time to write a blog when one strives for accuracy and strives to show sources. And, in that post, I had to do a screen capture of the contributors of each of the candidates I showed, and convert each to GIF, because the content may disappear in the future due to its contentious nature. (I've seen this happen). So, to save time, I decided to do a cross section of the "media anointed", rather than present a comprehensive list.<br /><br />Yes I have a bias towards Ron Paul. My objective in this blog is to educate, and to make people take the red pill. Ron Paul is a ray of hope - he is the only candidate in decades who wants to phase out the Federal Reserve, eliminate the federal income tax on wages, eliminate inflation, restore true freedom, reduce government regulation, reduce the size of the government, and truly fix the health care system. I have written about each and every one of these topics before. And being a blog, I can write my opinion, instead of striving to be neutral as a news source should be. I do my best not to lie or mislead. The corporate-owned mass media on the other hand, is not only not neutral, but consistently shows an Establishment bias which serves to further enrich the wealthy to the detriment of the middle class and the poor.<br /><br />As for Ron Paul's contributions from the military and technology companies, take note of the disclaimer from the opensecrets.org website that I included in my post. The contributions reflect the employers of the sum of individual contributors. A law requires contributors to identify their employers when contributing more than $200. People will contribute to a candidate that they feel will best improve their future well-being. The "media-anointed" are a favorite among the financial institutions, which as I've posted before, effectively run this country, and which receive a huge subsidy from the corrupt monetary system starting with the Federal Reserve. As for the military, Ron Paul is the #1 candidate among enlisted men and women. Perhaps they like Ron Paul because he will get them out of fighting needless wars of aggression that only the power elite want. Regarding technology companies, Google has a simple explanation. Google has invited several presidential candidates, including Ron Paul, to their campus to do lengthy interviews. Ron Paul is very popular among people who have heard his message. Google has several thousand well paid employees. So it stands to reason that a lot of Google employees gave a lot of money. <br /><br />----------<br /><br /><a href="profile/05631716703378042759" target="_blank">Leah</a> has left a new comment on your post "<a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/11/campaign-contributors-of-media-anointed.html" target="_blank">The Campaign Contributors of the Media Anointed</a>":<br /><br /><blockquote> What about Dennis Kucinich?</blockquote>I like a lot of what Dennis Kucinich stands for. His donor profile on opensecrets.org is also anti-establishment. However, there is one basic thing about Kucinich I don't like - he is pro-socialism. I have posted about this before. I don't like the idea of "giving a man a fish", especially if forced by government. I like the idea of "teaching a man to fish". A fair economic system will do far more for the poor than socialism or welfare will. The free market system has generated wealth for mankind, more than any other system. Do not confuse corporatism (collusion between corporations and government, so that laws are written to benefit corporations), with capitalism (the free market system). The free market allows us to "make the pie bigger" for everyone. Technology and knowledge is wealth. The so called "evils" of capitalism is actually corporatism, and not an indictment of capitalism. I wrote about this before too. The free market does not necessarily devolve into corporatism aka fascism - bloated government breeds corruption. In a capitalist system, corruption leads to corporatism, in a socialist system, corruption leads to how life was in the former Soviet Union. Both are forms of tyranny, which the Founding Fathers warned us against.<br /><br />-----------<br /><br /><a href="profile/17586531431402286862" target="_blank">Michael Blomquist</a> has left a new comment on your post "<a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/11/campaign-contributors-of-media-anointed.html" target="_blank">The Campaign Contributors of the Media Anointed</a>":<br /><blockquote><br />This is really a sad testament to captalism and democracy. One could argue that it is treason, given the hundreds of billions if not trillions in damages these companies have inflicted upon our country during a time of war.<br /><br />Create money out of thin air and then enslave the citizens in debt. If in the process you destroy the dream of homeownership and the currency...no problem!<br /><br />The citizens should have known better. The government maintains a balanced budget and so should the people. <br /><br />Wake up people!<br /><br />Indict and convict white collar criminals; don't waste our time and resources on steroids or related perjury!!!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.discountrealty.com/" target="_blank">www.discountrealty.com</a><br />Michael Blomquist<br />408-399-0590 </blockquote><br />Again do not confuse capitalism and corporatism.<br /><br />I agree that some white collar crimes (e.g. Enron) are heinous in the total amount of human suffering they cause. Thousands of employees losing their future. A much worse crime than say, beating up one person.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-76232831881590782062007-12-06T22:37:00.001-08:002008-12-11T21:33:35.452-08:00Look who's getting the most lobbyist moneyFrom <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/select.asp?cycle=2008">http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/select.asp?cycle=2008</a><br />(Note that the exact numbers may change over time.)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/R1jqVRC4W7I/AAAAAAAAACo/NufquYhokHU/s1600-h/lolbbyists.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/R1jqVRC4W7I/AAAAAAAAACo/NufquYhokHU/s400/lolbbyists.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5141116625717058482" border="0" /></a><br /><br />And her supporters probably think that she won't kowtow to lobbyists, due to the mass media's propaganda. What a lie.<br /><br />For a look at the corporate donations of the media anointed, <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/11/campaign-contributors-of-media-anointed.html">click here</a>.redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1624561502140703394.post-12102475567413916902007-11-13T21:51:00.002-08:002008-12-11T21:33:36.275-08:00The Campaign Contributors of the Media AnointedThe USA is controlled <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">by the Corporatocracy</a>, by the lobbyists and big business interests. The people that own these corporations are the people <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/dumbed-down-by-educational-system-by.html">that own and run this country</a>. They are not interested in making life better for you or me. They are only interested in their own money and power.<br /><br /><a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-moguls-bankers-and-cfr.html">By controlling the mass media</a>, they choose who the next president is. At the beginning of election campaigning, they immediately declare and anoint who the "top tier" are. This is the short list of whom they approve for the presidency. The <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/democrat-republican-good-cop-bad-cop-pt.html">2-party system</a> ensures that this list gets pared down to <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/latulippe80.html">"Puppet A" and "Marionette B"</a>.<br /><br />Of these corporations, <a href="http://rabbit-hole-journey.blogspot.com/2007/08/compound-interest-paradox.html">the most powerful are the banking and finance corporations</a>.<br /><br />Now let's look at the largest campaign contributors of the media anointed presidential candidates.<br /><br />The following info is taken from <a href="http://opensecrets.org/pres08">http://opensecrets.org/pres08</a>. The site has an explanation<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">HOW TO READ THIS CHART: This chart lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2008 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.<br /><br />Because of contribution limits, organizations that bundle together many individual contributions are often among the top donors to presidential candidates. These contributions can come from the organization's members or employees (and their families). The organization may support one candidate, or hedge its bets by supporting multiple candidates. Groups with national networks of donors - like EMILY's List and Club for Growth - make for particularly big bundlers.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Take note of how the "top tier" media anointed ALL have banking and finance corporations as their top contributors. To all the Hillary fans who think that she is different than the others in terms of not kowtowing to Big Business Interests, TAKE SPECIAL NOTE.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">HILLARY CLINTON:</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/RzqOZhjkwjI/AAAAAAAAACA/AJo52ziC9DY/s1600-h/hc.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/RzqOZhjkwjI/AAAAAAAAACA/AJo52ziC9DY/s400/hc.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132571294497554994" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">BARACK OBAMA:</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/RzqO2RjkwkI/AAAAAAAAACI/IJiEKJQ5Ke8/s1600-h/bo.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/RzqO2RjkwkI/AAAAAAAAACI/IJiEKJQ5Ke8/s400/bo.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132571788418794050" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">RUDY GIULIANI:</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/RzqPpRjkwlI/AAAAAAAAACQ/VMtLEI8BSsg/s1600-h/rg.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/RzqPpRjkwlI/AAAAAAAAACQ/VMtLEI8BSsg/s400/rg.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132572664592122450" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">MITT ROMNEY:</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/RzqPxhjkwmI/AAAAAAAAACY/L6-BhSL1HH8/s1600-h/mr.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/RzqPxhjkwmI/AAAAAAAAACY/L6-BhSL1HH8/s400/mr.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132572806326043234" border="0" /></a><br /><br />And now let's look at Ron Paul. He's consistently received the most donations from enlisted personnel. They probably understand first-hand what folly our foreign policy of empire-building is, and Ron Paul is espousing the Founding Fathers' admonition to stay out of internal affairs of other nations.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">RON PAUL:</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/RzqP5RjkwnI/AAAAAAAAACg/MAeLJA_TrqM/s1600-h/rp.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cWcuRX6FDNI/RzqP5RjkwnI/AAAAAAAAACg/MAeLJA_TrqM/s400/rp.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132572939470029426" border="0" /></a>redpillguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04012283958393384226noreply@blogger.com4