Is This What Is Really Happening Behind The Scenes?

Back in March 2010 I published an article titled Will Globalists Trigger Yet Another World War? under the pen name Giordano Bruno describing what I felt would be the most effective triggers for a new global conflict. In that article I pointed to Syria as the primary powder keg, followed in close second by Iran and Yemen. This was written well before the Syrian civil war was engineered by establishment interests. I focused on potential false flags that could be used as a rationale by the U.S. or Israel to invade the region, thereby giving Russia and China reason to retaliate, for the most part economically. Ultimately, this scenario would play out perfectly as a cover for the deliberate collapse of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. In August 2012 I reiterated my concerns in an article titled Syria And Iran Dominoes Lead To World War, right after the Syrian civil war began to gain momentum. Needless to say, I have not changed my general thesis since those days; however, I would like to touch upon certain factors now that the dangers I examined in those articles are mostly coming to pass in 2018. First, no hard evidence has been produced by western intelligence agencies to support the claim that Bashar Al Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. None. Therefore, there is no basis for the latest missile attacks on the regime. This same exact false flag tactic was attempted under the Obama administration to draw the U.S. people into open war in Syria, and it failed. Now the chemical weapon card is being played again, this time with a "conservative" president. The establishment must be hoping that Republicans will find excitement in becoming the war party so long after the Bush years. The insinuation of neocon warmonger John Bolton into the Trump cabinet suggests that the neocons are very much back in charge and that ongoing war is guaranteed. At this late stage in the game, it is unlikely that our government or any other government involved in the Syrian theater even cares to explain its actions. As I have said for years now, when establishment criminals no longer care if their criminality is transparent to the public then it is time for a large scale societal collapse. Second, each successive Trump involved theater, from trade tariffs to international war tensions, has become progressively more dramatic, and I believe this is meant to hide the effects of the Federal Reserve's balance sheet cuts and interest rate hikes. The real and secret war being waged is not against Syria or Syria's allies, but against the American people and our economic stability. In January of this year, I warned that central banks were preparing to enter into an accelerating process to deflate the massive market bubbles they created to prop up our fiscal system over the past several years. That process is indeed continuing, and each successive rate hike and balance sheet cut will act in a cumulative fashion. Meaning, central bankers are treating the global economy like a great Jenga tower, pulling blocks here and there until the system topples completely from lack of stability. This latest event in Syria is yet another grand gesture of illusion, designed to provide cover for the banking cabal as they pull the plug on financial life support. It also is timed rather conveniently for the Fed's next policy meeting May 1-2. The meeting is likely to include yet another interest rate hike as well as a large reduction in the balance sheet, resulting in another sizable plunge in stocks. All negative moves in our manipulated markets will be blamed on Trump administration activities as well as blamed on trade retaliations by eastern nations. The mainstream media will no longer discuss the reality that central banks are the true cause behind a systemic breakdown. Third, the current pattern of events suggest there will be a joint economic retaliation by Russia and China. China has publicly admonished the U.S. government for its strike in Syria, and this is merely added to the increasing tensions over trade tariffs by Trump. Again, this is a perfect opportunity to undermine the U.S. economy, primarily through China and Russia initiating a dump of the dollar as the world reserve currency. The dump of the dollar has already begun in a semi-covert fashion. China's currency has been inducted into the IMF's Special Drawing Rights basket system, and China has also launched the first international oil exchange that does not use the dollar as the petro-currency. What many people are ignoring is the fact that the shift away from the dollar is being championed and helped along by the globalists at the IMF itself. An impending change in the global monetary framework is often referred to as the great "global economic reset" by IMF members like Christine Lagarde. This change will be facilitated by central banks as they sabotage their respective national economies through the creation and destruction of market bubbles. Ultimately, it will not be the Chinese Yuan that replaces the dollar as world reserve currency, but the SDR basket system, controlled by the IMF. The question of how this can be done by the globalists without an unprecedented liquidity crisis often comes up. I'm not so sure they care if there is a liquidity crisis, at least for a short time. Yes, the U.S. dollar has some of the most liquid markets in the world, but it is wrong to assume the globalists will not bring those markets down in order to force the public into accepting one world centralization of monetary administration (the biggest and most important step in establishing global government). People who argue that the dollar will never be demolished by the globalists cling to the false notion that there is no liquidity replacement for the dollar. In reality, there is a replacement — cyrptocurrencies and blockchain technology. The IMF has recently applauded blockchain systems and crypto as a potential rejuvenating force in international money transactions. Far from being opposed to cryptocurrencies, global elitists have been piling into them with praise and with investment dollars. The global economic reset is not about East versus West. It is not about trade wars and nationalism. No, the global reset is about banker centralization of assets and consolidation of power. Beyond that, it is about the public accepting the reset as necessary and "good" for society. Globalists want us to beg for their rule. When one understands this simple truth, all the current events and disasters of our era begin to make sense. Crisis is the quickest path to complacency and tyranny. A secret war is being fought between liberty champions and lying globalists. For now it remains a cold war, a battle of principles and facts versus disinformation and fear. One day this war will become a hot one. Until that time, distractions will assail the public like a hailstorm. My hope is that we can educate enough people to see through the fog of this hidden war; enough people to come out the other side and change things for the better. To truth and knowledge, Brandon Smith

myRA Part Of The Collapse Of America? Could The Government Be So Evil?

The Final Swindle Of Private American Wealth Has Begun

February 4, 2014 by Brandon Smith 

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I began writing analysis on the macro-economic situation of the American financial structure back in 2006, and in the eight years since, I have seen an undeniably steady trend of fiscal decline.

I have never had any doubt that the U.S. economy was headed for total and catastrophic collapse, the only question was when, exactly, the final trigger event would occur. As I have pointed out in the past, economic implosion is a process. It grows over time, like the ice shelf on a mountain developing into a potential avalanche. It is easy to shrug off the danger because the visible destruction is not immediate; but when the avalanche finally begins, it is far too late for most people to escape…

If you view the progressive financial breakdown in America as some kind of “comedy of errors” or a trial of unlucky coincidences, then there is not much I can do to educate you on the reasons behind the carnage. If, however, you understand that there is a deliberate motivation behind American collapse, then what I have to say here will not fall on biased ears.

The financial crash of 2008, the same crash which has been ongoing for years, is NOT an accident. It is a concerted and engineered crisis meant to position the U.S. for currency disintegration and the institution of a global basket currency controlled by an unaccountable supranational governing body like the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The American populace is being conditioned through economic fear to accept the institutionalization of global financial control and the loss of sovereignty.

Anyone skeptical of this conclusion is welcome to study my numerous past examinations on the issue of globalization; I don’t have the time within this article to re-explain, and frankly, with so much information on dollar destruction available to the public today I’ve grown tired of anyone with a lack of awareness.

If you continue to believe that the Fed actually exists to “help” stabilize our economy or our currency, then you will never find the logic behind what they do. If you understand that the goal of the Fed and the globalists is to dismantle the dollar and the U.S. economic system to make way for something “new”, then certain recent events and policy initiatives do start to make sense.

The year of 2014 has been looming as a serious concern for me since the final quarter of 2013, and you can read about those concerns in my article Expect Devastating Global Economic Changes In 2014.

At the end of 2013 we saw at least three major events that could have sent America spiraling into total collapse. The first was the announcement of possible taper measures by the Fed, which have now begun. The second was the possible invasion of Syria which the Obama Administration is still desperate for despite successful efforts by the liberty movement to deny him public support for war. And the third event was the last debt ceiling debate (or debt ceiling theater depending on how you look at it), which placed the U.S. squarely on the edge of fiscal default.

As we begin 2014, these same threatening issues remain, only at greater levels and with more prominence. New developments reinforce my original position that this year will be remembered by historians as the year in which the final breakdown of the U.S. monetary dynamic culminated. Here are some of those developments explained…

Taper Of QE3

When I first suggested that a Fed taper was not only possible but probable months ago, I was met with a lot of criticism from some in the alternative economic world. You can read my taper articles here and here.

This was understandable. The Fed uses multiple stimulus outlets besides QE in order to manipulate U.S. markets. Artificially lowering interest rates is very much a form of stimulus in itself, for instance.

However, I think a dangerous blindness to threats beyond money printing has developed within our community of analysts and this must be remedied. People need to realize first that the Fed does NOT care about the continued health of our economy, and they may not care about presenting a facade of health for much longer either. Alternative analysts also need to come to grips with the reality that overt money printing is not the only method at the disposal of globalists when destroying the greenback. A debt default is just as likely to cause loss of world reserve status and devaluation, no printing press required. Blame goes to government and political gridlock while the banks slither away in the midst of the chaos.

The taper of QE3 is not a “head fake”, it is very real, but there are many hidden motivations behind such cuts.

Currently, $20 billion has been cut from the $85 billion per month program, and we are already beginning to see what appear to be market effects, including a flight from emerging market currencies from Argentina to Turkey. A couple of years ago investors viewed these markets as among the few places they could make a positive return, or in other words, one of the few places they could successfully gamble. The Fed taper, though, seems to be shifting the flow of capital away from emerging markets.

The mainstream argument is that stimulus was flowing into emerging markets, giving them liquidity support, and the taper is drying up that liquidity. Whether this is actually true is hard to say, given that without a full audit we have no idea how much fiat the Federal Reserve has actually created and how much of it they send out into foreign markets.

I stand more on the position that the Fed taper was begun in preparation for a slowdown in global markets. In fact, I believe central bankers have been well aware that a decline in every sector was coming, and are moving to insulate themselves.

Look at it this way: The taper program distances the bankers from responsibility for any dramatic changes in our financial framework, at least in the eyes of the general public. If a market crisis takes place WHILE stimulus measures are still at full speed, this makes the banks look rather guilty, or at least incompetent. People would begin to question the validity of central bank methods, and they might even question the validity of the central bank’s existence. The Fed is creating space between itself and the economy because they know that a trigger event is coming. They want to ensure that they are not blamed and that stimulus itself is not seen as ineffective.

We all know that the claims of recovery are utter nonsense. One need only look at true unemployment numbers, dismal sales reports from last quarter, and the all time low household savings of the average American to see this. The taper is not in response to an improving economic environment. Rather, the taper is a signal for the next stage of collapse.

The exodus from emerging market currencies and stocks was coming regardless of the Fed taper because of a global slowdown in demand. This slowdown is clearly visible in the Baltic Dry Index, which has lost around 50 percent of its value in the past three weeks.

Stocks are beginning to plummet around the world and all mainstream pundits are pointing fingers at the reduction in stimulus. What is the message? That we “can’t live” without the aid of the central banks. The truth is, the effectiveness of stimulus manipulation has a shelf life, and that shelf life is over for the Federal Reserve. I suspect they will continue cutting QE every month for the next year as stocks decline.

Government Controlled Investment

Last month, just as taper measures were being implemented, the White House launched an investment program called MyRA; a retirement IRA program in which middle class and low wage Americans can invest part of their paycheck in government bonds.

That’s right, if you wanted to know where the money was going to come from to support U.S. debt if the Fed cuts QE, guess what, the money is going to come from YOU.

For a decade or so China was the primary buyer and crutch for U.S. debt spending. After the derivatives crash of 2008, the Federal Reserve became the largest purchaser of Treasury bonds. With the decline of foreign interest in long term U.S. debt, and the taper in full effect, it only makes sense that the government would seek out an alternative source of capital to continue the debt cycle. The MyRA program turns the general American public into a new cash stream, but there’s more going on here than meets the eye…

I find it rather suspicious that a government-controlled retirement program is suddenly introduced just as the Fed has begun to taper, as stocks are beginning to fall, and as questions arise over the U.S. debt ceiling. I have three major concerns:

First, is it possible that like the Fed, the government is also aware that a crash in stocks is coming? And, are they offering the MyRA program as an easy outlet (or trap) for people to pour in what little savings they have as panic over declining equities accelerates?

Second, the program is currently voluntary, but what if the plan is to make it mandatory? Obama has already signed mandatory health insurance “taxation” into law, which is meant to steal a portion of every paycheck. Why not steal an even larger portion from every paycheck in order to support U.S. debt? It’s for the “greater good,” after all.

Third, is this a deliberate strategy to corral the last vestiges of private American wealth into the corner of U.S. bonds, so that this wealth can be confiscated or annihilated? What happens if there is indeed an eventual debt default, as I believe there will be? Will Americans be herded into bonds by a crisis in stocks only to have bonds implode as well? Will they be conned into bond investment out of a “patriotic duty” to save the nation from default? Or, will the government just take their money through legislative wrangling, as was done in Cyprus not long ago?

The Final Swindle

The next debt ceiling debate is coming at the end of this month. If the government decides to kick the can down the road for another quarter, I believe this will be the last time. The most recent actions of the Fed and the government signal preparations for a stock implosion and ultimate debt calamity. Default would have immediate effects in foreign markets, but the appearance of U.S. stability could drag on for a time, giving the globalists ample opportunity to siphon every ounce of financial blood from the public.

It is difficult to say how the next year will play out, but one thing is certain; something very strange and dangerous is afoot. The goal of globalists is to engineer desperation. To create a catastrophe and then force the masses to beg for help. How many hands of “friendship” will be offered in the wake of a U.S. wealth and currency crisis? What offers for “aid” will come from the IMF? How much of our country and how many of our people will be collateralized to secure that aid? And, how many Americans will go along with the swindle because they were not prepared in advance?

Should Government Be More Important Than A Citizen's Rights?

Brandon Smith does a really great job discussing the challenge of protecting individual rights while still preserving secrets of the nation.  This is not an easily solved conundrum. However, it is the one facing the US today.

Whether Snowden is a traitor or a hero is  the essence of the question. Until  the facts behind the data release, we will not know which he is. However, when the politicians from both parties demand his trial as a criminal, we have second thoughts.  What are they protecting?

What are your thoughts?

Conservative Tom

Is The Safety Of The State Really Worth More Than The Truth?

July 16, 2013 by Brandon Smith 

PHOTOS.COM

It’s a strange and terrible tragedy when a culture forgets its own history and identity. It is even more tragic when that culture becomes deluded enough to think it can replace its heritage from scratch, that it can conjure political and social reformations out of thin air and abandon the centuries upon centuries of accomplishment and failures of generations past. To think that one can live without the lessons and principles of one’s ancestors is a disease — a mental disorder of the highest caliber. It is an insanity that leads to terrifying catastrophe.

There is no such thing as “starting over” or “rising anew.” There is no such thing as pure and unadulterated “change.” All shifts in human civilization are a product of that which has come before; and, therefore, each of these shifts retains the ideas, accomplishments and dreams of our forefathers. No matter how ingenious we think we are today, most grand schemes and wondrous plans for the world have already been discovered, rediscovered and applied over and over again by industrious men, great men and even nefarious men century after century.

Unique ideas are very rare. The American republic, as a sociopolitical structure, is such an idea.

The concept of citizen self governance is extremely uncommon in the annals of humanity, namely because there has always been an establishment of elitists within any given epoch that has sought to destroy it. There have always been organizations of the power hungry who make it their mission to suppress free thought and free peoples, and these organizations certainly exist today.

Though we have been given an astonishing guide map in the form of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the establishment attempts to sell us on a very different value system. In their world, true self governance is impossible, because only the elect will ever receive the political and monetary support needed just to join the ranks of those who might be elected. The common man has no place within the halls of the Federal oligarchy, and the elite like it that way.

In their world, leaders do not owe allegiance to the citizenry. They do not answer to the public. They do as they wish, whenever they wish. And as long as they can wrap their tyranny in the costumes of so-called patriotism, justice or safety of the masses, they can continue uninterrupted. The system is their playground, not ours.

Those people allowed to operate as government employees are treated as indentured servants of the state. Their first loyalties, the government claims, are not to Americans, but to the corporate apparatus that America has become. That is to say, they are supposed to protect the integrity of the system before they protect the lives and liberties of the people.

CIA Director John Brennan’s “Honor the Oath” campaign makes this position clear. InBrennan’s words, the oath government employees take is not to the Constitution, but to the “corporate culture of secrecy.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein’s response to the Snowden leaks on National Security Agency mass surveillance is also rather revealing in regard to how the establishment views the exposure of truths, especially when those truths involve the government’s systematic targeting of innocent Americans. The Hill reported:

“I don’t look at this as being a whistleblower. I think it’s an act of treason,” the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee told reporters.

The California lawmaker went on to say that Snowden had violated his oath to defend the Constitution.

“He violated the oath, he violated the law. It’s treason.”

I would also point out that this same twisted viewpoint has been expressed by politicians on both sides of the aisle. Top Democrats and top Republicans want Snowden’s head on a platter.

Now I can see a certain (but very selective) logic to the belief that defending the government structure from attack is the same as defending the American public from attack. Undoubtedly, an outside force seeking to undermine our safety and our freedoms should be stopped; and some people believe we need watchmen to ensure this is done. However, what happens when the greatest threat to our way of life is coming from the watchmen themselves?

The Federal government was created by the Founding Fathers, begrudgingly, to serve one primary purpose: The defense of individual liberty. But what happens when the Federal government no longer pursues this function? What happens when the government becomes the very enemy it was designed to defend us against? Has it not then violated the charter that made it legal in the first place? And if so, should it not then be exposed and disbanded as a broken tool, a useless piece of hardware that no longer does any good for the people overall?

The problem is that the “watchmen” were institutionalized and bureaucratized. We were supposed to be the watchers and defenders, each and every one of us, but we handed over that power to elitist interests and secretive entities. We have handed over our eyes and our hands to men who care only for their own private societies and not American society. We have fallen asleep on the job and dark-minded doppelgängers have taken our place.

Even so, this does not mean our responsibilities have disappeared. As the actions of a handful of government whistle-blowers (including Snowden and Bradley Manning) have shown, the requirements of honor and conscience are not void simply because you now receive a government paycheck. In fact, for any government employee who considers himself honest and principled, whistle-blowing is not “treason,” as the White House would have us believe. Rather, it is a duty.

There are two kinds of law. The first is natural law; those laws follow the dictates of our hearts and our inborn moral compass. The Constitution upon which our nation was built is a perfect written representation of natural law. The second is self-serving law; those are the laws that one group of people in power use to control another group of people without power. Most legal structures that exist in writing today are sadly a product of self-serving law.

Legitimate treason is essentially the abandonment of the true well-being of one’s culture in order to gain something for oneself. Maybe the enticement is monetary, or maybe the enticement is to aid a foreign interest. Or maybe it is to satisfy a dangerously selfish ideological ego. In any case, the end result is severe harm to one’s homeland.

The question is: Is it “treason” to tell the truth to the American people? Is the truth harmful to our culture, or is it just harmful to the establishment? Is the survival of the establishment irreconcilably intertwined with the survival of our society, or is that only what they want us to think? If the establishment dies because it is revealed as corrupt, do we all die with it; or could we carry on without it?

As I pointed out before, without our heritage and our history, America fails to be. Without the lessons of the past, we are nothing. Our Federal government today has separated itself from the people and elevated itself to a godlike position in our personal lives, as many despotic governments throughout history have done. Our leadership has formed alliances with private elitist interests and forsaken their responsibilities  in an effort to cement their political dominance rather than protect the common good, the kind of action that has invariably led to the totalitarian monstrosities of the past. And our government has deemed a matter of national security, and thus sacrosanct, that which is moral “unimportant” or “dangerous” and that which is immoral. We are now expected to maintain “faith” in the benevolence and good graces of government and damn to hell the very voice within our souls. We are expected to pray for the continued longevity of the machine and rage against anyone who might enlighten us to the evil within it.

Many people who now work for the machine are not necessarily like the machine. They are not bent on the destruction of free civilization. They are not the enemy of life or the deeper good of man. But under the long-cast shadow of tyranny, the path they have chosen eventually ends; and it will end with an incalculably difficult decision: to do what is right or to do what is safe. To remember what it is our government is supposed to stand for or to forget all that came before.

Loyalty is not and never has been unconditional: loyalty to government most of all. Loyalty to the system is dependent upon the nature of the system and the people who sit at its apex. The system must reflect the higher aspirations of the society it seeks to manage or protect. It must be held to the highest possible standard and totally transparent in its nature. It is the job of government whistle-blowers to make this possible. If they do not, then criminality will remain painfully felt but officially unconfirmed. Our country will continue to crumble into fascist oblivion, and all that will be left for the citizenry is revolution.

We must remember what we believe in and allow that to be enough. Our fears, our biases and our superficial desires are all irrelevant. In the end, the only thing that matters is what we leave behind. For those within government today, this could mean a legacy of desperation and sadness or a legacy of strength, truth and enduring peace. Time is running out.

1984 On Steroids

Brandon Smith writes a very provocative article on the future of surveillance in America. It is long but very thought provoking. 

We are facing some very dark days in the US, if this trend is not stopped. It is important that everyone know about the challenges to our freedoms that technology is presenting. Take one example, drones.  How long will it be before an armed drone kills a US citizen in the US?  We fear the time is near.  Will you still feel as safe then as you do now?  We won't!

Conservative Tom

The Dark Future Of America’s Surveillance Culture

June 18, 2013 by Brandon Smith 

PHOTOS.COM

Surveillance is the act of removing transparency from one person while operating under a veil of secrecy yourself. Surveillance is a one-sided exploitation of cultural violence, like a street mugging backed by ideological rationalizations. To be able to invade the life of another human being at will; to catalog his hopes, dreams and weaknesses; to put yourself in a position to judge him from a discreet distance or undermine his future entirely: This is what surveillance is truly about. Make no mistake, mass surveillance is not about safety; it’s about power. It is a means of enslavement.

When a government chooses to assume the role of watcher and godlike arbiter in the affairs of the citizenry, there is always a specific motivation; and that motivation is usually self-preservation. Government elites spy on the public because they have done or are about to do things that will trigger resentment and rebellion within the population. They keep tabs on us because they fear what we will eventually do to them. They watch us because they plan to hurt us, and they want to be sure they get away with it.

There are no other reasons for random sweeping infringements of the public’s right to privacy. There is no other rationale for treating every person as a threat without warrant, without legitimate judicial oversight and without probable cause. Only criminal governments desire the legal authority to remove the barriers of personal privacy, because only they have something to gain through the action.

America as a society is at perhaps the most dangerous crossroads faced by any nation in history. We must decide — right here, right now — if we are going to embrace absolute government intrusion on a technological level never before seen by man or if we are going to fully revolt against it. Now, some people might suggest that there is a line that will not be crossed, that the establishment will respect certain boundaries and that the surveillance apparatus we have now will be the apparatus that stands forever. I’m here to tell those people that they have no idea what they are talking about.

Take a good look at any government in modern history that has been allowed the kind of surveillance powers our government is currently demanding. Did Soviet Russia respect any particular boundaries dealing with individual liberty? Did the East German Stasi ever draw a moral line in the sand when it came to their suffocating network of informants and eavesdroppers? Did Mao Zedong’s China choose to simply “observe” political dissidents without using those observations to destroy them? The surveillance machine only moves forward. It never stands still — not for anyone or anything.

The recent exposure to the general public of National Security Agency mass phone tracking (and tapping) programs have caused a groundswell awakening. What we in the liberty movement already knew years ago has finally struck the lackadaisical senses of the mainstream like a bucket of ice water. However, as terrible and bewildering as the surveillance grid is today, it is nothing compared to what lies ahead if we allow the establishment even one foothold tomorrow.

The Nightmare Has Just Begun

Without transparency or oversight by the citizenry, the technology in existence today and being perfected over the coming years will lead to nothing short of the total subjugation of humanity. Forget the NSA’s wiretapping random phone lines or all phone lines; imagine every waking moment of your life recorded and filed. Imagine every thought you ever uttered or typed scrutinized for “keywords” and analyzed to discern whether you might dissent. Imagine an invasive machine engineered not just to place you under a microscope, but also to mold your very behavior with the constant threat of bureaucratic retaliation.

Perhaps this sounds like science fiction, but for many people, the NSA’s sifting through the phone and email records of more than 300 million people daily used to be science fiction. Here are some of the surveillance advancements I believe the establishment will use next on a wide scale — for our own safety, of course.

The perpetual tap: If this doesn’t exist already, it will soon. The NSA’s process of “interception” (the monitoring of Internet and phone traffic for keywords and key phrases) might seem like an impractical strategy, given the incredible amounts of data they are required to sift through. That said, many corporations and clandestine services already have powerful software that is able to filter through mass communications and discover patterns in real time. With computing power reaching levels never before dreamed of, the possibility of perpetual real-time monitoring of hundreds of millions of individuals with the intent to record everything they say and do electronically is fast arriving. Website habits, speech patterns, purchasing habits, mood swings, relationship issues, psychological attachments and detachments would all be noted and stored. Keywords and pattern recognition would allow spies to build elaborate profiles on every American — updated daily, if not hourly. One could not even be privately discontent in such a world.

A surveillance device in every home: It’s sad when Yakov Smirnoff  becomes a prophet of your era, but the old joke applies today: In soviet America, TV watches you!

The next stage in consumer technology is often called the “Internet of Things.” This refers to the new lines of Web-connected appliances being progressively introduced onto the market. These include everything from televisions that record program-watching habits and video game consoles equipped with camera technology, all the way down to alarm clocks that record sleeping habits and doorbells that monitor how many visits you receive per day. The argument for such tech presented by corporations is that the Internet of Things will help them to better service the public by identifying and catering to more specific consumption habits. However, former CIA Director David Petraus reveled in the idea of the Internet of Things and its usefulness to the CIA, stating in 2012: “Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio-frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters—all connected to the next-generation Internet using abundant, low cost, and high-power computing—the latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.”

I believe that, one day, such smart appliances with surveillance capabilities will be mandated, either at the manufacturing level or at the home level, by the Environmental Protection Agency, using “environmental concerns” as an excuse.

Pervasive RFID: Most people have at least heard of radio-frequency identification chips. Many people, though, do not seem to understand the malicious nature of such technology. RFID chips, the size of a grain of rice, will soon be embedded in every conceivable consumer item, allowing each purchase to be cataloged and even tracked. Buy a pair of shoes with RFID and forget to remove the chip, and every time you walk by a scanner in the mall or on the street your presence could be noted and filed. But this is just the beginning of RFID.

Initiatives have been suggested multiple times by various government agencies and politicians to include RFID technology in ID cards, Social Security cards and even citizenship cards (an idea meant to use citizen concerns over illegal immigration as a way to lure us into accepting RFID). RFID has also been suggested for use in the medical field on many levels, which brings us to our next surveillance abuse.

Surveillance by doctor: There are literally hundreds of problems with Obamacare, and universal healthcare in general; but a primary threat that is just beginning to surface is the use of medical surveillance as a political weapon. Already, the Federal government has tried to establish rules for physicians requiring them to note patients who, in their opinion, might be psychologically unstable and should be denied the right to firearms ownership.

I believe the Obamacare structure is ultimately not meant to build even a poorly run socialist health system. Rather, it is meant to build a highly effective surveillance system using healthcare professionals as informants and opening private medical records to incessant bureaucratic overwatch. Today, it’s mental stability and gun rights. Maybe tomorrow it will be any loose-lipped expression of dissent or distaste for authority. The obvious next step, following the surveillance cultures of the past, would be for government to draft the professional class into the fold by using them as eyes and ears.

Drone planet: We are all aware of the exponential use of drones around the world, and many people are even educated on the U.S. government’s intentions to launch at least 30,000 drones into America’s skies for domestic surveillance in the near term. The problem is not existing drone technology, though; it is the drone technology about to be released.

Micro-drones are already being fielded by the U.S. military for use in operations, and small drones are being issued to law enforcement departments for riot control. Micro-drones, though still dependent on line of sight, are cheaper and easier to produce than larger varieties. A swarm of such drones could be unleashed for the cost of a single predator model, and would have the capability to provide clandestine monitoring of hard to reach areas. All I can say is, for those who plan any practical activism or revolution, study in electromagnetics will be essential.

Biometric roadblocks: Naked body scanners, which were used by the Transportation Security Administration until May 16, stored biometric data on all passengers foolish enough to not opt out, as was proven time after time. Many people in the liberty movement have long suspected that the cattle-call manner in which the TSA collected this private information was only a warm-up to a much wider net to be cast over the streets of America. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Maryland v. King to uphold police ability to take DNA samples during an arrest (even if charges are never filed) supports this suspicion.

The next step is random DNA recording at roadside blocks and then on sidewalks in your town. This process will be implemented in tandem with new ID laws, which will give a more substantial legal rationalization for random seizures of genetic property. Biometric surveillance will be the ultimate destruction of the 4th Amendment. It removes all anonymity, until every person becomes nothing more than a data set and a file; and unless a person finds a way to change his own genetic characteristics, that file will follow him forever.

These are only a handful of examples on how our current surveillance grid will become far worse than most Americans expect. The point is clear: there is no end to this game. It never stops. It never gives a moment’s peace.

The arguments in support of the surveillance state always assume that there will be no consequences for those who do nothing wrong. How many times have we heard this dismissal: “The government can watch me all they want. They’ll just get bored because I have nothing to hide.”

What these apologists do not seem to grasp is that government surveillance is not a passive tool, but a vicious weapon. Surveillance maims and kills free society — first psychologically, then physically. It forces acceptance of prior restraint, making thought crimes punishable and concrete activism impossible. If we do not stop the institutionalization of surveillance here and now, every single citizen, whether he believes himself innocent or not, will find himself a target.

–Brandon Smith

Bill Of Rights Not Flexible

Statists Use Twisted Logic To Attack The Bill Of Rights

May 7, 2013 by Brandon Smith 

PHOTOS.COM

In the war for the continued existence of our Nation’s Constitutional principles, I had long wondered whether statists were simply confounded by the Bill of Rights and ignorant of its function or whether they were maliciously inclined, knowing exactly what it means but seeking its destruction anyway. In recent years, I have decided it is a combination of both faults.

Statists are people who view every aspect of society through the lens of government power. If you want to know the primary difference between Constitutionalists and anti-Constitutionalists, you have to understand that some people in this world only want control over their own lives, while other people desperately clamor for control over other people’s lives. Why do they do this? Usually, it’s fear. Fear of the persistent unknowns in life. Fear that they do not have the intelligence or the will to take responsibility for their own futures. Fear that they will be forced to take care of themselves. Fear that their ideologies will be found lacking. Fear that if others are allowed freedom, they will one day indirectly suffer for it.

This fear makes statists easy to manipulate by the establishment and easy to use as a tool for the expansion of government dominance. Because statists are so weak-minded and fainthearted, they become very comfortable with the idea of other people making their decisions for them; and they will always attempt to answer every perceived problem with more government control.

When confronted with a proponent of liberty, the statist typically reels in horror. He has so invested himself in bureaucracy that he sees himself as a part of it. To attack the bureaucracy is to attack him. To deny the validity of the bureaucracy is to deny the validity of his existence. His very personality and ego are tied to the machine, so he will spit and rage against anyone who refuses to conform. This is why it is not uncommon at all to find a wild collection of logical fallacies within the tirades of the average statist. Statists act as though they are driven by reason; but in reality, they are driven by seething bias.

A perfect example of this insanity is the article “There Are No Absolute Rights,” published byThe Daily Beast.

Let’s first be clear about the kind of rag we are dealing with. The Daily Beast was launched by Tina Brown, a former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker who was also a British citizen until 2005. I would say she’s a kind of female Piers Morgan. For anyone who might take that as a compliment, trust me; it isn’t. Brown and Morgan are European collectivists who immigrated to America just to tell us how our Constitutionally conservative heritage of independence is outdated; meanwhile, the EU is in the shambles of failed socialism. We used to drive such people into the ocean, and now they breathe our oxygen while telling us what is politically “fashionable.”

In 2010, The Daily Beast merged with Newsweek, a magazine notorious for its statist crush on the Federal government (and now out of print). To say that The Daily Beast is a socialist platform and a mouthpiece for the Administration of President Barack Obama is an understatement, but I would point out that the website also tends to agree with politicians and judges on the right that also promote a “living document” interpretation of the Constitution. Whether right or left, if you believe that the Bill of Rights is up for constant interpretation and revision or outright destruction, then you are the bee’s knees in the eyes of The Beast.

The article focuses on gun rights and how silly conservatives foolishly cling to the idea that some lines in the sand should never be crossed in terms of personal freedom. In a rather mediocre and rambling analysis, The Beast uses two primary arguments to qualify this stance, essentially asserting that:

1. Compromises have already been made to the Bill of Rights; therefore, nothing is sacred.
2. Even some Republicans agree with compromises to the Bill of Rights when it comes to other Amendments, so why are we being so childish about “reinterpreting” the 2^ndAmendment?

First, the revisionist methodology of the Bill of Rights consistently ignores the history of its writing. The colonists and Founding Fathers of our Nation, having successfully triumphed in a bloody revolution against what many then considered the most advanced elitist military empire on Earth, had absolutely no trust whatsoever in the concept of centralized government. Many of the colonials were anti-Federalists who believed that an overly powerful central government was a threat to future liberty. They felt that an immovable and unchangeable legal shield had to be created in order to ensure that a tyrannical system never prevailed again.

Thomas Jefferson said: “[A] bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse.”

This statement includes modern governments as well. Technological advancement does not change the rules surrounding timeless inherent moral principles, as much as statists would like to argue otherwise.

The colonials demanded the inclusion of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution as a prerequisite for the establishment of the Federal government. This means that the Federal government owes its entire existence to a very strict agreement made on the Bill of Rights. By extension, if the Bill of Rights is politically diluted or denied, then the legitimacy of the Federal government must also be denied, for it has violated the very charter that gave it life.

The writer of the article, Michael Tomasky, lists numerous transgressions against our Constitutional protections; but he does not do so in the spirit of activism. Rather, he lists them as examples of how “compromise” on our freedoms is necessary (or somehow inevitable) in the name of the collective good. He claims Republicans are perfectly willing to sacrifice certain liberties, like freedom of speech, privacy or even Miranda rights, in the name of political expediency.

I wholeheartedly agree that our civil liberties have been whittled away by the establishment. I also agree that many so-called Republicans have betrayed the founding values of our culture and even voted to diminish or destroy the 2^nd Amendment. But let’s think hard about the faulty logic behind Tomansky’s position. Do two wrongs or hundreds of wrongs really make a right? Tomansky is saying that because we have failed as a society to fully protect our freedoms and because our government has been successful in criminally neglecting them, we should simply give in and relinquish all freedom.

He would respond to this accusation by claiming that he is not calling for the relinquishment of all liberties, only the liberties he thinks are dangerous to society. The problem is, that is not how the Constitution was designed. Amendments can be made, yes. But amendments contrary to the Bill of Rights are not Constitutional as per the original agreement made after the revolution. The Bill of Rights was meant to be sacrosanct, untouchable — period. No Federal law, no State law and no Amendment can be enforced that violates those protections. The Bill of Rights was not created as a rule book for what the people can do; it was created as a rule book for what government cannot do. Once you remove hard fast restrictions like the Bill of Rights from the picture, you give the government license to make its own rules. That is how tyranny is born.

As far as Republican attacks on the Constitution are concerned, Tomasky has obviously never heard of the false/left right paradigm. He finds solace in the totalitarian actions of neocons because neocons are not conservative; they are statists. Ultimately, there is no right or left. Only freedom and decentralization, or slavery and collectivism exist. There are those who revel in control and those who rebel against control. The rest of the debate is nonsense and distraction.

Tomsky opines: “Imagine what conservatives would think of a group of liberals who insisted, while threatening an insurrection, on a pure and absolute interpretation of the Fourth or Sixth Amendment–and imagine how ridiculous they would look to average Americans.”

Actually, any true conservative would be standing right beside those liberals, as many of us in the liberty movement have done in the past in activism against the transgressions of fake conservatives like George W. Bush or Mitt Romney, with his dismal anti-Constitution voting record. Frankly, who cares what “average Americans” think about our battle for what is right? Does Tomasky base all of his personal convictions on what happens to be popular at the moment? I think so.

What statists also don’t seem to comprehend is that there is a factor in the fight over Constitutional law that goes far beyond the Constitution itself.

The Constitution, as a document, is not what we as Americans and human beings obtain our rights from. The Constitution is only a written representation of the inborn freedoms derived from natural law and inherent conscience. We are born with a sense of liberty and that includes a right to self-defense from any enemy, foreign or domestic. No amount of political gaming, twisted rationalizations or intellectual idiocy is ever going to change these pre-existing rights.

Tomasky insists that: “[T]he idea that any right is unrestricted is totally at odds with history, the law, and reality.”

He uses the tired argument that some restrictions on personal liberty, including restrictions on gun rights, are “reasonable” given the circumstances of the times. And, it only follows that he and other statists should be the ones to decide what is reasonable.

I disagree, along with millions of other Americans; and believe me, this is a serious problem for statists. If Tomasky and The Daily Beast want to impose their collective worldview on the rest of us and dismantle our individual freedoms guaranteed in natural law and the Bill of Rights, then I’m afraid they’ll have to fight us for them. In the end, legal precedence is irrelevant. Political precedence is irrelevant. Political party is irrelevant. Historical precedence is irrelevant. The theater of words is irrelevant. Statists need to understand that there is no alternative. There is no “silver bullet” argument that will make us forget what is fundamentally true. There is no juxtaposition of logic that will muddle our resolve or confuse our principles. Some rights are indeed absolute; and we will not yield them, ever. The statist “reality” is a far cry from what actually is; and soon, I’m afraid, they will learn this lesson the hard way.

–Brandon Smith

Scary Trend--Patriots Become Terrorists

Read this following article and reflect on how the government has been using words like "terrorist", "terrorism" and "home grown terrorists" against average citizens like Tea Party members or others who do not believe the country is on the right track. Combine the word-smithing with the IRS giving of documents to liberal groups while delaying conservative requests for tax free status and we have a major issue in this country.

Let us know who what you think about this article, it is a goodie!

Conservative Tom

Lions And Tigers And Terrorists, Oh My!

May 14, 2013 by Brandon Smith 

PHOTOS.COM

The debate over what actions actually constitute “terrorism,” I believe, will become one of the defining ideological battles of our era. Terrorism is not a word often used by common people to describe aberrant behaviors or dastardly deeds; however, it isused by governments around the world to label and marginalize political enemies. That is to say, it is the government that normally decides who is a “terrorist” and who is a mere “criminal,” the assertion being that one is clearly far worse than the other.

The terrorist label elicits emotional firestorms and fearful brain-quakes in the minds of the masses. It causes the ignorant and unaware to abandon principles they would normally apply to any other malicious enterprise. They begin to reason that a criminal should be afforded justice, while a terrorist should be afforded only vengeance, even though the act of branding a person a “terrorist” is often completely arbitrary. This vengeance is usually pursued by any means. Thus, the terrorist moniker becomes a rationalization for every vicious and inhuman policy of the establishment, as well as for the citizenry.

Dishonorable and foolish people claim the existence of terrorism essentially gives license for the rest of us to become criminal, willfully trampling on individuals’ rights to privacy, property, free speech, due process, civic participation, etc. Mass criminality against the individual in the name of social safety is the glue that holds together all tyrannical systems, triggering a catastrophic cycle of moral relativism that eventually bleeds a culture dry.

Historically, the expanded use of the terrorist label by governments tends to coincide with the rising tides of despotism. A government that quietly seeks to dominate the people will inevitably begin to treat the people as if they are the enemy. Those citizens who present the greatest philosophical or physical threat to the centralization of power are usually the first to suffer. I do not think it is unfair to say that any system of authority that suddenly claims to see terrorists under every rock and behind every tree is probably about to rain full-on fascism down upon the population.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is the legal extension of this process, with a vaporous gray language that allows the government to interpret it in any manner it deems useful, which conveniently allows it to interpret a wide range of “offenses” as acts of war against the state.

The Department of Homeland Security’s “If You See Something Say Something” campaign is the social extension of the process, by which it creates the framework for a paranoid self-censored surveillance culture.

The fusion center network is the enforcement extension designed to surround local and State police with an atmosphere of indoctrination and federalized dogma, teaching common cops to profile according to a template that is so ambiguous that literally any activity could be considered suspicious or terroristic.

All that is left for the establishment is to force the vocabulary of fear into mainstream consciousness. This means constant propaganda. This means furious hype. This means an utterly shameless barrage of false associations, misdirections and fantastical fairyland lies. This means that we have reached a point in the grand totalitarian scheme in which the American populace is about to be bombarded with an endless drone of terrorism brainwashing — not demonizing a foreign enemy, but demonizing the hypothetical extremist next door. In fact, the Boston Marathon bombing seems to have been the signal for an escalation of such rhetoric. The high-speed conditioning has already begun.

In Middlefield, Ohio, James Gilkerson, an unemployed man taking care of his elderly mother, was pulled over during a routine traffic stop only to exit his vehicle firing an AK-47 at police officers. The action was obviously unprovoked; the police responded with deadly force, and rightly so. I would have done the same. Gilkerson’s attack was crazy, yes. Criminal? Yes. But Middlefield Police Chief Arnold Stanko’s remarks to the press bring a whole other dark side to this already tragic event. Stanko stated that: “He got out of the vehicle, intending to kill my officers. We don’t know why he did it… He was a scumbag and a terrorist, and he’s dead.”

Stanko doesn’t know why Gilkerson fired at police, but he is certain that the man was a “terrorist.” What if Gilkerson was depressed or overmedicated or he just snapped that day? Terrorism denotes certain premeditation and planning. This attack was clearly not part of a malicious scheme, yet the label of “terrorist” is being thrown around nonchalantly, almost as if law enforcement has been trained to use such rhetoric whenever it suits them.

In Montevideo, Minn., the FBI recently raided the home of Buford Rogers, who was convicted of felony burglary in 2011. Authorities had received reports that Buford was in possession of a firearm, which is illegal for convicted felons. The raid did indeed produce firearms, as well as items the FBI dubbed “explosive devices.” They did not specify what these “explosive devices” were or if they actually posed a significant threat to anyone. After the bust, headlines read “FBI Thwarts Terror Attack.”

Again, there is absolutely no indication here of a planned attack. There’s no indication that Rogers had any intent to hurt anyone or even any ideological motivations to hurt anyone. Yet the terrorism label is used again to describe a routine criminal arrest.

In Tempe, Ariz., 18-year-old Joshua Prater was arrested after a maid found an “explosive device” in his closet and turned it in to authorities. Prater claims he built the device, consisting of a carbon dioxide cartridge, a fireworks fuse, gunpowder, match heads and fireworks, eight years ago; and he claims he was not aware it was dangerous. Police did not call Prater a terrorist, but they did refer to his device as an “IED,” which, as we all know, is the abbreviation used by U.S. soldiers to describe an “improvised explosive device,” the favorite weapon of insurgents and “terrorists” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such terminology is not coincidental. Make no mistake; this is a calculated effort to introduce the language of the battlefield to the streets of America.

Seattle police are now holding simulation drills at local schools in which law enforcement officials fight against gun-wielding proxy opponents posing as “angry parents.”

These kinds of drills are a part of a larger DHS program implemented through fusion centers which, in my view, is designed to desensitize law enforcement to violence against common citizens. Said drills have simulated conflicts with constitutionalists, home-schoolers, patriots and so on. Let’s be clear here; the “terrorists” that the police are now being trained to fight against are people like you and me. We are being painted as the future enemy.

Just to solidify this reality, I will also point out the recent exposure of a DHS training program series available on the Federal Emergency Management Agency Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program website, which includes a media section designed to provide teaching aids to agency heads and law enforcement. The series includes a fabricated news broadcast that covers a hypothetical raid on a “militia headquarters.” The video shows semi-automatic firearms, rifle scopes, night vision, flak jackets — all perfectly legal in the United States today — as illegal “contraband,” while painting gun owners and militias as chemical weapon-wielding terrorists.

What started as an appeal to the average American’s sense of Islamophobia after the 9/11 attacks has now evolved into the full-spectrum theater of random domestic terrorism that culminates in what the establishment calls “self-radicalization.”

The concept of self-radicalization is a very interesting propaganda tactic. Rather than limiting the public’s fear only to some outside foreign enemy like al-Qaida or some domestic activist organization like the liberty movement, the establishment has now composed a narrative in which each and every one of us might one day catch the extremist virus of dissent, defiance or ideological violence and suddenly decide to kill, kill, kill.

The more naïve subsections of our society will accept unConstitutional methods against the “radicalized” out of fear and conditioning, without realizing that the machinations of bureaucracy being used against those they hate could just as easily be used against them in the future.

If the elites achieve the social endgame they desire, legal and political wordplay will become so broad that anyone could be targeted. If you are a citizen who defies the establishment power structure, then you are an extremist. If you are an extremist, then you are a terrorist. If you are a terrorist, then you are an enemy combatant. And, under the NDAA, if you are an enemy combatant, you are no longer a citizen and you no longer deserve Constitutional protection. The circular logic is maddening, not to mention outrageous. But it is also very useful when an abusive government needs a pretext to silence or destroy dissent. Under totalitarianism, all people become terrorists. It starts with the mistreatment of the worst of us, and it ends with the mistreatment of the best of us.