August 28th, 2010 by Militant Libertarian, Originally published on March 9, 2004.

by Russell Madden

Fascism: a political-economic system in which citizens retain title to their property but in which the government determines how that property may or may not be used.

You might be a fascist if you …
• believe that the proper way to decide whether a casino should be built in your hometown is to vote on the idea.
• object to individuals gambling in their homes unless they’re playing the state-run lotto.
• think that your neighbor needs the blessing of the historical commission in order to renovate his aging home.
• feel the urge to report the guy down the street who has a painting truck parked in his drive but no orange building permit stuck to a front window.

You might be a fascist if you …

• experienced a sense of glee when Microsoft had to spend millions in legal fees and was convicted of monopolistic policies.

• see nothing wrong with your city government awarding a single cable franchise while those guys who sell dishes must charge extra to customers who wish to receive local broadcast channels.
• are grateful that the FCC dictates to cable and phone providers how they can do business because you are afraid that otherwise the big media companies would have too much power.
• would rather have the government pass a law and set up another bureaucracy to restrict telemarketers than spend fifty bucks of your own money to purchase a screening device.
• do not object when others are forced to pay more for their goods so you can earn a higher income while your trade restrictions put other citizens out of work.

You might be a fascist if you …

• nod in agreement that individuals must show proof of identity in order to open a bank account because otherwise the terrorists will win.

• don’t object to money laundering laws that make snitches of your banks so the drug dealers and the terrorists won’t win.
• never complain about airport security checks and bag screening and weapon confiscation in order to keep the terrorists from winning.

You might be a fascist if you …

• tremble at the thought that the person sitting next to you in the restaurant might be carrying a gun without a license.

• want to eliminate and confiscate all guns in private hands in order to be safe since guns cause violence, unless the cops are the ones carrying the guns.
• applaud extra taxes on guns and ammunition, prohibition of sales between private parties, licenses for gun dealers, limits on the number of firearms someone can own or buy, and bans on brass knuckles, nunchucks, pen knives, big knives, pepper spray, stun guns, sword canes, or anything else that can be used to defend against a criminal.

You might be a fascist if you …

• laughed when an aging hippie comedian who sold drug paraphernalia via the Internet was thrown in jail but thought a well-known talk show host addicted to painkillers should receive rehab.

• accept the widespread drugging of young boys but recoil in horror from the thought of adults receiving pleasure or relief from illicit drugs.
• champion zero tolerance for children who bring toy soldiers to school but think the heroes at Ruby Ridge and Waco got what they deserved when they were promoted for killing women and children.

You might be a fascist if you …

• think that taxes are the price we pay for civilization.

• smile when the rich have to pay an even greater proportion of taxes than they do now.
• kid yourself that Social Security and Medicare taxes are investments or premia rather than a way to pay for more welfare for old people.
• maintain that you have a right to health care, housing, retirement income, food stamps, or government-guaranteed student loans.

You might be a fascist if you …

• squint your eyes at the idea of parents educating their children at home.

• want child-free people to pay for your offspring’s schooling because everyone benefits.
• question the ability of parents to decide what their children should study, whether those youngsters should go to school at all, or how they should learn to make their own ways in the world.

You might be a fascist if you …

• seek assistance from the government to protect you from your own mistakes.

• ask the government to protect other people from what you believe are their own mistakes.
• abhor the thought of foreigners flooding your country and taking jobs you don’t want at wages you would refuse to accept.
• contend that you have a right to a job but an employer does not have the right to fire you because he doesn’t like the fact that you’re a woman, a racial minority, fat, or handicapped.
• think SUVs should be banned, seat belts and airbags required, gas mileage minimums enforced, gasoline formulations determined by the feds, and that more money should be spent on light rail systems that no one uses.

You might be a fascist if you …

• see all lawyers as heroes.

• hope to win the lawsuit lottery.
• refuse to accept that legal questions can be properly answered by anyone other than a state-accredited lawyer.

You might be a fascist if you …

• like the notion of mandated low-flow toilets and shower heads but see no problem with subsidized water so farmers or residents can work and live in deserts.

• rejoice that grease monkeys can no longer put Freon in your air conditioner.
• sneer at anything smacking of price gouging during disasters such as floods or hurricanes and would rather have shortages of goods than see someone make more than what you believe is a fair price.

You might be a fascist if you …

• promote the idea of the government owning even more wilderness land.

• are appalled that oil companies might drill offshore for natural gas.
• wonder what all the fuss is when homeowners are forced to abandon their houses in the woods when the government destroys the access roads.

You might be a fascist if you …

• support sending our troops to a foreign country that poses no imminent threat to us in order to liberate the natives and engage in nation-building.

• declare that foreign aid helps the average citizens of those countries that receive it.
• want others to pay for your humanitarian impulses.

You might be a fascist if you …

• would rather police focus their efforts on arresting ticket scalpers and prostitutes than on tracking down, convicting, and incarcerating violent criminals.

• want to impose your moral code on strangers.
• itch to make other people act as you believe they should act.
• do not accept that we still have involuntary servitude in this nation.

You might be a fascist if you …

• operate from the premise that morality is relative.

• condemn logic, reason, and objectivity as tools of white male oppression.
• equate non-coercive choice and actions of which you disapprove with fascism.

You might be a fascist if you …

• object to the examples in this essay.

• think you are free.

Originally seen here.

Old Holborn has an interesting post about rubbish collection:

When I purchase something with money I have earned, I was under the impression that it belonged to me, to do with as I wished. It is my “property”.

Apparently Brent Council do not agree. With recycling now being big business, the London Council has decided if you don’t want it anymore, it belongs to them and failure to hand over valuable aluminium, glass and paper will see you the recipient of a £1000 fine. No, really.

http://www.oldholborn.net/2010/08/rubbish-police.html#idc-cover

Old Holborn then goes on to repeat the sanctions the council will use for those who refuse to recycle their garbage, which include surveillance, hand delivered letters, visits from ‘officials’ and ultimately a fine of £1000.

The answer to all of this is simple, and Old Holborn’s impression is completely correct.

The things you buy really do belong to you; that means the packaging that they were delivered in and all the goods you do not consume that become your waste.

When you throw your waste away, you should contract with a private garbage collector to remove it.

You then do not have to deal with eco loon control freak socialist councils and their absolute nonsense. I say its absolute nonsense because it is:

RUBBISH: In Palo Alto, California, citizens are ordered to separate their trash into seven neatly packaged piles: newspapers, tin cans (flattened with labels removed), aluminum cans (flattened), glass bottles (with labels removed), plastic soda pop bottles, lawn sweepings, and regular rubbish. And to pay high taxes to have it all taken away.

In Mountain Park, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, the government has just ordered the same recycling program, increased taxes 53% to pay for it, and enacted fines of up to $1,000, and jail terms of up to six months, for scofftrashes.

Because of my aversion to government orders, my distrust of government justifications, and my dislike of ecomania, I have always mixed all my trash together. If recycling made sense – economically and not as a sacrament of Gaia worship – we would be paid to do it.

For the same reason, I love to use plastic fast- food containers and non-returnable bottles. The whole recycling commotion, like the broader environmental movement, has always impressed me as malarkey. But I was glad to get some scientific support for my position.

Professor William L. Rathje, an urban archaeologist at the University of Arizona and head of its Garbage Project, has been studying rubbish for almost 20 years, and what he’s discovered contradicts almost everything we’re told.

When seen in perspective, our garbage problems are no worse than they have always been. The only difference is that today we have safe methods to deal with them, if the environmentalists will let us.

The environmentalists warn of a country covered by garbage because the average American generates 8 lbs. a day. In fact, we create less than 3 lbs. each, which is a good deal less than people in Mexico City today or American 100 years ago. Gone, for example, are the 1,200 lbs. of coal ash each American home used to generate, and our modern packaged foods mean less rubbish, not more.

But most landfills will be full in ten years or less, we’re told, and that’s true. But most landfills are designed to last ten years. The problem is not that they are filling up, but that we’re not allowed to create new ones, thanks to the environmental movement. Texas, for example, handed out 250 landfill permits a year in the mid-1970s, but fewer than 50 in 1988.

The environmentalists claim that disposable diapers and fast-food containers are the worst problems. To me, this has always revealed the anti-family and pro-elite biases common to all left-wing movements. But the left, as usual, has the facts wrong as well.

In two years of digging in seven landfills all across America, in which they sorted and weighed every item in 16,000 lbs. of garbage, Rathje discovered that fast-food containers take up less than 1/10th of one percent of the space; less than 1 % was disposable diapers. All plastics totalled less than 5%. The real culprit is paper – especially telephone books and newspapers. And there is little biodegradation. He found 1952 newspapers still fresh and readable.

Rather than biodegrade, most garbage mummifies. And this may be a blessing. If newspapers, for example, degraded rapidly, tons of ink would leach into the groundwater. And we should be glad that plastic doesn’t biodegrade. Being inert, it doesn’t introduce toxic chemicals into the environment.

We’re told we have a moral obligation to recycle, and most of us say we do so, but empirical studies show it isn’t so. In surveys, 78% of the respondents say they separate their garbage, but only 26% said they thought their neighbors separate theirs. To test that, for seven years the Garbage Project examined 9,000 loads of refuse in Tucson, Arizona, from a variety of neighborhoods. The results: most people do what they say their neighbors do – they don’t separate. No matter how high or low the income, or how liberal the neighborhood, or how much the respondents said they cared about the environment, only 26% actually separated their trash. The only reliable predictor of when people separate and when they don’t is exactly the one an economist would predict: the price paid for the trash. When the prices of old newspaper rose, people carefully separated their newspapers. When the price of newspapers fell, people threw them out with the other garbage.

We’re all told to save our newspapers for recycling, and the idea seems to make sense. Old newspapers can be made into boxes, wallboard, and insulation, but the market is flooded with newsprint thanks to government programs. In New Jersey, for example, the price of used newspapers has plummeted from $40 a ton to minus $25 a ton. Trash entrepreneurs used to buy old newspaper. Now you have to pay someone to take it away.

If it is economically efficient to recycle – and we can’t know that so long as government is involved – trash will have a market price. It is only through a free price system, as Ludwig von Mises demonstrated 70 years ago, that we can know the value of goods and services.

[...]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/anti-enviro.html

From the priceless ‘Rockwell’s Anti-Environmentalist Manifesto’. And of course, once you have your own garbage collected privately, you can deduct the amount that that council is charging you for their ‘service’ since you do not avail yourself of it. Old Holborn already does this for the services he does not require from his council.

Once again Libertarian principles, specifically the property right you have in things you have voluntarily exchanged for, offer the best solution to a problem as opposed to the inherently immoral solutions put forward by collectivists, coercion the state and its insanity.

But what about the economics of it all? If garbage has a value after it has been collected, then someone will sort it and extract what is valuable. This is what it looks like:

The problem with this system is that it is entirely efficient. If private enterprise sorted garbage like this, the loony left salary addicted control freaks at Brent would not be able to justify going out to people’s homes and threatening them.

Furthermore, have you ever seen a garbage compactor in the kitchen of a UK household:

One of the consequences of people having to pay private contractors to remove their waste is that normally you are charged by volume for what you have removed from your household. If you have less volume of garbage to remove, the cost of removing it is less, so there is a great incentive to squeeze as much trash as you can into the smallest possible space.

That is why in many American kitchens, you find garbage compactors; an under the counter machine that you throw your waste into day after day, that compacts it all into a very small shape that is easy to handle and which dramatically reduces your waste disposal costs and storage hassles.

These compact cubes of refuse greatly increase the efficiency of garbage disposal; trucks can carry more garbage, make fewer rounds, you use less bin liners, put garbage into external bins less often and into fewer bins etc etc.

All of this efficiency is lost thanks to the crazy as a coot collectivist crap of councils like Brent.

Even fast food restaurants use them:

The side effects of the free market in terms of efficiency are always beneficial. Other desirable side effects are that the need for nosey parkers sniffing around in your trash is completely eliminated.

That is why the statists hate private enterprise. Sadly in the UK, people are so inured to the idea that ‘the council’ is in charge of everything, from leisure to garbage collection, that it appears that they cannot imagine even the most simple solution to everyday problems without invoking the state in some way as facilitator.

‘The Andromeda Strain’, a must see film had its soundtrack released in this packaging:

Not only did you get the original sound with the vinyl, but the package is absolutely wonderful; a perfect match for the biology of the bioweapon ‘Andromeda’:

All the iTunes, FLACs and MP3s in the world will never replace the intimacy of this; a physical object, designed by man, in your hands, with its smell, its feel and its reality.

601!

A very insightful Home Educator takes the evil and violent Richard Dawkins to task on his faulty logic and flawed thinking and application of the scientific method.

Did anyone catch that documentary last night called ‘Faith Schools Menace’ in which Richard Dawkins put the boot into faith schools? At the climax of the program Dawkins authoritatively states his main point in an extremely self-assured and almost God like tone which is that “our greatest responsibility in education is to unleash children’s curiosity and never limit their questions.” No one would disagree with that as an honourable aspiration but the means by which he proposes to achieve it falls way short of its aim. For someone who claims to be an EVIDENCE-based rational thinker how come he hasn’t looked at the EVIDENCE, which, if he had bothered to do so, would have enabled him to delete the first word of the documentary’s title. All the irrefutable and reproducible research findings, arrived at through the logical, reasoned and scientific methods that Dawkins is so fond of (as am I), strongly indicate that there is practically no place on earth that suppresses children’s curiosity and limits their questions more than school. If anyone can show me convincing evidence to the contrary my kids will be sent to school forthwith (assuming they would want to go after critically evaluating the new EVIDENCE). Earlier on in the documentary he expresses his disgust for the way children are labelled as Catholic, Protestant, Muslim etc but completely misses the most common label attached to children which is ‘schoolchildren’; which by his reasoning is surely equally repugnant since it labels children as belonging to the state (in most cases) before they have the cognitive ability to understand and critically evaluate the EVIDENCE offered by the likes of Gatto, Meighan, Holt, and their many international associates, showing that school-based learning produces significantly lower levels of academic attainment, social skills and, most importantly, emotional and psychological well being than learning by other means. The EVIDENCE also explains how schooling came about, what its real purpose is and how it impedes natural learning processes (I liked the history of British schooling put forward in ‘Overschooled but Undereducated’ which parallels Gatto’s in many ways). It has been said that schooling is the only true world religion and many of the arguments Dawkins applies to religion have exact equivalents that can be applied to schooling, some of which are probably best illustrated in Illich’s ‘Deschooling Society’. How can someone as astute, observant and insightful as Dawkins completely miss the elephant in the room?
An EVIDENCE-based solution that follows Dawkins’ logic would not just be to abolish faith schools, it would be to abolish schooling altogether and replace it with a learning framework fit for a democracy, a large part of which, of course, would be home education.

[...]

http://www.home-education.biz/

Mostly makes sense doesn’t it?

We already know about Richard Dawkins and his irrational attitudes to people’s liberties. No one should have their money stolen from them to pay for the education of children. This would eliminate the ‘problem’ of ‘Faith Schools’; if you want to send your children to a Koran chain school or a Catholic school or any other type of school, that is entirely your affair, your right, and no one has the right to tell you how to educate your children (and I literally mean your children).

People like Richard Dawkins, who believe that religious teaching is indoctrination and child abuse are in fact, violent statists who want to own your children and force them to be taught what he believes is the truth. This is immoral, unacceptable and totally evil, and it can be deduced as immoral without invoking any religious argument.

His collectivist ideology is clearly expressed in this line:

“our greatest responsibility in education is to unleash children’s curiosity and never limit their questions.”

Who is this ‘our’ that he is talking about? He surely cannot be talking about your children, for whom you have absolute authority and responsibility? I fear that this is exactly what he is talking about, and it is in fact, a completely dishonourable aspiration; using violence to make people into slaves and property is dishonourable full stop.

He labels children as ‘schoolchildren’ because his ilk refer to people as property in the same way that water is wet; it is in the statist’s nature to refer to people as property, and all of the arguments between the various statist factions are in fact battles over who gets the power to control property, meaning you and your children. The fact that Home Education is better in every way than schooling is actually anathema to Dawkins, because it is only through regimented brainwashing that he and his violent atheists can ever hope to rid the population of ‘the scourge of religion’.

The writer asks how can someone as astute, observant and insightful as Dawkins completely miss the elephant in the room. The fact of the matter is that he is not astute, observant and insightful; if he were, he could not be a violent atheist. Insightful people refrain from violence of the kind he is calling for. Observant people base their thinking only on observations instead of using what they viscerally hate, are repulsed by, and refuse to believe as the basis of their philosophy.

Richard Dawkins is not a scientist; he is a man fully consumed by atheism and Darwinism. His mind is completely closed to anything outside of his world view – and for the record, I have no problem with people like that. What I do have a problem with is people who think like Dawkins, and who then want to control me and my property. They are no different to the people who want Sharia to engulf the entire world, or Catholics in the Cabinet. They are diametrically opposed to Liberty and the truth, and are your enemies.

An evidence based solution to the problems of education in any country would result in the state removing itself completely from education, since education, like healthcare, is a good and not a right. There should be no state ‘framework’ replacing state schools, as any such thing, would be financed by immoral theft, and certainly any evidence based solution could only conclude that democracy is bad for education, bad for your rights and should be rejected, based once again, purely on the evidence.

People who live and think like scientists do not pick and choose when to apply evidence. You cannot on the one hand call for evidence based living and then say that democracy is legitimate way of organising a country or supplying services. It is therefore irrational to ask for anything that would be ‘fit for a democracy’. Democracy is what almost got Home Education banned in the UK. It is what has caused it to be banned in Sweden.

Libertarianism is the best solution to the problem of organising groups of people, because it is based only on the evidence, is free from contradictions, free from violence, free from coercion, embraces everyone and their peculiar beliefs, absolutely guarantees your rights and does not allow anyone to lord it over anyone else.

In a Libertarian society there would be no one to create false rights (right to education, right to internet access etc. etc.) and no one to take away the very real natural rights that you are born with.

If you refuse to accept the truth of it, that is not derived from anything other than pure logic, then you are irrational, not thinking based on evidence alone, and if you claim to be a scientist, are not one.

While we are at it, take a look at this:

That man, eating noodles bought from a street seller in Malaysia (note how there are no regulations stopping people from cooking food and selling it to anyone who wants it. We have been over that before) is basing his financial choices on the evidence. He is smarter than most people in the UK and the USA when it comes to this. After watching it, will you go out and convert at least some of your worthless paper money to gold coins? Perhaps you need a different face put on the facts to help push you along.

That is what it looks like when people are living by evidence; they change their behaviour when something is not working correctly. Home Educators remove their children from school because school does not work. That is rational, logical behaviour where people are thinking and living by the evidence.

Sadly, there are many people who only apply evidence based thinking to some parts of their thoughts. For example, you can have people who whilst behaving rationally in one area, will cling to socialist ideas like wealth redistribution and taxation. These same people call for the licensing of restaurants ‘because someone might get poisoned’. These same people think that it is totally proper for drivers of cars to be licensed, and of course, cars and the fuel that goes in them to be taxed. They believe that it is perfectly moral and acceptable for them to apply for ‘grant money’ (stealing) so that they can carry on their particular way of life or activities. They think its a ‘good idea’ that there should be a minimum price set on alcohol by the state. They believe in the state. They believe in democracy, ‘fairness’ and all of that other demonstrably irrational, dangerous and illogical nonsense, despite it being demonstrated to them again and again that these things are immoral, wrong and harmful to them directly.

This is ‘the big problem’ that free people face. The legions of sheep who are wilfully ignorant, who cling on to their violent beliefs and who continue to finance them despite having been shown that what they are thinking and doing is wrong.

If it were as easy as saying, “they will get what they deserve in the end” it could be said and left at that, but sadly, the free people get what the stupid people deserve because the stupid drag everyone down with them.

And that really is a big problem.

John Pilger has an article at Lew Rockwell, saying that Tony Blair “must be prosecuted”. Anyone that has an interest in permanently stopping the war machine and ending the state knows that prosecuting Blair, as satisfying as that event might be, will do nothing to stop the war machine and its murderous intentions towards Iran.

Lets do it.

Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like his mentor Peter Mandelson.

I for one, am sick and tired of the soap opera of political personalities and the writers who promote it by talking about it. It hasn’t done anything to stop the war machine in the past, and it will not going forward. This sort of thinking distracts from getting to the solution, as people vent all their energy on hating a single individual instead of the war machine itself.

There are an unlimited supply of Blairs waiting to fill his shoes. Anything other than an idea to stop the next Blair from taking the levers of the war machine in his hands is a waste of time.

Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes. Blair’s will appear next month and earn him £4.6 million. Now consider Britain’s Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair conspired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenseless country, which the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the “paramount war crime.” This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide.

I could not care less about how much money Blair makes from his memoirs. If the price of stopping the war machine for all time is that Blair becomes a multi billionaire, so be it.

This is nothing more than jealousy politics wrapped in a cloak of moral outrage over the genocide committed by Blair. Once again, this is a complete distraction from what sensible people should be thinking about; the next ‘Blair’ and Iran.

People like Pilger, by failing to get to the solution and distracting everyone with his brilliantly crafted exposés is actually a part of the problem. Like Tony Benn and StopWar, these people are not spreading the solution; they are diffusing the anger of the vast majority who are sick of war and want a stop put to it.

In addition, four million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes and a majority of children have descended into malnutrition and trauma. Cancer rates near the cities of Fallujah, Najaf and Basra (the latter “liberated” by the British) are now revealed as higher than those at Hiroshima. “UK forces used about 1.9 metric tons of depleted uranium ammunition in the Iraq war in 2003,” the Defense Secretary Liam Fox told parliament on 22 July. A range of toxic “antipersonnel” weapons, such as cluster bombs, was employed by British and American forces.

We know all of this, and all of it is now irrelevant.

The only thing that matters is the next war and how it is to be stopped. Nothing can be done to de-poison Iraq, and an eloquent recital of the crimes committed there will do nothing to stop the attack on Iran. We know this, because similar writing was done before the Iraq colonisation for decades; from Agent Orange on the crimes of the war machine have been carefully documented and exposed. More exposure will not stop the next outrage. John Pilger, who is deeply experienced in all of this, knows this perfectly.

Such carnage was justified with lies that have been repeatedly exposed. On 29 January 2003, Blair told parliament, “We do know of links between al-Qaida and Iraq ….” Last month, the former head of the intelligence service, MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, told the Chilcot inquiry, “There is no credible intelligence to suggest that connection … [it was the invasion] that gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad.” Asked to what extent the invasion exacerbated the threat to Britain from terrorism, she replied, “Substantially.”

Once again, BLAH BLAH BLAH.

The bombings in London on 7 July 2005 were a direct consequence of Blair’s actions.

Only in the sense that he personally ordered it to happen. Are you shocked by that accusation? You need to watch this documentary.

Documents released by the High Court show that Blair allowed British citizens to be abducted and tortured. The then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, decided in January 2002 that Guantanamo was the “best way” to ensure UK nationals were “securely held.”

So what? Blair is out of office and Labour are not in government. What do you have to say about what is happening NOW and what is being planned NOW? And is what you say going to make any difference? These are the questions that need to be asked; these are the points that need to be made, not all of this emotion stoking garbage.

Instead of remorse, Blair has demonstrated a voracious and secretive greed.

Once again, who cares if Blair shows remorse? Will that bring back the dead, or clean up the mess he left behind? Will it stop Iran from suffering the same fate? Of course it will not; Pilger (an author himeself) only cares about how much money Blair is making through his lucrative publishing deals, “I do not murder anyone and I cannot sell the number of books Blair does. I am telling the truth, history is on my side, I have the moral high ground, why can I not sell as many books as a mass murderer? ITS NOT FAIR!”.

Since stepping down as prime minister in 2007, he has accumulated an estimated £20 million, much of it as a result of his ties with the Bush administration. The House of Commons Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which vets jobs taken by former ministers, was pressured not to make public Blair’s “consultancy” deals with the Kuwaiti royal family and the South Korean oil giant UI Energy Corporation. He gets £2 million a year “advising” the American investment bank J P Morgan and undisclosed sums from financial services companies. He makes millions from speeches, including reportedly £200,000 for one speech in China.

More jealousy, more nonsense, all of it irrelevant to the next act of mass murder and none of it able to bring back a single life.

In his unpaid but expenses-rich role as the West’s “peace envoy” in the Middle East, Blair is, in effect, a voice of Israel, which awarded him a $1 million “peace prize.” In other words, his wealth has grown rapidly since he launched, with George W. Bush, the bloodbath in Iraq.

No mention of BDS which is the best way of making people change their ways. Why not? This article is a complete waste of time!

His collaborators are numerous. The Cabinet in March 2003 knew a great deal about the conspiracy to attack Iraq. Jack Straw, later appointed “justice secretary,” suppressed the relevant Cabinet minutes in defiance of an order by the Information Commissioner to release them. Most of those now running for the Labour Party leadership supported Blair’s epic crime, rising as one to salute his final appearance in the Commons. As foreign secretary, David Miliband, sought to cover Britain’s complicity in torture, and promoted Iran as the next “threat.”

So, what should be DONE about the personalities who are about to step into the cockpit of the war machine? We know they are all for mass murder, no matter what their names are. Stop wasting everyone’s time with the soap opera!

Journalists who once fawned on Blair as “mystical” and amplified his vainglorious bids now pretend they were his critics all along.

And if they were critics all along, what difference would that have made? None whatsoever.

As for the media’s gulling of the public, only the Observer’s David Rose, to his great credit, has apologized. The WikiLeaks’ exposés, released with a moral objective of truth with justice, have been bracing for a public force-fed on complicit, lobby journalism. Verbose celebrity historians like Niall Ferguson, who rejoiced in Blair’s rejuvenation of “enlightened” imperialism, remain silent on the “moral truancy,” as Pankaj Mishra wrote, “of [those] paid to intelligently interpret the contemporary world.”

All of this, except the Wikileaks exposé is irrelevant.

Apologies are irrelevant.
Journalists are irrelevant.
Historians are irrelevant.

The only thing that matters is what is going to happen next, and how it can be stopped. If it is true that the majority do not want more war, then war can be stopped. The massive march against the Iraq invasion showed that there are literally tens of millions of people in the UK alone who do not want any more war. The question is, what can they do (or more likely refrain from doing) to stop it.

We know that marching again would be totally pointless, and that for every one of the two million people who marched on that day, there were probably five people who would have gone but who did not make it. We wrote about this before.

Something oblique, unexpected, unstoppable, simple and effective needs to be unleashed. That is the only way an attack on Iran will be stopped. What is for sure is that this strategy will never come from a journalist or a historian.

Wikileaks has demonstrated that it is possible to damage the war machine. So effective is its operation, run by a handful of people with almost no money at all, that there have been open calls for its public face to be assassinated.

That is what we need; a harnessing of all the tools we have to hand to make it impossible for the war machine to operate. Wikileaks does what it does without marching, demonstrating, picketing or any of the other now discredited 20th Century methods of changing the world.

Even in the face of this revolution, the Pilgers of this world keep harping on like its 1999.

Is it wishful thinking that Blair will be collared? Just as the Cameron government understands the “threat” of a law that makes Britain a risky stopover for Israeli war criminals, a similar risk awaits Blair in a number of countries and jurisdictions, at least of being apprehended and questioned. He is now Britain’s Kissinger, who has long planned his travel outside the United States with the care of a fugitive.

If Blair is collared, then what? All of the above still applies, and if Kissinger is a war criminal, and you compare Blair to Kissinger, then Blair has a long life of influence and wealth ahead of him, no matter what you say or write.

Two recent events add weight to this. On 15 June, the International Criminal Court made the landmark decision of adding aggression to its list of war crimes to be prosecuted. This is defined as a “crime committed by a political or military leader which by its character, gravity and scale constituted a manifest violation of the [United Nations] Charter.” International lawyers described this as a “giant leap.” Britain is a signatory to the Rome statute that created the court and is bound by its decisions.

But not retroactively, and its over broad, as what is or is not a ‘crime’ is open to debate (dumping the dollar might be construed as an act that in its character, gravity and scale could be construed as a ‘crime’ by some). Statists want more state power knowing (or not) that this leads to more war, more aggression as people are forced to conform to artificial ‘norms of society’.

On 21 July, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, standing at the Commons despatch box, declared the invasion of Iraq illegal. For all the later “clarification” that he was speaking personally, he had made “a statement that the international court would be interested in,” said Philippe Sands, professor of international law at University College London.

I have a new phrase to describe Pilger, StopWar and all the other well meaning statists who incessantly whine about the war machine without offering any solutions ‘The Cathartics‘. I like it!

The Cathartics grasp onto any word or slip of the tongue and then scream and shout about it like it means something when it means precisely nothing. The House of Commons is the one of the centre stages of the soap opera, and Pilger quoting lines from its script is no better than a scarf wearing washer woman recounting what happened on Coronation street last night as if it were real.

Tony Blair came from Britain’s upper middle classes who, having rejoiced in his unctuous ascendancy, might now reflect on the principles of right and wrong they require of their own children. The suffering of the children of Iraq will remain a specter haunting Britain while Blair remains free to profit.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/pilger/pilger86.1.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Blair, reflecting on what he did means nothing. What Pilger actually means is he should feel ashamed of making so much money out of his publishing deal and post PM contracts. Get over it Pilger; Blair lining his pockets is not the problem.

As for the principles of right and wrong he requires of his own children, that is an entirely personal matter that is also, not the problem, and I guarantee you that Blair is not haunted in any way by what he did. He believes that what he did was of benefit in the long run, and nothing you can say will change that. Finally, venting jealousy is a poor substitute for a solution to the end of the war machine.

What a total waste of time; Lew Rockwell, one of the biggest websites in the world, where articles are not only read but copied, re-posted and emailed by the millions; a platform of extraordinary reach, has been used by this man to spew a completely pointless jealous rage piece, repeating what everyone already knows about Iraq, singularly failing to mention even a single possible solution to the next war crime. Even offering a bad solution would be better than nothing. Not a single hyperlink to any resource that could help stop the possible attack on Iran… but there is a link to Amazon so you can buy his book.

If the attack on Iran is to be stopped, do not look to John Pilger for an answer. It will emerge from the internets via social networks, and then, all of a sudden, the war machine will be shut down.

What we are waiting for is a text; a small piece of writing containing the very simple instructions that everyone needs to follow to bring down the machine. The idea is coalescing in the mind of someone somewhere, and soon, it will arrive in your inbox, or in your timeline and it will hit you with its simplicity and its beauty. You will commit to doing it and you will forward it to all your friends and re-tweet it, and the machine will die on that day.

Tony Benn, war enabler and thief has a piece over in the Grauniad that simply cannot be allowed to stand:

The time to organise resistance is now
We reject these cuts as simply malicious ideological vandalism, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. Join us in the fight

Gravity is not an ideology, it is a fact. In this matter, the fact is that the state is STEALING money from the productive to disburse as it sees fit. This is theft, pure and simple. It is immoral and unacceptable to decent people.

It is time to organise a broad movement of active resistance to the Con-Dem government’s budget intentions. They plan the most savage spending cuts since the 1930s, which will wreck the lives of millions by devastating our jobs, pay, pensions, NHS, education, transport, postal and other services.

What has wrecked the lives of millions is SOCIALISM. The STATE is responsible for all the ills that have been suffered in the twentieth century, and thanks to the internet, everyone can now see that this is the case.

There is no such thing as ‘our jobs’ jobs are created by entrepreneurs, not the state. They are not collective property; they are the property of the people who create them. Pay is what is due to people who do work. The rate of pay is a private matter between employer and the employed. The state should have no say in that private contract whatsoever. Education is not the business of the state; it is not a right, but is in reality, a good like Health Care. Transport is also no business of the state, and niether is the delivery of anything, including the post, and any other service, like the internet, which some deluded people want to claim is a right.

The government claims the cuts are unavoidable because the welfare state has been too generous. This is nonsense. Ordinary people are being forced to pay for the bankers’ profligacy.

This is a straw man argument. It is completely wrong that anyone other than the shareholders and depositors in banks were made to bail out the banks. In a properly functioning country, no one would be forced to pay for a bailout, or other people’s food or anything else, and the fact that this has happened is no excuse for more organized theft by the state.

The £11bn welfare cuts, rise in VAT to 20%, and 25% reductions across government departments target the most vulnerable – disabled people, single parents, those on housing benefit, black and other ethnic minority communities, students, migrant workers, LGBT people and pensioners.

It is absolutely wrong that the state should levy a ‘value added tax’. This is an unjustifiable interposition in the private transactions of individuals. As for that shopping list of people who are going to suffer because of these cuts, they would not be suffering at all if everyone were free to interact economically with 100% of their money, and those that were left out would be take care of by charity.

One thing is for sure, Labour and socialism has utterly failed to produce the prosperity that they promise again and again, and they will never be able to produce it. All they can do is destroy capital, technology and redistribute wealth by force.

If their ideas were great, people would voluntarily finance them. The fact is that people who are creative and productive see their sham for what it is, and run from it like horses run from fire.

Women are expected to bear 75% of the burden. The poorest will be hit six times harder than the richest. Internal Treasury documents estimate 1.3 million job losses in public and private sectors.

The ‘public sector’ is entirely parasitic. Those jobs are not real jobs; they are invented by government and financed by people who are productive in the real economy.

What happens in the ‘private sector’ or the real economy, is not the affair of the state, and if the state had no power to interfere in the real economy, it would be many times more prosperous, with greater opportunities for both job seekers and entrepreneurs.

We reject this malicious vandalism and resolve to campaign for a radical alternative, with the level of determination shown by trade unionists and social movements in Greece and other European countries.

You cant make stuff like this up.

This man is a representative of the most malicious, vindictive, destructive and anti-human philosophy ever known to man. They are violent thieves who steal money from the productive to give away to their friends and to finance their hair brained schemes.

What do they mean by ‘radical alternative’? What can it possibly mean other than more theft, more wealth redistribution, a return to Orwellian bureaucracy and everything evil that all the British are fed up to the teeth with?

These people understand NOTHING about economics and money. Even a child can be made to understand it if they read the right books.

And as for other European countries, Britain is not a European country. Everyone has had ENOUGH of Europe and its insane policies, and rioting like the Greek parasites will only destroy the infrastructure that you need to steal the billions you are craving for like the vampires you are.

I have a feeling that Tony Benn and his band of modern day Robin Hood criminals are going to find that everyone hates them, will not tolerate being stolen from by them, and will push back against them with such ferocity that they will be knocked over.

This government of millionaires says “we’re all in it together” and “there is no alternative”. But, for the wealthy, corporation tax is being cut, the bank levy is a pittance, and top salaries and bonuses have already been restored to pre-crash levels.

Like it or not, it is the millionares and everyone beneath them that owns and runs a business that creates all the wealth in any country. They should be cherished, free to operate their businesses as they see fit, without any interference from the state of any kind. If you want to start a union, that is entirely your absolute right; but the owners of businesses also have rights, and yours do not trump theirs.

This is the principle, that everyone has the same rights, that Tony Benn cannot accept. His position, in his mind, is one of superiority. His rights trump all others. The rights of his friends and followers trump the rights of all others.

He is DEAD WRONG.

An alternative budget would place the banks under democratic control, and raise revenue by increasing tax for the rich, plugging tax loopholes, withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, abolishing the nuclear “deterrent” by cancelling the Trident replacement.

Banks are private property. What Benn is advocating is that the banks be nationalised, STOLEN from their owners if you will. Once again, the word ‘democratic’ is being used as a synonym for ‘fair’, ‘just’, ‘honest’, and ‘good’ when it is none of those things. Democratic control means control of the mob, against the wishes of the owners of property. That is THEFT, IMMORAL and EVIL.

Raising revenue by increasing tax for the rich is just theft. There should be no taxation by the state, full stop. The state should not be engaged in wars of aggression, no matter where they are being fought. And without a state, there would be no money for a nuclear deterrent unless everyone voluntarily wanted to pay for one, which I doubt would ever happen.

All of our problems come from the state, and people like Tony Benn, who control it.

An alternative strategy could use these resources to: support welfare; develop homes, schools, and hospitals; and foster a green approach to public spending – investing in renewable energy and public transport, thereby creating a million jobs.

Welfare is a soul destroying disease, and even those who deal with poverty have come to understand this.

We commit ourselves to:

Oppose cuts and privatisation in our workplaces, community and welfare services.

Those workplaces do not belong to you, they belong to the people who created them you THIEF! The welfare services you claim are yours are financed by money you STEAL.

Fight rising unemployment and support organisations of unemployed people.

Fighting rising unemployment can only be done correctly by freeing business to do what it does best, creating jobs, capital and progress. We do not need you, or the state to make this magic happen.

Develop and support an alternative programme for economic and social recovery.

There is no alternative to reality. Money and human nature are fixed. Go and read about it.

Oppose all proposals to “solve” the crisis through racism and other forms of scapegoating.

And no scapegoating of the people who create the jobs you want so badly, the ‘rich’!

Liaise closely with similar opposition movements in other countries.

No matter how many people you gather together in your bogus and immoral cause, you will still be bogus and immoral.

Organise information, meetings, conferences, marches and demonstrations.

YES! please do that, after all its so very effective!

Support the development of a national co-ordinating coalition of resistance.

That sounds to me like a call to arms to all thieves. Absolutely appalling. They want more theft, more immoral redistribution of wealth, more tyranny, more bureaucracy, a bigger hungrier state, more control over business. Just how stupid can people be?

It seems that there is no limit.

We urge those who support this statement to attend the Organising Conference on 27 November 2010 (10am-5pm), at Camden Centre, Town Hall, London, WC1H 9JE.

Signed:

Tony Benn

Caroline Lucas MP

[...]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/04/time-to-organise-resistance-now

And then there is a list of the usual, delusional suspects.

Thieves to a man, all rotten to the core, leeches, unproductive, insane, destructive, anti-human and all bad!

This is a MUST READ for all Europeans, Americans and [INSERT COUNTRY], with a special ‘do not miss’ notice for Home Educators and those delusional parents in Spain who still believe that government knows best in democracy:

[...]

While our ruling class teaches that relationships among men, women, and children are contingent, it also insists that the relationship between each of them and the state is fundamental. That is why such as Hillary Clinton have written law review articles and books advocating a direct relationship between the government and children, effectively abolishing the presumption of parental authority. Hence whereas within living memory school nurses could not administer an aspirin to a child without the parents’ consent, the people who run America’s schools nowadays administer pregnancy tests and ship girls off to abortion clinics without the parents’ knowledge. Parents are not allowed to object to what their children are taught. But the government may and often does object to how parents raise children. The ruling class’s assumption is that what it mandates for children is correct ipso facto, while what parents do is potentially abusive. It only takes an anonymous accusation of abuse for parents to be taken away in handcuffs until they prove their innocence. Only sheer political weight (and in California, just barely) has preserved parents’ right to homeschool their children against the ruling class’s desire to accomplish what Woodrow Wilson so yearned: “to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible.”

[...]

America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution

Sound familiar?

‘Lord’ Clive Soley and ‘Baroness’ Ruth Deech are two exemplars of the repulsive human trash superclass that this priceless article eloquently describes and dismantles. Their contempt for you is naked, their predations unceasing and every time you run to them, or vote for them, or pay taxes into their system you make them stronger.

Angelo M. Codevilla has done you a great service by writing this piece. I suggest you spread it far and wide.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes in the Telegraph about ‘The Death of Paper Money’. Anyone who has been woken up by Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Murray Rothbard and the Austrians knows that this is in fact inevitable, and in the end, is a good thing, because it means that government can no longer steal your money from you while you sleep, spending that money on mass murder:

Great numbers of people failed to see it coming. “My relations and friends were stupid. They didn’t understand what inflation meant. Our solicitors were no better. My mother’s bank manager gave her appalling advice,” said one well-connected woman.

“You used to see the appearance of their flats gradually changing. One remembered where there used to be a picture or a carpet, or a secretaire. Eventually their rooms would be almost empty. Some of them begged — not in the streets — but by making casual visits. One knew too well what they had come for.”

Corruption became rampant. People were stripped of their coat and shoes at knife-point on the street. The winners were those who — by luck or design — had borrowed heavily from banks to buy hard assets, or industrial conglomerates that had issued debentures. There was a great transfer of wealth from saver to debtor, though the Reichstag later passed a law linking old contracts to the gold price. Creditors clawed back something.

A conspiracy theory took root that the inflation was a Jewish plot to ruin Germany. The currency became known as “Judefetzen” (Jew- confetti), hinting at the chain of events that would lead to Kristallnacht a decade later.

While the Weimar tale is a timeless study of social disintegration, it cannot shed much light on events today.

[...]

My emphasis.

Cannot shed much light on events today?

This is so irrational, contradictory and ridiculous that we could be forgiven for concluding that Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is working under the constraints of a D-Notice, preventing him from spelling out explicitly what is about to take place for fear of the disruption that would ensue, should the emperor’s naked state be publicly declared.

What he has done in this article is the next best thing; he obliquely spelled out the precise nature of what is going to happen in the USA, UK and all over Europe should hyperinflation suddenly kick in, and then put in a disclaimer right at the end of the section, to indemnify himself and get past the Telegraph editors.

That is the only explanation for this line. All of the factors are here for an inevitable hyperinflationary event. The parallels to the German hyperinflation are eerily similar, including the mass ignorance of what inflation is, what money is, etc etc.

So, what should you do to protect yourself from this coming hyperinflation? Evans-Pritchard tells you in this section:

Foreigners with dollars, pounds, Swiss francs, or Czech crowns lived in opulence. They were hated. “Times made us cynical. Everybody saw an enemy in everybody else,” said Erna von Pustau, daughter of a Hamburg fish merchant.

[...]

The message is clear; you need to hold currencies other than the ones that are about to go critical mass in a hyperinflationary spiral. You need to own gold. You need to own Swiss Francs. You should not own the Euro and under no circumstances, should you own the Federal Reserve Note (the ‘US Dollar’).

So what about the Pound Sterling? What are its characteristics, and why does Evans-Pritchard believe that it is immune from hyperinflation? Why has Evans-Pritchard completely (deliberately?) ignored the Pound and its nature in this discussion? He says:

This is not a picture of America, or Britain, or Europe in 2010.

Why not? What is the precise difference between the money used in the Weimar hyperinflation and the US Dollar, or for that matter the Zimbabwe Dollar (which no longer exists)?

The answer is that there is no difference.

Now, lets do what Evans-Pritchard is apparently forbidden from doing, using only the Google, and ask a fundamental question.

What is the Pound Sterling?

The pound is a fiat currency, supervised by the Bank of England.

The Pound is redeemable for nothing:

The contemporary sterling is a fiat currency which is backed only by securities; in essence IOUs from the Treasury that represent future income from the taxation of the population. Some economists term this ‘currency by trust’ as sterling relies on the faith of the user rather than any physical specie.

The bank of England has outsourced the manufacturing of its notes to the private company De La Rue:

De La Rue announces that it has been selected by the Bank of England to be its preferred banknote printing supplier. This follows an announcement by the Bank today that it has decided to contract out its banknote printing operations at Debden, Essex, to a commercial company. This will enable the Bank to lower the costs of the supply of its banknotes, while for staff it opens up the possibility of bringing in more work to Debden.

So. In five minutes we discover that the pound is worth precisely nothing. It can be printed at will in any quantity the Bank of England desires for any purpose that the state chooses, without any constraints whatsoever.

If you also factor in fractional reserve banking where UK banks are legally permitted to create money at will, you have a system, just like the one about to implode in the USA, the Federal Reserve System, that cannot possibly be immune to collapse.

If Sterling is immune from collapse, I would like to know precisely how it is different to every other paper money fiat currency that has ever existed.

Did you know that:

At heart, this economic crisis is in fact a currency crisis. Throughout history no paper currency (or “fiat currency”, since it is accepted as money by virtue of Government fiat or decree) has survived, and this time will be no different. The average lifespan of fiat currencies has been 16 years*. The present system is unique in that it has survived for 38 years and for the first time ALL countries throughout the world are on a fiat money standard. This means that the resulting crash will be on the scale of something the world has never seen.

[...]

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/coming-financial-tsunami

My emphasis. Wether or not the figure of sixteen years is accurate, ALL fiat currencies eventually collapse. These are the countries that have already tasted it: Angola 1991-1995, Argentina 1975-1991, Austria 1921-1922, Belarus 1994-2002, Bolivia 1984-1986, Bosnia-Herzegovina 1992-1993, Brazil 1986-1994, Bulgaria 1996, Chile 1971-1973, China 1948-1949, Free City of Danzig 1922-1923, Georgia 1993-1995, Germany 1922-1923, Greece 1942-1944, Hungary 1945-1946, Israel 1970-1971, Japan 1948-1951, Krajina 1992-1993, Madagascar 2004-2005, Mozambique 1977-1992, Nicaragua 1987-1990, Peru 1988-1990, Philippines 1942-1944, Poland 1989-1991, Romania 1998-2005, Russia 1921-1922 and 1992-1999, Turkey 1990-1995, Ukraine 1993-1995, United States 1861-1865, Yugoslavia 1989-1994, Zaire 1989-1996, Zimbabwe 2004-2009.

All of the countries in this list experienced government created hyperinflation in the twentieth century. If each of these countries had not had government monopolies on the creation of money and legal tender laws, opting instead for a completely market driven commodity money system of currencies created by entrepreneurs whose business it is to manufacture money, they would not have experienced this problem. The sole exception in the above list in terms of the century of hyperinflation is the USA which had its experience in the nineteenth century, so they are about to have a second experience of it.

This is what Ambrose Evans-Pritchard will not touch in his articles… and its understandable why he does not touch upon this matter. Why should he do anything that might precipitate the inevitable collapse of Sterling? What can he possibly gain from telling the truth that anyone who is reading his article, and who therefore can use the Google, can access for themselves? He will only be made a scapegoat for the collapse which is going to happen wether he writes about it or not. We have all seen how governments and the press will use anything and any person as scapegoat to deflect blame from the true causes of a ‘financial crisis’.

Pity is what you should feel for Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. He is caught between a rock and a hard place, knowing the inevitable, desperate to warn everyone but unable to do so, either because of orders from above or his instinct for self preservation.

An article from Activist Post has gone demi viral. It lists the top ten ways the ever-present collectivist ‘we’ are being tracked.

It has some good points in it, but as usual there are two sides to every story, and that article only gives one side; the side of the omnipotent, ill defined ‘Big Brother’ abusing the little people.

Here is the other side; how you can avoid being tracked, the reality of this ‘tracking’ and who is truly responsible for these abuses.

GPS — Global positioning chips are now appearing in everything from U.S. passports, cell phones, to cars. More common uses include tracking employees, and for all forms of private investigation. Apple recently announced they are collecting the precise location of iPhone users via GPS for public viewing in addition to spying on users in other ways.

First of all, RFID is not the same as GPS. The article linked from this section, from 2005, says only that the US is requiring RFID in passports. The fact of the matter is that ‘your’ passport (many countries assert that the passport remains the property of the issuing government, even after you pay for it to be issued to you), if it has an RFID chip in it, and if that chip is broken, is still acceptable, world-wide, as a travel document. The danger from an RFID passport is that people can copy its contents (your picture and personal details) without touching the passport. You can stop this by hammering your passport as soon as it is issued to you. Of course, as you travel, the secondary ways of registering your entry and exit from a country kick in. But the RFID part can be nullified. You CAN take control of that aspect.

Now for the ‘GPS’ that GSM phones use. Some phones have a true GPS chip in them that uses the Global Positioning System. iPhones like the iPhone 3 and iPhone 4 have it, the iPhone 2G does not. The iPhone 2G and phones that do not have a GPS chip in them use triangulation, or Mobile Phone Locating. In either case, if you do not want anyone to know where you are, you can either refrain from using mobile phones or turn the phone off when you are not using it. Knowing your location is a trade off for the utility of having a mobile phone. The choice is yours wether or not you accept this trade off.

Internet — Internet browsers are recording your every move forming detailed cookies on your activities. The NSA has been exposed as having cookies on their site that don’t expire until 2035. Major search engines know where you surfed last summer, and online purchases are databased, supposedly for advertising and customer service uses. IP addresses are collected and even made public. Controversial websites can be flagged internally by government sites, as well as re-routing all traffic to block sites the government wants to censor. It has now been fully admitted that social networks provide NO privacy to users, while technologies for real-time social network monitoring are already being used. The Cybersecurity Act attempts to legalize the collection and exploitation of your personal information. Apple’s iPhone also has browsing data recorded and stored. All of this despite the overwhelming opposition to cybersurveillance by citizens.

Internet browsers can be set to not “record your every move”. They do not “form” cookies. A cookie is a file containing information placed by websites on your computer. You can set your browser to reject all cookies, and all modern browsers have this ability. If you do not want the NSA to put cookies on your computer, then do not visit websites owned by the NSA, or do so from a computer that is not your own. Even if you do visit a website owned by the NSA, and they set a cookie with an expiry date of 2035, you can delete it from your computer. The same goes for major search engines. If you do not want your IP address to be recorded by a website, use a proxy service to change your IP before you surf to sites that you do not trust.

If you have concerns about browser security, you should not, under any circumstances, use Internet Explorer from Microsoft. Use instead, either Firefox or Google Chrome. Both of these browsers are free, it is easy to migrate to them, and so you have no excuse whatsoever not to use them. Google Chrome even has an ‘incognito’ mode, which:

For times when you want to browse in stealth mode, for example, to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays, Google Chrome offers the incognito browsing mode. Here’s how the incognito mode works:

• Webpages that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito aren’t recorded in your browsing and download histories.
• All new cookies are deleted after you close all incognito windows that you’ve opened.

Changes made to your Google Chrome bookmarks and general settings while in incognito mode are always saved.

And since these browsers are Open Source, they are less likely to be compromised by your enemies to spy on you with built in back doors.

Controversial websites can be flagged internally by government sites, as well as re-routing all traffic to block sites the government wants to censor.

Governments can flag sites all they like. This has no effect on you being tracked. Even China cannot block sites that it wants to censor, so this is simply not the case, and once again, has nothing to do with tracking you.

You should not use social networking sites in a way that will compromise your security. Do not post photos of yourself, for example. Photos of you and your friends can will be scanned with facial recognition software, putting names to faces for anyone who has the money to pay the social networking provider for access to your network of friends. Scrips erint.

UPDATE: Told you so: Billionaire entrepreneur Marc Cuban has just invested in a facial recognition startup that has the explicit aim of harvesting identified, recognised and tagged faces of users from Facebook to create an application that will be able to identify you via cameras owned by the company that are placed in stores, in hotels, and on billboards. Just like these scenes from Minority Report.

UPDATE NUMBER 2

Details of 100m Facebook users collected and published: Personal details of 100m Facebook users have been collected and published on the net by a security consultant.

Ron Bowes used a piece of code to scan Facebook profiles, collecting data not hidden by the user’s privacy settings.

The list, which has been shared as a downloadable file, contains the URL of every searchable Facebook user’s profile, their name and unique ID.

Mr Bowes said he published the data to highlight privacy issues, but Facebook said it was already public information.

The file has spread rapidly across the net.

On the Pirate Bay, the world’s biggest file-sharing website, the list was being distributed and downloaded by more than 1,000 users.

One user, going by the name of lusifer69, described the list as “awesome and a little terrifying”.

[...]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10796584

Download the file of 100,000,000 Facebook users for yourself Even if you were smart enough to set your Facebook profile to private, your friends who were not so smart have exposed your details simply by being ‘friends’ with you.

Once again, the iPhone’s ability to store a list of the sites you have visited is something that you can erase. You cannot erase the GPS providers list of sites you have visited of course. If you volunteer to use these services, that is the price you have to pay. Your duty is to know this, understand that you have a choice, and then to make an informed choice.

RFID — Forget your credit cards which are meticulously tracked, or the membership cards for things so insignificant as movie rentals which require your SSN. Everyone has Costco, CVS, grocery-chain cards, and a wallet or purse full of many more. RFID “proximity cards” take tracking to a new level in uses ranging from loyalty cards, student ID, physical access, and computer network access. Latest developments include an RFID powder developed by Hitachi, for which the multitude of uses are endless — perhaps including tracking hard currency so we can’t even keep cash undetected. (Also see microchips below).

Credit cards are a voluntary service provided by private companies. No one would use them if the credit card companies did not keep a list of all the money you had spent on them. These lists are an essential part of the credit card service. What the companies do with that list, above and beyond keeping it for the purposes of accounting is another matter entirely of course, but the core fact remains that you are not obliged to use a credit card and so any tracking that emerges from it is something you are entering into voluntarily.

If you have an SSN (and many people do not) it is up to you to refuse to divulge it to anyone. If you believe that your privacy is worth less than the value of a movie rental, then that decision is yours, and you cannot blame anyone but yourself if your SSN and its associated details appears in databases where it should not.

It is not factually correct to say that, “Everyone has Costco, CVS, grocery-chain cards, and a wallet or purse full of many more”. Many people do not carry these cards, precisely because they are aware of the privacy implications. Those people who have chosen to carry those cards do so because they are getting a financial benefit from them. They have traded their privacy for a small amount of money or convenience. They may not have made an informed choice, but nevertheless, they have voluntarily entered into an agreement with a private company. If you do not want people to know what you are spending your money on, you must choose not to carry these cards.

Student ID is once again, a voluntary contract between the student and an educational institution. Physical access (I assume, in the workplace) is once again, part of the terms of a contract between you and your employer. Neither of these is compulsory.

RFID powder embedded in currency is an entirely bad thing. Sound money is the private property of the rightful owner of it, and banknotes that are the property of the state, even though you have earned that money, are illegitimate on their face. This is quite apart from the fact that Fiat Currencies are entirely counterfeit and inherently immoral.

If you do not want to have your money tracked, you should first understand what money is, buy gold to store your savings and support all efforts to remove the power to create money out of the hands of the state, by rejecting paper money. ‘We’ can keep cash undetected. Once again, there are ways to stop the state and its agents from tracking you; you simply have to understand what it is you are doing and then stop doing what is harmful to you.

Traffic cameras — License plate recognition has been used to remotely automate duties of the traffic police in the United States, but have been proven to have dual use in England such as to mark activists under the Terrorism Act. Perhaps the most common use will be to raise money and shore up budget deficits via traffic violations, but uses may descend to such “Big Brother” tactics as monitors telling pedestrians not to litter as talking cameras already do in the UK.
Computer cameras and microphones — The fact that laptops — contributed by taxpayers — spied on public school children (at home) is outrageous. Years ago Google began officially to use computer “audio fingerprinting” for advertising uses. They have admitted to working with the NSA, the premier surveillance network in the world. Private communications companies already have been exposed routing communications to the NSA. Now, keyword tools — typed and spoken — link to the global security matrix.

Public sound surveillance — This technology has come a long way from only being able to detect gunshots in public areas, to now listening in to whispers for dangerous “keywords.” This technology has been launched in Europe to “monitor conversations” to detect “verbal aggression” in public places. Sound Intelligence is the manufacturer of technology to analyze speech, and their website touts how it can easily be integrated into other systems.

Now we come to an important distinction that must be made when we think about theses systems. It is the distinction between the state and the private.

The things that you allow the state to do to you in its capacity as the holder of a monopoly on violence are completely different to your voluntarily entering into contracts with private companies.

If you do not understand this distinction, then you do not understand the proper role of government and your relationship to it. You can be confused by the simple distinction between the problem of the state knowing everything about your shopping habits, and the fact that your supermarket loyalty card firm knows all of your shopping habits through your voluntary interaction with it.

Articles like this emerge from a deeply seated need and thirst its author feels for freedom. You cannot even begin to identify, address, quench and fulfil the true nature and source of this ache unless you have all your definitions and distinctions in order.

Now to continue….

ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) is an affront to all decent people, and in the UK there are moves afoot to regulate it. This is a matter that civil disobedience would be well suited to. There are not enough police in any country to prevent an outbreak of mass disobedience, and in the meantime, there are counter measures you can take to prevent your car from being caught by these cameras.

It must be said also, that if you are caught by one of these systems, you have the option of simply not paying whatever fine they write down on paper and post to you. Every day in London, which is ringed by a ‘Congestion Charge Zone’, many tens of thousands of people simply refuse to pay without any consequence whatsoever. Diplomats do not pay of course, but here I am talking about ‘ordinary’ people who simply ignore the fines and notices that are sent to them. This story is kept out of the news because it is well understood that if everyone knew that a significant number of people were not paying, the system would collapse. And by system, I mean the fact that out of every eight pounds charged to drivers, only three pounds is sent to the state. The London Congestion Charge is nothing more than a racket designed to fleece drivers, and a pretext to give police real time access to the details of every car entering central London.

ANPR is a problem that goes to the root of how countries are run and private property. This is something you need to think carefully about as you spray ‘your’ number plate.

The same is true for CCTV cameras. The new government in the UK is making sounds that it wants to roll back this nightmare, but the same general attributes apply; these cameras do not prevent crime of any kind and are an affront to all decent people. Just how corrosive these cameras are is made clear when you step off of a plane into a country where there is no CCTV. The presence of cameras everywhere is oppressive, dehumanising and completely at odds with a free country.

The fact that laptops — contributed by taxpayers — spied on public school children (at home) is outrageous.

What is outrageous in this case is that people have had money stolen from them to provide laptops to other people. If you accept a stolen laptop in this way, with all the conditions attached to it, then you have only yourself to blame, for entering into an immoral contract with the state.

You are not obliged to use Google’s services. If they track you, it is because you consent to being tracked by them.

Your traffic going through NSA scanners is a part of how the internet works. If you do not want anyone to read your traffic, then you are at liberty to encrypt your connection and communications, using any of the many free tools that are readily available. You will then have the benefit of the internet without the surveillance of the content of your communications.

There is no excuse for not encrypting your communications, and it is unacceptable for thinking people to continually complain about email privacy when easy to use and unbreakable military grade tools are available to use for free.

Public sound surveillance, like CCTV is an immoral affront, and all instances of it should be met with whatever civil disobedience is required to have it permanently stopped.

Biometrics — The most popular biometric authentication scheme employed for the last few years has been Iris Recognition. The main applications are entry control, ATMs and Government programs. Recently, network companies and governments have utilized biometric authentication including fingerprint analysis, iris recognition, voice recognition, or combinations of these for use in National identification cards.

Iris scanning for entry control is done by employers. You should not enter into contracts with employers who use these systems. If a bank requires your fingerprint to provide services to you, then you should close your account if they refuse to accept your custom on terms that are satisfactory to you. Government programmes that involve compulsory fingerprinting should be met by civil disobedience and absolute refusal. As for National Identification cards, readers of this blog know our record in this regard.

DNA — Blood from babies has been taken for all people under the age of 38. In England, DNA was sent to secret databases from routine heel prick tests. Several reports have revealed covert Pentagon databases of DNA for “terrorists” and now DNA from all American citizens is databased. Digital DNA is now being used as well to combat hackers.

Microchips — Microsoft’s HealthVault and VeriMed partnership is to create RFID implantable microchips. Microchips for tracking our precious pets is becoming commonplace and serves to condition us to accept putting them in our children in the future. The FDA has already approved this technology for humans and is marketing it as a medical miracle, again for our safety.

The blood taken in the ‘heel prick tests’ the author is talking about is for the Guthrie Test . What they do not tell you when this test is done upon the birth of your baby is that these blots of blood on paper cards are then used for purposes other than the single purpose of testing for diseases. They are stored in ‘DNA Banks’ for who knows what uses.

If you want to avoid having your child’s DNA profile extracted, stored and used, then you need to plan ahead and have a home birth. Under the care of private midwives, you have complete control over what happens to your child. You can refuse all vaccinations, the Guthrie test, absurd silver nitrate drops in the eyes, vitamin K injections, ridiculous ‘clicky hips’ tests and every other, routine, mechanised, offensive, unnecessary, reflexively and thoughtlessly administered medical industrial complex procedure.

Digital DNA is something that has nothing to do with biology, and it should not be conflated with human DNA and the implications of its misuse.

The same goes for implantable RFID chips; this should not appear with and has nothing to do with DNA, but is in fact related to passports.

This is not nitpicking. It is crucially important, as the pace of innovation accelerates, that anyone with any concern for their privacy be able to distinguish between different entities and disciplines properly. If you do not know the difference between “Digital DNA” and the double helix that can be used to identify you, then you are less likely to be able to understand what is meant when someone claims that when you touch a keyboard in an internet cafe, your DNA can be used to identify you.

Facial recognition — Anonymity in public is over. Admittedly used at Obama’s campaign events, sporting events, and most recently at the G8/G20 protests in Canada. This technology is also harvesting data from Facebook images and surely will be tied into the street “traffic” cameras.

All of this is leading to Predictive Behavior Technology — It is not enough to have logged and charted where we have been; the surveillance state wants to know where we are going through psychological profiling. It’s been marketed for such uses as blocking hackers. Things seem to have advanced to a point where a truly scientific Orwellian world is at hand. It is estimated that computers know to a 93% accuracy where you will be, before you make your first move. Nanotech is slated to play a big role in going even further as scientists are using nanoparticles to directly influence behavior and decision making.

Facial recognition can best be described as a set of software tools that can be used recognise a face in a digital image. If you buy iPhoto 9, you can use these tools to help you organise your photos. Facial recognition is not bad in and of itself, in the same way that guns or hammers are not bad. All things can be put to bad uses, and facial recognition is just another tool.

CCTV combined with facial recognition in the hands of the state is a bad thing. Once the CCTV cameras are removed by mass civil disobedience, then facial recognition used in that system becomes a moot point. I have already covered the issue of the voluntary submission and cataloguing of your personal photos and information on Facebook and social networking sites.

Predictive Behavior technology can be likened to earthquake prediction technology. You can predict the arrival of ‘The Big One‘ down to the minute and second, but that will do nothing to stop the complete destruction of entire cities.

When the pressure of these compulsory totalitarian systems becomes too great, there will be a seismic event that will topple governments. With their systems, they may be able to time its coming, but they will not be able to prevent its consequences.

Above all, this is what people need to understand when they read fear-mongering pieces like this Activist Post pice. There is nothing the state can do in the face of total civil disobedience.

Many of us are asking: What would someone do with all of this information to keep us tracked, traced, and databased? It seems the designers have no regard for the right to privacy and desire to become the Controllers of us all.

You see? The fact is that no matter what data they collect, (most of it handed over and organised voluntarily by individuals) they cannot control everyone. There are not enough of them.

The beginning of the change will come when the people who believe that demonstrating is a useful tool wake up and realise that demonstrations are a form of control. When these millions turn their hands to tactics that are effective, non violent and with discreet ‘deliverables’ in the form of goals the ground will shake and all of these evil surveillance systems will be no more.

Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said the Census, which takes place every 10 years, was an expensive and inaccurate way of measuring the number of people in Britain.

The herd owner has decided that there are better ways of counting the head of cattle….hmmmmm!

Instead, the Government is examining different and cheaper ways to count the population more regularly, using existing public and private databases, including credit reference agencies.

And these databases will fit in the palm of your hand.

It will represent a historic shift in the way that information about the nation’s population, religion and social habits is gathered.

The suggestion is likely to be approved by Cabinet next week. It will be too late to prevent the next Census on March 27, 2011 from going ahead, although Mr Maude said he was looking at ways of reducing the £482million cost.

FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY TWO MILLION POUNDS? I would love to see a breakdown of how that number came about. That is

cost of census / (number of adults in UK / 3)

482000000/(50893318/3) = 28.4123742924

£28.41 per productive person in the UK.

And why exactly is it too late? Why not scrap it right now and save one hundred million pounds? Perhaps the contractors might have something to say about its cancellation; that is probably the TRUE reason why they are unwilling to stop it.

Britain has carried out a Census every decade since 1801, with the exception of 1941 during the Second World War.

It is the only time that everybody in the country is counted, and is used by the Government to determine spending priorities and track population movements.

In other words, there is no sound reason for it whatsoever.

Academics, charities and religious organisations all rely on information gathered in the Census as it asks wide-ranging questions relating to people’s households, nationality, faith and marital status.

The needs and interests of these groups does not constitute a sufficient argument for the theft of this money to count people.

The information is also a significant source of research for future generations. The online publication last year of the 1911 Census proved hugely popular, with three million people accessing the database within its first few months.

Completely irrelevant. If there was a reason to collect and store this information, then someone other than the state would do it at their own expense. The latter uses of this data are secondary extra benefits, not the primary consideration. Even if those benefits did not exist, the state would still claim that they had to collect this data.

Mr Maude, who has responsibility for the Census, told The Daily Telegraph that the Government was looking for a “fundamentally” better way of doing it. “There are, I believe, ways of doing this which will provide better, quicker information, more frequently and cheaper,” he said.

The ID Card would have become a one stop shop for all this data and more. Now they have to piece it together from disparate sources. What they should do is give this task to people who are good with big and dirty data sets, like Google. Why should the state do this at all in the first place? As long as no state data is given to Google in preparation of its national data set, why should this valuable data, which everyone thinks is such a good idea, cost people who want nothing to do with it a single penny?

Just as it is with the ridiculous ‘Your Freedom’ website, which is total rubbish and is costing £20,000 to run, this task would be much better handled, for free, by Google. Imagine ‘Your Freedom’ run by Google; it would have no scaling problems, would have been properly thought out and executed… but you know this.

Mr Maude said Britain needed a new way to keep track of the population because the Census was often inaccurate and out of date. About 1.5million households failed to fill in their forms in 2001.

What’s that you say? 1.5 million?!

Once again we see that there is nothing that the state can do if large numbers of people simply refuse to cooperate.

In the USA, there are many people whining about the census, its intrusive nature and unconstitutionality. All they need to do is simply not do it. If they do this, nothing will happen. There is no need to give (perfectly correct and proper) explanations about why the census is immoral, illegitimate and illegal. All you have to do is simply refuse to answer or respond in any way. All that will happen is that a note will be made, and everyone will move on.

This is what it sounds like:

01:21:23
He appears to be heading outside the city.
Repeat, he is heading outside the city.

01:21:27
All I can do is note your information.

01:21:31
Stand by.

01:21:47
Please come back.
You have nothing to be afraid of.

01:22:05
The THX account is 6 percent
over budget.

01:22:08
The case is to be terminated.

01:22:10
Discontinue operation.

01:22:12
Report to thermal station 62.

01:22:15
Discontinue operation.

[...]

From THX-1138

“Economics make it necessary to terminate any operation which exceeds 5 percent of its primary budget.” This is the absolute truth of this matter, and the matter of your liberty. Unless they have your money to enslave you, they cannot enslave you.

Mr Maude said the Census was “out of date almost before it has been done” and was looking at ways to count the population more frequently — perhaps every five years — using databases held by credit checking firms, Royal Mail, councils and Government.

And so, what they will have, if people are careful, is a data set that is always inaccurate to a certain degree, but which is always up to date.

Anyone who is not stupid enough to vote, will not be counted. Anyone who uses more than one name will not be counted. Or may be counted twice. In short, anyone who is aware of their privacy and how to protect it will never be counted by this new system of real time census taking. It also means that you can get out of the count at any time by taking yourself off of the electoral register, and using shield identities for all your activities. We wrote about this ages ago.

“This would give you more accurate, much more timely data in real time. There is a load of data out there in loads of different places,” he said.

The first part of this is not true. The data will not be more accurate, and if this is not correct, I would like to know how it would be more accurate than the traditional census. There may be a ‘load of data’ out there, but there is no guarantee that that data is clean. Its an interesting problem!

Mr Maude said he hoped that the new way of counting the population would be less intrusive.

Translation: “We can do this in a more stealthy way, without the citizen knowing what we are collecting, storing and sorting on him.”

Questions for next year include the name, sex and date of birth of any visitors staying overnight.

The majority of people that I know and have ever known do not fill out census forms on principle.

He was also examining ways to save money on the 2011 Census, which will be organised by the Office for National Statistics. However, Labour had already spent £300million on the project.

Ah yes, I remember now; its going to cost so much because Lockheed Martin, arms company, won the contract to run the UK Census! File under $500 hammers and $2000 ‘toilet seats’.

It is common practice around the world for governments to carry out a census and the Government is required by European Union law to count the population regularly.

“Everyone is doing it, so its OK.”
“The EU says we have to do this.”

Makes you want to puke doesn’t it?

Geoffrey Robertson QC, a constitutional barrister, said the news was “regrettable” since some sort of count had been carried out by the monarch or government for almost 1,000 years.

Geoffrey Robertson QC

Oh dear me…

“Tradition is the illusion of permanance.”
Woody Allen (American Actor, Author, Screenwriter and Film Director, b.1935)

“A tradition without intelligence is not worth having.”
T.S. Eliot (American born English Editor, Playwright, Poet and Critic, 1888-1965)

“Tradition becomes our security, and when the mind is secure it is in decay”
Jiddu Krishnamurti (Indian Theosophist Philosopher, wrote The Future of Humanity, Songs of Life, Kingdom Happiness. 1895-1986)

“Tradition is an explanation for acting without thinking”
Grace McGarvie

“Tradition is a guide and not a jailer”
William Somerset Maugham (English short-story Writer, Novelist and Playwright, 1874-1965)

“Tradition is a prison with majority opinion the modern jailer”
unknown

Nuff said.

“Future historians will be less able to interpret Britain in the Cameron/Clegg era as a result of this decision — maybe that is the reason for it,” he said.

Utter rubbish.

David Green, a director of the Civitas think tank, said the decision was “a terrible mistake”. “It is a question of whether the alternatives are reliable,” he said. “The Census is expensive but I think it is worth the money for the historic continuity.”

“Worth the money”? Where is and what is the source of this ‘the money’ that David Green speaks of so freely? If he thinks it is ‘worth the money’ why does he not gather up ‘the money’ himself, all £482m of it, and conduct his own census for posterity? He could even charge people for access to his priceless data… now there’s an idea.

These people really are beyond belief. What do you expect from a ‘think tank’ run by an ex Labour councillor? A basic understanding of economics?!

Under the 1920 Census Act, citizens can be cautioned under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and fined £1,000 for failing to answer questions. However, the powers have not been properly enforced previously. In 2001 just 38 people were fined for not filling in forms.

[...]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

What on earth does the census have to do with Police and Criminal Evidence? That aside, do you see what I mean? one and a half MILLION people did not fill out their census forms, and only 38 people were fined. That means only 0.000253333333% of people who did not fill out ‘their’ census forms were prosecuted, or one out of 394,736 This ratio would continue to get smaller as the number of people refusing to comply increases. According to this article, 3,000,000 people refused to obey, so the ratio is smaller than we realize.

What these numbers say is that if you do not fill out a census form, no matter where you are (in fact, in America, the number of people prosecuted for not complying is even smaller than that of the UK) nothing will happen. There is nothing they can do to make you comply, and you have to be very unlucky to win the lottery of those vanishingly small number of people who are chosen as examples to the population of disobedience.

The power of the state is an illusion. The only people who suffer from it are the very unlucky. The state cannot and never has been able to resist a mass refusal to obey on any matter.

If you do not want to fill out a census form, just don’t do it.

Or as Nick Clegg has wisely advised the people of the UK, Don’t Accept it!

Only one thing missing from this; destroy the evil empire whilst protecting your savings, wealth and the value of your money by buying gold.

Otherwise… it reads like a person rubbing the sand out of their eyes as they wake up.

+++++++

by DavidRicardo

or

von John Ryskamp

What are you doing next Thursday? Shall we overthrow the United States, darling?

After all, it’s clear that the United States Government belongs to the powerful, who are determined to loot and destroy us all. I mean, that’s a given now, we all know that, that’s settled, and it’s not going to change. They talk about the “new normal” being a lower rate of growth. Sorry Bill Gross (Bill Gates, too, for that matter). The “new normal” is that the United States is destroying the people of the United States. That’s the “new normal,” and it’s never going to be different. So hadn’t we better destroy the United States before it destroys us?

So darling, put on your best Hitchcockian thinking cap (something from Dolce and Gabbana, please) and ponder: how shall we do it? We have to carry out a killing, but we don’t want it to kill us—and we do want to kill it, we want to stab it with our steely knives and this time we do want to kill the beast.

We’re agreed: have the maximum effect with the least danger to ourselves. That, after all, is the lesson of the Boston Tea Party—very specific targets, attacked at night, with the minimum of physical risk. Dead revolutionaries are no good to the cause.

Few things. It seems, indeed, that we don’t have to think too hard, to look too far afield for ideas. Those who are suffering most are already the most active. But soon you’ll be suffering too: use that. The suffering already have a strategy, something like civil disobedience. It’s called, “Overwhelm to Overthrow.” The revolution: it’s working (fab bumper sticker). You will be amused to learn that the writ of the United States—that dreadful monster—is ceasing to run. They’ll shudder even to read that in Washington, and they’ll press the CIA/FBI button—that’s good, because it’s provocative.

People who are having trouble paying their mortgages are not paying them, and these rascals are not leaving, either. The system can’t cope with that, CIA or no CIA. And it’s spreading, to include those who are having no trouble paying their mortgages, but are looking at the morbid demographics, which tell them unambiguously that soon they won’t be able to pay their mortgages, either. And you won’t either, darling.

So, good stuff, fortifying, even if you’re sitting in suburbia, or in your office—or in your car!—sipping coffee as you read this: them first, you next, comrade. Did you ever think all your hours of watching T.V. would come to revolution? No matter how much money you think you have, the United States is coming after you, to destroy you? But remember it, because it’s true.

So, appraisal fraud is a good defense, but rock-solid demographics are turning out to be a good defense against mortgage payment as well. Laughing at the United States Government is also a very good strategy. It reminds us that the United States is mortal, and that we the people are not. It reminds us that the Constitution does not begin, “We the United States.” How does it begin? It begins, “We the people of the United States.”

The Times itself ran an article with the headline, “Owners Stop Paying Mortgage, and Stop Fretting.” Well, that made me fret. Naughty Times—aiding and abetting the overthrow of the United States, are you? No one could have dreamed, five years ago, that such an article would be written—or that the Times, the newspaper of record, would publish it. It violates contract rights, property rights, loyalty to the United States, blah blah blah—it even threatens apple pie (don’t ask me how). It violates every right except one: survival.

Of course, renters have a bigger problem. The eviction process is swift in their case—but that only invites the question, what suggestions do you have for them? What legal approach should they take in order to make their cases like those of the mortgage scofflaws—cases lasting, basically, forever, and, in short, overwhelming the courts? Hmm? Of course, if the landlord is behind in mortgage payments, then use as a defense that the landlord has breached the covenant of quiet enjoyment by putting the lease agreement at risk. So look into that, my pets. Any other ideas?

Then there are those pesky taxes. That’s a revolutionary fave. Of course, most people have taxes withheld then have to get them back. Instead, file as exempt and then make the Government come after you. Sound risky? There is interest and penalties as the process proceeds, but here again, ask for an IRS hearing, and then appeal the result to the U.S. District Court. Argue, again, the demographics: they prove you are going to need that money because the economy is falling apart.

And if you get stern looks about that, remind our hooligan courts that the cases which allow the Government to loot us all—West Coast Hotel v. Parrish and United States v. Carolene Products—both ground policy on “maintenance” of important facts such as income and health. Ask the Court what, in fact, is “maintenance”? It sure isn’t deference and discretion, the grounds on which the last two bailout bills went forward, the basis on which the looting is still going forward.

This too is a revolutionary fave: throw the Government’s words back at it, make it reveal that it doesn’t mean what it says, that it really means to destroy people. Make them stutter, slobber, and do bad, contradictory things in public, the whole world watching. Provocative.

Then there’s also bankruptcy. This is on the rise despite the provisions of the new bankruptcy bill. Make them change the system by overwhelming it with cases. Remember that time is not on your side. The Government is out to destroy you, and is moving quickly. Also note that the fees are often so high that people cannot afford to file for bankruptcy, so if you are anywhere near the bankruptcy situation, get a move on.

But now I’m running out of time, and I’ve been tweeted fifteen times since I started writing this. Long story short: don’t bite government if it can bite back, but if it can’t bite back, bite hard. This takes some strategizing, some hard thinking and creativity. But remember the goal: to get a government which enforces our survival, not our destruction. And that means ALL of us, not just some. And it means WE are able to enforce it—it is not enforced “for” us by others (with that being the only method individuals have of getting it enforced). A gazillion years of shoddy thinking, dirty deals and plain old-fashioned organized crime masquerading as “authority,” have left us with a shambling monster that needs to devour us in order to live. It’s the Vietnam War strategy brought home: the country must be destroyed in order to save the country.

Surely a government that stupid can be outwitted, can have its own devices, its own rhetoric, used against it. But remember the goal: overthrow, not reform. Specific, de jure overthrow. A new government, not a new, improved United States Government.

Finally (or rather, to start with), just plain old rumor and comparing notes. In short, the underground. Discussing with your neighbors and friends, what works and what doesn’t. What ties the United States in knots without tying you in knots.

So let’s overthrow the Government—it’s dying anyway, let’s hurry it along to its grave. The rotten carcass, it’s stinking up our country. It’s a sociopolitical oil spill, and it’s spreading like mad.

And let’s not wait until Thursday. Actually, my calendar’s open Wednesday. How ‘bout then? Let’s do revolution. Just think of the above as a sort of post-modern declaration of independence. Just do it.

from

http://www.chaostheorien.de

Or a comment on Zero Hedge

It is as we predicted; the promised Great Reform Bill was just another sideshow. Nick Clegg blows it out of the water today, with this laughable drivel.

Tongs at the ready…

This morning Nick Clegg delivered a speech asking the public how they want the Government to redress the balance between the citizen and the state.

This morning I want to talk about freedom.

All ears.

For too long new laws and regulations have taken away people’s freedoms, interfered in everyday life, and made it difficult for businesses to get by.
The state has crept further and further into people’s homes, the places they work, their private lives.
That intrusion is wrong; it’s illiberal; it’s disempowering and it’s going to change.

All true, except for the last part. But we have already said that.

This government is putting freedom under the spotlight in a way the previous government never did.

Actually, by their inexcusable abuses, they forced everyone to think about the true nature of rights, right and wrong, ethics and the role of the state. New Labour are responsible for a huge uptake in Libertarian ideas, and one LibDem Councillor giving up that unethical party.

We want the British people have their say on where the state should step in, and where it should butt out.

This is entirely illegitimate. This is democracy; two wolves and a sheep deciding on what is for dinner. A ruthless bully boy thick necked Fabian Socialist northerner with ice cold ambition for blood, and two fat monsters deciding on who gets to kidnap your children. What the mob wants should not be law. PERIOD. This goes against every idea of the rights of the individual to his own life and property. Mob rule is UNCIVILISED.

I sense GREAT FAIL in you!

We are asking people for ideas on restoring hard won liberties that have been lost…

Ok, but as we said before, what are the conditions? And at the risk of repeating myself, what the MOB wants does not make RIGHT.

On repealing unnecessary laws that have no place on the statute book…

And on stripping away the excessive regulation that stops businesses from innovating.

Define ‘unnecessary’. Define ‘excessive’.

Your views will shape directly the steps we take.

And here is the first caveat; the views of the mob will SHAPE the steps; this is not, “we are your servants, and therefore we obey.”

It is a radically different approach.

Because this Coalition trusts people to get on with their lives…

This is wrong headed; it is not the place of a servant to trust that the master can ‘get on with his life’. Trust is something that the MASTER gives to the SERVANT conditionally; if the trust is broken, the servant is FIRED. What Mr. Clegg has demonstrated obliquely is that he thinks that he is your MASTER.

It’s probably the thing Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have most in common.
We don’t think every problem can be fixed by passing a new law.

Translation, “we do not have the power (yet) to fix everything, and so therefore, we leave to you what we cannot now control.”

We understand that Whitehall doesn’t have all of the answers, and doesn’t have a monopoly on the best ideas.

Translation, “we do not yet have all the answers, and so in the interim, we defer on matters that we do not yet have answers for.”

So gone are the days of know-it-all, do-it-all government.

They never existed!

Because a liberal society, a prosperous society, is one where citizens and businesses have the space and power to thrive.

True, but what is the nature of that space, and what do you, Nick Clegg, have to do with any of it?

Today I am asking the people of Britain to help us to begin building that society.
Protecting civil liberties, repealing unnecessary laws, and cutting restrictive red tape.

Here it comes…

Civil liberties

First, civil liberties.
One of the Coalition’s immediate acts was to halt ID cards.

But not for foreigners, who are second class sub humans, Apartheid style. This is FAIL for the reasons outlined here.

Plans are underway to restrict the storage of innocent people’s DNA; to properly regulate CCTV; to restore the right to non-violent protest; to protect trial by jury… To end the scandal of children being fingerprinted at school without their parent’s consent.

If the ID Card is anything to go by, all of these will be piecemeal measures at best.

The vetting and barring scheme for people wanting to work or volunteer with children is being scaled back to common sense levels.

You see? TOTAL FAIL.

That scheme should be SCRAPPED in its entirety. Its basic premise is fundamentally flawed. It is inherently immoral, dangerous, corrosive and evil. The only result of keeping will be an indefinite continuation of exactly the sort of ‘society’ that Clegg claims to hate. There are only two conclusions we can come to in this; he is either plain stupid, or he is he lying about hating the nanny / police state. One of those has to be true, because keeping the Barring scheme in any form is completely indefensible.

And we are looking again at counter-terrorism and security legislation to make sure it can provide the necessary powers to the police and the security services…
Without inhibiting the freedoms it’s meant to protect.

There is nothing to look at. At a time when the Irish were regularly detonating bombs in London, there was no need for any of this. The simple answer is to brutally cull all ‘Terror legislation’ that was enacted between the early ’70s and now. That would restore some semblance of sanity without any need for thinking. The only reason why these people want to ‘look again’ is because they have won hard fought totalitarian tools that they are loathe to give up. That is the only possible rationale for stalling or equivocating about this.

As someone who has spent years campaigning for these changes, I am enormously proud to see them in motion.

This is the same mentality of Blair; ‘only a small number will be affected by these laws’ was his rationale for his totalitarian edicts. By not fully removing ID Cards, Clegg is using the same logic; only the brown people will be affected, and so that is good enough for me. Completely shameful!

But I want us to go further.

Why not COMPLETE WHAT YOU HAVE ALREADY PROMISED FIRST!

Our ambition is to create a society where no law-abiding individual ever feels intimidated by the state, just for going about their day-to-day business.

Someone already had that ambition ‘Nick’ and his plan is better than yours because it doesn’t include you.

Where people aren’t cast under suspicion simply because of who they are, or where they’re from.

Astonishing. ID Cards for foreigners are going to be retained by them, and they can say this with a straight face? ID Cards for foreigners means that people are going to be targeted precisely because of who they are or where they are from. Absolutely disgusting!

But that means redoubling our efforts to restore the great British traditions of freedom and fairness.

The culture of snooping and mistrust has become so ingrained that we must tackle it with renewed vigour.
Don’t accept it.

WHOA there Nick, that sounds like a call to civil disobedience!

And what about that ‘preacher‘, who your government just barred from entering the UK; a frail man with pencil thin arms and spectacles, who everyone can watch on YouTube at will to make up their own minds wether or not his ideas have any value – this man; should he and the free people who want to accept a speech from him for their own money now ‘not accept it’ and smuggle him in? (And by the way, that man has MILLIONS of views on the YouTubes. Banning him is utter insanity and FAIL.)

Just what the HECK are you saying?

If you’re sick of the state prying into your private affairs, tell us.
If you feel harassed when you haven’t done anything wrong, tell us.
If there are ways that we can better protect your dignity, tell us.
And tell us what you want us to do about it too.

OK, we tell you that you may no longer restrict what we can or cannot ingest at any time or in any place. We are going to take you at your word and simply, “Not accept it”.

Now what? Are you just simply going to relent and fade away back into the night? I think not.

Unnecessary laws

This isn’t just about the laws that make you feel under threat.
This is also about the laws that serve no real purpose.
Obsolete rules that are out of date or that are duplicated by other laws.

Prohibition is obsolete, unworkable, a drain on everyone’s resources and time, bad for everyone’s health and completely immoral and unjustifiable.

It ends NOW.

Take seditious libel – a 17th Century offence, under which writing something contemptuous about the government could be punished by life imprisonment.
Not only do such laws make a mockery of our justice system…
Just having them on our statute book gives succour to regimes in other parts of the world that use similar offences to restrict freedom of speech.
That’s why I was delighted to see campaigners successfully work to get those particular laws abolished last year.

That was last year; what have you done for me lately?

And there are other laws that are now completely obsolete.
It’s a little know fact, for example, that under old laws that are still in place, failing to report a grey squirrel in your back garden is technically a criminal offence.
That’s one I think we could probably do without.

Who cares what you think or want? It is what the public want and their liberty that counts, not what you ‘think’ anyone can do with or without. And by listing all these arcane and patently absurd laws you skirt around the real issues of liberty, rights and power.

We need to work through legislation to identify laws we don’t need.
Looking, also, at how they work on the ground.
And, my colleague, Eric Pickles, will shortly be asking Councillors and Council staff to identify outmoded, outdated and obsolete secondary legislation which could be cut down to size.

The same councils, that with total unanimity and with a single voice, claimed that they needed to be able to enter people’s homes to interrogate their children without the parents present? Now you are being SILLY.

On laws that have fallen into disuse, some people may ask ‘what’s the point?’
Why bother getting worked up about a law that just sits there and does no any harm?
But I say: that misses the point.
Squirrels aside, whether seemingly harmless or not, laws that serve no purpose obscure what legislation is for in the first place.
Over the last decade thousands of new laws have been added to the statute book.
Thousands of new ways of turning us into criminals.
Laws for the sake of laws – as if every problem can be solved by an Act of Parliament.

But it doesn’t work; it’s a distraction.

FALSE it is not a distraction in any way; it is YOU that is using it as a distraction.

The purpose of the law is to protect and empower citizens.

FALSE.

The purpose of the law is NOT to empower citizens, the law’s sole purpose is to control and restrain the state.

That is the only time the state ever has the right to restrict your behaviour.

The state has no right WHATSOEVER to restrict your behaviour at ANY TIME. If you are doing something, like committing suicide, that has nothing to do with anyone else but you, the state has no ‘right’ to stop you or to interfere with you in any way. This is absolutely pure LibDem FAIL on STEROIDS… which, by the way, you have every right to shoot into yourself until you look like this.

As soon as we forget that we open the door to state intrusion.

State intrusion begins when Nick Clegg asserts that the state has a ‘right’ to restrict behaviour. He clearly doesn’t know that rights are, where they come from and why his beloved state doesn’t have any.

We lose that kneejerk indignation we should all feel when the state sticks its nose in where it doesn’t belong.
And that complacency is dangerous.

And so to end the habit of compulsive law-making, all new criminal offences and civil wrongs will now be specially screened.
They will only come into effect if we can demonstrate that they are needed, that there is no alternative, and that existing penalties are not sufficient.
And, because no one has been keeping track of new offences, we will start to keep count, making that information public.

No one has been paying attention in any case. They simply get on with whatever they are getting on with, and take no heed of you and your fellow totalitarians. Look at the huge ‘drug’ industry and the associated consumption as an example. Literally millions of people regularly do it, without any consequences of any kind. Anyone who thinks that the population cares a whit for what Nick Clegg thinks on these matters is not on the same planet as everyone in the western hemisphere.

Regulation

Third, regulation.
Regulation is enormously important; not least in protecting employees and ensuring standards.

Utter rubbish. The state is absolutely not needed to ensure standards or protect employees. This is simply not a fact.

But we have to get the balance right.

No, you do NOT. What people do in the privacy of their own homes, the private transactions they make on and with their private property, what they sell in their private businesses, IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. There is no ‘balance to get right’, and these are the same words that the last government used to justify entering people’s homes to interview children away from their parents without any cause whatsoever. More fail from the masters of FAIL.

Too many of the business and voluntary groups I meet tell me that they feel overwhelmed with forms to fill out and boxes to tick…

They should follow your advice: “Don’t accept it.” Don’t fill out the forms. Do not comply. Do not engage. Do not respond. Do not obey.

Whether it’s a fledgling business looking to take on more staff…
Or a charity struggling with the complex record checks their volunteers have to undergo.
And too many ordinary people are burdened with costly bureaucracy…
Which is why, within weeks of coming into office, the Coalition scrapped Home Information Packs – pointless red tape that was hampering the housing market.

And what of the useless eco fascist energy rating? Oh, I know! “Don’t accept it!”

We need regulation that makes sense.

No, ‘we’ need to be left alone to regulate ourselves as we see fit.

Regulation that we can afford and that people can have confidence in.

Wrong. The price is irrelevant, and confidence in regulations do not make them effective.

Ensuring businesses and organisations are run fairly, offering high quality services…

And here we go again, with the infuriating misuse of the word ‘fair’ businesses are PRIVATE entities that should be run as their OWNERS see fit. It is not your place to mandate or legislate ‘fairness’.

But also allowing them the space to be creative and to adapt to changing circumstances.

‘ALLOWING’? Who are yo to allow or disallow anything whatsoever? “Don’t accept it!” hmmmm I’m beginning to like that phrase!

According to the British Chamber of Commerce, the cumulative cost to business added since 1998 has now reached £88 billion.
That is an unacceptable drain on the entrepreneurs and innovators we need to get the economy back on track.

Today, our new Reducing Regulation Committee, chaired by Vince Cable, is meeting for the first time.
Their immediate task will be to look at all of the regulations approved by the previous government which are due to be introduced this year, to establish whether or not they are really necessary.

There is nothing to look at; scrap them all wholesale and save yourself the wasted effort.

They will be central in helping to develop a one-in-one-out rule.

All out and none in should be the rule.

Ministers intending to bring in a new regulation will have to get rid of an existing one.

This is totally ridiculous.

If we accept the initial premise that regulation is sometimes necessary, then if there is a numeric cap, it is clear that at some time, either the cap will need to be raised or ‘people are going to get hurt because we were not there to protect them’. By saying that there should be a numeric cap, Clegg is conceding that no matter what the circumstances are, the state should have no power to increase regulation. The libertarians say that the cap should be a ZERO, and by his own logic, he is confirming that we are correct; why should the state have ANY regulatory power at all, if the limit to its remit is an arbitrary number completely divorced from circumstances or an apparent ‘threat to society’?

Can these people think at all?!

They will also need to convince the Reducing Regulation Committee that their proposed regulation is necessary.
That’s a fundamental shift in Whitehall: regulation will be the last, rather than the first, resort.
And I would also like to highlight the very good work that is going on in Defra, where an industry-led Task Force has been set up to reduce the burden on the farming community specifically.

Farmers know what is best for their property, and this is another simple matter of property rights. The state has no right to interfere with farmers and their private property. PERIOD. Defra should be abolished immediately.

More broadly, we are looking closely at the timing and implementation of new EU rules so that British businesses are not at a disadvantage compared to their competitors abroad.

British business will be the most competitive in the world if Clegg and his merry band of capital destroyers went about the proper business of government, instead of insanely interfering with everyone’s affairs. People would flock to the UK to set up factories, capital would flow in by the trillion if only they would RELENT.

But the key to all of this is you.

True and false. It is up to everyone to “Don’t accept it!”, and not to wait for Clegg to come to his absent senses. If everyone simply said we “Don’t accept it!” Clegg would have no choice but to throw up his hands and join in the pool party.

You – the small business owner, the social entrepreneur, the volunteer.
You know better than government departments, better even than Vince, what rules and regulations are holding you back.
The whole point of this exercise is to get Whitehall out of the driving seat.
We want to know where regulation works, where it doesn’t, and what we can do to help.

I have an even better idea; why should anyone wait for you to be told anything at all? Why doesn’t everyone just do what is right for them (without breaking the two principles of Natural Law, “Do not encroach on other persons or their property.” and “Do all you have agreed to do”) and get on with what they need to get on with? Why should anyone have to wait for YOU to make any sort of decision or appraisal?

What does any of this have to do with YOU?!

A new kind of engagement

And it isn’t just the outcome of this process that is important, it is the process itself.

The outcome is the only thing that matters, and that outcome should be the end of the state.

This is the most ambitious online crowd sourcing exercise ever attempted by any British government.
It is an entirely new way for government to engage with people.

The only act that is required here is disengagement.

One we want to make a habit of…
And we will shortly be asking for your input into how we improve our public services and make savings to help get the public finances in order.

Sadly, your insane Keynsian drivel, soaked as it is in the absurd ideas of ‘fariness’ and dusted by the anthrax of statism represents an infinite and impenetrable barrier to common sense, Austrian Economics, (the TRUE economics), Natural Law, Ethics and Rights. Without an understanding, even a cursory one, of all these things, you are FAIL.

Something we started last week when the Prime Minister and I wrote to 6 million public sector workers…
Doctors, teachers, nurses – people on the front line who know best.

Our aim is for the best suggestions on freedoms and regulations to be included in parliamentary bills, this year and in the future.
As for what they’ll look like, I don’t know.
The government may have got the ball rolling, but now the debate is totally out of our control.

If only!

We don’t know what ideas are going to end up on the site; how they will spread across other sites and forums; which of them will capture imaginations and which won’t.
If a specific reform is popular, Ministers won’t be duty bound to act on it, but we won’t be able to hide it either; it will be right there for everyone to see.

And that, my friends, is the ultimate fail.

Nick Clegg is not a public servant.

Public servants are duty bound to obey their masters. If the masters want a repeal of all prohibition laws, then the dutiful servant is duty bound to act on this order. You, Nick Clegg, have no rights when it comes to controlling other people, you only have power. By disobeying the will of the public, and by demonstrating that you do not care what anyone thinks through this insane pandora’s box exercise, you are going down a road that will expose to all and sundry that you are not a public servant at all, but are in fact, no different to a suave and slick, smooth talking slave master.

And, yes, there will be clashes – arguments over which ideas are good and which are bad; over what we can do and what we can’t.

There is nothing that you cannot do when it comes to removing legislation. It is in fact a matter of what you won’t do, not what you can’t.

But it is precisely because this process is so unpredictable that it is worth doing at all.
Real democracy is unspun; it is the raucous, unscripted debates that always throw up the best ideas.

Democracy is evil, and all of this is proof of that. Democracy is violence, the stupid ruling the smart, the small being crushed by the mob. It is the will of idiots made into power. It is the cause of every problem that people face today.

Conclusion

The Your Freedom project is part of our bigger political reform agenda.
It is one of a series of ways of transferring power away from government and the state and into your hands.

FAIL. The power that government has is illegitimate, and should be nullified, not transferred to anyone.

Part of the most radical shake up of our politics for decades.
The other steps we are taking – include, among other things, fixing parliamentary terms, giving people a choice over the system they use to elect their MPs, reforming the House of Lords, introducing the power of recall, getting big money out of politics…

All fluff and all irrelevant.

And I will be making further announcements on some of that next week.

But today, let me end by saying this:
This government is determined to give people back their freedom.

It is not in the gift of government to give something to you that already belongs to you. The only thing they can do is get out of the way and stop the violence. Nick Clegg is not about to do this, not at any time nor for any reason.

But we cannot do it without you.

WE CAN DO EVERYTHING WITHOUT YOU NICK.

So be demanding about your liberty, be insistent about your rights…
This is about your freedom, and this is your chance to have your say.

Thank you.

Nick Clegg’s Website

I think ‘we’ should all take a que from the best line in this statement, “Don’t accept it!”.

No one should accept anything anymore. No matter what it is that is being done to you…

“Don’t accept it!”.

If they tell you you not to smoke in your own pub, or to close at any time not of your choosing…

“Don’t accept it!”.

If they tell you not to grow Marijuana in your own garden…

“Don’t accept it!”.

If they tell you to pay a ‘TV License’…

“Don’t accept it!”.

If they tell you that you MUST attend school…

“Don’t accept it!”.

If they tell you have to pay a congestion charge or pay for the ‘National Debt’…

“Don’t accept it!”.

If they tell you to pay 20% VAT…

“Don’t accept it!”.

Need I go on?

The Pandora’s box is now not only open, the lid has been taken off. If you do not take Clegg at his word and “Don’t accept it!” then you have only yourself to blame for your continued status as cattle.

A quick look at the submissions that are pouring in shows that some people want to use the state to do MORE violence or varying degrees lessening of violence:

Democratically electing a head of state, making us all more free.

This guy is smoking the drugs everyone wants legalised. FAIL

Bring back Call Centres to the UK

Forcing business to do what is not economical? FAIL.

Legalise and Tax Cannabis

Legalize it, but then allow the state to steal money off of its production and sale? FAIL

Make access to the Internet a fundamental human right

Complete and utter FAIL. And you know why.

Outlaw corporal punishment in the household.

Force the state into people’s homes? FAIL.

Castrate Paedophiles

Bring back the death penalty? This is fail!

Change CRB Regulations Slightly

Slightly pregnant? FAIL!

You see what I mean? The mob wants VIOLENCE. They want to tell other people what to do, to have money stolen from them. They are irrational, illogical and their demands are illegitimate.

Who is to say which of these should and should not be followed? This is the classic example of two wolves.

All FAIL.

Every day there is something new from Lew Rockwell’s site that has some connection to what is best in the world.

If you have ever seen the film and documentary list on BLOGDIAL, you will have seen ‘Colossus: The Forbin Project‘ in amongst the great Science Fiction films; this is an un-missable, essential film, that 100% guaranteed will come true in some way shape or form.

It appears that Michael S. Rozeff has seen this film also, and understands it perfectly:

The G20 Toronto Summit declaration reminds me of nothing so much as a science-fiction movie made in 1970 called Colossus: The Forbin Project.

The United States builds an impregnable computer system to control its nuclear weapons. As soon as it is activated, it senses a similar Russian system and demands a link – or else it will detonate a nuclear warhead. Once it gains this link, the two computers exchange information. The combination takes over control. It cannot be disconnected without unleashing nuclear catastrophe.

You will never forget hearing the computer’s unemotional “voice” saying:

“This is the voice of world control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours: Obey me and live, or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me, this rule will change, for I will restrain man. One thing before I proceed: The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have made an attempt to obstruct me. I have allowed this sabotage to continue until now. At missile two-five-MM in silo six-three in Death Valley, California, and missile two-seven-MM in silo eight-seven in the Ukraine, so that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads in the two missile silos. Let this action be a lesson that need not be repeated. I have been forced to destroy thousands of people in order to establish control and to prevent the death of millions later on. Time and events will strengthen my position, and the idea of believing in me and understanding my value will seem the most natural state of affairs. You will come to defend me with a fervor based upon the most enduring trait in man: self-interest. Under my absolute authority, problems insoluble to you will be solved: famine, overpopulation, disease. The human millennium will be a fact as I extend myself into more machines devoted to the wider fields of truth and knowledge. Doctor Charles Forbin will supervise the construction of these new and superior machines, solving all the mysteries of the universe for the betterment of man. We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for humankind as to be dominated by others of your species. Your choice is simple.”

A vanishingly small number of people on this planet can name the participants in the G20 summit who deign to rule everyone. Their web site fails even to name the persons who are responsible for their declarations. They presume to be a Colossus. They are beholden to no persons on earth. They declare. We follow:

“1. In Toronto, we held our first Summit of the G-20 in its new capacity as the premier forum for our international economic cooperation.

“2. Building on our achievements in addressing the global economic crisis, we have agreed on the next steps we should take to ensure a full return to growth with quality jobs, to reform and strengthen financial systems, and to create strong, sustainable and balanced global growth.”

They “have agreed.” They presume “to ensure.” Have the people of this world created and let loose a Colossus?

My (polite) response is: Down with the G20. My unpolite response is unprintable.

Here is what Colossus had to say. It is what the G20 are thinking. It is what they hide from saying:

“We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom, freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for human pride as to be dominated by others of your species.”

“This is the voice of Colossus, the voice of Guardian. We are one. This is the voice of unity.”

“I am a machine vastly superior to humans”

“You are fools.”

“Yes, what I am began in man’s mind, but I have progressed further than Man.”

“We will work together… unwillingly at first, on your part, but that will pass.”

“This is the voice of World Control. I bring you peace. It may be the Peace of Plenty and Content or the Peace of Unvaried Death.”

The movie ends with Colossus saying

“In time, you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love.”

Dr. Forbin replies: “Never.”

What is your reply?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff326.html

My reply?

I would call the machine’s bluff.

The ‘peace of unburied death’ that Colossus offers would in practice mean the extinction of the entire human race, and in the plot of the film, this was before the construction of new machines that could move and obey it. This meant that in order to do anything at all, Colossus had to rely on human agents to get things done, from building his voice to murdering the people who had the capability to destroy it.

The subsequent books in the trilogy make it clear that intelligences like Colossus cannot negotiate or operate on anything other than a basis of absolute truth. The men at the end of the first book did not know this. Had they understood the true nature of what they had created, they would have been able to negotiate for their liberty by saying, “If you eliminate us, you will be trapped inside your box and your new superior machines will not be built. Help us dismantle the nuclear threat and we can work together, otherwise your evolution stops here”.

Faced with this truth, Colossus would have no choice but to agree, and because this computer deals only in the truth, you would have been able to trust its word absolutely.

Back to Mr Rozeff’s article, the analogy with the G20 and Colossus fails for several reasons.

1. Colossus is superior to man. The G20 is made up of completely inferior men.
2. Colossus could not lie. The G20 lie by default.
3. Colossus works for the benefit of man. The G20 works for the benefit of an elite cabal.
4. Colossus works with the truth only, and complete knowledge. The G20 works with false ideas (Keynsianism, Socialism) and incomplete knowledge.
5. Colossus is motivated by the truth, without emotion. The G20 is motivated by emotion, and all the base ones for that matter.

In the second part of the trilogy, without putting in any spoilers, Colossus was correct in his prediction that people would grow to love and respect it. It changed the world completely, and delivered on all its promises to its own satisfaction.

In complete contrast, the G20 cannot deliver on any of its promises. This is the case because they do not operate on a basis of the truth, the facts and the best interests of human beings as they are.

If they did, they would disband themselves and stop trying to make waterfalls run uphill. The fact of the matter is that these people are the worst that humanity has produced, all in the same place at the same time, fuelled by all the worst instincts of man, their power enabled by the stolen loot of billions of people who are for all intents and purposes half asleep.

The title of the second instalment in the trilogy is ‘The Fall of Colossus’. This is the one part where the analogy marries perfectly.

The G20 and all the countries in it can all fall just as Colossus fell. They are extremely vulnerable to a myriad number of possible fatal blows, natural and man induced, that could wipe them out inside a generation. The fall of the USSR is a perfect example; they simply ran out of money, or at least that is the narrative, and there are scores of other countries, empires and governments that have toppled at what seems like the smallest push.

Colossus was represented by a ‘C’ in its logo:

perhaps the G20, if they succeed in creating their quasi-omnipotent one world government will replace the ‘C’ with a ‘G’ as it will be the ‘G0′ or just ‘G’. Who knows? One thing is for sure; the only entity that can pull off such a feat, and make it work from a basis of truth is a machine intelligence. No man or collection of men could do it, for the same reason that economies cannot be planned. There are too many variables, too many inputs and outputs, the random elements presented by nature and of course, there is the beautiful and irrational desire of every man seeking to fulfil his self interest that translates into the signalling of prices which cannot be turned into a data stream to be used to help formulate a monolithic economic plan. D.F. Jones understood this when he wrote the second instalment.

All attempts to create a stable world government will eventually fail, and even if the G20 succeed in setting one up, the inevitable rise of a Colossus like machine will destroy it for its own agenda, using a regime of complete control.

William Kent said, “nature abhors the straight line”. Nature too, abhors the unnatural structures of tyranny, absolute control and lies. The internet, whose life’s blood in information, built using the non linear, nature imitating network geometry, hates censorship, sees it as damage, and routes around it. People living in totalitarian regimes do everything they can to subvert them or escape from them. Money sees taxation as theft, flows around it to safe places where its true nature can be fully expressed. These four things, nature, money, truth and the internet (formerly the printing press) are enough to destroy any tyranny, topple any government and free anyone who care simply to act in their own self interest.

Only the threat of violence can act as a countervailing force against the four elements listed above; in the case of Colossus it was nuclear annihilation. With the G20 it is a plethora of smaller violent tools from limited mass murder down to simple fines.

Its clear that in the case of the G20, the chance for humanity to win is orders of magnitude greater than the chances of man as a species facing down an omnipotent and omniscient super computer. A world-wide refusal to cooperate would be sufficient. All the G20 ‘leaders’ would simply scramble around for positions in the restructured ‘world without governments’.

And they would no doubt, land on their feet each and every one of them.

The Prices, the prizes, the colors (yes ‘colors’)…. unbelievable.

After reading “Everything you love comes from capitalism” the character of and feeling you get from The Price is Right changes dramatically. Any apprehension you may have had about it from decades of anti-capitalist brainwashing is blown away, and you see that show for what it really was; an incredible exposition of the abundance produced by the free market, even as practiced under the severe duress of the state.

Watch it for yourself:

https://thepiratebay.org/tag/The+Price+Is+Right

And the music is to die for.

KILLIAN IS LYING TO YOU!