Necessary Illusions…

“All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.” – Noam Chomsky

It amazes me how little we care to know about what’s really going on around us…

There are more than 65 million people living in farmville – a make-believe game on facebook where pink cows give strawberry milk and where, on any given day, about 27 million people are busy growing make-believe crops and raising make-believe alien animals…ask any one of the farmville residents how many nails are needed to finish the barn for their zebra-striped horse and they’ll have the exact number at the tip of the tongue…but ask someone if they know anything about the deluge of bailouts, rescues, and stimulus packages being approved by their politicians, and you’re guaranteed to either get blank stares or a nonchalant response like the one I got: “…yeah, this is all because of the stupid people who bought houses they couldn’t really afford and as a result bankrupted the world…so, we had to bail them out…” – really??…well, I guess if you believe that pink cows give strawberry milk, then this view of current affairs isn’t so far fetched…

So how does this happen? How is it possible that the masses are so conveniently kept in the dark about so many things happening around them??

If you spend just a little less time feeding alien cows on farmville and just a bit more time in the real world, you might just stumble upon the life and work of Ivan Pavlov – and especially his extensive research on what is known today as TMI – or transmarginal inhibition…and will quickly understand how it is possible for an elite few – who, by the way, don’t graze around on farmville at all and choose instead to control the ‘real’ food producing land on this planet – to create a state of confusion and of constant fear to effectively render the masses passive, apathetic, and submissive…

…and this is but one observation…there’s a lot more than just simple transmarginal inhibition at play here – but this is a good start…

I won’t dwell on Pavlov’s work on transmarginal inhibition or on the fear-mongering, bigotry, hatred, prejudice, and confusion perpetrated by those elite few in positions of authority and power – political, religious, and otherwise…but will recommend that you do your research if you care about your existence on this planet…

Essentially, with a focus towards dividing and conquering, the masses are bombarded with conflicting information, misinformation, and disinformation – effectively rendering the critical mass impotent and confused…

Why?

Simple: …POWER!…power for it’s own sake…

What?

Exactly! In order for one to really comprehend the concept of ‘power for it’s own sake’, one needs to adopt the psycopathic mindset of this pathological system that will never be able to accumulate enough power to satisfy itself…again, I won’t dwell on this and will recommend you spend a bit more time researching how we’ve engineered our societies over the years – look at the birth and spread of dogma – dig into the history of contemporary politics and economics – and find out what concepts like ‘globalization’ really mean…if you care, that is…

Contemporary global institutions – governments, corporations, organized religion, institutions of learning – all reflect the pathology of the psychopath…if you dig a little deeper, you’ll quickly realize how everything we’ve been conditioned into believing and accepting as the framework of our world, belief system, existence, and (gasp!) hereafter; is but a necessary illusion – a necessary illusion engineered to sustain the foundation from which the psychopath can exercise maximum control…and believe me, you won’t have to dig too deep to start seeing things that weren’t there when all you did was scratch the surface…start digging for the truth – if you care, that is…

The pathological system requires the critical mass to take a particular path that is to the advantage of the psychopath in control – this is always the case – therefore: the economic meltdown – and the subsequent public money payouts to private enterprise coffers, the fear we have of each other – and the accompanying hatred we have towards each other, the unnecessary wars, tension, chaos, exaggerated claims of epidemics forcing mass inoculations etc. – didn’t all happen by mere chance – and those who contribute to it (and participate in it) day to day, for the most part, have no clue of what they are doing…the pathological system takes advantage of basic human weaknesses like greed and avarice while the psychopath carefully manoeuvres the ignorant…look closely and you’ll see links – very strong links between what seem to be disparate events and elements…and if you dig deep enough, you’ll see clearly what this path is that the psychopath wants the critical mass to take…do your research – if you dare, that is…

So, what can I do about it?

Well, for those mass-protesting, using violence, and employing aggressive action against the status quo; I would recommend they step back and re-think the whole thing – this is exactly the reaction the pathological system seeks from the masses to give it the justification it needs to impose martial law and civil repression - critical to the success of the next phase of its masterplan of control…violence and aggression will only bring about more violence and aggression…

For the rest of us: get educated on what’s really going on around…spend less time fertilizing make believe crops and more time engaged in the real world…remember that the pathological system depends on the psychopath to remain completely anonymous and out of sight of the masses - exposing the psychopath effectively crushes the agenda – because the agenda is baseless and depends simply on the blind compliance of the ignorant…if we choose to not be ignorant, then the tail can no longer wag the dog…

“Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.” – Noam Chomsky

Think about this for a bit…

Start caring…if you dare, that is…

- The Ranting Dream

What does poverty mean to you?

A lot of people I know are jumping on the ‘eliminate global poverty‘ bandwagon – because it’s cool…

“Let’s collect blankets and used clothes and ship ‘em off to Afghanistan. Then let’s make those poor souls pose for the camera wearing my ‘donated’ apparel, so that I can show-off to my friends that I am fighting global poverty“

Power to you…if that is your perception of reality – power to you!

Allow me to vent for a bit:

…please don’t send damaged and soiled junk to someone just because you have the need to get ‘rid of it’…

Giving lip-service to ‘fighting poverty’ is not an opportunity for the rest of us to collect ‘brownie-points’ from some dude way up in the heavens somewhere…don’t even go there…

Neither is our perception of ‘poverty’ anywhere near the harsh reality that it really is…

We choose to oversimplify and stereotype the affliction of poverty to fit a certain ‘mold’ because we are too afraid to face up to the brutality that it is…in fact, many of us even look down on the underprivileged – yes we do!…

Here is what poverty really looks like:

“Poverty goes beyond lack of income. It encompasses economic, social, and governance dimensions. Economically, the poor are not only deprived of income and resources, but of opportunities. Markets and jobs are often difficult to access, because of low capabilities and geographical and social exclusion. Limited access to education affects the ability of the poor to get jobs and to obtain information that could improve the quality of their lives. Poor health due to inadequate nutrition, hygiene and health services further limits their prospects for work and from realizing their mental and physical potential. This fragile position is exacerbated by insecurity. Living in marginal conditions with no resources to fall back on, shocks become hard or impossible to offset. The situation is made worse by the structure of societies and institutions that tends to exclude the poor from participating in decision-making over the direction of social and economic development.”
- Global Poverty Report, G8 Okinawa Summit, July 2000

Some stats before the rant:

1. “There are still around 1 billion people living at the margins of survival on less than US$1 a day, with 2.6 billion—40 percent of the world’s population—living on less than US$2 a day.” – page 25 of the 2007 Human Development Report (HDR) by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

2. “More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening.” – Ibid

3. “The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.” – Ibid

4. “…26,500-30,000 children (under the age of 5) die each day due to poverty. And they die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.” – adapted from UNICEF statistics, 2006

5. “Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.” – State of the World’s Children, UNICEF, 1999

6. “Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.” – State of the World, Issue 287, New Internationalist

7. “1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometre, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 litres per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 litres of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.)” – 2007 Human Development Report (HDR) by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

8. “Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.” – Ibid

9. “Number of children in the world: 2.2 billion…Number of children in poverty: 1.0 billion (half of the world’s children, folks – HALF of ALL the innocent children in the world!!!) – State of the World’s Children, UNICEF, 2005

10. “The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.” – The World’s Richest People, Forbes, 2007

11. “For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment.” – Based on World Bank data (March 3, 2008)

12. “The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money.” – Debt – The facts, Issue 312, New Internationalist

13. “20% of the population in the developed nations, consume 86% of the world’s goods.” – 1998 Human Development Report (HDR) by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

Here’s the ‘kicker‘ – straight from page 37 of the 1998 Human Development Report (HDR) by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP):

- Amount of money spent on COSMETICS in the US (annually): $ 8.0 billion
- Money needed to make sure EVERYONE in the world receives basic education (annually): $ 6.0 billion
- Money needed to ensure EVERYONE in the world has access to clean water and sanitation (annually): $ 9.0 billion

or this one – same report, same page:

- Amount of money spent on ICE-CREAM consumption in EUROPE (annually): $ 11.0 billion
- Amount of money spent on PERFUMES in the US (annually): $ 12.0 billion
- Money needed to provide reproductive health for ALL women in the world (annually): $ 12.0 billion
- Money needed to ensure EVERYONE in the world has access to basic health-care and nutrition (annually): $ 13.0 billion

and if your heart has not already sunk – same report, same page:

- Money spent on PET FOOD in the US and EUROPE (annually): $ 17.0 billion
- Money spent on CIGARETTES in EUROPE (annually): $ 50.0 billion
- Money spent on ALCOHOLIC DRINKS in EUROPE (annually): $ 105.0 billion
- MILITARY spending around the world (annually): $ 780.0 billion

Why is this important???…after all, aren’t these ‘underprivileged’ types not where they are because of their own doing??? Lazy, superstitious, backward, ignorant, fanatics…

Not really! - there is some validity in the argument that poverty is more a state of mind and attitude than anything else – but the affliction of poverty runs much deeper than that - and the perpetrators are none other than the ‘privileged‘…

“Cutbacks in health, education and other vital social services around the world have resulted from structural adjustment policies prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as conditions for loans and repayment. In addition, developing nation governments are required to open their economies to compete with each other and with more powerful and established industrialized nations. To attract investment, poor countries enter a spiraling race to the bottom to see who can provide lower standards, reduced wages and cheaper resources. This has increased poverty and inequality for most people. It also forms a backbone to what we today call globalization. As a result, it maintains the historic unequal rules of trade.”

“Inequality is increasing around the world while the world appears to globalize. Even the wealthiest nation has the largest gap between rich and poor compared to other developed nations. In many cases, international politics and various interests have led to a diversion of available resources from domestic needs to western markets. Historically, politics and power play by the elite leaders and rulers have increased poverty and dependency. These have often manifested themselves in wars, hot and cold, which have often been trade- and resource-related. Mercantilist practices, while presented as free trade, still happen today. Poverty is therefore not just an economic issue, it is also an issue of political economics.”

“Around the world, 27–30,000 children die every day. That is equivalent to 1 child dying every 3 seconds, 20 children dying every minute, a 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every week, or 10–11 million children dying every year. Over 50 million children died between 2000 and 2005. The silent killers are poverty, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. In spite of the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.”

“People are hungry not because of lack of availability of food, or “over” population, but because they are too poor to afford the food. Politics and economic conditions have led to poverty and dependency around the world. Addressing world hunger therefore implies addressing world poverty as well. If food production is further increased and provided to more people while the underlying causes of poverty are not addressed, hunger will still continue because people will not be able to purchase food.”

“We often hear leaders from rich countries telling poor countries that aid and loans will only be given when they show they are stamping out corruption. While that definitely needs to happen, the rich countries themselves are often active in the largest forms of corruption in those poor countries, and many economic policies they prescribe have exacerbated the problem. Corruption in developing countries definitely must be high on the priority lists, but so too must it be on the priority lists of rich countries.”

“The UN World Summit for September 2005 is supposed to review progress since the Millennium Declaration, adopted by all Member States in 2000. However, the US has proposed enormous changes to an outcome document that is to be signed by all members. There are changes on almost all accounts, including striking any mention of the Millennium Development Goals, that aim for example, to halve poverty and world hunger by 2015. This has led to concerns that the outcome document will be weakened. Developing countries are also worried about stronger text on human rights and about giving the UN Security Council more powers.”

“While the world is globalizing and the mainstream media in many developed nations point out that economies are booming (or, in periods of downturns, that the current forms of “development” and economic policies are the only ways for people to prosper), there is an increasing number of poor people who are missing out on this apparent boom, while increasingly fewer people are becoming far wealthier. Some of these facts and figures are an eye-opener, to say the least.”

(From the Global Issues Website)

Wake up my dear friends – and smell the mocha java…

The poor are only going to get poorer because the rich can only get richer if the poor get poorer…and the rich want to get richer at any cost…

Those used, soiled, torn, blankets are an incredible show of compassion and humanity – and power to you for taking the time and making the effort – but that’s all they are – a show!!!

The CIVIL SOCIETY paradigm must root itself deep within the fabric of our existence if we are to take on the affliction of global poverty head-on! Stop the lip-service…get real!!!

Thank you for allowing me to vent…

- The Ranting Dream

The hot air rant…

Apparently some brave souls recently hacked into the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (Hadley CRU) and picked up files, e-mail messages, and other relevant information and published them on the internet for the benefit of all…

Why this information leak is critical is because Hadley CRU is one of the four ‘official‘ sources of global temperature data used by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – and the folks whose e-mail exchanges have been disclosed to the public are some of the most influential scientists who have been pushing the ‘global warming‘ agenda for many, many years…

The leaked e-mail messages are shocking in that they expose the ‘manipulation‘ of data done to support the anthropogenic global warming theory – together with private interal admissions between these folks that the earth is not quite heating up as they make it up to be…not surprisingly, the e-mails also indicate the use of peer pressure to exclude global warming skeptics (towards whom these ‘insiders‘ also express great animosity) from participating in the debate on climate change and/or contributing their knowledge and information to the same…

Knowing what I know about today’s scientific community (and from first-hand experience listening to and observing a young ‘neuro-science‘ student I know – whose sole purpose in life seems to be the endless pursuit and accumulation of personal wealth), I’m not overly shocked or surprised by these revelations – these folks are driven more by their egos and the accumulation of personal wealth than they are by their conscience or moral/ethical principles…I digress…

An email from (now ex-) CRU Director Phil Jones explicitly illustrates the lying and manipulation (I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting key words in bold and italics to illustrate my point):

“…I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline. Mike’s series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90. The Global estimate for 1999 with data through Oct is +0.35C cf. 0.57 for 1998…”

Another e-mail from Kevin Trenberth (US National Center for Atmospheric Research) interestingly reads:

“…The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate…”

I will note that Trenberth has on many occassions written articles about the planet not warming as predicted (or presented) – so I’m inclined to believe that he’s expressing an honest concern rather than contributing to the misinformation…but who knows…

What is very interesting in all of this is that a very small group of ‘elite‘ scientists – who have been assigned the responsibility of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating critical data – seem to have the ability to influence and massage the information that the rest of the scientific community receives…and there seem to be no safeguards or audits in place to ensure that they aren’t misleading the rest of the planet having supposedly sold their souls to the highest bidder…

There is no doubt in my mind that all the information we receive today is tampered with and intentionally manipulated by entities that only care about the success of their agenda – we have many examples from our recent past to prove that assertion…and unfortunately, just like we have done to all our endeavors, our scientific establishment is structured just like any corporate or military entity: bureaucratic, hierarchial, and with highly compartmentalized (silo mentality) fields of pursuit – thereby hindering ‘honest‘ and open communication and collaboration within the scientific community…and with the growing ‘corporatization‘ of our scientific pursuits, we’ve inoculated the ideals of competition, backstabbing, and mistrust into the system…

Coming back to these scalding e-mails, there are messages from seemingly highly educated scientists expressing their desire to “…beat the crap out of…” skeptics – and in a ‘celebratory‘ message following the death of one of the earliest climate change skeptics, one of these ‘elite‘ scientists is on record stating: “…in an odd way this is cheering news…”

Sick! (and sad too)…

Click HERE and HERE from some gems from this fiasco…

“

In 1951, the U.S Congress established the National Science Foundation (NSF) to provide financial support for post-World War II scientific research. Soon thereafter, someone at NSF or on the National Science Board, which is charged with oversight of NSF, had an idea, a really corrosive idea, the implementation of which would lead to the perversion and corruption of American science for decades ahead. The idea was that reviewers of scientific proposals to NSF for government research grant money should be anonymous; the crux of the idea being that anonymity would encourage honesty in evaluation even when those reviewers might be competitors or might have vested interests. Thus the concept of anonymous peer review was birthed.[...]

For decades, the use of anonymity within NSF, NASA, and elsewhere has been gradually corrupting American science. Unethical reviewers – secure, camouflaged, masked and hidden through anonymity – all too often make untrue and/or pejorative statements to eliminate their professional competitors. Nowadays, it is a pervasive, corrupt system that encourages and rewards the darkest elements of human nature.

“

(Basic Cause of Current Corruption in American Science, Herndon, J. Marvin, 2008)

I won’t dwell on where I’m going with this rant…do your own research…but I will give you a hint: this whole ‘carbon tax‘ scam that is being shoved down our throats by the ‘global warming‘ scare-mongers out there is simply another money making scheme…many Wall Street big-wigs have already positioned themselves to rake in tremendous profits from this scam…

“…the carbon market could become double the size of the vast oil market if the new breed of City players who trade greenhouse gas emissions through the EU’s emissions trading scheme have their way… The speed of that growth will depend on whether the Copenhagen summit gives a go-ahead for a low-carbon economy, but Ager says whatever happens schemes such as the ETS will expand around the globe.” (Terry Macalister, Carbon trading could be worth twice that of oil in next decade | The Guardian, 28 November 2009)

“…the large financial conglomerates, involved in derivative trade, including JP Morgan Chase, Bank America Merrill Lynch, Barclay’s, Citi Bank, Nomura, Société Générale, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are actively involved in carbon trading.” ( FACTBOX: Investment banks in carbon trading | Reuters, 14 September 2009)

And you thought Al Gore was a gift from up above, eh?…and by the way, Gore suddenly had a change of heart and canceled his Copenhagen summit commitment…this happened AFTER the e-mails and the apparent ‘inconvenient truth‘ therein made the headlines…interesting, eh?

[update - 2009/12/15: Al Gore did eventually make it to the summit...but ended up misquoting a scientist and created another mess for himself...a rant for another day]

I am inclined to believe (and have been for a long time before any of this surfaced) that this whole ‘global warming‘ fear-mongering by our political goons is but another scam – and while I do accept the fact that our indiscriminate raping of this planet is having a negative adverse effect on the climate amongst other things; I reject the spin, fear-mongering, and the ‘carbon tax‘ nonsense that is being pushed aggressively by the crooks in politics.

Sadly, we’ll probably never know who is telling us the truth and who is lying to us…maybe the hackers (and the e-mails they have leaked) are for real, or maybe this whole thing has been manufactured by yet another cunning entity to push a specific agenda in their favor…such is the misery we’ve carved for our own species…all in the endless, greedy, and selfish pursuit of the shiny, glitzy, glittery illusion that makes our superficial world go round…

- The Ranting Dream

A vacancy in the axis of evil…

Iran – a member of what was labeled ‘the axis of evil‘ by the Bush administration – started engaging in dialog with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (Britain, China, France, Russia, the US of A), and Germany in Geneva in October…the primary objective of the talks: to discuss Iran’s (apparently non-existent) nuclear weapons program…

Now here’s the twist in the tale…

Let’s have a show of hands for all those who remember the rhetoric and spin that has been fed to us since 09/11/01 claiming that Iran (like it’s chums in the ‘axis of evil’) has a thriving underground nuclear weapons program that poses a threat to all of humanity…okay: hands down folks – and you better sit down for what’s coming next…

Mohamed El-Baradei – the outgoing Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (a UN outfit) – recently said that (and I paraphrase) “…there is no credible evidence that Iran is developing nuclear weapons…”

…and this gets better…

Soon after, the New York Times reported on a leaked confidential IAEA document that “…concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired ’sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable’ atom bomb…” [CLICK HERE for the article]

Now do they already have nukes or don’t they??? Do they have the capacity and capability to develop nuclear weapons or not???

I thought we may have had some clarity on this issue from Timothy Hampton, a nuclear expert with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization who had joined the United Nations’ team for the October talks. Unfortunately, Tim died in a bizzare accident at the end of October – after falling off the 17th floor of the United Nations’ Vienna International Center. I wonder what Timothy knew that didn’t sit well with the rest of the team involved in the ‘talks‘? And what the heck was he thinking jumping off the 17th floor of that building?

Reminds me of Dr. Kelly…remember Dr. Kelly??? A British microbiologist and UN weapons inspector, Dr. David Kelly was openly talking to the media about the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq…and was writing a book to that effect with some damaging information about how the British Ministry of Defense (and everyone – all the way up to Tony Blair) was trying very hard to spin otherwise. This was in 2003. Dr. Kelly was found dead under a tree about a mile from his home and the official reports claimed suicide – however, a multitude of medical professionals (13 doctors to be precise) have asserted, and claim to be able to prove without doubt, that it is medically impossible for Dr. Kelly to have died in the manner that the official reports suggest. They have come together and mounted a legal battle against the powers that be to overturn the ‘suicide‘ verdict…following his death, an unopened letter on his desk revealed a nasty message from the ‘heart‘ of the British Government threatening him with ‘consequences‘ (I believe they had threatened specifically to have him ’sacked’) if he did not stop talking about what he knew to the media…

I digress…

El-Baradei’s denial still stands despite the noise in the media about the leaked confidential document from his agency that clearly contradicts his denial - and wait, there’s more…US National Security Adviser James Jones agrees with Baradei…that there is ‘no credible evidence‘ that Iran has (or is developing) nuclear weapons…

So either the ‘god-fearing-fanatically-religious-born-again-believer-thou-shalt-not-bear-false-witness‘ moron Bush Jr., his personal puppet Blair, and their cronies were lying (which is not a far-fetched notion), or this leaked IAEA document is a load of bullshit, or El-Baradei and the new regime in Washington are full of it…

This is truly a very interesting turn of events – up until June of this year, the powers that be were pulling all the strings they could to incite a ‘soft revolution‘ in Iran with the objective of forcing a ‘regime change‘…and they had built their entire case on the spin that Ahmedinajad was ‘satan manifested‘ with an arsenal of nukes and an evil agenda of torching the planet…

Sadly, just like they created the monsters we now call the Taliban to fight a guerilla war with the Soviets, the British and US intelligence, with assistance from Pakistani intelligence, created another dangerous terrorist organization called the ‘Jundullah‘ – comprising primarily of fundamentalist Baluchis seeking autonomy in that region (Iran/Pakistan)…all the while positioning the Jundullah to look like an Iran-grown and supported terrorist front…

Jundullah recently changed its organization’s name to ‘People’s Resistance Movement of Iran‘ – though the real ‘people‘ of that part of the world want to have nothing to do with this movement and its resistance – and its leader, Abdul-Malak Rigi is an ex-Taliban fighter and known smuggler involved in the international narcotics drug ring that is active on the borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran – and for those who have done their research, the lucrative ($ 50 billion-ish) narcotics drug trade in that region was created in the ’70s and is still supported and protected by the CIA, and managed today by the Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai…[CLICK HERE for more on this]

“After meeting with the U.S. officials in the U.S. embassy in Pakistan four years ago, they (the U.S. officials) promised to help us with everything we needed. We received monetary and armed supports from the United States… We received orders from them to carry out the terrors inside Iran.” – The brother of Jundullah’s leader, Abdul-Hamid Rigi, caught for his involvement in detonating a bomb in a mosque prior to Iran’s elections in June…

And all this seems to have been going on since the moron’s (Bush Jr.) regime (if not earlier)…

“…teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups…” – Seymour Hersh (veteran US journalist) – 2006

“The Iranian accusations are true“ - Richard Sale, intelligence correspondent for United Press International, referring to charges that the US is using the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) organization and other groups to carry out cross-border operations in Iran - 2006

“The President hasn’t notified the Congress that American troops are operating inside Iran, so it’s a very serious question about the constitutional framework under which we are now conducting military operations in Iran.” – Sam Gardiner (retired US Army Colonel who specializes in war-game scenarios) – 2006

While I scratch my head in bewilderment at (and struggle to make sense of) these recent events, one thing is certain – Iran is no longer within the ‘axis of evil‘ – whatever the deal is that has been struck, we now have a vacancy for any ‘natural-resource-rich‘ nation out there to fill…send those applications in folks…

I’m very worried though about these terrorist outfits that have been armed and trained by organizations like the CIA that will continue to unleash atrocities on innocent human beings…the great nations of our planet seem to have no use anymore for the Jundullahs and the Mujahideen-e Khalqs that they created and empowered since they seem to have kissed and made up with Ahmedinajad and the Ayatollahs…but these heavily armed, trained mercenaries (just like their Afghan counterparts, the Taliban) - sponsored and paid for by our tax dollars (and by the thriving narcotis drug trade that is propped up and managed by folks on our payroll) – will not stop terrorizing the innocent and helpless citizens of that god-forsaken land for generations to come…

“We started with Iraq in the ‘axis of evil’ side, when we thought they did not yet have nuclear weapons, and that sent the signal to others that they better get them quick.” - Former Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA)

- The Ranting Dream

The fall of the mighty greenback…

So now that the world’s darling fiat currency is taking hit after hit around the globe, what can we look forward to in the foreseeable future?

For starters, most economies are now switching to other currencies away from the US dollar – sadly, much of the chaos and disruption in the world, and many political and other assassinations that we have known in our time, were either a direct or indirect result of policies adopted by the great US of A in its quest to protect the ‘reserve currency‘ status of its (not so mighty anymore) dollar…

Turkey announced in late October that it would now deal in national currencies for the $ 65 billion a year it trades with Russia, China, and Iran…

According to Britain’s Independent newspaper, Russia, a bunch of Arab states, China, and France have held secret meetings recently to discuss transitioning away from the US Dollar in international oil trade. Rumor has it that the currencies of choice going forward will be the euro, the Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan, gold, and a new ‘unified‘ currency of leading Arab oil producing countries. If this is actually true, then it would be one of the final nails in the coffin for the power of the greenback…

Of course, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Ahmedinajad of Iran are feverishly forging ahead with flushing the US dollar out of their foreign revenues and reserves…for those who care to research, the primary reason why Chavez and the Iranian regime are made to look like villains in western propaganda is because of their continued refusal to accept the US dollar as the ‘only‘ currency they will accept for the oil they produce. Chavez is actually very lucky to be alive – he was in great turmoil when he first came out demanding to be paid in euros for Venezuelan oil…and Saddam paid the ultimate price for refusing to exchange Iraq’s oil for US dollars…I digress…

“The U.S. economy will deteriorate into 2011 as the effects of excess consumption and the financial bubble linger… The dollar’s fall won’t stop until there’s a change to the global currency system.” – Daisuke Uno, Chief Strategist, Sumitomo Mitsubishi Banking Corp.

According to Bloomberg, central banks across the globe are raking in the euro and the yen while flushing out the greenback from their systems…and if you follow Max Keiser’s work, he is convinced that Russia and China (which is the USA’s biggest creditor - owning over $ 800 billion of its debt) are rejecting the greenback with the sole intention of collapsing the US economy to a point of no return…and we know for a fact that all the dollars that the US has been printing over the years are not backed by any gold bullion reserves – so the only thing propping the currency up today is its status as the ‘petro-dollar‘…take away the ‘petro‘ and the dollar is practically worthless…

So what does all of this mean to the common American citizen?

In the worst case, it means that the great US of A declares force majeure (bankruptcy) - in which case, sorry common citizen…you’re technically screwed…I won’t dwell on this as I have already ranted enough about the possibility of the US declaring force majeure and adopting a North American currency with Canada and Mexico called the ‘amero‘ (CLICK HERE for some amero-chatter)…

But let’s work within the realm of hope and assume for everyone’s benefit that extreme measures are unnecessary and that the storm will pass…

In that case, the common-folk in the (slowly slipping away) US of A will have to face the ugly, ferocious monster known as hyper-inflation…

Basically, all the paper floating around the world will make its way back to the shores of the (now not so great anymore) US of A because that will be practically the only place on this planet where you can trade that paper for goods and services. Now this does not mean that the common American citizen will become more wealthy due to the excess influx of dollar bills in the system back at home…the amount of wealth does not change (if not reduced) but is now represented by a lot more paper than it used to be…

With more paper floating around, people start buying more…and prices start skyrocketing…

A good example I read somewhere explained it like this: let’s say that today there is one apple available to be bought for every dollar to buy it…tomorrow, the same apple will be available to be bought for every 10 or 20 or 30 dollars to buy it – simply because there are many more dollars floating around to purchase the same apple…in economic terms, this situation is called a ‘decrease in the purchasing power‘ of the currency…

Of course, the resulting skyrocketing cost of living, massive loss of jobs, and explosive increase in poverty levels within the US will affect economies around the globe – so I can completely relate to those who claim that the worst is yet to come – unfortunately, if countries like the US as much as sneeze, the bulk of the world’s poorest nations end up with pneumonia…so everyone will suffer from this fallout…

Sadly, we’re at a stage in this chaos and mess where most of us can only wait and watch…and hope for anything but the absolute worst…

“There are growing signs of a major shift in world currency alignments. Since March, the US dollar has steadily declined, depreciating by 13.3 percent on a trade-weighted basis. Last week the decline accelerated, driving gold prices to record levels and prompting a number of Asian central banks to intervene on currency markets to slow the dollar’s fall…The US is to become a low-cost producer of goods for the world market. The American working class is to experience levels of exploitation which it hasn’t faced in a century. Its wages and living standards are to be brought more closely in line with those faced by the super-exploited workers of Asia…The working class of the United States, however, has no intention of submitting to its own impoverishment. The stage is being set for a revival of the class struggle in the US and internationally on a colossal scale.” – Barry Grey (World Socialist Web Site)

- The Ranting Dream