Tuesday, February 28, 2012

FIRE the Santa Cruz Public Library Director and Directorate

Mayor/City County/City Manager/County of Santa Cruz:
02.28.2012

COMPLAINT:

I would like to take this opportunity to direct the city of Santa Cruz to FIRE the current director and directorate of the
Santa Cruz Public Library system.

Here are my main reasons:

1. A few years ago, the downtown library ruthlessly took over the FREE BOOK EXCHANGE in the front lobby
of the downtown Library.  They then began selling books and illegally spying on patrons with surveillance cameras.

2. The public event boards and areas for free fliers and information at all library branches has been insidiously used to restrict
free public information and CENSOR any fliers, pamphlets or materials made available by the public.

3. This library system fails to provide proper privacy protection to its patrons when using the computer/internet network
by FORCING patrons to divulge their identity when logging onto the internet.

To go into detail, a public library is a public institution that is instituted to provide access to books, magazines,
newspapers and other audio-visual-multimedia materials to patrons for FREE.  It is NOT a business that should be selling
books for profit in the front lobby or inside branch entrances, thereby creating an economic apartheid system of denying reading
materials to patrons simply due to their lack of funds or their inability to pay.  As well, spying on patrons with surveillance cameras in
ANY public facility is illegal and an affront to the dignity, respect and integrity of the public.

Secondly, the 1st amendment is the LAW in this country.  Citizens have a right to put out any flier, poster, or any
other informational material they wish, WITHOUT the approval or consent of library personnel at any branch.  As it is now,
dubious guidelines have been instituted that RESTRICT and CENSOR free speech throughout the Santa Cruz Public
Library system.  Much free "non-approved" public fliers and information that certain library personnel
don't like or approve of goes missing and stolen on a daily basis.  This is particularily true for the downtown  branch.

Thirdly, the right to personal PRIVACY is also the LAW in this country.  The 4th amendment protects citizens rights to
unwarranted, unreasonable and illegal searches of patrons internet activity or identity.  Having to use a personal
library indentification number to be able to "log-on" and use the internet is a gross violation of personal privacy and
opens the door to ILLEGAL police state spying and surveillance of what SHOULD be private, confidential and anonymous
use of the internet.

Noting these infractions, it is HIGH TIME to FIRE the current director and directorate of the Santa Cruz Public Library
system.

The public needs a public library system that provides FREE books and reading materials to the public, does NOT illegally spy and surveil the public
BOTH with surveillance cameras and with a forced identification internet use policy, and respects and upholds the right of free speech
for all library patrons.

Sincerely,

Chuck Wagner
Soquel Ave
Santa Cruz, California
95060

e-mail:  yikedog@lawyer.com


CC: SC Library Director
       Santa Cruz City Manager
       Santa Cruz County Comissioners
       Santa Cruz City Council
       Governor Jerry Brown
       Representative Sam Farr
       Santa Cruz Sentinel
       Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors

Monday, February 27, 2012

The Saudi/Israeli Alliance

The Intel Hub
Dean Henderson

February 27, 2012

(Excerpted from Chapter 5: Persian Gulf Rent-a-Sheik: Big Oil & Their Bankers…)
Iran’s Press TV reported yesterday that both the US and the Saudis began funding Syrian rebels eight months ago. After funding Libyan Islamist rebels to overthrow Qaddafi, the Saudis and their fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) despots have moved on in an effort to bring down Syria’s Assad government on their road to Tehran.
Both the Muslim Brotherhood House of Saudi and Cabalist Israel share a long history with their Freemason brethren at British intelligence dating back to the Egyptian Mystery Schools.
The inbred Illuminati banker oligarchy runs all three secret societies and controls the global economy via central bank monopoly and hegemony over oil, arms and drug trades.
This Rothschild-led cabal of trillionaire Satanists manufacture fanatics within the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths to divide the people and maximize war profits.
Since Chevron discovered oil in Saudi Arabia in 1938, the House of Saud monarchy has increasingly served as paymaster for Rothschild covert military adventures.  It’s part of an oil for arms quid pro quo.
The Saudis sent over $3.8 billion to the CIA-trained Afghan mujahadeen.  Their emissary to the Americans was Osama bin Laden.
They gave $35 million to the Nicaraguan contras. Northrup/Lockheed bribe recipient Adnan Khashoggi played a key role in supplying Richard Secord’s Enterprise with House of Saud funding.  But while contramujahadeen efforts got the most newsprint, the House of Saud was busy bankrolling counterinsurgency around the world. and
In Africa the Saudis provided support decades ago for the National Front for Salvation (NFS), which operated from bases in Chad in its attempts to overthrow Libyan President Mohamar Qaddafi.
Chad has long been an important country in Exxon Mobil’s North Africa oil production schemes.  In 1990- following a successful Libyan-backed counter-coup against the Chad government which was sponsoring NFS- the US evacuated 350 NFS leaders with Saudi financing.  The US restored $5 million in aid to the dictatorial Kenyan government of Daniel Arap Moi so Kenya would house the NFS leaders, whom other African governments refused to take in.  Arap Moi later aided CIA covert operations in Somalia, which the Saudis financed.
The Saudis bankrolled Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA rebels in Angola in their brutal effort to topple the socialist government of MPLA President Jose dos Santos.  Upon CIA request, the Saudis sent millions to Morocco to pay for that country’s training of UNITA.  Angola has huge oil reserves.  In 1985 Chevron Texaco accounted for 75% of Angola’s oil revenue.  In 1990 29% of Exxon Mobil’s US-bound crude came from Angola. An annual report of De Beers- the Oppenheimer-family tentacle which monopolizes the world diamond trade- bragged of buying up UNITA diamonds.  Savimbi was welcomed at the White House by President Reagan.
The Saudis funded RENAMO in their CIA-backed Pink Plan terror campaign against the nationalist government of Mozambique.  In the mid-1980s both the Saudis and Oman sent weapons to RENAMO through the Comoros Islands on behalf of Israel and apartheid South Africa.  Two Comoros Presidents- Ali Soilah and Ahmed Abdullah Abderemane- were assassinated by mercenaries who were protecting the arms traffic.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – formerly Zaire- Illuminati puppet Mobutu Sese-Seiko ruled with an iron fist for nearly four decades. He served as City of London guard dog of Zaire’s rich cobalt, uranium and molybdenum reserves- all of which are vital to the US nuclear weapons program.  Zaire is also rich in copper, chromium, zinc, cadmium, tin, gold and platinum.  While Mobutu amassed over $5 billion in Swiss, Belgian and French bank accounts, Zaire’s people lived in squalor.
Mobutu was installed in the early 1960’s after CIA agent Frank Carlucci- later Reagan and Bush Defense Secretary and now chairman of bin Laden family investment advisor Carlyle Group- worked with gangsters to assassinate the first prime minister of the Congo Patrice Lumumba.  Under Mobutu’s reign the US had military bases at Kitona and Kamina- from where the CIA prosecuted covert wars against Angola, Mozambique and Namibia with House of Saud funding.  Mobutu’s DSP palace guard was trained by the Israeli Mossad.  In the late 1970’s the Saudis paid for imported Moroccan troops to save Mobutu from Katanganese secessionists led by Laurant Kabila.
Mobutu was deposed in 1998 by forces loyal to Kabila- a friend of Fidel Castro.  The Saudis began financing military forays into the Congo by the governments of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. This destabilization of the Lake’s region led to the Rwandan genocide.  Kabila was assassinated in 2000, after he refused to play Illuminati ball.  Over four million people have died in the DRC over the past decade.
Lumumba and Kabila weren’t the first African nationalists targeted for elimination by the inbreds.  During the 1950′s and 1960′s the CIA and French intelligence assassinated Moroccan nationalist Mehdi Ben Barka- whose Union Nationale de Forces Populaire threatened US puppet monarch King Hassan II.  Giunea’s leftist President Sekou Toure and Tunisian socialist Habib Bourgiba were also assassinated by Western intelligence agencies.
In 1993 Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir accused the Saudis of providing arms to Johnny Garung’s Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA).  The southern part of Sudan- which the SPLA is trying to partition- is rich in oil.  Mossad has supplied the SPLA for years through Kenya.  In 1996 the Clinton Administration announced military aid to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda. The aid was funneled into an SPLA offensive on Khartoum.  The crisis in Darfur is a direct result of Saudi/Israeli/US meddling on behalf of Big Oil.
Algerian President Chadli Benjladid accused the Saudis of bankrolling the barbarous Armed Islamic Group (AIG) who- after Algeria protested US ignition of the Gulf War- launched a reign of terror targeted at the Algerian people. Benjladid was forced to resign. This was followed by hasty passage of the Hydrocarbon Law- which opened the historically socialist country’s oilfields to the Four Horsemen.  The CIA then helped AIG terrorists travel to Bosnia, where they helped destroy socialist Yugoslavia.
Algeria has a long history of defying Big Oil. President Houari Boumedienne- one of the great Arab socialist leaders of all time- initiated calls for a more just international economic order in fiery speeches at the UN. He encouraged producer cartels as a means to Third World emancipation from the London bankers.  Independent Italian oilman Enrico Mattei began negotiating with Algeria and other nationalistic OPEC states who wanted to sell their oil internationally without having to deal with the Four Horsemen.  In 1962 Mattei died in a mysterious plane crash.  Former French intelligence agent Thyraud de Vosjoli says his agency was involved.  William McHale of Time magazine, who covered Mattei’s attempt to break the Big Oil cartel, also died under strange circumstances.
In 1975 the US sent $138 million in military aid through Saudi Arabia to Yemen, in hopes of heading off a Marxist revolution there.  The effort failed and the country split into North and South Yemen for two decades before merging again in the 1990’s. US/Saudi aid to both Yemen and Oman continues to this day in an effort to stamp out nationalist movements in those countries, which border the Kingdom and its vast Four Horsemen-controlled oilfields.
During the US-led effort to partition Bosnia from Yugoslavia, Saudi King Faud led calls for an end to the UN arms embargo.  When the embargo was lifted, the Saudis funded Bosnian Muslim arms purchases.  Later the Saudis bankrolled the heroin-kingpin Kosovo Liberation Army, as well as NLA Albanian separatists attacking the nationalist government of Macedonia. The Saudis even funded CIA covert operations in Italy, where they plunked down $10 million in 1985 to help destroy the Communist Party.
Recently Saudi Prince Bandar donated $1 million to the Bush Sr. Presidential Library and another $1 million to a Barbara Bush literacy campaign. On the evening of September, 11, 2001- Prince Bandar smoked cigars in the White House with President Bush, while members of the bin Laden family were evacuated from the US in airspace shut down to all other traffic.
Were the Saudis simply playing their historic paymaster role in the prosecution of 911?
The largest shareholder in News Corporation – parent of both the banker mouthpiece Wall Street Journalpsyop – is Rupert Murdoch. The 2nd largest owner is Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal. and the Fox News
Is Fox News a covert Rothschild mind control operation against the American people?
Sources:
“Mercenary Mischief in Zaire”. Jane Hunter. Covert Action Information Bulletin. Spring 1991.
Hot Money and the Politics of Debt. R.T. Naylor. The Linden Press/Simon & Schuster. New York. 1987. p.238
Hunter
Earth First! Journal. Vol. 26, #1. Samhain/Yule. 2005
“US to Aid Regimes to Oust Government”. David B. Ottaway. Washington Post. 11-10-96
The Great Heroin Coup: Drugs, Intelligence and International Fascism. Henrik Kruger. South End Press. Boston. 1980. p.43
The Gulf: Scramble for Security. Raj Choudry. Sreedhar Press. New Dehli.
1983. p.14
Dude, Where’s My Country. Michael Moore. Warner Books. New York. 2003.
ABC News Online. 10-19-04
Dean Henderson is the author of Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network, The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries and Das Kartell der Federal Reserve. Subscriptions to his Left Hook blog are FREE at www.deanhenderson.wordpress.com

Putin warns West over Syria, Iran

Putin warns West over Syria, Iran

  • AP foreign,
MOSCOW (AP) — Vladimir Putin has accused the United States and its Western allies of supporting the Arab Spring revolts in its own interests and strongly warned against a military intervention in Syria.
Putin said in an article published Monday in the Moscow News daily that the Western push for sanctions against Syrian President Bashar Assad's government was "cynical." He insisted that both the government and opposition forces should pull out of cities to end bloodshed.
Putin defended a Russia-China veto of a U.N. resolution condemning Assad's crackdown on protests, saying that Moscow wouldn't allow the replay of what happened in Libya, where a NATO air campaign helped Libyans end Moammar Gadhafi's regime.
He also warned strongly against any attack on Iran, saying its consequences would be "catastrophic."

Smartphone users give total access to spying

Smartphone users give total access to spying

Published: 27 February, 2012, 00:03
Edited: 27 February, 2012, 00:03

Every time you use your smartphone app your personal information – emails, phone numbers and even photos – is sent off to dozens of Internet companies all over the world. And you are the one who is allowing them access.
­Most users are aware that Internet companies like to collect information on their clients so that they can target their adverts better. But the sheer extent of their spying is shocking. And it’s all buried in the small print of the license agreement few bother to read. Often the information collected has nothing to do with function of the application.
Despite being a social network, Facebook reads your text messages, while photo application Flickr raids your contact book. In turn, video portal Youtube can access and download all of the users’ photographs.
While it is bigger companies that get flak for the privacy policies, at least they are usually careful not to lose or sell their users’ private information. For less reputable outfits, this may not be a concern.
Chris Brauer, co-director of the Centre for Creative and Social Technology at Goldsmiths, University of London, told the Sunday Times many apps are mere “fronts” for data mining companies. Their main source of profit is selling personal information to advertisers.
Once the information passes down the chain, it is almost impossible to trace who will end up with it leaving smartphone owners open to anything from unsolicited advertising to identity theft.
While iPhone maker Apple at least tries to bind its application programmers with a common license agreement, according to Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, Android phone owners leave themselves in the greatest danger.
“Google’s name lends credibility to the Android market place, when in reality it is an unregulated Wild West with hugely intrusive applications being touted as innocent games,” he says.
Pickles points out that customer protection regulation lags years behind in a market that changes beyond recognition from year to year.
But even the most stringent regulation will not save users who voluntarily sign up to give away their most private data.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Rothschilds Want Iran’s Banks

American Free Press
By Pete Papaherakles

February 25, 2012

Could gaining control of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CBI) be one of the main reasons that Iran is being targeted by Western and Israeli powers?
As tensions are building up for an unthinkable war with Iran, it is worth exploring Iran’s banking system compared to its U.S., British and Israeli counterparts.
Some researchers are pointing out that Iran is one of only three countries left in the world whose central bank is not under Rothschild control.
Before 9-11 there were reportedly seven: Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Iran.
By 2003, however, Afghanistan and Iraq were swallowed up by the Rothschild octopus, and by 2011 Sudan and Libya were also gone. In Libya, a Rothschild bank was established in Benghazi while the country was still at war
Islam forbids the charging of interest, a major problem for the Rothschild banking system. Until a few hundred years ago, charging interest was also forbidden in the Christian world and was even punishable by death. It was considered exploitation and enslavement.
Since the Rothschilds took over the Bank of England around 1815, they have been expanding their banking control over all the countries of the world. Their method has been to get a country’s corrupt politicians to accept massive loans, which they can never repay, and thus go into debt to the Rothschild banking powers.
If a leader refuses to accept the loan, he is oftentimes either ousted or assassinated. And if that fails, invasions can follow, and a Rothschild usury-based bank is established.
The Rothschilds exert powerful influence over the world’s major news agencies. By repetition, the masses are duped into believing horror stories about evil villains.
The Rothschilds control the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank of International Settlements. Also they own most of the gold in the world as well as the London Gold Exchange, which sets the price of gold every day.
It is said the family owns over half the wealth of the planet—estimated by Credit Suisse to be $231 trillion—and is controlled by Evelyn Rothschild, the current head of the family. (Continued under ads)
Objective researchers contend that Iran is not being demonized because they are a nuclear threat, just as the Taliban, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Qadaffi were not a threat.
What then is the real reason? Is it the trillions to be made in oil profits, or the trillions in war profits? Is it to bankrupt the U.S. economy, or is it to start World War III? Is it to destroy Israel’s enemies, or to destroy the Iranian central bank so that no one is left to defy Rothschild’s money racket?
It might be any one of those reasons or, worse—it might be all of them.

DHS Lies to Congress About Big Brother Policies

The Intel Hub
By Madison Ruppert

February 24, 2012

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has been leading a valiant effort to reveal the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Big Brother policies which include spying on Americans’ activity on social networks, especially people who express dissenting opinions.
EPIC is now claiming that the DHS actually lied to Congress during a hearing (read the transcript here) surrounding the DHS’s $11.4 million contract to monitor social networks for activity which is fully protected by free speech.
The group first published a significant amount of documents on this program, which was contracted to General Dynamics, in January. However, the second round of previously secret documents obtained by the group shows that the testimony given on the February 16 hearing by DHS was highly misleading.
Indeed, according to an interview given to Raw Story, EPIC found that the DHS actually ordered their analysts to do precisely what they vehemently denied during the hearing.
Ginger McCall, director of EPIC’s Open Government Project, has sent a letter to the ranking members of the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, detailing this deception although aides for subcommittee chairman Patrick Meehan, a Pennsylvania Republican, and ranking member Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, said that they had yet to read the letter, without any further elaboration.
Jackie Speier recently made news here at End the Lie for her opposition to the DHS program and her calls to end the practice – something which other government officials have steered clear of.
According to McCall, “There were several exchanges that [the DHS] had with members of Congress in which they sort of distanced themselves from the idea — that they weren’t engaging in this monitoring of public reaction to government proposals. But that’s… Well, it’s not true, according to the documents we obtained.”
“The DHS testimony, as well as the documents obtained by EPIC, indicate that the agency is monitoring constantly, under very broad search terms, and is not limiting that monitoring to events or activities related to natural disasters, acts of terrorism, or manmade disasters,” McCall explained to lawmakers. “The monitoring is designed to be over-broad, and sweeps in large amounts of First Amendment activity. The DHS has no legal authority to engage in this monitoring.”
Of course the DHS regularly claims that the program is limited by their Privacy Impact Assessment which supposedly limits the amount of personally identifiable information (PII) collected.
This is somewhat like the claims made by FEMA, although at least they openly admit that they associate the author of the content with the content itself.
On the other hand, the DHS maintains that they only use such PII when it is a life and death situation.
However, the documents obtained through EPIC’s hard work reveal that there might be some overlap between the two programs.
In the case of the DHS program, analysts were instructed to look for “both positive and negative reports” about many of the agencies that fall under the DHS umbrella including, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and then the wide-open designation of “organizations outside of DHS.”
Of course, it doesn’t end there with calls to watch social media for discussions pertaining to many policies which the government obviously is worried about including drug policies, matters of cybersecurity, immigration policies and, unsurprisingly, American foreign policy.
Obviously the last item on that list brings up some heated debates and dissent, however, all of these issues are completely and totally covered by our Constitutional right to freedom of speech, hence McCall’s statement that the DHS “has no legal authority” to conduct such activities.
This has a profound effect on free speech online if you feel like a government law enforcement agency — particularly the Department of Homeland Security, which is supposed to look for terrorists — is monitoring your criticism, your dissent, of the government,” McCall told Raw Story.
This is precisely correct and is what some people refer to as the “chilling effect” wherein people will simply stifle their own free speech because they know that some gigantic government agency might be watching over their shoulder – in a fashion even George Orwell probably couldn’t predict – and especially when that same agency is supposed to be out looking for terrorists.
Part of the latest round of documents, which came after DHS officials nonsensically claimed that monitoring of dissent among Americans online was merely discussed and never actually implemented, brought what might be the most interesting document yet.
This is the DHS manual for analysts who monitor social media, which appears to be issued some time in 2001.
The manual, which you can read in full by clicking below, is replete with explicit instructions on what analysts working for the DHS should look out for in their domestic spying activities.
Department of Homeland Security social media monitoring manual
While the hearings have been far from conclusive and General Dynamics has been tight-lipped on the issue, EPIC has resolved to continue their admirable lawsuit against the DHS over their very possibly illegal activities.
They also said that they would continue to push Congress to hold hearings on the issue and have proposed that Congress immediately the program in its entirety.
Furthermore, they have called for Congress to conduct an investigation into if these same practices are going on within the ranks of other government agencies – which I think is a given.
It seems especially likely when one considers the Air Force’s call for so-called persona management software, along with their call to create a worldwide “social radar” which would make the DHS program look like child’s play.
Unfortunately, the original posting on the Federal Business Opportunities website appears to have been taken down, but thankfully there are plenty of articles still available which detail what it said.
Considering all of the Big Brother activities our government engages in, it seems that our so-called leaders are incredibly paranoid.
This begs the question: what are they so afraid of?
If we pay attention to their documents, it is very clear what it is that they are so afraid of and that is dissent.
This becomes even more obvious when one looks at the massive pushes to crack down on internet freedom, put more control into the hands of either the DHS or the NSA and military (depending on the proposed legislation) and restrict the ability of Americans to express their disapproval of a criminal, wildly out of control government.
The internet is one of the best ways to reach out to like-minded people and share critical information not otherwise available and it is very clear that the government knows this.
The types of Big Brother policies uncovered by EPIC are the symptom of a truly sick government seeking to stifle dissent by putting fear into the hearts of the American people.
Without a great number of Americans standing up and dissenting, we can expect this kind of behavior to continue. Furthermore, it is our responsibility to put as much pressure as humanly possible on our so-called representatives to actually do something about this.
This article originally appeared on End the Lie

RUSSIA WARNS ISRAEL NOT TO ATTACK IRAN

02.22.2012

Russian deputy FM says military action in Islamic Republic would be catastrophic for region, world
Reuters

Russia warned Israel on Wednesday that attacking Iran would be a disastrous and played down the failure of a UN nuclear agency mission to Tehran, saying there is still a chance for new talks over the Iranian atomic program.

"Of course any possible military scenario against Iran will be catastrophic for the region and for the whole system of international relations," Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told a news conference.


It was one of Russia's starkest warnings against resorting to force, an option Israel and the United States have not ruled out if they conclude that diplomacy and increasing sanctions will not stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb.

"I hope Israel understands all these consequences ... and they should also consider the consequences of such action for themselves," Gatilov said. "I hope a realistic approach will prevail, along with a sensible assessment."

Russia, China as well as many allies of the United States are concerned that any military action against Iran could engulf the Middle East in wider war, which would send oil prices rocketing at a time of global economic troubles.

Iran has threatened to retaliate for any attack, or even if it feels endangered, by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for Gulf oil exports crucial to the global economy, and hitting Israel and US interests in the Middle East.

'Nuke talks could be revived'

Tehran has refused to stop sensitive nuclear work such as uranium enrichment despite four rounds of UN sanctions and a slew of additional measures imposed by the United States and the European Union, which fear Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons.

The Islamic Republic says its efforts to produce nuclear fuel are solely for electricity generation.

Addressing the failed round of talks between the Islamic Republic and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Gatilov suggested that Iran should be more cooperative but there is more room for diplomacy. He said Iran's discussions with Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany, frozen for a year, could still be revived.

"Iran and IAEA should boost their dialogue in order to rule out the ... possibility of the existence of military dimensions in the Iranian nuclear program. We hope that this dialogue will be continued," he said.

"I think we still have opportunity to continue diplomatic efforts, to renew the six-nation talks."


Russia, which built Iran's first nuclear power plant, has often stressed the need for talks and that too much coercive pressure on Iran is counterproductive, a stance that has prompted concerns Moscow has helped Tehran play for time.

Last week, Russia said global powers must be serious about proposing solutions Iran might accept, warning that Tehran's desire for compromise was waning as it moved closer to being technically capable of building atomic weapons.

Anonymous takes on prison industrial complex

Published: 24 February, 2012, 22:38
Edited: 24 February, 2012, 22:39
The prison industrial complex is the latest victim of Anonymous’ #FuckFBIFriday campaign. Hacktivists have compromised data from a massive correctional facility management firm and have defaced their website.
The website for The GEO Group, Inc., a Florida-based management firm with clients worldwide, has been targeted by operatives with the online collective Anonymous. Friday’s hack from the group is the most recent release related to the #FFF campaign that has in past weeks targeted and successfully taken down the sites of the CIA, FBI and US Department of Justice.
Various Twitter accounts affiliated with the loose-knit group confirmed the hack at around 12:30 pm EST on Friday. A statement made by the group has replaced the traditional homepage of TheGEOGroupInc.com and other sites associated with the prison management firm have been “wiped off the net,” says the group.
Additionally, the group has added an image of prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and the audio of a song about him and the prison system to the company's homepage.
The attack, reads a statement from Anonymous, is retaliation for a corrupt system that immensely profits off of the detainment of Americans across the country. As the prison industrial complex booms, management companies such as GEO have been tied to controversies. As RT reported last week, Corrections Corporation of America, the largest operator of for-profit prisons in the US, has spent millions of dollars lobbying Washington for stricter laws that would ensure that their facilities are regularly close to total capacity. As these companies spend money to make new laws and expand on others that target non-violent criminals, the companies responsible generate mass income from operating the facilities.
As the GEO Group lobbies for legislation, it boasted a companywide occupancy rate of 96.6 percent in 2008.
The CCA has been linked to lobbying for stricter immigration laws across America. Lobbyists for the GEO Group, including Austin, Texas’ Lionel “Leo” Aguirre, rake in thousands each year persuading Washington to revamp legislation that will keep prisons packed as well. According to the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org site, Aguirre has received more than half a million dollars from the GEO Group since 2008. To Congress, Aguirre reveals in his lobbying reports that he is compensated for lobbying issues pertinent to the development and operation of detention facilities. He’s been tied to lobbying on immigration issues as well, but is only one of many lobbyists working not just for GEO, but for the prison industrial complex.
“While most folks are suffering under the economy, many billions of dollars are being funneled into this sinister conniving alliance of capitalist and statist forces to try to build dozens upon dozens of new [p]risons across the world,” reads the Anonymous-penned statement published Friday. The GEO Group, which was founded in 1984, turned revenue of $1.27 billion in 2010, reveals the group’s annual report for that year. According to the report filed at the end of 2008 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, at that time the group has nearly 60 facilities operating under its umbrella, serving accommodations for 53,400 detainees. The group merged with competing prison operators Cornell nearly two years later.
Although the GEO Group has only expanded its operations in recent years, it continues to be marred with controversy. Eight prisoners died in just four years within the walls of a Pennsylvania facility operated by the group, and there have been at least two other reports of detainee deaths occurring after prison officials at GEO-run institutions denied them medication.
“Despite the well documented history of corruption, scandal and atrocities that companies like GEO perpetuate each and every minute our friends are locked behind their prison walls, the private prison industry is still booming,” adds Anonymous.
The Corrections Corporation of America recently appealed to 48 states across America, asking for them to consider selling off their prisons to the privately-run group. In their case, they insist that contracts will only be made if states can guarantee facilities maintain an inmate population close to capacity. Some say that this is accomplished by unjustly imprisoning many Americans.
“We are acting in solidarity with all those who have ever been wrongfully profiled, arrested, brutalized, incarcerated and have had all dignity and humanity stripped from them as they are cast into the gulags of America,” states Anonymous.
“When our comrades are locked up struggling against a repressive regime that has no concern for due process, we do not forget. When our comrades are ripped off their civil liberties and human rights, we do not forgive,” they add.
Along with a missive placed on the homepage of the GEO Group’s website, Anonymous has installed an image of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who earlier this year reached the 30-year anniversary of being in prison, despite a plethora of legal concerns waged by activists who continue to rally for his release. Anonymous has also altered the site so that visitors to TheGEOGroupInc.com are exposed to an audio recording of the track “Mumia 911,” which is performed by artists including Pharoahe Monch, Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine.
In the song, one verse rapped by Slimkid 3 proclaims: “Now they were playin God just to feel the power / Not to justify that of you and I / Holdin daggers up and lettin you decide / after passin information that's falsified / Stand behind a lie? What does it cost to die? / What does is cost to live? Why do they specify? / These terms of why when they ain't the most high / What they fear the will kill but the soul will never die.”
“I say fuck the police cuz they've been killing us for years / This ain't no free country niggas get murdered for their ideas,” rhymes Dead Prez. “ Free Mumia means all Africans let go / Cuz just livin in the ghetto puts you on Death Row.”
Anonymous has also publicized logs of their hack on the GEO Group and have included a copy of “God Only Knows What Devils We Are,” a document recently released by The Institute for Experimental Freedom and CrimeThinc.com.
Anonymous adds that later this month on February 28, hacktivists and members of the Occupy Wall Street movement will wage a mass protest together against the prison system. They say they “will be marching in the streets of the US to demand an end to the suppression of the occupation movement.”
“But our solidarity does not extend only to occupiers or political prisoners,” continues the statement. “[W]e do not give any legitimacy or credibility to a justice system that look after their own prosecutors and pigs who get away with brutality and corruption, while they routinely murder innocent people on death row and locks up immigrants they deem ‘illegal’ while profiting by forcing them to labor for far less than minimum wage.”
“We will abolish their prisons in all forms, and run the pigs off of our streets. We will burn down their prison society, because only on the ashes of the old world can we hope to rebuild a new one,” adds the group.

Friday, February 24, 2012

1.4 million families live on $2 a day per person

The number of families living on $2 or less per person per day for at least a month in the USA has more than doubled in 15 years to 1.46 million.

That's up from 636,000 households in 1996, says a new study released by researchers at the University of Michigan and Harvard University.
Government benefits blunt the impact of such extreme poverty, but not completely, says one of the researchers, Luke Shaefer, a professor of social work at Michigan.
When food stamps are included as income, the number of households in extreme poverty, defined as living on $2 a day, drops to 800,000, Shaefer says. That's up from 475,000 in 1996.
"This seems to be a group that has fallen through the cracks," says Kathryn Edin, a Harvard researcher and professor of public policy.

Living on $2 a day

The number of American households with cash income of no more than $2 a day per person doubled in 15 years:
Source: National Poverty Center
The study found that among households in extreme poverty, one in five received rent vouchers or lived in public housing. Sixty-six percent had at least one child with public health insurance. The study did not factor in how those benefits affect household income.
Robert Rector, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, says most aid to the poor today is in non-cash assistance. Last year, he says, the federal and state government spent $900 billion on 70 programs that assist the poor, from health care and food stamps to energy assistance and college grants.
"When you look at that type of family, you don't see the type of deprivation this study suggests," he says.
Because the study shows households in extreme poverty for a month, it is more reflective of people losing jobs, getting divorced or having short-term crises, he says.
Shaefer says, "We are trying to document the growth in deep poverty. … Even one month living at this level is concerning."
Magdalyn March, 30, of Birmingham, Ala., can relate to those living in extreme poverty. In 2006, she lost a seasonal job at a packing warehouse, split with an abusive boyfriend and was caring for her two children. She received about $200 a month in government cash assistance and $282 in food stamps.
March and her children lived in a motel when she was with her boyfriend. When he left, she couldn't afford the room, and she and her children were kicked out. March stayed with friends and relatives for a few nights at a time but ended up in a homeless shelter.
She credits the shelter, First Light, with helping her find a job as a waitress at a chain restaurant and affordable day care. She says she still struggles. She needs glasses and has to go to the dentist but can't afford it. March and her children are living with her mother now.
"You've got to come up with a system," she says, "because you can't live off of that. You really can't."

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Tyranny in the Forecast for 2012


Tyranny in the Forecast: The Outlook for the New Year







Global Research announces Dr. Paul Craig Robert's New Website at http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/ 


In March 2010 when I resigned from my column with Creator’s Syndicate and put down my pen, I received so many protests from readers that two months later I began writing again.  This renewed activity has resulted in this new year in a website of my own.  


My columns will first appear on my site. Sites on which readers are accustomed to find my columns are permitted to continue to post my columns as long as they link to my site and indicate my copyright.

The site will stay up if reader support justifies it.  Otherwise, I will conclude that the cost of the site exceeds the value of what I have to say.  



This past year has not been a good one for the 99%, and the new year is likely to be even worse. This column deals with the outlook for liberty.  The next will deal with the economic outlook.


The outlook for liberty is dismal. Those writers who are critical of Washington’s illegal wars and overthrow of the US Constitution could find themselves in indefinite detainment, because criticism of Washington’s policies can be alleged to be aiding Washington’s enemies, which might include charities that provide aid to bombed  Palestinian children and flotillas that attempt to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/24/us-israel-usa-flotilla-idUSTRE75N4A620110624  


The Bush/Obama regimes have put the foundation in place for imprisoning critics of the government without due process of law. The First Amendment is being all but restricted to rah-rah Americans who chant USA! USA! USA!  Washington has set itself up as world prosecutor, forever berating other countries for human rights violations, while Washington alone bombs half a dozen countries into the stone age and threatens several more with the same treatment, all the while violating US statutory law and the Geneva Conventions by torturing detainees.  http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/06/18/41514/general-who-probed-abu-ghraib.html   


Washington rounds up assorted foreign politicians, whose countries were afflicted with civil wars, and sends them off to be tried as war criminals, while its own war crimes continue to mount. However, if a person exposes Washington’s war crimes, that person is held without charges in conditions that approximate torture.


Bradley Manning is the case in point.  Manning, a US soldier, is alleged to be the person who released to WikiLeaks the “Collateral Murder” video, which, in the words of Marjorie Cohn, “depicts U.S. forces in an Apache helicopter killing 12 unarmed civilians, including two Reuters journalists. People trying to rescue the wounded were also fired upon and killed.” 


One of the Good Samaritans was a father with two small children. The video reveals the delight that US military personnel experienced in blowing them away from the distant skies. When it became clear that the Warriors Bringing The People Democracy had blown away two small children, instead of remorse we hear an executioner’s voice saying:  “that’s what he gets for bringing children into a war zone.”


The quote is from memory, but it is accurate enough.  When I first saw this video, I was astonished at the brazen war crime. It is completely obvious that the dozen or so murdered people were simply people walking along a street, threatening no one, unarmed, doing nothing out of the ordinary.  It was not a war zone. The horror is that the US soldiers were playing video games with live people.  You can tell from their commentary that they were having fun by killing these unsuspecting people walking along the street.  They enjoyed killing the father who stopped to help and shooting up his vehicle with the two small children inside.


This was not an accident of a drone, fed with bad information, blowing up a school full of children, or a hospital, or a farmer’s family.  This was American soldiers having fun with high tech toys killing anyone that they could pretend might be an enemy. 


When I saw this, I realized that America was lost. Evil had prevailed.


I was about to write that nothing has been done about the crime.  But something was done about it.  An American soldier who recognized the horrific war crime knew that the US military knew about it and had done nothing about it.  He also knew that as a US soldier he was required to report war crimes.  But to whom?  War crimes dismissed as “collateral damage” are the greatest part of Washington’s 21st century wars.  


A soldier with a moral conscience gave the video to WikiLeaks.  We don’t know who the soldier is.  Washington alleges that the soldier is Bradley Manning, but Washington lies every time it opens its mouth.  So we will never know. 


All we know is that retribution did not fall on the perpetrators of the war crime.  It fell upon the two accused of revealing it--Bradley Manning and Julian Assange. 


Manning was held almost two years without charges being presented to a court.
In December’s pre-trial hearings all Washington could come up with was concocted  accusations.  No evidence whatsoever.  The prosecutor, a Captain Fein, told the court, if that is what it is, that Manning had been “trained and trusted to use multiple intelligence systems, and he used that training to defy that trust. He abused our trust.”


In other words, Manning gave the world the truth of a war crime that was being covered up, and Washington and the Pentagon regard a truth teller doing his duty under the US military code as an “abuser of trust.”


In the 1970 My Lai Courts-Martial of Captain Ernest L. Medina, the Prosecution Brief states:


 “ A combat commander has a duty, both as an individual and as a commander, to insure that humane treatment is accorded to noncombatants and surrendering combatants. Article 3 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War specifically prohibits violence to life and person, particularly murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, and torture. Also prohibited are the taking of hostages, outrages against personal dignity and summary judgment and sentence. It demands that the wounded and sick be cared for. These same provisions are found in the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. While these requirements for humanitarian treatment are placed upon each individual involved with the protected persons, it is especially incumbent upon the commanding officer to insure that proper treatment is given.

Additionally, all military personnel, regardless of rank or position, have the responsibility of reporting any incident or act thought to be a war crime to his commanding officer as soon as practicable after gaining such knowledge. Commanders receiving such reports must also make such facts known to the Staff Judge Advocate. It is quite clear that war crimes are not condoned and that every individual has the responsibility to refrain from, prevent and report such unwarranted conduct. While this individual responsibility is likewise placed upon the commander, he has the additional duty to insure that war crimes committed by his troops are promptly and adequately punished.  http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl_law3.htm
 
At the National Press Club on February 17, 2006, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral.” General Pace said that the military is prohibited from committing crimes against humanity and that such orders and events must be made known.
However, when Manning followed the military code, his  compliance with law was turned into a crime. Captain Fein goes on to tell the “court” [a real court would throw out the bogus charges, but Amerika no longer has real courts] that “ultimately, he aided the enemies of the United States by indirectly giving them intelligence through WikiLeaks.” 


In other words, the “crime” is an unintended consequence of doing one’s duty--like the “collateral damage” of civilian casualties when drones, bombs, helicopter gunships, and trigger-happy troops kill women, children, aid workers, and village elders.  Why is Washington only punishing Manning for the collateral damage attributed to him?


Captain Fein could not have put it any clearer.  If you tell the truth and reveal Washington’s war crimes, you have aided the enemy.  Captain Fein’s simple sentence has at one stroke abolished all whistleblower protections written into US statutory law and the First Amendment, and confined anyone with a moral conscience and sense of decency to indefinite detention and torture. 


The illegal detention and treatment of Manning had a purpose, according to a number of informed people. Naomi Spencer, for example, writes that Manning’s long detention and delayed prosecution is designed to coerce Manning into implicating WikiLeaks in order that the US can extradite Julian Assange and either prosecute him as a terrorist or lock him away indefinitely in a military prison without any recourse to the courts, due process or the law.http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30075.htm 


Assange’s case is mysterious.  Assange sought refuge in Sweden, where he was seduced by two women.  Both admit that they had sexual intercourse with him voluntarily, but afterwards they have come forth with claims that as they were sleeping with him in the bed, he again had sexual intercourse with them, and that they had not approved this second helping and that he was asked to use a condom but did not. 


The Swedish prosecutorial office, after investigating the charges, dismissed them. But, strangely, another Swedish prosecutor, a woman suspected of connections to Washington, resurrected the charges and is seeking to extradite Assange to Sweden from the UK for questioning.  


The legal question is whether a prosecutor can seek extradition for investigative purposes. The UK Supreme Court thinks that this is a valid question, and has agreed to hear the case. Normally, extradition requests come from courts and are issued for persons formally charged with a crime. Sweden has not charged Assange with a crime.


The real question is whether the Swedish prosecutor is acting on behalf of Washington.  Many who follow the case believe that Washington is behind the prosecutor’s re-opening of the case, and if Sweden gets hold of Assange Sweden will send him to Washington to be put in indefinite detention and tortured until he says what Washington wants him to say--that he is an Al Qaeda operative.  


This is the way that Washington intends to absolve itself of its war crimes revealed, allegedly, by Manning and Assange.


Meanwhile, Washington in a brazen display of hypocrisy accuses other countries of human rights abuses, while Congress has passed and President Obama has signed an indefinite detention and torture bill that US Representative Ron Paul says will accelerate America’s “slip into tyranny” and “descent into totalitarianism.” 


In signing the Bill of Tyranny, President Obama indicated that he thought that the tyranny established by the bill did not go far enough. He announced that he was signing the bill with signing statements that reserved his right, regardless of any law, to send American citizens, deprived of due process and constitutional protection, abroad to be tortured.


This is the US government that claims to be a government of “freedom and democracy” and to be bringing “freedom and democracy” to others with bombs and invasions.


The past year gave us other ominous tyrannical developments.  President Obama announced that he had a list of Americans whom he intended to assassinate without due process of law, and Homeland Security, itself an Orwellian name, announced that it had shifted its attention from terrorists to “domestic extremists.”  The latter are undefined and consist of whomever Homeland Security so designates.  


None of this was done behind closed doors.  The murder of the US Constitution was a public crime witnessed by all.  But like Kitty Genovese, who was stabbed to death in New York in 1964 in front of onlookers who failed to come to her aid, the media, Congress, bar associations, law schools, and the American public failed to come to the defense of the Constitution.  


In my lifetime the collapse in respect for, and authority of, the Constitution has been an horrific event.  Compare the ho-hum response to the Obama regime’s police state announcements with the public anger at President Richard Nixon over his enemies list.
Try to imagine President Ronald Reagan announcing that he had a list of Americans marked for assassination without impeachment proceedings beginning forthwith. 


Local and state police forces have been militarized not only in their equipment and armament but also in their attitude toward the public. Despite the absence of domestic terror attacks, Homeland Security conducts warrantless searches of cars and trucks on highways and of passengers using public transportation.  A uniformed federal service is being trained to systematically violate the constitutional rights of citizens, and citizens are being trained to accept these violations as normal. The young have no memory of being able to board public transportation or use public roadways without intrusive searches or to gather in protest without being brutalized by the police. Liberty is being moved into the realm of myth and legend.  


In such a system as is being constructed in public in front of our eyes, there is no freedom, no democracy, and no liberty.  What stands before us is naked tyranny.


While America degenerates into a total police state, politicians constantly invoke “our values.”  What are these values?  Indefinite imprisonment without conviction in a court. Torture. Warrantless searches and home invasions. An epidemic of police brutality. Curtailment of free speech and peaceful assembly rights. Unprovoked aggression called “preemptive war.” Interference in the elections and internal affairs of other countries. Economic sanctions imposed on foreign populations whose leaders are not in Washington’s pocket.  


If the American police state were merely an unintended consequence of a real war against terror, it could be dismantled when the war was over.  However, the evidence is that the police state is an intended consequence. The PATRIOT Act is a voluminous and clever attack on the Constitution. It is not possible that it could have been written in the short time between 9/11 and its introduction in Congress. It was waiting on the shelf.


The dismantling of constitutionally protected civil liberties is purposeful, as is the accumulation of arbitrary and unaccountable powers in the executive branch of government. As there have been no terrorist events within the US in over a decade except for those known to have been organized by the FBI, there is no terrorist threat that justifies the establishment of a political regime of unaccountable power.  It is being done on purpose under false pretenses, which means that there is an undeclared agenda.  The threat that Americans face resides in Washington, D.C.


Of the presidential candidates, only Ron Paul addresses the Constitution’s demise.Yet, the electorate is concerned with matters unimportant by comparison. Propagandized 24/7 by the Ministry of Truth, Americans are not sufficiently aware of their plight to elect Ron Paul president.  


It might be too late for even a President Ron Paul to turn things around. A president has no power unless his government supports him.  What prospect would President Ron Paul have of getting his appointees confirmed by the Senate?  The military/security complex is not going to vacate power. Powerful monied interests would block his appointments. If he persisted in being a problem for the Establishment, he would be victimized by a scandal and fail to be reelected if not forced to resign.


Remember what the Washington Establishment did to President Carter.  His budget director and chief of staff were framed, thus depriving Carter of the powers of his office. Even Ronald Reagan had to give away more than half of his government, including the White House chief-of-staff and vice presidency, to the Establishment.  President Reagan told me that he wanted to end stagflation in order that he could end the cold war, but that he could not sign a tax bill if I could not get one out of his administration that he could send to Congress.  


I do not know, but I suspect that turning things around internally through the political system is not in the cards.  Our chance to resurrect liberty might come from Washington’s hubris.  Imperial ambitions and drive for power can produce unmanageable upheavals and a loss of allies. Overreach abroad with a demoralized, unemployed and downtrodden population at home are not the ingredients of success. 


How much longer will the Russian government permit NGOs funded by the US Endowment for Democracy to interfere in its elections and to organize political protests? How much longer will China confuse its strategic interests with the American consumer market?  How much longer will Japan, Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and the Middle East oil states remain US puppets?  How much longer can the dollar retain the reserve currency role when the Federal Reserve is monetizing vast quantities of debt? 


How much longer can a “superpower” survive when it is incapable of producing political leadership?


America’s salvation will come when Washington suffers defeat of its hegemonic ambitions.


Many readers, especially those who watch Fox “News” and CNN and read the New York Times,  might see hyperbole in my outlook for 2012.  Surely, many believe, the draconian measures put in place will only be applied to terrorists.  But how would we know?  Indefinite detention and torture require no evidence to be presented. The American public has no way of knowing whether tortured detainees are terrorists or political opponents. The decision to detain and torture is an unaccountable decision. It relies on nothing but the subjective arbitrary decision of someone in the executive branch. Why are Americans prepared to take the word of a government that told them intentionally the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to America?  


Like cancer, tyranny metastasizes. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet Union’s most famous writer, was a twice-decorated World War II Red Army commander. He made mild critical comments about Stalin’s conduct of the war in a private letter to a friend, and for this he was sentenced, not by a court, but in absentia by the NKVD, the secret police, to eight years in the Gulag Archipelago for “anti-Soviet propaganda.”  Not even Stalin had indefinite detention. The closest the Soviets came to this medieval practice resurrected by the Bush and Obama regimes was internal exile in distant parts of the Soviet Union.


During much of the Soviet era, even art, literature and music were scrutinized for signs of “anit-Soviet propaganda.”  America’s Dixie Chicks suffered a similar, but more frightening, fate. Bush did not need the NKVD.  The American public did the job for the secret police. Wikipedia reports:


“During a London concert ten days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, lead vocalist Maines said ‘we don't want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States (George W. Bush) is from Texas.’ The statement offended many Americans, who thought it rude and unpatriotic, and the ensuing controversy cost the band half of their concert audience attendance in the United States. The incident negatively affected their career and led to accusations of the three women being "un-American", as well as hate mail, death threats, and the public destruction of their albums in protest.”
In Nazi Germany, the mildest criticism could bring a midnight knock at the door.


People with power use it.  And power attracts the worst kind of persons. As Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prove, democracies are not immune to the evil use of power. Indeed, identical inhumane treatment of prisoners goes on inside the US prison system for ordinary criminals.http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm 

A December 30, 2011, search on Yahoo for police brutality produced 20 million results.
Over-fed goon cop thugs taser little children and people in wheel chairs.  They body slam elderly grandmothers. The police are a horror. They represent a greater threat to citizens than do criminals.


Preventative war, indefinite imprisonment, rendition, torture of people alleged to be “suspects” (an undefined category), and assassination are all draconian punishments that require no evidence. Preventative war is an Orwellian concept.

How do you prevent a war by initiating a war?

How do we know that a country that did not attack us was going to attack us in the future? 

Preventative war is like Jeremy Bentham’s concept of preventing crime by locking up those thought by the upper crust to be predisposed to criminal activity before they commit a crime. Punishment without crime is now the American Way.


The concepts that the Bush/Obama regimes have institutionalized are totally foreign to the Anglo-American concepts of law and liberty.  In one decade the US has been transformed from a free society into a police state.  The American population, to the extent it is aware of what has occurred, has simply accepted the revolution from the top.  


Ron Paul is the only American seeking the presidency who opposes the tyranny that has been institutionalized, and he is not leading in the polls. 
This tells us all we need to know about the value Americans place on liberty. 

Americans seem to welcome the era of tyranny into which they are now entering.