Glenn Beck Cultists: The New Obamites

By Jackson Cooke

My friends and I made the mistake of attempting to attend the "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington D.C. this past weekend. We normally go to any large rally there no matter what the subject is so we can engage people and discuss important issues such as ending the Federal Reserve and stopping our crazed masters in their pursuit of blood and treasure. This rally was something different, it smacked of a large cult - quite reminiscent of Obama's supporters in late 2007-2008.

Glenn Beck had been pimping this event for quite some time and instructing his flock to not bring signs and claimed the event was "not political" (yet he had Sarah Palin as a headline speaker - go figure). My friends and I are not part of any group, just independent citizen activists that are determined to spread awareness of issues that the mainstream conveniently glosses over. So, naturally, we brought signs slamming the Fed for the financial collapse and declaring War as Big Government and any person opposed to an expansive state should be opposed to being the world's policeman.

Honestly, I overestimated the crowd. I figured there'd be a decent amount of signs despite what Beck had said. We walked up to the metro station's line (stretched back 2 blocks!) with our signs and as soon as we got to the line we heard several mutterings behind and in front of us "you're not supposed to bring any signs" amongst other things. I couldn't believe my ears! These people were shooting us hostile looks (which I'm very used to) but not because of what we were saying but because we broke with Beck's party orthodoxy. The minds were shutting down, no one wanted to discuss politics, just vague platitudes they heard Beck screaming on his shows. It was disgusting to see how many "Restoring Honor" T-shirts were being worn. It instantly reminded me of the Hope T shirts warn proudly during the Obama campaign and honeymoon period. Mindless and disgusting.

The line to the metro was moving at a snail's pace and went on for quite a long distance - our estimate that it would have taken us 2 hours just to get to the metro. And gauging the crowd's demeanour we decided to bag even going to the capitol. We had brought leaflets with a great deal of information about the Fed and began to pass them out to the people in the line, most people took the leaflets (long line, they were bored) but several people that had seen us with signs (which we discarded to hand out the literature) and several people made hostile or snide comments to me and associates about how we "didn't get the memo" about the signs. I was aghast, I couldn't believe these people were following Beck so blindly. And the hostility. Trust me, I'm used to crowds being angry at my less than mainstream views but this was something new. Obamites were never like this, equally dopey - yes, but not this doctrinaire.

After returning to my friend's apartment we flipped on the corporate box and watched the coverage on the various cable news channels and once again I couldn't believe my eyes. The crowd looked frozen in time. No one was talking, just staring forward absorbing everything their Demagogue said. Beck was fashioning himself as some sort of revivalist preacher sucking in these well meaning, but misguided folks. It was all about him, all about his cult of personality.

I've never returned from a political event feeling so disillusioned. The Obama cultists were creepy, silly, childish, etc but most were at least willing to let you talk. These people were just not interested in doing anything contrary to Beck's instructions. Classic divide and conquer. Beck is inflaming his right wing followers so they can never unite with people and creating racial tensions by declaring the rally as the mantle for civil rights with a crowd that was 99.5% white and most likely affluent. Beware this man, and caution friends and relatives to his siren song.

Prisoners forced to submit to radiation experiments for private foreign companies

In Illinois, federal judges have allowed at least two lawsuits to proceed against correctional officials for using full body scanners to reveal the anatomy of both prisoners and visitors without removing their clothing. This is the very same device that airports are seeking to implement on some inbound flights to the United States.

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New World Order Put On Trial

The Singularity's impact on Business leaders: a Scenario: how will technologically enhanced Individuals collaborate with "normal" employees?

Oh boy...

The "Human Singularity" refers to the radical fusion of the human body with technology to achieve levels of mental acuity and physical ability that eclipse anything humans have previously known. This would represent a singular event in human history: For the first time, people would be driven by laws other than

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Brain scanners to be used to 'design' political candidates

Sinister news today, as psychologists in the US unveil plans for so-called "neuromarketing" - the use of magnetic-resonance brainscans to maximise the appeal of products while they are being designed.

"Neuromarketing may prove to be an affordable way for marketers to gather information that was previously unobtainable, or that consumers themselves may not even be fully aware of," says Ariely, according to a statement released yesterday by Duke University, where he is based.

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JPMorgan vs. Goldman Sachs: Why the Market Was Down 7 Days in a Row

We are witnessing an epic battle between two banking giants, JPMorgan Chase (Paul Volcker) and Goldman Sachs (Rubin/Geithner). The bodies left strewn on the battleground could include your pension fund and 401K.

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Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows

(Bloomberg) -- The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all.

Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.

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Comment: Actual Bloomberg headline!

Computer-driven trading raises meltdown fears

Trading in equities and derivatives is being driven increasingly by mathematical algorithms used in computer programs. They allow trading to take place automatically in response to market data and news, deciding when and how much to trade similar to the autopilot function in aircraft.

Analysts estimate that up to 60 per cent of trading in equity markets is driven in this way.

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Approaching “Expert Opinion” with Skepticism (Original)

by Jonathan Barth

Several years ago I heard a lecture delivered by one of my favorite historians at the time, Howard Zinn. Although I have increasingly differed with Zinn over the last couple years in respect to his particular interpretation of American history, I distinctively remember him warning his audience to always “beware of so-called ‘experts’”.

For all the disagreements I may now have with some of his ideas, Zinn was correct. “Expert opinion,” in fact, possesses an exceptionally dismal and even horrifying track record. It was the so-called “experts” who vehemently defended absolute monarchies and violations of individual liberty prior to the Enlightenment. Expert opinion fully-approved of and advocated the kidnapping and enslavement of Africans beginning in the sixteenth century. Expert opinion – including “expert scientists” – insisted on eugenics and scientific-racism at the turn of twentieth century. So-called experts also insisted that it was absolutely necessary for the United States to imprison over one-hundred-thousand innocent Japanese-Americans during the Second World War.

Our current crop of “expert opinion” likewise has a highly questionable track record. Expert opinion was used in order to get our country into war in Iraq, pass the Patriot Act, and expand the size and power of our already-large federal government. Experts today in 2010 insist upon such programs as cap-and-trade, heavy government-involvement in health care, the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars to prevent “global warming,” the expansion of the Patriot Act, global government, and the further erosion of our individual liberties. Expert opinion told us that we needed to give the Banks and Wall Street a massive unprecedented bailout, or else the entire world would collapse. Expert opinion tells us that we have no business knowing what goes on behind closed-doors at the Federal Reserve, and that we should have no worries about the Fed’s doubling of the supply of paper money over the course of the last year.

But for whatever reason, the Academic Establishment – while acknowledging the extreme faults of expert opinion in previous generations – consistently adheres to the blind faith that our current crop of contemporary experts has somehow (for the first time in history) gotten it right. That to question expert opinion in our own time is not only faulty, but borderline crazy. That if you doubt self-proclaimed expert opinion on anything from global warming to the Federal Reserve, you may even be (*gasp*) a “conspiracy theorist.” The latter attack, of course, is nothing more than a fallacious argument that philosophers and logicians call the ad hominem – or, the practice of assailing the individual rather than the specific argument that the individual is presenting. The Academic Establishment has shown to this day that it is not afraid to stoop to the level of ad hominem attacks, particularly when approached by sound, libertarian arguments that cut right through the traditional paradigm of left versus right.

History has consistently proven that most expert opinion is flawed and deceptive. The intellectual heroes that history remembers – John Locke, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Adam Smith, Ron Paul, Thomas Paine, and others – are not the ones who blindly adhered to the opinion of experts in their own time. They rejected expert opinion and produced their own ideas, facing much criticism, ridicule, and even censorship as a result. Many of them achieved more fame after their deaths than they ever had in their lifetimes. But their names live on forever because of the courage they displayed against the Establishment. As for the other 98% of academics – well, history forgets most of them as quickly as they leave.

Is The U.S. Economy Being Tanked By Mistake or By Intent?

The government wants Americans to believe the greatest economic collapse in history was the result of ineptness and mistakes yet still have confidence in their financial institutions.

Should American bankers be let off the hook because they self-declare, before an investigational panel, that the failure of their newly invented risk swaps and other highly leveraged investment schemes was simply due to "mistakes"? Not malfeasance – just every-day mistakes? Bankers just fell asleep at the helm at a critical juncture in American history. Is that what we are being led to believe?

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The Myth that Is FDR

By Garet Garrett

When John T. Flynn has put the Roosevelt myth through his terrible wringer and thrown aside the empty sack, all that remains of it is — the myth. His book will not be challenged on grounds of fact. He has a special way with facts. He brings them together in piles like fissionable material, and then suddenly a pile explodes with atomic effect, even though there had been nothing new in the facts. Many of them you already knew and had forgotten. But the secret of a myth is no more explained by facts than the secret of life is explained by anatomy. It may be that for good or bad the man of myth is an instrument, and if that is so, he would be unable to account for himself, or, trying to give reasons, would give wrong or puerile reasons, not knowing any better.

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Comment: A major plank in the Establishment/Keynesian myth - Roosevelt. Somehow Hoover was "laissez-faire" and blew out the economy and the compassionate Roosevelt came in to save the day. All a part of a fallacious myth.

More on Cass Sunstein

Thanks to the author of the Bleeding Heart Show, I have got my hands on a copy of Sunstein’s white paper entitled Conspiracy Theories (2008). I’d like to draw your attention to some interesting features.

According to the introduction of the paper, polls suggest that roughly one-third of Americans subscribe to a ‘conspiracy theory’ about the September 11th attacks in NYC, whether it be that the government knew about it in advance, conspired in it themselves, or covered up Israeli involvement. In most illuminating fashion, the paper then states:

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President Obama Signs Executive Order Establishing Council of Governors

The President today signed an Executive Order (attached) establishing a Council of Governors to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards. When appointed, the Council will be reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities.

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Comment: More EOs centralizing power in the executive branch. This is a clear demonstration of Obama carrying the torch on Bush's prior work to the same goal.

Obama confidant's spine-chilling proposal

By Glenn Greenwald

Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama's closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs." In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper's abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.

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Comment: A MUST READ! Greenwald has some killer analysis of this weirdo, scumbag Sustein.

Goldman E-Mail Lays Bare Trading Conflicts - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com

In an e-mail message to select clients, Thomas C. Mazarakis, the head of Goldman’s fundamental strategies group, acknowledged that his unit often provided investment ideas that the firm had already traded on. Sometimes Goldman has even taken the opposite approach, betting against particular instruments that the group has recommended.

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Obama staffer wants ‘cognitive infiltration’ of 9/11 conspiracy groups | Raw Story

In a 2008 academic paper, President Barack Obama's appointee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs advocated "cognitive infiltration" of groups that advocate "conspiracy theories" like the ones surrounding 9/11.

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Pizza shop heckler: Bush Sr. a ‘murderous, Zionist piece of shit’

For a man whose son became one of the most polarizing, controversial and even hated figures in U.S. history, a mouthful of pizza may not be worth a mouthful of profanity.

At an unidentified pizza shop visited by George H.W. Bush recently, one of the customers decided to give the former president a slice of his mind, replete with generous toppings.

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cryptogon.com » JP Morgan: Largest Provider of Food Stamp Benefits in the U.S.

Keynes and Bernanke on Bubbles and Manias: Blame the Free Market

By Gary North

In 1936, John Maynard Keynes' book appeared: The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. It changed the world. It justified in the name of economic theory what governments had been doing since 1932: running deficits and creating fiat money. Keynes' ideas took over. Today, they are dominant. The 30-year break, 1978-2008 -- Chicago School, rational expectations, efficient market theory -- is over. Academic economists, like Dorothy in Kansas, ran for the Keynesian storm cellar. Unlike Dorothy, they made it. No trip to Oz for them!

In chapter 12, he contrasts enterprise with speculation. This is conceptually incorrect. Both rely on accurate forecasting. Both rely on transferring assets to a specific market position. He made speculators sound like gamblers. They aren't. The emotions may be the same, but the economics are different.

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Comment: Great article showing some of the many ways Keynes was ignorant of basic economic theory YET many of our State sponsored academics parrot those nutty theories and even base policy on them! Keynesianism is creed of the economic priest class - it's the economic "theory" that most justifies the Corporate State.

Bernanke faces mounting criticism after speech

There is mounting criticism of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's claim that low interest rates didn't cause the recent housing bubble.

During a speech to the American Economic Association's annual meeting in Atlanta Sunday, Bernanke called linkages between the Fed's monetary policy and the housing boom “weak.” But economists, newspaper editorial boards and some 2010 candidates are questioning the Fed chairman's reasoning.

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Comment: Bankman Bernanke who totally missed the oncoming collapse is now telling us that low interest rates didn't have a role in it. I'm glad he has the credibility to make such a claim...