Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, February 06, 2013
Is America a Police State Yet? / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
Wendy McElroy writes: If you need to ask the question, then the answer is “yes”. But that is a glib response and I do not feel glib about America's slide through the nine rings of political hell.
A police state is generally defined as a totalitarian government that exerts extreme and pervasive social, political and economic control over peaceful citizens. Ayn Rand called it “the ultimate inversion...the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.”
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Tuesday, February 05, 2013
The EU’s Systemic Corruption Makes Solving the Crisis Impossible / Politics / European Union
By: Graham_Summers
The single most difficult aspect about analyzing market moves in Europe is the impact of the political class on just about everything.
Worldwide, politicians are not exactly famous for honesty. However, Europe is a very special case… where just about everyone is lying on just about everything involving the economy and banking system.
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Tuesday, February 05, 2013
United Statism of Amerika / Politics / US Politics
By: Gordon_T_Long
In 'The Road to Serfdom', F.A. Hayek showed how governments, supported by a collectivist mindset, always tend towards totalitarianism. Even the most libertarian government thus far created, the government of the United States, has slipped incrementally towards totalitarianism over the past two centuries, more noticeably since 911 and most alarmingly since the 2008 financial crisis. This is because it is an inherent trait of a government. Planned or random crisis events inevitably accelerate the process.
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
The Potemkin Village In New Orleans / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
With this year’s Super Bowl it looks like the Powers That Be realized they could stop pretending that the Super Bowl had become anything but a chance to unite their financially, ethically, and spiritually bankrupted subjects in worship of the militaristic imperial state and into acceptance of the state's push toward complete power over their lives. The whole show has become an embarrassing parallel of the circuses of the late Roman Empire.
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Ron Paul Warns Immigration 'Reform' Will Turn the US into a Police State / Politics / US Politics
By: Dr_Ron_Paul
Whenever the federal government decides to reform something we can be fairly sure that the problem is about to get worse, especially if they call the plan bi-partisan. The bi-partisan immigration reform proposal launched last week in the US Senate will be no different.
The new plan, introduced by Sens. McCain and Schumer, would provide a path to citizenship for many of those in the United States illegally. This would only begin after the borders are deemed secure and applicants have paid fees for their illegal entry. They must also pay back taxes on their earnings while working here without government permission. Those on a path to citizenship would be subject to background checks and would be monitored while in the US.
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Monday, February 04, 2013
How the Soviet Union Nearly Lost Russia It's Vodka / Politics / US Politics
By: Pravda
Russian vodka is a word combination that everyone is familiar with. Vodka is a product that represents Russia on the international market. Around the world, many people believe that vodka can be only Russian. However, there was an incident, when Russia had to prove its "copyright" for the beverage at court. At first, the brand attracted the attention of descendants of Russian immigrants. Afterwards, Poland stated that vodka was its national product.
Monday, February 04, 2013
The Real History of US CIA 60 Year Aggression Against Iran / Politics / US Politics
By: LewRockwell
David Swanson writes:
According to one theory, U.S.-Iranian relations began around November 1979 when a crowd of irrational religious nutcases violently seized the U.S. embassy in Iran, took the employees hostage, tortured them, and held them until scared into freeing them by the arrival of a new sheriff in Washington, a man named Ronald Reagan.
From that day to this, according to this popular theory, Iran has been run by a bunch of subhuman lunatics with whom rational people couldn't really talk if they wanted to. These monsters only understand force. And they have been moments away from developing and using nuclear weapons against us for decades now. Moments away, I tell you!
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Sunday, February 03, 2013
Banking and the State, It Will End in Hyperinflation / Politics / Banksters
By: Thorsten_Polleit
The Starting Point: Civilization Begins
The founder of the Medici banking dynasty, Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici (1360–1429), said to his children on his death bed: “Stay out of the public eye.”[1] His words raise the question, "How much do bankers know about the truth of modern money and banking?"
To develop a meaningful answer to this question in the tradition of the Austrian School of economics, one has to start right at the beginning, and that is with the process of civilization.
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Friday, February 01, 2013
Restoring the Articles of Confederation America’s Last Chance to Control Washington / Politics / US Politics
By: Ron_Holland
Americans demanding a return to limited government, a balanced budget and an end to spiraling sovereign debt have been voting for the GOP for decades and the result has been total failure on all counts. To accomplish these goals we really must turn the government structure back to our first government model, the Articles of Confederation, so the centers of real power are at the state rather than the federal level. Since 1913, it has been very easy, between maintaining the two-party monopoly and buying off Congress, for the power elite to control leviathan from the top down. This would be far more difficult if power, authority and programs were decentralized and returned to control of the individual states.
Friday, February 01, 2013
Too Late to Leave the U.S.? / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
Wendy McElroy writes: The Ex-PATRIOT Act lies like a coiled snake on a table in the U.S. Senate. The longer title of this unenacted bill from 2012 is the Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy Act. Its self-description is, "A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that persons renouncing citizenship for a substantial tax avoidance purpose shall be subject to tax and withholding on capital gains, to provide that such persons shall not be admissible to the United States, and for other purposes."
Thursday, January 31, 2013
EU Super State Wants the Power to Sack Journalists to Control the News / Politics / Propaganda
By: Mike_Shedlock
"Big Brother" in Action
In case you have not already realized it, 1984 has come and gone politically. All that remains is how fast we march down the path of "thought suppression". Here are a couple of articles that will make my point.
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Thursday, January 31, 2013
The Trillion Dollar Coin, Anything Is Better Than Taxes / Politics / US Debt
By: Joseph_T_Salerno
As outlandish as the idea of the $1 trillion platinum coin at first appears, it gives us a glimpse of a monetary arrangement that, although far from ideal, is superior to the current system. Now that the Obama Treasury has definitely ruled out the scheme to mint the coin to circumvent the gimmicky debt ceiling, it is instructive to take a closer look at the reason why it did so and to articulate the lessons that can be learned from the episode.
To begin with, the scheme has ramifications far beyond a one-off political trick to avoid the debt ceiling. Indeed, it presented an implicit challenge to the much vaunted and sacrosanct "independence" of the Fed. That is why, from the very beginning, Fed worshippers in the establishment media – left, right and center – mercilessly mocked the idea and denigrated its supporters as grossly ignorant or irresponsible, although they dared not spell out its full policy implications.
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Thursday, January 31, 2013
The Trillion Dollar Babies / Politics / US Politics
By: Jeff_Berwick
Redmond Weissenberger writes:
“Million dollar baby, Billion dollar baby, Zillion dollar baby, Trillion dollar baby.” — Alice Cooper, 1973
With the US Congress once again chomping at the bit to raise the limit on government borrowing, it has become exceedingly comical to watch as what was once the world’s leading economic power print, borrow, and spend its way down the path of failed states. For all their talk of scaling back Leviathan, Republicans in the House of Representatives tucked in their tails and voted to raise the debt ceiling to ensure Wall Street and welfare clingers will still get paid. If this sad display of dishonesty isn’t enough to convince you the dollar is on its way out, I don’t know what will.
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Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Chinese Takeover with Free Trade Zones / Politics / Protectionism
By: BATR
The long-term goal of Communist Red Chinese is to take over the wealth creation resources of the planet. The quasi merger between the authoritarian Maoists and the global capitalists plays out as a sorry act in the Beijing Red Theater. The performance designed to distract and confuse really has the destruction of Western economies as the climax. The sell out of the West, under the skilled dirty hands of Herr Heinz Henry A. Kissinger, is entering the final stages of a planned implosion. Now that the de-industrialization of America as described in the article, Free Trade Created the Chinese Model, has taken placed, the theft of our natural assets is the next to go. The Chinese exploits the use of U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones. A depiction of the function and working of such Foreign-Trade Zones follows:
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Meet the Global Corporate “Supra-Government” / Politics / Social Issues
By: Andrew_G_Marshall
We live in a corporate culture, where most of us have worked or currently work for corporations, we spend our money at corporate venues, on corporate products, watch corporately-owned television shows and movies, listen to corporate-sponsored music; our modes of transportation, communication and recreation are corporately influenced or produced; our sports stadiums and movie theaters are named after car companies and global banks; our food is genetically altered by multinational conglomerates, our drinking water is brought to us by Coca-Cola, our news is brought to us by Pfizer, and our political leaders are brought to us by Exxon, Shell, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Hackers and the Alternatives to the Global Financial System / Politics / Global Financial System
By: Submissions
Keith Hilden writes: We find ourselves as a world currently at a pivotal point where the current maligned global financial system is falling way to multiple alternatives as new global financial system models emerge as solid competitors. Hackers will undoubtedly prove themselves as a disruptor to the alternative new financial system frameworks that emerge, and will sculpt the initial framework into its matured institutional state. Due to the leverage that hackers will possess, emerging alternative global financial system frameworks will be heavily influenced by hackers. Simply said, regardless of which global financial alternative is chosen, hackers will own the day. And investment into cybersecurity firms products and services will absolutely skyrocket.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Ferocious, Weak and Crazy: The North Korea Military Strategy / Politics / North Korea
By: STRATFOR
North Korea's state-run media reported Sunday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered the country's top security officials to take "substantial and high-profile important state measures," which has been widely interpreted to mean that North Korea is planning its third nuclear test. Kim said the orders were retaliation for the U.S.-led push to tighten U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang following North Korea's missile test in October. A few days before Kim's statement emerged, the North Koreans said future tests would target the United States, which North Korea regards as its key adversary along with Washington's tool, South Korea.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Public Schools Are Black Holes, Don't Drop Your Child into One / Politics / Educating Children
By: LewRockwell
Butler Shaffer writes: Never let school interfere with your education.~ Mark Twain
There is an old joke about how knowledge accumulates in universities: students enter college, knowing everything, and graduate knowing nothing. In this way does knowledge continue to grow within universities. My years of experience in what is referred to as "higher education" inform me that there is more than sophomoric humor in this description.
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Tuesday, January 29, 2013
The Failure of the Iranian Sanctions / Politics / US Politics
By: Steve_H_Hanke
In light of President Barack Obama’s nomination of Senator Chuck Hagel for U.S. Secretary of Defense, the issue of Iran — and the economic sanctions, in particular — promises to stay in play. Hagel has been lambasted by the neo-conservatives and some hard-line supporters of Israel for daring to question (in the past) that sanctions are the best way to confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Well, as it turns out, the sanctions have failed to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear program. Indeed, sanctions have a long history of failure.
Monday, January 28, 2013
Reinventing Abraham: Organized Religion And The Crisis / Politics / Religion
By: Andrew_McKillop
TOLERANCE AND UNDERSTANDING
We like to imagine that mutual understanding promotes tolerance. But the modern communication saturated 'global village' enables us to better hate people because we understand them all too well.
To be sure, religion is a major vector or enabler of organized hate and most starkly concerns adepts and fanatics of the so-called "Three Religions of the Book": because their numbers are well over 2 billion persons worldwide, this has "a certain significance".