Winter Patriot Community Blog

I would like to tie together three subjects that are in the forefront at the moment with three separate essays and argue how they are parts of a whole. Three areas of capitalism are involved; the banking/investment/insurance or financial industry; the oil and resources industry; and the armaments and military services industry. These industries are, of course, controlled by the same group of people and so are readily co-ordinated and this should not surprise us. Indeed, we should expect it. The three subjects or issues breathlessly and inaccurately reported to us are the financial meltdown/bailout fiasco, the moves for a One World Currency and the ever building number and intensity of wars in the the Middle East and Central Asia for the control of oil. The “whole” I speak of is the domination or rulership of the whole world or more succinctly, One World Government.

This first part concerns the financial industry and the derivatives meltdown and the attendant bailout scandal. This essay is in large part a rewrite of part of James Lieber's excellent article, “What Cooked The World's Economy”. I have attempted to expand on some of his points with some logical deductions and also some opinions together with a few added bits of information from the public domain.
All quotes in this essay come from the above article and the first quote will start at the “bottom line”-

“The bottom line in this scandal is that fantastically wealthy entities positioned themselves to make unfathomable fortunes by betting that average Americans - Joe Six-Packs and hockey moms - would fail.“
Bearing this in mind will help makes sense of what I write below, I hope!
So after that introduction, let us deconstruct the scam.

INTO THE VALLEY OF DEBT

It struck me, at first, as very odd that the derivative scam artists are walking around very much alive. They have caused some major financial institutions that were very much a part of the establishment to go belly up apparently because of their reckless yet deliberate actions. Personally, I would rather scam the Gambino family than mess with the likes of the Rockefellers or the Rothschilds. These people are seriously attached to money. Bankers have a habit of washing up on the ebb tide and or dying from heart attacks in the peak of health or leaving suicide notes that don't sound like them and swinging from bridges. We've had a rash of them over the last few years though they didn't get much play in the MSM, surprisingly . . . not. So how come the likes of Joseph Cassano of AIG Financial Products are not only alive and still in employment but also receiving huge bonuses. Something is seriously wrong with this picture, is it not?

From this evidence, one must immediately conclude that the Rockefellers and Rothschilds et.al. have not been burnt which means that they were not involved in any way. But given the interconnectedness of everything financial and their attraction to huge profits, this would seem highly unlikely, indeed. The other option is that they were involved but on the winning side. This would account for Cassano et. al. remaining alive after (or even before) the collapse became public knowledge.

Not only are they still alive, but they are still in employment at the scene of the various disasters and still at the helm. For this situation to continue, the apparently incompetent fraudsters must be under the control and protection of whomever is benefitting from this situation, past and present. So all this would indicate there is still evidence to conceal and James Lieber quotes William Black, a former financial regulator, suggesting that very thing, ' "Don't count on them keeping records for long," Black warns. "It's time to get out the subpoenas."'
/This would also account for the obscene and PR risky bonuses these snake oil salesmen have received. But I will be suggesting that there is more to it and that is that the derivative scam is still in process and the “backsheesh” is to ensure that the salesmen stay in place for the time being, at least, as they still have work to do. After the party's over, though, they may have to avoid taking rides on boats; or flights in small planes; or bending over bridges . . . or bending over anything, really.

I found James Lieber's article very illuminating. Crucial to my understanding from his article is this,
'“Derivatives weren't initially evil. They began as insurance policies on large loans. A bank that wished to lend money to a big, but shaky, venture, like what Ford or GM have become, could hedge its bet by buying a credit derivative (insurance policy) to cover losses if the debtor defaulted.”

A market or trading forum was needed to facilitate the selling of these loan insurance policies (a.k.a. Credit Derivatives or CDs or just “derivatives”) on a large scale and thereby create a new financial services industry (and new profit centre) and was duly supplied in the form of a computer network. From Leiber again,

“the company that put the basic hardware and software together for pricing and clearing derivatives was Bloomberg. It was quite expensive for a financial institution - say, a bank - to get a Bloomberg machine and receive the specialized training required to certify analysts who would figure out the terms of the insurance. These Bloomberg terminals, originally called Market Masters, were first installed at Merrill Lynch in the late 1980s.
Subsequently, thousands of units have been placed in trading and financial institutions; they became the cornerstone of Michael Bloomberg's wealth, marrying his skills as a securities trader and an electrical engineer.
It's an open question when or if he or his company knew how they would be misused over time to devastate the world's economy.”

The scale of this operation, even granting that it was builtup over years, together with the fact that Bloomberg's company is privately owned, suggests to me that Bloomberg needed lots of finance to not only develop and provide the hardware and software but also for promotion and, critical in this industry, he would have needed influential sponsorship to put this system in place and the most likely place that would come from is within this same industry. If I were investigating this meltdown, one of the first questions I would want answered is, “who financed this time bomb?” I suspect the answer would be very revealing and would be at least one of the major anonymous “counterparties”.

So how was it a time bomb? How did legitimate insurance on a loan mutate so badly? Well, it soon became apparent (if it wasn't the purpose from the begining) that with the insurance (derivative) in place, there was more money to be made from a loan going bad and collecting on the insurance than if the loan was secure and paid off in due course. Particularly if the loan could be insured for more than it was worth or was purchased for. Coupled with the fact that the loan could be insured multiple times and the fact that you didn't even need to own the loan yourself. So if you insure a loan a hundred times over so that when it falls over, you are paid its full book value one hundred times. This is more than a “goldmine”; this is an exponential formula to unlimited wealth if the fabulous profits are parlayed a few times. Imagine betting on the winning number on a roulette table and letting the winnings ride and having the number come up again . . . and then keep on repeating this process with no pit-boss (or regulator) to shut the table down!
Now think in trillions!

But this jackpot payoff is dependent on the insured loan going bad. So now there is a market for bad or high risk loans and it is an exponentially ever-growing market because once a derivative buyer or “counterparty” (as he is known in the business) has collected big time on his “investment” he naturally wants to plough it all back into the same glorious, no risk, bonanza. But our counterparty's capital has grown like Topsy and he needs a hundred bad loans this time. How many bad loans will he need after a few circuits on this magic merry-go-round? Clearly the “Bad Loan” business needs to go “bigtime” and to do that the financial regulations and supervision need to be eradicated. Bye-bye Glass-Steagall Act. Hello Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA). And thank you, Bill Clinton.

This need for loans to be defaulted on is one of the reasons why Obama and his backers on Wall Street will not help rescue ordinary, but over committed, people struggling to stay in their homes or pay off their credit cards. There are still derivatives in play to be collected on.
Lieber again, “By plunking down millions of dollars, a hedge fund could reap billions once these fatally constructed securities plunged. Again, the funds did not need to own the securities; they just needed to pay for the derivatives - the insurance policies for the securities. And they could pay for them again and again. This was known as replicating. It became an addiction. “

It's not over, either. To repeat, its still in play and there are still loans to fall over and there are still payoffs to collect for the mysterious counterparties whom the Fed and everyone else involved refuse to identify.
“What about the $600 trillion in credit derivatives that are still out there, sucking vital liquidity and credit out of the system? It's the tyrannosaurus in the mall, the one that made Henry Paulson, the former Treasury Secretary who looks like Daddy Warbucks, get down on his knees and beg Nancy Pelosi for a bailout.
Even with the bailout, no one can get their arms around this monster. Obviously, the $600 trillion includes not only many unseemly replicated death bets, but also some benign derivatives that creditors bought to hedge risky loans. Instead of sorting them out, the Bush administration tried to protect them all, while keeping the counterparties happy and anonymous.”

Note well that last clause, “while keeping the counterparties happy and anonymous.” And Obama is in the continuity business here as well, it seems.

But let me backtrack a little to how the first half of the scam operated before the government intervention and the second half began.
The challenge was how to do it on a mass scale. It needed to pull most of the financial industry in because the object was to firstly, loot whole economies and secondly, set the stage for a one world currency which would give the issuers of this currency a de facto world government. If you control the issue of money then you control the economy. You can run it up and you can run it down through the simple expedient of how much money you put into circulaton or withdraw from circulation via bank lending policy. With the control of the economy, you control the government and more besides because you can buy and sell anything and anybody you please.

So they needed a respectable and respected front to lead the way for others to follow; to assure the nervous Nellies that success lay in joining “The Charge of the Blight Brigade into the Valley of Debt”.
What better vehicle than AIG, the biggest insurance company in the world. You are probably protesting that this company is “one of their own”. Yes, but many a fortune has been made from bankrupting a company, particularly, one's own. Greenburg, the head of AIG, established the demolition team in London, AIG Financial Products by name. I suggest this was not only to escape the rather non-existent regulatory control but also to escape internal detection and intervention from senior executives at the parent company who might not be too exicted about the prospect of their careers, status and livelihoods going up in smoke and so "out" the operation before its time is due. Lieber points out,

“ . . . William Black, an effective federal litigator and regulator during the 1980s savings-and-loan scandal . . . . . has testified to Congress about the current crisis and paints it as "control fraud" at every level. Such fraud flows from the top tiers of corporations - typically CEOs and CFOs, who control perverse compensation systems that reward cheating and volume rather than quality, and circumvent standard due diligence such as underwriting and accounting. For instance, AIGFP's Cassano reportedly rebuffed AIG's internal auditor.”

And also, “In 2000, AIG asked the New York State Insurance Department to decide if it wanted to regulate them, but the department's superintendent, Neil Levin, said no. The question was not posed by AIGFP, but by the company's main office through its general counsel”.
Perhaps head office was trying to get the regulator to do what it ironically couldn't i.e. audit its own subsiduary.

With the solid looking facade of AIG in place all that's needed now is an outside “seal of good housekeeping” for the bait which was provided by Standard & Poors and the other rating agencies. The bait made up of mortgages, credit card debt and sundry other things and otherwise known as CDOs (Collateralised Debt Obligations) was sold to,
“Banks like Wachovia, National City, Washington Mutual, and Lehman Brothers (who) loaded up on this financial trash, which soon proved to be practically worthless. Today, those banks are extinct” (unlike the ratings agencies)

Presumably these banks did not take out CDs (Credit Derivatives) on their new assets, the CDOs. Why not? If they had have, they would be in clover now and not in bankrupcy.
Either these institutions were kept in ignorance and were set up by their fellow bankers to fail with the view to taking out the competition.
Or, they were gutted and offered up as sacrificial lambs; that the derivatives were, indeed, taken out on the bad loans (CDOs) by the principals of these firms but held in other companies away from the creditors and eventual liquidators. All sorts of other obligations would be conveniently voided, too, and the victims (shareholders and creditors) wouldn't realise that it was deliberate and thinking that Lehman Brothers, for instance, wouldn't deliberately bring down the house on top of their heads like Samson did; and the wholesale looting put down to incompetence instead of larceny.

I think it likely that both these scenarios were in play with different individual companies and for both the reasons outlined above.

But this bomb is a time bomb and these institutions (and also private investors) are loaded up with these explosive bad loans, we need a trigger to set the chain reaction off. This was supplied by the banks tightening up consumer credit causing the CDOs to start popping off and then . . .
“the raters rushed to downgrade them to junk status. This occurred suddenly with more than 4,000 CDOs in the first quarter of 2008 - the financial community now regards them as "toxic waste."
To top it all off, JP MorganChase and others delivered the “coup de grace” by freezing interbank lending with instantaneous catastrophic results.

Part one of the scam was complete by this stage. The fiasco had now entered the public arena through the media coverage. And Part Two was about to start.

The Fed went to Congress to appeal for funds to ease the “credit crisis” which had been deliberately created, of course. After initially baulking, Congress handed over the funds and the Fed promptly gave it to the insurers such as AIG who almost certainly turned this money over to the derivative holders, the anonymous “counterparties” i.e. the scammers and builders of this massive operation. This has to be be part of the original plot because AIG and other insurers simply had nowhere near the capital to pay out on the derivatives and the whole operation only makes sense if the scammers can collect which means the government was meant to pay and pay big right from the beginning. This was the prize, the goal of the whole exercise And the government did pay up and is continuing to pay up, what's more. The scam is still in operation.

In the tight monetary conditions i.e. tight lending practices of the banks to the hoi poloi, loans are continuing to fall over and derivatives are continuing to be triggered and are continuing to be payed out and Congress, via the Fed, is continuing to fund it all. The strugglers out there in mortgageland will not be helped in any meaningful way because that would stop this process that provides the continuing shower of funds down on the pigs at the trough.

But it gets even better because the scammers now have enormous funds to buy up all those cheap assets that are up for fire sales by their victims amongst whom are their once upon a time competitors. And they are, no doubt, hoping to convert the bulk of this ill gotten plunder into assets before inflation caused by all this extra money has its effect on prices. The coming inevitable inflation is the cost that everyone will bear. Any savings will effectively be halved in value as prices double or triple or . . . .

I think it is worth taking a side trip to explain the mechanism of inflation. Initiates of this mysterious knowledge can take a break here and rejoin us further down-
The value of one dollar (in theory and also roughly in practice) is calculated by the wealth of a country (which is conveniently measured by the GDP of the country) divided by the number of dollars in existence. The GDP is the amount of wealth collectively created in any given year within the nation. Given that the GDP will only vary by a few percent (if that) year to year, the amount of dollars on issue is crucial to the value of each dollar. i.e. whether there is inflation or not. If the amount of dollars on issue is doubled then the value of each one is halved. There is a simple symmetry involved. To say it another way, if the amount of money on issue is doubled then the prices of everything must double too. You will need twice as many dollars to buy the same thing so each dollar is worth half of what it was before. Or from yet another perspective, the extra money will compete for the goods on sale and thus push the prices up until an equilibrium between the amount of dollars in circulation matches the collective or sum price of everything that it can buy.

There is yet another variation on how to see this relationship and that is through the the realisation that in a stable economy, the money supply not only matches the value of the GDP or wealth of the country but that this GDP is what gives the currency or money supply its value. This is what backs the face value of the currency. This value belongs the citizens of the country as a whole as they largely own it. Yet it is “borrowed” by the bankers to give their issued money value. But that's another scam for another essay which will look at the One World Currency. But bearing this relationship in mind between GDP and Money Supply/Currency will be very helpful in understanding the scams involved with the proposed, and perhaps immanent, One World Currency.

Anyway, back to the topic of this essay (and to the initiates amongst us), all this is to say that the bailouts give massive dollar amounts to the already wealthy and every one pays for it because, for one, the value of the dollars everyone else is holding goes down to accommodate and facilitate this shift of wealth.

In summary, with AIG and JP Morgan in the lead, insurers, investment houses and banks created subprime loan assets and had the rating agencies give them prime rating. These subprime assets had higher subprime returns with apparent prime safety. This was irresistable bait for the greedy. The anonymous “counterparties” behind the AIG/JP Morgan push insured these subprime loans (CDOs) with derivatives (CDs or Credit Derivatives) betting that the loans would fall over and thus collecting handsomely. And in the process, bleeding the above companies and others dry and then bleeding the whole nation dry through the government and its bailouts which was the real and ultimate "mark" all along.

The concept was simple. However, the implementation took some doing over many years including dismantling the regulatory provisions and hobbling the oversight bodies.

With this information, looking back over those years makes it plain that it was all deliberately engineered. The same cast of characters are present at every step; building, priming, selling and setting off the charges and then lobbying excitedly and making threats for the compensation or more correctly, the payoff.

Many privately wealthy people have lost much of their capital by buying CDOs directly without attendant derivatives or by investing in companies that got caught with them.

Many people of more modest means have lost investments, too, and seen the value of their superannuation plummet, as well. Their Mutual Funds have been caught with CDOs and also hold shares that have lost value through the same process.

And lastly, everyone, again, will suffer from the coming inflation and from future increased taxes to pay off the government debts incurred to make the filthy rich obscenely rich.

And all this through a simple scam. To repeat James Lieber's bottom line -
““The bottom line in this scandal is that fantastically wealthy entities (aided and abetted by both political parties ed.) positioned themselves to make unfathomable fortunes by betting that average Americans - Joe Six-Packs and hockey moms - would fail.“

I believe this is called “anti-social behaviour”.

With the economy and population financially bloodied, beaten and fearful (and it ain't over yet by any means) we are all open to being lead over the cliff of a One World Currency and then it's a freefall down into the abyss of a One World Government.

That's the bad news. The good news is that we aren't over the cliff, yet. And we know what's happening and who's doing it and who not to turn to for help. And that's a good start.

After giving M.K. Bhadrakumar a boost the other day I am now regretting it. He writes in “Obama may cede Iran's nuclear rights” (thanks, McJ, nice map!) that the US may offer to forego opposition to Iran's nuclear power program in exchange for agreeing to buy their enriched uranium fuel from Kazakhstan who would warehouse and supply it under “international” supervision or control. He goes on to describe (but not identify) quite a web of intrigue and a list of characters involved.

But Bhadrakumar seems to be spinning a web of his own. He prevaricates in introducing the topic (the web) and the chief characters (can we call them spiders?). For instance, “It (the US) sought a rethink of Washington's insistence on Iran jettisoning its pursuit of uranium enrichment as a pre-requisite of commencement of direct talks between the two countries.” Talks about what? Talks about “jettisoning its pursuit of uranium enrichment.” It's circular and nonsensical, no? Yes, but that is how Israel and the US “negotiate” but Bhadrakumar reframes it as something sensible or reasonable.
And there's more, “This was borne out of a growing realization that the US insistence was no longer tenable.” It would have been much clearer and upfront to say, “the bullying didn't work so we'll move to plan B”. The article seeks to present the US Administration as (now) being reasonable in their approach and demeanour. But since when do leopards change their spots?

McJ asks (somewhat rhetorically, perhaps), “I'm curious as to what the reason is that it is 'OK' for Kazakhstan to enrich and store uranium for fuel and not Iran”.
The implication in the article (and in the proposal from the US presumably) is that Kazakhstan is not going to produce nuclear weapons. But Iran has made that same commitment over and over. The Ayatollah Khamenei has even issued a fatwa against their developing them i.e. they are against God. How does Nurusultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan compare with that? Here's the Islamic Human Rights Commission view on him, “government oil and gas revenues, along with secret bribery payments from US oil company Exxon Mobil , amounting to one billion dollars were diverted to secret swiss bank accounts controlled by Nazarbayev and other senior Kazakh autocrats.
Following the freezing of Swiss bank accounts, Nazarbayev made a January 2003 trip to Switzerland, speculated to ensure his immunity from prosecution in return for testimonials against other senior Kazakh government officials.”
I think we can safely say, “he's in the bag”. And there's torture, too, but, hey, everybody is into that these days.

How could the Iranians ever be persuaded to trust Nazarbayev? They can't. Bhadrakuman describes him as “the veteran Kazakh statesman”. He may well be a veteran and be as cunning as a shithouse rat but he is no statesman and the Iranians would know that full well. And the Japanese are hardly neutral go-betweens. So what's gong on here?

In international diplomacy, nobody is honest. There's always a hidden agenda. So how do you get a hidden agenda past your opponent when every one is looking for it? Provide a decoy. So, what's the decoy here? It might be a number of things, of course, but I'll suggest one; the Iranians might see that the US is trying to use this “uranium bank” as a wedge between Russia, China and Iran. The Americans might be hoping that the Iranians will see this and (though they will never agree to “the Bank”) will try and use the situation to winkle more nuclear (or other) concessions out of the Russians. Meanwhile, this whole piece of theatre is occupying the Iranian leadership's attention (and everybody else's) and distracting them from something else that's going on; something that is very much to their detriment. And that something may well be the large troop and materiel buildups taking place on their borders right now.

There has been a recent troop increase in Iraq as a result of the “surge” and now there is a similar buildup on Iran's other flank in Afghanistan together with transit agreements entered into with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on their northern border and Kazakhstan, in turn, behind them. Tehran is in the north of the country and is roughly equidistant from Baghdad in Iraq, Baku in Azerbaijan, Ashabad in Turkmenistan and a little further away, but still close, is Herat in Afghanistan. This is the Silk Road (or part of it) and further on down this Road is China.

It is a standard tactic that when you are about ready to attack your enemy, you start peace negotiations. Remember Saakashvili telling South Ossetia that he has renounced military intervention as an option in Georgia's dispute with them? Within days, he attacked. This would certainly have been on instructions from the US and Israel.

It seems, too, that there was much more to the attack on South Ossetia than was first apparent. From “Eurasian Crossroads: The Caucasus In US-NATO War Plans - by Rick Rozoff,
“Last September Russian envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin said that "Russian intelligence had obtained information indicating that the Georgian military infrastructure could be used for logistical support of U.S. troops if they launched an attack on Iran. (This would presumably been obtained from Georgian military barracks raided by the Russians in their reciprocal invasion).
"'This is another reason why Washington values Saakashvili's regime so highly,' Rogozin said, adding that the United States had already started 'active military preparations on Georgia's territory' for an invasion of Iran."(31)
Other Russian sources affirmed that Russia's defeat of Georgia last August preempted a planned attack on Iran, and commentators in the Caucasus have speculated that had Saakashvili succeeded in South Ossetia not only would he have immediately turned on Abkhazia but Azerbaijan would have launched a similar assault on Nagorno-Karabakh which would have led to Armenia certainly, Turkey probably and Iran possibly being dragged into a regional conflagration.”

Between North and South Ossetia is the Caucasian Mountains with the Roki Tunnel the main link between them. If South Ossetia were in Georgian hands and the tunnel blocked, Russia would be severely handicapped in coming through Georgia with troops and tanks (more info in the comments section as well) to Iran's aid and attacking both NATO's supply lines and their invading troops from behind.

But back to the negotiating table; or is it a stage? The proposal over nuclear fuel also doesn't make sense when held up against the US and Israel's major motivation; their goal of dominating the whole world, the New American Century and with, perhaps, yet another “Pearl Harbour”. The prime motivation or goal must always be borne in mind.

Iran is very definitely the next stepping stone to that goal. Control of Iran's oil and gas is crucial and this leopard ain't about to change its spots any day soon.

On The Evil In This World.

I have to note first that in the following essay I have used masculine pronouns throughout. I have often wondered what it would be like for a woman to read about somone she is supposed to, or wants to, identify with only to be faced with “He” and “His” all the time. I have tried it by reversing it and it feels very exclusionary. Our language doesn't seem to have an answer to this problem. It is particularly unfortunate, in this instance, because I will be talking about victims and women, as a group, suffer much more from victimisation than men do. Also, of all the brave people I personally know, all bar one of them are women. In my defence, I can only point out that all the abusers and exploiters mentioned are also exclusively male. Never-the-less, women readers have my apologies in advance.

I will also be arguing for the existence of a benevolent God. I have come to this understanding through my experiences and through Christianity but I do not want to imply that I endorse any denomination. All the denominations I have had anything to do with have caused more harm than good through ignorance and hypocrisy. Mostly, I believe, it is the pathology of power behind the hypocrisy and wilfullignorance. My advice is to approach them with caution, if at all. So with those two qualifications out of the way (and if I haven't put you off already!), let's into it.

In another thread on this blog, some of us were discussing a brilliant, brilliant article from Joe Bageant and during the course of this, McJ made this comment,
“I would be interested in anyone has thoughts on how 'evil' exists. If God permeates us all, does evil come from one rejecting an orientation towards this 'animating spirit'? “
To which Tsisageya added this,
“I might add that, after awhile, there comes a point of no return---or forgiveness, if you will. I mean if a living being rejects/destroys life itself, then wouldn't that lead to death, hence, separation from God?”

I said I would like to comment on this but would need a little time to think it through and arrange it or to “get all my ducks in a row”! The following is the result:-

I'd like to go back to what I mentioned in the comment on the previous thread about the source of life and build up my argument from there.
Biologists and pathologists are unable to determine the source of life within any organism including humans. They can't establish where in the body the source of life is or, indeed, what it is. Nor can they establish what's not there after death. So if the source of life is not within the body, it must be without. The source cannot be located elsewhere in the world, either, so one has to conclude it comes from outside this world, outside the physical universe. A power from outside this physical realm that animates it and gives it life and is therefore integral with it must come from the same source as the physical creation. This being so, then it must come from God. If GOd is the ultimate source of life, then we are alive because God is alive in us. If God is alive in us then he must feel everything we feel including, and especially, our pain.

Now God is only creative and therefore cannot be destructive. Or as John says (1John 1:5) “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all”. If there were darkness in him, then God would be at war with himself. This is impossible. He would be doing violence to himself and denying his own nature. I have argued this further in “Introduction to the Enemy”.
But there is “darkness' in this world and it seems to be at war with all that is creative, everywhere. We read everyday in our news countless people being killed to satiate the greed of a few men. Our governments waging war against largely defenceless people for oil, uranium, gold, diamonds, water and goodness knows what else. They are destroying the world so they can rule it. They are destroying God's creation so that they can rule it in God's place. This creation is not only the physical territory and its resources but also includes all us human beings. This small handful of men behind our various governments want to be God. But they're not God! Are they mad? Yes, indeed. Insanity is being detached from reality i.e. deluded. And the ultimate delusion would have to be that you are God or that you could be God.

It reminds me of that great scene in “Life of Brian” where Eric Idle's character wants to be called Loretta from now on (fair enough) and to be acknowledged as having the “right” to have a baby (not so easy)! Eric's slippery grip on reality is humorous because of its lunacy. Unfortunately, these madmen that rule us and their lunacy cannot be laughed off as easily. If only they could be.

So how did we get to this sorry state when we were created by God in whom there is no darkness and created in his likeness? God created us with free will. We know this because we have choice and so we can, amongst a multitude of other things, choose him or reject him. To choose him is to accept the reality that he made and part of that reality is that the world is here for us to use and not to exploit. And to continue to use the world we have to leave it in a sustainable state. Sustainability must be a part of the plan. Also part of the world are our fellow human beings. They are here to help us and to be helped by us and not to be exploited, either. If God made us, and made us with free will, then he is into relationships. That being so, he would expect us to have relationships amongst each other which would reflect his (hoped for) relationship with us; supportive and non-exploitative relationships which also means sustainable relationships.

Implicit in granting us each free will, God also granted us authority over our own lives. It follows then that clearly we cannot have authority over anyone else's life. This is where all religions and religious leaders go wrong whether they realise it or not. If we try to gain authority or power over someone else, we are going against God's will for that person and ourselves. If we are then rebelling against God, then we are also rebelling against reality. If this is true, then we could expect things to start messing up because we are not driving this machine as it is supposed to be driven i.e. the way God designed this world and us in it to function. Are things screwing up? Absolutely and bigtime! And what's more, the last thing this situation is, is sustainable.

On an individual level, if we are rejecting God's will for us by exploiting others would we not be then rejecting God and some of the life he has for us? Yes, I believe so (and priests and pastors are by no means immune from this, either). I see evidence of it in increased stress levels that lead to increased disease and mental anguish and violent behaviour. Crucially, it removes the joy from one's life; the pure, literally invigorating, “joie de vivre” that is free from any other agenda. The closest the exploiter will get to this is glee which is a very bittersweet thing. There is always hatred at the back of it. The other quality to disappear from your life is peace; that ease that comes from being at ease with oneself.

So we have free will to choose God and God's reality with its sustainability or reject it. But given that God's reality is the only game in town, the only reality we have, we would be crazy to reject it. But we do and we are. The craziness comes from the rejection little by little. The really sad part is that a small rejection of reality, of going against God's will or desire for us all, results in a small amount of craziness because we tell ourselves it's right or worse, God's will. We are practising delusion and this same craziness prevents us from appreciating the little bit of sanity, the little bit of connection to reality we just lost. I don't know if you have ever tried to reason with someone who is seriously deluded or psychotic, but it is just hopeless. Or tried to talk sense to an addict who is still on the way up and thinks he is in control. Again, hopeless. We can readily recognise people who are crazier than we are and can understand why they are angry and driven (without any joy or peace) but it is a little harder to get a handle on people who are saner than we. They often look simple or guileless which can appear foolish or perhaps just serene. But it is very hard to understand why; to “get” what they “get”, if you know what I mean.

I have said before that I believe that the craziness that leads us to believe we can (and even should!) have power over others is addictive and has the same deluded pathology as any other addiction and that we all have the potential to go down this path. I have talked more at length about this addictive behaviour in “Introduction to the System”. What inhibits most people from going down this path to any great extent is something else God gave us, a conscience. You may think that conscience is a cultural thing but it is remarkably similar across all cultures. And nevermind that all cultures say one thing but do another. So we are all tempted to emulate God and seek power over others (even though God has this power he doesn't use it) but we have to actively reject God to do so by going against our conscience. It is definitely a choice. It most probably won't be verbalised but it is never-the-less a choice. And God has allowed us to do that. Why, when the consequences are so predictable and always bad? Because of love. You can't love someone if you don't have free will i.e. free will not to love that person. And you can't love someone fully if they don't have free will, either, because love, at its most complete, is a relationship and in this free will, you have to be equal.

So we've covered free will and rejecting God and the craziness and the destruction that comes from it but does this account for the evil in the world? I suppose for those that think evil is simply an absence of good, it does. But for those that perceive evil to be more than that, and I am one of them, it doesn't. For those of us that look into the atrocities of genocide and systematic rape and torture, it strikes us that something outside our understanding is going on here. Something is terribly wrong. It's much more than an argument that has gotten out of hand. There is a malevolence present. From here, I have to leave the logical argument behind and express my opinions and talk of the experiences that have shaped them. They will either strike you as true or not.

For those that have encountered evil, it is more than an idea; it is a force and, what is more, you can feel it. I have seen and experienced evil up close. I have seen people brutally murdered for the thrill of power and, quite literally, as an overt act of war against God. I have seen a satanic cult at work and, believe me, it was and they still are (as there are many of them throughout our societies) at war against God. The cult members, at times, displayed levels of hatred few would believe possible. They are at the extreme end of the psychopathic spectrum. It is the demonic force acting within them. How do I know this force is demonic? Because I once saw the demon that was in one of these cult members. It was total hatred. The force of that hatred hit me like a bow wave before it.

This demonic force wants to destroy everything that God created. It cannot destroy God so it will destroy everything that God loves. The more “good” a person is the more anathema they are to the demonic. The more helpless and innocent the victim, the better they like it because it is all the more an affront to God and to those that side with him. It is also an attempt to overwhelm and dominate the rest of us. That is its purpose from the demonic point of view and it is the demonic that is driving these offenders. So if you have ever heard yourself asking, “How on earth could someone possibly DO that?!”, now you know.

People are very imperfect as we all know but most of us would like to be and, indeed, try to be better; to be more helpful or more considerate or whatever. Some of us, though, don't try to be better or to co-operate more. At base these people are acting out of fear whether they realise it or not. These people can be reached through example and through cajoling and even a little behaviour modification or “re-education”such as isolation from the rest of us should they become convicted criminals to encourage their understanding of the need for co-operation and socialization. You won't change them through punishment, though, save for the isolation should it be employed. The desired behaviour has to be modelled to them (as distasteful as that may sound to many!).

But there are others, still, who are extremely destructive and who are beyond reach; beyond change. Psychiatry calls them sociopaths. We, in common everyday language, call them psychopaths. These people need to be isolated from the rest of society as other criminals (if they are ever convicted) until they exhibit change and as they never change, this means permanently. While maintaining this separation, they should be treated very humanely (because we are into humane treatment for everybody . . . aren't we?!)

How do some people become psychopaths? It is thought by some psychiatrists and research psychologists (and satanists, too, I might add!) that it comes through childhood abuse. It may appear to be severe or not. What it will always be about though, in my opinion, is a decision for or against compassion for others. Either the abused child decides, “So this is how the game is played. This is the totality of the world. You are either a victim or an abuser. I don't want to be a victim so I'll become an abuser”. This child will not see a third alternative. This child becomes a psychopath, I believe, because from here on in he has to push down the voice of his conscience and as the child is still very young and developing, it can be done very effectively.

Or alternatively, the child victim may reject being what he hates, an abuser, and decide to be a victim. This child probably will not see a third alternative either, at least not for the time being. But later, he might. And that third alternative is to be free. To reject the abusers' view of the world as divided neatly into perps and victims with no other options. To be free, the child, or more likely the adult by now, has to let go of the burning desire for revenge and hand it over to God to deal with. We simply aren't equipped to deal with it. It will destroy the victim as surely as if he had become an abuser because he will be harbouring violence in his heart. And violence is violence no matter how you might justify it and its effects are just the same. I know this truth from bitter experience. Revenge will often cloak itself as a desire for justice for oneself and for others so one has to be very discerning.

We, as a society, need for our own protection to identify and avoid or, better, isolate socially these psychopaths. I could list a string of tell-tales to look for but most of it is covered by:-
1. watching out for liars; three strikes and they're out! Be wary of people who are more charming than the situation calls for and

2. look for what a friend of mine calls “fish-eyes”. These are people who have no life in their eyes. You look in but get nothing back. They are completely blank.

3. “By their fruits you shall know them”, as someone wisely once said. If you suspect someone of being a psychopath, seek out people from their past to talk to and dig into their history.

4. Then share your knowledge with others. Stick to the facts. I wouldn't label them as psychopaths unless the person you are talking to is very familiar with the term and the condition. I would, instead, focus on the chronic lying and on them displaying no conscience and what that means.

It is right to be angry with these people, or more correctly, with what they have done and are doing but revenge is not an option. We don't know what we would have done in their shoes come decision time. I was treated in ways few people can imagine and I didn't decide to throw my lot in with the abusers. But to this day, I don't know how I chose the way I did. I don't take credit for it because I don't know what was at work in me and because of that I am not about to blame someone who chose differently. This still calls for their enforced separation from the rest of us, not as revenge but for our safety. It is or responsibility to keep ourselves, our families and our neighbours safe from harm. It is God's responsibility to judge and apply retribution, not ours. To do so would be to act in God's place and that is the start of the slippery slope that the perpetrators started on. Do we want to end up in their shoes?

As I have found out, if you entertain, or worse embrace, revenge and violence no matter how much you may think it justified, you will hurt people you didn't intend to. There are always unintended and unforeseen consequences. The only predictable aspect of violence is that it will lead to more violence. And from a satanic point of view, that is its purpose - ever more violence and destruction.

The Afghanistan and Iraqi wars were sold to the public as classic “bait and switch” gambits. They wouldn't have worked if the public at large didn't have violence in their hearts to start with; if they didn't have such concepts as righteous or redemptive violence within themselves. You see? It's a trap. It's always a trap. Judged from the results, there is no "good" violence.

When I talk of violence, I am not talking about the use of physical force needed to defend yourself. I am talking about anything that goes the slightest bit beyond that. I am talking, more particularly, about an attitude.

This decision in later life to not seek revenge has given me freedom from the trap of the endless violence/victim/revenge/violence/victim cycle. This is not to say I'm perfect at it, by any means, but I am no longer driven and do much less harm to those around me. I have choice in my life and a measure of peace. Violence in your heart will rob you of both joy and peace and also your ability to choose freely. I am not sure how it works but I have definitely noted this loss of autonomy or freedom and free will in myself and others. Perhaps fear blinds us to our choices or even that we can choose at all and perhaps also this is why our governments push fear at us all the time. Regardless, I know freedom and autonomy is much more likely to come from having peace rather than fear in our hearts and to have peace in our hearts we need to first eject violence from them.

So in conclusion, I'd like to say that if we embrace God and live as God intended (and you don't have to be Einstein to work out what that is!) then we will have a measure of peace and joy in our hearts and we will be creative. We will have life (joie de vivre/God's love) and life abundantly. If, on the other hand, we decide to exploit the world and everybody in it, we can expect to have fear and destruction all around us and, indeed, within us as individuals and collectively as societies because we are not using this world or ourselves as we were designed to function. And worse, once we decide to embrace violence and the exploitation of others i.e. evil, we leave our door wide open for demonic forces to enter the world through us and bringing their evil and hatred with them to add to our own heartlessness. This brings not only untimely physical death but spiritual death as well because we have chosen the ultimate insanity; to reject the very source of life itself. And God will honour that choice.

The outspoken peace activist and five term British MP, George Galloway, is scheduled to give a series of speeches titled "Resisting War from Gaza to Kandahar" in four Canadian cities this week. Earlier this month Mr. Galloway led the 99-vehicle 'Viva Palestina' convoy bringing a generator, medicine, food, clothing and toys from the UK into the Gaza strip after an historic 24-day journey through Europe and Africa. 300 people made the 5000 mile journey in a convoy that stretched for 3 miles.
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This incredible, humanitarian accomplishment, that went unremarked in the main stream press, was
a moment cherished by the Palestinians in Gaza. In a letter of thank you to George Galloway, Dalal Alhusseini Muhtadi writes:

"I welcome you as a Palestinian brother of mine...I think Mother Palestine is weeping today with joy not sadness, for having such a son, a hero, that along the many, many long years of suffering, refused to forget.... Refused to forget the horrifying suffering, the tremendous pain, the inhumane genocide...Her rape and torture in every way possible...And he kept on going and going...Until justice and defeat of the siege prevailed. Sir, this is not just a victory for Mother Palestine....but rather a victory for all of humanity indeed.

Upon entering Gaza, Mr. Galloway handed over the vehicles and supplies to the Hamas authorities.

Last week, after receiving letters from the Jewish Defense League (JDL) and B'nai Brith urging the Canadian government to do "everything possible to keep this hater away", the Canadian Border Services Agency informed Mr. Galloway he was considered a threat to the national security of Canada and would not be allowed to enter the country. The story is rather confusing (mostly because the officials involved keep changing their stories and passing the buck) but initially we learned it was because of his views on the Afghanistan war. Now, we're told it is because under Canada's anti-terrorism laws he is considered to have "financially supported" a terrorist group when he delivered humanitarian aid to Gaza's Hamas government.

Jason Kenney, Canada's Minister of Immigration and Multiculturism, has been under fire all week for the decision as Canadians rallied in protest. In a bizarre statement, Kenney's spokesman Alykhan Velshi, told Britain's Channel Four news that Galloway was an "infandous street-corner Cromwell" that would not be allowed into Canada to "pee on our carpet". (Watch here.)

George Galloway fired back with a statement of his own saying a "quick trawl" established that Kenney is "a gay-baiter, gung-ho armchair warrior, with an odd habit of exceeding his immigration brief" who "three years ago...attacked the pro-Western prime minister of Lebanon Fuad Saniora for being ungrateful to Canada for its support of Israeli bombardment of his country." And further said,

"being banned by such a man is like being told to sit up straight by the hunchback of Notre Dame or being lectured on due diligence by Lord Conrad Black – a Kenney ally, now breaking stones in the hot sun. On another, and personal, note for a Scotsman to be excluded from Canada is like being turned away from the family home."

March 20th in a Channel 4 News interview, Meir Weinstein (of the JDL) took credit for having had George Galloway banned from Canada. Galloway, who has legally challenged the Canadian Government's ruling, vowed to speak to Canadians by other means if he is not allowed to enter Canada. Weinstein threatened that "we will see to it that the Canadian government will be monitoring every individual and organization that will have anything to do with it” and that he and the JDL "will be looking into these organizations that invited him… their links to terror groups as well” and that he will “see to it that the Canadian Government will be monitoring every individual and organization that has anything to do with George Galloway”.

Galloway's lawyers were in court today to have the ruling overturned. The court room was packed for the hearing and there was a demonstration outside the court house. The judge will make a decision on the case before 2 pm tomorrow. Regardless of the outcome, a large convoy of lawyers, MP's and antiwar activists will be meeting Mr. Galloway at the US/Canada border on Tuesday.

Galloway is currently on his US leg of the speaking tour, having no problem getting into the US because he is not considered a terrorist supporter there. Unlike Galloway, the JDL has been called by the FBI "a violent extremist Jewish organization in their report "Terrorism 2000/2001" and whose activities have since been described in congressional testimony by FBI agents as terrorist".

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George Galloway will be on "The Hour" with George Stroumboulopoulos, Canada's award-winning late-night TV talk show, on Monday, March 30. If you're in Canada, tune in on CBC at 11 pm. If not, catch the interview after it airs at http://www.cbc.ca/thehour. (I'll embed the video here if I can.)

From "Lawrence of Cyberia" on "the most moral army in the world".

Cowards.

Permalinks-
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http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2009/03/the-smaller-they-are-the...

You might feel a little sick by the time you get to the bottom of these. BTW, did anyone else notice how the attack on the cricketers and a few other terror attacks around the world shifted Gaza and the Israeli boycott off the front pages? Stroke of luck for the Israelis, what?