Fuente:

http://thedailybell.com/1155/Can-Government-Control-the-Net.html

Información:

Can Government Control the 'Net?

Wednesday, June 23, 2010 – by Staff Report

Aussie pols want compulsory AV software and firewalls ... As the Australian Government continues to grapple with the issue of how best to protect the nation from internet nastiness, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications has just lobbed a major new element into the debate in the form of a mega-report on cyber-crime. The report – entitled Hackers, Fraudsters and Botnets: Tackling the Problem of Cyber Crime – is a 260-page opus, published this week and compiled under the chairmanship of Ms Belinda Neal MP. In the foreword, Ms Neal writes that "the interests and needs of consumers and business [should] generally be elevated in the national Cyber Security Strategy". Some of the steps that can be taken immediately include a national coordination point to oversee this broader strategy, a national cyber- crime reporting centre, better coordination and training for law enforcement agencies and public- private information sharing on a wider range of cyber-crime types. These conclusions were based on evidence that the Committee heard, to the effect that Australian consumers (and businesses) were being targeted by cyber criminals as never before, with a total cost to Australian business as high as $649m a year. – The A Register

Dominant Social Theme: Well, of course it can, and for your own good, too ...

Free-Market Analysis: Or maybe not. We have watched with interest as government attacks against the Internet have become more formalized in China, the UK and, of course, America. The Chinese attacks are obvious and known in aggregate as the Great Firewall. In Australia, the government is seeking to move in the Chinese direction, as we can see from the article excerpted above. In America, Senator Joseph Lieberman has recently introduced a bill that would grant the US president considerable power to "shut down" the Internet in a time of major crisis or war.

It has always been the Bell's contention that new communication technology upsets systems of governance. The focus of the Daily Bell, therefore, has been to analyze the (Western) elite's dominant social themes and then to determine whether or not the Internet was exposing them and rendering them less effective. In this article we will revisit a dominant social theme (global warming) and then summarize the reasons why we do not think that governments will have an easy time controlling or censoring the 'Net.

Begin at the beginning. When those behind the Daily Bell began this sort of analysis nearly 10 years ago (a project that has resulted in the Daily Bell in its current incarnation) the idea that the Internet was a modern Gutenberg press was not even considered by most. And the idea of a power elite that exercised societal mind control via fear-based promotions was way too "far out" for almost all but the most rabid "conspiratorialists" to consider. But we believe that time – and power elite actions – have proved much of the Daily Bell's contentions correct.

For proof of the idea that a power elite can exercise control over even the most far-fetched dominant social theme, we need look no further than global warming. This is the perfect example of a fear-based promotion that would never have come about if not for a small group of families and individuals that utilize such memes regularly to further consolidate power and wealth. In the case of global warming, the idea was to scare as many people as possible into surrendering yet more money and power to institutions of global governance conveniently provided by the elite, like flycatchers, for just such purposes. (The UN, etc.)

But due to a fortuitous capture of emails, the global warming promotion has recently unraveled amidst jaw-dropping revelations. It quickly became clear, as one analyzed these emails and the resultant news stories, that a very small coterie of individuals at certain journals, universities, NGOs and at the United Nations itself had been responsible for many of the conclusions that had led to a global, societal consensus that the world must ban the production of carbon dioxide.

In fact, from our view, any objective individual looking at the pattern as it was revealed would certainly grant the possibility that such individuals were in a sense "seeded' in certain critical positions. This is analogous to what intelligence agencies do in authoritarian cultures when they want to control the flow of information and news. One does not need an overwhelming army of opinion molders, merely the right person at the right place and time.

Of course, on so many levels, the idea of reducing carbon dioxide to reduce global warming didn't work logically. Carbon dioxide is only a tiny percentage of the water vapor in the atmosphere that could be said to be "trapping" sunlight and creating a warming cycle. One therefore might as well try to empty the oceans to reduce evaporation. And then there is the idea that the earth is warming in the first place. In fact, it may be cooling.

No matter what the earth is doing, the idea that the handful of human beings that currently occupy its surface (all of whom could fit into the state of Connecticut with room to spare) can affect the weather is as ludicrous as it is arrogant. But nonetheless, the elite behind such promotions almost pulled it off. Now, of course, most people are not so concerned about global warming in the West, as surveys show. It is as if some mass hysteria has lifted.

This hasn't stopped the elite by the way. One of the hallmarks of a dominant social theme is its continued existence even after it has been discredited. Thus we were not surprised when the BP oil spill in the Gulf suddenly reignited legislative "solutions," especially in America, that were put into place to counter global warming. By hook or crook, the elite is determined to get its carbon tax, its tax-and-trade marketplace and ultimately its carbon-based monetary system.

But we think, if it does happen, it will be something of a pyrrhic victory. That's because these fear-based promotions need the equivalent of a willing suspension of disbelief to work well. If people don't believe in the social mechanisms that support the promotions, and if people are suspicious of the promotions themselves, then they will not support them. This is an important point for those who want to fully understand the elite's dominant social themes – and why they worked well in the 20th century but may not work nearly so well in the 21st.

And this is very important to keep in mind when it comes to the Internet. The Anglo-American elite needs a WILLING suspension of disbelief. It is virtually impossible to keep a million, let alone a billion, people under control via dominant social themes if these themes are no longer considered credible. We would argue that because of the past 20 years of Internet information, many of themes have broken down and are no longer quite so believable. But more than that, we would argue that the MECHANISM ITSELF is fairly well understood now by a broad cross-section of individuals. And word-of-mouth is a powerful device.

That is why we have considerable doubts as to whether current Western efforts to control the Internet are going to be effectively pervasive. We are not of course predicting that governments will fail in imposing various forms of censorship on the 'Net as we know it. However, the truth-telling of the Internet is relatively widespread at this point; we think it will continue to frustrate and vitiate government attacks. Outright censorship and intimidation rarely works. Governments that impose such solutions are unstable and an inter-generational elite abhors instability. The idea that governments can simply "control" the Internet if they wish, has elements promotions itself.

One example is DARPA. Over and over we read how an excrescence of the Pentagon created the Internet. But when we researched the matter it soon became clear that what had created the Internet was the advent of the personal computer, invented by two 19-year-olds in a garage. The Internet would still today be nothing more than a secure connection between universities and libraries were it not for the PC which turned the 'Net from a militarized utility into a global democratic highway.

And of course there is more to come. The Internet is the province of creative hackers now, and extremely bright children and adults. It is a prime example of FA Hayek's spontaneous evolution. No, the idea that government can "control" the Internet is no more practical in our view than the idea that the governments could have controlled the Gutenberg press in its initial phases. Certainly, the princes of the era tried to control the Gutenberg press. They tried to license Bibles. They invented the concept of copyright, apparently. They confiscated and blacklisted books and various sacred texts. But the press, a new idea at the time, was unstoppable. It was the hot, new technology. Everyone wanted a piece of it.

The Renaissance, the Reformation, the Age of the Reason, the Enlightenment, the discovery and population of the New World, the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, even the French Revolution can all be seen as deriving from the explosion of information provided by the Gutenberg press. Now we are well aware that some of these developments were more fortitudinous and helpful than others. And there is no doubt, then as now, that the elite attempted to influence and shape events as best it could via the creation of certain religious mass movements and the use of war. But nonetheless, no matter what one argues, the Gutenberg press very obviously gave rise at least to a 300-year interregnum of increased freedom and intellectual ferment.

We have no reason to doubt that the Internet will prove a most intractable invention for those who wish to control it, certainly in the short term. Technology will likely outstrip many of the trammels that the elite manufactures. And the larger Western populace, nowadays at least dimly aware of elite promotions, will be increasingly resistant to overt control of the 'Net. The willing suspension of disbelief that was supposed to be manufactured by the fear-based promotion of child porn and 'Net based financial flimflammery has failed, at least to a degree. These will be used as justifications of course, but they have not received a critical-mass "buy in" in our opinion.

The idea that government is going to move and "take over" the Internet – turning it into an arid, electronic version of the USSR – is possibly far-fetched. Of course, such perceptions shall become increasingly popular as governments steps up their efforts to control this exasperating, truth-telling technology. But young technologies are hard to control, as are the young innovators they attract.

The template for internet control, of course, is China, but even here (as we have mentioned previously) there are setbacks. The recent union strikes that received widespread publicity outside of China were in part supported by the very technology that China is supposedly good at controlling and suppressing. An independent military-analysis blog, the Strategy Page, recently analyzed the Chinese situation as follows:

The Chinese government recently suffered a major defeat when workers at several large car parts factories managed to organize and sustain a strike for higher wages. ... The workers used cell phones and the Internet in creative ways, getting around government electronic surveillance to keep workers informed and maintain morale, and the strike ... China has been losing a lot of these battles with modern communications. There are 400 million Internet users in China, and nearly twice as many cell phone users. Billions of dollars a year has been spent on controlling Internet use in China (the Golden Shield effort).

Similar, but far less successful, efforts have been made to control cell phone use. Users find ways around censorship (computerized systems that check texting for forbidden or suspicious words). Shutting down cell phone access to areas works, but forces the government to rely on military communications, which is far less effective than cell phones ... Technology is a moving target. The growing popularity of smart phones (more personal-computer-like devices built into a cell phone) in China creates a device that is more capable of evading censorship and government control.

Conclusion: The idea of a government takeover of the Internet is something of a dominant social theme in our view. It is one designed to reinforce a sense of the inevitability and pervasiveness of regulatory democracy and its growing authoritarianism. But it is not inevitable. Governments and the elites standing behind them will have their victories. But for all the reasons enunciated above, such victories may be neither powerful nor pervasive. And the elites may take a step back as they have done before.

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Fuente:

http://thedailybell.com/1425/IMF-Article-Predicts-New-World-Order.html

Información:

IMF Article Predicts New World Order

Wednesday, October 06, 2010 – by Staff Report

D. Strauss-Kahn

Germany Opposed To Unconditional IMF Safety Nets ... Germany is opposed to the setting up of 'global financial safety nets' under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund, a Deutsche Bundesbank official said Tuesday. The official told journalists that the mechanisms proposed by the G-20 group of nations, would create moral hazard by obliging countries to provide unlimited liquidity without conditions in times of financial stress. The comments come as the German delegation prepares to fly to Washington DC for the autumn meetings of the IMF and World Bank ... The IMF's willingness to provide loans under the PCL to countries which, in its own words, "may not meet the FCL's high qualification limits" appears to have raised hackles at the Bundesbank, which has consistently opposed any dilution of the IMF's principles of only lending against strict commitments to sustainable fiscal and monetary policy. The initiative to expand such "safety nets" is part of the G-20's efforts to make the international financial system more stable. It has been promoted by South Korea and has received some limited support from France and U.K. – WSJournal.com

Dominant Social Theme: The world needs a central bank and the IMF is ready to be one.

Free-Market Analysis: As we have written plenty of times before, it's startling to see how fast the Anglo-American power elite is willing to move now toward a more specific and comprehensive global governance. When we read this article, even just the beginning, it was obvious to us what was going on. And then we came to this sentence: "It means a de facto obligation to provide unlimited liquidity in euros...but the IMF is not a central bank for the world." Exactly. Is there a sub dominant social theme in the article. Perhaps so: "Pushback will continue but the IMF's expanded role is inevitable.

Indeed, the IMF is being cast in some places as an inevitable precursor to a world central bank. It need only graduate from SDRs to bancors and then expand its monetary authority. Of course we've covered this evolution in the past, but we didn't take it very seriously. The world moves slowly and is a complex place. But as we've seen (and commented on) over the past year, the Anglo-American elite seems to have shed any inhibitions about moving slowly or deliberately toward global governance goals.

It is in a race of some sort, though who or what it is running from or towards is not clear. But in picking up the pace in a kind of mad dash toward some unseen finish line, it is abandoning at least a century of deliberate, promotional construction designed to bring Western citizens in line with its goals. We've written we have no explanation. Let's say for argument's sake there are 6,000 in the ranks of the Anglo American familial elite. That still leaves six billion people that one needs to "bring along" presumably. But convincing people seems about the last thing on the mind of elite these days so far as we can tell. In aggregate, it gallops madly forward, careening out of control, oblivious to obstacles, increasingly leaving a trail of ruin behind.

The bluntest and most alarming presentation we've read recently regarding the IMF comes from Germany's powerful Spiegel magazine. This is ironic, given that the Germans, as we can see from our initial article excerpt above, are the lone power standing up to the IMF's efforts to remake itself (with fairly blinding speed) into a global central bank. But it is this article we will spend the rest of our time analyzing. It deserves all of our attention – and yours, though trying to describe this article leaves one almost without words. It is so fulsome, so slavishly admiring, so ... craven in its intention to please the powers-that-be that it is a truly remarkable example of a certain kind of journalism. It is available in its entirety (translated) online and we would urge anyone to read it. Here is how it begins:

Three years ago, the International Monetary Fund was irrelevant, an object of derision for all opponents of globalization. Under director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (above left) and as a result of the global economic crisis, the IMF has since become more influential -- governing like a global financial authority. It is also putting Europe under pressure to reform.

The building that houses the headquarters of the global economy is a heavily guarded, 12-story beige structure in downtown Washington with a large glass atrium and water bubbling in fountains. The flags of the 187 member states are lined up in tight formation.

Visitors walking into the office building find the cafeteria on the right, where many meetings are held. There, experts in their shirtsleeves, their jackets draped over the backs of chairs, drink lattes out of paper cups and talk countries into crises or upturns. A little farther down the hallway is the Terrace, the IMF building's upscale restaurant where the director receives official guests.

On a Tuesday afternoon in late September, as the first leaves are falling from trees outside, the director, wearing a blue suit and a blue tie, is sitting on a blue couch high up in his office at the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), outlining his idea of a new world. Some of it already exists, in the form of a new world order established in September 2008 to replace the one that was collapsing at the time. The result wasn't half bad -- but it is robust?

There is nothing halfhearted in this voluminous portrait of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the reinvention of the IMF. In the first four paragraphs descriptions like "global financial authority" and "new world order" and "new world" are strewn about with all the subtlety of an IMF bailout itself. The very next paragraphs read as follows:

'The Money Is The Medicine' ... These are important times for humanity. The crisis has forced everyone to see many things from a new perspective. Now the IMF is preparing for its annual meeting on Oct. 8. Can it live up to expectations, and can it police the new global economic order and keep global banks in check? "You have to imagine the IMF as a doctor," says Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the 61-year-old director of the International Monetary Fund. "The money is the medicine. But the countries -- the patients -- have to change their habits if they want to recover. It doesn't work any other way." He smiles benevolently as he says these things, his eyes disappearing behind small cushions of wrinkled skin.

Money is not medicine of course. The IMF, with its history of reducing middle classes around the world to ruin, is nothing like a doctor. After reading it, if one still believes in such a thing as freedom in the world, one wants to take a long bath. There is a brutal deliberateness about the language (assuming the translation is accurate), which must be calculated. From the next paragraphs:

The IMF, says Strauss-Kahn, warned the world about the collapse and about the American real estate bubble and its consequences, but "politicians don't want to hear bad news." And when the crisis arrived in the fall of 2008, as predicted, it took the old world -- Europe, which always takes six months to make a decision -- too long to react. That was the time when the world was laying the foundation for a new order.

The New World Order ... There are two telephones to Strauss-Kahn's left and two to his right. The room has high ceilings, beige carpet and white curtains. An old clock and books about Mexican painting stand on the bookshelf. The IMF's director is sometimes referred to as DSK, which makes Strauss-Kahn sound like a three-letter brand like IMF or USA, and yet he speaks English with a soft French accent. DSK leans back in his chair, weighing his words, glancing at the audio recorder and smiling. The new world order? Well, let's talk about it, he says.

There is no hesitancy here. If there was ever a literary coming-out party for elite intentions to create a one-world financial structure, it would seem to us to be this article. One hardly needs to read between the lines. Skimming from paragraph to paragraph is like being stabbed between the eyes. ...

Countries like China and India are becoming important, countries with rising markets that have long been stable and are clearly powerful. Whenever he is in China or other parts of Asia, says Strauss-Kahn, the leaders there tell him that they have written off Europe for now. "They say they want a strong Europe, but there is always one part of the world that is lagging behind. They say that in the past it was them, and now it is Europe. It's a shame, but the world can live without Europe."

The new world could be a frightening place. The IMF director says: "The Europeans still believe they are the center of the world, but in reality this is not clear any longer. Currently, the question is whether Europe will remain a participant in a game with many players -- that is not necessarily a given."

The Rise of the G-20 ... The United Nations will probably become less important; the organization is far too slow-moving and sluggish. And, if one understands DSK correctly on this point, the importance of the United States -- that egomaniacal country which is incapable of action -- will also decline. Of course, Strauss-Kahn would never speak in such terms, but he does point out that it was the United States that reacted to the 2008 crisis, not with a long-term view, but bank by bank. "They tried to solve Bear Stearns first, and then Fannie and Freddie, and really believed that each hurdle was the last one," he says.

What will become important, however, is the G-20, that coalition of the strongest economies, the center of power in a new world. The G-20 gave the IMF $850 billion (€620 billion) and the mission to solve the crisis. What followed, says, Strauss-Kahn, was "the biggest global coordination ever."

Does this mean that the IMF became the first post-crisis world government? ... Strauss-Kahn stretches when he hears the question, and pauses for 20 seconds before responding. He is an elegant man, a white-haired Parisian with three deep furrows in his brow, who smiles slyly and flirtatiously. He is a ladies' man, not particularly tall and even a little stooped.

Solving Global Problems ... Sitting in his cool office, a room that smells of fresh flowers, he says: "No, no, the government has to consist of elected people, and that's more like the G-20. But the reality is the G20 – or any other grouping – doesn't operate like a government. Their willingness to work together was very strong during the crisis, but frankly I think it's fair to say that it's decreasing. The more leaders and finance ministers believe that the crisis is over – even if they are mistaken – the more they are concerned about their own problems and less so about coordination and consensus."

In Strauss-Kahn's view, the IMF should become an administrative unit of sorts for the G-20, an agency that "tries to find solutions for global and national problems," and comes up with plans and create values. "In the end we aim at much more than just the right financial and economic policies. The ultimate goal, of course, is world peace through economic stability." This is the way Strauss-Kahn views his organization, and the astonishing thing is that hardly anyone, with the exception of a lone professor in Boston, disagrees with him anymore.

All right. We'll stop. What have we learned from the beginning of this truly remarkable article? (We hesitate to call it an article, for it's more of an encomium a kind of ritualized praise-offering of the sort troubadours used to prepare for royalty.)

First ... Europe is too slow and fragmented currently to compete in a world of dashing powers like India and China. Second ... same thing with the United Nations, according to Strauss-Kahn (and the IMF is an arm of the UN). The United States itself, divided between its republican past and its authoritarian future has also given offense and is characterized as "egomaniacal." Third ... the legislative body of choice, this article seems to indicate, is going to be the G20, and the IMF will seek validation and credibility from it (along with funds) before proceeding on its mission which is to become the G20s "administrative unit."

Reading this article, it is possible to visualize the Anglo-American elite as straining ponderously to take flight. It is attempting to shed in one convulsive effort, the painstaking paraphernalia with which it has encumbered itself in the past. The days of patiently building world government through the EU or the UN are OVER. The decision has been made. The G20 is now the vehicle of choice and the IMF will interpret its G20 mandate as it wishes to under the auspices of the kindly Strauss-Kahn who wants nothing more than to build "peace through economic stability."

It is truly remarkable. Reading it (and it is a very long article) is like watching a beautifully crafted knife being withdrawn from its sheath with agonizing slowness and deliberateness. When you are finished, the knife is revealed to you in its all its gleaming fullness. It lies there in front of you, winking with malevolence. A little more:

Sitting in his office, surrounded by the scent of flowers, Strauss-Kahn prefers to talk about Europe's sad future. "The European institutions," he says, "were absolutely necessary and very useful for many reasons, but only in quiet times. ... The crisis exposed very clearly the way the EU is working. There is, in my view, too much concern about domestic safeguarding and domestic problems rather than concern about the EU itself.

The result of that is that the recovery in Europe is lagging behind while the recovery in Asia, South America, the US and Africa is rather strong. I'm afraid that if the European countries don't take the bull by the horns, they will be the part of the world with sluggish recovery. After building the Union and creating the euro, the European Union now needs to take a third step, which is more economic policy coordination and more fiscal policy integration, and so more centralization. But the system moves very slowly."

He reaches toward the table, but there isn't any water there. Everyone at the IMF drinks too little water and too much coffee. ... Then he says: "You can't have a monetary union without a reasonably coordinated fiscal policy. And you cannot make it work when neighbors make deals: If you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you -- just as France and Germany did when they exceeded the 3 percent deficit limit. Europe needs rules, surveillance and sanctions. Sanctions should not be the suspension of voting rights. Who cares about voting rights? They have to be financial sanctions -- payable not during a crisis, of course, but a few years later."

In the end, DSK raves about China, Asia, dynamism and speed.

We bet Strauss-Kahn raves about China. There's a country for you, only about half a century out from starving 50 million of its citizens deliberately. For Strauss-Kahn of course the efficiency of authoritarianism is far preferable to the tattered republicanism of the "egomaniacal" United States. But the real threats in this article are reserved for Europe, which he says over and over in various ways must become more "integrated" and "centralized" so that the system does not move so "slowly."

Here's how the authors describe how the article came about: "SPIEGEL's journey of discovery into the world of the IMF lasted 10 weeks. It began in Washington, and then led to Hungary, Greece, Oslo, Brussels, Boston, New York City and back to Washington, where the Fund is headquartered, on the corner of H Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. In the beginning, the IMF didn't even bother to refuse interview requests. The organization doesn't simply open itself up to visitors; it has been criticized too much in the past. Then, Strauss-Kahn decided to open the doors, and from that point on there were no more barriers or taboos. The only rule was that most interviews were to be conducted off the record, and quotes had to be submitted for authorization."

In normal Western journalism, as we are aware of it, no one submits quotes for "authorization" let alone a media complex as authoritative as Spiegel. You fact check quotes (it's done all the time) but you don't read them back verbatim. And you certainly don't "submit them." That's just another part of the oddity of this article from our perspective. All we can think of is that, having decided to go through with it, the IMF, Strauss-Kahn and his shadowy elite handlers decided to make a full blown statement of intent.

Conclusion: Whether the article is a kind of emphatic trial balloon or a full-on proclamation of where the world is now headed – and at breakneck speed – time will tell. But what an article it is! And from our point of view a most disturbing one.

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Fuente:

http://thedailybell.com/1477/Is-the-Elite-Destabilizing-the-World-on-Purpose.html

Información:

Is the Elite Destabilizing the World on Purpose?

Wednesday, October 27, 2010 – by Staff Report

D. Strauss-Kahn

Problem, Reaction, Solution: "Crisis is an Opportunity" ... In May of 2010, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (left), Managing Director of the IMF, stated that, "crisis is an opportunity," and called for "a new global currency issued by a global central bank, with robust governance and institutional features," and that the "global central bank could also serve as a lender of last resort." However, he stated, "I fear we are still very far from that level of global collaboration." Well, perhaps not so far as it might seem. – Market Oracle

Dominant Social Theme: Capitalism is prone to booms and busts and it is natural, to point fingers when times are bad. Get over it.

Free-Market Analysis: This is a very long and learned article (excerpted above) from a forthcoming book by Andrew Gavin Marshall on Global Government, from Global Research Publishers, Montreal. It was just published online yesterday, interestingly enough on the same day we published our modest analysis of power elite, global plans entitled Why the West Is Losing. The two articles make an interesting point-counterpoint presentation in our view, so we will try to analyze Mr. Marshall's brilliant article (keeping in mind it is part of a longer book) within the context of the Bell's admittedly idiosyncratic perspective.

First a little background. Marshall is apparently a close associate of the courageous academic editor Michel Chossudovsky who runs the alternative-news website Centre for Research on Globalization. Marshall apparently contributed three chapters on the history of Western economics to a recent book Chossudovsky edited. Here is some background on Chossudovsky from Wikipedia:

Michel Chossudovsky is Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He has taught as visiting professor at academic institutions in Western Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia, has acted as economic adviser to governments of developing countries and has worked as a consultant for international organizations including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the African Development Bank, the United Nations African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (AIEDEP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). In 1999, Chossudovsky joined the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research as an adviser. ... The Centre for Research on Globalization is "committed to curbing the tide of globalisation and disarming the New world order."

Chossudovsky and presumably Marshall approach economic "conspiratorial" analysis from a somewhat Leftist perspective. Here is the crux paragraph in the article. It appears about midway, as follows: "Simon Johnson, former Chief Economist at the IMF, wrote an article in May of 2009 explaining that the problem with most third world nations ('emerging market economies') is that the governments are so closely tight-knit with the corporate and banking elite that they form a financial oligarchy, and that this is essentially the same problem in the United States. He wrote that, 'the finance industry has effectively captured our government,' and 'recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform.'"

Now we have some difficulties generally with Simon Johnson and have written about him in the past. You can see a commentary here: The Quiet Coup. Simon Johnson, Marshal and even Chossudovsky certainly recognize the problem the world faces as one of a "financial oligarchy" of corporate and banking elites. But when they are writing of these elites, they are writing in our view of the actual individuals and groups that wish to create a one-world government. We, on the other hand, do not believe that IBM, CitiCorp or even Goldman Sachs are ULTIMATELY behind the problems the world faces. They are actors within the system but not initiators. In fact, just yesterday in defense of our previous article, we presented the following feedback reply on the way the world works:

We believe the West – or should we say Western elites have certain peculiarities. We believe there may exist a certain millennial line of families that trace their roots back to Rome, and beyond, to Babylon. Today, we think of these families as the black nobility: their money is central banking money and there is a wealth of literature on the Internet about them. China built a Great Wall to keep out enemies. Islam put the West to the sword in the name of religion. But only the West seems afflicted with this particular group of families that is aggressively expansionistic and entirely focused on its own perpetuation. It has nothing to do with WASPS and everything to do with the perpetuation of merciless familial culture that waxes and wanes but never truly dies.

From our point of view, the idea that a modern clique of corporatists have come together serendipitously to try to run the world is not necessarily accurate. The intergenerational, familial enterprise that we postulate makes more sense to us. In simplest terms, if one looks through the past 300 years of history (or even through millennia), and certainly the past 100 years, it is easy to find a fairly powerful pattern leading to the world's current problems. There are so many books and so many clues left by this elite that to dismiss it is difficult. History is simply littered with Illuminati codes and absurd coincidences that do more to reveal money power than to conceal it.

Marshall's approach to the current economic disaster would seem (and this is only speculation) to postulate a kind of voracious capitalism that seeks to gorge on the masses and exploit workers around the world. The solution is usually the same (though again, we have not read Marshall's full book) and features additional programs and initiatives that are somehow not tainted by elite interference. This is government, in other words, without mercantilism. It is a fantasy in our view. It cannot exist. If there are governmental levers of power, wealthy elites will always find a way to pull them. The only solution is to starve the beast. Remove the levers of power altogether, or at least as much as possible. We believe in free-markets.

This is also, perhaps, why we come to different conclusions than Marshall does about the success of the power elite's effort to create global government. Where Marshall, or Simon or Chossudovsky may see a modern industrial and corporate plot to ruin the world (in order to run it), we see an ongoing, intergenerational, familial effort to create ever-closer global governance that has been, in the past, anyway, fairly gradualist.

We do not see it in class-warfare terms, necessarily. We do not see it even in terms of capitalist exploitation. We see it as a kind of cultural problem. These families have been pursuing the same goals for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years. And for those who say it is impossible, we point to modern royalty and its entrenchment. It is indeed possible to leverage privilege into law and perpetuate wealth through national mandates. The evidence is all around us.

Anyway, those who look at the world through primarily Leftist lenses are very apt to come to the conclusion that evil capitalists are intent on subverting the world. Our perspective is less ideological. We grant that there is a group that wants to "rule the world," but we are not so sure that it will succeed. We see evidence of much clumsiness and arrogance, leading to mistakes. We think in aggregate, they may not have expected the kind of downturn that the West is currently struggling with. The EU itself totters on the brink, and this is an enterprise that the elite has been building for 60 years. How did that happen? We think the powers-that-be may have miscalculated. They may want to destabilize the world, but perhaps they have gone too far too fast.

We are not so sure global government is preordained. Again, Leftist analysis would make the argument that a cabal of industrialist exploiters (including bankers) are almost sure to overwhelm fragile Western democracies. But as we wrote yesterday, our point of view is that the current elite incarnation has been severely troubled by the Internet, which has revealed its machinations and even its long-term plans. More and more people know what's going on and don't like it.

We are not necessarily facing class warfare in our view. The world is in the final throes of a desperate effort on the part of a few families (and religious and industrial groups clustered around them) to use certain globalist mechanisms developed in the past half-century to install an ever-more binding New World Order – one that will expand their control, wealth and power. But it is a primarily Western initiative and this of itself seems to doom it to failure in that other parts of the world simply will not cooperate (the BRICs, for instance) and the Western familial elite, having over-reached, does not have the wherewithal to force the issue anymore.

Anyway, for readers who are interested in sorting through social and power-paradigms, we have tried in this modest article to spell out how one can reach similar conclusions with entirely different world-views. It is important in the sense that one's fundamental understanding of the way the world works can give rise over time to entirely divergent results as regards one's wealth and ultimately the safety of one's investments.

Conclusion: We do not see the world in Marxist terms and we do not perceive class warfare between corporations, banks and the rest of us. We think money power resides several layers deeper. Additionally, we think the Western power elite has underestimated the impact of the Internet and the communication's revolution it has spawned. Their ambition, in other words, may have exceeded their grasp. In the other article in today's issue, we examine invading Pakistan and whether Western elites care if they win or lose in Afghanistan so long as blood is shed and treasure spent. Again, the Leftist view of such a Long War is considerably different than our own.

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Fuente:

http://thedailybell.com/28326/Difference-Between-Propaganda-and-Reality

Información:

Difference Between Propaganda and Reality

Tuesday, November 20, 2012 – by Staff Report

Politicians Haven't Listened ... Merkel Climate Advisor Blasts Global Inaction ... Politicians need to get their act together on climate change, says Chancellor Angela Merkel's leading climate advisor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber just days before the global warming conference in Qatar. The World Bank agrees, releasing a report on Monday highlighting the serious consequences that await should global temperatures continue rising unchecked. – Der Spiegel

Dominant Social Theme: Climate change is a terrible thing.

Free-Market Analysis: First it was called "global warming" and now "climate change." But no matter what it is called, it is still a power elite dominant social theme. The idea is that humans are responsible for a great upswelling of heat and humidity around the world.

The world may be getting warmer, or maybe not. But the meme rolls on. A subdominant theme is simply that humans are a curse upon the world and that their destructive tendencies must be controlled.

The people doing the controlling, of course, will be the self-appointed elites that apparently run the banking system and seek to create a formal world government. They use fear-based dominant social themes – promotions – to frighten people into adopting globalist solutions to phony scarcity problems.

Global warming – climate change – is a foundational meme. It allows the controlling elites to recreate society based on scarcity rather than plenty. It provides a rationale for the total reorganization of society in a manner that is ever more conducive to societal control.

People will have to monitor their very exhalations and ensure that they do not eat too much lest they leave an overly large "footprint" on the Earth. In order to ensure that people are adequately modest in their lifestyle and habits, more and more laws will have to be enacted.

The beauty of global warming from a power elite standpoint is that it is truly a global problem demanding global solutions. Thus, the UN can be brought to bear and its globalist mandate extended. Here's some more from the article:

As representatives from almost 200 countries prepare to meet next week in Doha, Qatar to reach agreement on measures to slow global warming, climate scientists are sounding the alarm for more aggressive action. Climate change must become a priority they say.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a leading German climate scientist and the government's chief advisor on climate-related issues, warns that the goal of keeping global warming below two degrees Celsius by 2100 will only be possible with a massive rethinking of priorities.

"We're currently on a course to see a 3.5 to 4 degree (6.3 to 7.2 degree Fahrenheit) change by the end of the century," Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), told SPIEGEL. "We've stressed time and again, that we need nothing less than a new industrial revolution, but many politicians haven't listened. They've just sat back."

Schellnhuber says that the European Union could easily achieve a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020 relative to 1990, instead of the 20 percent it has committed to. Schellnhuber asked Chancellor Angela Merkel to form a "coalition of the willing." But unfortunately, he said, climate change is "not the highest priority" for Germany's leader.

Schellnhuber's comments in SPIEGEL came as a report he compiled with the World Bank, entitled "Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided," was released on Monday. Timed to coincide with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Qatar, the study focuses on the consequences of a global four-degree temperature increase by the end of the century. The report notes that food shortages, massive water scarcity, rising sea levels, cyclones, drought and an irreversible decrease in biodiversity would result.

We can see from all this that the European political machinery (the world's political machinery, in fact) continues to provide extensive support for global warming ... climate change. The reality of global warming is far from affirmed but the sociopolitical consensus grinds on.

Of course, there is this, posted back in July by Newsbusters.org:

"New Study Thoroughly Debunks Global Warming, Will Media Notice?"

A new study published in the journal Nature Sunday completely debunks all previous claims that temperatures in recent decades are in any way historic demonstrating instead that things were much hotter on this planet during Roman times:

The website of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz published a ... reader-friendly explanation of the study Monday:

Professor Dr. Jan Esper's group at the Institute of Geography at JGU used tree-ring density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees originating from Finnish Lapland to produce a reconstruction reaching back to 138 BC. In so doing, the researchers have been able for the first time to precisely demonstrate that the long-term trend over the past two millennia has been towards climatic cooling.

"We found that previous estimates of historical temperatures during the Roman era and the Middle Ages were too low," says Esper. "Such findings are also significant with regard to climate policy, as they will influence the way today's climate changes are seen in context of historical warm periods." [...]

There are many other reports like this but they are not taken into consideration. The ongoing pursuit of solutions to a likely nonexistent problem is symptomatic of a power elite theme.

These themes and sub-themes are launched on the world as promotions and thus "reality" is not to be recognized. It is a signature of propaganda – and what we call directed history, as well.

Conclusion: When we see a "problem" acted upon at the highest levels, even when there is significant question as to its veracity, the chances are we're witnessing political support of a promotion, not government action designed to address a legitimate problem.

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Fuente:

http://thedailybell.com/2141/David-Rockefeller-Makes-the-Case-for-the-UN-to-Have-a-Leading-Role-in-Managing-Population-Control.html

Información:

David Rockefeller Makes the Case for the UN to Have a Leading Role in Managing Population Control

Sunday, January 13, 2008 – by C-SPAN

David Rockefeller gives a speech about over population. In this video, you will hear Rockefeller elaborate on a favorite fear-based dominant social theme of the power elite – over population and its threat to humanity. Naturally Rockefeller trots out the Malthusian message and his solution to the "problem" is the United Nations – in a way that respects religious and moral concerns. How considerate of Mr. Rockefeller.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClqUcScwnn8

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Fuente:

http://thedailybell.com/233/Is-America-the-worlds-policeman.html

Información:

America: The World's Policeman?

United States

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's paper, This Time It's Different, refers to the idea that sovereign defaults are a thing of the past. That we have somehow fixed what was wrong and it won't happen again. Reinhart and Rogoff think otherwise. But this time, in a different way it really is different. This time default will come to both banker and debtor alike. The bankers' system itself is now collapsing under the weight of debt that the bankers' debt-based money has produced. Banks are finding themselves increasingly bankrupt as are the governments the bankers used to debase the world's currencies. This time, not only will Argentina possibly suffer another sovereign default, so too will its creditor, the US, as will many of the US banks that issued that debt. The default of the US will remain, however, outside the limited definition of default used by Reinhart and Rogoff. The US will not miss a payment or reschedule its debt. Unlike Argentina , the US prints the currency in which the Argentine and US debt is denominated. The US will print its way out of its debts. Argentina cannot. Because of the enormity of the US debt, the amount of dollars necessary to print to pay down the debt will lead to hyperinflation in the US and the destruction of the US dollar. Those who live by the sword sometimes die by the sword-though not often. In that same article where Professor Kotlikoff estimated US liabilities to be $65.9 trillion, Kotlikoff also wrote: The United States ..appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyper inflation in 20 countries over the past century. Maybe this time it isn't different. – Market Oracle

Dominant Social Theme: Everybody is in a panic and worse is coming.

Free-Market Analysis: We've stated that the Internet has aggravated the ferocity of this latest financial "crisis" in that it has come on harder and sooner than any hypothetical global elite might have preferred. But that doesn't mean, contrary to the article above, that those somewhat in charge of the banking system (and banking is the proximate cause of these exaggerated business cycles) didn't expect something like this to occur.

Many of the sagest of the banking class – what we know of it – have been around a while. We can disagree with them about the reasonableness of the path down which the world is being driven, but to conclude they had no idea that a downturn was coming and that it would be a bad one is a bit of a "stretch" in our opinion. The staggering amount of derivatives liability alone, in the hundreds of trillions apparently, would give rise to the idea that this time it IS a bit different. But having stated that, one is inclined to ask "what then?"

Glad you asked! Let us conjecture together. Let us ponder, even pontificate (we're good at that, whether or not you are, too). Let us, finally, look, feasibly, for the following: A good deal of pain in the West that likely includes at least a mild if not moderate form of a depressive hyperinflation (mild, mind you, if you are not a victim of it) and fevered, anxious, endless efforts by the next American administration to "reach out" to the countries to whom America as an aggregate entity is evermore viciously indebted.

What form will this "reaching out" take? Both American candidates are "reacher outers" – despite the American media's attempts to paint them otherwise. Obama has made a business out of his internationalist ideology. And being affiliated with the Trilateralist wing of the Democratic party, and those who stand behind Trilateralism, he will be inclined to involve the United Nations and other supra-national organizations in American affairs, further or perhaps fatally entangling that "superpower" in a larger edifice of an emerging world government.

And McCain? McCain already has a long history of reaching out "across the aisle" of American politics. Most recently, he was with others including George Bush, an author of a failed immigration act that in many ways would have signaled the end of American sovereignty over its own borders. McCain, like Bush, despite the rhetoric, is an internationalist and globalist when it suits him, and his backing, believe it or not, likely comes from the same groups that are backing Obama.

So what can we expect from these two as America's economic condition declines? McCain will likely sound a more bellicose note before "reaching across the aisle" but the result of either administration will be a concerted effort to palliate America's debt holders and to use the debt-ridden status of America as justification to further internationalize the regulatory status and sociopolitical sympathies of that once-great nation.

How would such continued internationalization work? Look for ever more complex legal treaties, the enhancement of a supra-national judicial system, even the more aggressive utilization of the United Nations as a mediator for America's many monetary and military woes, etc. The upcoming administration will be a more internationalist one no matter who wins America's highest office.

Conclusion: It is difficult to avoid the sneaking suspicion that the top monetary men (they are almost all men) didn't see this thing coming. Combine that with the proclivity of the Anglo-Saxon elite to press for an increasingly global monetary system (which would inevitably generate a political one) and the idea emerges that no matter how the current crisis unfolds, it will inevitably be used to further open up the American republic to outside influences.

Of course there are alternative ways of looking at it. Respected hard-money author Jim Willie has very recently provided us with another scenario:

If price mechanisms and market mechanisms return with force, then big shocks are coming. All the fraud, all the aggressive military movement in the last few years, these actions have resulted in an isolation of the Untied States in ways that have eluded detection by the great majority of Americans. The many continents are engaged in meetings, where new systems are being designed for trade and banking, as they prepare for a new age without American dominance, and perhaps without American participation. The more US Government leaders talk about terrorism and use aggression abroad, the more the nation becomes increasingly isolated. One must wonder if the current US president will take up residence in Paraguay at the end of his term, where he has purchased tens of thousands of acres of property only a few years ago. My personal preparations are in defense of what are considered to be a gradual relentless national degradation into martial law. The remaining question is whether the price structure will be consistent with shortages at work. With ultra-high prices might come violence. With ultra-low supply might come violence. With depleted job prospects might come violence. With continued home foreclosures might come violence. With helplessness to Congressional compromise, imposed burdens, and corruption might come violence. LIKE IN FRANCE AT THE BASTILLE, HIGH FOOD PRICES MIGHT COME VIOLENCE. With public expression of outrage at US Government & Wall Street corruption, profiteering, and utter distortions of truth might come violence.

We're not sure we buy off on Willie's argument entirely, as plausible as it sounds and well-reasoned as it might be (and Mr. Willie is nothing if not reasonable, and smart as well). But the monetary elite, as savvy or dumb as it is, is also relentlessly globalist.

Thus, it doesn't make much sense, to us anyway, that an opportunity to shove America around would shove it away from the internationalist edifice now being erected. Willie certainly does have a point that the momentum of certain events may tend to isolate America vis-à-vis the rest of the West – or that American citizens may rise up in frustration at the inevitable crossroads and shout "halt" at the midnight hour. But American citizens have not yet shown a proclivity to do that sort of thing, oddly enough because of what we believe is a self-reliant streak ingrained in America's middle class.

Unlike those unhappy residents of other countries, Americans are not conditioned by eons of oppression to believe that government is the inevitable problem. That does not mean they enjoy or like the government they have got, only that culturally, they are not conditioned to regard it as the biggest and most implacable obstacle. Instead, poor Americans! – many are inclined to blame themselves for their troubles and in a strange, introspective manner, start to work harder at more jobs rather than try to analyze a larger globalist picture. It's just not quite in the American psyche to look at things from the perspective of an international citizen, much less a global banker.

Yet America remains most important, whether it is a dominant economic force or not. The last thing that is needed from a banking point of view at this time – in the emerging globalist village – is a powerful nation with a independent streak.

In what is likely emerging in the 21st century, the technology and military competence of the United States will be in demand, and thus it will likely stand in as the "world's policeman," a role it is already undertaking. But it will be a far less powerful force economically and likely far more fettered by various international financial treaties and monetary workouts. That future for this battered giant begins now.

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Nótese que el artículo es del 2011, pero anticipa en sus conclusiones mucho de lo que ya ha ocurrido en el mundo... y sigue ocurriendo.

Fuente:

http://thedailybell.com/1691/Western-Elites-Secretly-Still-Building-Islam.html

Información:

Western Elites Secretly Still Building Islam?

Tuesday, January 18, 2011 – by Staff Report

It is clear that what is currently taking place in Tunisia is not a popular revolution. There were no clear demands from the demonstrators, there was no organized opposition leading the masses, and even Islamic voices have so far been silent. [The fact that there was no full scale revolution] is a positive sign...so what actually happened, and led to President Ben Ali going into exile? Of course, this pressing question will continue to be asked during the coming phase, and may take a long time to answer, considering that we are now facing conflicting information, and Tunisia remains a country that is somewhat ‘closed' towards almost all of the Arab world, and its media. Our satellite channels seemed uninterested in reporting genuine facts. – India's Issy

Dominant Social Theme: The Muslims are coming and must be confronted. Never mind that we provide the funding.

Free-Market Analysis: Is the war on terror a success? The Anglo-American elite needs an enemy if the authoritarianism that is rising in the West is to continue – because despotism (and globalism) is more easily created when there is an outside enemy. But fighting against 100 Al Qaeda soldiers in Afghanistan is not anybody's idea of a substantive threat. And the Taliban are evidently and obviously fighting an occupying force.

What if the powers-that-be had decided to do what they could to expand the Muslim threat – and thus expand (in the Western mind anyway) the specter of resurgent, militant Islam? A cynical idea isn't it, dear reader? It is merely speculation but there are reasons to explore it further. Bear with us.

Just yesterday, the Bell offered an article that was somewhat skeptical of the "Jasmine Revolution" playing out in Tunisia. Since we presented our speculation others have weighed in (in the Blogosphere) with even more cynical perspectives. There have been reports that the Tunisian revolution was actually a CIA-related operation related to securing oil supplies for the US and furthering its strategic dominance in terms of the larger "great game."

We believe such explanations are somewhat overwrought. The CIA does not call every tune. Oil, in fact, is present everywhere on Earth and need not be secured by the West via revolution. The Tunisians evidently and obviously were not well-disposed to their (former) iron-handed ruler.  And yet ... revolutions can be manipulated and often are. In fact, Tunisia's now-deposed president President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali was firmly anti-Muslim and thus the Tunisian revolution seems to fit into a larger pattern of further Muslim-ization of that part of the world.

Is it a deliberate pattern? We would argue it might be, and that it is one that now serves the purposes of Western powers-that-be. The Anglosphere is notoriously unsentimental when it comes to overthrowing allies in pursuit of its large one-world objectives. Those who have ruled with America's backing for decades may suddenly find they are unsupported in their further prospects.

Where is the evidence? Again, we note the pattern. In the strife-torn West African nation of Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire) the West is supporting Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister, banker and leader of the opposition over incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo. Ouattara is Muslim; Gbagbo is Christian. The West advocates for the Muslim-linked faction over the Christian one.

Then there is the referendum in the Sudan, one of Africa's largest states and most Northern ones. The referendum, being conducted under the auspices of the United Nations, aims to split the country, creating a predominantly Muslim Northern Sudan. According to CNN, President Omar al-Bashir has reportedly said that if Southern Sudan votes in favor of separation, "sharia will become the main source of Sudan's Constitution, Islam the state religion and Arabic the official language." The West, under the auspices of the UN, is in the process of creating a fundamentalist Muslim state. Finally, there is the sorry saga of the War in Kosovo in which the West backed Albanian Muslims over Serbian Christians.

All three of these examples might be termed "simplistic" in that there were (and are) many complexities involved in these confrontations that have nothing to do with religious affiliation. Nonetheless – inarguably – on three separate occasions, Western powers-that-be have thrown their weight behind Islam. Coincidence?

There is more to support the idea that the Anglosphere is covertly supporting resurgent Islam. The West has surely manipulated the price of oil to enrich Muslim countries for decades. And in return, Saudi Arabia has first created and then funded Wahhabism, a fierce fundamental strain of Islam that has found fertile soil in the Afghan-Pakistan region and in North Africa. Thus, we seem to see again that the West is funding the very enemies its leaders claim to be fighting against.

Dubai and the Arab Emirates should be mentioned within this paradigm. These Western-affiliated, Muslim countries have, in our view, been positioned to provide a "middle ground" between Islam and the West. They represent the fruition of an ongoing Hegelian dialectic – the model for a Westernized Islam. Al Jazeera is funded out of another tiny, Western-centric country, Qatar, and we have noted that initially Al Jazeera was staffed by BBC journos; Al Jazeera, far from being a radical Islamic mouthpiece, is in a sense another Western-controlled news outlet. You can see a previous article here:

http://www.thedailybell.com/383/Al-Jazeera-channel-coming-to-US-cities-.html

Those in the West, even close mainstream observers of the ongoing "war on terror," live with this cognitive dissonance without showing much consciousness of it – which is strange itself. You would think those with degrees and pedigrees in this area would ask themselves why the West is supporting the world's leading promoters of militant Islam all the while proclaiming undying resistance to "terrorists."

The Western power elite always utilizes the Hegelian dialectic – the creation of two sides to an argument so that the resolution is resolved as much as possible on elite terms. But while most observers of the elite believe the dialectic applies to rhetoric, the facts-on-the-ground show us clearly that the dialectic is applied to conflict as well. Thus, there is significant evidence that Wall Street funded the "Red" faction of the Russian revolution that led to the formation of the USSR and the USSR in turn helped fund the creation of Communist China.

It is now well-acknowledged that Operation Gladio in Europe (a CIA black op) produced a slew of violent incidents and rising fear among Western middle classes that the "Red Plague" was spreading. This was no doubt helpful in the creation of the meme of a "united Europe" that would provide an antidote to violence.

Of course, today Europe is "united" – but that unification only seems to spawned yet more violence – and this is possibly a larger problem. Wars and revolution in the Internet era are not nearly so controllable as they once were. The risk is that having begun the conflagration and now perhaps encouraging its growth, the elite will end up burning itself, though how badly remains to be seen.

Conclusion: We are proposing a new stage in the manipulated war on terror. Having built up the Middle East through enormous cash infusions, the Anglosphere is continually expanding the role of fundamental Islam and may even be prepared to overthrow old and trusted allies to do so. The war on terror so far has not proven very terrible (except to Afghan and Iraqi citizens) but if the Jasmine revolution "spreads" throughout the Middle East, resurgent, fundamentalist Islam may indeed become a reality. All this is highly speculative, of course, and merely an exercise analyzing elite promotions. The reality may be far more mundane – and simply the result of current events with no additional resonance or meaning. And yet ...

Edited on date of posting

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Fuente:

http://thedailybell.com/1710/Chinas-Empty-Cities-Are-Result-of-UN-Agenda-21.html

Información:

China's Empty Cities Are Result of UN Agenda 21?

Tuesday, January 25, 2011 – by Staff Report

China to create largest mega city in the world with 42 million people ... China is planning to create the world's biggest mega city by merging nine cities to create a metropolis twice the size of Wales with a population of 42 million. City planners in south China have laid out an ambitious plan to merge together the nine cities that lie around the Pearl River Delta. The "Turn The Pearl River Delta Into One" scheme will create a 16,000 sq mile urban area that is 26 times larger geographically than Greater London, or twice the size of Wales. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: We will build an urban infrastructure and save the environment.

Free-Market Analysis: We've covered the insanity of Chinese economic growth in numerous articles stretching back nearly two years now, but this latest news is the most startling yet. If the Telegraph is to believed (we have no reason not to), the Chinese have now dropped any pretense of a market driven economy. The Chinese are "planning" the economy, and in a big way.

Perhaps this bureaucratic zeal partially explains the eruption of empty cities that the alternative press (and the Daily Bell in particular) has been reporting on. While speculation seems to be out of control at an entrepreneurial level, the vast tracts of empty housing now being constructed may have an even deeper import, one having to do with the UN'ssweeping, global mandate, Agenda 21. Perhaps they are thus part of an urban planning policy of a magnitude unseen in human history. You can read one of the Bell's China stories here:

http://www.thedailybell.com/1604/China-That-Urban-Empty-Feeling.html

We don't understand where China is going to find the money for these ambitious projects. In a free-market, cities spring up spontaneously as the need arises. In China, obviously, the need is perceived by bureaucrats and the funding is provided via China's dangerously over-extended central bank. The economy is so overheated that China keeps banning housing investments. The latest crackdown, we read, is that people in certain regions will not be able to own more than one speculative real-estate property.

None of this will help, of course, and it is baffling to see the steps the Chinese communist leaders are taking to "cool" the economy. Either they actually don't realize that inflation is a monetary phenomenon or they do realize – but are confident that state control and its mandates can overwhelm market forces. In fact, running economies by mandate can work for a period of time, but when the increasingly fragile patchwork of regulatory dictates implodes, the mess is all the worse.

And that is surely what is going to happen to China. It is impossible to predict a timeline but just as Western economies imploded in 2008, so will China's economy eventually implode as well. There is really no difference between the Chinese economy and Western economies at this point except in terms of the position of the business cycle and the magnitude of the upcoming disaster. When the Chinese bubble pops, we imagine the resultant reverberations will shake the world.

Of course that's not the spin from Western powers-that-be. Newspapers and magazines are filled with articles about the Chinese miracle and the country's entrepreneurial zeal. Granted, passing mention is made to state coordination, but most articles in mainstream magazines and newspapers still do not mention, let alone emphasize, what surely will occur in China sooner or later: the mother of all busts.

Within this context, the above cited mega city would seem to be fairly predictable, though astonishing in scope, given the leadership's quiet – even secret – propensity for central planning. To us the entire plan as enunciated, seems to mimic the worst features of the USSR, where sterile, crumbling planned developments still dominate local landscapes. The Chinese may do it better but the spirit is no more laudable. The powers-that-be will decide where and how average Chinese will live, and obviously most of them will live in cities.

It doesn't stop with one mega city. According to the Telegraph, "By the end of the decade, China plans to move ever greater numbers into its cities, creating some city zones with 50 million to 100 million people and 'small' city clusters of 10 million to 25 million. In the north, the area around Beijing and Tianjin, two of China's most important cities, is being ringed with a network of high-speed railways that will create a super-urban area known as the Bohai Economic Rim. Its population could be as high as 260 million. ... As the process gathers pace, total investment in urban infrastructure over the next five years is expected to hit £685 billion, according to an estimate by the British Chamber of Commerce, with an additional £300 billion spend on high speed rail and £70 billion on urban transport."

This is central planning on steroids. But as Bell feedbackers have suggested (and there have been scattered commentaries on the 'Net as well), perhaps China's zeal for city planning has other impetuses beyond resettling rural farmers in urban environments. The issue of the UN's agenda 21 has been mentioned in this regard. What is Agenda 21? According to the UN, it is, "a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment."

The conservative website Rightside News has recently run a series of articles – exposes – of UN Agenda 21. "Sustainable development has become the buzzword for a strategy under development since at least the early 1970s to completely control every aspect of our lives, including resettling entire populations." Rightside News points out that the 1976 U.N. Conference on Human Settlements called for population redistribution as follows:

• All countries should establish as a matter of urgency a national policy on human settlements, embodying the distribution of population, and related economic and social activities, over the national territory.

• A national policy for human settlements and the environment should be an integral part of any national economic and social development policy.

• Human settlements in most countries are characterized by wide disparities in living standards from one region to another, between urban and rural areas, within individual settlements and among various social and ethnic groups. Such discrepancies exacerbate many human settlement problems, and, in some instances, reflect inadequate planning. Human settlement policies can be powerful tools for the more equitable distribution of income and opportunities.

China it turns out is an enthusiastic proponent of Agenda 21 and extensive information on the country's compliance can be seen at the website www.acca21.org.cn. A book-length White Paper can be downloaded there that delineates fully the compliance of the Chinese government. Chapter 1 – "The Preamble" – begins as follows:

This century has seen remarkable advances in the development of science and technology and in social productivity. The abundant material wealth created by mankind is unprecedented and it has resulted in a rapid development of civilization. However, aggravations caused by population expansion, excessive consumption of resources and global environmental problems such as pollution, reduced biodiversity and increased gap between north and south, have seriously hampered the development of economies and improvements in people's quality of life, and are even threatening human existence itself.

Given the pressures of these harsh realities, mankind has no choice but to re-examine its social and economic behaviour and its path of development. Traditional ideas of considering economic growth solely in quantitative terms and the traditional development mode of "polluting first and treating later" are no longer appropriate when considering present and future requirements for development. It is now necessary to find a path for development, wherein considerations of population, economy, society, natural resources, and the environment are coordinated as a whole, so that a path for non-threatening sustainable development can be found which will meet current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

This is fairly strong – though general – language. But now, apparently, we seem to have evidence that China intends to put the UN's mandates into practice in a big way. The ultimate intention is to depopulate the countryside we would imagine, in preference for gigantic cities. Farming will be accomplished corporately and the corporate state will benefit from an expanded, controllable, urban population – one that can be repurposed for whatever social and corporate goals the leadership has in mind. The goal, ultimately, is globalism and a marriage with similar urban constructs created by Western elites.

It is control that the power elite is after – East or West. Environmentalism is merely a pretext for the kinds of mass-engineerings of society that is contemplated. And while the Chinese may be ahead in the race to implement Agenda 21, there is no doubt that Western elites intend to fulfill UN mandates as well. The Internet is full of stories about the attempted implementation of Agenda 21 under various euphemisms, Smart Growth being among the most popular. But the euphemisms no matter how cheerful disguise the reality – which is the abrogation of Western property rights.

In America, homeowners and local communities are fighting back. But there is a darker side to the story in the US; it can be speculated, for instance, that the depopulation of the Gulf Coast is part of a disguised effort by the powers-that-be to reconfigure population densities for various purposes. The rationales may include both the forcible mergers of Mexico and the US (referred to as the North American Union – and including Canada) and Agenda 21. Alternative news media investigator Jesse Ventura has already devoted a television program to the issue of Gulf Coast depopulation. (We'll be discussing this and other issues with Mr. Ventura in an upcoming Bell interview.)

The West has invested hundreds of billions – perhaps trillions – in China's development and growth. In hindsight, one wonders at the viability of this funding. China's free-markets at the top-level are evidently non-existent and much of China's recent growth has been fueled by tens of trillions of yuan printed by the Chinese central bank. The economy is so overheated that the ChiComs are applying price controls wherever they can – and price controls never work.

Conclusion: The Chinese are about to embark on the most significant social and population reconfiguration ever attempted; but where is the money to come from? Are the ChiComs simply going to print it? How can they? It is simply mad. And what is madder still, is that Western media continues to report on China as if it were a sane society run by a sane leadership. Reading about the plans to re-engineer the living conditions of one billion people puts us in mind of the worst excesses of the Soviet Union. Who would have invested in that?

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