ENEMY OF THE STATE (written by Nicky Vecki)

Throughout human history the ruling elite have gone to great lengths to track the activities of enemies abroad, as well as potential enemies coming from within their own borders. And while the concept of domestic surveillance is not new, the technology useful for spying has changed immensely over time, and never nearly as much as it has in the last 20 years.

The Greek tyrant Dionysius who ruled over the Western Greek colony of Syracuse, Sicily until 376 BC housed prisoners in a cave that was strategically carved to funnel sound into the guards' chambers. The cave, which Italian painter Caravaggio later dubbed the Ear of Dionysius (Orecchio di Dionisio) was apparently so well designed for it's acoustic purpose that even the prisoners' whispers could  be heard by spying guards.

Now fast forward past pivotal spycraft advancements in camera and bug microphone technology to 20th century East Germany where from 1950 to 1989 the Stasi police were responsible for overseeing what's still now considered one of the most effective and repressive domestic surveillance campaigns of all time.

The Stasi counted over 174 thousand employees among their ranks. But even more impressive was the number of citizen informants the Stasi could count on to monitor their fellow comrades. Numbers vary, but historians estimate that anywhere from 174 thousand to two million informants volunteered their services. As many as one informant for every seven citizens willingly conspired with the Stasi to monitor the activities and attitudes of every person living in East Germany.

Today in the U.S. There's a popular adage people like to recite when defending the virtues of domestic surveillance. "If you're not doing anything wrong, then you've got nothing to worry about," they say. However, this wasn't always the case in Soviet East Germany. Millions of law-abiding East Germans were ensnared in investigations and had government files kept on them for any number of superfluous reasons.

No matter that the Stasi's highly invasive system of domestic surveillance netted a large number of innocent Germans, because justice was not a part of their endgame. Their objective was was to ensure that the public remained afraid and submissive, reluctant to speak against the state for fear that a guest at a dinner party or a co-worker might report them.

The latest and arguably most invasive example of domestic surveillance comes from right here in the U.S. And the Stasi ain't got nothing on the NSA. as reported in the article "Inside the Matrix" in this month's issue of Wired magazine, the NSA is currently building a $2-billion-dollar facility known as the Utah Data Center in Bluffdale, Utah that will store and analyze all of our phone calls, e-mails, Google searches, and financial transactions as well as any other information they can possibly capture by digital means. There your digital information will be stored and studied by super computers that hunt for buzzwords and trends, and raise red flags whenever they find something that doesn't fit within the parameters of acceptable behavior. The facility won't be up and running until September 2013, but don't worry, they've got all of your old digital information too.

Maybe it's our own fault. Many of us unwittingly welcomed the Trojan Horse the cellphone into our lives. When it comes to smart devices I don't think that it's overly paranoid to err on the side of caution and assume that the GPS is always tracking, that the microphone is always hot, and that the camera is always rolling. We didn't know that by buying the latest and greatest gadgets we were also apparently providing the NSA with all the permission they need to track and analyze our daily activities. As far as the NSA and their handlers are concerned we're all potential enemies of the state until proven guilty.

You might wonder how the NSA is possibly going to store all the digital traffic in the U.S. as well as everything they can retrieve about our neighbors abroad. Consider that a terabyte of information can now fit on a drive the size of your pinkie nail, then consider that the Utah Data Center will house over one million square feet of computing technology. When it comes to computer capacity the Department of Defense now speaks in terms of yottabytes. If the Utah Data Center collects a yottabyte worth of information it would be roughly enough to fill 500,000,000,000,000,000,000 pages of text.

Former NSA official William Binney has gone on the record to expose the Stellar Wind program, which he worked on and had the task of channeling billions of phone calls and e-mails to NSA databases. Binney left the NSA after deciding that their activity was unconstitutional. Congress doesn't share Binney's sentiment, however. The Wired article mentions that in 2008 our U.S. Congress passed their FISA Amendments Act, which largely made all of the NSA's domestic surveillance perfectly legal.

None of this should come as any real surprise. The writing was on the wall back in '49 when George Orwell published 1984 and gave us the concept of the ubiquitous watchful eye of Big Brother. Orwell's guess might have been off by a few years, but he made a very good guess about how the ruling elite would benefit from future advancements in domestic spycraft technology. But not even Orwell could fully conceive of the exponential leaps we'd make in computer technology, or the exact ways that governments would use that technology to leverage their people.

Things are changing quickly now, but maybe it's time to slow down and think twice before inviting every twittering thing that comes along into our lives. LOL, you know I'm just kidding, see you on FB :) !!!

GLOBAL BANKSTERS USE "ARAB SPRING" UPRISINGS TO GAIN CONTROL OF MIDDLE EASTERN ECONOMIES

Way back in 2007 I came across an online article by some crackpot named Gaylon Ross claiming that Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, and Pakistan were classified as rogue states by the West not simply for the official reason, that they're allegedly state sponsors of terrorism, but because they still refused to turn their economies over to globalist bankers and cede control of their central banks to the global banking cartel. Afghanistan and Iraq had been on the list too, but after the U.S. invasions of those countries the globalists had successfully taken over their central banks and they're no longer considered rogue states. Ross's assertion was interesting, but I wasn't all together buying it. I decided to take note and watch to see what happened next. Recently I pulled out the list of rogue nations again, and now it seems as though Ross's claim might carry weight.
During what's come to be called the "Arab spring" of 2011, malcontents have risen up against their respective governments in Tunisia, Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, and Syria. And while it's highly likely that Western interests have played a covert roll helping to organize and finance many of these uprisings, the West has recently shown its hand and played a more overt roll to ensure that Libyan and Syrian leaders step aside to make room for more progressive governments.
After months of violent protests and a government crackdown in Syria, on Thursday August 18th Obama demanded that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad step aside and make way for a more democratic government. More like, a government that will willingly hand over control of Syria's economy and central bank to globalist banksters. If past economic takeovers serve as any guide, the Syrians can expect their economy to be flooded with inflatable paper currency, and for their new government to be entangled in a scheme of skyrocketing debt they'll never get free from.
Libya is particularly unique because Qaddafi's government still has complete control over the country's bank, currency, and financial system. The globalist banksters simply can't allow this to continue. After the uprising in Libya began, NATO's bombing of Qaddafi loyalists was almost immediate. NATO's job was to help pave the way for the rebel Interim Transitional National Council government to take control of the country. These rag-tag rebels have proved to be a pretty savvy group too. Within weeks of launching their revolution they had already established a national oil company and a central bank.
"Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power?" wondered CNBC senior editor John Carney. "It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era." 
How powerful indeed, John. Apart from Lebanon, Libya currently holds more gold as a proportion of GDP than any other country in the world. Rest assured that the banksters can't wait to get hold of that gold and exchange it for inflatable paper currency--just one of the many tricks they'll pull once they've succeeded in taking over Libya's central bank. 
For an example of how such a takeover might play out we can look to both Egypt and Tunisia where dictatorships were recently overthrown by revolting masses, and replaced with interim military dictatorships. Since then both countries have been saddled with billions of dollars in loans from the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes its laws," one of the most powerful banksters in history Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild famously said. He wasn't playing either. Through its various tentacles and affiliates the Rothschild banking empire financed both the North and South during the American Civil War, bankrolled both Hitler and the Allies during World War II, and financed the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia giving rise to Communism. Because hey, if you're in the business of creating costly wars that force countries into debt so that they need to borrow money from you at interest, you're going to have to continue to create new enemies for them to fight. NOTHING drives up debt like a good, long war. (See $14 trillion U. S. debt and our ongoing, costly military campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya.)
The banksters have no scruples about taking over countries through their central banks, manipulating the boom and bust cycles of the global economy for their own greedy ends, or controlling the media and politicians through organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations. (CFR: AKA The Establishment, AKA the invisible government, AKA the Rockefeller foreign office--an organization that has allegedly controlled every U.S. President, presidential cabinet member, head of media, and various congressmen dating back to the FDR administration of the 1930s.) as far as the banksters are concerned it's good business to bankroll madmen in costly conflicts that ultimately serve to tilt the global chessboard of power and wealth in their favor. What they have a very big problem with, however, is when wannabe hard mother fuckers like Qaddafi of Libya and Assad of Syria cock-block them from taking control of their economies.
"It's well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning," automaker Henry Ford once said. The banksters could care less if the people revolt. They can revolt all they want because unless the revolution has the support of powerful financiers the revolutionaries' chances of success are slim, and even if they do succeed in taking power without the banksters' help, they will surely need the banksters' help if they expect to stay in power. 
As for the other two countries on Ross's list: Iran and Sudan, in July of this year Southern Sudan split away from the North and formed a new government and banking system. The West has since dropped sanctions against the southern country and South Sudanese banks are doing booming business with Western banks. It doesn't hurt that 75 percent of all Sudan's oil reserves are in the south either. As for Iran, the populist uprising in 2009 was unsuccessful at unseating the current government, but rest assured that the banksters showdown with Iran is in the offing.


-(Article written by LOA thug journalist Nicky Vecki)

"Cuomo Out For Blood, Kind Of" by Nicky Vecki

New York attorney-general Andrew Cuomo subpoenaed Bank of America board members this week in an attempt to solve the mystery of the bonus scandal at Merrill Lynch. The attorney-general’s office is trying to figure out exactly why Bank of America rushed to acquire Merrill Lynch last year, and why Merrill tried to sneak bonus payments to its top executives while its merger with BOA was being finalized. One of the individuals Cuomo subpoenaed is BOA board member and retired four-star Army general Tommy Franks. Yo Andy, as a general rule it’s probably not a good idea to subpoena someone who likely still has access to Hellfire missiles. A goddamn Predator drone can creep through the Upper East Side and light your ass up with the quickness, homie. Besides, what is the deal with higher-ups from the Defense department having second careers in the world of finance? Former Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara served as president of the World Bank from ‘68-’81. And Iraqi War architect and former Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz recently served as president of the World Bank from ‘05-’07. What’s the line of thinking here? I can’t believe that the pool of candidates who are actually qualified to fill the top posts at the leading financial institutions in the Western world is so small that they have to opt for retired military brass. These guys’ core competency is blowing up shit in foreign countries. They don’t have CPAs or MBAs or any of that shit—they’re lucky if they’ve got a college accounting class under their belt and they’re virtually running our financial institutions. I’m probably just missing something, but I digress, back to Cuomo. This guy better keep his nose cleaner than a whistle for the next 10 years, or so. And he better not even THINK of running for New York governor, which I guarantee he’s got his eye on. Remember how those Neo-Con attack dogs retaliated against former New York attorney-general and governor Eliot Spitzer over fining Wall Street banks a measly $1.4 billion in 2002 as punishment for bilking investors out of a reported $8 trillion in 2001. They investigated the shit out of Spitzer and couldn’t come up with any actual malfeasance, so they got him for partying with a $1000-an-hour prostitute. As I understood it having extra-marital affair was the God-given right of every elected official, and was an accepted practice in nearly every country spanning the globe. Imagine Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi being ousted over having an extra-marital affair—not going to happen. Think about it. How are men this ambitious supposed to be satisfied with just one woman (or one man as the case may be for some)? When they first started accusing Spitzer of the prostitution stuff he should have been like, “Hey goddamnit, I’m running the state! If I can’t keep a little thousand-dollar-an-hour prune around for when I’m feeling frisky then what the fuck is the point of this shit? I don’t know, man. All I know is that Cuomo is going after small potatoes with this bonus payout stuff. These banksters robbed the U.S. in broad daylight and blamed it on market malfunction—they’re guilty of felonies of the highest degree, and our reformers are going after them for misdemeanors. No one is going to see jail time, and none of these financial institutions are going to pay fines anywhere near commensurate to the amount they’ve stolen. And in another seven or eight years they’re going to rob us again and they’re going to get away with it again, too, because the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Congress, and lapdog regulators are going to let them get away with it just like they always do.

THE REAL PREDATORY LENDERS

As the financial crisis grows, so grows its appetite. No longer content gobbling up companies, the monster has moved on to devouring entire countries. Towards the end of last week it became clear that a growing number of countries are on such a precarious economic footing that they’ve begun to consider taking loans from the International Monetary Fund, a deeply unsettling prospect which would have been unthinkable even a week ago. The list of countries involved in talks with the I.M.F. started with Iceland, and quickly grew to include Hungary, Ukraine, Pakistan, and Belarus. Still other countries such as Brazil, South Africa, Turkey, Argentina, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria are in profound economic trouble even if they haven’t begun considering turning the I.M.F or World Bank, according to recent articles by Mark Lander in the New York Times. Countries have become deeply suspicious the I.M.F. and World Bank as they’ve watched developing countries around the world fall victim to these O.G. predatory lenders. As with many things, the I.M.F. and the World Bank started out with good intentions. They were created at the Bretton Woods summit in 1944 with the express purpose of helping finance the rebuilding of Europe following World War II. However, more recently these banks have become effective tools for shaping developing countries in the image of the West, and for leveraging countries to agree to mafia-style loan terms. In his book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” author John Perkins recounts his experience working as an Economic Hit Man for these institutions. Their typical business deal consists of finding a country that has something the West wants, convincing that country to take a loan to improve its infrastructure and earning potential, then when the said country can’t afford to make payments on the loan these banks start asking for favors in the way of military bases, mineral rights, and even U.N. votes. Perkins asserts that these banks already know the country won’t be able to pay back the money on time because they’ve arranged an impossible payment schedule. If the recipient country disregards the terms of the loan then American CIA teams are sometimes sent in to foment uprisings against the ruling party, and if that doesn’t work the U.S. may engage the country in all out war, as was the case with Iraq, says Perkins. “It’s a clever way for the U.S. to expand its ‘empire’ at the expense of Third World citizens,” says Perkins. Perkins isn’t the only insider with harsh criticism for these banks. “Both houses of Congress are obsolete. U.S. domestic policy is run by the Federal Reserve, and foreign policy is run by the I.M.F,” said President Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. If the I.M.F. and World Bank weren’t in the business of forcefully leveraging other countries to adopt the West’s foreign policies, than why has the position of World Bank president become such a popular second act for U.S. military officials? After serving as U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara became president of the World Bank from 1968 to 1981. Then Paul D. Wolfowitz who served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense during the early part of the current Bush administration went on to hold the position of World Bank president from 2005 to 2007. We’ve been made to believe that this Economic Crisis has a mind of its own and that no one understands the situation in its entirety, but I have a hard time swallowing that pill. Similar to the War on Terror, the Economic Crisis becomes a license for the truly powerful to advance their agenda and to do as they please—they may not understand the problem, but they’ve got no shortage of solutions, and most of those solutions are blatantly self-serving. Billions of people around the world are losing a tremendous amount of money in this crisis while a small handful of individuals are making out like bandits.
Tune in next time when I talk about the coming U.S. dollar bubble.

Watch an interview with John Perkins the author of 'Confessions of an economic hit man'.

(Good looking out Nicky Vecki)

REAL TALK ON INFLATION LIES. By Nicky Vecki

We all feel the effects of inflation every time we buy Beanie Babies, batteries or diapers. Things are more expensive every time we go to the store. So why would the folks running this great nation try to lie to us and grossly understate the inflation problem facing our country? The Veckonomist delves into this topic and comes up with some of the answers you so desperately seek. Click here to read more.