Obama trying to take over public education with “common core” curriculum that teaches socialism

Friday, May 03, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes

(NaturalNews) Whenever he can, President Obama likes to poke fun at anyone who suggests that he’s a closet socialist because that’s what socialists do – they ridicule anyone who tries to “out” them. And yet, every policy he pursues takes a page right out of the socialist/Marxist playbook, and one of them is to ensure that the government controls all forms of education.

Right now, of course, there are thousands of private schools and institutions of higher learning in the U.S., so the government doesn’t control all education, per se. But left-wing career education bureaucrats in government, along with compliant socialists in the teachers unions, do indeed control the vast majority of primary public school education, and it is here where the Obama regime is consolidating its control through a Department of Education program known as Common Core State Standards .

‘Inappropriate overreach’

From the Common Core website:

The standards clearly communicate what is expected of students at each grade level. This will allow our teachers to be better equipped to know exactly what they need to help students learn and establish individualized benchmarks for them. The Common Core State Standards focus on core conceptual understandings and procedures starting in the early grades…

Essentially, what Common Core consists of is a standardized block of instruction on all the major subjects – Math, English and Language Arts – per standards that government bureaucrats devised. Initially, 45 states and the District of Columbia signed on, but as more states found out the curriculum is decidedly slanted to a particular point of view (socialism), a number of states are now working on legislation to bail out. And they are designed to allow controlling statists to get their claws into your kids as early on in their academic careers as possible.

New legislation introduced by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, would prohibit federal funds from being used to finance Common Core implementation around the country. He has also introduced criticized the CCSS, calling them an “inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children.”

He’s far from being alone in rejecting the CCSS. According to an assessment of the core by the Washington Policy Center, scores of education experts have also rejected them, saying one of the biggest problems with the program is that it will stifle classroom innovation, which comes primarily from individual states.

“Local control of public school curriculum and instruction has historically driven innovation and reform in education. A one-size-fits-all, centrally controlled curriculum for every K-12 subject threatens to close the door on educational innovation, freezing in place an unacceptable status quo and hindering efforts to develop academically rigorous curricula, assessments, and standards that meet the challenges that lie ahead,” says an assessment of CCSS by the center.

In addition to rejection of the standards by federal lawmakers, many states are considering or have introduced measures to repeal the standards.

SB403, introduced by Alabama state Sen. Scott Beason, “would prohibit the State Board of Education from adopting and the Department of Education from implementing the Common Core State Standards developed by the Common Core State Standards Initiative,” says a summary. “The bill would also prohibit the State Board of Education, the Department of Education, and other state bodies from compiling or sharing data about students or teachers, except under limited circumstances.”

No state development or involvement

In Indiana, HB1427 states, “The state board may not continue to implement as standards for the state or direct the department to implement any common core standards developed by the Common Core State Standards Initiative…The legislative council shall establish a legislative study committee to study issues relating to common core standards.”

Similar legislation has been introduced in Missouri as well.
The Obama Administration is claiming the standards were developed by the states but, according to Diane Ravitch, a former assistant U.S. secretary of education who was appointed to office by both Clinton and George H.W. Bush, that’s a bogus claim.

The standards “were developed by an organization called Achieve and the National Governors Association, both of which were generously funded by the Gates Foundation. There was minimal public engagement in the development of the Common Core. Their creation was neither grassroots nor did it emanate from the states,” she writes in the Washington Post.

Sources:
http://republicanstates.wordpress.com/tag/common-core/
http://people.howstuffworks.com/communism1.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpolicy.org

Related articles

• Alabama seeks repeal of federal Common Core school curriculum… (republicanstates.wordpress.com)
• New common core standards raise questions in Tenn. (sfgate.com)
• Critics question Common Core education standards at St. Louis County meeting (stltoday.com)

It’s Not a “Fiscal Cliff” … It’s the Descent Into Lawlessness

by George Washington

12/24/2012

The “fiscal cliff” is a myth.

Instead, what we are facing is a descent into lawlessness.

Wikipedia notes:

In many situations, austerity programs are imposed on countries that were previously under dictatorial regimes, leading to criticism that populations are forced to repay the debts of their oppressors.

Indeed, the IMF has already performed a complete audit of the whole US financial system, something which they have only previously done to broke third world nations.

Economist Marc Faber calls the U.S. a “failed state“.   Indeed, we no longer have a free market economy … we have fascism, communist style socialism, kleptocracy, oligarchy or banana republic style corruption.

Let’s look at some specific examples of our descent into lawlessness.

Lawless Looting and Redistribution of Wealth

The central banks’ central bank – the Bank for International Settlements- warned in 2008 that bailouts of the big banks would create sovereign debt crises … which could bankrupt nations.

That is exactly what has happened.

The big banks went bust, and so did the debtors.  But the government chose to save the big banks instead of the little guy, thus allowing the banks to continue to try to wring every penny of debt out of debtors.

Treasury Secretary Paulson shoved bailouts down Congress’ throat by threatening martial law if the bailouts weren’t passed. And the bailouts are now perpetual.

Moreover:

The bailout money is just going to line the pockets of the wealthy, instead of helping to stabilize the economy or even the companies receiving the bailouts:

• Bailout money is being used to subsidize companies run by horrible business men, allowing the bankers to receive fat bonuses, to redecorate their offices, and to buy gold toilets and prostitutes

• A lot of the bailout money is going to the failing companies’ shareholders

• Indeed, a leading progressive economist says that the true purpose of the bank rescue plans is “a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives”

• The Treasury Department encouraged banks to use the bailout money to buy their competitors, and pushed through an amendment to the tax laws which rewards mergers in the banking industry (this has caused a lot of companies to bite off more than they can chew, destabilizing the acquiring companies)

And as the New York Times notes, “Tens of billions of [bailout] dollars have merely passed through A.I.G. to its derivatives trading partners”.

***

In other words, through a little game-playing by the Fed, taxpayer money is going straight into the pockets of investors in AIG’s credit default swaps and is not even really stabilizing AIG.

Moreover, a large percentage of the bailouts went to foreign banks (and see this). And so did a huge portion of the money from quantitative easing.  Indeed, the Fed bailed out Gaddafi’s Bank of Libya), hedge fund billionaires, and big companies, but turned its back on the little guy.

A study of 124 banking crises by the International Monetary Fund found that propping up banks which are only pretending to be solvent often leads to austerity:

Existing empirical research has shown that providing assistance to banks and their borrowers can be counterproductive, resulting in increased losses to banks, which often abuse forbearance to take unproductive risks at government expense. The typical result of forbearance is a deeper hole in the net worth of banks, crippling tax burdens to finance bank bailouts, and even more severe credit supply contraction and economic decline than would have occurred in the absence of forbearance.

Cross-country analysis to date also shows that accommodative policy measures (such as substantial liquidity support, explicit government guarantee on financial institutions’ liabilities and forbearance from prudential regulations) tend to be fiscally costly and that these particular policies do not necessarily accelerate the speed of economic recovery.

***

All too often, central banks privilege stability over cost in the heat of the containment phase: if so, they may too liberally extend loans to an illiquid bank which is almost certain to prove insolvent anyway. Also, closure of a nonviable bank is often delayed for too long, even when there are clear signs of insolvency (Lindgren, 2003). Since bank closures face many obstacles, there is a tendency to rely instead on blanket government guarantees which, if the government’s fiscal and political position makes them credible, can work albeit at the cost of placing the burden on the budget, typically squeezing future provision of needed public services.

In other words, the “stimulus” to the banks blows up the budget, “squeezing” public services through austerity.

Numerous top economists say that the bank bailouts are the largest robbery and redistribution of wealth in history.

Why was this illegal?   Well, the top white collar fraud expert in the country says that the Bush and Obama administrations broke the law by failing to break up insolvent banks … instead of propping them up by bailing them out.

And the Special Inspector General of the Tarp bailout program said that the Treasury Secretary lied to Congress regarding some fundamental aspects of Tarp – like pretending that the banks were healthy, when they were totally insolvent.  The Secretary also falsely told Congress that the bailouts would be used to dispose of toxic assets … but then used the money for something else entirely.  Making false statements to a federal official is illegal, pursuant to 18 United States Code Section 1001.

So breaking the rules to bail out the big, insolvent banks, is destroying our prosperity.

Lawless Justice System

A strong rule of law is essential for a prosperous and stable economy, yet the government made it official policy not to prosecute fraud, even though criminal fraud is the main business model adopted by the giant banks.

The perpetrators of the biggest financial crime in world history, the largest insider trading scandal of all time, illegal raiding of customer accounts and blatant financing of drug cartels and terrorists have all gotten away scot-free without any jail time.

There are two systems of justice in America … one for the big banks and other fatcats, and one for everyone else.

While Iceland prosecuted its top criminal bankers, and thus quickly got through its financial problems and now has a vibrant economy, the American government has done everything it can to cover up fraud, and has been actively encouraging criminal fraud and attacking those trying to blow the whistle.

The rule of law is now as weak in the U.S. and UK as many countries which we would consider “rogue nations”.    See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

This is a sudden change.  As famed Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto notes:

In a few short decades the West undercut 150 years of legal reforms that made the global economy possible.

Moreover, U.S. government personnel are on the take.  They have become so corrupt that regulators are literally sleeping with industry prostitutes … while they pimp out the American people.

The corruption of government officials is staggering, and the system of government-sponsored rating agencies had at its core a model of bribery.

We’ve gone from a nation of laws to a nation of powerful men making one-sided laws to protect their own interests … in secret. Government folks are using laws to crush dissent. It’s gotten so bad that even U.S. Supreme Court justices are saying that we are descending into tyranny.

It’s not a “fiscal cliff” … it’s an attempt to rape America … just like Greece and Ireland have been plundered.

Economics professor Randall Wray writes:

Thieves … took over the whole economy and the political system lock, stock, and barrel. They didn’t just blow up finance, they oversaw the swiftest transfer of wealth to the very top the world has ever seen. They screwed workers out of their jobs, they screwed homeowners out of their houses, they screwed retirees out of their pensions, and they screwed municipalities out of their revenues and assets.

Financiers are forcing schools, parks, pools, fire departments, senior citizen centers, and libraries to shut down. They are forcing national governments to auction off their cultural heritage to the highest bidder. Everything must go in firesales at prices rigged by twenty-something traders at the biggest and most corrupt institutions the world has ever known.

Economics professor Michael Hudson agrees … saying that the banks are trying to roll back all modern laws and make us all serfs.

Professor Hudson explained in 2008:

You have to realize that what they’re trying to do is to roll back the Enlightenment, roll back the moral philosophy and social values of classical political economy and its culmination in Progressive Era legislation, as well as the New Deal institutions. They’re not trying to make the economy more equal, and they’re not trying to share power. Their greed is (as Aristotle noted) infinite. So what you find to be a violation of traditional values is a re-assertion of pre-industrial, feudal values. The economy is being set back on the road to debt peonage. The Road to Serfdom is not government sponsorship of economic progress and rising living standards, it’s the dismantling of government, the dissolution of regulatory agencies, to create a new feudal-type elite.

Indeed:

Foreign Policy magazine ran an article entitled “The Next Big Thing: Neomedievalism“, arguing that the power of nations is declining, and being replaced by corporations, wealthy individuals, the sovereign wealth funds of monarchs, and city-regions.

Indeed, this isn’t the “Great Recession”, it’s the Great Bank Robbery. The big banks have pillaged and looted the rest of the world.

A lawless justice system is ruining the economy.

Lawless Central Bank

The non-partisan Government Accountability Office calls the Fed corrupt and riddled with conflicts of interest.   Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz agrees, saying that the World Bank would view any country which had a banking structure like the Fed as being corrupt and untrustworthy. The former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas said said he worried that the failure of the government to provide more information about its rescue spending could signal corruption. “Nontransparency in government programs is always associated with corruption in other countries, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be here,” he said.

Moreover, the Fed has broken the law by withholding information from Congress, letting unemployment rise in order to keep inflation low, and otherwise exceeding its authority under the Federal Reserve Act.

Acting in a lawless and unaccountable fashion is hurting the economy.

Lawless Attack on Democracy

The ability of the people to participate in their government’s decision-making is vital for a nation’s prosperity. But we no longer have democracy or a republican form of government in America.

The big banks own Washington D.C. politicians, lock stock and barrel.  See this, this, this and this.  Two leading IMF officials, the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, and the the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Moody’s chief economist and many others have all said that the United States is controlled by an “oligarchy” or “oligopoly”, and the big banks and giant financial institutions are key players in that oligarchy.

Laws are being passed in secret, and not even Congress knows what’s going on.

In other words, not only the justice system, but the entire system of American representation has been corrupted, thus harming the economy.

Lawless Infringement of Freedom

Personal freedom and liberty – and freedom from the arbitrary exercise of government power – are strongly correlated with a healthy economy, but America is descending into tyranny.

Authoritarian actions by the government interfere with the free market, and thus harm prosperity.

U.S. News and World Report notes:

The Fraser Institute’s latest Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report is out, and the news is not good for the United States. Ranked among the five freest countries in the world from 1975 through 2002, the United States has since dropped to 18th place.

The Cato institute notes:

The United States has plummeted to 18th place in the ranked list, trailing such countries as Estonia, Taiwan, and Qatar.

***

Actually, the decline began under President George W. Bush. For 20 years the U.S. had consistently ranked as one of the world’s three freest economies, along with Hong Kong and Singapore. By the end of the Bush presidency, we were barely in the top ten.

And, as with so many disastrous legacies of the Bush era, Barack Obama took a bad thing and made it worse.

But the American government has shredded the constitution, by subjecting us to indefinite detention, taking away our due process rights, deploying drones above our heads, spying on all Americans, and otherwise acting in attacking our freedoms.

Indeed, rights won in 1215 – in the Magna Carta – are being repealed.

Economic historian Niall Ferguson notes, draconian national security laws are one of the main things undermining the rule of law:

We must pose the familiar question about how far our civil liberties have been eroded by the national security state – a process that in fact dates back almost a hundred years to the outbreak of the First World War and the passage of the 1914 Defence of the Realm Act. Recent debates about the protracted detention of terrorist suspects are in no way new. Somehow it’s always a choice between habeas corpus and hundreds of corpses.

Of course, many of this decades’ national security measures have not been taken to keep us safe in the “post-9/11 world” … indeed, many of them started before 9/11.

And America has been in a continuous declared state of national emergency since 9/11, and we are in a literally never-ending state of perpetual war. See this, this, this and this.

In fact, government has blown terrorism fears way out of proportion for political purposes, and “national security” powers have been used in many ways to exempt big Wall Street players from the rule of law rather than to do anything to protect us.

So lawlessness infringement of our liberty is destroying our prosperity.

Lawless Initiation and Prosecution of War

It is well-documented that war destroys the economy.

Top U.S. government employees lied us into war, and used illegal torture, assassinations and other crimes of war in prosecuting the wars they unnecessarily started. They were – at a minimum – criminally negligent for failing to stop 9/11 (and see this).

In the name of fighting our enemies – the U.S. has directly been supporting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups for the last decade. See this, this, this, this and this.

Our use of torture has also created many more terrorists than it has prevented.

Security experts – including both conservatives and liberals – agree that waging war in the Middle East weakens national security and increases terrorism. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

Indefinite detention, drone-strikes on innocent civilians, occupation of foreign countries, and most of America’s other tactics in the “war on terror” increase terrorism.

Terrorism feeds the cycle of war … and is thus harming our economy. (and because terrorism spooks people, they spend less, which further harms the economy).

So lawlessness in starting and prosecuting war is destroying our prosperity.

Postscript:  We’re not facing a “fiscal cliff”.  We’re facing a descent into lawlessness.  Stopping the fraudulent schemes, endless bailouts and imperial adventures is the place to start.

Source

Related articles

• Descent Into Lawlessness (theburningplatform.com)

Cartoon of the Day: Hop On In

New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism

By Victor Morton

The Obama campaign apparently didn’t look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, “Forward” — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism.

Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name “Forward!” or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called “Forward (generic name of socialist publications).”

“The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications,” the online encyclopedia explains.

The slogan “Forward!” reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.

Published on Apr 30, 2012 by BarackObamadotcom

The Obama campaign released its new campaign slogan Monday in a 7-minute video. The title card has simply the word “Forward” with the “O” having the familiar Obama logo from 2008. It will be played at rallies this weekend that mark the Obama re-election campaign’s official beginning.

There have been at least two radical-left publications named “Vorwaerts” (the German word for “Forward”). One was the daily newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany whose writers included Friedrich Engels and Leon Trotsky. It still publishes as the organ of Germany’s SDP, though that party has changed considerably since World War II. Another was the 1844 biweekly reader of the Communist League. Karl Marx, Engels and Mikhail Bakunin are among the names associated with that publication.

East Germany named its Army soccer club ASK Vorwaerts Berlin (later FC Vorwaerts Frankfort).

Vladimir Lenin founded the publication “Vpered” (the Russian word for “forward”) in 1905. Soviet propaganda film-maker Dziga Vertov made a documentary whose title is sometimes translated as “Forward, Soviet” (though also and more literally as “Stride, Soviet”).

Conservative critics of the Obama administration have noted numerous ties to radicalism and socialists throughout Mr. Obama’s history, from his first political campaign being launched from the living room of two former Weather Underground members, to appointing as green jobs czar Van Jones, a self-described communist.

Source

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New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism

Monday, April 30, 2012

Posted by Steve Manning at 9:44 PM

The Obama campaign apparently didn’t look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, “Forward” — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism.

Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name “Forward!” or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called “Forward (generic name of socialist publications).”

“The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications,” the online encyclopedia explains.

The slogan “Forward!” reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.

The Obama campaign released its new campaign slogan Monday in a 7-minute video. The title card has simply the word “Forward” with the “O” having the familiar Obama logo from 2008. It will be played at rallies this weekend that mark the Obama re-election campaign’s official beginning.

Source

Related articles

• Forward! With Obama, Axelrod, Jarrett, and Frank Marshall Davis (breitbart.com)
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IMF Exploits Euro-Crisis to Create Global Money Power

Monday, April 16, 201

by Staff Report

Euro Area Seeks Bigger IMF War Chest on Spanish Concerns … European officials travel to Washington this week seeking a bigger global war chest to combat the debt crisis as Spain’s government battles to quell renewed market turmoil over its finances. Three weeks after European leaders unveiled emergency euro- area funding exceeding the symbolic $1 trillion mark, concerns about Spain’s position have ratcheted the nation’s borrowing costs to the highest levels this year. Crisis-fighting resources will dominate talks at the International Monetary Fund’s spring meeting in Washington from April 20-22. – Bloomberg

Dominant Social Theme: Austerity would work if Europe would just cooperate.

Free-Market Analysis: Almost unnoticed, the world’s leaders now speak in terms of trillions rather than billions (or millions) as they used to, and the IMF and central banks are leaders in this trend (see above excerpt).

The goal of the elites running these facilities is world government and the European Union is a stepping-stone to this consolidation. Austerity, the program that is supposedly stabilizing European finances, is actually an elite dominant theme that does the opposite of its stated intent.

As part of this globalist thrust, the power elite seeks to empower certain international facilities with additional funding and authority. Out of chaos … order, as the article excerpted above once again illustrates:

Bowing to international pressure to do more while stopping short of a bolder proposal, European governments agreed last month that 500 billion euros ($654 billion) in fresh money would be placed aside 300 billion euros already committed to create an 800 billion-euro defense against contagion.

By also offering to give the IMF 150 billion euros, “European governments have done their part,” ECB Executive Board Member Joerg Asmussen said April 13. “I would now expect our non-European friends and partners to contribute their part to IMF resources.”

This kind of problem/solution formula is easy to understand for anyone who wants to look. The elites pursue their goals via dominant social themes, fear-based promotions that frighten people into giving up power and wealth to globalist facilities. In this case the mechanism is the “sovereign debt crisis” and the solution is to puff up the IMF with more resources.

The longer the so-called sovereign debt crisis goes on, the more the globalists utilize it to expand the power of their chosen institutions. We wrote about this phenomenon just the other day in an article entitled, “Debt Crisis Plotted to Deliver the Euro to the IMF?” Here’s how we explained the genesis:

One has to keep in mind the artificiality of the current economic construct. The economy of the world is run via monopoly fiat/paper money printed by central banks. It is this system that has seemingly crashed half of the world’s economy and is well on the way to delivering China into the same situation …

The EU crisis itself, as we have often pointed out, started when certain poorer countries were given large amounts of money by Brussels to “equalize” the economy. These funds were supposed to allow the bureaucracies to address native imbalances and create fiscal health.

Of course, this money was nothing but a kind of bribe. The elites of the given nation pocketed the funds and then made sure their countries entered the EU. After this occurred, further lending took place via the elite’s top, European commercial banks.

After the 2008 crash, it became clear that the EU’s PIGS couldn’t repay the loans. This was likely the plan all along. After this realization set in, the power elite that orchestrates this sort of thing ensured that the solution to this manipulated dilemma was “austerity.”

The idea is evidently and obviously to make people so miserable that they will eventually welcome world government and world money. The power elite orchestrating this has been using what we call directed history for at least a century and probably closer to three – within the context of the modern globalist conspiracy.

The article we are analyzing today from Bloomberg suggests an expanded IMF based on the Euro crisis. But the IMF is also promoting a US$500 billion expansion via developing countries.

The justification is that the European crisis might spill over into other continents and nations. The IMF has to be prepared for via a half billion-dollar transfer from the very countries it claims to be protecting. Reuters reports the following:

Euro Area Seeks Bigger IMF War Chest on Spanish Concerns … International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde said that she is hoping to make “real progress” at this week’s meetings …

In January, the IMF said it would need $600 billion in new resources to help “innocent bystanders” who might be affected by economic and financial spillovers from Europe … On Friday, officials from the Group of 20 nations told Reuters the world’s major economies were likely to agree to provide the IMF with somewhere between $400 billion and $500 billion.

A G20 official said the fundraising effort would likely raise about $50 billion from Japan and a similar amount from China and Saudi Arabia, in addition to the $250-300 billion already committed by EU countries. Smaller amounts will likely come from countries such as Russia, Mexico and Brazil.

Thus it is that the IMF expands. It is receiving at least US$150 billion from Europe and hundreds of billions from mostly “developing” countries. It is interesting that the Reuters article and the Bloomberg article don’t quite match up on the European contributions. What’s a few hundred billion among friends?

In fact, nobody REALLY knows how much money is flowing at the top, or where it is headed. The point of the reports is promotional and has little to do with accuracy. The idea is to throw vast sums around as to imbue government officials with godlike powers.

Often, we discover the announcements made about funds prove not to be true. The European sovereign debt crisis was supposed to have been solved years ago, when the first announcements were made that funds had been delegated to “fix” the problem by leading European sponsors.

In fact, we have come to realize this crisis – like other crises around the world – are often manufactured ones. This is no doubt why they often last so long. The longer the crisis lasts, the more possibilities for a transformative effect.

In this case it seems obvious to us that the intent is to make citizens of the West so miserable (via “austerity”) that they will welcome virtually any change, even globalism, that promises to make their lives better.

Seen through this admittedly cynical lens, the 20th century with all its “isms” and arguments for expanding government via socialism, etc., was the first part of a promotion that is now nearing its latter stages. Having successfully made people dependent on government, the powers-that-be are now removing those props in order to further their internationalist aims.

No doubt global governance will be sold the same way as were the initial governmental solutions of the 20th century – as a panacea that will somehow reduce the world’s afflictions and rectify the wrongs of the “market.”

Conclusion: We are not yet sure the IMF is destined to become the world’s central bank – complete with an SDR global currency – but the IMF is continually showing up at the center of things as world economic chaos blossoms. More that the Bank for International Settlements or even the World Bank, it appears to be the Chosen One.

Source

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Obama’s New Nationalism

by Conn Carroll Senior Editorial Writer

Today, in Osawatomie, Kansas, President Obama will invoke Teddy Roosevelt as a model for his 2012 reelection campaign. Over 100 years ago, after leaving the White House, Roosevelt delivered a seminal speech, titled “The New Nationalism,” which would become the foundation for the Progressive Party he would later create to challenge President Taft’s reelection. Obama plans to identify with those same progressive roots today as he calls for higher taxes on the rich and more government control of the economy.

At the White House press briefing yesterday, spokesman Jay Carney said Obama, “Thinks it’s an opportune time and an opportune location to try to put into broader perspective the kind of debates we’ve been having and the issues that are of vital importance to give middle-class Americans the kind of fair shot that they deserve.” Obama will no doubt echo Roosevelt’s call for a “equality of opportunity” and recycle the speech’s “square deal” rhetoric.

But while there are many parts of Roosevelt’s New Nationalism speech that will sound great to modern ears, there are also many passages that will grate on independent voters:

Combinations in industry are the result of an imperative economic law which cannot be repealed by political legislation. The effort at prohibiting all combination has substantially failed. The way out lies, not in attempting to prevent such combinations, but in completely controlling them in the interest of the public welfare.

…

This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.

These words are as radical today as they were 100 years ago. When text of Roosevelt’s New Nationalism reached New York, The New York Times called it “Roosevelt’s Super-Socialism.” Don’t count on that paper using a similar description of Obama’s speech today.

Source

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