The chronicles of a modern day serf.

serf (sûrf) n. A member of the lowest feudal class, attached to the land owned by a lord and required to perform labor in return for certain legal or customary rights.

A person in bondage or servitude.

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Serfdom Times believes the following two books are the most important books on bookshelves today. If you can read, do read and wonder why the world is as it is, and perhaps wonder where it might be going... read these books. (ST makes no money linking to or endorsing these excellent tomes.)

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The World's Smallest Political Quiz

 
My favorite 9/11 factoids completely ignored by the government and the media are: the closing of the WTC towers the weekend or so before for "computer upgrades" (pg 45 of pdf) and the CEO of Securecom (sp?) in charge of WTC security and Logan airport security being Marvin Bush. But who cares, right? It's only a police state, right?

Before you read this article, conduct this test. Try to purchase some stock, or some futures, a mutual fund or some put options, without providing your identity. Go ahead and try it! See if you get anywhere. Find out what happens when you tell the investment firm that you want to make a huge investment anonymously. It can’t be done.

Then ask yourself this question: How could someone have placed anonymous put options on American Airlines and United Airlines just prior to the attacks of 9/11? Then ask yourself why no one has investigated this suspicious deal. Ask yourself why there has been no attempt by the US government to identify the person who anticipated huge profits from a disaster that was yet to occur. Is it because the trail possibly leads to the CIA?

Then wonder about the collapse of Building 7 on the day of the attacks. Ask yourself why the owner of the building allowed the building to be pulled down (intentionally demolished) hours after the Twin Towers fell. Pulling down a building takes weeks of planning and preparation so that explosives can be safely positioned and wired. Not so in this case. Wonder why.

If you have any doubts at all about the official 9/11 story, then the answers to these questions are all the proof you need that something is very, very wrong!

Independent 9/11 researchers have worked nonstop since the events to examine the events of 9/11 and they have uncovered enough information to seriously challenge the official versions of what happened on that fateful day. But maybe, just maybe, the very fact that massive amounts of information are available is a problem in itself. There may be far too much evidence for most Americans to face.
posted by Casey at 6:02 PM

 
Well, Rep. Dr. Ron Paul has put me in a spot of sorts. Having sworn off of voting since coming to the realization of futility of taking part in rigged sham of it all. At first I agonized over the decision. But it quickly occurred to me that the evil cabal masters will never let Dr. Paul run (as a Republican) and even if they did, the clueless and passively evil imperial serfs, ill-educated in government schools, will not give Dr. Paul the time of day in the primaries. If he somehow manages to make it to the general election, I do feel compelled to suspend my better judgement and support him with my vote - which will no doubt be converted by Cheney's Diebold abominations into a vote for the evil candidate (whomever that will be -- the one they've already chosen to be the next "democractically-selected" dictator.)

You have my full support Dr. Paul. I fear you are quite likely the very last chance for a relatively peaceful (albeit political) solution to beginning to turn the fate of these states and their citizens back from the pits of slave Hell that the twisted, evil Grovers and counterfeiting inbred banking bastards wish to plunge the world into.
posted by Casey at 8:17 PM

 
Bush’s Chernobyl economy; hard times are on the way
By Mike Whitney

Hard times are on the way; only this time it’ll be detention centers instead of soup kitchens.

posted by Casey at 10:03 AM

 
Here's a bloody brilliant blog post. Facsist empires in their decline sure are wacky places to live. (link found at STR)

Pension or Penitentiary?
by Barbara Ehrenreich

Talk about a cry for help: Timothy J. Bowers robbed a Columbus OH bank of $80, handed the money over to a security guard, and waited for the police to come and arrest him. In court on October 11, he pleaded guilty and told the judge that he would like a three-year sentence – just enough time to get him to the age of eligibility for Social Security benefits. The judge graciously obliged, demonstrating compassionate conservativism at its warm-hearted best.

Bowers, almost 63 years old, is no wacko. He passed a court-ordered psychological exam and explained that he had not been able to find a new job since his old one ended when his employer’s company closed in 2003.

...

There’s nothing new about using about prison as a solution to poverty. Over 2 million Americans are presently incarcerated, the great majority of them from the lowest income brackets. In fact, incarceration is expanding as the welfare state shrinks: while the U.S. offers 2 million prison beds, it provides public housing to only 1.3 million households, and that number is dropping rapidly.

...

The cost of incarcerating an elderly inmate is about $69,000 a year. A compassionate – or merely rational—state would give Bowers a stipend to live on and save its prison beds for actual bad guys.

posted by Casey at 2:57 AM

 
The Dollar$ & $en$e Of 911
By Douglas Herman

Who benefitted most by the New York Massacre? Millions were invested before the attack. Hundreds of millions were made the same day. Neither crime received much attention by the US government. Perhaps because friends of the US government stood to gain billions of dollars, in the following years. Trillions eventually will change hands, simply because a great crime was never properly investigated.

Behind every great crime lies a great fortune.

Remember those Put Options? "The identity of this person who had foreknowledge of the attack is known and this person's identity is being protected by our government and this is a fact! Period, end of story," reported Jesse Richard, editor of TVNewsLies.com. A few years ago, TNL carried the definitive argument against the official version of 9-11: All The Proof You Need--Two Moves to Checkmate.

...

In any great crime---except this one---the Justice Department and the local police officials would work tirelessly to find and punish the mass murderers. Instead they have relied on circumstantial evidence (fuzzy videotapes of OBL, Korans, charred passport) that would be laughed out of any honest court in the land. If one could be found.

Behind every great crime are great criminals who planned it well.

Remarkable, Brilliant, Cunning. Diabolical. Those words best describe the masterminds and the crime. Except for a few flaws--like those Put Options--probably placed by a greedy co-conspirator, 9-11 was the Perfect Crime. Because it masqueraded as an act of terrorism, few questioned the billions, dare I say trillions, in profits that continue to accumulate today.

Like the hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and silver that reportedly disappeared from beneath the imploded WTC-7. Here stood a stout steet US government building, recently purchased, that inexplicably fell down from a few fires. Remarkable. Down below, far below street level, a vault containing hundreds of millions in gold was pillaged in the seven hours between the first strike and the collapse of WTC-7.

Was the cunning, insider, masterplan to hijack the gold while Islamic terrorists carried out their suicide plot? Sounds believable, doesn't it? Only one problem. For the hijackers to escape and cover their tracks, they would need to blow the building. Which fell seven hours after the Twin Towers. As mentioned, the building housed the secret spy organization, the CIA, most adept at diabolical deeds and monitoring Al Qaeda.

And curiously, the WTC-7 also warehoused an enormous amount of Security & Exchange records. Was there a connection between the destruction of WTC-7 and the SEC records? These records pertained to investigations into corporate scams totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. You don't suppose someone could have?---no, that's an impossibility.

...

So who benefitted by 9-11? Everybody it seems, except the 9-11 victims, US taxpayers, US soldiers, and tens of thousands of Afghani and Iraq citizens. Monetarily, Halliburton and Exxon and Blackwater and Boeing benefitted (just to name a few of the hundreds of corporations that benefitted by the tragedy). They benefitted to the tune of billions if not trillions of dollars in contracts. Huge contributers, these corporations, to the Republican and Democrat parties, whose pro-war politicos benefitted by their support for the war and the official version of events on 9-11.

Benefitting to the tune of millions of dollars in campaign funds.

Spooner and Beyond
by Michael S. Rozeff

Just to quote one of his arguments: "The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any body but ‘the people’ then existing; nor does it, either expressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to bind anybody but themselves."

Having pierced the veil and shown that the Constitution is of no authority, Spooner splendidly showed what this implied. For example: "Who, then, created these debts, in the name of ‘the United States’? Why, at most, only a few persons, calling themselves ‘members of Congress,’ etc., who pretended to represent ‘the people of the United States,’ but who really represented only a secret band of robbers and murderers, who wanted money to carry on the robberies and murders in which they were then engaged; and who intended to extort from the future people of the United States, by robbery and threats of murder (and real murder, if that should prove necessary), the means to pay these debts."

The Land Without Hope
by Tom Chartier

"Imagine what it's like to be a young person living in a country that is not moving toward reform. You're 21 years old, and while your peers in other parts of the world are casting their ballots for the first time, you are powerless to change the course of your government.

"While your peers in other parts of the world have received educations that prepare them for the opportunities of a global economy, you have been fed propaganda and conspiracy theories that blame others for your country's shortcomings.

"And everywhere you turn, you hear extremists who tell you that you can escape your misery and regain your dignity through violence and terror and martyrdom."

Who is this talking? And what country is he talking about? Read and find out.
posted by Casey at 2:38 PM

 
When Will Americans Take Back America?
by Tom Chartier

Another terrorist assault on our homeland is inevitable: We know this is true because we have been told so by President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney. And they ought to know. Their foreign policy has enraged the entire Middle East thus turning against America as many as 1.8 billion Muslims.

Much of the world considers the USA the biggest threat to world security. They would feel a whole lot safer and "Xanax" sales would plummet if the entire population of the U.S. of A. were sent to colonize Pluto.

What can we do to prevent a second 9/11? Some will tell you that America should withdraw its forces from Afghanistan and Iraq and that US foreign policy should be separated from that of the state of Israel.

The Bush Administration has other plans: Americans will be asked to endorse perpetual war and to hand over total power to the President. If we don’t, the terrorists will attack for sure. If is not even part of the equation… so we are led to believe.

Bush can’t milk fear of another attack forever… Or can he? If the Islamo-Fascists don’t come to Bush’s rescue, he may have to light the fuse himself. This seems to be his intent.

I’m sorry; a bunch of British Muslims with hydrogen peroxide and a few iPods doesn’t cut it. Most of us have both of these items tucked away in our homes. Does that make us dangerous? In the eyes of the Bush Administration, someday all too soon, it will.

I may buy the idea that America is on the brink of annihilation because the policies of Karl Rove’s blue-eyed boy have brought us to the edge of World War III. But no one can sell me the notion that a dictatorship and perpetual war will prevent the Armageddon. Indeed, that can only guarantee it.

TODAY’S PIG IS TOMORROW’S BACON
by Greg Palast

Some years from now, in an economic refugee relocation “Enterprise Zone,” your kids will ask you, “What did you do in the Class War, Daddy?”

The trick of class war is not to let the victims know they’re under attack. That’s how, little by little, the owners of the planet take away what little we have.

Last week, Dupont, the chemical giant, slashed employee pension benefits by two-thirds. Furthermore, new Dupont workers won’t get a guaranteed pension at all — and no health care after retirement. It’s part of Dupont’s new "Die Young" program, I hear. Dupont is not in financial straits. Rather, the slash attack on its workers’ pensions was aimed at adding a crucial three cents a share to company earnings, from $3.11 per share to $3.14.

So Happy Labor Day.

And this week, the government made it official: For the first time since the Labor Department began measuring how the American pie is sliced, those in the top fifth of the wealth scale are now gobbling up over half (50.4%) of our nation’s annual income.

So Happy Labor Day.

...

But if you think I have nothing nice to say about George W. Bush, let me report that the USA now has more millionaires than ever — 7.4 million! And over the past decade, the number of billionaires has more than tripled, 341 of them!

If that doesn’t make you feel like you’re missing out, this should: You, Mr. Median, are earning, after inflation, a little less than you earned when Richard Nixon reigned. Median household income — and most of us are “median” — is down. Way down.

Since the Bush Putsch in 2000, median income has fallen 5.9%.

Mr. Bush and friends are offering us an "ownership" society. But he didn’t mention who already owns it. The richest fifth of America owns 83% of all shares in the stock market. But that’s a bit misleading because most of that, 53% of all the stock, is owned by just one percent of American households.

And what does the Wealthy One Percent want? Answer: more wealth. Where will they get it? As with a tube of toothpaste, they’re squeezing it from the bottom. Median paychecks have gone down by 5.9% during the current regime, but Americans in the bottom fifth have seen their incomes sliced by 20%.

posted by Casey at 1:36 PM

 
From Rense...

911 - A Modern Fairy Tale
By Douglas Herman

Once upon a time in America, the land of opportunity, a group of foreign guys at a Florida strip club said: "Let's get Korans and boxcutters and hijack airplanes and crash them into skyscrapers."

And so they did.

It is quite a tale at that.
posted by Casey at 11:24 PM

 
The Great Housing Crash of '07
By MIKE WHITNEY

Now, the trap-door has been sprung; the country is dead-broke and all the levers are in place for a police state. As the housing-balloon slowly limps towards earth, the new Halliburton detention centers are up and running, the National Guard is in Rummy's control, the Feds are able to listen-in on every phone call we make.

The noose is beginning to tighten.

New Orleans was just a dress rehearsal for the new world order; 300,000 million Americans reduced to grinding poverty while the economy explodes into sheets of flames.

posted by Casey at 12:18 AM

 
Saner words, I have not read in a long time. Of course, the entire article is brillant and well-worth your time, but this passage moves me.

Appeasement and War on Iran
by Michael S. Rozeff

Meeting with Iranians and Ahmadinejad has many immediate benefits. We gain information about what Iranians want. We gain information about their divisions and the strength of their preferences. We delay hostilities. We learn more about Dr. Ahmadinejad. We raise our moral stature. We have a chance to change some of their minds. The two sides might actually agree on a few further steps that lead away from war. What do we lose? Iran gains time to pursue its nuclear ventures. There is little we can do to stop that anyway, short of war. Sooner or later, if Iran wants nuclear weapons, it will get them. If starting a war with Iran is as bad as I think it is, with very negative long-term consequences, then meeting with Iranians is a very good investment.

The neocons simply want to ratchet up the level of violence to remake the Middle East. Their argument is that if we do not, we’ll be destroyed by Iran or by some pan-Islamic combine. This is ridiculous. The U.S. nuclear arsenal deterred the Soviet Union. It can deter Iran. The neocon answer to this is that Iran is led by hate-filled fanatics who will not face a reality like seeing their country effaced from the earth by hydrogen bombs. How credible is that assumption? Should U.S. policy be based upon such an assumption? Not all Iranians are impervious to realities. Many Iranian leaders have a definite political agenda. Not all are expecting the imminent return of the Mahdi. Iranian goals run up against American ambitions in the Middle East, and this is a basic source of conflict, not an abstract desire to destroy Western civilization and be destroyed in the process. Churchill said "A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject." If we rely on the extreme beliefs of our homegrown neocon fanatics, whose own ideas are impervious to change and who can’t propose any course of action except war, then we shall ourselves destroy our own civilization.

Or this, from Antiwar.dom:
Cost of Iraq War So Far: $1,075 Per American

Wonder why paying your bills is so hard?
posted by Casey at 3:30 AM

 
It isn't often said as well, but...


The Pain of Government Regulations
by Michael Tennant

Freedom implies that humans are willing to accept risks in exchange for the ability to make decisions for themselves – and then suffer the consequences if they end up on the wrong end of those risks. Too many people, it seems, prefer the illusion of safety via government regulation to the "dangers" of freedom, even when the regulations make their lives more difficult or even dangerous. Think about it: All those extra, unnecessary trips to the doctor’s office surely result in car accidents that need not have occurred if people were free to go directly to the drug store and buy what they want.

posted by Casey at 1:52 AM