15 Comments

1. Bert:

   In my experience, science and technology are backed up with force — good old, fashioned murder. Among other things, science and technology allow a few to control many. So who is doing that and why are they doing it. That seems the primary control question.

   Catherine

2. Oh, and if one really wants an education in the area described in my last post, I refer you to “The Technological Society,” which is probably the best book written on the subject.

   http://www.amazon.com/Technological-Society-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394703901/

   This from a review by Robert Theobald, The Nation

   “The Technological Society is one of the most important books of the second half of the twentieth century. In it, Jacques Ellul convincingly demonstrates that technology, which we continue to conceptualize as the servant of man, will overthrow everything that prevents the internal logic of its development, including humanity itself — unless we take the necessary steps to move human society out of the environment that ‘technique’ is creating to meet its own needs.”

3. Steve, I would suggest that what we are witnessing is the ascendancy of a scientific oligarchy, where the who is far less relevant than the mechanisms of the system itself.

   While it contains some tinfoil, there is a book of similar name that may help to familiarize the reader with some aspects of the socially engineered society we are in.
   http://www.amazon.com/Ascendancy-Scientific-Dictatorship-Examination-Epistemic/dp/1419639323/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241489169&sr=8-1

   We’ve received numerous warnings throughout history, but we have consistently failed to heed them in sufficient numbers.

4. What I see happening is that acknowledgement of an oligarchy is becoming “mainstream news.” However, defining exactly “who” comprises this oligarchy is where the spin hits, trying to make us believe it is hedge fund managers, or the CEOs of banks, or even people like Madoff who are at the center of the problem.

   We never see the long-time family names that have been at the center of the problem for decades — Rockefellers, Morgans, Rothschilds, Mellons, Warburgs, etc. We are seeing the finger pointed everywhere else but at these families.

   When you have controlling stakes in the mainstream media, the media is going to say whatever you want it to say. So it will never mention your name. It will mention someone else’s, in your place. So the masses will be educated only up to a point, and then their anger will be directed for them, in the wrong direction.

   God, I love this country.

5. The Great Bank Swindle by James Quinn,

   http://www.minyanville.com/articles/index/a/22494?ref=patrick.net

   McKinsey has concluded that there are still $2 trillion of toxic assets sitting on the books of US banks. The International Monetary Fund has estimated total credit write-downs of $4.1 trillion, with $2.7 trillion in US institutions alone. And Nouriel Roubini estimates the total losses on loans made by US financial firms will reach $1.6 trillion, with an additional $2 trillion in losses on securities. …

   The US banks and broker dealers are exposed to half of this figure, or $1.8 trillion; the rest is borne by other financial institutions in the US and abroad. What’s even worse: That $1.8 billion figure doesn’t include commercial real-estate losses, credit-card losses, and losses from the next wave of mortgage resets in 2010.

   With $2 trillion of write-offs to go, how could Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner make the following statement to a Congressional panel last week: “Currently, the vast majority of banks have more capital than they need to be considered well capitalized by their regulators.”?

   The entire US banking system has only $1.4 trillion of capital. Therefore, the US banking system is effectively insolvent. …

   And while the Treasury claims to want improved accuracy and disclosure, it forced the FASB to relax mark-to-market rules, which allows banks to obscure the real value of the “assets” on their books. They allow Goldman Sachs (GS) to bury the fact — deep in the footnotes to their report — that their financial results did not include the month of December, during which Goldman lost $1.5 billion. They continue to allow banks to report one-time gains as part of ongoing operations – but billions in losses that are recorded quarter after quarter are omitted. …

   “It’s vastly more difficult to examine a bank that is engaged in accounting control fraud. You can’t rely on the bank’s books and records. It doesn’t simply take more, far more, FTEs – it takes examiners with experience, care, courage, and investigative instincts and abilities. Very few folks earning $60,000 are willing to tell CEOs and CFOs making $25 million annually that they’re running a fraudulent bank and are liars.

   This is one of the reasons why having “resident examiners” never works. Effective examination may be good for you, but it’s very unpleasant (just think of a proctologist’s finger). It requires total independence. So the examination force doesn’t have remotely the numbers or the relevant experience and mindset to examine the largest banks with the greatest problems…

   If the Federal Reserve was so keen on disclosure and transparency, why haven’t they released the names of the banks that have borrowed from them, and the collateral provided for the loans?

   The stock market has been soaring as banks report earnings that purposely underestimate future losses. Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke essentially required Ken Lewis to commit fraud by not revealing material information about Merrill Lynch to the public.

   Dr. John Hussman describes this state of affairs:

   “That’s what these bureaucrats want during their stint in government service, that’s how they advise our elected officials, and then their revolving door takes them right back to Wall Street. This thing is run by investment bankers and corporate bondholders for the benefit of investment bankers and corporate bondholders

6. Catherine, I really hope you’ll publish the following.

   This statement by Durbin is intended to maintain the illusion of a fully functioning government, albeit, under strong influence from international bankers. The statement made is carefully crafted propaganda, for it is now widely known, or at least partially perceived, that the masks and gloves have come off and the iron fist is revealing itself…. at least some are seeing it.

   So, if this statement was designed to mask the truth, then what possibly might this truth be, as Durbin’s truth is already an extremely tough pill for the public to swallow.

   I would argue, and I understand that this is far from many people’s realities, that the government that we see is a side show, an illusion. It is nothing but a facade of a fully functioning government, at least at the Federal level and at the top of some state levels. The government that we grew up knowing is gone, all of our major institutions have been infiltrated and compromises, and we are now under the control of actors who have no allegiance to the United States of America, its Constitution, its heritage, its values, or its people.

7. …An image-based culture, one dominated by junk politics, communicates through narratives, pictures and carefully orchestrated spectacle and manufactured pseudo-drama. Scandalous affairs, hurricanes, earthquakes, untimely deaths, lethal new viruses, train wrecks—these events play well on computer screens and television. International diplomacy, labor union negotiations and convoluted bailout packages do not yield exciting personal narratives or stimulating images…

   Pseudo-events—dramatic productions orchestrated by publicists, political machines, television, Hollywood or advertisers—however, are very different. They have, as Daniel Boorstin wrote in “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America,” the capacity to appear real even though we know they are staged. They are capable, because they can evoke a powerful emotional response, of overwhelming reality and replacing reality with a fictional narrative that often becomes accepted truth. The unmasking of a stereotype damages and often destroys its credibility. But pseudo-events, whether they show the president in an auto plant or a soup kitchen or addressing troops in Iraq, are immune to this deflation….

   Reporters, especially those on television, no longer ask if the message is true but if the pseudo-event worked or did not work as political theater. Pseudo-events are judged on how effectively we have been manipulated by illusion. Those events that appear real are relished and lauded. Those that fail to create a believable illusion are deemed failures. Truth is irrelevant. …

   A public that can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction is left to interpret reality through illusion. Random facts or obscure bits of data and trivia are used to bolster illusion and give it credibility or are discarded if they interfere with the message. The worse reality becomes—the more, for example, foreclosures and unemployment skyrocket—the more people seek refuge and comfort in illusions….

   But the longer we live in illusion, the worse reality will be when it finally shatters our fantasies. Those who do not understand what is happening around them and who are overwhelmed by a brutal reality they did not expect or foresee search desperately for saviors. They beg demagogues to come to their rescue. This is the ultimate danger of the Obama Brand. It effectively masks the wanton internal destruction and theft being carried out by our corporate state. These corporations, once they have stolen trillions in taxpayer wealth, will leave tens of millions of Americans bereft, bewildered and yearning for even more potent and deadly illusions, ones that could swiftly snuff out what is left of our diminished open society.

   http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/20090503_buying_brand_obama/

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