R.J. Jacob ~ The Growth Of American Fascism: From LBJ To Obama

theIntelHub January 12 2013

“It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.”- David Hume

In the aftermath of the highly suspicious Sandy Hook incident, Americans have experienced a predictable escalation of the elite’s ongoing efforts to destroy their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

A disarmed civilian population has long been a principle ambition of the globalist elites. As patriots are well aware, an armed population is the last line of defense against tyranny.

It is of vital importance to the globalists that Americans be shorn of their means of defending themselves against the dystopian visionaries of the New World Order.

The globalist vision is one that has been passed down over time through each succeeding generation of the elite.

As James Warburg of the Council on Foreign Relations stated to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 17, 1950, “We shall have world government whether or not you like it, by conquest or consent.”

Of course, a disarmed populace is much easier to conquer and therefore does not need to give consent to the neo-feudal rule of the NWO overlords. The American police state has continued to expand in an exponential way since Warburg spoke those words.

The elected officials supposedly charged with the task of preserving the constitutional rights of Americans have become ever more acquiescent to tyranny as the decades have passed. For instance, during the same year that Warburg proclaimed these sinister intentions, President Harry Truman, himself sympathetic to globalist designs in many ways, nevertheless vetoed the 1950 McCarran Act which would have allowed the indefinite detention of citizens without trial.

His successor President Eisenhower, himself connected to the Rockefeller internationalists, nevertheless criticized the growing dominance of American foreign policy by the merchants of death through the military-industrial complex.

Of course, the last American president to challenge the globalist agenda in any serious way was John F. Kennedy, whose quixotic efforts to halt the monetary dominance of the Federal Reserve cost him his life.

Subsequent U.S. presidents have learned well from the example that was made of Kennedy. It is no coincidence that it was JFK’s successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who presided over the unprecedented assault on the Second Amendment rights of Americans that came with the Gun Control Act of 1968.

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Agenda 21 Is Being Rammed Down The Throats Of Local Communities All Over America

The Economic Collapse | December 24 2012

Have you ever heard of Agenda 21?  If not, don’t feel bad, because most Americans haven’t.  It is essentially a blueprint for a “sustainable world” that was introduced at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992.  Since then, it has been adopted by more than 200 counties and it has been modified and updated at other UN environmental summits.  The philosophy behind Agenda 21 is that our environmental problems are the number one problem that we are facing, and that those problems are being caused by human activity.  Therefore, according to Agenda 21 human activity needs to be tightly monitored, regulated and controlled for the greater good.  Individual liberties and freedoms must be sacrificed for the good of the planet.  If you are thinking that this sounds like it is exactly the opposite of what our founding fathers intended when they established this nation, you would be on the right track.  Those that promote the philosophy underlying Agenda 21 believe that human activity must be “managed” and that letting people make their own decisions is “destructive” and “dangerous”.  Sadly, the principles behind Agenda 21 are being rammed down the throats of local communities all over America, and most of the people living in those communities don’t even realize it.

So how is this being done?  Well, after Agenda 21 was adopted, an international organization known as the “International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives” (ICLEI) was established to help implement the goals of Agenda 21 in local communities.  One thing that they learned very quickly was that the “Agenda 21″ label was a red flag for a lot of people.  It tended to create quite a bit of opposition on the local level.

As they try to implement their goals, they very rarely use the term “Agenda 21″ anymore.  Instead, they use much more harmless sounding labels such as “smart growth”, “comprehensive land use planning” and especially “sustainable development”.

So just because something does not carry the Agenda 21 label does not mean that it is not promoting the goals of Agenda 21.

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Paul Craig Roberts ~ USA To Continue Its Wars As Long As Dollar Remains Reserve Currency

Paul Craig Roberts | September 25 2012

Pravda.Ru interviewed Paul Craig Roberts, an American economist, who served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and became a co-founder of Reaganomics – the economic policies promoted by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. We asked Mr. Roberts to share his views about the current state of affairs inside and outside the United States.

Pravda.Ru: Mr. Roberts, you are known in Russia as the creator of Reaganomics, which helped the country overcome stagflation. What were the key aspects of that policy and how would you estimate its results today? Do you think your faith in free market has shattered?

Paul Craig Roberts: Free market means the freedom of price to adjust to supply and demand. It does not mean the absence of regulation of human behavior.

Reaganomics was a political word for supply-side economics, a new development in economic theory. In the post World War 2 western world, governments used Keynesian demand management economic policy to control inflation and to boost employment. John Maynard Keynes was the British economist who explained the Great Depression in the West as a consequence of insufficient aggregate demand to maintain full employment and stable prices.

Keynesian demand management relied on government budget deficits and easy monetary policy (money creation) to stimulate demand for goods and services. To control inflation from too much demand for goods and services, high tax rates were used to reduce disposable income.

The problem that developed is that the high tax rates on income made leisure inexpensive in terms of lost current earnings from not working, and made current consumption inexpensive in terms of lost future income from not saving and investing. In other words, high tax rates on income made leisure and current consumption cheap in terms of foregone present and future income. Thus, high tax rates on income depressed the supply of labor and capital.

Using the UK’s 98% tax rate on investment income (pre-Thatcher), the Nobel economist Milton Friedman illustrated the problem with this example. You are an Englishman with $100,000. Shall you invest it for future income, or shall you purchase a Rolls Royce and enjoy life? The true price of the Rolls Royce (or Bentley, or Ferrari or Maserati) is not the purchase price. The price of the exotic car is the foregone future income from not investing the $100,000.

Suppose you could earn 10% on the $100,000. That would be $10,000 per year as the cost of purchasing the luxury car. But after tax (98%) the car would only cost $200 per year, a very cheap price.

The same example works for labor and salary income. Because of the high marginal tax rates, many professionals such as medical doctors closed their practices on Fridays and went to the golf course.

By changing the policy mix, that is by tightening monetary policy and reducing marginal tax rates (the tax rate on increases in income), the supply-side economic policy of the Reagan administration caused aggregate supply to increase. Thus output expanded relative to demand, and inflation declined.

This supply-side policy was instrumental as Reagan’s first step toward ending the cold war with the Soviet Union. As long as the US economy was afflicted with stagflation–the simultaneous rise in both inflation and unemployment, the Soviet government saw capitalism failing along with communism. But when Reagan corrected the economic problem, it made the Soviet government unsure that it could withstand an arms race.

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Alex Newman ~ Powerful New Video Explores How Agenda 21 Will Affect You

The New American | September 24 2012

Powerful New Video Explores How Agenda 21 Will Affect You While most Americans remain blissfully unaware, the United Nations “sustainable development” scheme known as Agenda 21 will affect virtually every area of life — and it is already here. A short new documentary about the UN plan, using the global organization’s own documents and other sources, explores the implications of this far-reaching agenda and what it means to you and your family.

The film emphasizes the obvious importance of protecting the environment — everybody wants clean air and clean water. However, as the documentary points out, when environmentalism came to a fork in the road, the agenda took one route while the rhetoric took another. For those concerned with freedom, the picture appears grim at first.

America, of course, was founded on the principles of individual liberty and God-given rights, which include the ownership of private property. “Private property and freedom are inseparable,” reads a quote from George Washington cited in the documentary. The Founding Fathers also understood the danger of big government, even waging a war for independence against what was then the most powerful big government on earth — the British Crown.

Beginning some three decades ago, however, the UN began its push to allegedly “save the environment” and achieve what it called “sustainable development.” The short documentary — entitled Agenda 21: How Will It Affect You? — introduces viewers to some of the key players in the scheme including socialist Gro Harlem Brundtland, one of the chief architects of the UN plan.

The film also goes through important milestones such as the 1992 “Earth Summit” in the global effort to impose “sustainability” on the people of the planet. At that crucial conference two decades ago, rulers from all over the world came together and created what came to be known as “Agenda 21.” It quickly became clear what the scheme was about.

“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class — involving high meat intake, the use of fossil fuels, electrical appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning and suburban housing — are not sustainable,” noted Earth Summit Secretary-General Maurice Strong as he ushered in Agenda 21. In other words, the UN sustainability agenda eventually seeks to curtail people’s choices in terms of food, transportation, housing — even family size, as in Communist China.

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Ben Fulford (September 18 2012) ~ Murders And War-Mongering Continue To Escalate As Back-Drop To High Level Negotiations

Benjamin Fulford

As the battle for control of the global financial system rages towards a climax, murders, provocations and disinformation campaigns are all escalating. The disappearance of Xi Xinping, the man who is supposed to be the new leader of China, is one example. Xi Xinping vanished from the public spot-light for two weeks to hide his bruises after being beaten up by his handlers, according to two separate high-ranking Chinese sources. Xi works for Jean Daniel Cohen of the French Hoche group and has been ordered to provoke anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, according to one of these sources. Mr. Cohen has not returned this writer’s call asking to confirm this.

The Japanese junior officer corps nearly fell for the recent Chinese provocations (including the sending of warships to disputed Islands) and demanded war before cooler, senior heads warned them it was all a trap.

The murder last week of Japan’s Financial services Minister Tadahiro Matsushita was linked to a cabal attempt to extort money, Japanese public security police sources say. Matsushita had refused to hand over $5 trillion to agents working for the cabal. Matsushita was forced to write wills at gunpoint and was then drugged and strangled, according to the police sources. The sudden death of Shinichi Nishimiya, Japan’s newly appointed ambassador to China is believed to be linked to the cabal, although investigations have just begun.

These murders and other un-reported ones elsewhere are part of an attempt by the cabal to extort money to prevent the bankruptcy of the United States of America corporation (as opposed to the American Republic).

The owners of the Federal Reserve Board crime syndicate, for their part, have been trying to steal money wherever they can. In one of their maneuvers a General Rosiere (first name not known) has been travelling around with a flotilla of battleships stealing gold from Indonesia, the Philippines and elsewhere, White Dragon Society sources say. The stolen gold has been taken to the Freeport mine in Indonesia before being moved on to Hong Kong for re-smelting. Henry Kissinger has been an executive at the Freeport mining company.

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Ben Fulford (Sep 11 2012) ~ Japanese Finance Minister Murdered, New Chinese Leader Missing, Climax Approaching

Benjamin Fulford

Tadahiro Matsushita, Japan’s Finance Minister, was murdered Monday in an attempt by the cabal to extort more money out of Japan. In addition, upcoming Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vanished from public view after shunning a meeting with Hillary Clinton and refusing to finance her cabal last week. Furthermore, Neil Keenan and his family have all been recently hit by a nasty virus that we hear was spread by Italian agents working for former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Also last week NATO went on full military alert and was planning to attack Syria and provoke war with China and Russia before it was stopped by a UK RAF whistleblower who alerted colleagues at the Pentagon, according to both MI5 and CIA sources. All of these incidents are part of the final death throes of the Satanic cabal that was attempting to install a fascist world government after starting World War 3.

Multiple death threats have also been directed at this writer along with a raid on my house by Japanese tax police. The time for talk is over and direct action to deal with these mass murdering scum has begun.

The biggest immediate threat now is cabal plans to set off nuclear terror attacks in Europe in an attempt to provoke Muslim/Christian warfare, according to MI5 sources. Message to the P2 lodge: Satan has already left this universe and you are now just a bunch of scared old men about to go to jail.

Remember, if these people are not arrested, if you personally see any of them, you are legally entitled to kill them on the spot because they are trying to murder you and your family and that has been proven beyond a doubt.

Here is the latest from MI5 and other sources on the cabal’s plans for mass murder in Europe.

Their long term goal and the reason they justify their mass murder is that they plan to “merge all religion after a prolonged period of tribulation and war,” according to MI5 and other sources.

The starting point for this will be the Middle East, Peter Hans Kolvenbach’s base of operations. Kolvenbach was recently spotted in Tripoli with Giorgio Balestrieri, a Senior P2 Lodge member and one of the mid-level planners of the 911 terror attack on New York, MI5 says.

The planning for this has all been very long term. During World War 2 the Nazis recruited and trained 750,000 agents for the Muslim Brotherhood to help implement this plan.

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Ben Fulford (Aug 21 2012) ~ Frenzy Of Murder, Attempted Murder And Threats Of Mass Terror Are All Part Of Cabal Death Throes

Benjamin Fulford

On August 10th, Dr. Michael Van de Meer, AKA Dr. Michael Meiring, died in his sleep in extremely suspicious circumstances. Dr. Meiring was a very private individual who had to change his name to Van de Meer a few years ago after getting unwanted publicity when his legs were blown off by a bomb he says was placed by agents of George Bush senior and his Nazi cabal.

Dr. Van de Meer died immediately after being sent $750 billion worth of bonds from the same batch as the $134.5 billion worth that was illegally seized from two Japanese diplomats in June of 2009. He was planning to cash them on behalf of their Asian owners in order to finance a new international economic planning agency. De Meer was in robust health and full of plans for the future in a conversation with a White Dragon Society representative that took place only hours before his sudden death.

Meanwhile, the self-described “illuminati grandmaster” going by the name of “Alexander Romanov,” was taken into protective custody last week by the Japanese police following a murder attempt. Japanese underground sources confirm that a group of Japanese hit men are actively trying to kill him. Romanov was a 20-year veteran drug smuggler who risked his own life to inform the Japanese police and this writer that a nuclear missile had been smuggled into Japan for use in a mass murder attack. The Japanese police were either hopelessly incompetent or else in on the crime because they failed to take action even after Romanov told them exactly where the bomb was being kept (inside a compound owned by former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone). The fissile material in the bomb was later used to create several smaller devices that were used for the 311 tsunami and nuclear terror attack on Japan.

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Marilyn MacGruder Barnewall ~ Cycles Of A Nation Called America (4 of 4)

News With Views | August 19 2012 | Thanks, Minty

[Note: This is article 3 of a four part series. You can read part 1 herepart 2 here. and Part 3. The original article explaining the differences between Actives and Passives is here.]

Active investors innovate… they are the independent business owners of the world. Passives build on the creative energies of the Active group. Passive investors like things “big” because big is safer than small. Actives are risk managers; Passives are risk avoiders who use the words “risk taking” rather than “risk management.” Actives are conservative; Passives are liberal.

In the fall of 1970, Henry Kissinger made a secret trip to China. Nixon met with the Chinese communists in 1972 to discuss international trade (and to give them intelligence information about the Soviet Union). American economic stability began to be dependent upon and controlled by international, not national, markets. A new phenomenon emerged: the military-industrial complex. Change was in the wind and change is disliked by those with low-risk management skills (Passives).

In 1960, traditional social values were rejected by Hippies and Yippies … a fitting end to a Passive cycle. A drug culture emerged and the Active cycle began that very year. When we move into an active cycle, we almost always have an economic base change (never when going from Active to Passive). In 1960, we moved from an industrial/manufacturing base to technology, information, and service. In the late 1980s, George Herbert Walker Bush began talking about a “New World Order.” Americans didn’t like it and he lost his Presidential bid for re-election.

Traditional political values were questioned. Previously unheard of demonstrations against America’s military and political involvement in the Vietnam War – a war started by Passives and ended by Actives – were almost daily occurrences. Non-traditional civil rights for minorities caused rebellion in our streets. Those who fought in Vietnam were spat upon by Passives as they returned from their military service. Passives ran away to Canada. Active citizens inherited in 1960 a government grown too big, too arrogant, and too motivated by power to control.

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Dave Lindorff ~ Democracies Don’t Start Wars, But Fake Democracies Sure Do!

Nation Of Change | August 15 2012

We’ve all heard it said by our teachers when we were in school, we’ve all heard it said by politicians, including presidents: “Democracies don’t start wars.”

And yet we have had the decades-long American war on Vietnam, the Reagan invasion of Grenada, the LBJ invasion of the Dominican Republic, the George H.W. Bush invasion of Panama, the G.W. Bush back-to-back invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and now we have President Obama talking about launching an unprovoked war on Iran.

Is the much touted axiom wrong?

I don’t think so. I believe that in a democracy, where the will of the people is paramount, it would be very unlikely to have a country start a war. People generally don’t like war. They need to feel truly threatened or even under attack before they will accept the idea of their or anyone’s fathers, husbands, brothers and sons (and now mothers, wives, daughters and sisters) being marched off to face the horrors of war.

Clearly the reason we have seen the US starting so many wars is that the US is and has not for a very long time been anything approaching a democracy.

Democracy in the US is a purely formalistic thing. People get to vote once every two and four years to chose from a narrow list of pre-selected candidates approved by the real rulers of the country, who are the wealthy owners of the large business interests, many of which prosper when there’s a war on, and many more of which are happy to have periodic wars, or the threat of wars, to keep people in line and willing to tolerate the kind of abuse that is typically heaped on the average working person: financially starved school districts, starvation-level welfare grants, no public health system, rusting bridges, pot-holed roads, almost no public transit, and falling real wages, etc.

I think it’s largely true that real democracies do not start wars, but the endless string of wars big and small started by the US, particularly since the end of the Second World War, provide ample evidence that this country of ours has long since ceased to be democratic. In both domestic and foreign policy, the federal government does not reflect the true wishes of the broad public. If it did, as I wrote recently, polls suggest that we would have a much smaller military, we’d have a well-funded Social Security retirement program and Medicare for all, with better benefits, we’d have low-cost college education for all, we’d have clean air and water, we’d have serious action to combat global climate change, we’d have job programs to employ the jobless and policies to prevent the tax-subsidized shipping away of jobs to Mexico, China and elsewhere, we’d have a much more progressive tax structure with the rich paying much higher tax rates, we’d have bankers behind bars and breaking rocks. We’d also have legal marijuana, guaranteed paid vacations, solid protections for union organizing, unfettered abortion rights, and good schools for all our kids.

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Gordon Duff ~ Breaking – Exclusive: Japan Attack, German Terror-Intel Group Complicit (Thanks, P&R)

Veterans Today | May 31 2012

written by Gordon Duff (Sr. Editor) &
Michael Shrimpton (UK Correspondent)

Japan’s top secret Plutonium production and storage facility facing attack, a radiation catastrophe for North America planned.  Based on multiple confirmations from official sources, plans are afoot to use a Russian nuclear device to destroy the secret Japanese weapons grade facility at Rokkasho Mura in the Aomori Prefecture.

Yes, We Can Drop the Sea Bed, Watch Us Do it Again, For Real This Time

We now have strong reason to believe that the Fukajima earthquake and tidal wave were not a natural event but one engineered to damage Japan and as a “first volley” in a radiation war against the United States.  A second, far more serious attack has been discovered, the agencies involved are the NSA, the British Covert Services, the Royal Navy and the Office of Naval Intelligence.

A “repeat performance” is scheduled, one we hope this detailed report will offset.  The United States, North America in general and Northern Europe will suffer extreme radiation contamination at a level capable of inducing widespread cancers and a drastic reduction in population.  This is the plan and, at the end of this article, we will specifically describe the confirmed organization that is responsible for Fukajima and the manipulation of hundreds of events that began even before the end of World War II.

The organization described includes one former two former presidents, minimally two former CIA directors, planned the assassination of JFK, has, at its disposal dozens of nuclear weapons and “energy devices” of unknown description.

Several key members of congress are active members, one a former presidential candidate, some willingly, some blackmailed, either by pedophile rings in the US and Europe or through threats and extortion.  Of the “secret organizations” and “terror groups,” those we describe count, to a very large degree as both, the visible part of what we are not ever allowed to see, what no one sees, the rulers, whose visage is as fatal as looking on the face of god.

Well known families are involved, in some cases, those scheduled to rise to power have been “replaced” with trained agents.  What had been “Internet rumor” is no longer such, it is fact.

Breivik is a member of this organization as are the police in Norway, Poland and elsewhere.  The P2/Gladio operation, responsible for acts of terror through the 70s, 80s and 90s were this organization, sanctioned by NATO and the CIA but purely working for a cabal of pseudo-ubermenchen, delusional super-humans, by their own pronouncement, members of ancient bloodlines who stand above the Bilderbergers, Skull and Bones or the more public low ranking secret societies.  Freemasonry, the Jesuits and hundreds of high ranking Satanists who sit at the forefront of American government and power, at the forefront of all of Europe, are served by this organization.

The bizarre patters of rendition, the secret prisons, the need to oversee everything from intersection cameras to cash registers that calculate our eating habits, these things represent far more than incursions on privacy.

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Adrian Salbuchi ~ Bilderberg Power Masters Meet in the US

IntelHub | May 25 2012

Every time a “Bilderberg Meeting” takes place, important things happen. The last time they met in the US was an election year, 2008 – and the world got Obama.

This year they’re back in the US: will they decide who the next president of the United State

­When in 2008 they gathered from June 5 to 8 in Chantilly, Virginia – just a stone’s throw from the Washington DC – Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were neck-in-neck in the battle for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidacy.

On June 5 of that year, Barack and Hillary mysteriously “disappeared” for some hours “somewhere in the DC area.” Their agendas blocked out, they clearly sneaked off to “Meet the Bilderbergers.”

The media kept mum about that, save for an Associated Press report on the campaign trail saying that, “reporters traveling with Obama sensed something might be happening between the pair (i.e. Obama and Hillary) when they arrived at Dulles International Airport after an event in Northern Virginia and Obama was not aboard the airplane.

Asked at the time about the Illinois Senator’s whereabouts, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs smiled and declined to comment.” (The AP dispatch “Obama and Clinton meet, discuss uniting Democrats” is, strangely, “no longer available” on their website).

Be that as it may, two days later, Hillary withdrew from the race and Obama became the presidential candidate. Did Bilderberg make Hillary “an offer she couldn’t refuse” to clear the way for Obama to the White House? Did they promise her that she would become his Secretary of State?

Although most Bilderberg annual meetings are held in Europe – France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Denmark, England, Scotland, Norway – this US election year they’re again gathering at the Westfield Marriott Hotel in Virginia from May 30 to June 3. Either they’re very fond of that place… or of US elections… or both…!

So the question is: will “key presidential candidacy decisions” be made again this year? Will a Republican wildcard appear? A “God-inspired Burning Bush” of some sort, perhaps?

Exerting Global Leverage

A favorite Bilderberg method consists of inviting wannabe future heads of state to their meetings to determine whether they will go along with their agenda. We thus saw George H. W. Bush attend their 1985 meeting, Bill Clinton attend their 1991 meeting, Tony Blair in 1993, and Romano Prodi, former head of the EU Commission, in 1999.

So what exactly is Bilderberg? It’s neither an organization nor a lobby.

The “Bilderberg Meetings,” as they dub themselves in their (apparently) official website www.bilderbergmeetings.com, is a “by-invitation-only” club of around 140 very high-power people from business, finance, oil, politics, media, industry, academia and nobility who come together in a very private no-media / no cameras / extremely-tight-security surroundings to discuss… Well… there’s the rub: what exactly do they discuss?

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Kurt Nimmo ~ Obama Ban on Youth Farm Chores Part of Larger Power Grab

InfoWars | April 25 2012

Dredging up Dickensian horrors of child labor, the Obama administration has ordered the Labor Department to apply child labor laws to family farms. The new rules would make it illegal for children to perform a large number of labor tasks that have been performed by farm families for centuries. Traditionally, adults and children alike helped with planting and harvesting in the spring and fall, but the federal government is now determined not only to make this a historical footnote, but a criminal offense.

Under the rules, children under 18 would be prevented by the federal government from working “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials” and prohibited “places of employment would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”

In addition to making it far more difficult for families to work their farms, the new rules will revoke the government’s approval of safety training and certification taught by independent groups like 4-H and FFA and replace them with a 90-hour federal government training course, the Daily Caller reports.

In other words, the federal government will forcibly insert itself in the business of teaching animal husbandry and crop management, disciplines traditionally passed on by families and local communities.

Government apparatchiks will now oversee the business of local farming the same way Stalin did when he collectivized farms and “socialized” production at gunpoint in the Soviet Union. Resistance by farmers and peasants to Stalin’s efforts resulted in the government cutting off food rations, which resulted in widespread famine (the “terror-famine in Ukraine” killed around 12 million people) and millions were sent to forced labor camps.

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Brandon Turbeville ~ Goldman Sachs Tied To The Sordid World Of The Monied Elite

The Activist Post | April 19 2012

If anyone ever doubted that Goldman Sachs could get any sleazier than the reputation the institution has garnered over the last few years, recent discoveries regarding the major bank’s ties to underage prostitution have served to aid in sullying the name even further.

Earlier this month, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times revealed in his article, “Financiers and Sex Trafficking,” that Goldman Sachs was a 16% stakeholder in one of the biggest public sex trafficking forums in the United States – Backpage.com.
I say “public sex trafficking forums” because Backpage is obviously publicly accessible, while more hardcore and illegal activities are clearly hidden from the view of the general citizen. This is because many of the patrons of such operations tend to be the very wealthy in addition to the average run-of-the-mill sexual deviant living in his basement who might be more likely to consult Backpage for its services.
For those unfamiliar with the story, Backpage is a website that provides ads for “escort services” all across the United States and in most metropolitan cities. Of course, many of these ads are placed and answered by consenting adults. However, it is also true that there is a great deal of evidence to show that Backpage plays a role in trafficking minors and women coerced into prostitution.
Interestingly enough, Backpage is owned by Village Voice Media (VVM), which also owns the Village Voice, SF Weekly, and LA Weekly. VVM is also the company where Goldman Sachs held about 16% of stock. Not only that, but Scott L. Lebovitz, who was a Goldman Sachs managing director who Goldman claims stepped down in 2010, sat on the Village Voice Media board for years.

These reports triggered a cascade of protests from members of the anti-trafficking and religious communities, as well as calls from U.S. Senators for Village Voice Media to shut down the Backpage website.

After the New York Times’ expose, Goldman Sachs sold their holdings in Village Voice Media and, by and large, the bank has once again escaped large-scale criticism. Yet the revelation that the bank would maintain such holdings in VVM with the knowledge that Backpage has been engaging in under-age prostitution and coerced-sex workers does lift the veil slightly to the underworld of sex trafficking.