IS THERE TRUTH IN GOVERNMENT?

U.S. Unemployment Rates (SGS: Shadow Govt Stats)

via: shadowstats.com

But why would the government lie? Aren't the people the government? Why would they lie to themselves? Either they're not the selves they think they are, or they're not the government they think they are... There seems to be a major fallacy in the framework, something the people don't want themselves to know... Wonder what it is...

In any case, now that Wall Street knows what it can get away with, better watch out below!

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"Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), BP (BP), Total (TOT), Shell (RDS.A), Deutsche Bank (DB) and Societe Generale (SCGLY.PK) founded the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in 2000. ICE is an online commodities and futures marketplace. It is outside the US and operates free from the constraints of US laws. The exchange was set up to facilitate 'dark pool' trading in the commodities markets. Billions of dollars are being placed on oil futures contracts at the ICE and the beauty of this scam is that they NEVER take delivery, per se. They just ratchet up the price with leveraged speculation using your TARP money. This year alone they ratcheted up the global cost of oil from $40 to $80 per barrel."

--The Global Oil Scam

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"I believe we have not begun to see a fraction of the damage inflicted on Western economies by the sociopathic, short-sited banksters and their control of government. Perhaps that is why we see so little rage. People really have no idea what is coming."

Richard B.

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“Bloomberg reported: 'Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, had a record profit in the first nine months of this year and set aside $16.7 billion for compensation expenses.' Goldman Sachs is on pace for the best year in the firm’s history, and it is also benefiting by only paying 1 percent in taxes."

15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the Seams

FOR U.S. ELECTION DAY, 2008

Excerpts from the diary of Elizabeth Dixon Smith, a pioneer woman migrating with her family to Oregon, started April 21, 1847-- excerpts here [original spelling and absent punctuation (with sentence break-pauses I can't reproduce here)] are from the latter part of the journey, waiting to portage down the Columbia River:

Nov 18 my husband is sick it rains and snows we start this morning round the falls with our wagons we have 5 miles to go I carry my babe and lead or rather carry another through snow and mud and water al most to my knees it is the worst road that a team could possibly travel I went a head with my children and I was affraid to look behind me for fear of seeing the wagon turn over in to the mud and water with evry thing in them my children give out with cold and fatigue and could not travle and the boys had to unhitch the oxon and bring them and carry the children on to camp I was so cold and numb that I could not tell by feeling that I had any feet at all we started this morning at sunrise and did not get to camp untill after dark and there was not one dry thread on one of us not even my babe I had carryed my babe and I was so fatigued that I could scarcely speak or step when I got here I found my husband lying in Welches wagon very sick[...]

Nov 20 Rain all day it is allmost an imposibility to cook and quite so to keep warm or dry I froze or chilled my feet so that I cannot wear a shoe so I have to go round in the cold water bearfooted.

Nov 21 rain all day the whole care of evry thing now falls upon my shoulders I cannot write any more at present[...]

Feb 2 to day we buried my earthly companion, now I know what none but widows know that is how comfortless is that of a widows life espesily when left in a strange land without money or friends and the care of seven children -- cloudy

Feb 22, 23 [...] to day we left Portland at sunrise no one to assist us we had to leave one waggon and part of our things for the want of a teem we travled 4 or 5 miles all the way up hill and through the thickest woods I ever saw all furr from 2 to 4 ft through with now and then a scattering cedar and an intolerable bad road we all had to walk some times I had to sit down my babe and help to keep the wagon from turning over when we got to the top of the mountain we descended through mud up to wagon hubs and over logs 2 feet through and log bridges torn to pieces in the mud sometimes I would be behind out of the sight of the wagon carrying and tuging my little ones along sometimes the boys would stop the teams and come back after us made 9 miles encamped in thick woods found some grass unhitched the oxon let them feed 2 hours then chained them to trees these woods are infested with wild cats panthers bears and wolves ... we made us a fire and made a bed down on the wet ground and layed down as happy as circumstances would ad mit[...]

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When you realize the courage and risk, pain and effort, trust in one's own powers that went into building America, you can only hope that we of this day have inherited that courage, that that power is still in good hands...

From COVERED WAGON WOMEN, Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1840-1849

"WHATEVER," INSIST JAPANESE YOUTH

If you live here in Japan this might not be that big a surprise, but to folks in the politically active world abroad it's probably shocking to learn that political activism among today's Japanese youth is about the same as it is among teddy bears.

The contrast is even greater to one from a country like the US, where folks of all ages are active in pursuing their rights. I remember debating for the 18-year-old vote back in high school in NY in the 1950s; the 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on July 1, 1971, lowering the US voting age to 18.

All the same, despite J-youths' apparent apathy regarding political empowerment (Will you put down the manga/joystick, take out your earbuds and just listen for a minute?), a Japanese student newspaper conducted a survey among high schoolers to find out whether they had any interest in lowering the voting age from 20 to 18, in a country with the dinosauriest government in the world (McCain's a young whippersnapper compared to some of these LDP lifetimers), but most of the kids who were willing to take out their earbuds said they'd rather not have the vote as they put the buds back in.

In fact, 32% of those who let go of the joystick for a sec said they actually OPPOSED voting rights for 18- and 19-year-olds; in other words, they felt something like: "What a ridiculous idea, giving matters of choice to people our age!" (Like Groucho and that club he would never think of joining), while an underwhelming 20% thought having the vote so soon would be kewl. About 40% said 'whatever...' and turned the volume back up.

Interestingly, female students particularly opposed the idea of giving the vote to such as they would soon be; only 16 percent said they approved of having the vote at that age, while 34 percent said "No way!" and resumed their eyelining.

Hard to believe, in times like these; maybe it won't be true, one day, and Japanese high school students won't have Jurassic leaders...

AND HE SHOULD KNOW.

In case you'd like to be sure you're actually voting this time,
and that the actual winner is elected...

- Segment 6 of 8 -
Segment 1
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Planning to E-Vote? Read This First...

(It's not surprising that Diebold is no longer named Diebold;
alarmingly, though, it's new name is "Premier"...)

THE DEPTHS OF HIGH OFFICE,
or
EVERYTHING MUST HAVE A BOTTOM

In looking at some of the electoids currently holding high office here and there in the world under the rubric of democracy, it's often difficult to credit the contention that a presumably educated, presumably discerning, presumably informed electorate actually searched among themselves, looked into their souls, culled out certain especially able individuals, carefully assessed them, then voted to elect them - over others of equivalent caliber - to serve as the governmental representatives of all.

I sense I'm giving far too much credit to the electorate concept, but what the hell. Even so, that such a process could result in certain of the leaders currently bulling in the world china shop is quite a distance beyond comprehension. Could any first-world polity truly be that uneducated, that undiscerning, that uninformed? (Or that misled?)

Of course, since strictly local representatives reflect their local electorate, it's understandable that some local officials could be far below par; such examples come easily to mind when considering the US congress, for example. As Honest Abe was aware, there are some people you can fool all of the time. But If Darwin's evolution really works, those folks would never grow to comprise a national majority, so how can the basement floor become the ceiling? If Abe and Chuck are wrong about this, the world is in big trouble.

But even though the world as we know it may be ending, let me pause here to point out how nonetheless astonishing it is that, once elected to congresses, senates, parliaments and whatnot, these electoids further select from among themselves some of their number to serve in even higher positions of important public trust, such as speaker of the house, minister of justice, minister of defense etc., who in fact are no such things. This phenomenon goes by the name democracy, but surely it must be something else. Cryptosomnolence, perhaps?

On the other hand, if every cycle must have a bottom, and if the present depth determines the subsequent peak, then the world has a few Everests in the offing, so maybe we should appreciate this current crop of electoids for the breathtaking heights (tsunamis?) they're about to beget.

So if history is any guide, I think I'll just leave this beaten path and head on up into these sparsely inhabited mountains for an unspecified duration...

CAWCUS

Sitting out here often of evenings, keeping a studied corner of an eye on the natural ongoings, looking for any clues that may be offered to whatever the puzzle is, I note that all the crows hereabouts these days - at least several floppy dozen of them - head north each evening at around 5 pm, while the light for getting is still good, to take part in a general cacophony of some sort at a clandestine spot further along the lake, where the raucous cawcus assembles to decide and enact whatever dark corvine legislation the various committee members can agree upon. I don't know where the crow capital is, but it must be aggravating to the neighbors. Thank the bird gods it isn't in the trees around my house.

I don't see how the crows could ever agree on anything though, despite the fact that they have a goodly quorum, since each crow is solitary throughout the day, beakily independent and strongly opinionated, often standing atop the soapbox of a fence post, high tree or telephone pole to broadcast piercing personal views on things of direct concern to black-feathered individuals, for all the world to hear.

Theirs must be the only avian form of what we humans are pleased to call democracy (none of the other birds regularly gather from individuality to fly collectively to daily congress), though the way they fly overhead on their legislative trip, scattered into what could only be imaginatively characterized as a flock - with latecomers often lollygagging along 10 or 20 minutes behind schedule - seems to indicate that they don't really want to reach their capital, wherever it is, for getting there appears to be much more fun, but they are going nonetheless, in as omnidirectional a straight line as possible, complaining all the way.

Complaining is what it sounds like to me, at least in terms of human emotional expression, though perhaps I'm mistaking the squawks of corvine excitement and crowfoolery for human aggravation. One species' jubilation can often sound raucous to a quieter, wingless party on another facet of the infinite jewel.

I DON'T REMEMBER THIS COUNTRY.