When Governments Promise "Hope"

A friendly reminder from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

675 Before Christ's second coming, the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the "mystery of iniquity" in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

676 The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatalogical judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of secular messianism.

Nuclear Musings

This morning we noted that there exist somewhere, so the media lead us -- perhaps not so unreasonably -- to believe, some very determined people whose life's goal is to detonate a nuclear bomb in our neighborhood.

Perhaps smart people. Well-financed people. Brainstorming people. People who managed to reduce two magnificent skyscrapers and 3000 human bodies to dust with a few hijacked jets and some boxcutters. Crazy people.

You know your government is weak...

...when someone else's central banker talks up your currency. Bloomberg reports:

Trichet Says ‘Extremely Important’ That We Have Strong Dollar

By Gabi Thesing
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said it is “extremely important” to have a strong U.S. dollar.

“In the present situation it is extremely important that we can have in the framework at the level of global finance and the global economy a strong dollar as the authorities in the US are saying,” Trichet told lawmakers in Brussels today.“The solidity of the dollar is very important.” Last Updated: September 28, 2009 11:46 EDT.

We can just hear it now:

[Trichet]Your collapsing currency is killing us! Do something! Say something, at least!

[Geithner] But I can't say anything positive about the dollar! It's not in my approved talking-points!

[Trichet]Then I'll just have to say it for you, you milquetoast!

But actually, coming as it does on the heels of the infamous gathering of rabble-rousers known as the G-20, it probably went down more like this:

[Trichet]Your collapsing currency is killing us! Do something! Say something, at least!

[Obama] But I can't have anybody say anything positive about the dollar! It's not in my approved talking-points!

[Trichet]Then I'll just have to say it for you, you milquetoast!

We acknowledge a sense of vague unease in knowing that "lawmakers in Brussels" are sitting around talking about our dollar.

The Obama's Halloween Picture?

Here's Barack and Michelle Obama with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his family.

No, this is how the Prime Minister of Spain and his family always look -- like the Addams Family. And they're even scarier seen on the NY Post website, where we found this, just in time for Halloween.

Bats of a feather...

It's Only Rock and Roll

Apple has always had a flair for marketing fantasy. Check out how they reinterpret a catalog of 40 years of popular music as somehow being all about Barack Obama. We've highlighted the thematic parts. Oh, and while Apple has a "flair," that doesn't imply "finesse." This stuff is sophomoric and heavy-handed, we think.

It's not a cult, but if it was, you'd see stuff like this...

The Basics

Welcome to the beginning of a new era in the U.S.—Barack Obama’s history-making win is really a victory for all those who keep faith and firmly believe that people have the power to make a change. John Lennon was one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most determined dreamers, and the better world he dared to “imagine” may finally be within our grasp. Obama’s goose bump-inducing victory speech on election night referenced Sam Cooke’s dare-to-dream statement “A Change is Gonna Come,” envisioning a future where spirit plus soul equals a brand new day – just the kind of day Bruch Springsteen started planning for in the wake of 9/11, when he forged his anthem “The Rising.”

Dig in as the work begins on a brighter future in Next Steps.

Next Steps

Faith is the first step towards a better tomorrow, but Barack Obama will be the first to tell you that the world won’t change itself – if you’re pushing for progress, you’ve got to plant your feet as firmly as out 44th President, face the obstacles head-on, and sing along with Tom Petty’s gutsy promise to persevere, “I Won’t Back Down.” One thing our forward-looking leader’s sure of is the madness of escalating an unwinnable war, and Cat Stevens arrives to remind us that reaching a brave new world requires a ride on the “Peace Train.” But you can smell the hope in the air, and feel the conviction we need to get there, when the Kinks chart the optimistic logistics of “Better Things.”

Get fully immersed in the feeling of history happening right in front of you, in Deep Cuts.

Deep Cuts

The unprecedented arrival of Barack Obama brings with it a feeling that it’s not just OK, but vital to dream big. That confidence in the currency of hope finds enthusiastic echo in Richie Havens’ acoustic reinvention of “Here Comes The Sun.” The heady cocktail of conviction and optimism the U.S. is enjoying as it moves ahead feels just right alongside the sunny glow of the Zombies’ British Invasion flashlight-on-the-future “This Will Be Our Year.” And the classic-rock-meets-R&B forward motion of Eric Clapton’s Babyface-produced blockbuster “Change the World” mirrors the way we’ll all come together in Obama’s America to bring about a bold new vision.

Complete Set

Call it the Obama effect – the feeling that we’re living in times we’ll tell our grandchildren about; despite the current crises, we’re looking at a golden moment we can call our very own. These are the tunes that move to the same beat of positive change that’s in the hearts of Americans on the eve of this new era. From the giddy groove-pop of
Sting’s “Brand New Day” to the soulful bump of McFadden & Whitehead’s driven-and-determined “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now,” this is the soundtrack for the new America we’re about to usher in, with the eyes-on-the-prize guidance of our new commander-in-chief. Tune in to the sound of a dream long deferred that’s finally coming into focus. In other words, “It’s been a long time coming, but a change is gonna come.”

It is a dream, because this is all advertising copy. America is not "Barack Obama's America." America belongs to Americans. A president is merely a temporary officer.

Seems somebody, somewhere, wants children singing the praises of Obama. And they want adults singing the praises of Obama. This is the secular beatification of Obama. And they're doing it because he's a complete loser, and the only way support can conjured for him is to recast him in the image of a secular saint, an untouchable messiah, a bearer of a new age. This is nothing more than diabolically dirty and patronizing politics. But the players don't realize that they're playing with fire, because some people will really fall for it.

Power Corrupts

[this is a draft]

Concentrations of power abuse individuals. Concentrations of power give abusive individuals something to hide behind and diffuse rightful accountability for their actions, leaving individual victims nearly powerless to seek redress. This happens in corporations, governments, and cliques of any shape, size and form. In the private sector, such concentrations lead to price rigging and customer abuses, and hinder progress and the creative benefits of the marketplace. In government, the effects are similar, except the abuse of "price" comes in the form of taxation and regulation; moving down the spectrum, the ultimate end is obviously a dictatorship of one form or another. Gangs are concentrations of power.

Concentrations of power are to be resisted. This is what the Constitution does, and why it’s so fabulous. It doesn’t give the government power – it places power squarely in the hands of individuals who are responsible for governing themselves. It provides a mechanism by which individuals cautiously delegate temporary control of power to representatives who are, in theory, accountable to the individuals who elect them. These representatives are charged with representing the interests of the people in matters where a government is best suited to have power: national defense and certain national infrastructure interests. These could be semantically referred to as "concentrations of power" but they clearly do not derive their power from the oppression of the citizenry, and are plainly just and necessary.

A “concentration of power” transfers control and accountability of power from a person who is affected by it to one who is not.

A government is never affected by any single individual’s welfare, unless that individual plays a key role in that government. Certainly no ordinary citizen’s well being is of any consequence to a government or any of its agents. Thus the individual must look after his own well being – no other party, save a loved one or a loved one’s agent – is fit for the task.

The problem with a national healthcare initiative is that the very concept is based upon a concentration of government power, which is always bad, in the most personal of all decisions. Government (or corporate) control or influence of individual healthcare is a concentration of power – transferring control from individuals who are responsible for the care of themselves and their loved ones to bodies of individuals are have no interest in that individual’s care, who instead represent a concentration of power (be it “the government,” a panel, a collective of any sort) with interests that cannot include any individual.

This is the entire argument in a nutshell: Concentrations of power are to be resisted. Government involvement in an individual’s healthcare is a concentration of power. Therefore it must be resisted.

Power begets power. The Founders knew it and bequeathed us a mechanism to protect us from it. Concentrations of power are also inevitable (there would have been no need to protect us from it otherwise). But when they arise, how are they dealt with? The antidote for concentrations of power is not another concentration of power -- for example, expecting a government insurance program to somehow correct problems arising from a concentration of private insurance interests. It may be effective in the short term, but in the long run, the surviving entity is still a concentration of power, and the solution will be a much greater problem (loss of freedom, inept management of resources, a legal monopoly, etc)

The antidote for concentrations of power is competition. And competition takes place in a marketplace. Competition (between branches of government) is built into the Constitution. And in the private sector, it is a natural occurrence in a free market. Government's just role is to defend liberty - on a national level, by providing for defense, and by defending the freedom of the marketplace and the rule of just law.

In this light, the current initiative by the president and his surrogates, to promote a binding national government healthcare de facto monopoly, will be a gigantic step backwards. It solves nothing, and we will assume that the bright lights in the Administration understand this.

So the question remains, why are they pushing so hard for such a massive, overt concentration of power over you?

Arguably the most influential blog ever.

We don't exert ourselves to prove the veracity of that slogan, but from time to time, when it's so obvious and easy to do, we'll just offer little reminders.

Like this line from this post:

Bury government healthcare, and the culture of death, with Ted Kennedy

and the subsequent appearance of this sign:

daily digest

Item: obama ditches Poland -- probably the most genuinely Catholic country in Europe, and, next to Israel, one that has paid its dues in history. Another really stupid move. Another blatant trampling on Catholics by the One.

Item: Listen to the drumbeats (from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example) about "rhetoric leading to violence" -- listen carefully to every orchestrated, repeatedly-broadcast soundbyte. TV time is expensive -- in favors if not in dollars. So ask yourself, "why are valuable time and resources being expended to make me believe this?"

Then consider the principles of repetition in advertising and in propaganda ("repeat a big lie enough..."). Consider the moral responsibility of those in positions of authority to promote peace. Now then, why does the rhetoric invite (and by default, incite) social unrest?

The most charitable view is that it's misguided. Another, that it's massively poor judgment. Another view is that it's willful. Whatever its motive, it's an abuse of authority in any case.

It is widely known...

[edit: the photos in this post seem to be understood to be fraudulent.]

...that things aren't always what they seem. It is with this in mind that we offer the only plausible explanation of how a complete nobody can become president of the United States of America:

A bunch of rich, powerful, globalist-like white guys get together and say, "what kind of person can we put in as president of the US who will be completely immune to all criticism?...I know! We'll get a black guy, and every time somebody speaks up about all the crap we'll have him doing, we'll have the media cry 'RACIST!'"

You have to admit, it does describe the circumstances, doesn't it?

Next subject: some democrat congressman from Georgia is on record as saying that, today, you call the president a liar, and tomorrow, everybody's "wearing white sheets." We thank him for saying this, because for months we've been calling attention to fact that Planned Parenthood, which seems to hold a handful of the strings attached to Barack Obama's extremities, has "honored" the president's Secretary of State (Hillary Rodham Clinton) with its esteemed "Margaret Sanger Award." Below is a picture of Madame Sanger herself, sharing her unique vision of the future of the "negro" race with...a bunch of people in white sheets.

Here's some other stuff we've pointed out about the president, the KKK, Hillary Clinton, Margaret Sanger, and various and sundry associated individuals and organizations:

http://noisefromthetrain.blogspot.com/2009/08/whos-more-kkk.html

http://noisefromthetrain.blogspot.com/2009/06/lets-play-connect-dots.html

http://noisefromthetrain.blogspot.com/2009/04/put-on-your-overcoat.html

http://noisefromthetrain.blogspot.com/2009/04/margaret-sanger-reader.html

http://noisefromthetrain.blogspot.com/2009/03/endless-ironies-of-first-black_28.html

Pimping 9/11

You have read that your president has decreed this day in history, September 11, to be a National Day of Service. And remembrance of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

We sit at this moment watching the names of the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Centers being read in remembrance of them. We notice that the names are read by pairs of readers. On your right, as you watch, a relative of a victim reads. The relative reads the name, and finishes with a comment about how hurt they are at the loss of their loved one. It's a bit vain, because, after all, remembrance is about the victim, not the survivors.

But the real offense comes from the individual on your left. When they're done reading the names of the victims, the announce proudly that they are "honored to be here on behalf of" some volunteer organization. For example, somebody from "Elders Receive the Arts" just read some names.

What on earth are these "volunteers" doing here, since they haven't lost anybody? And why is the world forced to hear about their "volunteer organizations?" That's easy. They're pimping the president's agenda, on a day that's supposed to be sacred.

How does that make you feel? Even somebody who lost nobody on September 11, 2001 might find the hijacking of the memory of the victims in this way disconcerting. We wonder how it will make those who did lose somebody feel, to have the memory of their loved ones used to promote a political agenda that is wholly unrelated to the events of September 11, 2001.

If you cannot "exploit the crisis," you can at least exploit its memory.

Selling Dollars

As expected, given the developments in the previous post, the EU has made new 2009 highs against the Dollar.

EUR-USD: 1.4506
change: 0.0174
% change: 1.22

Source: Bloomberg.

Global Currency Update

The tom-toms continue to beat for the implementation of a global currency -- which already exists in prototype, in the form of Special Drawing Rights, and has since Bretton Woods.

The latest press release from the global currency promotion home office comes from none other than the UN, as reported in Bloomberg:

The dollar’s role in international trade should be reduced by establishing a new currency to protect emerging markets from the “confidence game” of financial speculation, the United Nations said.

Indeed. It should be noted that this blog postulated these very developments in several previous posts, including A Primer on The Coming Global Currency.

This statement begs the question of what would protect emerging and developed markets from the “confidence game” of a global currency. As we predicted, the current scheme for a global currency is a fiat one, and if there's one thing we all agree on, it's that nothing requires "confidence" quite like a fiat currency.

No matter, either, that this "confidence game of financial speculation" has, over the past 20 years, created such a robust and effective (free) market linkage between disparate currencies that the melding of them into a single, global unit would not be possible without it. Evidence that aspirants to absolute power make good use of its opposite in achieving their ambitions is hereby submitted.

We would observe that such a draconian, utopian, and just plain foolhardy initiative, which has been simmering for time immemorial, would never gain traction in a sane and just world.

Just how much the current world fits that description might be ascertained by observing such traction as the current push for a single-payer currency gets. In a politically unstable world hobbling along with financial infrastructures that are somewhere between spastic and nearly-comatose, a world whose most notorious national leader is (when seen in the best light) starry-eyed and wet behind the ears, the stars have lined up for globalists like they haven't done for a long, long time. The Aquarians appear to be intent upon leveraging their good fortune with a public relations campaign.

Some ideas seem to be as inevitable as they are unwise. It's hard to fathom reasonable people giving continuous and progressive mental assent to a global currency scheme, especially one that is patterned on the very model they seek to replace. It's not that the model is all that bad, but it's disingenuous to criticize what one copies. As we noted in those previous posts, a global currency scheme provides a new set of smoke-and-mirrors for governmental financial alchemists. The ultimate concentration of power, as an indispensible tool in the hands of the power-hungry, it offers a certain appeal to those so inclined.

It's a confidence game of an entirely different order.

The Starbucks Theory of Mass Insanity

For the first time in months, we discovered that even hardcore coffee drinkers might not be able to finish a small (that's English for "small") cup of Starbucks coffee.

And this undeniable fact, along with that potent brew, gave birth to a hypothesis: Starbucks expanded out of Seattle, and went public, in the 1990's.

Since then, the world has gone stark raving mad, hasn't it?

Just a coincidence?

Brevity is the soul

of wit. Let's see if it's also the soul of rant.

So here we go:

If The Post accurately related the events of yesterday in Brooklyn, that is, that a young woman who screamed for help as her "estranged husband" beat her on the street and shot her four times (3 in the back), then, we would like to puke all over this wicked city.

We already knew, by experience, that most "men" in New York City are arrogant, spineless, stupid, loud-mouthed bullies. But we didn't think the entire city had been emasculated.

So many ways this story can be developed...but one that comes to mind is this: we already know what bullies do with guns. What would have happened had a real man been allowed to carry one, and heard the lady screaming? Would he have backed off, as did the lone Good Samaritan in this tragic episode, once the abuser had pulled his? Would the abuser have pulled his at all, had the Good Samaritan had a gun at the ready?

Would the lady have been spared 4 gunshot wounds, and the horror, not to mention the chilling realization that you can scream in somebody's face for help in the God-forsaken City of Primping Slackers and Killers and your "neighbors" will just ignore you?

Let's put it another way: we already have ample evidence that making it illegal to carry a legally registered pistol didn't prevent this poor young woman from being shot. If she could have legally carried one herself, she probably would have been able to defend herself, which nobody else could be bothered to do.

OK, we promised brevity, so...

Next and last order of business: How can an alleged "news show," that is, "60 Minutes," do an "expose" on financial derivatives and their role in the financial crises, and liken them to "side bets on a football game?" How can it portray financial instruments as bets and completely ignore the market-function of shifting risk, instead portraying the entire market in derivatives as though it were an OTB outlet? And how can it talk about the subprime mortgage component and omit completely any reference to the Community Reinvestment Act, to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Franklin Raines, et al? How can it discuss the collapse of the financial sector and imprudent risk taking, and not mention Christopher Dodd, the Chairman of the House Banking Committee, and the "VIP" treatment given him by Angel Mozillo, the man who ran Countrywide Credit, notorious subprime-mortgage factory?

How? It's easy -- it's "60 Minutes," and it's completely unreliable.

But then, you alread knew that.

G'day!