Well if this banking and finance stuff is too hard to keep track of and you are interested in what’s really happening right now, watch this video. Its 30 minutes and plus it s cartoon. Kid safe and educational.

At the very least, watching this video will make you aware of why things are the way they are in the world currently. For me personally, I felt like this as I was watching the video.

In a letter that was drafted on behalf of the Postal unions  sent a letter on Tuesday to Jim Messina  (White House deputy chief of staff) asking the White House to intervene with Congress and reduce the Postal Service’s contributions to its retiree health care trust fund. Otherwise the Postal service would run out of cash and have to issue IOU’s by this October. From the Federaltimes.com article:

Its top executives are now saying that the USPS will default on a $5.4 billion payment to prefund future retiree health benefits on September 30, 2009. And its government affairs representatives are now telling Congressional staff that the Postal Service may not be able to make payroll in October and will be forced to issue IOUs instead.

Looks like the whole IOU concept is beginning to take hold in other places besides California…

Since the global “recession” has been in full effect, there have been several cases of worker uprisings in France of all places. The latest uprising was diffused this past friday in Tonneins, south-western France. It seems as though the french warehouse workers at the JLG Industries facilities were protesting the layoff of 53 workers and threatened to blow up fuel tanks on the plant they were working on unless the corporation gave a $42,000 dollar severance bonus for each of the workers. The corporation evidently acquiesced and forked the money over.

There is another incident where workers are threatening to go BOOM, if money is not exchanged, from the BBC article:

Meanwhile, a tense stand-off continues at the bankrupt New Fabris car plant in Chatellerault, south-west of Paris, where workers have also made a threat to blow up the factory.

They have given a 31 July deadline for Renault and Peugeot, which provided 90% of the plant’s work, to pay them 30,000 euros each.

Renault and PSA Peugeot said it was not their responsibility to pay workers.

Who knew that the French would rise up and essentially commit terroristic acts against their masters and walk away with piles of cash? What an unpredictable world we live in.

Oh what interesting times we live in. The once mighty GOP party has now been reduced to a sideshow. While I’m not exactly a fan of either the democratic or republican party, the recent events in the world of conservative politics are bizarrely entertaining.

First, lets start off with CPAC (a.k.a. Crazy People Are Congregating), because thats exactly what it was. It first started out with Michael “Slum Love” Steele giving a speech at the conference dropping urban knowledge on the crowd when it came to horrid mismanagement by the republican party during the last 8 years.

“Tonight, we tell America: we know the past, we know we did wrong. My bad.”

My bad? On no no no, what the republican party was responsible for is waay beyond “my bad”. The last 8 years is definitely in the “oh Snap!” territory homie. The only thing that could’ve made that speech worse is if he was chewing on a leg of southern fried chicken and waving it around blessing the crowd with flying bits of crispy crust as he was speaking on the podium.

The speech was then it was followed up by the most bat shit crazy member of congress ever,  Michele Bachmann yelling off camera to Mr. Steele “You be da man! You be da man!”. Watch the piece below by Keith Olberman for the bizarre video:

This was followed up by the “climactic” passionate speech by Rush Limbaugh dressed in all black, who looked like a seedy porn producer before a casting couch session with his shirt unbuttoned displaying his hairy chest (wheres your “Bling” Rush?). At one point of  his speech, he was fist bumping fellow panel members as to denote that he was “hip” and knew how to communicate in an urban fashion.

This is a new low point for the republican party. When a former drug addicted, gluttonous, delusional talk show host becomes the “unofficial” leader of one of the two major political parties of the most powerful country in the world, you’ve hit the bottom of the barrel folks.

The only thing the republican party has managed to accomplish is to show traditional conservatives how much the GOP party is out of touch with them, and more glaringly, it poignantly illustrates the fact that the party is full of posers and fakes who are struggling to try to adjust to a world that has already passed them by.

Instead of reiterating the fact that he wants Barack Obama to fail, why doesn’t Rush steer the GOP flock to solutions instead of criticism?? First the republicans put us in a war on two fronts in the mid east, they then stand idley by as the corporations rape the American public. Our nation is on the verge of complete insolvency, and he’s dreaming for the country as it used to be. If I didn’t know any better, I’d still think hes on getting high on Oxycontin.  Needless to say, at this point the state of the GOP party is so out of touch, I wouldn’t even blink an eye if they held a CPAC after party with Vanilla Ice as the musical performer.

They got one part of the “urban” behavior down, they are acting like genuine crazy ass crackheads.

GOP, you’re fakin the funk!

From the Designerhigh website, it looks like ads from the “above the influence” campaign urging folks not to smoke marijuana. Pretty amusing. I’m just waiting for their next “Smoke weed and become the greatest Olympic champion in the history of the games” ad.

Also theres a bonus link! How to build your own Bongsaber! American ingenuity at its best here people!

Hey, what do you know? More relevant news that the Mainstream media isn’t reporting. They would rather have you wring your hands over Michael Phelps’ olympic sized bong hits and totally remain oblivious to the fact that 8 different state legislatures have drawn a line in the sand and are introducing bills declaring sovereignty from the United States!

So far the tally is includes the following:

1. Washington

2. New Hampshire

3. Arizona

4. Montana

5. Michigan

6. Missouri

7. Oklahoma

8. Hawaii

The main precedent on the claims by the states are recited by the 9th and 10th amendment of the Constitution (part of the bill of rights). Most of this legislation is in the preliminary stages and is not earth shattering news but this is definitely something that should be a blip on the medias’ radar. The most serious and tangible of these eight are surprisingly, New Hampshire of all places.  From Pat Dollard’s blog:

The New Hampshire state legislature took an unbelievably bold step Monday by introducing a resolution to declare certain actions by the federal government to completely totally void and warning that certain future acts will be viewed as a “breach of peace” with the states themselves that risks “nullifying the Constitution.”

This act by New Hampshire is a clear warning to the federal government that they could face being stripped of their power by the States (presumably through civil war!)

The remarkable document outlines with perfect clarity, some basics long forgotten. For instance, it reminds Congress “That the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations, slavery, and no other crimes whatsoever;. . . . . therefore all acts of Congress which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution are altogether void, and of no force;”

Federal gun crime laws? Void. Federal drug crime laws? Void. The gazzillion other federal criminal laws that deal with anything other than the specific enumerated crimes? ALL VOID.

Looks like states are fed up and no longer trust the federal government to look out for our best interests as a nation. Just look at California…

Maybe the federal government knew this was coming? I can’t help to think that this is why Northcomm plans to deploy 20,000 active duty troops in the United States by 2011 (“Just in case” of some civil unrest!?!?). Coincidence?

Stay tuned chiiiildren!

If you’ve been paying attention to the events happening in this country as of late, you should notice that the consciousness of our government and people are slowly moving towards a fascist direction. I don’t know if we are a full fledged fascist empire yet but we sure seem to be exhibiting a lot of the symptoms of one. Take for instance this quote from Benito Mussolini:

“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”

– Benito Mussolini (from Encyclopedia Italiana, Giovanni Gentile, editor)

What used to be a free and democratic state, we have collectively been dragged into a new social paradigm. The moves have been slow and deliberate much like a pick chipping away at a monolithic stone. One thing is for sure, the country we have known and grown up with is a thing of the past. The acceleration of the loss of our liberties have been severe within the last 8 years especially. So lets list the 14 core tenants of fascism and see if we here in the U.S. have fulfilled these conditions;

From Rense.com:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism – Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights – Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause – The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military – Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism – The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media – Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security – Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined – Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected – The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed – Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts – Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment – Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption – Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections – Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

I wont go into specifics but I will leave you, the reader to decide if we have met these conditions yet. The next logical question one would ask is “How can we turn the tide and reverse these events?”.

A truism from George Bernard Shaw that I refer to occasionally:

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

The answer? WAKE UP! Get involved!

The short looks like it was created by the Youtube user QualiaSoup. Send this guy a comment if you like it.