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Obama’s American Socialism: Decades In The Making

Author’s Note:

As a preface to this series of articles, major kudos need to be awarded to Ms Placed Democrat, Matthew Weaver, Shtuey, Eastan McNeil, Steve Diamond, Christmas Ghost, RabbleRouser Rev. Amy, and especially John W. for all the research that has gone into these separate pieces of the puzzle.  Please visit their sites and thank them for the hours they toiled increasing everyone’s knowledge of the Obamanation.

Without the amazing tenacity of these individuals, (and a few unnamed), connecting the dots of the socialist agenda for the “New Democratic Party” would not have been accomplished.  I have tried to organize the articles in the series based on the timeline I have been able to put together according to all the research that has been provided. I am sure there are gaps and possible inconsistencies that will be pointed out by my astute readers, as we are all trying to piece this puzzle together from the smoke and mirrors that Barack Obama has created to hide his true past and real agenda.  We were all very fortunate when he spoke recently with Joe (the plumber) and showed America what we have been coming to learn about him for months.

Also, please be advised that the investigation that I have undertaken will take many democrats to places they would rather not go; be prepared.

Obama’s American Socialism: Decades In The Making

Part I

A plethora of articles have been written about the death of the Democratic Party, or as some bloggers and Clinton Supporters state; the coup or hostile takeover by the liberal left wing of the democratic party.  They cannot believe that their party has now become the party of violence, sexism, misogyny, racism, thuggery, deceits corruption, caucus fraud, and voter registration fraud.  What is missing from the equation is that this is not the liberal left wing; far from it, this is a group of people with socialist/marxist beliefs, with a pinch of fascism thrown in, being led by the marketed messiah under the guise of “progressivism”, with a belief system that states the ends justify the means.

Centrist dems and all other Americans must stop looking at the current Democratic Party through the perception they have of what the Democratic Party once meant.  That party is dead and was buried on May 31st, 2008.  Once this perception is shattered, these dems, undecided voters, former Clinton dems and possibly even some Obama dems may flip their votes, and more importantly, their loyalty away from the party that has become the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.  What is being uncovered may also explain why 90% of the African American population is voting for this candidate, and though some of it has to do with his race, more maybe because of his socialist philosophy.

Since so much of what our perception is can be taken from what we think certain terms mean, I am listing the definitions of political party concepts as a way to put everyone on the same page, and to facilitate the understanding of where this “alien” democratic party is actually heading with Obama in the front and his numerous radical socialist/marxist associates in the background.  These quotes come from Encyclopedia2/The Free Dictionary.

Democratic Party:

When political alignments first emerged in George Washington’s administration, opposing factions were led by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.  In the basic disagreement over the nature and functions of government and of society, the Jeffersonians advocated a society based on the small farmer; they opposed strong centralized government and were suspicious of urban commercial interests. Their ideals—opposed to those of the Federalist Party — came to be known as Jeffersonian democracy, based in large part on faith in the virtue and ability of the common man and the limitation of the powers of the federal government. This group of Anti-Federalists, who called themselves Republicans or Democratic Republicans (the name was not fixed as Democratic until 1828), supported many of the ideals of the French Revolution and opposed close relations with Great Britain.

Progressive Party:

U.S. independent political party. The first Progressive Party, known as the Bull Moose Party, was organized in 1911. The second was assembled in 1924; it nominated as its presidential candidate Robert La Follette, who received 17% of the national vote on a platform calling for a “housecleaning” of executive departments, public control of natural resources, public ownership of the railways, and tax reduction. The party dissolved upon La Follette’s death in 1925. The third Progressive Party, founded in 1947 by Henry Wallace, differed from the previous groups in its focus on foreign affairs; it favoured a conciliatory policy toward the Soviet Union. Though Wallace received more than one million votes in the 1948 election, the party was never again influential.

Progressivism:

The term “progressive” is today often used in place of “liberal“. Although the two are related in some ways, they are separate and distinct political ideologies. According to John Halpin, senior advisor on the staff of the Center for American Progress, “Progressivism is an orientation towards politics, It’s not a long-standing ideology like liberalism, but an historically-grounded concept… that accepts the world as dynamic.” Progressives see progressivism as an attitude towards the world of politics that is broader than conservatism vs. liberalism, and as an attempt to break free from what they consider to be a false and divisive dichotomy.

American progressives tend to support interventionist economics: they advocate income redistribution, and they oppose the growing influence of corporations. Conversely, European and Australian progressives tend to be more pro-business, and will often have policies that are soft on taxation of large corporations. Progressives are in agreement on an international scale with left-liberalism in that they support organized labor and trade unions, they usually wish to introduce a living wage, and they often support the creation of a universal health care system. Yet progressives tend to be more concerned with environmentalism than mainstream liberals, and are often more skeptical of the government, positioning themselves as whistleblowers and advocates of governmental reform. Finally, liberals are more likely to support the Democratic Party in America and the Labour party in Europe and Australia, while progressives tend to feel disillusioned with any two-party system, and vote more often for third-party candidates.

Socialism:

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.

Socialism (in the strict or radical sense) aims to establish a fundamentally different society from the one that currently exists in most countries. While there are different schools of socialism, which often tend to have differing views of the ideal socialist society, some general examples of socialist concepts are: The desire to abolish capitalism, to place the means of productionexploits the working class, and they desire for workers to play a vital role in moving society from capitalism to socialism (either by rising up in a revolution or general strike, or by voting en masse for socialist political parties). under the collective ownership of the people, and to achieve a very high degree of economic and political equality. Socialists argue that capitalism

In contrast, by definition progressivism aims to achieve gradual social change, and most progressives are outright opposed to any form of radical revolution. When the progressive movement split on economic principles, some progressives moved towards the socialist camp, advocating a planned economy. Other progressives moved towards the regulated mixed economy camp, with both public and private ownership of companies. Between these two extremes is social democracy (not a term in popular U.S. usage), a branch of socialism that became increasingly moderate and moved towards the political center. Regulated-capitalism progressives and socialist progressives still tend to support similar progressive social policies, outside of economic principles.

Communism:

1. A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.

2. Communism
  • a. A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
  • b. The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat.

national socialism, Naziism, Nazism – a form of socialism featuring racism and expansionism and obedience to a strong leader

German history the doctrines and practices of the Nazis, involving the supremacy of Hitler, anti-Semitism, state control of the economy, and national expansion

The ideology and practice of the Nazis, especially the policy of racist nationalism, national expansion, and state control of the economy.

An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.

An economic system based on private ownership of the means of production, in which personal profit can be acquired through investment of capital and employment of labor. Capitalism is grounded in the concept of free enterprise, which argues that government intervention in the economy should be restricted and that a free market, based on supply and demand, will ultimately maximize consumer welfare.

******

After reading those definitions, would you not agree that it is more than apparent the Democratic Party is now the Progressive Socialist Party.  Income redistribution, universal health care, nationalization of the economy through our banks, centralized government, and a drive to destroy the free market capitalist system upon which our nation was built.

Remember these Obama quotes:

  1. “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
  2. “It’s no secret that most Americans think the country is on the wrong track,” Obama told the group. “But the reason isn’t just failed policies.  It’s a system in Washington that has failed the American people.  A system that has not kept the most fundamental trust of American democracy; that our government is of the people, and that it must govern for all the people – not just the interests of the wealthy and well-connected.”
  3. “We don’t need the people, we just need their checks.”

Barack Obama is their hand picked, groomed and marketed candidate.  This is why Hillary Clinton was destroyed by the “Democratic Party” in the primaries.  She is either too weak, too strong, too smart, or is too independent for this “new” party to achieve her election, and then control her.  On the other hand, Barack has been spoon fed these beliefs for years, and is a willing participant in the downfall of America as we know it, besides now being so far in political debt to these radical associations, even if he were to change his philosophical mindset, he will never be able to climb out of the personal hell most of us would consider that position to be.

All one has to do is put the pieces together starting with William Ayers, Obama’s most publicized associate with radical beliefs and actions, and leading to Bernadine Dohrn, Michelle Obama, Marilyn Katz, Frank Marshall Davis, Alice Palmer, George Soros, Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, Carl Davidson, Robert Blackwell, Tony Rezko, Dorothy Tillman, Robert Malley, Cornel West, Howard Dean, Donna Brazille, Nancy Pelosi, MoveOn.org, Center for American Progress, Open Society Institute, Arab American Action Network, The Democracy Alliance, The New Party, the Democratic Socialist Party, The Working Families Party, Socialist Scholars Conference, Campaign for America’s Future, The Progressive Caucus, Public Allies, ACORN, Citizens Services, Inc., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ken Rolling, The Woods Fund, The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, The Joyce Foundation, Gamaliel Foundation, Students For A Democratic Society, Saul Alinsky, Richard Andrew Cloward, Frances Fox Piven, Zbigniew Brzenzinski, Penny Pritzker, The Superior Bank, The Broadway Bank, Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, Reverend Wright, Rather Pfleuger, Raila Odinga of Kenya, Rashid Khalidi, Nadhmi Auchi and only halting at Fusion Elections because more has not yet come to light.  (And most Americans thought there were only a couple-three crazies in the background, right?)  I am sure I will be adding to this list.

If you head is spinning or about to explode, just take a few breaths and notes if need be, it will become clear enough that this campaign to remake the Democratic Party into the Progressive Socialist Party has been in the making for well over 20 years, and according to many, Saul Alinksy and his students; radical socialist and Columbia University professors, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven who came up with the Cloward-Piven strategy best described by the American Thinker is probably the Godfather of this movement.

America waits with bated breath while Washington struggles to bring the U.S. economy back from the brink of disaster. But many of those same politicians caused the crisis, and if left to their own devices will do so again.

Despite the mass media news blackout, a series of books, talk radio and the blogosphere have managed to expose Barack Obama’s connections to his radical mentors — Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis and others. David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks.org have also contributed a wealth of information and have noted Obama’s radical connections since the beginning.
Yet, no one to my knowledge has yet connected all the dots between Barack Obama and the Radical Left. When seen together, the influences on Obama’s life comprise a who’s who of the radical leftist movement, and it becomes painfully apparent that not only is Obama a willing participant in that movement, he has spent most of his adult life deeply immersed in it.
But even this doesn’t fully describe the extreme nature of this candidate. He can be tied directly to a malevolent overarching strategy that has motivated many, if not all, of the most destructive radical leftist organizations in the United States since the 1960s.
The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis
In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress – with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?
snip
The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:
The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.
Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky:
“Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules,” Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system’s failure to “live up” to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist “rule book” with a socialist one. (Courtesy Discover the Networks.org)

Newsmax rounds out the picture:

Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation’s wealth.

In their Nation article, Cloward and Piven were specific about the kind of “crisis” they were trying to create:

By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.

No matter where the strategy is implemented, it shares the following features:

  1. The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.
  2. The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits.
  3. The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.
ACORN, the new tip of the Cloward-Piven spear
In 1970, one of George Wiley’s protégés, Wade Rathke — like Bill Ayers, a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) — was sent to found the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now. While NWRO had made a good start, it alone couldn’t accomplish the Cloward-Piven goals. Rathke’s group broadened the offensive to include a wide array of low income “rights.” Shortly thereafter they changed “Arkansas” to “Association of” and ACORN went nationwide.
Today ACORN is involved in a wide array of activities, including housing, voting rights, illegal immigration and other issues. According to ACORN’s website: “ACORN is the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low-and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country,” It is perhaps the largest radical group in the U.S. and has been cited for widespread criminal activity on many fronts. (Let’s not get ahead of the whole story though.)
By now, if you do not know that William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are domestic terrorists and founders of the Weather Underground that bombed American targets, you need to come out of the wilderness and pay attention to the current political situation.  Barack (and possibly Michelle) have been involved with the Ayers for more than 20 years starting in 1985 with the Woods Fund, (courtesy of Steve Diamond).  Also be aware that the Woods Fund has given grants to ACORN, Rashid Khalidi and Trinity United Church.

The Woods Fund financed the hiring of Obama in 1985 by the Developing Communities Project.According to The Nation: “The Woods Fund, in many ways, is responsible for helping start Obama as an organizer and shaping his political identity. In 1985 the foundation gave a $25,000 grant to the Developing Communities Project (aka the “DCP”), which hired Obama, at 24, as an organizer on Chicago’s economically depressed South Side.”
The Woods Fund was founded by the Woods family which owned the Illinois-based Sahara Coal Company, a major supplier of coal from its mines to major Illinois power companies. Commonwealth Edison, the giant Chicago-based electric power company was headed by Thomas Ayers, father of Bill Ayers.

Obama served on the board of the Woods Fund from 1993 until 2002.  Bill Ayers joined the board of the Fund in 1999 and continues to serve on the board today.  He chaired the board for two years during that time.

Another strand in this massive spiderweb is Ken Rolling, introduced here, and also the person behind the cleaning and containment of the Annenberg papers when Stanley Kurtz was originally investigating the Ayers/Obama connection. Look for the information about Ken rolling and the hold on the papers after the next two quote sections.

Obama’s DCP supported radical school reform project together with Bill Ayers.
In 1987 in the wake of a controversial strike by the Chicago Teachers’ Union, the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABCs, was formed to lobby for a new Illinois law that would mandate the establishment of a new power center in Chicago public schools.  Local school councils would be established to watchdog union teachers and their principals and they would have the power to fire principals at will.
Bill Ayers was a contact person for the ABCs (although we do not know precisely when he attained this position) and later its chair.  Barack Obama worked on school reform efforts for the DCP at that time, the DCP played a leading role in the school reform effort and the DCP was a member of the ABCs. Chicago United, a business group established by Tom Ayers, Bill’s father, was also a leading organizer of and member of the ABCs.

The Woods Fund also provided additional financial support to the DCP in 1988 to support its school reform efforts. A program officer of the Woods Fund at the time was Ken Rolling who would later be hired by Bill Ayers and Barack Obama as Executive Director of the $110 million Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

An informative WSJ article explains that Bill Ayers has not changed his radical thinking; it has morphed over into teaching our teachers how to produce radical thinking children.  Ayers Is No Education ‘Reformer’.

One of the most misleading statements during the presidential debates was when Barack Obama claimed that William Ayers was just “a guy in the neighborhood.”

But that piece of spin is nothing compared to the false story now being peddled by Mr. Obama’s media supporters that Mr. Ayers — who worked with the Democratic nominee for years to disperse education grants through a group called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge — has redeemed his terrorist past.

snip

I’ve studied Mr. Ayers’s work for years and read most of his books. His hatred of America is as virulent as when he planted a bomb at the Pentagon. And this hatred informs his educational “reform” efforts. Of course, Mr. Obama isn’t going to appoint him to run the education department. But the media mainstreaming of a figure like Mr. Ayers could have terrible consequences for the country’s politics and public schools.

The education career of William Ayers began when he enrolled at Columbia University’s Teachers College at the age of 40. He planned to stay long enough to get a teaching credential. But he experienced an epiphany in a course offered by Maxine Greene, who urged future teachers to tell children about the evils of the existing, oppressive capitalist social order. In her essay “In Search of a Critical Pedagogy,” for example, Ms. Greene wrote of an education that would portray “homelessness as a consequence of the private dealings of landlords, an arms buildup as a consequence of corporate decisions, racial exclusion as a consequence of a private property-holder’s choice.”

That was music to the ears of the ex-Weatherman. Mr. Ayers acquired a doctorate in education and landed an Ed school appointment at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

snip

In this Chicago, where there are no enemies on the left, Mr. Ayers’s second career flourished. It didn’t hurt that his father, Thomas Ayers, was the CEO of the Commonwealth Edison company, a friend of both Daleys and a major power broker in the city.

Mr. Ayers was hired by the Chicago public schools to train teachers, and played a leading role in the $160 million Annenberg Challenge grant that distributed funds to a host of so-called school-reform projects, including some social-justice themed schools and schools organized by Acorn. Barack Obama became the first chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge organization in 1995. When asked for an opinion on the Obama/Ayers connection, Mayor Daley told the New York Times that Mr. Ayers had “done a lot of good in this city and nationally.”

In fact, as one of the leaders of a movement for bringing radical social-justice teaching into our public school classrooms, Mr. Ayers is not a school reformer. He is a school destroyer.

He still hopes for a revolutionary upheaval that will finally bring down American capitalism and imperialism, but this time around Mr. Ayers sows the seeds of resistance and rebellion in America’s future teachers.

Back to Ken Rolling; the donor that wanted to examine the records prior to the release.  Once again, Steve Diamond.

As Global Labor readers are well aware the University of Illinois at Chicago denied Stanley Kurtz of National Review access to the official records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the six-year-long $160 million education reform project led by, among others, Barack Obama and Bill Ayers.

The denial of access to the archives of the CAC was unusual and possibly illegal.  It was done after the University, again without any legal justification that I am aware of, contacted someone they said was the “donor” of the records. That “donor” wanted to examine the records prior to their release to the public.

This is highly unusual in light of the fact that the records had been deposited with UIC in 2002 and had been processed by UIC librarians and made ready for access by researchers.  Only when Mr. Kurtz, a conservative, requested that he be allowed to see them was the “donor” contacted.

Thanks to the diligent efforts of a 3rd year law student in Chicago who filed a Freedom of Information Act request with UIC, Global Labor can reveal tonight that the alleged “donor” who was contacted by UIC and who tried to block Dr. Kurtz’ access to the CAC records was Ken Rolling, former Executive Director of the CAC and a former staff member of the Woods Fund in the 1980s when the Woods Fund provided financial support to the Developing Communities Project which was then headed up by Barack Obama.

Thus, someone with a 20 year history with Senator Obama was tipped off in advance and in secret by a public University about the interest of a political opponent of the Senator in these public records.  The CAC was a non profit corporation organized under the laws of the state of Illinois to serve the interests of the people of Illinois.  Of course, Ken Rolling now has no legally cognizable interest that I am aware of in the long defunct CAC.  Legally, the successor organization to the CAC is the Chicago Public Education Fund, on whose board sits Obama Campaign Finance Chair Penny Pritzker and Obama supporter Susan Crown. (Do you recognize that name; Penny Pritzker of the Superior Bank Sub-prime Mortgage Meltdown?)

I realize that there is some stone-skipping around, but the web is intricate; take notes.

Obama and Dohrn worked for elite law firm Sidley and Austin

After surfacing from the Weather Underground in 1980 Bernardine Dohrn, wife of Bill Ayers, pled guilty to criminal charges related to the violent Days of Rage in Chicago in 1969 and received three years probation. She later refused to testify in front of a grand jury convened to investigate a bank robbery carried out by former comrades of Dohrn’s from the Weather Underground.  Currently a clinical faculty member at Northwestern University School of Law, she told the New York Times that she thought grand juries were “illegal” and “coercive.”  She served seven months in jail.
Because of the criminal convictions Dohrn, who received a law degree from the University of Chicago in 1967, was refused admission to the New York bar. Nonetheless, she was hired as a legal clerk by Sidley and Austin, a major Chicago law firm, in their New York office in 1984. Howard Trienens, then managing partner of the firm, recently told the Chicago Tribune that he arranged the hiring of Dohrn as a favor to his fellow Northwestern University trustee and classmate, Tom Ayers. Tom Ayers’ firm, Commonwealth Edison, has used Sidley as outside counsel for many years. She later worked in their Chicago office when she and Bill Ayers moved back to Chicago in 1987. She left Sidley in 1988.

Khalid Abdullah Tariq al-Mansour is a Muslim lawyer and a black nationalist who made news in 2008 when it was revealed that he had been a patron of Barack Obama and had recommended the latter for admission to Harvard Law School in 1988.

Before becoming a Muslim, al-Mansour in the 1960s was named Don Warden. He was deeply involved in San Francisco Bay Area racial politics as founder of a group called the African American Association. A close personal adviser to Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, al-Mansour helped the pair establish the Black Panther Party but later broke with them when they entered coalitions with white radical groups.

snip

Al-Mansour is an outspoken hater of the United States, Israel, and white people generally. In recent years he has accused the U.S. of plotting a “genocide” designed “to remove 15 million black people, considered disposable, of no relevance, value or benefit to the American society.”…

There is more information at the link, but I could not bring myself to reprint it, and yet, it may explain why Barack Obama and Reverend Wright are so close.

Steve Diamond:

Chicago lefty lawyer and Dohrn classmate Judson Miner hires Barack Obama out of Harvard.
Barack Obama returned to Harvard after his summer at Sidley and Austin in the fall of 1989. That academic year he was elected the president of the Harvard Law Review, the first black person to hold the position. Although Obama could have returned to Sidley or perhaps clerked for the United States Supreme Court, a natural step for Law Review officers, he chose instead to work for Judson Miner, a partner in a small civil rights law firm in Chicago.  Miner had been counsel to Chicago’s late black mayor, Harold Washington.  Miner was also classmates with Bernardine Dohrn at the University of Chicago law school in 1967 where they were both were involved in anti-war activity.

Barack Obama became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, yet as editor, no evidence of written or published papers has been uncovered to date, as would be required of the editor.

The connection between the Obamas and the Ayers started in 1985 as far as anyone can seem to ascertain.  It really revved into high hear with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge spearheaded by Wiliam Ayers and chaired by Barack Obama in 1995.

Ayers is named Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge founded by Bill Ayers
In late 1993, Bill Ayers, now an associate professor of education at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle Campus, organized a team to put together a grant proposal to secure nearly $50 million from the Annenberg Challenge.  The money was to be used by Ayers and co. to bolster the radical Local School Councils reform project that Ayers and Obama had championed back in 1988.
The grant application was successful and in early 1995 Barack Obama was named chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.  Ayers was named co-chair of the Challenge’s operative and strategic body, the Chicago School Reform Collaborative.  Ayers and Obama work together for the next five years on raising an additional $60 million in matching money from local foundations and corporations and using the money to intervene in the governance of the Chicago public schools.
snip
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge paid for a team headquartered at the University of Chicago to assess the impact of the more than $100 million they spent in Chicago public schools over that six year period,1995-2001. Their conclusion in a 250 page 2003 report was that the money had no impact at all: test scores in schools that received money from Annenberg went up, but at the same rate as all other schools in Chicago. There was, in the words of the report, “no Annenberg effect.”

My understanding is that the chairing of the CAC was one of the only true executive experiences Barack Obama has had and the challenge was considered a flop.

During the course of this phase, Barack met Michelle in 1989 while they were both at Sidley Austin.  They were married in October 1992, and according to Investor’s Business Daily, Barack Obama is the founding member of Public Allies and Michelle became the executive director of the Chicago Chapter.  This is where the beginnings of their socialist views started to come to light.

Barack Obama was a founding member of the board of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife became executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies in 1993. Obama plans to use the nonprofit group, which he features on his campaign Web site, as the model for a national service corps. He calls his Orwellian program, “Universal Voluntary Public Service.”

Big Brother had nothing on the Obamas. They plan to herd American youth into government-funded reeducation camps where they’ll be brainwashed into thinking America is a racist, oppressive place in need of “social change.”

The pitch Public Allies makes on its Web site doesn’t seem all that radical. It promises to place young adults (18-30) in paid one-year “community leadership” positions with nonprofit or government agencies. They’ll also be required to attend weekly training workshops and three retreats.

In exchange, they’ll get a monthly stipend of up to $1,800, plus paid health and child care. They also get a post-service education award of $4,725 that can be used to pay off past student loans or fund future education.

But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about “social change” through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation — the tactics used by the father of community organizing, Saul “The Red” Alinsky.

“Our alumni are more than twice as likely as 18-34 year olds to . . . engage in protest activities,” Public Allies boasts in a document found with its tax filings. It has already deployed an army of 2,200 community organizers like Obama to agitate for “justice” and “equality” in his hometown of Chicago and other U.S. cities, including Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Washington. “I get to practice being an activist,” and get paid for it, gushed Cincinnati recruit Amy Vincent.

Public Allies promotes “diversity and inclusion,” a program paper says. More than 70% of its recruits are “people of color.” When they’re not protesting, they’re staffing AIDS clinics, handing out condoms, bailing criminals out of jail and helping illegal aliens and the homeless obtain food stamps and other welfare.

Public Allies brags that more than 80% of graduates have continued working in nonprofit or government jobs. It’s training the “next generation of nonprofit leaders” — future “social entrepreneurs.”

The Obamas discourage work in the private sector. “Don’t go into corporate America,” Michelle has exhorted youth. “Work for the community. Be social workers.” Shun the “money culture,” Barack added. “Individual salvation depends on collective salvation.”

Also during this time, Barack directed the Illinois’ Project Vote (April to October 1992).  Enter ACORN and Midwest Academy, besides being part of the Shadow Party are funded, among others, by the Woods Fund of Chicago, and George Soros’ Open Society Institute.  Allow me to back up just a bit here though.  According to Discover The Networks:

Trained in the Saul Alinsky Method:

Obama was trained by the Saul Alinsky-founded Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in Chicago. (The Developing Communities Project itself was an affiliate of the Gamaliel Foundation, whose modus operandi for the creation of “a more just and democratic society” is rooted firmly in the Alinsky method.) Alinsky was known for helping to establish the aggressive political tactics that characterized the 1960s and have remained central to all subsequent revolutionary movements in the United States.

In the Alinsky model, “organizing” is a euphemism for “revolution” — a wholesale revolution whose ultimate objective is the systematic acquisition of power by a purportedly oppressed segment of the population, and the radical transformation of America’s social and economic structure. The goal is to foment enough public discontent, moral confusion, and outright chaos to spark the social upheaval that Marx, Engels, and Lenin predicted — a revolution whose foot soldiers view the status quo as fatally flawed and wholly unworthy of salvation. Thus, the theory goes, the people will settle for nothing less than that status quo’s complete collapse — to be followed by the erection of an entirely new system upon its ruins. Toward that end, they will be apt to follow the lead of charismatic radical organizers who project an aura of confidence and vision, and who profess to clearly understand what types of societal “changes” are needed.

But Alinsky’s brand of revolution was not characterized by dramatic, sweeping, overnight transformations of social institutions. As Richard Poe puts it, “Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties.” Alinsky advised organizers and their disciples to quietly, subtly gain influence within the decision-making ranks of these institutions, and to introduce changes from that platform.

One of Obama’s early mentors in the Alinsky method, Mike Kruglik, would later say the following about Obama:

“He was a natural, the undisputed master of agitation, who could engage a room full of recruiting targets in a rapid-fire Socratic dialogue, nudging them to admit that they were not living up to their own standards. As with the panhandler, he could be aggressive and confrontational. With probing, sometimes personal questions, he would pinpoint the source of pain in their lives, tearing down their egos just enough before dangling a carrot of hope that they could make things better.”

For several years, Obama himself taught workshops on the Alinsky method.

Now enter ACORN:

Introduction to ACORN and Project Vote:

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Obama worked with ACORN, a creation of the Alinsky network. ACORN was a grassroots political organization that grew out of George Wiley’s National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), whose members in the late 1960s and early 70s had invaded welfare offices across the U.S. — often violently — bullying social workers and loudly demanding every penny to which the law “entitled” them.[2]

Obama also worked for Project Vote, the voter-mobilization arm of ACORN. Project Vote’s professed purpose is to carry out “non-partisan” voter-registration drives; to counsel voters on their rights; and to litigate on behalf of voting rights — focusing on the rights of the poor and the “disenfranchised.”[3] Obama was the attorney for ACORN’s lead election-law cases, and he worked as a trainer at ACORN’s annual conferences, where he taught members of the organization the art of radical community organizing.

snip

Also in 1995, Obama sued, on behalf of ACORN, for the implementation of the Motor Voter law in Illinois. Jim Edgar, the state’s Republican Governor, opposed the law because he believed that allowing voters to register using only a postcard would breed widespread fraud.

ACORN would later invite Obama to help train its staff. Moreover, Obama eventually would sit on the Board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which gave a number of sizable grants to ACORN.

Completely confused yet?  Curious about the Shadow Party?  Please do not say I did not warn you at the start of this journey….

The “Shadow Party” is a term originally devised by journalists to describe 527 political committees promoting Democratic Party agendas. It is here used more specifically to refer to the network of non-profit activist groups organized by George Soros and others to mobilize resources – money, get-out-the-vote drives, campaign advertising and policy iniatives – to elect Democratic candidates and guide the Democratic Party towards the left. The Internet fund-raising operation MoveOn.org is a key component. The Shadow Party in this sense was conceived and organized principally by Soros, Hillary Clinton and Harold Ickes. Its efforts are amplified by, and coordinated with, key government unions and the activist groups associated with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The key organizers of these groups are veterans of the Sixties left.

In the next article in this series, the connections between Rev. Wright, Louis Farrakhan, and the continuing relationship between William Ayers and Barack Obama will be revealed as Barack starts his political career with the help of the endorsement of the New Party:

  • Marxist political coalition
  • Was active from 1992-1998
  • Endorsed Barack Obama for Illinois state senate seat in 1996

Co-founded in 1992 by Daniel Cantor (a former staffer for Jesse Jackson‘s 1988 presidential campaign) and Joel Rogers (a sociology and law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison), the New Party was a Marxist political coalition whose objective was to endorse and elect leftist public officials – most often Democrats. The New Party’s short-term objective was to move the Democratic Party leftward, thereby setting the stage for the eventual rise of new Marxist third party.

Most New Party members hailed from the Democratic Socialists of America and the militant organization ACORN. The party’s Chicago chapter also included a large contingent from the Committees of Correspondence, a Marxist coalition of former Maoists, Trotskyists, and Communist Party USA members.

The New Party’s modus operandi included the political strategy of “electoral fusion,” where it would nominate, for various political offices, candidates from other parties (usually Democrats), thereby enabling each of those candidates to occupy more than one ballot line in the voting booth. By so doing, the New Party often was able to influence candidates’ platforms. (Fusion of this type is permitted in seven states — Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, South Carolina, and Vermont — but is common only in New York.)

UPDATE:  Part II has been published – please go to the top of the page and click on the “Socialism” Page.

77 Responses to Obama’s American Socialism: Decades In The Making
  1. Bobbie
    October 22, 2008 | 4:22 pm

    Hi. I just found this site. I have been researching Obama for quite some time now. The americanthinker.com site has a blog dated Sept. 28th, titled, “Obama and the strategy of a manufactured crisis”. This explains how our economy sunk. Be sure to click onto all the links to read about these people, and how they planned to ruin our economy in order to usher in socialism.

    Isn’t it odd, that the Democratic Party is no longer what it used to be, and the Republican Party isn’t either? I am a Republican, but abhor the spending, and free trade instead of fair trade.

    One thing to beware of Obama too, is he told LaRaza he would grant amnesty to all illegal aliens, which would allow them to bring in their families! And he said he would give them welfare and S.S.

    Also his Global Poverty Act, with the UN…it will tax each of us over $2000 for Africa, as if we don’t give enough! This act, if passed, will allow the UN to tax us, meaning our sovereignty will be eroded.

    I am so worried about our Country. I am 62 yrs old and I know what she once was, and now with 44% of the population approving handouts (socialism), I just cannot wrap my mind around it.

    The media, Reid, Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, are helping Obama to bring this Country down, and for the life of me, I cannot understand why…nor why there are so many supporting Obama.

    God help us!

  2. ms mississippi
    October 22, 2008 | 4:30 pm

    Great work, Diamond Tiger. I am amazed at the passion for uncovering the truth about Obama shown by so many citzen journalists, patriots all. The media has failed us, no doubt about it. I’m not sure the Republicans are aware of what’s coming if Obama is elected. Many of them are still framing this election as blue states vs. red states. It’s way past that. As we PUMA’s and JSND folks know, Obama plans to gut our democracy. That’s the ambigous “change” he’s been promising. We have to get this information out to every citizen before election day. People need to know that if they vote for Obama, they are voting for the end of America as we know it. We will be living under a new governmental system with a new Constitution, a new flag, and a dictator instead of a president. Seriously.

    Mahalo for the many HOURS that you must have put into this. Looking forward to Part II.

  3. kazu
    October 22, 2008 | 5:49 pm

    Hello, my name is Kazumi. There is a lawsuit against him about his birth certificate by Philip J Berg. And, petition was filed by Andy Martin on Oct 20th 2008 at Hawai Supreme Court to demand Sen. Obama’s birth certificate.
    At any airport in the US, before we leave from this country we go through security check. Why some like Senator Obama who is a president candidate does not go through a similar process?
    If Senator Obama cannot prove his natural born citizenship, we as American corporate to violate our constitution.
    You are one of the people who represent American people under the democracy. I am asking you to stand up for US democracy for our future.
    Here is an article I would like you to read.
    http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=66787

  4. petunia politik
    October 22, 2008 | 6:18 pm

    asia,

    i bow to you and all who assisted you in the reportage of O’s explosive journey into america’s collective psyche. the fragments of information are so brilliantly organized into a glued together puzzle. we who know the truth, suffer, for our efforts to inform the uninformed or blind have seemingly fallen on deaf, obstinate ears. as a former student of journalism, i can only lament over the loss of the true practice of same. you have produced a PURE piece of journalism, and the facts transcend bias. you’ve so concisely outlined the six degrees of separation that led us to where we are now…still saying, No Deal.

  5. Diamond Tiger
    October 22, 2008 | 6:25 pm

    Petunia,

    kudos to the researchers that sent me the information, John W. for the pages and pages and PAGES of research and all the bloggers and democratic blogs that have done the research – all I did was put it into a timeline format. Thank them, visit their sites and thank them!!

  6. usaproud
    October 22, 2008 | 8:27 pm

    POST THIS EVERYWHERE……IS ABOUT OBAMA AND THE DRAFT…GET THE WORD OUT TO YOUNG PEOPLE EVERYWHERE

    http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=37414

  7. luis
    October 22, 2008 | 9:31 pm

    Check out http://www.freedomofmind.com
    The article today on Just Say No Deal shows how these people are all using the most powerful form of Mind Control used by the military to shift ordinary and unsuspecting people’s critical thinking skills into robot, mindless slave mentality….and it can happen really quickly!
    Read the book COMBATING CULT MIND CONTROL..found on the above site for an incredible and insightful look into America’s most destructive cults and cult leaders (who by the way are always psychopaths) and all of their tactics are always the same, and they prey on gullible innocent people. The book also lists many of the main characteristics of the cult psychopath leader.

  8. Amy
    October 23, 2008 | 6:36 am

    Luis, I think your associating the Obama movement with cultists has merit. I got out of the Mormon church when I was 20. It caused a split between me and my family and within the last five years, I did some extensive research on the church. There’s a correlation between Obama supporters and what I learned.

    In the meantime, I’d been looking periodically for information about George Soros and there was very, very little on the internet about this powerful man. That concerned me. After the stockmarket started to tank daily–and at the same time–I kept digging and came up with this article that was written in 2003. It’s all just too, too coincidental. Please keep in mind that “selling” at the same time every day could be mere coincidence, but then it could be something else. I’m not sure I would have believed in this a few months ago. I’ve always been leary of conspiracy theories. Not so sure now. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1014756/posts

  9. Flowerchild2
    October 23, 2008 | 7:33 am

    Obama has to be the most complex, high-maintenance candidate we have ever seen. The researchers of this magnificent site have done an incredible job of uncovering the many masks Obama hides behind. Thank you for all you have done and for keeping us all together and focused. Today I voted early, and for the first time in my life, for the Republican ticket – - call it the PUMA affect!!

    Flower in FL just saying NO DEAL!!

  10. [...] Obama’s American Socialism: Decades In The Making As a preface to this series of articles, major kudos need to be awarded to Ms Placed Democrat, Matthew Weaver, Shtuey, Eastan McNeil, Steve Diamond, Christmas Ghost, RabbleRouser Rev. Amy, and especially John W. for all the research that has gone into these separate pieces of the puzzle. Please visit their sites and thank them for the hours they toiled increasing everyone’s knowledge of the Obamanation. Obammunista [...]

  11. mark G
    October 23, 2008 | 10:21 am

    Did you see the new anti Obama Movie. It is free at ObamaNationMovie.com

  12. Amy
    October 23, 2008 | 10:29 am

    Check out Drudge Report–breaking news is a McCain worker in Pittsburg was attacked and mutilated. God help us.

  13. Venezuelans for Democracy
    October 23, 2008 | 11:18 am

    On this video recorded in 2006 (not in the 60s or 70s)in Venezuela and in front of a venezuelan authoritarian government audience, Ayers states that what he did in the 70s was sort of a Prelude of what he has been doing afterwards…Ayers is asked about changing from armed revolution to changing within thru education…..(do not be pull off by video interview being in Spanish with translations by young Boudin, Ayers speaks in English)…watch before it’s pull out from youtube..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYHdoY0lSds&feature=related

  14. cece
    October 23, 2008 | 1:26 pm

    Please, please all…..how can we stop this disaster? I’ve read most of this at different sites and in books and I’ve told many people, however most are “stuck on stupid” and keep regurgitating talking points of BHO. As this amazing website has well documented, this has been fermenting for a very long time and, as a blogger further up stated, this is nothing short of [an attempted] coup.
    BTW, Mr. Know-it-all says he’ll sit down with leaders w/o preconditions. Did anyone see the article in yesterday’s WSJ re this topic? They’re basically going to tell him to stuff it.
    Please suggest what more can be done to stop this. The MSM are aiders and abettors, non paid campaign staff. Thank you for this wonderful site. God save us and our nation.

  15. Carole Weinfurtner
    October 23, 2008 | 3:40 pm

    please see the terrible threat against Sarah and her daughter Piper on this video in the name of ART.

    http://www.wjno.com/cc-common/news/videos/player.html?mid=audio/10-08/PalinArtNYC10-07.wmv&redir=yes

  16. Cal
    October 23, 2008 | 4:13 pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyspCRmJv7w

    I feel our media does not do any American justice. Would elaborate, but what’s the use? Just look at this vid. never seen on TV, but assuredly big in the news. If want more, just key in Obama’s Birth Certificate on YT.

  17. Liz Stuart
    October 23, 2008 | 8:07 pm

    Anyone near Philadelphia?

    How about a protest of the Berg v. Obama case being ignored by the media and delayed by the Court?

    How about in front of Independence Hall – Where the constitution Phil Berg is defending was written and signed?

  18. Socialism: Obama Style | Logistics Monster
    October 24, 2008 | 12:35 pm

    [...] my readership for not posting very much these last days; I have been working on Part II and III of Obama’s American Socialism: Decades in the Making and trying to keep my meals down after reading all the research.  The hardest part of writing [...]

  19. EVE CAREY
    October 24, 2008 | 3:16 pm

    WHY HAS NONE OF THIS INFORMATION EVER BEEN PUBLISHED, SURELY THE NEWS REPORTERS, KNOW OF THIS , OR RESEARCHED THIS AS YOU HAVE, I FEAR FOR MY COUNTRY, MY FREEDOM, MY RIGHT TO LIVE MY LIFE. THIS INFORMATION MUST REACH THE NEWS MEDIA OR AT BEST SOME ONE WITH POLITICAL SAVY. GOD HELP US ALL. MY HEAD IS SPINNING WITH WORRY AND FEAR FOR MY CHILDREN AND GRAND CHILDREN…WHAT DO WE DO . THIS ARTICAL WAS SO INTENSE AND INFORMATIVE IT SCARED ME…….

  20. Karen
    October 24, 2008 | 4:47 pm

    This Republican thanks the PUMA’s so much for taking this election seriously and not being snowed by all the MSM and Obots.

    The polls seem to suggest Dem and Repub turn out are even. Colorado Republicans have turned out .16 more than Dems. The MSM want us to believe that all Dems are for Obama. Hopefully, there are enough PUMA’s and Independents out there that will not vote for Obama.

  21. AJA
    October 24, 2008 | 5:18 pm

    BRAVO ZULU! WELL DONE! THIS INFO MAKES THE BANKING MESS AND VIOLENCE IN THE STOCK MARKET SUSPECT. IN YOUR CONTINUING STUDY PLEASE INVESTIGATE CHRISTOPHER COX (SEC) & JAMIE GORRELECK. IT IS NEVER TOO LATE!
    AJA

  22. Danny R.
    October 24, 2008 | 9:34 pm

    Great piece! If everyone who posts here will make sure they send this blog article to everyone they have no their email list, it will travel the internet at the speed of light!

    Let’s all do it for America! I’m a registered Republican, but I so appreciate the honesty of these PUMA’s who have seen the light about the corruption of the Democratic Party and it’s current leadership and it’s orchestrated plan to bring down America. I know that not all Dems are privy to it but shame on them for allowing themselves to be used as pawns. Thank you PUMA’s for loving America and putting her first.

    I promise as a Republican, that I will do my best to do likewise with our own brand of corruption on our side.

    Let’s take our country back!

    Write everyone you know, now!

    Dannny R.

  23. Diamond Tiger
    October 25, 2008 | 12:22 pm

    OH MY GOODNESS FOLKS!!!! The Obamanation is losing their freakin’ minds over this piece! They do not realize that this site is an Obamanation Free Zone and I will not allow their nasty, hatefilled comments here…but they are sinking to new lows, kids…according to the latest, I have no sources for any of this….hmmmmmm….can they click? AND I am not qualified to write any of this….given that theory, I should not have been able to own my own successful business for 10 years because I do not have a MBA.

    What do you think?

  24. Sheltiemom
    October 25, 2008 | 5:53 pm

    Just one problem – how does all of the above go global? If it doesn’t get any traction outside of a blog, how will it open the eyes of enough voters in time for the election?

  25. Diamond Tiger
    October 25, 2008 | 5:56 pm

    Sheltiemom -

    not too worry, this particular article has gotten traction and I could have sworn Sean Hannity was quoting from it almost word for word – I may be wrong – but considering the numbers of hits it is getting and from “where”, don’t worry, don’t worry – it’s already viral. I have bloggers and readership stretching from left to knitters to hunters….it is having a major impact.

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THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT PIECES TO READ ON THIS SITE:

Tea Party Patriots Vs. The Master Class

Still have that sinking feeling in your midsection every time you think about the District of Criminals, The Fed, Bernanke, etc.?  Are you still not sleeping well at night because you know something is “so wrong” but the scope of the problem is just getting larger each day?

Remember when we spoke about giving up every last penny of our wealth to get rid of the bloodsucking elites that are killing our childrens’ futures?

After reading this commentary, you will have the concise MATH, (there’s that word again), and course of the nation that  explains why you feel like a hamster on crack, and can’t sleep at night.  The numbers do not lie.

This piece is long, it’s brutal, and it will make you weep, but I urge you to read every single word because it will resonate. Remember it when the epitome of the elite class gives his State of The Union Address, and then it will be time to get the little gray cells working because I refuse to allow these bastards to keep raping us into indentured servitude.

America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship

Copyright 2010 by Stewart Dougherty, with all rights reserved.

FOREWORD: At certain times, focusing on the big picture is important not just for investment success, but for personal welfare, and even survival. We believe such times are here. It is estimated that 98% of Americans have never held a gold coin in their hands. Yet 100% of Americans regularly handle Federal Reserve Notes. From a contrarian standpoint, the financial message from those two statistics is clear. Even so, gold is much more than money or an investment medium; it stands for liberty and throughout history has facilitated escape and ensured freedom. Never having touched a gold coin is the monetary equivalent to never having breathed fresh air, felt the warmth of sunshine, looked up at the stars or risen from the gutter. Fiat Federal Reserve Notes are becoming nothing more than sewage decomposing in the vast, toxic septic tank of predatory Washington politics, epic Federal Reserve arrogance and error, blatant Wall Street fraud and outright Master Class plunder. Below, we outline America’s troubling and compounding predicament, and urge you to think about how to protect yourself from its consequences, both financially and personally.

Thanks to the endless barrage of feel-good propaganda that daily assaults the American mind, best epitomized a few months ago by the “green shoots,” everything’s-coming-up-roses propaganda touted by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, the citizens have no idea how disastrous the country’s fiscal, monetary and economic problems truly are. Nor do they perceive the rapidly increasing risk of a totalitarian nightmare descending upon the American Republic.

One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.

According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report on wealth, America’s private net worth was $53.4 trillion as of September, 2009. But at the same time, America’s debt and unfunded liabilities totaled at least $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion), or 225% of the citizens’ net worth. Even if the government expropriated every dollar of private wealth in the nation, it would still have a deficit of $66,600,000,000,000.00 ($66.6 trillion), equal to $214,286.00 for every man, woman and child in America and roughly 500% of GDP. If the government does not directly seize the nation’s private wealth, then it will require $389,610 from each and every citizen to balance the country’s books. State, county and municipal debts and deficits are additional, already elephantine in many states (e.g., California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York) and growing at an alarming rate nationwide. In addition to the federal government, dozens of states are already bankrupt and sinking deeper into the morass every day.

The government continues to dig a deeper and deeper fiscal grave in which to bury its citizens. This year, the federal deficit will total at least $1,600,000,000,000.00 ($1.6 trillion), which represents overspending of $4,383,561,600.00 ($4.38 billion) per day. (The deficit during October and November, 2009, the first two months of Fiscal Year 2010, totaled $296,700,000,000.00 ($297 billion), or $4,863,934,000.00 ($4.9 billion) per day, a record.) Using the GAAP accounting method (which is what corporations are required to use because it presents a far more accurate and honest picture of a company’s finances than the cash accounting method primarily and misleadingly used by the U.S. government), the nation’s fiscal year 2009 deficit was roughly $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion), or $24,700,000,000.00 ($24.7 billion) per day, as calculated by brilliant and well-respected economist John Williams. (www.shadowstats.com) Fiscal Year 2010’s cash- and GAAP-accounting deficits will likely be worse than 2009’s, given government bailout and new program spending that is on steroids and psychotic.

Putting Fiscal Year 2009’s $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion) deficit another way, 17% of America’s private wealth, accumulated over a period of 235 years, was wiped out by just one year’s worth of government deficit spending insanity.

Given this, is it any surprise that Treasury Secretary Geithner has announced that the release of the nation’s FY 2009 supplemental GAAP financial statements has been delayed? Remember, this is the same Secretary Geithner who bullied people to cover up the sordid details of the AIG, or more accurately, the taxpayer-funded, multi-billion dollar, Santa Claus bailout and bonus bonanza for Goldman Sachs. Do you really think this government, characterized as it is by fiscal and monetary secrecy, lies, chicanery, cronyism and stonewalling, wants the people to know what is actually happening? Obviously, it does not, so it hides from the public the inexcusable facts.

It is estimated that the top 1% of Americans control roughly 40% of the nation’s wealth. In other words, 3 million people own $21,400,000,000,000.00 ($21.4 trillion) in net private assets, while the other 305 million own the remaining $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion). 77,000,000 (77 million) Americans (the lowest 25%) have mean net assets of minus $2,300 ($-2,300.00) per person; they live from paycheck to paycheck, or on public assistance. The lower 50% of Americans own mean net assets of $27,800 each, about enough to purchase a modest car. Obviously, it would be impossible to retire on such an amount without significant government or other assistance. Meanwhile, the richest 10% of Americans possess mean net assets of $3,976,000.00 each, or 143 times those of the bottom 50%; the top 2% control assets worth more than 1,500 times those in the bottom 50%. When you combine these facts with Wall Street’s typical multi-million dollar annual bonuses, you get an idea of wealth inequality in America. Historically, such extreme inequality has been a well-documented breeding ground for totalitarianism.

If the government decides to expropriate (steal) or commandeer (e.g., force into Treasuries) America’s private wealth in order to buy survival time, such a measure will be designed to destroy the common citizens, not the elite. Insiders will be given advance warning about any such plan, and will be able to transfer their money offshore or into financial vehicles immune from harm. Assuming that the elite moves its money to safety, there would then be $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion) in American debt and liabilities supported by only $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion) in private net worth, for a deficit of $88,000,000,000,000.00 ($88 trillion). In that case, each American would owe $285,714.29 to balance the country’s books.  (Remember to multiply this amount by every person in your household, including any infant children.)

If the common people suspect that something diabolical was in the works, a portion of the $32 trillion in non-elite wealth could be evacuated as well prior to a government expropriation and/or currency devaluation, resulting in less money for the government to steal. What these statistics mean is that it is absolutely impossible for the government to fund its debt and deficits, even if it steals all of the nation’s private wealth. Therefore, the government’s only solutions are either formal bankruptcy (outright debt repudiation and the dismantling of bankrupt government programs) or unprecedented American monetary inflation and debt monetization. If the government chooses to inflate its way out of this fiscal catastrophe, the United States dollar will essentially become worthless. You can be absolutely certain that a PhD. in economics, such as Dr. Bernanke, is well aware of these realities, despite what he might say in speeches. For that matter, so are Chinese schoolchildren, who, when patronized by Treasury Secretary Geithner about America’s “strong dollar,” laughed in his face. One day, perhaps America’s school children will receive a real education so that they, too, will know when to laugh at absurd propaganda.

The government has announced that during the fiscal years from 2010 through 2019, it will create an additional $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion) in deficits, an amount that is almost certain to be understated by trillions given the country’s current economic trajectory. The government assumes that this vast additional deficit will be funded by others, such as the Chinese, as it is a statistical fact that the United States will be incapable of funding it.

Furthermore, with the budgetary equivalent of a straight face, the Office of Management and Budget reports in its long-term, inter-generational budget projection that the United States government will experience massive, non-stop deficits for the next 70 (SEVENTY) years, requiring the issuance of tens of trillions of dollars of additional debt. The OMB does not project even one year of surplus during the entire seventy year budget period.

These deficits and debts are now so gargantuan that they have become surreal abstractions impossible even for sophisticated financiers to begin to comprehend. The common citizen has absolutely no idea what these numbers mean, or imply for his or her future. The people have been deluded into thinking that America’s arrogant, egomaniacal, always-wrong-but-never-in-doubt fiscal witch doctors and charlatans, including Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Geithner and Ponce de Bernanke, have discovered a Monetary Fountain of Youth that endlessly spits up free money from the center of earth, in a geyser of good will toward the United States. Unfortunately, this delusion is false: there is no Monetary Fountain of Youth, and contrary to the apparent beliefs of the self-deified man-gods in Washington, D.C., the debt and deficits are real, completely out of control, and 100% guaranteed to create catastrophic consequences for the nation and its people.

When government “representatives” deliberately sell into slavery the citizens of a so-called free Republic, they have committed treason against those people. This is exactly what has happened in the United States: the citizens have been sold into debt slavery that they and their descendants can never escape, because the debts piled onto their backs can never, ever be paid. Despite expensive and sophisticated brainwashing campaigns emanating from Washington, claiming that America can “grow” out of its deficits and debt, it is arithmetically impossible for the country to do so. The government’s statements that it can dig the nation out of its fiscal hole by digging an even deeper chasm have become parodies and perversions of even totally discredited and morally disgusting Keynesianism.

The people no longer have elected representatives; they have elected traitors.

The enslavement of the American people has been orchestrated by a pernicious Master Class that has taken the United States by the throat. This Master Class is now choking the nation to death as it accelerates its master plan to plunder the people’s dwindling remaining assets. The Master Class comprises politicians, the Wall Street money elite, the Federal Reserve, high-end government (including military) officials, government lobbyists and their paymasters, military suppliers and media oligarchs. The interests and mindset of the Master Class are so totally divorced from those of the average American citizen that it is utterly tone deaf and blind to the justifiable rage sweeping the nation. Its guiding ethics of greed, plunder, power, control and violence are so alien to mainstream American culture and thought that the Master Class might as well be an enemy invader from Mars. But the Master Class here, it is real and it is laying waste to America. To the members of the Master Class, the people are not fellow-citizens; they are instruments of labor, servitude and profit. At first, the Master Class viewed the citizens as serfs; now that they have raped and destroyed the national economy, while in the process amassing unprecedented wealth and power for themselves, they see the people as nothing more than slaves.

America’s public finances are now so completely dysfunctional and chaotic that something far worse than debt enslavement and monetary implosion, terrible curses unto themselves, looms on the horizon: namely, a Master Class-sponsored American dictatorship.

Throughout history, the type of situation in which America now finds itself has been a fertility factory for tyranny. The odds of an outright overthrow of the people by the Washington and Wall Street Axis, or more broadly, the Master Class are increasing dramatically. The fact that so few people believe an American dictatorship is possible is exactly why it is becoming likely.

Dictatorships have blighted history and ruined lives since the beginning of civilization. In recent times alone, tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu, Amin, Hussein, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim, Pinochet, Milosevic, Tito, Batista, Peron, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Marcos, Somoza, Mengistu, Bokassa, Sese Seko, Franco, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, and Castro have power-sprayed blood onto the screen of time and ravaged mankind with murder, torture and human oppression. A full catalog of history’s tyrants would require a book of hundreds of pages. In the past 100 years alone, over 200 million human beings have been annihilated by wars, ethnic cleansings and government assassinations. Just when we think that civilization has been able to rise above tyranny’s inhumanity and disgrace, a new dictator appears on the scene to start the process all over again. Every time this happens, fear and submission paralyze the vast majority of the affected masses, leading them to “follow orders” and lick autocracy’s blood-stained boots.

History has proven to tyrants that oppression works. In fact, it is easy to control a populace, once you control the money, markets, military (including police), media and minions (the recipients of welfare, social security, free health care, government jobs and the like, who are dependent upon the state and likely to be compliant). This is exactly where the United States is today.

Recent American events paint an ominous picture of a Master Class that is now in total control.

When 90% of the American people vehemently rejected the $700,000,000,000.00 ($700 billion) TARP bailout plan, the Master Class put it on a fast track and approved it anyway.

When a clear majority of the American people said no to a government takeover of Chrysler and GM, the Master Class poured billions of taxpayer dollars into those corporate sinkholes and took them over anyway.

When the people said no to multi-trillion dollar crony bailouts for the bankers and insurers whose corruption had caused global financial mayhem, the government pledged to those elite insiders more than $13,000,000,000,000.00 ($13 trillion) of the people’s money anyway.

When the people expressed astonishment and anger that Wall Street planned to pay itself record 2009 bonuses, in the midst of America’s worst-ever fiscal and financial crisis caused by them, Wall Street stuffed its pockets with taxpayer-supported bonus money anyway.

When the people said no to a proposed $40,000,000,000.00 ($40 billion) bailout of AIG and its elite trading partners such as Goldman Sachs (an amount that subsequently exploded to $180,000,000,000.00+ ($180+ billion)), the Master Class went underground, covertly misappropriated taxpayer money and made the payoffs anyway.

When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalized at enormous taxpayer expense, the government approved $6,000,000.00 individual pay packages in 2009 (150 times the average American wage) for the CEOs of both failed companies anyway.

When a clear majority of the people said no to nationalized health care, even after being bombarded by a multi-million dollar, lie-drenched propaganda campaign designed to bamboozle them, the House and Senate passed nationalized health care bills anyway.

When more than seven million American workers lost their jobs and were subsisting on unemployment benefits and food stamps, federal government employees, who now earn DOUBLE what private sector workers earn, were given another round of pay and benefits increases anyway.

When private sector workers’ 401Ks and IRA retirement plans plummeted in value due to economic collapse and endemic Wall Street-orchestrated market corruption (including systemic front running, flash trading, naked short selling and other manipulations), government “defined benefit,” lifetime-cost-of-living-adjusted pension plans, despite already being underfunded by $2,000,000,000,000.00 ($2 trillion), were made richer than ever anyway.

The long, shameful litany of events signaling the total divorce between the Master Class and the people of the United States doesn’t stop there. It goes on and on.

The message from the American Master Class to the American people is simple and clear:

We Defy You.

Governments that openly defy the people are either already totalitarian or in the process of becoming so. Monetarily, the United States clearly functions as a totalitarian dictatorship already, with a Federal Reserve that operates in secrecy, creates limitless amounts of debt and currency at will, and showers trillions of dollars upon favored Master Class insiders with zero transparency or accountability whatsoever. The Federal Reserve is so shameless about its dictatorial powers that it flatly refuses to provide details about multi-trillion dollar bailouts and rescues of privileged elites, in open defiance of Congress and the people. The fact that they get away with these blatant acts of defiance demonstrates the true extent of the Master Class chokehold on America.

If the Master Class were a benign despot and if its policies and programs actually worked, that would be one thing. But that is not the case. Rather, its programs are in a complete shambles.

Every single government entitlement program in the United States is bankrupt. This includes Social Security ($17,500,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $17.5 trillion); Medicare Part A ($36,700,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $36.7 trillion); Medicare Part B ($37,000,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $37 trillion); Medicare Part D ($15,600,000,000,000 underfunded; $15.6 trillion), Government and military pensions ($2,000,000,000,000 underfunded; $2 trillion), Food Stamps (current underfunding difficult to measure because the number of recipients is exploding; hundreds of billions underfunded versus original projections, minimum); and the list goes on. The above underfunding amounts are NET of projected tax receipts over the next 50 years. But the current recession has invalidated virtually all long-term budget and tax receipt assumptions, meaning that the true underfunded amounts are now greater than current, already mind-boggling estimates.

While the above statistics are terrifying enough to any citizen with a functioning brain, what is Twilight Zone-eerie and a far more serious cause for alarm is the casual indifference with which the Master Class is now making the country’s dire and irreparable fiscal circumstances even worse.

The nationalized health care program will cost at least $1 trillion over the next ten years, and most likely multiples of that. It is being crammed down America’s throat by a bankrupt government that does not have the money today and will not have the money tomorrow to pay for it. Worse is the fact that the same government that has bankrupted each and every existing social program now intends to directly or indirectly control the health care of all citizens. Based on the government’s existing track record and the health care program’s enormous complexity, invasiveness and cost, the probability that it will become a national fiscal and humanitarian catastrophe is roughly 100%.

“Cap and Trade” is a multi-trillion dollar tax scam being foisted onto the American public without a legitimate debate or popular referendum. You might be surprised to learn that “Climate Revenues” are already included in the federal budget, starting with $79,000,000,000.00 ($79 billion) in fiscal year 2012, which begins only 20 months from now. During fiscal years 2012 through 2019, the government expects to collect $646,000,000,000.00 ($646 billion) in “Climate Revenues,” a completely new tax category. Have any of your elected traitors told you that they have enacted $646,000,000,000.00 ($646 billion) in “Climate” taxes beginning twenty months from now and continuing forever? These “Climate Revenues” are based on junk science, lies and hysteria, and have been pimped by greed-diseased parasites who seek to make billions from operating and manipulating the Cap and Trade “marketplace.” Favored elitists such as Hank Paulson, Al Gore, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, among others, have positioned themselves to profit from the nation’s upcoming Cap and Trade tax misery and economic debilitation.

The reality is that the giant Ponzi scheme called the United States of America is running out of money. In any Ponzi scheme, money must constantly be poured into the top of the funnel in order to pay the redeemers at the bottom. As the number of redeemers has grown, tax receipts have fallen far short of covering their withdrawals, a problem that has now become an outright government funding emergency further aggravated by the fiscal, financial and economic crises.

If the Washington and Wall Street Axis were not legally able to create and distribute counterfeit American money, the Ponzi scheme would have collapsed already. Trillions of new, out-of-thin-air, printing-press and electronic “dollars” have bought the Axis additional time, but new sources of revenue must immediately be found to keep the scam alive. Congress is fully aware of this reality. Outright tax increases would be bad politics during a recession that is morphing into a depression, and also bad for 2010 re-election campaigns, so they cannot be implemented. Therefore, Congress continues to advance the health care and Cap and Trade agendas, which are nothing but taxation Trojan Horses festooned in righteousness and sanctimony, despite overwhelming popular opposition.

If the nationalized health care program is passed, revenues and fees will kick in immediately in 2010, whereas costs will not begin to accrue until 2012 and later. The government plans to spend the revenues immediately to forestall a total fiscal collapse. Nationalized health care has absolutely nothing to do with health care; it has to do with creating an immediate revenue stream to help fix the current government funding crisis. Similarly, Cap and Trade has nothing to do with fixing the environment. It, too, is nothing more than a massive tax increase similarly designed to address the government’s epic funding shortfall, with thick slices of pork thrown  in for privileged insiders and deceitful propagandists like bloated “Father of the Internet” and now “Savior of the World” Al Gore.

The last thing the Master Class wants is for the people to understand the disastrous state of the nation’s finances. Master Class brainwashing tells the people that it is “negative” and “pessimistic” to look at the facts, despite the fact that psychological health is characterized by the ability to identify and deal with reality. The Master Class wants the people to put on Bozo the Clown happy faces and let sugar plums and green shoots dance in their brains as they write one check after another to pay for Cap and Trade, nationalized health care, and a mind-numbing assortment of other taxes and fees.

On Sunday night, November 30, 2009, North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Il (a name that says it all, even better than Made-off’s), an international poster child of Master Class psychological illness, devalued his country’s currency by 99%. This vicious tyrant, who has given birth to a national hell on earth, is chauffeured in Mercedes Benz limousines, drinks the finest imported whiskies and dines in imperial dignity on foods prepared by personal chefs while his citizens starve to death on the streets or, at best, eke out a subsistence living. Kim became paranoid that the people were actually figuring out how to improve their pitiful, impoverished lives in tiny ways, so he decided to wipe them out. The people were given one week to exchange their money at a rate of 100 old Won for 1 new Won. Any lifetime family savings in excess of roughly $700.00 were simply confiscated by the North Korean government. To keep the people in line, the military and police were put on high alert, fully prepared to kill or arrest any protesters.

On January 9, 2010, Venezuela’s strong man Hugo Chavez devalued his country’s currency by 50%, overnight and without warning, causing immediate inflation, shortages of food and supplies, and general financial chaos throughout the nation.

While you might be shaking your head in pity over the plight of the citizens of North Korea and Venezuela, ask yourself this: could this not happen in the United States?

On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, an Obama hero, outlawed gold ownership overnight by signing Executive Order 6102, which gave the people three and one-half weeks to surrender all privately-owned bullion to the government for a price of $20.67 per ounce. On January 30, 1934, nine months after collecting the people’s gold, Roosevelt devalued the dollar 69% overnight, by raising the gold price from $20.67 to $35.00 per ounce.

Since its founding in 1913, the Federal Reserve has devalued the dollar by 98+% thanks to endless money printing and debt creation, a corrosive and impoverishing process that is now accelerating. In the past year, the Fed has engineered $20+ trillion in bailouts, subsidies and guarantees for well-connected and lucky scavengers and opportunists, an amount equal to roughly 40% of the total private wealth created in this country since its inception. All because a few elitist government man-gods with an almost perfect record of error and failure have deemed in their imperial wisdom that it shall be so. The citizens, whose hard-earned wealth is being systematically destroyed by this continual, government-decreed monetary debasement were never invited to the debate or given a say, which is par for the course for dictatorships. This massive de facto devaluation now hangs over the people’s wealth like a great monetary sword of Damocles.

Conceptually, whether it is a 50% overnight devaluation in Venezuela, a 69% overnight devaluation in the United States, a 98% devaluation in America over time, or a 99% overnight devaluation in North Korea, what is the difference? The fact is: there is no difference; monetary debasements are all the same. In each and every case, the people’s wealth is stolen via government edict, while the people stand by helplessly and in shock.

So one must ask: For whom does the bell toll? A foreign “them,” or a domestic us? Who is to say that you will not be told tomorrow morning that, effective immediately, in accordance with some perversely named mandate such as the “American Monetary Security, Wealth Preservation and Terrorism Prevention Act,” enacted by emergency for “the safety of the nation and the financial well being of the citizens,” all existing currency and bank balances will be redenominated in “New Dollars,” at a conversion rate of 1 new for every 100 old currency units? Would this not simply be another, almost predictable act of defiance toward the American people by the Master Class? And if that happened, do you honestly believe that the Master Class would not have been alerted in advance and allowed to make special preparations for itself ahead of the devaluation? Do you think they intend to go down in the same ship as the people they defy? If such a currency devaluation were announced, what could you do about it? March on Washington? But how would you get there if your money had been wiped out?

Despite what you may hear from State Media, which includes virtually all establishment news organizations, particularly financial ones (e.g., CNBC), America is on the precipice. No bankrupt nation in history has ever defended or preserved the freedoms of its citizens. In fact, it has been the exact opposite: in desperation, bankrupt governments have routinely plundered their citizens’ wealth and imposed totalitarian controls. What will make things different for the United States, the largest debtor nation in all of recorded civilization?

The United States government cannot ever, possibly pay its debts, is pathologically incapable of controlling its spending or curbing its hunger for both domestic and international empire and persistently refuses to tell the American people the truth. If America’s citizens were told the truth and given the benefit of true leadership, as opposed to the guile and dishonesty of an endless array of political liars and hacks, perhaps they could rally and defeat the problems that afflict them. But instead, they are fed by the Master Class a steady diet of narcotic propaganda that deludes, confuses and enervates them. The truth cannot set people free if it is never told, and that is the essence of America’s gathering tragedy.

In a future article, we will detail specific developments you should watch for to chart the course of America’s ominous and potentially deadly national storm. The current, grave situation is already a clear call to action. When the signals become even more urgent, it will be late in the game to take protective action, and possibly too late. Citizens should begin to prepare now not just for financial survival, but for the personal security of themselves and their loved ones should a Category 5 economic and political hurricane rip into the nation, something that becomes more likely every day.

With respect to personal finances, in virtually every national currency devaluation and major political upheaval in the past, gold has represented sanctuary for the affected people. Gold has not just preserved wealth, but personal freedom as well. While governments can devalue fiat currencies, they cannot, by edict, devalue gold. Yes, they can try to manipulate its price, but unless all governments join in the collusion, ultimately the price will return to market. The market for gold is global, and demand exists in all nations and among all peoples. Should the government attempt to confiscate gold, it will be an outright admission that the financial system is collapsing, and the people will know better than to hand over to a corrupt government their only means of survival. The most important point is this: devalued currencies never rise again. Once they are destroyed, they are gone forever, and those whose wealth had once been denominated in them are wiped out. As you have no doubt heard before, not one fiat currency has survived over time, and that is an indisputable fact. More significantly, no fiat currency has ever suffered the abuse that has been inflicted upon the United States dollar, meaning that it is at extreme risk. Gold has been money for 5,000 years. It has not merely survived, it has prevailed over each and every fiat currency collapse throughout history. Given this, the most important financial question a person can ask him- or herself today is: How is my wealth denominated at this time? And given its denomination, is my wealth likely to be safe in current and evolving circumstances?

One thing is certain: as the epic David and Goliath monetary battle unfolds, between the people fighting to defend their hard-earned wealth on one side, and a Master Class that greedily and pathologically wants to plunder them on the other, the price of gold will become extremely volatile for a period of time. Volatility will, in fact, tell you that the War on Wealth has officially been declared, and will be your signal to do whatever you must to protect what is yours. As the government Goliath and its Master Class allies short tonnes of bullion into rigged futures markets in a desperate attempt to make gold look dangerous and risky, the Davids will be coming forth not just in the United States but from all corners of the globe, buying 10 grams here and one ounce there. There are 6.8 billion Davids, versus one diseased Master Class that numbers in the small millions. There is no way the Master Class can defeat the people, if the people finally rise up and say “No More of Your Plunder. No More of Your Cold and Soulless Financial Oppression. No More of Your Cynical and Godless Exploitation.”

If you find the above argument compelling, you should consider how to protect yourself from Executive Orders that could be issued at any time, under any pretext, and that could be extremely hostile to your financial and/or personal health and well being. One simple way to start is to purchase one ounce of gold for yourself and each member of your household, and much more if you can afford it. That is not financial advice; it is merely the common sense generously communicated to you by history.

Stewart Dougherty

Stewart Dougherty is a specialist in inferential analysis, the practice of identifying historic and contemporary patterns and then extrapolating their likely effects upon the future. Dougherty was educated at Tufts University (B.A., magna cum laude), and Harvard Business School (M.B.A. and an academic Fellow). He can be reached at stewartdougherty@cs.com. He is not affiliated with or compensated by those he references or recommends. He does not offer investment or trading advice, and nothing in this article should be construed as such. This article represents the author’s personal opinions, and nothing more. The reader has the author’s permission to share, print, forward or post this article provided that the content is not changed and the author is acknowledged.

(H/T Mike)

Big Brother’s Lock On Your Money Is Complete

I wrote about it; I tried to warn people, but after the healthcare fight we just went through, I think most people just wanted a breather from battling the fascists in Washington (to our long-lasting detriment).

Now we have the financial reform bill that includes the new federal agency Office Of Financial Research, and the Bureau of Consumer Protection keeping track of every single financial transaction you could possibly imagine; including your bank balance, and when you walk to the ATM to take cash out.  I wasn’t lying, but I do think I was one of very few writing about it.

The fascists have the banks, the insurance companies, the credit card companies, the car companies, OUR healthcare, and now Americans’ financial transactions.

Senate Democrats Pass Bill Allowing Govt to Collect Addresses, ATM Records of Bank Customers

(CNSNews.com) – Senate Democrats united to pass a financial regulatory bill that allows the government to collect data on any person operating in financial markets at any level, including the collection of personal transaction records from local banks, including customers’ addresses and ATM receipts. (emphasis mine)

The Senate voted 59-39 on Thursday to pass the bill – the chief aim of which is to more-heavily regulate the financial industry – sending it to a conference committee in the House of Representatives, where differences between the House and Senate versions will be ironed out.

The bill, if it becomes law, will create the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and empower it to “gather information and activities of persons operating in consumer financial markets,” including the names and addresses of account holders, ATM and other transaction records, and the amount of money kept in each customer’s account.

The new bureaucracy is then allowed to “use the data on branches and [individual and personal] deposit accounts … for any purpose” and may keep all records on file for at least three years and these can be made publicly available upon request.

*break*

Shelby slammed the new consumer bureaucracy, saying that it was meant not to protect consumers but to “manage” them by monitoring their behavior.

“Mr. President, make no mistake, behind the veil of anti-Wall Street rhetoric is an unrelenting desire to manage every facet of commerce under the guise of consumer protection.

“They may be interested in protecting consumers, but they are more interested in managing them,” Shelby said.

Shelby also criticized the idea that Americans need government to watch over their every financial move, saying that it was better to allow people the freedom to make their own choices and fail than to never allow them the freedom to choose at all.

“Mr. President, I have faith in the American people and their ability to make good choices,” said Shelby.  “Granted, we do not always choose well.  But I believe that a poor choice freely made is far superior to a good choice made for me.”

“I am afraid that the architects of this bill do not share this sentiment,” he said. “Nor do they share my faith in the American people.”

Shelby further said that the ability of the Federal Reserve to collect such detailed information about the most basic of financial transactions was the beginning of an effort by government to regulate every financial action of every American citizen.

“This new consumer bureaucracy is intended by its architects in the Treasury to begin the process of financial regulation with the intent of changing the behaviors of the American people,” said the senator.

Shelby appears to be correct. The bill allows the bureau to collect any and all information on any person operating in the financial markets.

As it reads: “[T]he Bureau shall have the authority to gather information from time to time regarding the organization, business conduct, markets, and activities of persons operating in consumer financial services markets.”

Meanwhile, depending on the conference version of this bill, you may be able to fund a new federal agency that takes idle appropriations, invests them, and keeps the profits.  Those profits are ‘not considered the government’s property’. I am still trying to ascertain who that money actually belongs to because it is not yours anymore.

4.15.2010

Obama Turns Financial Reform Into A Political Fight

I am currently reading this bill and wanted to drop an interesting tidbit on you. For those interested in reading the 114 page Manager’s Amendment, go here. I am only a couple hundred pages into this POS but starting on page 60, a new government office is to be established. The “Office Of Financial Research” will be part of the Treasury, and will have a Director appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. This office will also have a data collection center to keep track of all financial and nonbank financial institutions so as to be able to report to Congress on companies that ‘threaten’ the economy. It is unclear how big or how many new government employees this office will create, but considering how events are unfolding now with Obamacare, I’m assuming pretty large.

The interesting tidbit pertains to the Financial Research Fund that is to be established and the ability of the Office that is providing Congress with reports to invest monies they aren’t using. Let me know if you think that’s a conflict of interest, and if you would like to know exactly how much money that is?

“Funds obtained by, transferred to, or credited to the Financial Research Fund shall be immediately available to the Office, and shall remain available until expended, to pay the expenses of the Office in carrying out the duties and responsibilities of the Office.”

The above quotes are from Chris Dodd’s markup draft. I went to the actual amended bill (Amendment No. 3739 of Bill S. 3217) that was passed and found the pertinent information starting on page 62, with the investment and non-governmental monies section on page 78. It’s still in there.

At this point, the underground economy is about to get a bit larger.

UPDATE: More information on the Office Of Financial Research, here.

Words Of Wisdom....

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.

- Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson And American Sovereignty

"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 1823

It is the sacred principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter to which the American people will henceforth pledge their allegiance.

- President George Bush (41) addressing the United Nations

Which will it be America? US Sovereignty or UN Slavery? - The Monster

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