Well....That Whole Freedom Thing Was Good While it Lasted, Wasn't It?

Cramer: It's a Worldwide Crash

Now along comes Sheila Bair and Hank Paulson, who alternately want us to believe that everything is sound (with public pronouncements that the worry is misplaced) and that there is a list of obscure banks that might have to be taken over.

Then Paulson comes to the Capitol and says the truth, that the Western world of finance is going to break, and Bair seizes Washington Mutual and tries to seize Wachovia(WB Quote - Cramer on WB - Stock Picks), no doubt to save Citigroup(C Quote - Cramer on C - Stock Picks), which could have risen, done an equity offering and joined Bank of America(BAC Quote - Cramer on BAC - Stock Picks), JPMorgan(JPM Quote - Cramer on JPM - Stock Picks) and Wells Fargo(WFC Quote - Cramer on WFC - Stock Picks) as the new titans of finance.

Which is where we are this morning, in a worldwide crash that will leave us with gigantic institutions that we have never heard of, with balance sheets that are ridiculously large that must fall, and a hedge fund community that has lost control of its asset base.

Down the Road to Serfdom

Sensing a pushback by the world's dollar-surplus regions – Asia and the Mideast – to finance the largest debtor economy, the U.S. government will now plunder its own countrymen to keep capital running "uphill." As with most statist remedies, it is being marketed as a boon for Main Street, tantalizing its inhabitants with the prospect of profits wafting westward from those malodorous Wall Street investments. However, Congress has inured the Treasury from accountability and legal recourse, giving Paulson dictatorial power over the nation's financial sector. Rather than let this bloated segment of the economy shrink and consolidate, Paulson and his successor will extend it unlimited life support, bloodletting everything else, in a final ruin of the nation.

French Premier Francois Fillon: We're on "the edge of the abyss”
Now we're in a terrible fix. People are scared and removing their money from the banks and money markets which is intensifying the freeze in the credit markets and driving stocks into the ground like a tent stake. Meanwhile, our leaders are "caught in the headlights", still believing they can "finesse" their way through the biggest economic cataclysm since the Great Depression. It's madness.

Naomi Wolf: Americans are facing a coup, as of this morning it’s happened

Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column? Corporate media colludes with democracy’s demise

Our media institutions, deeply embedded in the power structures of society, are not providing the information that we need to make our democracy work. To put it another way, corporate media consolidation is a corrosive social force. It robs people of their voice in public affairs and pollutes the political culture. And it turns the debates about profound issues into a shouting match of polarized views promulgated by partisan apologists who trivialize democracy while refusing to speak the truth about how our country is being plundered.

Our dominant media are ultimately accountable only to corporate boards whose mission is not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the whole body of our republic, but the aggrandizement of corporate executives and shareholders.

These organizations’ self-styled mandate is not to hold public and private power accountable, but to aggregate their interlocking interests. Their reward is not to help fulfill the social compact embodied in the notion of “We, the people,” but to manufacture news and information as profitable consumer commodities.

Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent at the same time that it enhances the power of the state and the privileged interests that the state protects. And nothing characterizes corporate media today more than its disdain toward the fragile nature of modern life and its indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.

Let’s look at what is happening with the Internet. This spring the cable giant Comcast tried to pack a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearing on network neutrality by hiring strangers off the street to ensure that advocates of net neutrality would not be able to get a seat in the hearing room.

SaveTheInternet.com — a bipartisan coalition — and its supporters helped expose the ruse. Soon after, there was a new hearing, this time without the gerrymandering seating by opponents of an open Internet.

Excellent article on the consequences of allowing a handful of big media corporations to decide what the people should know. The link to the entire story is in the title.

Feds Accuse Student Of "Terror and Espionage" For Talking About Constitution

A student of a large bible college in east Texas was accused by federal agents of committing an "act of terror and espionage" after he gave a talk to a group of Boy Scouts in which he encouraged them to educate themselves about the U.S. constitution.

Jeff, who wishes to remain anonymous at present, is a student of the college and an interim pastor of a small church in Mount Vernon, Texas. He appeared today as a guest on the Alex Jones Show to relate what took place.

As part of his duties as an advisor in the college office, Jeff was tasked with the role of giving a short speech and a tour to a group of Boy Scouts that were visiting the college, with a focus on how patriotism and liberty are emphasized in the teaching style of the university.

Jeff said he told the boys, "It's going to be you who is going to take this country and either make or break it - you need to get back to your constitution, you need to get to know your bill of rights and you need to stand up for them."

Jeff also mentioned that the freedoms enumerated in the bill of rights were fast being usurped by the government and he briefly talked about the USA Patriot Act.

"I said they're stripping us of what we know to be America, what you need to do is re-orient yourself to the constitution because that is the very founding basis of our government and it is the supreme law of the land," he added.

The next day Jeff was called into the main administrative office of the university where he was met by college officials and two men wearing dark suits and sunglasses who did not identify themselves. A state trooper was also guarding the door to make sure everyone stayed inside the office.

Jeff was asked by the men if he talked to the Boy Scouts about the constitution the previous day. Jeff was then shown a transcript of what he said and asked to fill in the blanks.

"I saw the transcript of what I said and every word that those boys had said," stated Jeff.

Jeff speculated that the recording of his talk with the Boy Scouts may have been made by a scout master who looked like a Marine that was taking the tour with Jeff.

After asking the men where they were from, Jeff was told he was committing "acts of terror and espionage" by talking to the Boy Scouts about the constitution and the bill of rights.

Jeff was unable to ascertain exactly where the feds were from but university officials later indicated that DHS (Department of Homeland Security) and the FBI were involved.

Hit the link in the title to read the story in its entirety. We live in scary times when such abuses of our rights happen day after day, only to be met with apathy and indifference by the American sheeple. Those who fought against tyranny at great personal risk to establish the Constitution and our Bill of Rights must be spinning in their graves to see how easily we capitulate to the police state.

We Have Been Ambushed !

VERY QUIETLY AND WITHOUT ANY MEDIA ATTENTION, THE U.S. CONGRESS INTRODUCED THE "VIOLENT RADICALIZATION AND HOMEGROWN TERRORISM ACT" BACK IN APRIL

THE BILL WENT QUIETLY THROUGH COMMITTEE - AND WAS PASSED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TODAY!

The Bill creates a Commission which will study how to prohibit ". . . . .the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system . . . . .to advance political, religious, or social change.. . . ."

Folks, they are trying to outlaw what people are able to BELIEVE. Outlaw what opinions people are able to utter!

Ladies and Gentlemen, this Bill opens the first skirmish in what will become a direct legislative assault upon our most basic right to freedom of THOUGHT and the ability to speak those thoughts!

Under this type of Legislative thinking, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson Alexander Hamilton and the other Founding Fathers, would be jailed!!!!

Congress has just fired the first shot against what we can THINK! The implications of this effort by government are terrifying. Just open your mouth and say the wrong "radical" thing and POW: you're a "homegrown terrorist." A "radical." Or perhaps a word we've all come to know quite well, "militant." We hear about "militants" all the time these days. . . . "U.S. troops killed x number of Iraqi militants today. . . . . ."

By passing this Bill, the federal government of the United States has officially embarked upon tyranny. Absolute despotism.

It is time for us to muster our resources and engage in the most fierce poltical battle imaginable. If we don't get together to fight this thing right now; we will be left with no choice but to take up arms or submit to absolute despotism in as little as 18 months! --Hal Turner

Happy camp here we come folks...they'll be rounding up people who disagree with the fascist bastards any time now.....will we go meekly like sheep?....like the Good Germans under Hitler......not I.

Follow the link in the title to read the entire text of this bill that will deal the final blow to American Freedom.

Criminalizing Political Opposition and Freedom of Speech

October 2nd, 2007 by Paul

What Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson is trying to do to me is wrong.In America, we cherish the right to engage in politics, to speak our minds, to promote our candidate, to work to pass a voter initiative, without fear of reprisal.That is why today is such a sad day, not only for me, but for all of us who love the initiative process and the right of citizens to control their government.

This indictment unsealed today is not about the law, but rather 100 percent politically motivated. This is politics—very ugly politics.

The highest legal office in the state of Oklahoma seems bent on silencing citizens through harassment and intimidation, threats and coercion. The goal is to silence me, and to frighten you, from petitioning our government.

Those who attempt to put citizens in charge of government spending decisions, through initiatives like the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or any other issue that rankles the powerful political forces of a state, can expect to face an onslaught by the full powers of the government.

This is yet another round in the age-old attempt to stop ideas by force, by harassment, by imprisonment, by anything except a better idea. Oklahomans, your attorney general is not practicing democracy. He is practicing the politics of destruction.

This kind of nonsense is becoming more and more common here in the "land of the free"...people arrested for trying to reform the State, or speaking their minds about government and taxes, and even dragged off in handcuffs for reading the Constitution out loud in public...funny how these incidents rarely make the corporate news...

Bush, senators blast MoveOn.org ad against Gen. David Petraeus - cleveland.com

Bush, senators blast MoveOn.org ad against Gen. David Petraeus - cleveland.com:

Republican support for the war in Iraq turned to declarations of disgust as President Bush and a Senate majority Thursday condemned MoveOn.org, the liberal activist group, for accusing the war's top general of betrayal. But 25 Democrats, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio, refused to support the amendment condemning MoveOn's recent ad, which called Gen. David Petraeus 'General Betray Us.' Brown instead voted for a pre-emptive measure that condemned criticism of all military officers - past and present."

My my, that ad managed to get past the Ministry of Truth....Rather reminiscent of the time when we had a free press, doing their part to keep government honest. Interesting that such demonstration of our quaint and antiquated first amendment rights has raised such an uproar in Congress...certainly a sign of the fascist times we live in.