Ignorance is Bliss (David Shankbone)

Further, Americans live in a democracy and enjoy liberty. Americans worship a Christian God who is a God of love. Iranians are enslaved under a tyrannical and backward religion that is founded in violence.

Americans do good, they help police and protect the world, they liberate those who are enslaved. Iranians do evil, they sponsor terrorism and conduct secret programs to build weapons of mass destruction.

Americans live affluent lifestyles because they have worked hard to build a modern economy. They live in big houses with modern amenities. They drive luxury cars and wear fine clothes. Iranians are poor because their culture is medieval and their economy archaic.

Americans are intelligent and attractive, they are healthy and have great teeth. Iranians are simple folk. They are either old goat herders or young, indoctrinated terrorists. They dress in rags and funny headdress. They are dirty, unhealthy and have very poor teeth. And they speak a silly language and always have an AK-47 in their hands, even when they sleep.

And if I haven’t insulted your intelligence by now then I guess you watch a lot of western mainstream media. And I guess you’re wondering why I’m bothering to state the “obvious”.

For the rest of us there is grey space between the black and white. The documentary “Wake Up Call (2008)” lives in that grey space.

The film is a compilation of clips from several non-mainstream sources, spliced together by commentary or reflective messages. The format works well. The topics covered are diverse with each segment being informative enough to give an introduction to the subject. Credits to the original material are provided to allow for follow-on research.

Have a watch. Laugh at the parts you find incredible, think about the parts that ring true in the light of recent global developments. Perhaps the speakers don’t draw all the right conclusions or are a little hysterical in places but can you really say the circumstances being described are not real? Can you say those circumstances are not with us today?

It may have been possible to brush this material off very easily a decade ago, but the world has changed and is starting to look at least similar to the picture being painted in this film. Coincidence?

“Wake Up Call” is not a New World Order for Dummies guide. It’s a vehicle to encourage you to take a look at the world from a different perspective to the one being forced on you each day by the mainstream media. Watching it won’t hurt you, you don’t have to switch off at the first clip that doesn’t appeal – just wind forward. There’s something in there for everyone.

Watch through to the end to be rewarded by a great sequence taken from the animal kingdom. The clip tells us clearly that even the meek, if they cooperate, can conquer the mightiest predator. It gives us a hope that eventually, we will find our way.

America, Freedom to Fascism. Aaron Russo’s (February 14, 1943 – August 24, 2007) brilliant documentary tracing the history of the American income tax and questioning its legitimacy. RIP Aaron.

I’m off on my hols right now so I’ve scheduled for each day a video I’ve found interesting. Hope you do too.

European Central Bank in Frankfurt

As for the economic meltdown, look around you. It’s here anyway, is Europe going to rescue us from the global mess created by the bankers? How, by handing total independence to the bankers? By allowing the banks to operate without the fussy interference of our (allegedly) democratic representatives?

The European Central bank as our salvation? I’m a little dubious. Lisbon serves this institution the monetary policies of all the European nations on a platter (silver, no doubt) once it is ratified. Then it disconnects the bank from any possibility of external influence, say for example the will of the people or other such potentially irksome distractions. Is this a good thing? Oh indeed, the experts will tell you, because if incompetent politicians are allowed to intervene in monetary policy they’ll go and spoil everything! The whole economy could collapse as a result, don’t you know?

We are told we need central banks, they are essential, economies can’t work without them. In the modern world that might even be true. But that’s never the main issue. Accountability is the key. This European Central Bank will end up accountable to nobody bar itself and we should be very worried about that, even if we don’t hear much about it on the TV.

Concerns have also been raised over the Lisbon Treaty which, like the European Constitution, will make the ECB a formal institution of the EU and which does include – contrary to what is often said – an article ensuring the bank’s independence (article 282 (3) TFEU). – Wikipedia

If the European Central Bank is anything like its American cousin, the Federal Reserve, then we are in for a whole lot of trouble. Any nation that hands control of its money to a small, invariably self-interested group of individuals, as is the case with the Federal Reserve, ends up being directed by that minority group. As Mayer Amschel Rothschild boasted, “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.” Whatever could he have meant, nothing bad I hope?

Yes we get flags and blue and yellow bunting and a new president and a human rights charter we can wave around furiously as we lose our jobs and homes. But how close are we to losing what little control of our money we have left and what sort of people are we handing this control to?

The politicians, you know – the people who work for us, won’t say. Perhaps they don’t know. Perhaps they have fallen in line with what seems to be an emerging pattern in our modern democracies, the willingness to sign now and read later.

US Currency

Have a watch of the video below. Taken from an American perspective but just as applicable to our economies in Europe, it’s lengthy (sorry, but there’s a lot to cover), and stuffed full of historical references that trace the evolution of money through the centuries and up to the present day. But it’ll keep you engaged and, apart from the narrator’s irritating habit of jabbing his pencil or finger at the viewer all the time, it’s an easy watch.

Note the film was made well before the current economic crash yet you’ll hear predictions of financial collapse discussed casually as if the speakers all knew for sure what was coming. In fact they aren’t soothsayers, rather they have uncovered the crooked banking game that made this crash inevitable.

You won’t be buried in economic jargon and by the end of the program you’ll know exactly why the economists and bankers strive to make their trade appear so complicated. They need to generate an awful lot of smoke and erect so many mirrors to prevent you from exposing them as the ultimate practitioners of the (second?) oldest vice of all, avarice. And you are the victim and always have been.

If you imagine money is a measure of your worth then settle back and watch this. I believe you’ll have a very different view of things a couple of hours from now.

Welcome back, now take a dollar or a pound or a euro out of your pocket and look at it. Ron Paul wants to audit the Federal Reserve. I think that’s a fine idea, how about you?