Thursday, April 4, 2013

COG, Martial Law & FEMA Camps

OBAMACSI.COM: 
Most Americans are totally unaware of COG (Continuity of Government) plans and their impact on a free and open society. COG basically means that all forms of checks and balances in government would be removed and the military would take 100% control over all functions of government. Should U.S. President Barack Obama be assassinated, it is highly likely that a naked COG type militaristic form of government, like that of China, would replace the Constitutional Republic of the United States of America. 
While this idea and concept may seem absurd, the groundwork for this type of government was instituted on September 11, 2001, and will likely be fully activated after an Obama assassination. In the post Obama assassination atmosphere, a race war, martial law, and COG are all possibilities. Should the situation get out of hand, the FEMA concentration camps will be opened and utilized in the extermination of political dissidents. The only way to avoid this impending scenario is to immediately share this information globally in hopes that the International Community will informed and up-to-date regarding the political situation in America. 
1. FEMA Concentration Camps: Yes, there are concentration camps in the United States of America. These camps have now been confirmed by both mainstream and alternative news sources and have been built for the wholesale slaughter of the American public. Bard-wire fences facing inward, human transport rail cars, mass coffins, and human incinerators reminiscent of Nazi Germany's death camps are all present at these FEMA facilities. When these camps will open for business is a question the whole world should be asking.
2. Operation ENDGAME: "Operation ENDGAME" is a 2003-2012 plan under implementation by the Office of Detention and Removal Operations of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The goal of "Operation Endgame" is to detain and deport all removable aliens and "suspected terrorists" currently living in the United States by 2012. The aliens and "suspected terrorists" removed from the United States will likely suffer the same fate that aliens and "suspected terrorists" faced in Nazi Germany; gas chambers.
3. COG (Continuity of Government): The "Continuity of Operations Plan" refers to the preparations and institutions maintained by the United States government for the survival of federal government operations in the case of catastrophic events. The George W. Bush administration put the "Continuity of Operations Plan" into effect for the first time directly following the September 11, 2001, attacks. This plan will be fully implemented in the event of an Obama assassination. 
4. REX 84: "Readiness Exercise 1984", is a contingency plan developed by the United States federal government to suspend the United States Constitution, declare martial law, place military commanders in charge of state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American citizens who were deemed to be "national security threats". This plan will be enacted in the event that the President of the United States declares a "State of Domestic National Emergency".
5. Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007: Senate bill "S-1959" permits the U.S. government to classify many types of venerated American political activity, such as civil disobedience, as terrorism. This law will be used to round-up any person that chooses to disobey orders, regardless of their constitutionality.
6. Presidential Directive 51: The "White House National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 51" allows the President to execute procedures for continuity of the federal government in the event of a "catastrophic emergency". Such an emergency is construed as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.” Should Obama be assassinated, there is no doubt that new president Joe Biden will enact this law.
7. Enemy Belligerent Act: Senate bill "S-3081" allows for the infinite detention of any person, including American citizens, who is deemed to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent without criminal charges or trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged or which the individual has purposely and materially supported. This law basically allows any person at any time to be arrested and held without bail or trial for any amount of time deemed necessary by the U.S. government. This law paves the way for mass arrests and the wholesale extermination that is sure to follow.
8. Human Cattle Cars: The U.S. government has contracted with several companies, namely KBR, to build thousands of railcars for human transportation which are reportedly equipped with shackles to transport political detainees. Unfortunately, history repeats and this is the exact same scenario that was used in Nazi Germany to transport victims to the gas chambers. According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled "Operation ENDGAME", which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists" from the United States.

9. Mass Graves: Mass coffins have been appearing in strategic locations throughout the Unites States over the last couple of years. While U.S. government officials explain that the coffins are for catastrophic emergencies, there is a growing suspicion amongst Americans that something far more sinister may be going on. Whatever catastrophic event is about to transpire, the U.S. federal government will be able to bury hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in an extremely short amount of time.
1. FEMA CONCENTRATION CAMPS

OBAMACSI.COM:
Yes, there are concentration camps in the United States of America. These camps have now been confirmed by both mainstream and alternative news sources and have been built for the wholesale slaughter of the American public. Bard-wire fences facing inward, human transport rail cars, mass coffins, and human incinerators reminiscent of Nazi Germany's death camps are all present at these FEMA facilities. When these camps will open for business is a question the whole world should be asking.
Title: Bombshell: FEMA Camps Confirmed
Date: November 10, 2010

Source: Infowars
Abstract: Former Gov. Jesse Ventura and his crew at Conspiracy Theory have blown the FEMA camp issue wide open in a truly groundbreaking episode from the program’s second season on TruTV. The “Police State” episode proves once and for all that the feds have trained to take on American citizens, planned for riots and disasters and made preparations to maintain order at any cost. Tune in this Friday, Nov. 12 at 10 PM Eastern/ 9 PM Central and leave the denial at the door. 

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This powerful episode is the largest and most in-depth investigation into FEMA camps to date– and it is scheduled to air on television. Radio host and filmmaker Alex Jones returns to the series yet again, as the team takes you to confirmed on-the-ground facilities, confronts the legislators who authorized FEMA camps and breaks down the full-scale technologically-integrated police state that includes Fusion Centers, FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security and more. 
At one of many real and verified FEMA locations, Jesse Ventura and Alex Jones approach a “Residential Center” run by Homeland Security in central Texas where they find locked doors, double-fences and escape warnings around the entire perimeter. Further inside the facility, they witness a playground complex, swings and slides for children. The crew walks up to the front door and attempts to get some answers.
But the officials refuse to either confirm or deny the facility’s purpose, including whether or not American citizens are being held inside. However, our past investigations into this facility reveal that it has confined both children and adults, including immigrants, refugee seekers and American citizens. Despite hundreds of government documents identifying emergency and contingency plans, including plans to deal with mass fatalities, insurrection, internment and quarantines, Ventura and his team repeatedly encounter outrageous denial and avoidance by officials at every level.

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The mainstream media have avoided and downplayed these on-the-record plans for FEMA Camps and Homeland Security Emergency Facilities for years. Clearly, it is not meant to be a public relations talking point, and it is no surprise that members of Congress, including those who wrote the bill to create FEMA camps in America, are reluctant to discuss the matter. So, Jesse Ventura, former Mayor and Governor, descends upon Washington to confront two important figures behind H.R. 645, the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act.
Despite going through official channels, Ventura finds that Jim Gerlach (P-Pennsylvania) repeatedly “ducks” TV cameras and refuses to answer questions about H.R. 645. Another Congressman who co-sponsored the bill starkly admits that FEMA camps exist, but rationalizes that they were put in place to deal with “happy children.” This bizarre admission is another confirmation that Congress and the leadership in Washington are out of touch with the oppressive measures that have been authorized against the American people. Later, Ventura and Jones visit the Deep South and discover what appears to be an active cover-up to keep them from the truth. Outside the Atlanta, Georgia area is another confirmed location in FEMA’s disaster preparation network.
They pay a visit to a facility storing thousands of plastic coffins where video has already confirmed the coffins in large numbers. Ventura and Jones discover upon arrival that a convoy of trucks has just left hauling away the evidence– thousands and thousands of liners the facility wanted to keep out of the way of cameras and public knowledge. Various plastic coffin locations affiliated with FEMA, as well as plans for mass graves and large-scale fatalities, have been previously exposed and reported upon– including photographs sent by an Infowars listener of an Alabama facility in 2009 with thousands and thousands of plastic coffin liners. Why then would the officials in Georgia engage in such a desperate and hurried cover-up?

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Further, the plans are already confirmed. DMORT and other divisions of Homeland Security have a contingency-structure in place to deal with mass fatalities and outbreaks in times of pandemics, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, national emergency or other disasters. Elements of these plans are in place on record, and coordinated via the 10 FEMA regions in the United States and via the “Fusion Centers” that are popping up at the Federal, State and Local levels all across the nation to spy on ordinary citizens.
Concerned about the fact that these programs admittedly monitor ‘returning veterans,’ ‘Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin supporters’ and beyond, the TV show contacted a Fusion Center spokesman to find out more about why they are targeting ordinary Americans. Spokesman Lance Clem told the show point blank that these domestic intelligence gathering centers have no oversight. Clem shockingly admitted, “We police ourselves.”
The show’s producers have told Alex behind the scenes that this episode turned out to be the most exciting from its entire Second Season line-up. It not only confronts the FEMA camp issue head on, but uncovers significant reason to worry about the actions of Homeland Security and other agencies. At location after location, it is clear that its administrators are nervous to discuss what they are preparing, but it is clear from their records and public documents that they are preparing for something big.
TruTv’s Episode Guide: “It’s been said the government has a plan to declare martial law and round up millions of United State citizens into concentration camps. Jesse may have found a conspiracy in plain sight as he investigates the proliferation of law enforcement Fusion Centers around the country. And they may be connected to hundreds of detention centers ready to accept prisoners at the stroke of a Presidential pen” (Infowars, 2010).

2. OPERATION ENDGAME

OBAMACSI.COM:
"Operation ENDGAME" is a 2003-2012 plan under implementation by the Office of Detention and Removal Operations of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The goal of "Operation Endgame" is to detain and deport all removable aliens and "suspected terrorists" currently living in the United States by 2012. The aliens and "suspected terrorists" removed from the United States will likely suffer the same fate that aliens and "suspected terrorists" faced in Nazi Germany; gas chambers.
Title: Operation Endgame
Date: 2003-2012
Source: Wikipedia
Abstract: "Operation Endgame" is a 2003-2012 plan under implementation by the Office of Detention and Removal Operations of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain and deport all removable aliens and "suspected terrorists" currently living in the United States by 2012.

The objectives of the plan are described in a memorandum from the director Anthony S. Tangemann to the Deputy Assistant Director of Field Operations dated June 27, 2003:
The DRO provides the endgame to immigration enforcement and that is the removal of all removable aliens. This is also the essence of our mission statement and the 'golden measure' to our successes.
A document issued by the Office of Detention and Removal Operations titled "Strategic Plan, 2003-2012 Detention and Removal Strategy for a Secure Homeland "describes Operation Engame as follows:
Endgame is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of Detention and Removal (DRO) multi-year strategic enforcement plan. It stresses the effective and efficient execution of the critical service DRO provides its partners and stakeholders to enforce the nation’s immigration and naturalization laws. The DRO strategic plan sets in motion a cohesive enforcement program with a ten-year time horizon that will build the capacity to “remove all removable aliens,” eliminate the backlog of unexecuted final order removal cases, and realize its vision (Wikipedia, 2011).
3. CONTINUITY OF GOVERNMENT (COG)

OBAMACSI.COM: 
The "Continuity of Operations Plan" refers to the preparations and institutions maintained by the United States government for the survival of federal government operations in the case of catastrophic events. The George W. Bush administration put the "Continuity of Operations Plan" into effect for the first time directly following the September 11, 2001, attacks. This plan will be fully implemented in the event of an Obama assassination. 

Title: Continuity Of Operations Plan
Date: September 11, 2001
Source: Wikipedia

Abstract: The Continuity of Operations Plan refers to the preparations and institutions maintained by the United States government, providing survival of federal government operations in the case of catastrophic events. The George W. Bush administration put the Continuity of Operations plan into effect for the first time directly following the September 11 attacks.

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Their implementation involved a rotating staff of 75 to 150 senior officials and other government workers from every federal executive department and other parts of the executive branch in two secure bunkers on the East Coast. Friends, family and co-workers were only able to reach them through a toll-free number and personal extensions. The Bush administration did not acknowledge the implementation of the COG plan until March 1, 2002.
Since September 11, 2001, the newly created Department of Homeland Security has conducted at least three exercises to test continuity plans. The first, named "Forward Challenge '04", took place from May 12 to May 13, 2004, and included more than 40 government agencies. The second major exercise took place from June 20 to June 24, 2005. Titled "Pinnacle", the exercise tested responses to various emergencies, including a hypothetical act of terrorism. "Forward Challenge '06" was the third major exercise, and took place on June 19, 2006. It reportedly involved nearly 4,000 government personnel.
In September 2010, President Barack Obama informed Congress that the State of Emergency in effect since September 14, 2001, will be extended another year. The National Emergencies Act grants various powers to the president during times of emergency, and was intended to prevent a president from declaring a state of emergency of indefinite duration.
In 2007, Professor Larry J. Sabato criticized the incomplete nature of the plan in his book A More Perfect Constitution. In particular, he objected to the fact that there is no Constitutional procedure for replacing U.S. House members in the case of a large-scale attack which could potentially kill a large number of representatives. In regard to the Continuity of Operations Plan, Sabato said it "failed outright" during the September 11 attacks.
The NORAD- and USNORTHCOM-sponsored exercise "Vigilant Shield 2008" took place from October 15 to October 20, 2007 (Wikipedia, 2011).
Title: Newsmax Calls For Military Coup In U.S.
Date:
September 30, 2009
Source:
Newsmax

Abstract: There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.

America isn’t the Third World. If a military coup does occur here it will be civilized. That it has never happened doesn’t mean it wont. Describing what may be afoot is not to advocate it. So, view the following through military eyes:

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1. Officers swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to “obey the orders of the president of the United States.”

2. Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.

3. They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.

4. They can see that the economy — ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation — is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.

5.
They can see this president waging undeclared war on the intelligence community, without whose rigorous and independent functions the armed services are rendered blind in an ever-more hostile world overseas and at home.

6. They can see the dismantling of defenses against missiles targeted at this nation by avowed enemies, even as America’s troop strength is allowed to sag.

7. They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.

8. They can see the nation’s safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before
Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later” (Newsmax, 2009).

Title:
'Continuity Of Government' Planning: War, Terror And The Supplanting Of The U.S. Constitution

Date:
May 30, 2010
Source:
Peter Dale Scott
Abstract: In July 1987, during the Iran-Contra Hearings grilling of Oliver North, the American public got a glimpse of “highly sensitive” emergency planning North had been involved in. Ostensibly these were emergency plans to suspend the American constitution in the event of a nuclear attack (a legitimate concern). But press accounts alleged that the planning was for a more generalized suspension of the constitution. As part of its routine Iran-contra coverage, the following exchange was printed in the New York Times, but without journalistic comment or follow-up.

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Congressman Jack Brooks: Colonel North, in your work at the N.S.C. were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?
Brendan Sullivan [North's counsel, agitatedly]: Mr. Chairman?
Senator Daniel Inouye: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and  classified area so may I request that you not touch upon that?

Congressman Jack Brooks: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I  read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed, by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was an area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

Senator Daniel Inouye:
May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched  upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an executive session. But we have never heard if there was or was not an executive session, or if the rest of Congress was ever aware of the matter.
According to James Bamford, “The existence of the secret government was so closely held that Congress was completely bypassed.” Key individuals in Congress were almost certainly aware. Brooks was responding to a story by Alfonzo Chardy in the Miami Herald. Chardy’s story alleged that Oliver North was involved with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in plans to take over federal, state and local functions during a national emergency.
This planning for “Continuity of Government” (COG) called for “suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and declaration of martial law.” To my knowledge no one in the public (including myself) attached enough importance to the Chardy story.
Chardy himself suggested that Reagan’s Attorney General, William French Smith, had intervened to stop the COG plan from being presented to the President. Seven years later, in 1994, Tim Weiner reported in the New York Times that what he called “The Doomsday Project” – the search for “ways to keep the Government running after a sustained nuclear attack on Washington” –had “less than six months to live.” To say that nuclear attack planning was over was correct, But this statement was also very misleading.
On the basis of Weiner’s report, the first two books on COG planning, by James Bamford and James Mann, books otherwise excellent and well-informed, reported that COG planning had been abandoned. They were wrong. Mann and Bamford did report that, from the beginning, two of the key COG planners on the secret committee were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the two men who implemented COG under 9/11. What they and Weiner did not report was that under Reagan the purpose of COG planning had officially changed: it was no longer for arrangements “after a nuclear war,” but for any “national security emergency.”
This was defined in Executive Order 12656 of 1988 as: “any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States.” In other words extraordinary emergency measures, originally designed for an America devastated in a nuclear attack, were now to be applied to anything the White House considered an emergency.
Thus Cheney and Rumsfeld continued their secret planning when Clinton was president; both men, both Republicans, were heads of major corporations and not even in the government at that time. Moreover, Andrew Cockburn claims that the Clinton  administration, according to a Pentagon source, had “no idea what was going on.” The expanded application of COG to any emergency was envisaged as early as 1984, when, according to Boston Globe reporter Ross Gelbspan, Lt. Col. Oliver North was working with officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency . . . to draw up a secret contingency plan to surveil political dissenters and to arrange for the detention of hundreds of thousands of undocumented aliens in case of an unspecified national emergency.
The plan, part of which was codenamed Rex 84, called for the suspension of the Constitution under a number of scenarios, including a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. Clearly 9/11 met the conditions for the imposition of COG measures, and we know for certain that COG planning was instituted on that day in 2001, before the last plane had crashed in Pennsylvania.
The 9/11 Report confirms this twice, on pages 38 and 326. It was under the auspices of COG that Bush stayed out of  Washington on that day, and other government leaders like Paul Wolfowitz were swiftly evacuated to Site R, inside a hollowed out mountain near Camp David. What few have recognized is that, nearly a decade later, some aspects of COG remain in effect. COG plans are still authorized by a proclamation of emergency that has been extended each year by presidential authority, most recently by President Obama in September 2009.
COG plans are also the probable source for the 1000-page Patriot Act presented to Congress five days after 9/11, and also for the Department of Homeland Security’s Project Endgame — a ten-year plan, initiated in September 2001, to expand detention camps, at a cost of $400 million in Fiscal Year 2007 alone. At the same time we have seen the implementation of the plans outlined by Chardy in 1987: the warrantless detentions that Oliver North had planned for in Rex 1984, the warrantless eavesdropping that is their logical counterpart, and the militarization of the domestic United States under a new military command, NORTHCOM.
Through NORTHCOM the U.S. Army now is engaged with local enforcement to control America, in the same way that through CENTCOM it is engaged with local enforcement to control  Afghanistan and Iraq. We learned that COG planning was still active in 2007, when President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD 51). This, for the sixth time, extended for one year the emergency proclaimed on September 14, 2001. It empowered the President to personally ensure “continuity of government” in the event of any “catastrophic emergency.” He announced that NSPD 51 contains “classified Continuity Annexes” which shall “be protected from unauthorized disclosure.”
Under pressure from his 911truth constituents, Congressman Peter DeFazio of the Homeland Security Committee twice requested to see these Annexes, the second time in a letter signed by the Chair of his committee. His request was denied. The National Emergencies Act, one of the post-Watergate reforms that Vice-President Cheney so abhorred, specifies that: “Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated” (50 U.S.C. 1622, 2002).
Yet in nine years Congress has not once met to discuss the State of Emergency declared by George W. Bush in response to 9/11, a State of Emergency that remains in effect today. Appeals to the Congress to meet its responsibilities to review COG have fallen on deaf ears. It is clear that the planning by Cheney, Rumsfeld and others in the last two decades was not confined to an immediate response to 9/11.
The 1000-page Patriot Act, dropped on Congress as promptly as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution had been back in 1964, is still with us; Congress has never seriously challenged it, and Obama quietly extended it on February 27 of this year. We should not forget that the Patriot Act was only passed after lethal anthrax letters were mailed to two crucial Democratic Senators  – Senators Daschle and Leahy – who had initially questioned the bill. After the anthrax letters, however, they withdrew their initial opposition. Someone — we still do not know who – must have planned those anthrax letters well in advance. This is a fact most Americans do not want to think about.
Someone also must have planned the unusual number of war games taking place on 9/11. COG planners and FEMA had been involved in war games planning over the previous two decades; and on 9/11 FEMA was again involved with other agencies in preparing for Operation Tripod, a bioterrorism exercise in New York City. Someone also must have planned the new more restrictive instructions, on June 1, 2001, determining that military interceptions of hijacked aircraft had to be approved “at the highest levels of government” (i.e. the President, Vice-President, or Secretary of Defense).
The Report attributes this order to a JCS Memo of June 1, 2001, entitled “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects.” But the written requirements had been less restrictive before June 1, 2001, and I am informed that the change was quietly revoked the following December. In The Road to 9/11 I suggest the change in the JCS memo came from the National Preparedness Review in which President Bush authorized Vice-President Cheney, together with FEMA, “to tackle the… task of dealing with terrorist attacks.”
Not noticed by the press was the fact that Cheney and FEMA had already been working on COG planning as a team throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Weiner’s article persuaded authors James Mann and James Bamford that Reagan’s COG plans had now been abandoned, because “there was, it seemed, no longer any enemy in the world capable of . . . decapitating America’s leadership.”
In fact, however, only one phase of COG planning had been terminated, a Pentagon program for response to a nuclear attack. Instead, according to author Andrew Cockburn, a new target was found: Although the exercises continued, still budgeted at over $200 million a year in the Clinton era, the vanished Soviets were now replaced by terrorists. . . . There were other changes, too. In earlier times the specialists selected to run the “shadow government” had been drawn from across the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans alike.
But now, down in the bunkers, Rumsfeld found himself in politically congenial company, the players’ roster being filled almost exclusively with Republican hawks. . . .“You could say this was a secret government-in-waiting. The Clinton administration was extraordinarily inattentive, [they had] no idea what was going on.”
The Pentagon official’s description of a “secret government-in-waiting” (which still included both Cheney and Rumsfeld) is very close to the standard definition of a cabal, as a group of persons secretly united to bring about a change or overthrow of government. In the same era Cheney and Rumsfeld projected change also by their public lobbying, through the Project for the New American Century, for a more militant Middle East policy.
In light of how COG was actually implemented in 2001, one can legitimately suspect that, however interested this group had been in continuity of government under Reagan, under Clinton the focus of Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s COG planning was now a change of government (Peter Dale Scott, 2010).
Title: USNORTHCOM Gears Up For Potential Attack On U.S. Soil
Date: June 9, 2010
Source: The Intel Hub


Abstract: USNORTHCOM has admitted that they are preparing military operations within the United States. This is the first time in history this has been done and they will be working with DHS, state and local law enforcement on U.S. soil. The focus of this operation will be in our own back yard. Northcom is planning on defending against enemy attacks and supporting civilian authorities with fighting an unconventional foe, all on US soil. NORTHCOM went on to say that the drill will be in the Gulf area. They anticipate no infrastructure and possible extreme weather conditions.

“Even more significant, this inspection marked the first time that any Air Force unit has been wartime validated in support of the security and defense of the United States of America. That’s huge,” Nelson said. “The survival of thousand Americans rests on this training”. The Intel Hub believes that their could be a mass evacuation of the Gulf. The chemicals that are being used on this oil spill could, by themselves cause a tremendous amount of various health problems.We will keep you posted.

This could be part of Operation Garden Plot. and possibly could be why there has been reports of hardened troops building up in the Gulf. BP is currently saying that the oil spill should be stopped by next week. One thing is for sure, the dispersant isn’t going anywhere in months  much less weeks (The Intel Hub, 2010).


Title: Poll: Americans Trust Military, But Not Congress
Date: September 13, 2011
Source: ABC News

Abstract: Congress may be in the doghouse with the American public, but a new poll suggests that the broader government — especially the military — gets high marks for keeping the nation safe and secure.
What's more, nearly seven in 10 Americans are trying to make things better by volunteering, a sign that optimism survives in a nation riled by partisan policy fights and economic uncertainty.
"It's very healthy because it indicates that although we are annoyed, skeptical and have less trust than we'd like in our institutions, we are not hopeless," said David Eisner, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, which partnered on the poll with The Associated Press. "We believe that the bedrock values and principles that we built our society on are right."
The public's contempt for Congress exceeds that of other American institutions, including banks, major corporations and the media. The broader government's performance "making sure that our nation is safe from foreign and domestic threats" received an uptick in confidence from 53 percent a year ago to 72 percent now. And a growing number of people said the government is doing a good job of "making sure all Americans feel safe, secure and free," up from 54 percent in August 2010 to 63 percent now.
The military in particular earns the most respect of the survey, with 54 percent deeply confident in the institution.
But deep contempt for Congress and aspects of President Barack Obama's health care law remain among Americans tired of partisan standoffs over basic pocketbook issues. The Associated Press-National Constitution Center poll of 1,000 adults, conducted Aug. 18-22, found that 57 percent have little or no confidence in Congress, up from 49 percent last year.
So while Boise, Idaho, retiree Dale Shoemaker, 54, feels safer, he doesn't give the nation's political institutions credit.
"I think we're more secure. There are a lot of professional, talented people doing a tremendous job," Shoemaker, who used to consider himself a Republican but now is more of an independent. "But the leadership of the Congress and the Senate are not making decisions about what to do, and they're leaving people hanging."
It's notable news on the brink of an election year for Obama, the health care law's chief author and the one who made the call in May to take out terrorist chief Osama bin Laden. Congress, too, is taking note of its estimation in the eyes of the voting public as both parties gird for battle over control of the House and Senate.
No party profited politically from the standoff over the nation's finances much of the year, especially by the unseemly debt limit dispute that earned the nation a credit rating downgrade and sank approval ratings for all policymakers involved. The bickering continued even as the unemployment rate refused to drop much below 10 percent.
A poll last month found the infighting sank Congress' approval rating to 12 percent.
Congress and the broader government give Americans heartburn, with one central feature of Obama's signature health care overhaul standing out as an example. More than eight in 10 people surveyed — 82 percent — say the federal government should not have the power to require Americans to buy health care insurance. Politically important independents were more aligned with Republicans on the mandate question, with 87 percent who don't identify with one of the two major parties saying government should have no right to require insurance; 95 percent of Republicans agreed, according to the poll.
"I just think that people should have the right to buy health insurance, or not," said Daisy Mallory, 78, a retired factory worker from of La Grange, Ill., who says Medicare covers her health care costs. Obama, she said, may have misjudged public's opposition to health care mandates. "I think he understands it better now," she said.
Obama himself acknowledged that his party took a "shellacking" in the 2010 midterm elections, when Republicans made the health care law and the Democrats who muscled it through Congress their Issue No. 1 — and won enough seats to control the House. Obama has said he believes the Supreme Court will uphold the law's constitutionality, but Republicans continue to mention it as a key example of government overreach that they would repeal.
But after nine months in control of the House, Republicans haven't boosted the public's view of Congress.
In the AP-NCC poll, just 8 percent say they are confident in the people running Congress, 10 percent in the federal government. Majorities of Republicans and Democrats lack confidence in congressional leaders, with politically crucial independents showing the sharpest increase in distrust of Congress over the past year. That's up from 49 percent in 2010 to 62 percent now
Even so, most Americans feel safe and more have confidence in the government to keep it that way, the poll shows.
The uptick in approval for the government's handling of national security crosses party lines, but Republicans have shifted sharply. Last year, just 32 percent of Republicans gave the government positive reviews on keeping the nation safe; now, 61 percent of Republicans agree on that. And on making sure Americans feel "safe, secure and free," the same group has jumped from 33 percent who said the government is doing a "good job" to 54 percent now, the poll shows.
The urge to contribute through volunteerism remains strong, according to the poll. Nearly six in 10 Americans say the country needs more sense of community and people helping one another. Most — 69 percent — have volunteered in the past year. Eight in 10 said they have made a charitable donation of $25 or more during that time.
The AP-National Constitution Center poll was conducted Aug. 18-22 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellular telephone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points (ABC News, 2011).

Title: FEMA Communication Takeover Test Scheduled For November 9
Date:
October 18, 2011
Source: Infowars

Abstract
: FEMA, the FCC, and Homeland Security plan to commandeer the airwaves next month. The Emergency Alert System (EAS) will be tested at 1 PM EST on November 9. EAS alerts are transmitted over radio and television broadcast stations, cable television and other media services.
Local and state EAS components are tested weekly and monthly, but this will be the first national test of the system. It is significant that FEMA will conduct the mandatory test.

YouTube-Video

FEMA was created by executive fiat. EO 12148 was signed into law by a stroke of Jimmy Carter’s pen on July 20, 1979. FEMA is described as a federal agency designed to coordinate government response to natural disasters that overwhelm the resources of local and state authorities. In fact, the federal agency was established as part of a martial law mechanism.
Under Reagan, FEMA was headed by Louis O. Giuffrida, the former national guard general who contributed to the Garden Plot and Cable Splicer, two sub programs under REX 84, a plan to establish concentration camps in America. Operation Cable Splicer is described as “the program for an orderly takeover of the state and local governments by the federal government.” For more information on these martial law programs, see Mary Louise, Stalag 17, American Style Plans For Civilian Internment (& Worst).
Giuffrida, a counterinsurgency enthusiast, focused the agency’s resources on the “civil disturbance” aspect of its charter and worked to undermine Posse Comitatus. In 1982, Reagan formally militarized FEMA with National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 26). The result was a series of national training exercises led by the military. Under REX 82, civilian police from around the country received what FEMA euphemistically referred to as “military police methods” for quelling domestic political unrest.
Under Reagan, with Giuffrida at the helm, FEMA mutated “civil defense planning into a military/police version of civil society,” a plan on a collision course with Posse Comitatus.
“Hidden behind FEMA’s benevolent face as the body whose chief responsibility is disaster relief, another FEMA exists,” Ritt Goldstein wrote in 2002, referring to Bush’s effort to turn the agency into a counter-terrorism and “enemy combatant” detention outfit under the newly established Department of Homeland Security.
“At present, the final contents and disposition of the Reagan security initiatives, part of a national crisis plan, remains beyond public knowledge,” Goldstein writes. “But given the ‘War On Terror’s’ scope, even if a formal crisis is not declared, speculation exists that a de facto drift into an effective deployment of FEMA’s crisis powers could occur.”
Next month’s EAS test represents the public notification aspect of that national crisis plan. It is significant that EAS will be tested nationally. Natural disasters are usually regional affairs and do not require a nationwide response. The new national EAS system is designed for a more significant event that conforms to the implementation of martial law as envisioned under Garden Plot and Cable Splicer, a plan that was nearly revealed when Representative Jack Brooks of Texas grilled Oliver North during the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987 (Infowars, 2011).

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4. REX 84


OBAMACSI.COM:
"Readiness Exercise 1984", is a contingency plan developed by the United States federal government to suspend the United States Constitution, declare martial law, place military commanders in charge of state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American citizens who were deemed to be "national security threats". This plan will be enacted in the event that the President of the United States declares a "State of Domestic National Emergency".

Title: U.S. Federal Governmen's "Readiness Exercise 1984"
Date: 1967 – Present
Source: Wikipedia

Abstract:
Short for Readiness Exercise 1984, is a contingency plan developed by the United States federal government to suspend the United States Constitution, declare martial law, place military commanders in charge of state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American citizens who were deemed to be "national security threats", in the event that the President declared a "State of Domestic National Emergency".

The plan stated that events that might cause such a declaration would be widespread U.S. opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad, such as if the United States were to directly invade
Central America.

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To combat what the government perceived as "subversive activities", the plan also authorized the military to direct ordered movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels. Rex-84 was written by Lieutenant Colonel
Oliver North, who was both the NSC White House Aide and NSC liaison to FEMA, and John Brinkerhoff, the deputy director of "national preparedness" programs for FEMA.

They patterned the plan on a 1970 report written by FEMA chief
Louis Giuffrida, at the Army War College, which proposed the detention of up to 21 million "American Negroes", if there were a black militant uprising in the United States.

Existence of a master military contingency plan (of which REX-84 was a part), "
Garden Plot" and a similar earlier exercise, "Lantern Spike" were originally revealed by journalist Ron Ridenhour, who summarized his findings in "Garden Plot and the New Action Army." Rex 84 was publicly mentioned during the Iran-Contra Hearings in 1987.

Exercises similar to Rex 84 happen regularly. For example, from 1967 to 1971 the
FBI kept a list of over 100,000 persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the "ADEX" list. The basic facts about Rex 84 and other contingency planning readiness exercises—and the potential threat they pose to civil liberties if fully implemented in a real operation—are taken seriously by scholars and civil libertarians (Wikipedia, 2010).

5. VIOLENT RADICALIZATION AND HOMEGROWN TERROR ACT

OBAMACSI.COM:
Senate bill "S-1959" permits the U.S. government to classify many types of venerated American political activity, such as civil disobedience, as terrorism. This law will be used to round-up any person that chooses to disobey orders, regardless of their constitutionality.

Title:
U.S. Congress' Violent Radicalization And Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act Of 2007
Date: April 19, 2007
Source: Wikipedia


Abstract
: A bill sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) in the 110th United States Congress. Its stated purpose is to deal with "homegrown terrorism and violent radicalization” by establishing a national commission, establishing a center for study, and cooperating with other nations.

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The bill was introduced to the House on April 19 2007, and passed on Oct 23, 2007. It was introduced to the Senate on August 2, 2007 as S-1959. The bill defines some terms including "violent radicalization," "homegrown terrorism," and "ideologically based violence,"  which have provoked controversy from some quarters.


Amended the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to add provisions concerning the prevention of homegrown terrorism (terrorism by individuals born, raised, or based and operating primarily in the United States).

Directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to:

Establish a grant program to prevent radicalization (use of an extremist belief system for facilitating ideologically-based violence) and homegrown terrorism in the United States;

Establish or designate a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States;

Conduct a survey of methodologies implemented by foreign nations to prevent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.

Prohibited the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically-based violence and homegrown terrorism from violating the constitutional and civil rights, and civil liberties, of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.
Defined Terms:


Violent Radicalization
The process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.

Homegrown Terrorism
The use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

Ideologically Based Violence
The use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social beliefs (Wikipedia, 2010).


6. PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE 51

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OBAMACSI.COM:
The "White House National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 51" allows the President to execute procedures for continuity of the federal government in the event of a "catastrophic emergency".

Such an emergency is construed as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.” Should Obama be assassinated, there is no doubt that new president Joe Biden will enact this law.

Title: The White House National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 51
Date: May 4, 2007
Source: Wikipedia

Abstract: National Security Presidential Directive: NSPD 51 was created and signed by United States President George W. Bush on May 4, 2007, is a Presidential Directive which claims power to execute procedures for continuity of the federal government in the event of a "catastrophic emergency".
Such an emergency is construed as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”

The unclassified portion of the directive was posted on the White House website on May 9, 2007, without any further announcement or press briefings (Wikipedia, 2010).
7. ENEMY BELLIGERENT ACT
OBAMACSI.COM:
Senate bill "S-3081" allows for the infinite detention of any person, including American citizens, who is deemed to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent without criminal charges or trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged or which the individual has purposely and materially supported. This law basically allows any person at any time to be arrested and held without bail or trial for any amount of time deemed necessary by the U.S. government. This law paves the way for mass arrests and the wholesale extermination that is sure to follow.
Title: The Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, And Prosecution Act Of 2010
Date:
May 4, 2007
Source:
Wikipedia

Abstract: The Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010 (S. 3081) is a bill introduced by United States Senator John McCain, sponsored by Joe Lieberman and eight other Republican Senators. Its counterpart in the House is H.R. 4892, introduced by Howard McKeon (R-CA). According to the bill's official summary, the bill requires that any person who is arrested on suspicion of terrorism against the Unites States or its coalition partners be placed in military custody for the purposes of initial interrogation and determination of status as an "unprivileged enemy belligerent". Such determination is to be made within 48 hours.
The bill proceeds to define an "unprivileged enemy belligerent" as an individual who:
1. Has engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners;
2. Has purposely and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners; or
3. Was a part of al Qaeda at the time of capture.
The bill authorizes the President to establish a "high-value detainee interrogation group" consisting of executive branch personnel with expertise in national security, terrorism, intelligence, interrogation, or law enforcement to perform the interrogation and status determination. The bill defines that the paramount purpose of such interrogations is the protection of U.S. civilians and facilities through thorough and professional interrogation for intelligence purposes.

It further prohibits the use of
Department of Justice (DOJ) appropriated funds to prosecute an unprivileged enemy belligerent in an Article III court. Finally, the bill allows for the detention of a person who is deemed to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent without criminal charges or trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged or which the individual has purposely and materially supported. S.3081 was co-sponsored in the Senate by: Scott Brown [MA], Saxby Chambliss [GA], James Inhofe [OK], George LeMieux [FL], Jeff Sessions [AL], John Thune [SD], David Vitter [LA], and Roger Wicker [MS] (Wikipedia, 2010).


8. HUMAN CATTLE CARS
OBAMACSI.COM: The U.S. government has contracted with several companies, namely KBR, to build thousands of railcars for human transportation which are reportedly equipped with shackles to transport political detainees. Unfortunately, history repeats and this is the exact same scenario that was used in Nazi Germany to transport victims to the gas chambers. According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled "Operation ENDGAME", which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists" from the United States.

Title: Rule By Fear Or Rule By Law?
Date: February 4, 2008
Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Abstract:
Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and noncitizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of "an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."  Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States.

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The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.  According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of "all removable aliens" and "potential terrorists." Fraud-busters such as Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, have complained about these contracts, saying that more taxpayer dollars should not go to taxpayer-gouging Halliburton.

But the real question is: What kind of "new programs" require the construction and refurbishment of detention facilities in nearly every state of the union with the capacity to house perhaps millions of people? Sect. 1042 of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," gives the executive the power to invoke martial law.

For the first time in more than a century, the president is now authorized to use the military in response to "a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack or any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order." The
Military Commissions Act of 2006, rammed through Congress just before the 2006 midterm elections, allows for the indefinite imprisonment of anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on a list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies.

The law calls for secret trials for citizens and noncitizens alike.  Also in 2007, the White House quietly issued
National Security Presidential Directive 51 (NSPD-51), to ensure "continuity of government" in the event of what the document vaguely calls a "catastrophic emergency." Should the president determine that such an emergency has occurred, he and he alone is empowered to do whatever he deems necessary to ensure "continuity of government."

This could include everything from canceling elections to suspending the Constitution to launching a nuclear attack. Congress has yet to hold a single hearing on NSPD-51. U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County) has come up with a new way to expand the domestic "war on terror." Her
Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (HR1955), which passed the House by the lopsided vote of 404-6, would set up a commission to "examine and report upon the facts and causes" of so-called violent radicalism and extremist ideology, then make legislative recommendations on combating it.

According to commentary in the Baltimore Sun, Rep. Harman and her colleagues from both sides of the aisle believe the country faces a native brand of terrorism, and needs a commission with sweeping investigative power to combat it.  A clue as to where Harman's commission might be aiming is the Animal Enterprise
Terrorism Act, a law that labels those who "engage in sit-ins, civil disobedience, trespass, or any other crime in the name of animal rights" as terrorists. Other groups in the crosshairs could be anti-abortion protesters, anti-tax agitators, immigration activists, environmentalists, peace demonstrators, Second Amendment rights supporters ... the list goes on and on.

According to author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of roughly 775,000 "terror suspects" with the number increasing by 20,000 per month. What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?  The Constitution does not allow the executive to have unchecked power under any circumstances. The people must not allow the president to use the war on terrorism to rule by fear instead of by law (San Francisco Chronicle, 2008)
.


9. MASS GRAVES

OBAMACSI.COM:
Mass coffins have been appearing in strategic locations throughout the Unites States over the last couple of years. While U.S. government officials explain that the coffins are for catastrophic emergencies, there is a growing suspicion amongst Americans that something far more sinister may be going on. Whatever catastrophic event is about to transpire, the U.S. federal government will be able to bury hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in an extremely short amount of time.

Title: Military Industrial Complex Prepares Mass Graves For U.S. Citizens
Date: March 25, 2009
Source:
Infowars

Abstract: A usually quiet U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Cemetery, has been unusually active lately. The National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona is a beautiful 225 acre facility located in Phoenix.

YouTube-Video

For the past 30-45 days in the early hours of the morning until sunset, a massive construction operation has been underway. Major amounts of earth have been excavated out about 9-10 feet deep and 600-1000 feet wide. There is multiple locations on the property like this. From the satellite view there appears to be more sections that have been covered with the concrete lids and backfilled to look as if nothing is there. ABC rock is put in place under the burial vaults for good drainage and solid bedding. This will help not contaminate ground water sources from decomposition of human bodies. The cleanliness of the heavy equipment operation and the large perfect cuts of earth is im pressive. These Massive concrete boxes are transported from a nearby storage yard on various privately owned flatbed semi-trucks, then unloaded and put into place a half mile away at the actual mass grave site. They are installed tight together side by side with no space in between.
An interview was conducted between my friend and a truck driver involved in this operation. After beating around the bush for ten minutes, the driver admitted “ I got paid a whole lot of money to speak good english.” Take it for what it’s worth but that sounds suspect. The truck driver also admitted “Each burial vault holds four caskets.”
I took note that if caskets were not used you could fit 40 bodies or more in each one.

So if these were to hold four troops each and the truck driver did know what he was talking about; this would mean that there are plans in advance for over 4000 U.S. soldiers deaths.
If these are not to contain caskets and only bodies are inserted there could be room for over 40,000 civilians bodies (Infowars, 2009). 

YouTube Video

Title: Is FEMA & DHS Preparing For Mass Graves And Martial Law Near Chicago?
Date: February 13, 2009
Source: Infowars

Abstract: An Indiana county municipal official in the vicinity of Chicago reveals the contents of his meetings with FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. The initial requests seem reasonable enough when FEMA asks the county officials to prepare a Hazard Mitigation Plan to deal with flooding, fires, high winds and tornadoes.
But as the required meetings and calls with FEMA and DHS continue over a two year period their request become more unusual, raising suspicions of county officials
“We want to know every important thing in this county. We want to know where police departments are. Where weapons are stored. Hazardous material. Where can we land a helicopter. Where are the airports. How big a plane can you land at the airport. Where are all the bridges. Where are all the power stations. Where are all the generating stations.Where are all the substations. They literally wanted to know where everything was. I’m sitting there thinking man if there was ever martial law. This kind of information is exactly the kind of stuff they are going to want. We’re just laying it all out for them right there.”
During the legally mandated meetings held with FEMA and DHS different disaster scenarios were reveled to county officials:
1. In late December 2008 municipal officials were invited to Indianapolis for a briefing on the state of Indiana. There were told if industry were to collapse for example GM going bankrupt resulting in mass unemployment a depression would soon follow and municipalities could expect to loose 40% of their funds.
2. Every county in the nation would be required to prepare a Hazard Mitigation Plan.
3. The county should prepare a plan to vaccinate the entire population within 48 hours and practice the plan several times
4. FEMA inquired to where mass graves could be placed in the county and would they accept bodies from elsewhere.
5. The sheriff’s department via the state sheriff association was told that no .223 ammunition rounds would be available as the military would be purchasing all stocks.
6. The county was asked to make plans for “hardening” of police and fire stations, putting in hardened bunker type buildings around town.
7. The county was asked to make plans for the possibility of up to 400,000 refugees from Chicago (Infowars, 2009). 


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Russian War Games send a strong message against NATO intervention in Syria?

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Russian Ship in Black Sea
Is there a connection between events in Syria (maybe even US tension with North Korea) and Russia’s impromptu Black Sea war games that started on March 28, 2013?
While on his way from Durban in South Africa, where the BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — announced they were forming a new development bank to challenge the IMF and World Bank, Russia’s Vladimir Putin gave the go ahead for unscheduled war games in the Black Sea. By themselves the games mean little, but in a global context they mean a lot.
According to the Kremlin, the war games involved about 7,000 Russian servicemen; Russian Special Forces, Russian Marines, and airborne rapid deployment troops. All of Russia’s different services were involved and used the exercises to test their interoperability. Over thirty Russian warships based out of the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol in the Crimean Peninsula and the Russian port of Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai will be participating. The objective of the games are to show that Russia could mobilize for any event at a moments notice.
A ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet during large-scale military exercises Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered while flying back from the South African Republic to Moscow. (Screen shot of a video of Zvezda TV channel).(RIA Novosti)
A ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet during large-scale military exercises Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered while flying back from the South African Republic to Moscow. (Screen shot of a video of Zvezda TV channel).(RIA Novosti)

The war games surprised the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Who even complained the Russian war games started in the Black Sea without prior notice. In fact, NATO asked Russia to be more open about its moves and give NATO Headquarters in Brussels notice of its military movements in the future. Alexander Vershbow, the American Deputy Secretary General of NATO, even demanded “maximum transparency” from Russia. One may ask, why the rattled bones?

Russian response to war plans against the Syrians?

Is it mere coincidence that Russia is flexing its muscles after NATO revealed it was developing contingency plans for a Libya-style intervention in Syria on March 20? Two days later, Israel and Turkey ended their diplomatic row through a timely agreement that was supposedly brokered by US President Barack Obama in twenty minutes while he was visiting Israel. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that with Obama’s help a deal was made with Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Erdogan to end the diplomatic rift over the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara in 2010.
Days later, this event was followed by the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) — a phoney opposition organization constructed by the US, UK, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey — being ceremoniously given Syria’s seat at the Arab League. In what appears to be an attempt at repeating the Libya scenario, the SNC is being recognized as the government of Syria. At the Arab League summit, the SNC’s leader Moaz Al-Khatib immediately called for NATO military intervention in coordination with Qatar’s call for regime change and military intervention in Damascus on March 26.

Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib.(AFP Photo / Karim Sahib)
Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib.(AFP Photo / Karim Sahib)

In a stage-managed move, the puppet SNC has asked the US, UK, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and NATO to enforce a no-fly zone with the aim of creating a SNC-controlled emirate or enclave in northern Syria. Al-Khatib has announced that he has talked to US Secretary of State John Kerry to use the NATO Patriot Missiles stationed in Turkey to create the no-fly zone over northern Syria. Effectively what he is talking about is the balkanization of Syria. Kerry seems to be on top of it. Victoria Nuland, the spokeswoman of the US Department of State, said the US is considering the request about imposing a no-fly zone. Even earlier, Kerry made a surprise visit to Baghdad and threatened the federal government in Iraq to fall into line with Washington’s regime change plans against Syria. He said he wanted the Iraqis to check Iranian passenger planes heading to Syria for weapons, but much more was said.
The American Empire’s satraps are all on the move. Qatar and Saudi Arabia no longer hide the fact that they are arming and funding the insurgents in Syria. In February, the UK and France lobbied the rest of the European Union to lift its Syrian arms embargo, so that they can openly arm the anti-government foreign fighters and militias that are trying to topple the Syrian government. Israel and Turkey have been forced to mend fences for the sake of the Empire’s war on the Syrians.

Obama realigns Israel and Turkey against Syria

The Israeli and Turkish rapprochement conveniently fits the aligning chessboard. Obama’s visit to Israel was about imperial politics to maintain the American Empire. As two hostile neighbours of Syria, Tel Aviv and Ankara will have deeper cooperation in the Empire’s objectives to topple the Syrian government. All of a sudden, the governments in both countries started complaining in line with one another about how the humanitarian situation in Syria was threatening them. In reality, Israel is not hosting any Syrian refugees (and oppresses Syrians under its occupation in the Golan) whereas Turkey has actually neglected many of its legal and financial obligations to the Syrian refugees it hosts on its territory and has tried to whitewash this by labeling them as foreign “guests.”

A child watches a woman washing a bassin at the Syrian refugee camp 5km from Diyarbakir, on the the way between Diyarbakir and Mardin, after snowfall, on January 9, 2013.(AFP Photo / Stringer)
A child watches a woman washing a bassin at the Syrian refugee camp 5km from Diyarbakir, on the the way between Diyarbakir and Mardin, after snowfall, on January 9, 2013.(AFP Photo / Stringer)

According to Agence France-Presse, the Israelis have even opened a military field hospital to help the insurgents topple the Syrian government. The military facility is located in an area named Fortification 105 in Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights (originally referred to as the Syrian Heights in Israel). It is essentially a support base for anti-government forces and only the tip of the iceberg in regards to Israeli involvement in Syria. Israel’s January strikes on Syria were the fruits of the cooperation between the Israelis and insurgent militias.
Sensing the suspicious eyes gazing at the Turkish government and perhaps getting unnerved by the Kremlin’s muscle flexing, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has rejected the claims that Tel Aviv and Ankara were closing ranks against Syria. Davutoglu must have been unaware of what was said in Israel about their rapprochement. Even though Netanyahu vowed never to apologize for the killing of Turkey’s citizens on the Mavi Marmara, Tel Aviv’s apology to Turkey was publicly justified by the Israeli government on the basis of addressing Syria through coordination with Turkey. Many of the suspicious eyes that turned to look at Erdogan’s government over the deal with Israel are Turkish. Davutoglu actually lied for domestic consumption, knowing full well that the Turkish public would be outraged to know that Prime Minister Erdogan was really normalizing ties with Israel to topple the Syrian government.

The message(s) of the Russian war games

The American Empire is arranging the geopolitical chessboard with is satraps in its ongoing war on Syria. Perhaps it plans on using Israel to do a re-play of the Suez Crisis. In 1956, after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, the UK and France drew a plan with Israel to annex the Suez Canal by getting Israel to attack Egypt and then claiming to intervene militarily as concerned parties who wanted to keep the Suez Canal safe and open for international maritime traffic. A new assault against Syria under the banners of the Israelis is possible and could be used as an excuse for a Turkish and NATO “humanitarian invasion” that could result in the creation of a northern humanitarian buffer zone (or a broader war).
A pattern can be depicted from all these events. At the start of 2013, Russia held major naval drills in the Eastern Mediterranean against a backdrop of tension between Moscow and the US-led NATO and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) coalition that has been destabilizing Syria. After the US and its anti-Syrian coalition threatened to intervene militarily and deployed Patriot missiles on Turkey’s southern border with Syria, a Russian naval flotilla was dispatched off the Syrian coast to send a strong message to Washington not to have any ideas of starting another war. In turn, the US and its allies tried to save face by spreading rumours that the Kremlin was preparing to evacuate Russian citizens from Syria, because the Syrian government was going to collapse and the situation was going to get critical.

A ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet during large-scale military exercises Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered while flying back from the South African Republic to Moscow. (Screen shot of a video of Zvezda TV channel).(RIA Novosti)
A ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet during large-scale military exercises Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered while flying back from the South African Republic to Moscow. (Screen shot of a video of Zvezda TV channel).(RIA Novosti)

Paralleling the Russian war games in the Black Sea, the Russian Air Force held long-range flights across Russia. This included flights by Russian nuclear strategic bombers. On the other end of Eurasia, China also conducted its own surprise naval war games in the South China Sea. While the US and its allies portrayed the Chinese moves as a threat to Vietnam over disputed territory in the South China Sea, the timing of the naval deployment could be linked to either Syria (or North Korea) and coordinated with Russia to warn the US to keep the international peace.
In a sign of the decline of the American Empire, just before the Russian war games in the Black Sea, all the increasingly assertive BRICS leaders warned the US against any adventurism in Syria and other countries. The Russian and Chinese muscle flexing are messages that tell Washington that Beijing and Moscow are serious and mean what they say. At the same time, these events can be read as signs that the world-system is coming under new management.
This article was originally published on RT Op-Edge.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Worse than the Great Depression: Mass Unemployment, 100 Million Americans Live in Poverty

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Economic Lies: Fake Unemployment and Inflation Figures Sustain the Illusion of an Economic Recovery
Workers in the United States are in a very difficult situation—one made significantly worse by the Great Recession and the very slow “recovery.” The latest data as we write this (available for January 2013) indicates that although the unemployment rate has declined from its peak and is now at 7.9 percent, when those working part time but wanting full-time jobs and those who have given up looking for work are added in, 14.4 percent of the labor force currently needs full-time employment.1 
To give some idea of the meaning of such a large percentage needing full-time jobs, this represents 22 million people, compared to total nonfarm private-sector employment of about 113 million. Given the large portion of workers in part-time positions, there are currently less than 100 million full-time-equivalent jobs left in the private sector.2 With the public sector hiring few if any workers for the foreseeable future, and no New Deal-type works program in the cards, the private sector will be the source of whatever job increases occur.
As if the current employment situation is not bad enough, there has also been a long-term decline in the relative power of the working class, with capital increasingly gaining the upper hand. One crucial indication of this is the stagnation or decline over decades of real wages (corrected for inflation). For a while workers’ lost ground with respect to wages was compensated for by more women entering the labor force so that households increasingly had two earners, helping to maintain household income. However, over the last decade there has even been a downward trend in median family income—decreasing from $54,841 in 2000 to $50,054 in 2011 (both in 2011 dollars).3 The financial impact of the Great Recession has had a devastating effect on many people—with millions declaring bankruptcy, losing homes to foreclosure, or being forced “underwater” (owing more than the worth) on their homes.
Although there were numerous other factors at work, President Reagan’s 1981 firing of striking air traffic controllers, replacing them with nonunionized workers, was a turning point in the class war, leading to the decline of workers’ power. This action set a tone for private business that made it “acceptable” to break strikes by bringing in scab labor. Labor legislation protecting workers’ right to organize was weakened. The various unanswered attacks on both private- and public-sector labor that took place helped reverse the generally favorable view of unions on the part of the public. Consequently, the number of unionized workers has decreased dramatically, with public-sector workers providing now most of the total union membership, and attacks on unions increasingly focused on the public-sector. Total union membership dropped by 2.8 percent in 2012 to 11.3 percent of the workforce, the lowest in the entire post-Second World War period, with more than half the union-membership loss occurring in government jobs. Both the number of strikes and the workdays lost due to strikes have plummeted over the last four decades.4
Among the arsenal of tools at capital’s disposal that added to the decline of working-class power, perhaps the most important was the ability of bosses to outsource a portion of the work or actually move entire factories—first to low-wage parts of the United States and, more recently, offshoring jobs to Asia and elsewhere to take advantage of low wages and lax environmental laws. Even the mere threat to move factories and jobs to lower-wage areas has frequently been enough to subdue labor—and understandably so. With employment growth anemic at best, workers have been concerned that if they lost their jobs they might not be able to find new ones—or ones as good. In the words of a recent New York Timesheadline, the “Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages.”5
Another long-term trend that has weakened labor has been the increasing use of part-time employees—anyone working from 1 to 34 hours per week is officially considered part time. Since the 1970s there has been a general increase in the use of part-time labor, which now makes up approximately 20 percent of all employed workers. During the Great Recession when more than 11 million full-time jobs were lost, there was actually a gain in part timers—so that the reported net loss of jobs, 8.7 million, did not give a full picture of what was happening.6 Many part-time workers are in especially difficult work environments, with new computerized scheduling programs able to tell bosses the number of workers needed during different days of the week—and even at different times during the day. As a result, many part-timers, especially in retail sales, do not have fixed schedules that they can count on. This makes it more difficult to work at a second part-time job. An additional problem for labor in the current environment is that, of the workers hired during the “recovery” from the Great Recession, over 750,000 of these jobs were supplied by temporary help services, leaving these employees with a precarious hold on their jobs.7
Labor’s Share
James K. Galbraith examined the “squeeze on wages from the 1950s–1990s,” discovering that the wage and salary share of personal income declined every decade on average throughout this period.8 Recently, a number of studies by quite “reputable” sources have appeared—especially one by staff at the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank and one by the Congressional Budget Office—showing the decline in the share of the economy going to labor seen in the last half of the twentieth century has continued into the present century.9 Using different assumptions and approaches they developed three different calculations, all of which indicated that labor’s share has been declining for some time.
Determining labor’s share of the pie obviously raises a number of methodological questions, as there are various ways to calculate this. Labor’s share of income can be estimated on the basis of either (a) wages and salaries received by workers or (b) total compensation. The latter includes, in addition to wages and salaries, benefits provided by employers—both legally required insurance entitling the employee to benefits in the event of ill-health, unemployment, disability, and old-age retirement, and also voluntary benefits such as paid leave and life insurance. These benefits differ considerably. Some, such as Social Security and Medicare, are genuine social insurance programs. Others, such as the Health Management Organizations (HMOs) in which workers are enrolled by their employers, are private insurance programs, where workers are required to pay a large and increasing portion of the cost, generating high profits to insurance companies and offering diminishing use-value per benefit dollar to employees.10
It is important to recognize that benefits received by employees—distinguishing total compensation from mere wages and salaries—are very unevenly divided in the U.S. economy. They vary by (a) whether the worker is full time or part time—benefits represent 31 percent of total compensation for private sector full-time workers but only 21 percent for part-time employees; (b) union or nonunion—benefits are approximately 41 percent of all compensation for unionized goods-producing employees versus 31 percent for nonunion employees doing similar jobs; and (c) job type—for example, benefits represent 34 percent of total compensation for full-time “information” employees versus 29 percent for full-time service employees.11
Depending on the nature of the question, then, one may wish to emphasize either total compensation or wages and salaries in analyzing labor’s share, comparing them alternately to GDP (or some other national-income indicator) or to private-sector output. In all cases, however, the general trends are very similar. Movements of total compensation and wages and salaries generally rise and fall together. This means, according to The State of Working America for 2012, “that analyses…that focus on wage trends” alone as opposed to total compensation “are using an appropriate proxy for compensation, at least on average.”12
Here, we shall look separately at the shares of GDP represented by total compensation and wages and salaries. The upper line in Chart 1 shows the total compensation of all employees receiving wages and salaries—workers and managers in the government and private sectors—as a percent of GDP, while the lower line is restricted to total compensation of private-sector employees as a percent of GDP. Comparing the two lines, we can see that after a brief rise in the late 1960s a plateau emerges in the labor share of GDP for all employees (upper line), persisting through much of the 1970s, followed by a downward trend to the present. In contrast, the labor share of GDP for private sector employees alone (lower line) exhibits no increase in the 1960s, and a decline from the 1980s to the present. The slight rise in the labor share for all employees in the late 1960s along with the plateau for much of the ‘70s can therefore be attributed almost entirely to the increase in government employment in these years. This corresponded to the Vietnam War, the Great Society, and the Nixon Family Assistance Program, and to state and local government hiring to staff new schools and expand police and fire departments in the burgeoning suburbs. In the second half of 1966, during the big buildup of the Vietnam War, military expenditures accounted for half of the total increase in GDP.13 Overall, there was a huge increase in civilian government employees—federal, state, and local—in this period with civilian government employment as a percentage of all nonfarm employment rising from 15.6 percent in 1960 to its post-Second World War peak of 19.2 percent in 1975.14
Chart 1. Total Labor Compensation as a Percent of GDP
Chart 1. Total Labor Compensation as a Percent of GDP
Sources: “All employees” is government plus private sector employee. Compensation for government employees from Table 1.13, “National Income by Sector, Legal Form of Organization, and Type of Income,” National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA), Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA); Compensation for private sector employees, is from unpublished Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data; “Gross Domestic Product” (GDP), St. Louis Federal Reserve (FRED Database), http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2. BLS data for private sector compensation provided by personal communication from the Supervisory Economist, Office of Productivity and Technology Division of Major Sector Productivity.
Not surprisingly, this period was one of relative prosperity for workers. The average rate of real growth of the U.S. economy was higher in the 1950s and ‘60s than in the ‘70s. But even in the 1970s the economic growth rate exceeded that of the three decades that were to follow.15
Chart 1 shows that total compensation of both all employees and private sector employees as a percent of GDP continued a downward slide for most of the 1980s, ‘90s, and the first decade of this century. However, a brief bump up was experienced in the second half of the 1990s. The temporary rise in the compensation share at that time was mainly a product of the dot-com financial boom, which turned into a bust in 2000. The bursting of the dot-com bubble led to a sudden drop in the compensation share, which was given an added downward push by the Great Recession less than a decade later.
Wages and salaries, as distinct from total compensation, are especially important for workers at the lower-income levels, since this is the basis of their everyday consumption, constituting their means of subsistence. As with total compensation—only more so—wages and salaries exhibited a strong downward trend as a percentage of national output of goods and services (Chart 2). Similar to what we observed in the case of the total-compensation share, a brief, cyclical increase in the wage share is evident for all employees in the late 1960s and early ‘70s (upper line). But just as we saw with respect to total compensation, this short-term increase in the wage share disappears once we look at the wages and salaries of private-sector employees as a percent of GDP (lower line). Hence, the rising wage share for all employees in these years is once again explained primarily by the expansion of government employment, and subsequently eroded along with the decline of government consumption and investment as a percent of GDP beginning in the 1970s.16 It was not until the late 1990s dot-com bubble that one again sees significant employment gains, as well as modest increases in wages and salaries, resulting in a very brief increase in the share of wages and salaries in GDP—though never approaching its previous peaks, and plummeting thereafter.
Chart 2. Wages and Salaries as a Percent of GDP
Chart 2. Wages and Salaries as a Percent of GDP
Sources: Salary and wages for all employees and private sector employees from Table 1.12, NIPA, BEA; GDP, FRED Database.
Overall the decline in real wages (corrected for inflation) since the 1970s has been sharp. As David Gordon observed in 1996 in Fat and Mean, by the early 1990s the real hourly spendable earnings of private nonproduction/nonsupervisory employees in the United States had fallen “below the level they had last reached in 1967…. Referring to these trends since the early 1970s as ‘the wage squeeze’ is polite understatement. Calling it the ‘wage collapse’ might be more apt.”17 While the real hourly wage for all nonfarm private workers has declined, weekly (or annual) wages and salaries have fallen even faster. In the early 1970s the average earnings of nonfarm private workers was over $340 per week (in 1982–1984 dollars). Earnings of these workers declined rapidly to less than $270 per week in the early 1990s, rebounding to $294 per week by 2011—still close to 15 percent less than in 1973.18 The decline in real income per week was the product of two trends: (1) stagnating and declining real hourly wages and (2) the decline of hours worked per week. As more people worked part time, the average hours worked in private sector nonfarm jobs declined from 38.6 hours in 1965 to 33.6 hours in 2011.19 It was this combination of declining real wages and fewer hours worked that left workers poorer and in more precarious positions.
A Look at Class Divisions and Wages
The labor share of income as depicted above in terms of both total employee compensation and wages and salaries as shares of GDP is of course a very crude indicator of what is happening to the working-class income, downplaying the actual fall in working-class wages and salaries as a share of GDP. This is because the aggregate data also includes the compensation going to CEOs and other upper-level management, which ought to be counted as income to capital rather than labor. The wages and salaries (and benefits) of higher management positions have been rising in leaps and bounds in recent decades while workers’ wages at the bottom have lost ground. Consequently, the actual decline in wages as a share of GDP is much sharper where the working class itself is concerned. An examination of real hourly wages 1979–2011 by income decile (up to the 95th percentile) shows that the real hourly wage of the bottom decile shrank in absolute terms over the period, while that of the top decile increased by more than 35 percent.20 Thus, although the wage share of income has sharply dropped in the U.S. economy, this decline has not been shared equally, and applies mainly to what is properly called the working class, i.e., the bottom 80 percent or so of wage and salary workers.
We should add, parenthetically, that the term “working class” is hardly used in the dominant discourse in the United States today. Many workers conceive of themselves as part of the “middle class” because they have come to think of their income as providing them with a “middle-class lifestyle”—and because they consider themselves above “the poor,” who have been converted in the ruling ideology into the entire lower class (or underclass), leaving out the working class altogether. Nevertheless, from a perspective that focuses on class as a power relation the working class rightly includes all those who work for wages or salaries and are not in a management or predominantly supervisory position—and who are also not high-level professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, and accountants. Some members of the working class might be paid very well, but they still have the same basic relationship of worker to capital or “the boss.”21
There is no routine collection of statistics on the entire working class. The closest that the official statistics come to in this respect is in the standard private-sector reporting category called “production and nonsupervisory” workers, which includes “production workers in the goods-producing industries and nonsupervisory workers in the service-providing industries.” Although comprising some 90 million employees (about 80 percent of private-sector workers), it is a very rough approximation of the U.S. working class, leaving out many who should be counted.22 The residual group of private-sector employees not considered in this category, which we refer to in this article as “management, supervisory, and other nonproduction employees,” undoubtedly includes many employees who might well be considered part of the working class. Moreover, the production and nonsupervisory workers category applies only to the private sector and thus leaves out all government workers, many of whom, such as those who work in the post office, public schools, and local police, should be included within the total working class. So while the data tells us a lot, we must recognize its inadequacies. Still, it is the best statistical basis available for looking at the working class as a whole, as inadequate as it may be.
Chart 3 provides data related to production and nonsupervisory employees. While the share of the GDP going to the wages and salaries of all private employees has, as we have seen, decreased dramatically (lower line in chart 2), the drop in the wage income of production and nonsupervisory workers as depicted here has been even more startling. Chart 3 shows that private-sector production and nonsupervisory workers have remained a fairly constant percentage of all private employment from the mid–1960s to the present. (See the top line in the chart, indicating that these workers represented around 83 percent of all private sector workers in both 1965 and 2011.) Nevertheless, the share of production and nonsupervisory workers in the total private sector payroll dropped from over 75 percent in 1965 to less than 55 percent during the Great Recession, and has only risen slightly since.
Chart 3. Number and Payroll of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees as a Percent of Total Private Sector
Chart 3. Number and Payroll of Production and Nonsupervisory Employees as a Percent of Total Private Sector
Sources: Number of private sector production and nonsupervisory employees from BLS Series CES0500000006; Total private sector employees from “All Employees: Total Private Industries” (USPRIV), FRED database; Annual payroll of production and nonsupervisory is calculated from weekly aggregate payroll, BLS Series CES0500000082; Aggregate payroll of all private employees from Table 1.12, NIPA, BEA.
The implication of this, of course, is that the management, supervisory and other nonproduction employees at the top, representing around 17 percent of private employees, receive more than 40 percent of private sector wage and salary income—and this share is rising.
We see the contrasts even more clearly when we look in Chart 4 at the shares of GDP going to the two separate groups that make up private employees—production and nonsupervisory employees versus what we have labeled as management, supervisory, and other nonproduction employees. Wages and salaries received by the upper levels of private employees actually increased from 1965 to the present as a share of GDP. At the same time, those of the over 80 percent of private-sector workers in the production and nonsupervisory worker category saw their wages and salaries decline dramatically, from over 30 percent of the GDP to about 20 percent in 2011. Hence, the rapidly declining wage share in the monopoly-finance-capital period since the mid–1970s stagflation crisis fell entirely on the backs of working-class employees.
Chart 4. Wages and Salaries of Private Sector Employees as a Percent of GDP
Chart 4. Wages and Salaries of Private Sector Employees as a Percent of GDP
Sources: Same as Chart 3, with share of GDP to “Management, supervisory and other nonproductive employees” calculated by subtraction of wages and salaries of “production and nonsupervisory employees” from wages and salaries of all private sector employees.
Given this background of high unemployment, lower-wage jobs, and smaller portions of the pie going to workers, it should come as no surprise that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 50 million people in the United States live in poverty (with income in 2011 below $23,021 for a family of four) while another 50 million live between the poverty level and twice the poverty level—one paycheck away from economic disaster.23 Thus, the poor (those in poverty or near poverty), most of whom belong to the working poor, account for approximately 100 million people, fully one-third of the entire U.S. population.
Writing more than a decade ago, Bill Moyers commented on the plight of labor as follows: “Our business and political class owes us better than this. After all, it was they who declared class war 20 years ago, and it was they who won. They’re on top.”24 However, the way the system works, the ruling class does not owe workers anything aside from wages and salary earned and legally required benefits. And the attack on labor—its unions, wages, working conditions, social programs, and even legally required benefits—continues to this day.
Wage repression and high unemployment are the dominant realities of our time. A vast redistribution of income—Robin Hood in reverse—is occurring that is boosting the share of income to capital, even in a stagnating economy. Is it any wonder, then, that for years on end polls have shown a majority of the population agreeing with the statement that the United States is on the wrong track and not headed in the right direction?25
Fred Magdoff is professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont. 
John Bellamy Foster is editor ofMonthly Review and professor of sociology at University of Oregon. They are the coauthors of The Great Financial Crisis(2009) and What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism (2011)—both published by Monthly Review Press.
Notes
  1. ↩ U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Economic News Release, Alternative Measures of Labor Utilization, Table A-15,http://bls.gov.
  2. ↩ Ninety-six million full time equivalent private sector workers calculated assuming a forty hour work week and using actual hours worked per week from Average Weekly Hours Of All Employees: Total Private (AWHAETP) and number of private employees from All Employees: Total Private Industries (USPRIV), from St. Louis Federal Reserve FRED database, http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/, December 30, 2012.
  3. ↩ U.S. Census Bureau, Historical Income Tables: Households, Table H-6. Regions—All Races by Median and Mean, http://census.gov.
  4. ↩ Melanie Trottman and Kris Maher, “Organized Labor Loses Members,” Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2013,http://online.wsj.com.
  5. ↩ Catherine Rampell, “Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages, Study Finds,” New York Times, August 30, 2012,http://nytimes.com.
  6. ↩ St. Louis Federal Reserve, FRED database, Employed, Usually Work Part Time (LNS12600000), January 4, 2013, http://research.stlouisfed.org.
  7. ↩ Bureau of Labor Statistics database, Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National), Employees Temporary Help Services (series ID CES6056132001), http://data.bls.gov.
  8. ↩ James K. Galbraith, Created Unequal (New York: The Free Press, 1998), 82–83.
  9. ↩ Margaret Jacobson and Filippo Occhino, “Behind the Decline in Labor’s Share of Income,” Cleveland Federal Reserve, 2012, http://clevelandfed.org; Congressional Budget Office, What Accounts for the Slow Growth of the Economy After the Recession? (see Figure 7, p. 14), 2012, http://cbo.gov. Galbraith’s data here shows that direct income to capital in the form of interest, dividends, and rent increased from 10 percent of personal income in the 1940s to 17 percent in the 1990s.
  10. ↩ Data on total compensation also includes “other compensation” such as bonuses and stock options mainly applying to upper-level management. It does not, however, include capital gains which are the main source of the increasing wealth of the capitalist class.
  11. ↩ Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, “Employer Costs for Employee Compensation” database,http://bls.gov.
  12. ↩Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America, 12th edition (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 182.
  13. ↩ MichaÅ‚ Kalecki, The Last Phase of Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), 110.
  14. ↩ Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Survey, http://bls.gov.
  15. ↩ John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff, Great Financial Crisis (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012), 129.
  16. ↩ On government spending (government consumption and investment) as a percent of GDP over the post-Second World War period, see John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney, “A New New Deal Under Obama?,”Monthly Review 60, no. 9 (February 2009): 4–5.
  17. ↩ David M. Gordon, Fat and Mean (New York; Free Press, 1996), 19–20.
  18. ↩ Calculated from Table B-47 of the 2012 Economic Report of the President, http://gpo.gov.
  19. ↩ Table B-47, Hours and earnings in private nonagricultural industries, 1965–2011, 2012 Economic Report of the President, http://gpo.gov.
  20. ↩ Economic Policy Institute, The State of Working America, 12th edition, 186. The data goes up to the ninety-fifth percentile and does not include the income of the top 5 percent of the population.
  21. ↩ See Michael Zweig, “Six Points on Class,” in Michael Yates, ed., More Unequal (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007), 173–82. In a larger sense the working class also can be seen as including many of those on public assistance and who have retired as well, along with dependents. But we are dealing here only with the working class as a component of the officially designated labor force.
  22. ↩ From St. Louis Federal Reserve FRED database, Production and Nonsupervisory Employees: Total Private (CES0500000006), updated January 1, 2013, http://research.stlouisfed.org.
  23. ↩ Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, Jessica C. Smith, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011, United States Census Bureau, 2012, http://census.gov.
  24. ↩ Bill Moyers, “Which America Will We Be Now?,” The Nation 271, no. 16 (November 19, 2001): 11–14.
  25. ↩ “Right Direction or Wrong Track: 35% Say U.S. Heading in the Right Direction,” Rasmussen Reports, January 23, 2013, http://rasmussenreports.com.

IF THE FBI WAS SO GOOD WHY HAVENT THEY ARRESTED OBAMA FOR ALL THE CRIMES HE DID

Anti-Terror TrainingTeaming Up with West Point
05/30/08
fbi_ctc_logo.jpg
It’s a partnership that makes sense in the post-9/11 world: the FBI working closely with the prestigious Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, on a variety of training initiatives.
Established five years ago, the Center provides in-depth research, policy analysis, and education in matters relating to terrorism, counterterrorism, homeland security, and weapons of mass destruction. Its “clients” include representatives from all levels of government, undergraduate students, non-profit groups, and private enterprise.
Our collaboration started in 2006, when FBI counterterrorism executive T.J. Harrington got in touch with the Center as part of his efforts to strengthen training for our more than 100 Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) around the country. Says Harrington, “I knew the center by reputation and thought it could really augment our original training, helping JTTF members to put their investigations into context against the overall terrorism picture.”
Turns out, he was right. The Combating Terrorism Center quickly developed a three-day counterterrorism course specifically tailored to the needs of the Bureau and its task forces, focusing on understanding Islam, the roots of extremism, how terrorists use the Internet, and the origins and practices of terrorist networks like al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas. In mid-2006, Center instructors began traveling to select FBI field offices to conduct the class for JTTF personnel—which include FBI agents, analysts, and other support professionals, plus our non-Bureau task force partners.
The feedback so far? Extremely positive. “The history and background information allows you to understand why each organization believes what they do and why they do what they do,” said one participant. Offered another, “It gave me a clearer knowledge of where the bad guys are coming from…[and] has actually prompted me to seek out more information about the socio-economic-religious aspects of the terrorist ideology.”
That initiative was just the beginning. Since then, we’ve greatly expanded our involvement with the Combating Terrorism Center. Today, the Center:
  • Sponsors leadership retreats at West Point for our field office management and counterterrorism executives from Headquarters in Washington, who not only get a healthy dose of the latest counterterrorism training but also an opportunity to exchange ideas, to raise important issues, and to work together to help shape the Bureau’s counterterrorism strategies;
  • Provides each of our new agent classes with insightful historical and cultural information on current terrorism threats;
  • Takes part in intermediate career development training focused on Islamic ideology and Arabic culture for onboard counterterrorism agents; and
  • Offers training to our staff operations specialists who directly support our agents and analysts working counterterrorism issues.

Says T.J. Harrington about the training and expertise that the Combating Terrorism Center has provided so far: “It has been excellent at every level. It has been of tremendous value to our execs, agents, analysts, and partners. But the ultimate beneficiaries are the American people, who will be better protected from the threat of terrorism.”
Resources:
- FBI Training Academy

- More Training stories

Ft. Knox Update: civilian shot and killed

Posted: Apr 03, 2013 6:54 PM EDT Updated: Apr 03, 2013 10:58 PM EDT
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- An Army civilian employee is dead after a shooting incident that occurred Wednesday afternoon in a parking lot outside U.S. Army Human Resources Command headquarters at Fort Knox.
The victim, who was an employee of U.S. Army Human Resources Command, was transported by ambulance to Ireland Army Community Hospital where he was pronounced dead, officials said.
"Special Agents from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command are investigating a personal incident and not a random act of violence," said Chris Grey, spokesperson for the independent Army investigative agency, in a news release.
The incident prompted a lockdown of post, and security still is heightened at entrance and exit gates overnight.  Those coming to Fort Knox should expect delays.
The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of family, the post statement said.
Fort Knox Police received a 911 call around 5:40 p.m. Wednesday.
Police are interested in speaking with an individual who is described as follows: A 5-foot, 9-inch African-American male with black hair and brown eyes.
 It is believed he may be using a black Yamaha motorcycle for transportation.
Individuals who may have any information related to this incident are asked to contact the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command at (502) 624-6332 or Fort Knox Police at (502) 624-2111.
Full text of the Fort Knox news release, released just after 10 p.m.:
Fort Knox, Ky. – A Department of the Army civilian employee died after a shooting incident that occurred Wednesday afternoon in a parking lot outside U.S. Army Human Resources Command headquarters here.
The victim, who was an employee of U.S. Army Human Resources Command, was transported by ambulance to Ireland Army Community Hospital here where he was pronounced dead.
"Special Agents from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command are investigating a personal incident and not a random act of violence," said Chris Grey, spokesperson for the independent Army investigative agency.
The name of the deceased is being withheld until 24 hours after family notification.
Fort Knox Police received a 911 call around 5:40 p.m. and responded to the scene within minutes. 
Police are interested in speaking with an individual who is described as follows: A 5-foot, 9-inch African-American male with black hair and brown eyes.   It is believed he may be using a black Yamaha motorcycle for transportation.
Individuals who may have any information related to this incident are asked to contact the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command at (502) 624-6332 or Fort Knox Police at (502) 624-2111.
 As a standard security measure, Fort Knox's gates were locked down at about 5:50 p.m. to all inbound and outbound traffic.  About an hour later the Chaffee (Main) Gate fully reopened, but due to an enhanced security posture, people attempting to enter and exit from the Chaffee (Main) Gate will likely experience delays.  The Brandenburg Station Road Gate remains closed through the evening, as it is normally, and only outbound lanes at Wilson Road Gate are open at this time.
The incident is under investigation by agents of the Criminal Investigation Command.  No further information will be released at this time to protect the integrity of the investigation.
Copyright 2013 by WDRB News. All rights reserved.
NO ONE CARES ABOUT ME
I COULD DIE TODAY
AND NO ONE WILL EVEN KNOW I WAS GONE
SAD THAT ALL THESE PEOPLE TALK A GOOD GAME BUT THEY ARE A;; FAKE
A Colorado Sheriff  Responds To President Obama: http://youtu.be/mlwgZzeq8oI via @youtube