Posts tagged "Core"

Why does the New World Order want a one world government if they already control everything and profit from?

every war in the current system of nation states?

Question for believers in the NWO, new world order, people who believe the goal of the global elite is a one world government.

I’m NOT one of them, just interested how they see this. Isn’t the belief this elite has total power in the current system of nation states and always profit a lot from wars contradictory to the notion that their goal would be a one world government?

Maybe they have a good explanation, maybe not. Very interested either way.
DJnCSprings. Sometimes their is possesive, othter times it means they are and in your case the word you’re looking for is there.

I don’t do American idol and did my research. I interpret those leaders who spoke about it differently as you do. I believe in a new world order but interpret those wishes of the elite very differently than a one world government. They don’t need a one world government to establish a new world order. If you don’t get that I’m very sorry

Your patronizing attitude doesn’t hide the fact you obviously have no explenation
imback_missme

Thanks, can’t say we agree on the details but apreciate the answer.
Do you think they absolutely need a one world government to achieve this new ‘World Financial Order". or total control for that matter?
What’s from their perspective preferable about a one world government out in the open over the same control in the current system of nation states? Why would they give up their shadowy excistence that’s sucsesful, again from their point of view, in favor of open dictatorship? What’s the upsdie of that? They can have the total control withtout calling it a one world government or ending nation states, can’t they?
Seriously, aprciate your answer, please elaborate if you have thoughts about this.
zenmeister. The European constitution was rejected by the Netherlands and France, they lost. Even that agreement would have not overridden our domestic constitutions. Then the bureaucrats quit calling it constitution and tried to push a watered down version under the name The Treaty of Lisbon. Ireland rejected it in the only organized referendum on the matter, France and the Netherlands simply ratified it in parliament to avoid the population. The treaty explicitely states it will have to be ratified by each Member State in order for it to come into force. Ireland killed it, the EU bureaucrats lose again for now

http://europa.eu/lisbon_treaty/countries/index_en.htm#

Still the facts are very different from your understanding, that undermines your credibility. Regrettable
Giordano. You clearly misunderstood my ideas. I can’t be held responsible. Maybe you should have payed attention or I should have explained myself better, maybe a little of both but that’s done.

I tend to be hostile towards those who present lies, misdirections and nonsense as facts because they take attention away from the real issues and often misdirect people I care about into the dead end street of conspiracism.
Your capslock does not impress me, especially since you apparantly don’t even understand the quotes you use to make your point.
"The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole"
Dominate the political system of EACH country, they don’t need a one world government. One world government fetishism is a distraction. They can win without the misdirected nationalists even noticing.
47, that’s a great answer. Thanks for taking the time. Your answer does tell how you see it and why it’s not nessecarily contradictory.
I also apreciate the fact you recognize they could very well give in on the semantic part of the issue which in my opinion also means those opposing this evil need to look further than words and terms. To try to say it in your terminology, the more people wake up about the new world order the more likely they will not sell their idea under that name. Another issue where this is very relevant is the whole Amero thing. You can have an effective monitairy union with fixed exchange rates without officially adopting one currency. In practise that’s also the same.
I just hope everyone continues to think, they will
DJnCSprings. I take being called a shill by you as a compliment. Thanks for the info. Why am I a shill though? Are your beliefs above questioning?
I question all things, including your ideas, my ideas, what governments tell, the people claiming to oppose the government and self proclaimed truth seekers say. I will accept no ideas unchecked, I’m not a sheeple.
I’m skeptical of all sides but give everyone a chance to express their view. Why is that a problem for you?
Truth is whatever survives the cleansing fires of skepticism after they have burned away error and superstition. The healthy growth of civilization depends on skepticism more than it does on faith. – Oliver Wendell Holmes
Giordano. Typical hostily and name calling for someone lacking ideas.
I didn’t ignore your first quote, I read it, it’s not news and not something we argue about. What’s there to say? What do you expect? Me saying that quote is false while it’s not? I’m not a liar.
I see you ignore the point I made. They can easily get all the control they want, an effective one world government in the shadows while out in the open continuing the illusion of nation states. It seems to work in the American electoreal system. Millions of Americans still believe they have free choice while the US is in fact already a dictatorship of the big banks and corporate interest and while most who voted for change Americans will get more of the same. I see as little reason for the elite to call themselves a one world government as for the US to openly call itself a dictatorship. The goal, total control, is more important than any name they use. The last point you make actually supports that notion
Giordano
That they can fool some or attempt to fool some by calling it something else is excactly the point of this whole question.
While you basically accuse me of shilling you fail to realize by insisting their goal is one world government, other people might be convinced they didn’t sucseed just as long as the US is called the US even at that time globalists/elitists, capitalists in my view, effectively control it all.
80 percent of Americans and possibly more around the world believe Obama is change. We both know better, we shouldn’t be fighting over the details where we disagree
Giordano for your and everyone elses information I’m against the CFR and other institutions like it. We do see their power and influence, even their goals, differently but we both reject them.
It’s like the whole Bilderberg group thing. My position is basically they will aproach and be able to effectively buy/ influence, steer any politician in the current setup because that setup is corrupt to the core while the conspiracists view is groups like bilderberg, CFR appoint their "agents" corrupting an otherwise legitimate system.
imback_missme, thanks for the edit. I happen to know zeitgeist and believe it’s full of inaccuracies (
But unlike with many other truth gurus I do believe the maker believes what he’s saying and addendum obviously appeals to me. Marxists like myself have been blaming the for profit system for decades. While Peter Jackson gets caught up in semantics I feel and denies Marxism is a solution his whole analysis testifies to the Marxist notion that the for prfit motive brings out the worst in humanity. I believe that and he usues footage of economic hitman, definetely a very good documentary
If I was a truther I’d be pro zietgeist but I’m not, loved the Alex Jones interview with Jackson, it’s recommended. If you like, respect zeitgeist but take Jones serious too you want to hear this.
Your contribution is very much apreciated
It’s Peter Joseph, not Jackson oops
Giordano, nothing stops you or anyone else from adding me as a contact or you from linking here to the answers you refer to. That would be the fastest way and that you don’t do that while sugesting they tell it all, says enough. I can’t read your mind and know what answers you refer to but yes I stand behind my answers in regards to conspiracism
You fail to understand my points and I don’t have to adress your quote, the one you don’t understand yourself or the other one. Your incoherent ramblings and accusations offer little insight into how you think and give me the impression your agenda is to surpress an open debate and discussion
Giordano. No I didn’t change my mind. The corruption comes from within, from the inherent faillure of the American political setup, that’s my position here and was my position there. I stand behind that answer, like I estimated you don’t understand.

Joining my contacts opens my whole Q&A, everyone knows that or can see for themselves, that’s enough
People with unfair power and privilege generally try to hold onto that unfair power and privilege. Sometimes they make plans that are not publicly announced. Sometimes they engage in illegal plots. Real conspiracies have been exposed throughout history. History itself, however, is not controlled by a vast timeless conspiracy. The powerful people and groups in society are hardly a "secret team" or a tiny club of "secret elites." The tendency to explain all major world events as primarily the product of a secret conspiracy is called conspiracism. The antidote to conspiracism is Power Structure Research based on some form of institutional, systemic or structural analysis that examines race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, class and other factors that are used to create inequality and oppression. Political Research Associates does not criticize conspiracism because we want to shield those with unfair power and privilege, but because we believe that conspiracism impedes attempts to
to build a social movement for real social justice, economic fairness, equality, peace, and democracy.

http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/index.html

Maybe you will understand the difference now but it’s very doubtful

First of all, everyone must understand that ‘profit’ is not the goal here. There are motives beyond simple greed, and I know it’s hard for anyone with a conscience to really imagine what must be going on in the minds of these elites. EDIT: They’re f*ckin psychopaths. It seems like they’re obsessed and compelled to play god, and recreate the world according to their vision.

Money is not the END, it is the MEANS. The same can be said of war. It IS all going somewhere. These people do not intend to use War as a geopolitical tool -forever-. EDIT: Albert Pike’s "three world wars" had a theoretical objective. He never mentioned a fourth (that I am aware of…).

Have you heard of the Iron Mountain Report? Whether real or a hoax, the question posed to this think tank was "how can we maintain Anglo-American dominance in a future devoid of war?" The consensus was that they would need a common threat (i.e. environmental) that the world could unite against.

Secondly, they don’t already have "total power" (it’s quite the contrary – they seem to be losing it!)

"Total power" is what they’ve always been after, that’s what they are using their money and their wars to get. If they HAD total control, then all their wealth could not buy them any more influence, could it? Then it would become worthless to them.

Moreover, if they DID already enjoy total global control, most of us would probably be dead right now, and we certainly wouldn’t be having this discussion.

Also, a "World Financial Order" …IS… a "world government" ! (for all intents and purposes)! If you attended the first day of NWO 101, then you should know the influence that central banking systems hold over national governments, and you should know that the difference between "World Financial Order" and "world government" is purely semantic.

"They can have the total control without calling it a one world government or ending nation states, can’t they?" EXACTLY. That is exactly what I expect them to do. They’re not going to just come out and announce one day: "Welcome to the New World Order! Here’s your new flag and your new money." Yes, nations will continue to exist (in name only) long after global governance has been established. That is a NECESSITY, or the people would obviously revolt.

Global dominance has been attempted by force before, and it did not succeed. Conquest by deception seems to be working far better, so far… and I expect the deception to continue, at least until the globalist institutions have become so strong that they can no longer be challenged.

So, no, there is nothing at all contradictory about the idea of using war and economic manipulation to steer the geopolitical landscape gradually towards "global governance" or whatever you choose to call it. It’s really the only way to accomplish this.

When describing the level of control the globalist elite actually have over world events, I commonly use the metaphor of trying to steer a huge ocean liner at high speed in choppy seas.

I hope that answers your question.

International Company and Ethics

International Company and Ethics
The issue of business ethics is engaging companies more and more – both domestically and internationally. This trend is accentuated by high-profile examples of breaches of accepted standards of ethical behavior. For example, the recent Enron case where inadequate checks and balances within the firm enabled unethical behavior to occur, a development made easier by the failure of the external auditor to fulfill its role properly. Assumptions about ethics and business are influenced inevitably by fundamental beliefs about the role of business in society. On the one hand, there are those who believe that the sole social responsibility of business is to generate profit. For some proponents of this view, profit generation itself takes on a moral dimension whereas others see profits as the key to wealth generation – the main way of addressing social issues (Davies, 1997, p. 88). On the other hand, others believe that the role of business is much broader than that of profit generation and that all those who are affected by the way a company operates – shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, the local community, future generations (especially in relation to environmental issues) – have a legitimate interest and stake in the way a company conducts itself.
Many of these concerns are relevant to business whether it is domestic or international in nature. However, international business poses particular challenges and questions over and above those facing purely domestic business. In order to reconcile doing business internationally and remain ethical, the company should follow the main principles of human rights, comply with legal norms related to labor, avoid corruption and correspond to standards of environmental protection. Even though it is not easy to combine making profit and adjusting to ethical principles, sometimes failure to comply with legal norms and standards my result in negative public image for the international company and loss of customers. Therefore, international company can suffer even more damages if it decides not to follow the ethical principles.
The first issue related to ethics is human rights. It is a generally accepted principle that international company should not engage in direct infringement of human rights the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is commonly taken as the appropriate benchmark. However, some people would go further, preferring companies to refrain from doing business in countries known to infringe human rights on a systematic basis. Opponents of this view argue that if an international company abstains from conducting business in a country with an ethically dubious regime, the only concrete result is to hand over business opportunities to companies without such reservations (Barlett and Ghoshall, 1998, p. 110).
On coming to office in 1992, for example, President Clinton proposed to withdraw MFN status from China as a result of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 in which many pro-democracy demonstrators were killed (Kepstein, 2001, p. 108). Such action would have provoked retaliation against US companies operating in China and US business lobbied hard to persuade the president to change his mind. They argued that US business interests would be irrevocably damaged in a rapidly growing market and that the outcome would not be an improvement in human rights in China but a boost to the business prospects of American business rivals in China. The lobbying campaign was successful: the link between trade and human rights was broken and replaced by the doctrine that the possibility of bringing about change is greater if business and other links and contacts are maintained.
International labor issues can be linked with human rights, especially regarding matters of forced labor and child labor. Ethical labor issues also occur outside the framework of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in circumstances where certain labor practices may be legal and commonplace in the host country but do not necessarily represent fair and equitable treatment of the workforce. The issue facing an international company is: does it maximize its competitive advantage by locating in a low-cost/low-regulation country and adopt local practices or does it refrain from reaping all the labor cost benefits by adopting higher standards and more ethical practices than strict compliance with local legal norms requires? A firm may choose to take the latter path and still experience significant competitiveness gains.
Corporate codes of conduct governing general corporate behavior and treatment of the workforce in particular are not new. Their modern manifestation began in the mid-twentieth century in the form of codes from the International Chamber of Commerce and other collective codes (Donaldson, 1989, p. 55). Their popularity surged once more in the 1990s in response to pressure from NGOs, the emergence of corporate social responsibility as a key consideration for firms and the phenomenon of socially responsible investment and shareholder action. Additionally, discussion of the possible inclusion of labour regulation under the WTO umbrella encouraged international firms to assume greater responsibility for their own labor standards, if only to demonstrate that international regulation was unnecessary. Corporate codes of conduct take many forms. Many international firms have developed their own individual codes to cover their own employees and those of their contractors and suppliers. Some industries have developed their own codes. Whatever form they take, codes are necessary for the positive public image of international company and they demonstrate that the company reconciles doing business and acting ethically. Codes need to comply with a number of conditions before they can be said to operate equitably and with credibility (DeGeorge, 1993, p. 88):
1.the contents of the code must be clearly worded and, at a minimum, comply with core standards;
2.the company adopting the code must be committed to it and be prepared to provide the resources to ensure its implementation, including training, information systems for monitoring and compliance and staff to implement new procedures;
3.knowledge of the code throughout the organization is essential to its implementation: in particular, employees of the firm and its subcontractors and suppliers must know of the contents of the code and a reporting system must be established that enables workers to report infringements without fear of reprisals;
4.the code should be subject to verification by independent assessors who have access to the site unannounced at any time.
The application of such codes can enhance internal governance and facilitate internal management across geographically dispersed sites. There is some evidence to show that real commercial benefits can be gained from the proper application of fair and equitable labor standards, although more widespread research needs to be done on this (DeGeorge, 1993, p. 111). Provided the code of conduct adopted by a firm has external credibility, it can both protect and enhance a firm’s reputation, particularly important these days when more is expected of firms in terms of corporate social responsibility.
Levi Strauss is one of the world’s largest brand-name clothes manufacturers and also one of the first international companies to adopt a corporate code of conduct to apply to all contractors who manufacture and finish its products and to aid selection of which countries in which to operate (DeGeorge, 1993, p. 118). The Code of Conduct has two parts:
1.Business partner terms of engagement: Levi Strauss uses these to select business partners that follow workplace standards and practices consistent with its policies and to help identify potential problems. In addition to meeting acceptable general ethical standards, complying with all legal requirements and sharing Levi Strauss’s commitment to the environment and community involvement, Levi Strauss’s business partners must adhere to the following employment guidelines:
-Wages and benefits: business partners must comply with any applicable law and the prevailing manufacturing and finishing industry practices.
-Working hours: partners must respect local legal limits on working hours and preference will be given to those who operate less than a 60-hour working week. Levi Strauss will not use partners that regularly require workers to work in excess of 60 hours. Employees should also have at least one day off per week.
-Child labor: use of child labor is not permissible in any of the facilities of the business partner. Workers must not be below 15 years of age or below the compulsory school age.
-Disciplinary practices: Levi Strauss will not use business partners who use corporal punishment or other forms of physical or mental coercion.
-Prison/forced labor: no prison or forced labor is to be used by business partners nor will Levi Strauss use or buy materials from companies using prison or forced labor.
-Freedom of association: the rights of workers to join unions and to bargain collectively must be respected.
-Discrimination: while respecting cultural differences, Levi Strauss believes workers should be employed on the basis of their ability to do their job
-Health and safety: Levi Strauss undertakes to use business partners who provide a safe and healthy working environment and, where appropriate residential facilities
2.Country assessment guidelines: these are used to address broad issues beyond the control of individual business and are intended to help Levi Strauss assess the degree to which its global reputation and success may be exposed to unreasonable risk. It was an adverse country assessment that caused Levi Strauss to cease its engagement in China in the early 1990s, largely on human rights grounds – a decision that has subsequently been reversed. In particular, the company assesses whether:
-the brand image will be adversely affected by the perception or image of a country among customers;
-the health and safety of employees and their families will be exposed to unreasonable risk;
-the human rights environment prevents the company from conducting business activities in a manner consistent with the global guidelines and other company policies;
-the legal system prevents the company from adequately protecting trademarks, investments or other commercial interests;
-the political, economic and social environment protects the company’s commercial interests and brand corporate image.
Levi Strauss is the example of the company that successfully combines doing business and following ethical practices. As we see, the company code of ethics demonstrates that Levi Strauss complies with the most labor norms and environmental standards; at the same time such actions of the company do not have any negative impact upon its business. On the contrary, since Levi Strauss has positive public image the customers should be more attracted to its products.
Some of the other important ethical issues that the company should consider is bribery and corruption. Bribery/corruption is not as clear-cut an issue as might first appear; indeed it can be rather a grey area. In some cultures, it is regarded as perfectly normal to give an official or host a gift (Asgary and Mitschow, 2002, p. 245). In others, only minimal value token gifts or no gifts at all are allowed. A problem arises when it is the norm for a contract to be signed only after the payment of a ‘commission’ to a key official or officials (Asgary and Mitschow, 2002, p. 240). Such circumstances place international companies in a difficult position: without payment of these commissions, the contract will not materialize and, if they do not make the payment, many other companies will (although that is not an ethical justification for going ahead with the commission). The position of the US is unequivocal about this: it regards all such payments as bribes and, as such, they are both unethical and illegal. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Law forbids US companies from making improper payments to foreign governments, politicians or political parties to obtain or retain business. Therefore, the only choice that American companies have regarding bribery is not to make any payments regarded as bribes; otherwise, it can be considered that a company violates the law.
The last ethical challenge that international companies face is related to environmental protection. Firms can encounter damaging publicity as a result of the environmental outcome of their activities as pollution attracts more and more media attention (Barlett and Ghoshal, 1998, p. 98). For many, environmental protection and corporate responsibility in this field has a clear ethical dimension. This debate is couched in terms of the ‘global commons’ in which all human beings have both a stake and a responsibility to ensure the well-being of the environment for future generations (Donaldson, 1989, p. 211).
In order to reconcile doing business and meeting environmental ethical standards an international company should comply with the following underlying principles in environmental policy.
The first norm refers to the “polluter pays principle.” It stipulates that polluters should pay the full cost of the environmental damage they cause (DeGeorge, 1993, p. 100). Environmental costs are often referred to as ‘externalities’ (for example, damage to health, rivers, the air, etc. arising from economic activity) that are not incorporated into the costs of a product but are borne by society as a whole (DeGeorge, 1993, p. 100). By making the polluter pay the full cost of its activities, including externalities, this principle provides an incentive to make products less polluting and/or to reduce the consumption of polluting goods. This internalization of external costs can be met through the use of market-based, policy instruments.
The other principle refers to prevention. If the company decides to follow the prevention principle it changes to products and processes to prevent environmental damage occurring rather than relying on remedial action to repair damage after it has taken place (Davies, 1997, p. 108). This implies the development of ‘clean technologies’; minimal use of natural resources; minimal releases into the atmosphere, water and soil; and maximization of the recyclability and lifespan of products.
In conclusion, international business adds an extra dimension to ethical issues within the firm. All organizations have their own culture based on common language and terminology, behavioral norms, dominant values, informality/formality, etc. This inevitably becomes more complex when an organization has a presence in more than one country. Some companies believe a strong corporate culture is a means of overcoming diverse national cultures whereas others evolve different cultures in different organizations and incorporate cultural diversity in their management strategy. Many organizations like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s do use core brands but still adapt their products for local markets and follow ethical standards, either out of necessity or to maximize returns. Ethics and corporate social responsibility are closely related. Debates about corporate social responsibility have been dominated by labor and environmental issues but a growing number of corporate governance scandals involving multinationals is increasing pressure for stricter regulation. International companies can reconcile doing business internationally and remaining ethical if they comply with labor and environmental norms enacted at the international level and establish and follow the code of ethics. In the long run, corporate commitment to sound ethical principles and socially responsible behavior is good for business.
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Andrew Sandon
http://www.articlesbase.com/ethics-articles/international-company-and-ethics-67615.html

Chain Reaction

After researching much of the information regarding the Informant system, I believe this is at the heart of much of the corruption that we are seeing in our society. In our justice systems and in our communities. I believe this system is enslaving large portions of society. I also believe that there are many of us that were and are blissfully unaware of what is happening and will remain so until it is too late.

There is a chain reaction that is happening in society that if left unchecked has the potential to infect and destroy the very core of society that we have all known and depended on. That is of course the snitching infection. I call it that, because there is no other way to describe some of the events that I have read about while doing research into the Informant system.

While researching this phenomenon I have come across people who one minute seemed like average decent persons, and the next minute after being caught up in the Snitching/Informant system were willing to sell their very mothers down the drain to keep themselves free. This is not going to be the case for every Informant, but it’s the case with too many that are a part of this system.

Once let loose back into society many will continue with a life of crime. others will continue with what I call the game.

The Game

The game is one of set up’s and betrayal where the Informant will try to set someone up for a fall. They will choose a target and the unsuspecting target will get caught up in a scheme of some kind, eventually be arrested, they do not necessarily have to have committed a crime, and then the informant will testify against the person they entrapped, or other informants will. Once this new person is caught up in the game, should they be turned informant then the cycle continues once again.

I don’t know how many Informants are a part of this game that is ongoing in society, but I suspect that the many are, and all of them once they decide to become informants are owned by the system, and their handlers. That means anytime the government wants or needs a favor guess who they will call upon? Do you begin to see the makings of a corrupt society? Remember they can call upon these informants years later after these informants have been let loose. Many of these Informants will also go onto have careers, and even become contributing members of society, but they are still owned by the state. A lot of these Informant deals are kept off the records, meaning that the person is owned by a handler, but there might not be an official record of it, but when that handler needs a favor, that Informant will be called upon, and will risk exposure if they do not comply.

[quote]For example, unlike a classic plea bargain, informant deals lack finality because an informant’s obligations are ongoing. Written co-operation agreements often extend a defendant’s obligations into perpetuity, while informal, unwritten agreements last as long as the police or prosecutor wishes to use that informant.[/quote]

To understand how the game works, we will review three case studies. These are just a few of the many that I came across when reading the stories on the wall. It’s a continued pattern of set up on unsuspecting pigeons, and hardened Informants who will do what they need to do to stay out of jail.

http://www.november.org/thewall/wall/wall.html

Before we review the case studies I am going to again remind you of some statistics.

http://www.aclu.org/images/asset_upload_file744_30623.pdf

[quote] as many as fifty percent of African American males in some cities – are in contact with the criminal justice system and therefore potentially under pressure to snitch. By relying heavily on snitching, particularly in drug-related cases, law enforcement officials create large numbers of informants who remain at large in the community, engaging in criminal activities while under pressure to provide information about others. These snitches are a communal liability: they increase crime and threaten social organization, interpersonal relationships, and socio-legal norms in their home communities, even as they are tolerated or under-punished by law enforcement because they are useful.[/quote]

[quote]The uncoordinated, widespread use of informants in the United States by thousands of different police departments and various federal agencies does not of course, amount to the focused, purposeful political mission of the Stasi. But if anywhere near eight percent of the male population in inner city communities is snitching, that figure meets or surpasses Stasi level of between one and ten percent of the total population as informers.[/quote]

http://november.org/stayinfo/breaking08/HoffmanCase.html

[quote]If things had gone according to plan, you never would have heard of 23-year-old Rachel Hoffman. She would have just been another confidential informant, one of more than an estimated 100,000 in the United States who work with police to send someone else to jail.[/quote]

These figures do not include people who are informers via work, school, or community group programs. When we take into consideration numbers such as that, we are looking at an epidemic that is worst than what happened in East Germany. Keep in mind that in addition to all this, there will also be 800,000 Terrorism Liaison Officers added to the Informant population in the United States. These figures should wake up America and other cities to the dangers of what is happening in various societies.

The Game

To understand the game you might want to picture it in the sense of how a disease spreads, you start with on carrier and that person infects one person right after another. Some of those carriers will go on to infect others. Some will be dormant and not infect anyone. You might also want to think of the movie lifeforce, where one has the constant need to feed on one person after another, then those victims need to feed on others. You can have a very sick and infested city in a short space of time if such an infection goes unchecked.

The game is one of the Informant being placed primarily back in society, but this could also happen in jail, where an informant via lies, deceit, entrapment or some other methods set’s up another person to take a fall. That person then come in contact with the criminal justice system, they can then choose to become informants themselves, or refusing to do so, will spend lengthy spaces of time in prison. This game is primarily enacted via drugs, but that’s not the extent of it. Shoplifting is another example. I see this used with the teenaged informants, setting up their friends to steal from the stores, so that they in turn can become snitches.

Theft, drugs, stolen cars, any crime that someone can make a deal with police to become informants, they can be released back into society and are a danger to the rest of society. This is not to say that all Informants are horrible people, many just did not want to be in jail, some others are a true danger to society, nearly all are under pressure by the government to produce other Informants, and that obligation is never ending, some are allowed to lay dormant, till they can be of use.

http://november.org/stayinfo/breaking08/FL-Hoffman6.html

[quote]In Hoffman’s case, it was the work of another informer that led to her own work for the police.

On April 15, an informer told Tallahassee police that Hoffman had sold marijuana in the past but hadn’t done so recently, according to police records.

At the time, Hoffman, 23, was in a pretrial drug diversion program because of charges of possession of marijuana and resisting arrest in February 2007. To stay in the program, she had to stay out of trouble.

Two days after police got the informer’s tip, a Tallahassee police officer stopped Hoffman as she was getting into her car
[/quote]

http://www.mapinc.org/images/Hoffman.jpg

Rachael Hoffman then went on to become an Informant. She first tried to set up a close friend and when that failed, the close friend helped her find the dealers who she tried to buy drugs from on behalf of the police. The sting went wrong and she was killed. Had this gone successfully, those drug dealers if they agreed to become informants might have been released back into society as Informants and the cycle would have continued. It’s a frightening cycle that has become more widespread than can be imagined.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/

Case number 2.

Joey Settembrino was a young 18 year old, just about to go off to college.

He was set up by an Informant. The Informant was a close friend of his. He use to spend his weekends at the Informants house.

[quote]He was a very good friend. I had known the guy for many years. We had gone out every weekend, fishing on his boat, hydrosliding, skiing. I was very shocked; it was very unexpected. It’s not something you expect from friends.[/quote]

In an Informants society, it’s what you expect from just about everyone and it makes people suspicious and closed off. This is what happened in East Germany once the population became aware of what was happening. In America many Americans are not aware that these types of games are being played. In these cases the targets were encouraged and did get into illegal activities, however that is not always the case, and many times innocent people who had nothing to do with illegal activities are still caught up in these games and convicted on the testimony of Informants.

[quote]He wanted me to go back to the house where I got the acid from and get something else. They wanted me to wear a wire and they wanted me to go back there … to buy some other type of drug, no matter what it was, whatever he had in the house, so they could set him up. Just a chain reaction, one gets to one, one gets the other and they just keep going. I told him that I couldn’t do that, that I didn’t get the drugs from that house. At that time I was really confused. I was shocked, and I told him that I couldn’t do anything for him. But he kept trying, he kept threatening, talking about a lot of time. “You’re going to do 25 years. You’re going to be in prison your whole life.” … He really tried to scare me. But I told him I couldn’t do anything for him … . [Eventually] they went back to the house in which I got it from, they arrested the other guy, my friend [who I bought the acid from]. And he’s now doing a 10-year sentence along with me.
[/quote]

Joey said it best. This is like a chain reaction that just keeps going and going. One get’s one, then another and another and another. Those in turn get others and the cycle continues. Remember it’s not just drugs, and it’s not just the guilty that are being caught up in this game. If we review cases of Gang Stalking, we hear of men who thought that a woman had entered their life for the sole purpose of setting them up to look like a rapist or something else.

There are stories of targets being framed or other set up’s, and there are targets that do turn informant and then go back into society and try to harm other targets. This is happening in ever sector of society. Rachel, Joey and even Clarence were all going off to college, or had finished college when they were caught up in these stings.

Joey refused to become a snitch and thus spent 10 years in jail. His friend that set him up, who had been caught for drugs himself, was back on the streets, selling drugs, and setting up at least 11 or 12 others in the first year that Joey was in jail.

[quote]
Do you know why they wanted you?

I’ve asked that question, I’ve asked myself that a thousand times, “Why me? Why did he set me up?” …
[/quote]

In this game that is happening, I would say that they want just about everyone. They will get some people via community programs to be Informants, some via their places of employment, or community programs. Now the people who are informants via community programs and other legit means might not play the game of setting people up directly, but they are still part of the game, and they still work hand in hand with these others that are playing by a different set of rules. Many might not be aware of who they are working hand in hand with. At the end of the day, they all work for the state, government and all the orders come from the same sources.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/cases/aaron.html

Clearance is in jail because he introduced two parties that wanted to buy or sell drugs to each other. He had never been involved with drugs before, but one day his cousin called him up and asked him if he could find someone to buy drugs from. He said he knew some people and thought that they might be involved in dealing, he would check into it.

Clearances case is interesting because all the other parties who turned Informant received less time than he did. He does not know why his cousin and the others turned against him and lied, or why the prosecutor seemed intent on punishing him because he would not snitch and become an Informant.

[quote]What was it like having your friends testify against you?

Well, we’re sitting in the courtroom. These guys that I knew all my life came up, and they said [stuff] about me that wasn’t true, and they hurt me. It really truly hurt me, Robert and James really hurt me ’cause James is my first cousin. I looked up to him all my life. Robert was supposed to be my best friend at the time. We grew up together from playing Pop ball all the way up to high school ball together, and I couldn’t believe that they would sit there, in front of me … and say the things that they said about me … . [The] only thing I could say was it wasn’t true. But nobody believed me … . You had to have a fall guy, and I was that person.
[/quote]

It should be noted that the others involved all had prior drug convictions. Which means if they were out on the street and able to set him up, they were likely already Informants. He doesn’t know why they turned on him, but it’s possible that this might have been the idea from the get go. The assumption being that he would turn snitch and then be in a prime candidate on the college campus, a pawn to be used to set up other pawns, because that is how the game works.

[quote]Why did he do it?

Well, I had a opportunity to talk to James one time … . He said, “Man, I’m sorry, man.” I say, “James, why you do me like that?” He say, “Because I had no choice.” I said, “What you mean you have no choice in the matter?” He say “Because Miss Griffin say she didn’t want Bob to try your case.” She say if [he] didn’t cooperate and do what she told him to do, that she was going to hurt him worse in his case … . He say, “Well, the prosecutor Miss Griffin said if I don’t do it she going to put me in prison for the rest of my life … . I got to do what I got to do.”
[/quote]

He stats that the prosecutor pulled his cousin aside and when his cousin went back on the stand, his cousin lied. This is not the first time scenarios like this have happened, it can only be imagined what these prosecutors or handlers have on these Informants to make them sell out their own friends, and family.

[quote]And the real drug dealers are out —

On the street now. And probably doing the same thing they were doing before they went in. I just don’t understand.
[/quote]

He also does not understand, but if you review enough of these cases, you start to see a pattern and you start to understand, this is how the game works, and yes they are probably back on on the street looking for the next pigeon to set up, and try to turn them into informants.

It reminds me of something a forum member once told me. This guy said that he was set up because he met this woman online, who he dated only to discover that she was married. Her husband got mad and that’s why he thought he was set up.

The person on my forum pointed out that he had met the woman via some co-workers who introduced him to the website where he located this woman. The person on my forum suggested that he was probably profiled and set up by the co-workers who sent him to the site, knowing he would met this woman. The idea is that these games and set up’s take place long before the victim is aware that they are part of a game.

The Global outlook.

Targets of Gang Stalking complain that even when they leave countries such as the U.K., Canada, U.S. that the stalking continues. That is understandable we have seen muli-governmental corporation in other investigations.

What is not understandable and the most frightening sector of this is that various targets have moved to a variety of countries and they all report the same thing, Informants that are able to follow them 24/7.

This suggest that these Informant networks are getting global in nature. They are popping up in areas that are unexpected, and if this trend continues we will have a global surveillance society.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/04/israelandthepalestinians.middleeast1/print

[quote]Middle East: Israel’s secret police pressuring sick Gazans to spy for them, says report· Treatment only offered to would-be informants
· Patients allowed to cross the border drops sharply[/quote]

The same situation is happening in Iraq where they previously had family structures that might have prevented Informant networks from spreading as rapidly. The country will be rebuilt and the Informant structure will be a part of it.

Why would a global surveillance society be necessary?

I will not speculate. I will however say that based on research many societies in history that had a dictator, tyrant, or despot who came to power and who wanted to pull off an unpopular agenda’s such as Hitlers Germany, or Stasi East Germany, employed an army of Informants. It’s the most effective way that a society can control, monitor and subdue the inhabitants.

Since history has shown us that these informant networks are often needed to move forward tyrannical agendas, then can it be assumed that if we could slow down or stop the chain reaction of the Informant movement, we might be able to stop some of the corruption that we are seeing in many areas of society?

Stopping the Chain Reaction.

To stop the Informant infection people need to be aware that there is a lethal chain reaction happening in many parts of society. They need the understanding of how the game is played, and awareness of how far spread and how far reaching it is.

In America prison system reform could go a long way towards fixing the system that has become corrupt. Then prosecutors would not be as dependent on the testimonies of Informants and the power could start to shift back.

The family structure. Communities with less stable family structures are more vulnerable to this system.

People need to be aware that these entrapment’s are happening at every level of society, ever profession in society, thus why it goes all the way up to the top.

If people are unaware, they will not realise the various ways that people can become entrapped, including using someone that you are in a personal association with, or who you just “accidentally” meet. Someone you have a business relationship with.

Some people they will use their own greed and stupidity against them. Other will be a deliberate trap, others will be framed and will have committed no crime. Not being aware of how this system works, many will quietly accept off the record deals, and thus become indebted to the state, able to be used at will. Remember this is happening at all levels of society. Rich, poor, black, white, male, female.

If you have a parent, grandparent that was a snitch, Informant, they might try to go after the next generation.

Your friends, family, co-workers, anyone that is an Informant not by choice but by force, can be a liability to an innocent person.

The problem is more widespread that many realise, and what’s even worst is the silence that surrounds this problem in society. Till it’s talked about, discussed, and exposed it will continue to infect society, and have far reaching and unimaginable consequences, not just for those caught up in the game, but for the many unsuspecting victims, targets, or pigeons yet to come. This is not just happening at local levels. Targets have moved to various countries around the globe and encounter the same type of surveillance network.

We must stop this chain reaction. Awareness and exposure are key.

Happy Holidays.

gangstalking
http://www.articlesbase.com/news-and-society-articles/chain-reaction-695386.html

Globalization: an Islamic Perspective

This paper investigates from an Islamic perspective the consequences of globalization in general. To specify my argument in accordance with my understanding of Islam, I would strive to argue that globalization might be very harmful before society reaches maturity but very useful after that. Allow me a brief prefatory note about my methodology in this essay: in the first part, I provide many specifics about how Islamic texts and sources view the human being as God’s creation and his ultimate goal in the world. In the second part, after a brief definition of globalization, I apply the analytic method employed in the conventional literature of economics to show why the market mechanism fails to satisfy equality and eradicate poverty in the globalization era. Finally, I try to explain how a free but virtuous, mature society can satisfy equality throughout the world in this era. Obviously, my argument relates, to some extent, to normative aspect of economics. However, it does not follow the ideological methodology at all.

Let me begin by elaborating briefly on the ultimate goal of man’s creation in Islam, since this is so essential to understanding my argument.

The Human Being as God’s Creation

From monotheism, the pivotal pillar of the Islamic worldview, we can conclude that the universe is the best and perfect manifestation of God’s beautiful names and that there is no better alternative system to govern the universe. Indeed, this principle refers to the conception of creation. That is, God is like a secret treasure, so He creates and expands the universe not only to give a clue to His throne but also to reveal His beauty and His brilliance. Some facets of His attributes such as His majesty may manifest themselves in a deterministic environment such as with galaxies and other physical phenomena. There are, however, other facets of His characteristics such as His wisdom and His mercifulness that are impossible to manifest themselves except in indeterministic form.

There seem to be many common elements in the explanation of the philosophy of man’s creation in all Abrahamic religions of which Islam is believed to be a sequel and culmination. By investigating the quality of Adam’s creation, which stands as the symbol of human being in the Quran, we can infer the kind of status he occupies in the sight of God in Islam, as well as in other religions.

In the beginning the Lord addresses all the angels[1]that He wants to create a viceroy[2] on earth. This position will be held by man. The angels object to Him and say that He wants to create a vengeful and vindictive creature to commit crime and bloodshed on earth again! But God responds that He knows something they do not know. And so, God became engaged in creating man. And this is the point which symbols, loaded with profound anthropological connotations, come into being.

From a faithful Muslim point of view, God is the greatest and most exalted. Thus, with this providential address the mission of man on earth is clarified. That is, man’s mission on earth is to fulfill God’s creative work in the universe. Therefore, man’s first superiority is that he represents God on earth.

Since God wants to create a viceroy for Himself on earth, He must, as a rule, choose the most valuable and sacred material. Yet He selects the basest matter. In the Quran there are three references relative to the material that man was made of: from sounding clay[3], like unto pottery[4], and from mud[5]. Finally, the Lord blew His spirit into the dry mud and man came into being.

In the human tongue, God is the most sacred and exalted being so the spirit of God refers to the most exalted, and the noblest manifestation of His being, while mud stands as a symbol of the meanest and the basest thing. Accordingly, He blew His own Soul, not something else like His breath, blood, or flesh, into man in its creating process. God is the most sublime being and His spirit is the finest entity for which man can possibly have an epithet in his language.

Thus, man who was formed from mud and God’s spirit is a two- dimensional being. For unlike all other beings which are one dimensional, man is two-dimensional; one dimension tends towards mud, lowliness, sedimentation, and stagnation while the other aspires to the loftiest imaginable point possible. Thus man’s significance and grandeur lie in the fact that he possesses two poles: mud and the spirit of the Lord. It is up to man to choose where to go, towards mud or providence. And as long as he has not selected either of the poles as his fate, struggle will perpetually rage within him.

Another surprising point in man’s creation in the Quran is that God calls upon the whole universe that He has a trust to offer it, but everything refuses to accept this offer except man[6]. This is indicative of the fact that man possesses another virtue; that is, his acceptance of a trust that everyone else refused. This means that man is a representative of God in the universe as well as His trustee. As to what the trust is, Islamic scholars mention many things. Some of them such as Mawlavi and Shariati[7], believe that it is will and choice. I agree with that, however, it means much more than that. It means that man has adopted a great responsibility to personify all His beautiful names; individually and collectively. Of course, such responsibility requires the ability of will and choice.

Shariati (1981) says that the only superiority that man has over all other beings in the universe is his will. He is the only being that can act contrary to his nature, while no animal or plant is capable of doing so. It is impossible to find an animal which can fast for two days. And no plant has ever committed suicide due to grief or has done a great service. Man is the only one who rebels against his physical, spiritual, and material needs, and turns his back against goodness and virtue. Further, he is free to behave irrationally, to be bad or good, and to be mud-like or divine. The point is that possession of will is the greatest characteristic of man and it throws light upon the relationship between man and God.

Man is a viceroy of God on earth as well as His trustee among the universe, and the spirit of both quenches their thirst from the same fountain of virtue: possession of will. God, the only being in the universe, who possesses an absolute will and can do whatever He wishes, blew His spirit in man. Hence, man is capable of working like God (not on par with Him, only as an image of God), or acting against the physiological laws of his own nature. Therefore, as in the Old Testament[8], He has created mankind as a potentially perfect image of Himself. Obviously, this perfect image goes beyond the interpretation that some distinguished scholars have given it[9]. It shows that all God’s beautiful names may manifest themselves with man and human society. Consequently, it requires the ability to mastery and rule over the universe.

Two kinds of rationality

As mentioned above, according to my Islamic understanding, man is a two-dimensional being. During his spiritual evolution, he should pass from being mud-like to approaching God-like. In other words, God has invited him to pass through an important reference point, maturity[10]. Thus, we can imagine that he has two distinct parts of his life: an individualistic, selfish period (before maturity of society, when the real love is not the dominant flow in the society); and a God-like, selfless period (after maturity of society). Clearly, each specific period requires a certain and separate corresponding rationality. The rationality[11] discussed in the conventional literature of economics, which is based on a low-level self-interest, only corresponds with the period of childhood. Mainstream economics, based on Adam Smith’s invisible hand and the market mechanism, quenches its thirst from this fountain of rationality. In the next part, I will explain how the market mechanism increases the gap between poor and rich countries as well as the gap between poor and rich classes. That is, the more international trade and the more integration of financial markets, the more market failure and more divergent economies! However, when society evolves from selfishness and being mud-like to altruism and being God-like, this rationality will not be effective at all and will collapse instantaneously. The alternative and mature rationality creates a special dynamism for the economy which is very powerful and without any failures. The driving force of this rationality is still self-interest, but a high-level one rooted in being God-like.

I would like to refer to one verse of the Quran, which clearly argues that the individual desires derived from a low-level self-interest lead to harm and corruption[12]: “Corruption doth appear on land and sea because of which men’s hands have done, that He may make them taste a part of that which they have done, in order that they may return.” We may deduce this corruption is only a part of the consequences of what man has done as a result of his selfishness, and that there might many other bad consequences washed clean by God’s forgiveness. In other words, the invisible hand in an immature society not only is not able to optimize social benefits, but also it creates a great deal of harm and corruption that surpasses our imaginations. However, most of this corruption will be removed by the mechanism provided in the universe by God. The remaining corruption serves to warn the people and deter them from being selfish.

Due to self-interest maximization in immature society, we may also observe clearly many, many problems such as global warming and environmental destruction which will definitely jeopardize future life, while the market mechanism and its price signals fail to reduce these consequences, much less to motivate sustainable development.

Globalization and the issue of equality

In this part of my essay, I would like to show why globalization in the context of low-level self-interest motivation and based on the market mechanism may not lead to equality. Instead, it is biased to developed countries where there is located a complex of various industries and the benefit of economies of agglomeration can be utilized. To do this, it is necessary to have a brief definition of globalization first.

The definition of globalization

As globalization is a multi-layer concept and it has become a buzzword in recent years, globalization has already been defined in many ways. I, in some extend, agree with what Thomas L. Friedman defines globalization. He says: “it is the inexorable integration of market, nation-states and technologies to a degree never witnessed before- in a way that it is enabling individuals, corporations, and nation states to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before, and in a way that it is enabling the world to reach into individuals, corporations, and nation states farther, faster, deeper and cheaper than ever before” (Friedman 2000, 9). He says: globalization “also has one overarching feature- integration. The world has become an increasingly interwoven place, and today, whether you are a company or a country, your threats and opportunities increasingly derive from who you are connected to. This globalization system is also characterized by a single word: the Web”(ibid, 8). This system is a dynamic ongoing process, with a driving idea of free-market capitalism, and “its own dominant culture” involving “the spread of Americanization” (ibid, 9). It has its own defining technologies, and is measured by its speed, “speed of commerce, travel, communication and innovation” (ibid, 10). He suggests that “globalization is not simply a trend or a fad but is, rather, an international system. It is the system that has now replaced the old Cold War system, and, like that Cold War system, globalization has its own rules and logic that today directly or indirectly influence the politics, environment, geopolitics and economics of virtually every country in the world” (ibid, IX).

What I want to focus on is strictly the economic layer of globalization. In my view, economic globalization refers to a completely different process of internationalization. Although in internationalization the cross-border relations between countries will increase, the nation-state institution will play the main role in the economies, they can still make economic policies and decisions. Economic globalization, however, refers to the process of removing government-imposed restrictions on movements between countries in order to create an “open”, “borderless” world economy’ (Scholte 2000: 16) so that the nation-state institution will be eradicated and no longer play no role in economy. Instead, the Transnational Companies (TNCs) will be the main players in the economy. More technically speaking, the nation’s Production Possibility Frontier (PPF) makes nonsense in the literature and there is only the worlds PPF and TNCs follow fragmentization policy in their production and distribution which is definitely alien from conventional international trade and international finance.

The Inevitability of Asymmetry in Globalization

According to mainstream economics, policies of openness through liberalization of trade and investment regimes, and capital movements have been advocated worldwide for their growth and welfare enhancing effects on the basis of the propositions embedded in the well-known economic theories of international trade and investment (i.e. the Ricardian comparative advantage theory, the Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson (HOS) model, the new trade theories of Krugman, or the model of intertemporal international borrowing/lending or portfolio allocation models). In these models, the main goal of openness is assumed to increase social welfare through: (i) static efficiency gains associated with improved resource allocation for national economies as well as for the world economy due to increased specialization; (ii) dynamic efficiency gains from such factors as economies of scale, diffusion of information, technology transfers, knowledge spillover effects as well as intertemporal trade gains from cross-border borrowing/lending for increased investment and consumption smoothing and portfolio risk diversification.

Convergence in accordance with international trade theories is still a serious dilemma. That is, there is no doubt that the level of social surplus will increase totally after free trade or integration of financial markets. However, there is a lasting concern regarding how these gains are distributed between trade partners; are they biased toward developed countries or at least unbiased. Mainstream economics’ theories including static and dynamic insist that international trade will reduce the per capita income gap amongst the open countries. For instance, one of the main theorems that derived from the static model of HOS Theory, implies that when the prices of the output goods are equalized between countries as they move to free trade, then the rewards of the factors (capital and labor for instance) will also be equalized between countries. Therefore we should expect that the increase of free trade due to globalization will reduce the North-South per capita income gap. The dynamic version of this model also suggests a convergent per-capita income trend between north and south countries.

To explain cross-country differences in economic performance, Matsuyama (1996) employs symmetry-breaking methodology. Symmetry-breaking creates asymmetric outcomes in the symmetric environment. It is the key concept for understanding self-organized (a.k.a. endogenous) pattern formations[13].

As a key answer to the increasing gap between North and South countries in the level of cross-country differences as well as the increasing gap between poor and rich classes inside the countries, Matsuyama (2005), rejects coordination failures as the key notion to understand these questions. Instead, he argues that such emphasis is misplaced; the key to understanding the diversity is symmetry-breaking. The notion of coordination failures is not only irrelevant but also misleading when thinking about diversity.

Quoting Matsuyama’s (1996) explanation briefly, it will be shown how globalization can be considered as an endogenous (or a self-organized) factor to create the inequalities.

He offers a model of the world economy, where many (inherently) identical countries trade with one another. It is shown that cross-country differences in the standard of living and in income appear as a stable outcome of international trade. According to his model, the coexistence of rich and poor countries is not just a possibility. It is an inevitable aspect of the world trading system. Although his model adopts many assumptions for the sake of simplification and concreteness, the logic behind the result is fairly general and can be understood intuitively.

Imagine that there is a list of goods that need to be consumed. Furthermore, there are some agglomeration economies in the production of each of these goods. In the absence of international trade, these goods must all be produced in each country. Without any innate difference across countries, each country produces these goods in the same amount, and there is no cross-country difference.

Now introduce the possibility of international trade in these goods. As different countries start acquiring comparative advantage in different goods, the production of each good concentrates into some countries, which leads to an emergence of a system of international division of labor. The stable cross-country difference appears as a result of ‘‘symmetry-breaking’’ in the world economy, caused by international trade. Some countries become rich if they are lucky enough to acquire comparative advantage in goods associated with large agglomeration economies, while other countries, those which happen to acquire comparative advantage in goods with small agglomeration economies, become poor. They fail to achieve a necessary coordination to reach a Pareto-superior equilibrium and find themselves in a Pareto-inferior equilibrium. The problems thus seem just a matter of coordination failures. The global perspective, however, offers a different view. The international division of labor requires different countries to take charge of producing different tradable goods with differing degrees of agglomeration economies. International trade thus creates a kind of ‘‘pecking order’’ among nations. Not all countries can be rich: some countries must be excluded from being rich, just as in a game of musical chairs[14]. At the same time, the model does not rule out the possibility that some (but not all) countries might succeed in overcoming the coordination failures, and becoming rich. This feature of the model makes it possible to talk about the effects of such an ‘‘economic miracle’’ in the world economy.

Since the economies of agglomeration requires the diversity of industries which produce intermediates available in the marketplace, we can conclude that only those countries which have already bypassed the threshold of diversity have a chance to be industrialized and reach to a Pareto-superior equilibrium. Hence, this shows how the phenomena of economies of agglomeration cause a symmetry-breaking to separate the otherwise identical regions into the manufacturing belt and the agricultural hinterland.

Globalization in Mature Society

To explain how globalization in mature society accomplishes beneficial goals, first we have to take into account the two following challenges:

1. The problem of static market failure: This problem arises mainly because of externalities (including public goods, pollution and common pool resources), transaction cost, asymmetric information (such as incomplete markets[15], moral hazards and adverse selection), as well as organization failures. The most common response to a market failure in the literature of the public sector is to use the government to produce certain goods and services. However, government intervention may cause non-market failure. Besides, as mentioned above, globalization causes nation-state eradication so there will be no effective government in such an era. Furthermore, I can hardly believe that international institutions are able to fulfill this responsibility, even if they were independent from the USA.

2. The problem of dynamic market failure: As Matsuyama showed accurately, international trade creates a specific chaos in the symmetric environment so that the operations of markets normally lead to increasing inequality across the countries over time. Likewise, inequality across inherently identical households is caused endogenously by symmetry-breaking. Matsuyama (2004) explains how the class structure is an inevitable feature of capitalism. Even if every household starts with the same amount of wealth, the society will experience “symmetry-breaking,” and will be polarized into the two classes in steady state, where the rich maintain a high level of wealth partly due to the presence of the poor, who have no choice but to work for the rich at a wage rate strictly lower than the “fair” value of labor. Hence, in the capitalistic context we may consider these increasing gaps –whether between countries or inside countries – as an indication of market failure in a dynamic version.

It is now necessary to show how mature society, using a different rationality, may bypass these challenges. This rationality formally is very similar to the conventional one. It is, however, very different in content. I would like to refer to a few verses of Quran related to this subject. God says: “Man has been created restless, so he panics whenever any evil touches him, and withdraws when some good touches him; except for the prayerful who are constant at their prayers and whose wealth comprises an acknowledged responsibility towards the beggar and the destitute; and the ones who accept the Day for Repayment.” These verses show sufficiently that the rationality that guides immature people is definitely different than that which guides mature people, although they benefit from the same potential characteristics. The main distinction between mature and immature is that the mature direct these potentials toward a transcendental personality which is beyond selfishness. They are concerned with all human beings’ needs in all generations rather than their own selves individually or at most their families.

It is very appropriate to ask about the driving motivation in this society. Of course, conventional self-interest cannot motivate people efficiently to be concerned about others. It is extremely in need of a stronger motivation based on an exalted worldview. This worldview should consist of specific beliefs that grant the greatest reward to the doer when he considers all people of all generations altruistically. As I understand, the mature society may not be blind and aimless. Society can achieve this reference point of maturity only when the true beliefs such as the belief in oneness of God, the Day of Judgment, Justice drive it entirely. Passing this reference point is a necessary condition, but divine love, which requires perfection in selflessness, is the sufficient condition for the maturity. In general speaking, love when it appears, has no room but for itself and the lover thinks of no one except the beloved. In other words, selfishness destroys love and it can never be considered as co-existent of love. Nonetheless, worldly love is too weak and ineffective to last and motivate society toward its transcendental goals. In contrast, divine love is quite sustainable and powerful. Since nature is the realms where God’s beautiful names are exhibited, divine love implies, in turn, love of the entire world and the whole creation particularly human beings, the most comprehensive fruit of existence. Therefore, love is at the core of the concept of mature rationality and creates a specific invisible hand to satisfy social benefits including prosperity and equality for all regions and all generations.

Now, allow me to explain how globalization might be useful in a mature world society. As mentioned above, a mature society is a society where all God’s beautiful names have flourished. Therefore, as God provides mercifully all necessary requirements for all creatures, in such a society, each person possesses a certain portion of natural resources consistent with his area of interest. All initial endowments are redistributed by lump sum among the people so technically speaking, all individuals move to the central points of Edgeworth’s box. All members subject to all generations’ benefits do their best to produce more and more creatively because they are His representatives. According to symmetry-breaking methodology, there is still some potential of asymmetry. However, people will share their incomes voluntarily to produce public goods and to reduce the existent gap.

The communist system is as far away as the capitalistic system from the system based on love. The lack of motivation in people’s activities as well as the inefficiency of government –especially when the size of society grows enough- are the essential issues in communism while there is no concern about them in mature society. It is because the people are mature enough to understand that more being active means being closer to God. Besides, there is no need for the presence of strong and big government because this society is governed by many small components of authority connected together in a world wide network. There is hardly conflict of interest between these components because selfishness is the main source of confliction while here the people are selfless. Moreover, they are tolerant and educated enough to avoid violence and to discuss their problems peacefully.

It should be noticed that the economy in mature society serves only as a means by which we can improve the level of virtue so that we are not allowed to sacrifice humanity and its dignity and virtue because of economic benefits.

Endnotes

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[1] Quran, 2:30: And when thy Lord said unto the angels: Lo! I am about to place a viceroy in the earth, they said: wilt Thou place therein one who will do harm therein and will shed blood, while we, we hymn Thy praise and sanctify Thee? He said: Surely I know that which ye know not.

[2] It shows very clearly the worth of man in Islam. Even the Post-Renaissance European humanism has not been able to bestow such an exalting sanctity upon man.

[3] Quran, 15:26, 15:28, and 15:33

[4] Quran, 55:14

[5] Quran, 6:2, 7:12, 23:12, 32:7, 37:11, 38:71, 38:76

[6] Quran, 33:72 Lo! We offered the trust unto the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they shrank from bearing it and were afraid of it. And man assumed it.

[7] See: Sahriati (1981)

[8] Old Testament, 1:27-28 Elohim said, “Let us make humanity as our image, according to our likeness. And let them rule over the fish of the sea, the bird of the heavens, the beast, the whole earth, and all the swarmers which swarm on the earth. And God created humanity as his image: as the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.

[9] Thomas Aquinas (1976) located the image in the human ability to think and reason, to use language and art, far surpassing the abilities of any animals. Leonard Verduin (1976) says that the image consists in our dominion over animals and plants, which continues despite our sinfulness. Emil Brunner (1976) says that it is our ability to have a relationship with God, reflected in the tendency of all societies to have forms of worship.

[10] Quran, 90:10-17 And [Did We not] guide him to the parting of the mountain ways? But he hath not attempted the Ascent. Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Ascent is! (It is) to free a slave, And to feed in the day of hunger, an orphan near of kin, or some poor wretch in misery, and to be of those who believe and exhort one another to perseverance and exhort one another to pity.

[11] I will discuss the other kind of rationality which corresponds with mature period later on.

[12] Quran, 30:41

[13] For example, cosmologists wonder why the matter in the universe is distributed in clusters, leaving much of the universe empty. Earth scientists study the formation of wave patterns, such as jet streams, ocean currents, and continental drifts. Material scientists study phase transitions, how molecules aligned themselves when they reach the critical temperature. Molecular biologists ask how life began in the primordial soup of amino acids, and developmental biologists attempt to explain how living organisms acquire forms through cell division and morphogenesis (Weyl 1969, Prigogine 1980). Similar questions of pattern formations also exist in economics. Why are there rich and poor countries? Why are industries clustered? Why are there booms and recessions? Why are some ethnic groups underrepresented in certain jobs or neighborhoods?

[14] Musical chairs is a game played by a group of people (usually children), often in an informal setting purely for entertainment such as a birthday party. The game starts with any number of players and a number of chairs one fewer than the number of players; the chairs are arranged in a circle (or other closed figure) facing outward, with the people standing in a circle just outside of that. A non-playing individual plays recorded music or a musical instrument. While the music is playing, the players in the circle walk in unison around the chairs. When the music controller suddenly shuts off the music, everyone must race to sit down in one of the chairs. The player who is left without a chair is eliminated from the game, and one chair is also removed to ensure that there will always be one fewer chair than there are players. The music resumes and the cycle repeats until there is only one player left in the game, who is the winner.

[15] The theory of incomplete markets is an extension of the general equilibrium approach to intertemporal economies with uncertainty, where the set of available contracts which can be used to transfer wealth across time is limited relative to the possible probabilistic states that an economy might find itself in. Unlike in the standard Arrow-Debreu model where all trade takes place at beginning of time, in an economy with incomplete markets, agents trade in sequential spot markets.

References

The Noble Quran.

Aquinas, T. (1976), Man to the Image of God, in Millard Erickson (ed.), Man’s Need and God’s Gift: Readings in Christian Theology, Grand Rapids: Baker, pp. 37-43.

Emil, B. (1976), Man and Creation,” in Millard Erickson (ed.), Man’s Need and God’s Gift: Readings in Christian Theology, Grand Rapids: Baker, pp. 45-54.

Friedman, T. L. (2000), The Lexus and the Olive Tree, New York: Anchor Books.

Krugman, P. (1992),Geography and Trade (Gaston Eyskens Lectures), The MIT Press

Matsuyama, K. (1996), Why Are There Rich and Poor Countries?: Symmetry-Breaking in the World Economy, NBER Working Paper Series

Matsuyama, K. (2005), Structural Change, forthcoming in L. Blume and S. Durlauf, eds., the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition, Macmillan (available at: http://www.faculty.econ.northwestern.edu/faculty/matsuyama/Structural%20Change.pdf )

Prigogine, I. (1980), From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences, Freeman, 1980.

Scholte, J. A. (2000) Globalization. A critical introduction, London: Palgrave.

Shariati, A. (1981), Man and Islam, Translator: Fatollah Marjani, Houston: Free Islamic Literature-Filinc.

Verduin, L. (1976), A Dominion-Haver, in Millard Erickson (ed.), Man’s Need and God’s Gift: Readings in Christian Theology, Grand Rapids: Baker, pp. 55-74.

Weyl, H. (1969), Symmetry, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Nasser Elahi
http://www.articlesbase.com/ethics-articles/globalization-an-islamic-perspective-293758.html

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

Jawaharlal Nehru, on the afternoon of March 19, 1955, while addressing the members of the Punjab High Court at the inauguration of its new building in Chandigarh, said, “Justice in India should be simple, speedy and cheap.” He remarked that litigation was a disease and it could not be a good thing to allow any disease to spread and then go out in search of doctors. Referring to an adage that “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied”, Pt. Nehru stressed that disposal of cases must not be delayed.

Securing Justice – Social, Economic and Political to all citizens is one of the key mandates of the Indian Constitution. This has been explicitly made so in Article 39 – A of the Constitution that directs the state “to secure equal justice and free legal aid for all its citizens.” But the experience of last 57 years shows that the state has failed to dispense quick, inexpensive justice to protect the rights of the poor and the vulnerable. Hon’ble Justice B.P. Singh, a serving Judge of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, spoke on the topic “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied: the Plight of Indian Poor” at Observer Research Foundation and said that “the situation today is so grim that if a poor is able to reach to the stage of Hon’ble High Court, it should be considered as an achievement. It has merely become a court of the rich.”

The justice delivery system is on the verge of collapse with more than 30 million cases clogging the system. There are cases that take so much time that even a generation is too short to get any type of redressal. A brief look at some of the judicial statistics would tell the true story of the state of justice in India today: -

On an average, 50 lakh crimes are registered everyday, which are sought to be investigated by the police.

The pendency of criminal cases in subordinate courts is in the region of 1.32 crores and the effective strength of judges is 12,177.

· The number of under – trials in criminal cases pending in the courts is 1.44 crores and of these over 2 lakh persons are in prison.

· On an average, Courts are able to dispose off 19% of pending cases every year.

The reasons for delay could be attributed to the fact that every case moves from the lowest to the highest level. Too many revisions, bails, applications make five cases of one. The Centre and the State Governments also contribute to the backlog. Not only is the Govt. the biggest litigant but also it creates fresh litigation because it doesn’t honour judicial decisions. Another obstacle to speedy justice is adjournments. As far as the situation in Subordinate Courts is concerned, the infrastructure is non existent and at times the judges have to write judgments with their own hands as they don’t have stenos. Every subordinate judge is caught between oppressive workload and hardly any time or facilities.

Constitution which mandates that the state shall secure that the operation of the legal system shall promote justice, on a basis of equal opportunity and shall ensure that opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen. The Judiciary is bound to shape the processes of the law to actualize the constitutional resolve to secure equal justice to all. A people who are illiterate by and large, indigent in no small measure, feudal in their way of life, and tribal and backward in large numbers, need an unconventional cadre of jurists and judges, if equal justice under the law is to be a reality. If there is breach, judicial power must offer effective shelter. Even if a legislation hurting or hampering the backward sector is passed, the higher courts have to declare the statute void, if it be contra-constitutional. In sum, the judicial process, in its functional fulfillment, must be at once a shield and sword in defending the have-nots when injustice afflicts them. And this must be possible even if the humbler folk, directly aggrieved, are too weak to move the court on their own and a socially sensitive agency advocates the cause. Securing justice – social, economic and political to all citizens is one of the key mandates of the Indian Constitution. This has been explicitly made so in the Article 39-A of the Constitution that directs the State – to secure equal justice and free legal aid for the citizens. But the experiences of last 57 years show that the State has failed squarely on addressing some very basic issues–quick and inexpensive justice and protecting the rights of poor and the vulnerable. The justice delivery system is on the verge of collapse with more than 30 million cases clogging the system. There are cases that take so much of time that even a generation is too short to get any type of redressal.

That it will take more than 300 years to clear the backlog of cases in Indian courts is proof enough that our criminal justice system is sick, stagnant and in urgent need of a complete overhaul. A committee was set up, a couple of years ago, under Justice V S Malimath to examine changes and its report came, coincidentally, at the time that justice was finally done in the Uphaar Cinema case and just before the fourth anniversary, Jessica Lal’s horrific murder. Both cases draw attention, in different ways, to the glaring flaws in our justice system.

In the Uphaar case it is shocking that it took ten years to establish that the 59 people died because of criminal negligence on the part of the cinema management and the Delhi government. It was clear from day one that nobody would have died had the cinema followed safety rules but because the wheels of Indian justice move at the pace of our national vehicle – the bullock cart – it took ten years for justice to be done.

Causes of Delay:-

Delay in disposition of cases- Due to huge pendency, the cases take years for its final disposal, which would normally take few months time. The arrears cause delay and delay means negating the accessibility of justice in true terms to the common man. The very core of a civil society and rule of law is the provision of justice, but the decision must be delivered within a reasonable time. It is totally unfair if a suspected criminal waits for trial for years and is ultimately found innocent. Similarly, the victim of the crime will be also not satisfied if there is no punishment to the criminal for so long. Only speedy justice could ensure effective maintenance of Law and order. Quality of justice not only promotes peace in the society but also strengthens internal security of the country. There are number of litigations which could be avoided if Govt. officials had taken interest, for e.g. section 80 of CPC require a prior notice of two months to Govt. by a party who wish to sue the Govt. The purpose of this section is to give time to Govt. to settle the matter with such party by taking proper and suitable action, and thereby could avoid unwanted and unnecessary litigation. But the utter failure of Govt. official in taking a quick, bold and suitable action inspite of giving time forces a person to file case.

Strength of Judges are inadequate according to population and bunch of cases. As of January 2005, pending cases in the Supreme Court number 30,000, in high courts over 33.79 lakh and in subordinate courts over 2.35 crore – a totally unacceptable situation. Much of this is due to shortage of judges. The ratio of judges to population is 10.5 to one million, the lowest in the world. Even this low level is not reached because of the accumulation of vacancies in the Benches -140 against the approved strength of 668 judges in high courts and 2000 against 15000 in subordinate courts.4

The infrastructure of the lower courts is very disappointing. Though, the Supreme Court and High Courts are having good infrastructure but this in not the same position with lower courts. The Courts have no convenient building or physical facilities. The executive has failed to provide necessary infrastructure to enable judiciary and function normally. Good library, requisite furniture, sufficient staff and reasonable space are the need of the qualitative justice. In some courts security systems is also not good. The legal profession is one of the most struggling profession but no social security scheme is available for lawyers, some financial aid should be provided to Bar associations or the new beginners by the government. The good working condition of the lawyers would help in the excellence of service and qualitative justice to the litigating public.

Competency of the Other Staff in Court : It should also be kept in mind that not only Judges and Advocates be competent but also the administrative and clerical staff. The clerical staff must be free from all type of corruption. This is the era of computerization. The highly technical and competitive clerical staff will also help in speedy course. We all know how much time is taken in getting merely a copy of the judgment? It is hard that money is used to speed up the process. The bribe giver does not wish, to get anything done unlawfully, but merely wants to speed up the process of movement of files and communication relating to decision. Certain sections of staff concerned do work only after taking money.

Investigative agencies generally delay : The investigation of crime It is generally heard that the accused gets bail as the investigating agency failed to submit charge sheet within statutory period. The combination of several functions, such as crime investigation, riot control, intelligence gathering, and security of VIPs by a single police force has a devastating effect on the criminal justice system. Nowadays, the crime investigation is not immune from the partisan politics. The power of the government to drop criminal charges against the accused has further abused it. The lethargic police investigation is also a ground of slow process of law.

Consider the condition of the poor victims of Bhopal gas Leak disaster, which took a toll of 15000 people. Twenty years had passed to that ghastly incident; still now victims were fighting for its compensation, which fails to measure up the damage caused to them. Consider the terrible situation occurred in August 1991 as massacre of Dalits at Tsundur in Andhra Pradesh. 13 years had passed to that incident, the families of the victims of Tsundur, still await justice for those who died. They say, they will not find any peace until the guilty are punished for their crime. Consider the condition of those girls who were brutally gang raped during the Godhra riots in front of their helpless family members. Consider the victims of Best Bakery case who still awaits justice to be dispensed in their favour but the climax starts with the key witness in the case turned hostile and the entire fate of the Bakery case is in turmoil. Today the victims of the all the above-enumerated cases know full well that the price of truth is extremely high.

“Still they are waiting… But for what? Whether all these amounts to justice?”

Remedies to Overcome Delay (Suggestions)

I. Talking about the strategies to deal with justice delay, an improved justice delivery system means cutting down the number of adjournments, reducing the time for arguments, keeping a check on review petitions/ frivolous petitions, stopping lawyers extending cases and so on.

II. Punishments should be very stringent and the implementing authorities should be tough so that crime comes down automatically.

III. Lawyers should encourage out of Court settlements.

IV. In case a lawyer looses a certain number of cases, his license should be suspended for sometime so that lawyers refrain from taking up frivolous cases.

V. Govt. Officials should be made personally liable for lapses so that cases against the Govt. are reduced.

VI. The number of appeals to be filed for each category of case should be fixed. Every litigant should not be allowed to go to the Hon’ble Supreme Court. If need be, the law can be changed accordingly.

VII. It is needed to establish a body at national level composed of Judges, Lawyers and Legal academics, which should be charged with a duty to conduct examinations for recruitment to Indian Judicial Service (IJS). Article 233 will have to be amended to confer power on the president to appoint members of Indian Judicial Services on the recommendation of National Judicial Service Commission. The creation of Indian Judicial Service is appeared necessary to get best available talent in the country.

VIII. There is urgently need to improve the basic infrastructure and management of resources. Modern technology and use of computers could also increase the efficiency of the court system. The judiciary has also to learn management techniques through training at all levels. Though, the Supreme Court and High Courts are having good infrastructure but this in not the same position with lower courts. The lower courts are the basic institution of justice and to improve the quality of the justice dispensed with, it is necessary to improve their infrastructure by modern technology. Lack of funds should not be allowed to enter in the way of development of infrastructure, as external security is necessary, internal maintenance of law and order is also necessary for the internal security, national interest, peace and progress. In general budget certain handsome amount could also be allocated to judiciary like defence and education or a separate judicial budget should be placed, like railway budget. The panel of government lawyer should also be on merits not on the basis of nearness to ministers. As the government is the largest litigant, more transparency is required on their part. Govt. counsel should be selected on the basis of merit, efficiency, integrity, by some transparent manner. There should also be some permanent vigilance provision to observe the working of the public prosecutors. Security system in courts also needs improvement for proper confidence of people and fearless functioning of system. Information-counter should be set up in every court for the convenience of litigating public.

IX. Our criminal justice system has the urgent requirement of Independent Investigative Agency. Delay in police investigation is also one reason due to which cases linger on for years. It is, therefore, good to create an independent wing of police force, fully in charge of crime investigation, and functioning under the direct control of independent prosecutors. That wing should be accountable to judiciary and not to particular government of a time. The practice of torture and third degree methods, extra judicial execution in fake encounters may be stopped also when crime investigation machinery became accountable to judiciary. Such type of police wing also became knowledgeable about the type and method of the evidence needed. Hence, baseless cases, which lead acquittal, also could come down. So, there should be co-ordination between police and prosecuting agencies. The early disposal of case also boosts the morals of police force and will save time, which would have been taken in producing arrestee to the court Horn time to time.

X. We have inherited British legal system, British prescribed it at that time, without considering the need of Indian society nor did they consider the practical of the procedure. So, this system is drawn from different sources without seeing the ground realities. Some people today prefer to keep quiet, rather than go to the court of law. So, now this system is more Indianised for making it fit to society. It is heard that in ancient time justice system was very good. The disputes were settled on the spot by delivering justice. But ancient justice proceedings were oral in general and therefore no much record is available. Now we can take modem know-how from the countries, which have best justice delivery system by getting acquainted with the procedure followed there, if fit to Indian society. The civil and criminal procedure codes and the laws of evidence have to be substantially revised to meet the requirements of modem judicial administration. Though most of procedural laws are effective even today but some provision needs revision, especially the civil laws. To lessen the burden of cases, we may introduce the concept of’ Plea-bargaining’ by decriminalization of those wrongs, which can justly be dealt with by compensatory remedies (Compensation to victim like in tort). The institutions involved in justice delivery system such as the police, the prosecution, and the court, prison etc.-requires to be reformed in terms of organization, procedures, resources and accountability. So that, nowhere citizen feels uneasiness. There should be time limits prescribed for adjudication. There should be uniform formats for the appeals and petitions to make the procedure easy. The judgment should be in brevity and clarity. The concept like of public interest litigation is always welcoming, which is affordable to common men. Hence, there is a lot of scope to improve the situation. For e.g. Section 301 Cr. P.c. should be amended to allow the victim to appoint a lawyer of his choice in addition to public prosecutor to defend his case. Similarly, Section 3 13 (3) of Cr. P.C. also be amended so that the accused would be held liable for refusal to give answer or telling lie. The victim will be allowed to cross-examine the accused to elucidate the truth. There must be some fixed time for presentation of written statement, counter claim and reply like the plaint, under the I imitation Act. After all procedural law is meant to further ends of justice.

Conclusion

While the problem of delay looks daunting, it can be dealt with, by having more fast track Courts, making judicial services more attractive thereby attracting good lawyers and filling up all vacancies at various Courts. We can conclude from the above discussion that we should not resort in extra-ordinary hurry-up of cases by whatever means. As justice delayed is justice denied, similarly, the saying, justice hurried is justice buried is equally true. Therefore, sufficient, reasonable and due hearing of every cases with consideration of its circumstances is the necessary requirement of natural justice and balance of convenience. In fact, the untiring efforts put by fear and flavorless Indian Judiciary is doing commendable job of imparting justice in spite of so many difficulties, which created faith of public in the rule. Of law is a great achievement, which really requires deep appreciation. Social justice will be possible only if the entire concept of egalitarian politico-social order is followed, where no one is exploited, where every one is liberated and where every one is equal and free from Hunger and poverty. The proverb ‘Justice Delayed is Justice Denied’ is proved as it is denied to the poorest of the poor. Providing basic necessities to them will amount to Justice because the definition of justice varies from individuals to individuals on the basis of its economic conditions. According to B.P.Singh J the situation today is so grim that if a poor is able to reach to the stage of a high court, it should be considered as an achievement.  Cases should be decided for imparting justice not for the sake of its disposal. Secondly, Arbitration procedure must be utilized as a better option for quick disposal of cases. Finally, to conclude with the words of Lord Hewet as it is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.

“Without Justice, life would not be possible and even if it were it would not be worth living” ……Giorgio Del Vecchio”

Siddharth Chitturi
http://www.articlesbase.com/national,-state,-local-articles/justice-delayed-is-justice-denied-678153.html

Hungry Ghosts

The Tibetans and shamans call them the Hungry Ghosts. We all know them quite well—too well! They are the voices of undoing—the “sirens” from Odysseus’ journey who would seduce us off course on our journey homeward. They are the demons who surface when we suddenly awaken in the middle of the night filled with doubts and fears. They are the nagging worries like flies buzzing around our mental bodies looking for sticky places to land. They are powerful and convincing, tempting us into believing that we can’t grow, heal, transform, change, or awaken. They feed off our negativity like turkey vultures feeding off dead carcasses. They would devour all of our positive energy if given half a chance. They are on the job twenty-four hours a day, always on the alert for times of vulnerability that create openings in our auric body like invitations to “set up shop,” distributing fearful messages. They are like gnats or black flies so small that even the finest screen mesh can’t filter them out of our energetic reality.

We often don’t realize we have been bitten by them until the damage is already done. When we awake in the morning depressed and discouraged—thinking that our life is a joke—they have left their mark, just as if we were covered with minute bee stings leaving us swollen, toxic and hurting. Perhaps Source created the nasty bites of insects to mirror the energetic impact of the hungry ghosts on our emotional, mental and spiritual bodies.

Some of us try to pretend they are not there. The oblivious innocents merrily go through the woods of life with no bug spray, assuming they are invulnerable to the swarms of energies hungry to dine on the human spirit—devouring its light as quickly as possible. These people are quickly brought to their knees, undone in their optimism. Here comes the spiritual crisis: “What kind of God would create a reality like this? Surely this God does not love us.” The hungry ghosts love this kind of thinking. For them it is food for a week as they whisper to us that we can’t possibly know our divinity.

‘The hungry ghosts are particularly activated when we make a conscious commitment to transform or heal an aspect of our souls, especially if our intentions are heightened through ritual. Bringing out the heavy artillery, they are ready to battle our determination to liberate ourselves. Working with the magnetism between the positive and negative poles is required to master duality.

Gathering the positive force needed for self-healing simultaneously activates the opposite pole. This activation sounds an alarm in our energy body as the ghosts close in, ready for the kill. They would destroy our inspiration: “How ridiculous to think that life could be so good. Who do you think you are to dare to consider enlightenment? Remember the pain that you have suffered? Don’t think that it could possibly stop because you are doing some stupid ritual or saying some sniveling prayer. Get real! This is all there is. If you try to make it better it will just get worse—better to leave well enough alone. Let your fears make your decisions.”

Intentions to grow heighten vulnerability as we momentarily allow our vision to reflect our true potential, invoking the challenge to let go of our familiar self-limiting parameters. Releasing the known pushes us to the edge of the cliff, teetering on the brink of our faith, daring to believe for one moment that more could be possible. Into this delicate space the hungry ghosts swarm, trying to distract us as they bite at our convictions and visions. If they succeed, we are thrown off balance and fall into the abyss of our illusions. They win, we lose.

‘The Tibetan smiles at my melodrama around the “Forces of Undoing.” He challenges me to open to the possibility that the hungry ghosts might have a divine mission. At first all that I can think of is that their only purpose is to make us miserable. Djwhal Khul laughs, reminding me about the two different kinds of faith. The first springs from life filled with joy and opportunity. It is easy to have faith when all is well. The challenge is to hold steady with one’s faith when life starts throwing major obstacles in our path. The second faith is hard earned through inner strength and persistence. If we can sustain faith when our external reality seems to make a mockery of our ideals, then we are truly rooted in our faith.

That’s where the hungry ghosts come in—to tempt, torment, ridicule, and undermine our faith. If we can survive their attacks and remain centered and aligned, we are truly strong in our spiritual body. This spiritual conviction makes it possible for us to allow the physical, emotional and mental bodies to go through whatever intensity is integral to the transformational process.

Ironically, the hungry ghosts are really spiritual coaches in disguise. Just like strict drill sergeants in boot camp, their job is to toughen us up, whether we like it or not. All of our fluff is stripped from us. Although believing we never signed up for this tyranny, deep in our souls we can sense the rightness of the overall process. We cannot possibly bushwhack the cutting edge of our magnitude if our core star (our soul’s center) is not strong enough. Still breathing after an onslaught from the hungry ghosts indicates we are all ready for action—the action that sweeps us through the gateway into the fifth dimension. So, let us welcome these messengers of the negative pole as they create the very resistance that propels us into our divine destiny.

As a psychologist I am keenly aware of the alchemical cycle of transformation. Initially when metal is alchemized into gold there is the blackening stage. Emotionally and spiritually the blackening phase demands a journey to the underworld resulting in a dismemberment process. This is not a physical, but a psychic dismemberment. We leave the world of order, certainty and knowing, and fall into the vortex of chaos, not-knowing and fragmentation. This is a necessary part of the alchemical process of breaking down old forms. At this point the hungry ghosts lunge forward, eager to pick apart our certainties as they introduce doubt, disturbance, fear, bewilderment and judgment.

While intellectually I understand all of this, when the hungry ghosts come after me, I’ll run faster than anyone to get away from them. Of course, they always catch me, shrieking in delight at my dismay. As they pull me apart I wail at my predicament, losing all sight of my overall process. Rarely, when particularly centered, I manage to faintly remember that this is a very necessary part of the process. However, it is hard to be comforted by that thought when the experience becomes painful and discouraging. Sometimes I try to block out the process until it is over, struggling to invoke “psychic anesthesia.” But that doesn’t work. We can’t sleep through the hungry ghosts. They are just too noisy. They demand interaction. Attempting to push them away just makes them stronger. Surrender is the answer—surrender with awareness.

Oh how mature we have to be to hold this perspective, allowing ourselves to be momentarily devoured by our karmic past. In the long run it’s easier to be mature than to throw a temper tantrum which only wastes the precious energy needed to survive the alchemical fire. Memories of past skirmishes with these ghostly devils help me to “hang on” during this process. I have survived and flourished in spite of their history of relentlessness. In my twenties I could not name this process, feeling at the mercy of these potent adversaries. Bringing me to my knees, I would cry, rage and wonder whether life was worth living, thinking that it would always be this bad. I believed every lie the ghosts told me. Caught in a place of inadequacy and failure, I would let them win—postponing” my transformation. However, even in those dark nights, the subtle voice of guidance emerged telling me that eventually I would have the strength to go forward, allowing my true self to flourish.

Over time I have learned to recognize the usual insults and criticisms of my personal hungry ghosts. They always say the same thing. This allows me some measure of perspective to keep going. Every time I dare to be more than I have been, the hungry ghosts will immediately spring forth, undermining my positive outlook. I try to remember to breathe. They have never been able to completely take away my breath. Physical movement helps. A moving target is harder for them to attach to—tai chi, chi gong, yoga, walks—whatever it takes to keep the energy circulating. The more the energy moves, the quicker this process is completed.

‘It helps to remember that birth resides within death, and so too does gold reside within the blackening. Patience is essential. Eventually the clouds part and the sun shines again. Hungry ghosts don’t like the sunshine, especially when it radiates out from the soul. I now trust that my natural light will burn away the veils the “ghosts” tell me are real. So, I surrender, ego unwilling, to this spectacular process reminding myself that transformation is possible for all beings—no, not possible—probable. The gold within always emerges victorious.”

Copyright© 2002 Soul Searching with Djwhal Khul, the Tibetan

Moriah Marston
http://www.articlesbase.com/motivational-articles/hungry-ghosts-215887.html

Bush Administration Claims U.s. Military Can Police American Citizens

BY MICHAEL WEBSTER: Syndicated Investigative Reporter: Dec 18, 2008 at 12:30 PM PST

The Bush administration claims that the use of the military to support civil authorities stems from core national values as expressed in the Constitution. Article I, Section 8. It states, “Congress shall have power… to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections, and repel Invasions.” Article II, Section 3 states the President, “…shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The 10th Amendment reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it, are reserved to the States respectively…,” providing the basis that Federal government support, including DoD assistance, is provided in support of State and local authorities.

According to Gerry J. Gilmore of “Family Security Matters reports that Pentagon officials have established a new rapid-response joint task force and plan to create two more in coming years to bolster assistance to civil authorities following potential chemical, biological or nuclear attacks or natural disasters, a senior U.S. official said.

These new units will team with other federal agencies in support of local responders following chemical, biological or nuclear terror attacks on the homeland or during natural disasters, Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and Americas’ security affairs, told reporters recently.

The establishment of the new units “builds upon a decade of improving [Defense Department] capabilities to deal with a domestic terrorist attack involving a weapon of mass destruction,” McHale said.

The first new 4,700-member task force was assigned to a component of U.S. Northern Command on Oct. 1, 2008 McHale said. The new unit, he said, is built around a core of active-duty soldiers from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team based at Fort Stewart, Ga. This task force, he said, falls under the control of Northcom’s Joint Force Land Component Command, U.S. Army North, in San Antonio. Commanded by

Plans are to stand up the other two new joint task forces in 2010 and 2011, respectively, McHale said. These units, he said, mostly will comprise reserve component personnel from all the military services.

Each task force will be capable of performing tasks such as medical response, decontamination, technical rescue, patient evacuation, and communications and logistics support, to include air and land transportation assets for transport of supplies, people and equipment, according to U.S. Army North documents.

The task forces would be ordered into action by the president, McHale said, following requests for disaster-relief assistance from state governors.

The Bush administration indicates that the President is authorized by the Constitution and Title 10 (10 USC 331–334) to suppress insurrections, rebellions, and domestic violence. After issuing a Cease and Desist Order, the President issues an executive order that directs the Attorney General and the SECDEF to take appropriate steps to disperse insurgents and restore law and order. The Attorney General is then responsible to coordinate the federal response to domestic civil disturbances. The restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act no longer apply to federal troops executing the orders of the President to quell the disturbance in accordance with Rules of the Use of Force (RUF) approved by the DoD General Counsel and the Attorney General.

Even though McHale said, the new units do not conduct law-enforcement missions. And further stated in the event of civil disturbances and some other types of national emergencies, other designated U.S. military units could be ordered by the president to help civil authorities establish order as part of the Garden Plot domestic security plan. However the USNORTHCOM Concept Plan (CONPLAN) 2502 (Civil Disturbance Operations), is the plan for supporting state and local authorities during civil disturbances. This plan serves as the foundation for any CDO operation and standardizes most activities and command relationships. Tasks performed by military forces may include joint patrolling with law enforcement officers; securing key buildings, memorials, intersections and bridges; and acting as a quick reaction force. The JTF commander, a general officer, coordinates all DoD support with the Senior Civilian Representative of the Attorney General (SCRAG). DoD will usually establish a JTF headquarters near where the Attorney General’s local representative is based.

Garden Plot is the DoD Civil Disturbance Plan, the generic Operations Plan [OPLAN] for military support related to domestic civil disturbances. The department of the Army Civil Disturbance Plan (DA GARDEN PLOT), is the governing publication for planning, deployment, employment, and redeployment of federal military resources involved in countering domestic civil disturbances. Military assistance to Federal, State, and local government (including government of U.S. territories) and their law enforcement agencies for civil disturbances and civil disturbance operations, including response to terrorist incidents, are referred to cumulatively as “Military Assistance for Civil Disturbances (MACDIS).”

The DoD Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support (2005) defines Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) as, “DoD support, including federal military forces, the Department’s career civilian and contractor personnel, and DoD agency and component assets, for domestic emergencies and for designated law enforcement and other activities.” It notes that DSCA is also often referred to as Civil Support. There has been discussion in some DoD offices of distinguishing between the two terms: Civil Support as a total force construct with DSCA involving Federal support only and not include the National Guard in Title 32 or State Active Duty status. But as of 2008 they remained essentially synonymous.

Civil disturbances are riots, acts of violence, insurrections, unlawful obstructions or assemblages, or other disorders prejudicial to public law and order. The term civil disturbance includes all domestic conditions requiring or likely to require the use of Federal Armed Forces pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 15 of Title 10, United States Code.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (PCA), subsequent amendments and policy decisions prohibits the use of federal military forces (to include Reserve forces) to perform internal police functions. PCA thus restricts the type of support DoD can provide domestic law enforcement organizations. There are a wide variety of exceptions to the PCA and the law essentially gives the President all the authority he needs to employ DoD forces inside the U.S. although there may appropriately be political consequence that would inhibit such employment.

The term posse comitatus [po.si komitei.tAs, -tius , [med. (Anglo) L., force of the county: see prec. and county.] applies to the ‘The force of the county’; the body of men above the age of fifteen in a county (exclusive of peers, clergymen, and infirm persons), whom the sheriff may summon or ‘raise’ to repress a riot or for other purposes; also, a body of men actually so raised and commanded by the sheriff.

In the United States the posse comitatus was perhaps most important on the Western frontier (there known as a posse), but it has been preserved as an institution in many states. Sheriffs and other peace officers have the authority to summon the power of the county. In some counties it is a crime to refuse assistance. In general, members of a posse comitatus have been permitted to use force if necessary to achieve a posse’s legitimate ends, but state laws differ as to the legal liability of one who in good faith aids an officer himself acting beyond his authority.

Congress sought to terminate the prevalent use of federal soldiers in civilian law enforcement roles in the South during the Reconstruction Period following the Civil War. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 created general prohibition against use of military personnel in civilian law enforcement. The most renowned statutory exception has been traditionally referred to as The Insurrection Acts (10 USC 331–334) that were modified and renamed to Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order by the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The new language clarifies Presidential authority to invoke the acts for situations resulting from natural disasters and other emergencies.

Military resources may be employed in support of civilian law enforcement operations in the 50 States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the U.S. territories and possessions only in the parameters of the Constitution and laws of the United States and the authority of the President and the Secretary of Defense, including delegations of that authority through this Directive or other means.

The primary responsibility for protecting life and property and maintaining law and order in the civilian community is vested in the State and local governments. Supplementary responsibility is vested by statute in specific Agencies of the Federal Government other than the Department of Defense. The President has additional powers and responsibilities under the Constitution of the United States to ensure that law and order are maintained.

The mission at NORTHCOM is to anticipate events in the homeland and to be prepared to respond, to either prevent the attacks or defeat them if they occur and then to mitigate the consequences of those attacks should they occur. In addition, NORTHCOM has a secondary mission to provide defense support to civil authorities. It’s an old mission that the Army used to lump together under the Garden Plot scenario, in that there was always a brigade that was prepared to respond to civil disturbances.

“Our job at NORTHCOM is to ensure that if there’s a seam or a gap there that we’re thinking of how we could fill that with some other capability out of” the Defense Department “What that has forced us to do it is think about, ‘How do you solve that time/distance problem, even on a short-notice event. And so I have access to capabilities now that I didn’t have a year or two ago that I can move very quickly to fill that need. said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of United States Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Commander.

“For example, if there were something that occurred in the El Paso area that the Texas National Guard might not have a capability immediately available to respond, but Fort Bliss did in an active-duty unit, then I would pull that active-duty unit out and make that available to the state to assist.”

They are being staged and immediately available as emergency  “on call” units for use against terrorist threats on the nation’s border and local disasters, said Gen. Renuart Jr.

Possibly the greatest challenge will be to support National Guard and reserve forces feeling the strain of repeated deployments that also have depleted equipment supplies. Guard units respond to natural disasters as well as bridge collapses and other human-caused incidents Renuart said.

The Coast Guard, as well as the other Services, is required to maintain support plans. GARDEN PLOT is the name applicable to such service plans. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of operational commanders should reflect guidance herein. Military assistance to civil authorities is a peacetime matter, not to be confused with military support of civil defense (MSCD), which is a wartime function.

DOD task force operations to quell civil disturbances off military property can be initiated only by Presidential order. Cases of such initiation in the past occurred during the urban political and racial unrest in the Vietnam era when federal troops were deployed on a number of occasions. GARDEN PLOT operations may include terrorist incidents, though the FBI, not the Army, will then be the lead agent. In the event of civil unrest upon the high seas and waters subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, where in the Coast Guard has standing statutory responsibility, Coast Guard units will in all likelihood be legitimately involved in law enforcement operations well before any Presidential invocation of civil disturbance plans. The Coast Guard character for law enforcement and cooperation with civil authorities is much broader than that of DOD services. DOD services are subject to law enforcement restrictions that are not applicable to the Coast Guard.

Cooperation with other services in GARDEN PLOT operations is paramount and requires particular understanding of task force constitution and chains of command. Civil disturbance planning cannot be deliberate in that force mix and locales are obviously indeterminate. Guidance herein will provide a basis for Coast Guard participation and related area and district supplemental instructions or other directives. Actual Coast Guard participation will in all likelihood be the logical extension of traditional law enforcement functions.

The Insurrection Act permitted the President to call the militia into Federal service to suppress insurrections and to enforce the law, including when State authorities were unable or unwilling to secure the Constitutional rights of their citizens. Rarely in U.S. history has this authority been employed. In fact, the National Guard has been federalized under the provisions of the Insurrection Act only ten (10) times since World War II.

It is believed by critic’s and other patriots that the U.S. Government plans to exercise these options and imprison citizen decedents.

michael Webster
http://www.articlesbase.com/causes-and-organizations-articles/bush-administration-claims-us-military-can-police-american-citizens-691953.html

Core Of Corruption Volume 1: In The Shadows {Full Film}

http://www.CoreOfCorruption.com go to the website to buy the DVD now http://www.CoreOfCorruption.com Core of Corruption is a documentary film series which details a comprehensive investigation into clandestine intelligence operations and conspiracies. The project is surfacing exclusive whistleblowers, insiders and critical evidence for the very first time. Over 2,000 hours of credible network news clips have been surfaced for this ground breaking event, most of which have never been seen since they aired and have never been available on the internet. Some of the video news segments for this project, when requested from the networks, were denied access to and corporate representatives would say that the information sought does not exist or has been misplaced. Someone doesnt want the public to see these stories, that when put together, establish a conspiracy of the magnitude that could change the way one views the world. Countless millions of people are being manipulated and lied to by a network of individuals within government that work on behalf of private interests. The individuals were involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Many of those same figures are are connected to historical events that have shaped our understanding of government crime. For instance, the Iran Contra affair involved many figures that showed up in the 9/11 attacks. Drug running, terrorism, money laundering and arms trading are carried out in concert with this network. They manipulate the worlds response to these issues on behalf of very high profile figures in some of the most influential think tanks and political interest groups. Figures include well known politicians as well as established businesses on Wall Street. This project, started more than five years ago, is going to break ground in mapping and identifying the most important and credible evidence as well as establish why these networks operate with impunity. DVD’s will ship on the release date: March 27, 2009

Duration : 2:27:46

Read more…

Rescuing Gm

According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, bailing out America’s Big Three automakers should not be considered “as life-support to sustain a dying industry, but a jump start for an industry that is essential to our country’s economic health.” Really, Madam Speaker? America, let’s face it, the proposed bailout isn’t about rescuing GM, it’s about preserving the UAW, its toxic contracts, and its political ties with the Democratic Party. A bailout of the Big Three is a mistake of monumental proportions as it subsidizes a failed business model and supports continued mismanagement. Jack Kemp, former United States Representative and founder and co-director of Empower America, a public policy and advocacy organization, stated it best:

“If you tax something, you get less of it. If you subsidize something, you get more of it. The problem in America today is that we are taxing work, saving, investment, and productivity; and we’re subsidizing debt, welfare, consumption, leisure, and mediocrity.”

According to conservative industry estimates, GM alone is bleeding $1 billion of cash per month. If you give GM a $10 billion lifeline, they’ll burn through it in 10 months! 

A bailout clearly is not the answer. GM’s primary foreign rivals (BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Nissan, and Toyota) all build vehicles in the USA using American labor. The key difference is they maintain leaner and more adaptable organizational structures than GM, and can perform the same operations better, faster, and with fewer resources. In the current business environment of global competition, rapid technological change, and uncertainty, this is unacceptable. GM’s multi-layered, bureaucratic organizational structure is crippling its ability to compete effectively in a global marketplace.

If a bailout is not the answer, what can GM do?

o GMAC must stop originating, securitizing, and servicing insurance and mortgage products and focus on automotive financing.

GMAC lost $2.3 billion in 2007; unfortunately, it will be difficult for GM to force any changes at GMAC. (Cerberus acquired a controlling 51% stake in 2006.) In order to return GMAC to profitability, the subsidiary must reduce exposure to the foreclosed assets, impaired loans, loan commitments, and reserve requirements inherent in their insurance and mortgage product portfolio. The business of GMAC is borrowing and lending money, and that’s not GM’s business.

o Alternatively, GM could swap a portion of its remaining 49% equity stake in GMAC to Cerberus for ownership of Chrysler. 

According to its 2007 Form 10-K, GM has 184 directly or indirectly owned subsidiaries. As a result, there’s plenty of room for asset sales and internal consolidations to generate cash and to enhance operational efficiencies. Ownership of Chrysler would enable additional asset sales and consolidations beyond what GM already can do on its own. In particular, GM and Chrysler can consolidate or dispose of assembly plants, automotive retailers, brands, duplicative corporate assets, employees and layers of management, and parts suppliers. For instance, the All-American Chevrolet and Dodge brands can be merged, as can the iconic Hummer and Jeep brands. The Chrysler nameplate can be sold to generate cash, as can Global Electric Motors. GM can swap Mopar to Delphi for forgiveness of GM’s remaining financial (including pension) and other obligations and expedite Delphi’s emergence from bankruptcy. Finally, Chrysler Financial can either be left with Cerberus or sold after the swap.

Not only is GMAC not as critical to GM’s operations as it once was, “GMAC’s business requires substantial capital”1 GM doesn’t have and cannot get. Additionally, it draws management attention away from the firm’s core operations and its reason for existence. This is something Sears discovered long ago, leading to their decision in late 1992 to divest their capital intensive non-core financial services network (i.e., Allstate, Coldwell Banker, and Dean Witter/Discover.)  Please refer to Outsourcing the American Dream by Christopher M. England for additional information related to Sears’ failed venture into retail financial services.

1General Motors Corp 2007 Form 10-K

o GM must invest heavily in intellectual property and research and development.  

In my July 2008 article, “Rescue the American Dream from the Tyranny of Foreign Oil,” I outlined several initiatives that are essential to the survival of America’s Big Three automakers, including investments in breakthrough automotive technologies and commercially-viable alternative-fuel sources. For example, GM can drive up Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) thresholds in a couple of ways. One is by substituting the same lighter-weight carbon-fiber composite body panels used by our military for steel. Another is by harnessing kinetic energy from the natural motion, rotation, and vibration of the vehicle and its parts as a supplemental power source. GM also must replace current “flex-fuel” (a.k.a. E85) vehicles with “multi flex-fuel” vehicles capable of using any pure or blended fuel source. Alternative-fuel sources can include ammonia, bio-diesel/bio-fuels, compressed natural gas, gas/electric hybrids, plug-in electrics, etc.

While hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, most of it remains locked up in more complex compounds such as ammonia, methane (natural gas or propane), or water. Not only does it require tremendous amounts of energy to separate the hydrogen from its natural compounds, it requires tremendous amounts of energy to liquefy and condense hydrogen; however, scientists are experimenting with electrolyzers, genetically-engineered bacteria, and various reactive metals that might one day lead to an abundant alternative-fuel source. According to Kevin Mayhood in a June 30, 2008 article in The Columbus Dispatch, Gerardine Botte, director of Ohio University’s Electrochemical Engineering Research Laboratory, is working on a method to pull hydrogen from the ammonia in animal and human urine. This is important for several reasons. First, we already have the infrastructure in place to distribute ammonia to retail gas station pumps, as it’s been used to make fertilizer for decades. Second, separating hydrogen from ammonia does not produce “greenhouse gases” as long as the required electricity comes from a source which produces no greenhouse gases. (The same can be said for gas/electric hybrids and plug-in electrics.) Third, ammonia is more easily liquefied and condensed than hydrogen.

o GM should consider Chapter 11.

Filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code should present GM with an enhanced opportunity to restructure its business model and dump its burdensome union agreements. GM can enter and re-emerge from Chapter 11 without enormous job losses, something the UAW and the pro-bailout Democrats chose to ignore. We’re not talking about Chapter 7 here. We’re talking about an opportunity to reign in the massive healthcare, pension, and other legacy costs that are draining GM of value and leaving it at a competitive disadvantage. Chapter 11 should be considered even if it means freezing defined benefit pension funds to new employee participation, beefing up 401(k) plans, and increasing cost sharing with employees and retirees. If GM leaves legacy costs untouched, employees and retirees ultimately will be the ones who suffer. That being said, GM also must redesign performance management and reward systems to ensure workers are compensated in the most appropriate ways. Despite suffering a net loss of $38.7 billion in 2007, Richard Wagoner, Jr., Chairman and CEO of GM, earned $15.7 million in total compensation. Something’s definitely wrong with this picture. 

If a bailout is not the answer, what can the Federal Government do?

o Put an end to America’s unilateral free-trade policies.

We should practice free-trade only with nations who practice it with us. Why do we allow Japan full access to the American economy, when Japan puts up barriers to American ownership of Japanese corporations or restricts the number of automobiles GM or Ford can sell in Japan? If Japan puts up barriers, we need to do the same. If China implements a 25% import tariff making our automobiles more expensive in Chinese markets, we need to do the same making Chinese automobiles more expensive in American markets. This isn’t protectionism; it’s good economic sense. 

o Rescue the American Dream from the Tyranny of Foreign Oil

In my July 2008 article, “Rescue the American Dream from the Tyranny of Foreign Oil,” I not only outlined several initiatives that are essential to the survival of America’s Big Three automakers, I also outlined numerous initiatives we must undertake to simultaneously diversify sources of oil supplies, dramatically slash oil consumption, and increase production of alternative-energy sources to clean up the environment, increase our energy efficiency, protect national security interests, reduce the military and political leverage of OPEC oil, revitalize the U.S. economy, and shrink trade deficits.

www.christophermengland.com

Christopher M. England
http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/rescuing-gm-690521.html