Nothing's Real Until It Bites You

Newsweek. Pretty mainstream, wouldn't you say? Look what they're discussing. No, they don't quote Ron Paul at all, and yet, this material could have been lifted from any number of his speeches. I think it's starting to get hip and fashionable to be "waking up."

Emphases are mine in the following excerpts from this article dated 7/19/08:

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YET ANOTHER DOMINO FALLS

The Fannie and Freddie crisis is a great illustration of how interconnected the world of finance has become. According to the U.S. Federal Reserve, foreign entities now own about $1 trillion of the securities held by Fannie and Freddie. Owners include central banks in China, Russia and Saudi Arabia and big financial institutions such as Mitsubishi UFJ in Japan and Swiss Re in Zurich. It's hard to know if these securities became dangerously concentrated in any one country or institution, although rumors of problems have rattled markets in Japan and Taiwan.

(...)

...Nevertheless, there are reasons for global concerns down the road. (...) This action could add tens of billions of dollars to the U.S. debt, weakening the dollar and consequently pushing up oil prices and raising the cost of imports. Both of these factors contribute to America's inflation problem.

(...)

There is also a chance that Washington could decide to approach foreign sovereign wealth funds to help recapitalize Fannie and Freddie. The SWFs have already been burned by investing in firms like Merrill Lynch and Citigroup. But it is possible that the Treasury could devise some sort of security that is a hybrid of equity and debt to protect SWF investments.

(...)

[NOTE: I love the following two paragraphs, because the MSM is finally calling a spade a spade -- you and I know this stuff, but the general public, I think, is just beginning to catch on to a lot of this.]

The subprime mess revealed an egregious lapse in regulation and morality on Wall Street and in Washington. What has happened to Fannie and Freddie is a result of that subprime disease. But the crisis at these two institutions is an even worse reflection on U.S. capitalism since the seeds of the GSE's problems were sewn many years ago, when Washington decided to make these bodies into instruments of social policy—using them to facilitate homeownership—while preserving the façade that they were private-sector banks. This policy led to today's mess because it allowed the shareholders and executives of these enormous banks to gain from any profits, while passing on losses to taxpayers. In fact, Fannie and Freddie were always political institutions as much as banks. But by turning them into vehicles for crony capitalism, Washington has given foreign lenders and investors one more reason to think about reducing their exposure to the dollar and to the U.S. market.

One consequence of all this is that it will now be a long time before any U.S. official will be in a position to tell other governments how to manage their finances. They'll be too busy fixing their own system. Standing behind Fannie and Freddie's debts and injecting some equity is only a stopgap measure. The two companies will need to be massively restructured: probably broken up and either fully nationalized or fully privatized, but nothing in between. That will be a delicate operation while so much debt is outstanding and while markets follow every twist and turn in the Washington debate, and it will take many years.

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Wow, wow, WOW -- is this not precisely the type of thinking we (and of course RP!) have been trying to tell people about????

This is a great article to send to your MSM-devoted (hypnotized) friends and acquaintances.

changed a lot of hearts and minds.

The people are taking it upon themselves to do what needs to be done.

Quick quote from a very short article (emphasis mine):
"This is first time when tribes have announced armed resistance against Taliban. Reports said that Taliban has disappeared from the area after the formation of the lashkar."

See, the Taliban is not being dealt with there in Pakistan. So the people are stepping up to the plate. You might say they were forming militias.

Do you see a common theme here, through all these stories?

Of course they report on it now that it's passed. -_- As if they had no idea what was going on until now. -_-

Someone wants your annihilation. Just watch yourself.

It was actually the title that attracted me. First thought was "Yep! I dated her."

Here's a Time/CNN article dated 7/12/08:

Libertarians: A (Not So) Lunatic Fringe

NOTE: There are a few morsels in this article for Barr supporters, and a few morsels for those who are anti-Barr. Bob Barr is NOT the focus of the article, however -- the spotlight is on the fact that many people are waking up and saying NO to the "presumed nominees" of the Democratic and Republican parties, and they want better!

OM/MSM is reporting what we've known all along -- this will HELP spread our message to the masses.

Excerpts (but I do urge you to read the entire article):

Maybe you haven't heard, but this is the year of freedom. First there was the Ron Paul revolution, in which an avuncular 10-term Representative from Brazoria County, Texas, raised more than $34 million as a pseudo-Republican candidate, garnered more than a million primary votes and outperformed Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, all on the back of a get-government-off-my-back platform. Now there's the Libertarian Party, which sold a little bit of its hard-line liberty-loving soul in exchange for the most respectable candidate it has ever had: recently converted former Republican Congressman Bob Barr, who's polling nationally near 6% and could conceivably Naderize John McCain in a few key states and help nudge the presidency to Barack Obama.

(...)

...if anything, the GOP platform has grown more committed to foreign military intervention and domestic moralizing. The selection of John McCain was a final insult--most libertarians view him, fairly or not, as pro-war, anti-gun, pro-environmentalism and anti--free speech (thanks to his advocacy for campaign-finance reform). In Nevada, where the liberty lobby is strong, McCain got trounced in the primary voting, coming in third behind Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. When the state GOP tried to crown McCain at its Reno convention in April, so many Paul supporters showed up that party leaders literally fled the hall, turned off the lights and postponed the convention to make sure the anemic pro-McCain camp wasn't swamped by liberty's marauders. It was like a John Ford western set inside a hotel ballroom.

(...)

It's tempting to think of Libertarianism as nothing more than old-school Republicanism, but it's always been partially left-wing, drawing from a long history of American anarchism. The modern challenge is to unite those two wings--or, as magician (and stalwart Libertarian) Penn Jillette told me, "Convince the dope guys that the gun guys are O.K., and vice versa." And many Libertarians believe the time is now. It helps that the U.S. has been throttled for a century by two parties whose core differences are narrowing. The current general election has seemed at times a contest about who can crib off the other party's platform more, from McCain's enthusiasm for using government to fight global warming to Obama's hedging on warrantless wiretapping. For an electorate having a harder time distinguishing Coke from Pepsi, there's a thirst for something--anything--new.

(...)

Libertarians are getting ready for the mainstream, and mainstream America may finally be ready for them.
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This guy sounds like he could be a member of the CFL!!! This is the son of the Shah of Iran who was deposed in 1979 being interviewed. He currently lives in Maryland.

Help Iranian People Change Government, Shah's Son Urges

Excerpts:
TORONTO — The son of the deposed Shah of Iran warned that Western diplomacy or military intervention will not ease the tensions in Iran, and said there is a small window of time to empower the country's citizens to rise up against the government.

(...)

“In my opinion, the only thing that will force the regime to change its behaviour is not any carrot you're dangling from the outside or any threat to strike them with weapons to neutralize their military capabilities. The biggest fear over which [the leaders] lose sleep overnight is the fear that one day the people on the street will rise against them.”

(...)

“There's a short window of time before it really gets ugly,” he said in the interview at a Toronto hotel. “It would be historically criminal, criminal for the future of our planet if the world community doesn't give this process a chance, because by then it would too late.”

In recent years, he said, Iran has become synonymous with “terrorism” and “aggression” because of the current regime. He is an advocate of non-violent civil disobedience and has lobbied politicians to help lead a movement for change.

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Sound familiar??

article...and sad that it sometimes takes so much to get people to open their eyes....most important thing, though, is that their eyes are now open....

we come together and wake up now or....in FEMA camps

reminds me of that old song. "You don't know what you have until it's lost" something like that. Peace