Ch 13: Gullible's Travels in Neoconland: The Corporate Reactionary Revolution of the 70s
They're Building a Box - and You're In It
Banketeering
Sept 2008
The Canadian Media and the 2008 Election: Reporting or Managing?
Sept 2008
The Onward Rocinante archive, for those interested in earlier commentary, and also recent longer missives to the CBC and others, and yet even more other stuff going waaaaaay back.
G'wan, I'm a dying breed, everybody else 'twitters' with 100 character max, and are well along the way to developing brainpower to match - but if you're one of the few looking for longer, thoughtful correspondances - this is one of the last places you're going to find any....
contact
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." - Henry David Thoreau
It's every man for himself, the elephant said as he danced among the chickens.
- Tommy Douglas
In this world, we are all butterflies and we need to be mindful of what can happen when we flap our wings
- David Suzuki
Democracy is comin...
It's a pretty nice farm - but don't confuse being a cow with being a farmer... (no, GO didn't say that, I did, but it goes good with the pic)
...the most destructive form of untruth is sophistry and propaganda by those whose profession it is to report the news... - Walter Lippmann
I have a dream ...
Be the change you want to see in the world ...
Monday Nov 17 08.
Caring for aging boomers - attitude adjustment is what is needed - There are some good points re looking after our people here, but the central focus is very wrong - we do not have a problem because of an aging population, we have a problem because we have allowed our society to be taken over by a greedy subsection who would rather use their money on yachts and clubmed vacations than providing decent lives for those who came before, or are otherwise unable to look after themselves. This is not the kind of society most of us, I think, want to live in - so let's get rid of these neocons and their 'money is god' attitude and take back our society. Since money is at the root of all this, start here for understanding - BANKETEERING http://www.rudemacedon.ca/banketeering.html .
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Island Morning doing their bit for the empire again - they have a great new contest - what songs do you think of when you have troubled times - as of course we are all facing some troubled economic times because of the global financial meltdown, and since that was something that we are not going to even go near talking about in terms of causes, we will just talk about how we deal with these act of god type things - like, you know, we're all in this together, chin up old chap, smile and the world smiles with you, lalala!!
Kind of interesting to think of other things - like, oh, terrorism. Now with terrorism, there's no 'what happy songs do you think about when we on the CBC tell you that the terrorists are all over the place and you better be ready for more police presence and etc?' - no, we're by golly going to go after these terrible people, all over the world, bombing and killing, support our troops!!! and all the rest. But actually, aside from the families of soldiers who have been injured, not a single person on PEI has been affected by terrorism, ever. Nor is likely to be. But pretty much everyone is feeling, or going to soon feel, some impact from this economic crash that is happening, and some of them very severe consequences, and you would think that people who cared about people would be looking to get to the bottom of this minor catastrophe, both to punish the people causing all this misery, and to try to figure some way to stop it all from happening again. There have been some major crimes committed, and at very high places, and if we do not expose these criminals, well, they're just going to be laughing all the way to the bank.
But we aren't going to talk about this on the CBC, no sir, it's full scale damage control, the CBC protecting their real masters, and making sure the people NEVER look around for some criminals here. And as long as the people just accept this, without fighting back, the wolves will keep eating at will.
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- and then they do their bit in the ongoing drive to get some serious regulation into the internet - this time by linking the death of this Brandon kid to the insidious evil power of the internet!!! - luring kids into bad things, and etc. There are some dangerous things available on the net, for sure - but there are dangerous things right outside your front door, and some VERY dangerous shit on the television every day, yet these things are never demonized - kids are told to be careful outside (rightfully so, though sadly, we need to get rid of the neocon cancer so the streets will be safe for all of us again, ASAP), although apparently mostly allowed to watch what they want as many hours as they want on the television, which is far, far FAR more damaging to our kids the internet will ever be - but it's the net they want to get some serious chains on, because of it's accessability to people who see through the scams and worse that our leaders are doing and try to stop them, which is becoming a serious inconvenience to those who would be our kings. The internet will be fine when it is dominated by the elite, and has sufficient commercial content that the users pay for, one way or another, and people who have dangerous points of view are pretty much frozen out. Like the rest of the mainstream media. Like with so many things, we are on the cusp right now - there's a few of us fighting for sanity, and a few more sitting inside with the curtains closed but hoping we win, but there's a whole lot more out there who apparently have no fucking idea at all what is happening, and are being herded along like your average brainless sheep herd into the pen, or the oven, or over the cliff, or the shearing barn, or whatever you want to call it - the land of no brains. And the leaders don't appear very worried, which should worry a lot more people than it seems to.
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Ottawa Morning - Katherine doing the same on Ottawa Morning - a talk about people in trouble because of overspending on credit cards - and it's a company message all the way, no criticism allowed of the banks, just you people gotta watch your spending folks!
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The Current - talking about the Brit's recognition of China's occupation and rule of Tibet, and what an unsettling sort of thing this is - we are, after all, supporting Freedom and Democracy!! - and countries like China should NOT be allowed to go around imposing their will on other countries, the bad people! It's pretty interesting, from outside the box, to observe this kind of thing - now Canada, for instance, is involved in an invasion half ways around the world trying to impose what it thinks a suitable government on another country - same thing China is doing, really, except China is using a great deal less violence, from what we hear, not bombing wedding parties or shooting kids on bikes (if they were, do you think that would warrant a bit of outrage on the CBC???) - but what Canada is doing is a GOOD thing!! I guess this is the Orwellian doublethinkspeak in action. If THEY are doing something we can criticize in some way, then by golly they're BADDDDD people chiluns and we's free to say all kinds of bad stuff about em on the radio yea!!! - if we happen to be doing the same thing in some other place, why, we just call it something else and it's a GOOOOOODDDDD thing, chilun we's bringin freedom and democracy to all those people, at least the ones that don't get caught in our bombs or ride bikes without obeying our lawful democratic orders!!! - and you never ask any questions, because you only ask questions the people on the tv tell you it's ok to ask!!
- and a CBC Conspiracy Theory!!!! (only for those with functioning brains, of course, who can see contradictions and wonder why, something not encouraged on the 'do as we tell you and don't ask questions about things you don't understand children!' Canadian Big Momma Media - the host is talking to the author of a new book about Pakistan - evidently there is some confusion that needs to be addressed to keep discontinuities from becoming too serious amongst the flock, as in is Pakistan our Great Ally in the Sacred War on Terror!!!, or is is some kind of danger, since they sort of shelter the Taliban, our Mortal Enemy??? - and they have Nukes!! - which are ok if our staunch bud Israel have them, but BAAAADDDDDD if a Mortal Enemy like, oh, Iran, even thinks about them, so what about this Pakistan??? - well, that's a story for a longer book and as you know these are but notes quickly written as we stop for a quick rest before continuing the quest, but back to the Current - it's a long interview, not all bad, but at one place they get into a little talk about a Pakistani being killed in a mysterious sort of plane crash (if anyone knows of a Twilight Zone font with suitable embedded music please write), perhaps some toxic substance on the airplane steering wheel (OMG!!), hidden documents not revealed to Good Guys trying to Get to the Bottom of This Crime, no apparent reason for the plane to go down, and etc and etc - the thing is, this is all talked about in seriousness with grave voices and slight frowns (yea, they're visible over the radio, that's the kind of serious talk it is), and etc, as if it is a puzzle that is not yet resolved, with some things we Good Folk ought to be a bit, you know, concerned and suspicious about, them damned people who live in deserts and mountains and pray several times a day aren't very trustworthy like we good Christian folk, like GB you know - but of course when certain people talk about other mysterious plane crashes in, for instance, a place like the United States, equally mysterious, even more so, crashes that kill people opposing the New World Order people (Kennedy and Wellstone come to mind, there are many others), it's all completely ignored by the CBC and other Cdn mainstreamers, or if someone brings it up in a place it must be acknowledged as having been said it is immediately dismissed as a crazy conspiracy theory, and the people trying to talk about it as loony fringers of some stripe, not to be taken seriously by we serious types you know.
So - again, the good ol CBC Orwellian double standard - if there are people 'we' don't like, then by golly, we can ask questions about mysterious deaths - but if it's our good buds (like the US gov) who appear to be involved - why, no way!!!
Don't you just love the impartial way the Cdn mainstream media reports 'the facts, ma'am, just the facts'?!?
Windmills all over the freaking place. CBC being a major source of evidence for sussing them out. Go get em DQ.
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Where's the contrition - but - what about the big guys? pretty petty to whine about a few thousand bucks, when we're in the midst of a global meltdown because our leaders have allowed our bankers to create hundreds of billions, trillions even, of imaginary money which is now crashing everything around us - actually, contrition isn't what I would like to see, life with no parole for a lot of them would be about right. But then, if we start talking like this, we're going to start looking at the media too - where were they while all this was happening? The same place as now, I guess, hoping to avoid getting examined too closely ....
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Tuesday - Island Morning - - the PEI gov has 'lost' a hundred and sixty million bucks from the value of their pension fund, necessitating various machinations to reassure the pensioners they'll be getting their money etc - this morning loyal PEI CBC 'journalist' Pat Martel talks to 'finance' minister Wes Sheridan, once again getting the main message out to everyone, keeping the oil on the waters - careful questions to ensure we get the message - nothing the gov could have done about this big crash - nobody at all foresaw this coming, gosh no!! - so the 'under the surface' message is, again - all you folks losing money and property and jobs and facing various other hardships because of this disaster - don't look for anyone to blame!!! just get with the program, accept this was some kind of 'act of god', and trust the same people who got you into this mess to navigate through it. The job of the capitalist media - keeping the people in the box.
Now, from outside the box, we wonder about a few other questions a real media might be looking for answers to - is it acceptable to have a financial system, for instance, in which a lot,a REAL lot, of normal, innocent people can suddenly find their savings and pension funds decimated by the activities of a few obviously very irresponsible bankers (at best, to be polite, but criminal would be a better adjective), and a gang of speculators who really ought to be facing some serious criminal charges?? Is there perhaps a more stable economic system available? Are the people who engineered this great disaster for so many really going to then collect on billions of dollars of government bailouts? Is this fair to the average person who has just lost savings, and does Mr Sheridan think that is his job description, to protect bankers and tell the little people 'darn, tough luck eh?'?? What about looking at a financial system that was not created through debt, and which could not just evaporate overnight if overinflated and then abandoned, which seesm pretty crazy??? For instance. Or from another angle - doesn't Mr Sheridan realise that many people have indeed seen this coming - stories have been all over the alternative media about it for at least a couple of years - does Mr Sheridan suppose that maybe he has been listening to the wrong advisors about this, and is he at least going to approach the alternative analysts who saw all this coming and start taking some advice from them? What about the CBC? If the normal CBC financial analysts had no idea any of this was coming, or what to do about it, and still seem pretty clueless overall - might they consider talking to a few other people who seem much better informed?
And then our faithful Karen reminds us about the lib leadership race - this is ludicrous to be talking about at all, letting alone making such a big issue out of, a month after the election, six months before the convention - but it serves the important role of being a distraction to give people unhappy about losing their pensions or jobs etc something else to think about. And that's the job of the CBC - keeping the ship of state floating in tough times like this, by keeping the sheep inside the box walls, keeping their attention directed to circuses whilst the major events stay hidden behind the curtain, untalied about. They do it well.
And then we have our trusts capitalist sycophant Michael Hlinka explaining how the little mortgage buyers were ulitmately responsible for all of this, and affirms again there is no quick solution. Actually, he is wrong about that, as the solution is obvious - cancel all odious debts, and bring the creation of our money supply under the control of an informed, engaged, intelligent democratic government, a government of We the People, not you the elite. You may lose some of your perqs, but we'll lose the insecurity and crashes of your business cycle. The many will gain, the few will not really suffer.
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Onto The Current - a segment on 'fear marketing', some of which was interesting, some of which was either blatant propaganda or blatant stupidity, when the interviewee came forth with the amazing idea that when the media plays a tape of Al Quaeda threatening to do something and tells everyone to get under their beds - this is AL QUAEDA doing fear marketing!!!! - not the western gov and media doing the fear marketing telling their citizens to be terrified, it is Al Quaeda!!!!! - talk about marketing!!! (I thought about writing them to point this out, but then had to laugh even at myself - most of my correspondances have little chance of being read or acknowleged, but this one would have absolutely zero chance of them acknowledging, or mentioning it on the air, sort of like inviting someone to the Pope's Easter Sunday address to talk about how there is no god, or something) (this was an interesting enough interview, really, mostly, you can excuse some stupidity, as it sounds like these people were when they talked about the Al Quaeda 'fear marketing' - but it is propaganda because they would never, never, never let anyone like me have the same time to point out what bullshit this all is)
short but to watch for if doing serious deconstruction someday - they have a guest talking about risk, but when he mentions the media has some involvement here, the host is NOT getting into it, as he does with things he wants to explore further ( this is the plausible deniability stuff - when accused of propaganda, they can point to little segments like this and say but, really, we ARE fair!! - it takes a deeper look into things to suss this stuff out, as I have talked about before - giving person A and person B equal time is not really the same, if you are friendly with one and give them lots of room to explain things etc, and aggressive with the other, constantly attacking - but how many people in Canada today, after 30 years of intentional dumbing down, would have the faintest idea of what I am talking about here, or care???)
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ANd then we get into an interview with a guy called Neiall Ferguson, about his recent book The Ascent of Money. Like so many things, it sounds good on the surface, but a little bit of thought exposes some serious flaws, in both book and 'analysis'. Bascially, he rationalises the current situation, blaming 'the market', little peeople, act of god stuff, which fairly quickly, to the outside the box observer at any rate, indicates that his appearance at this time may be just a tad more than coincidental. His first serious mistake is that he says that the driver of everything is simply greed, and he groups everyone together in this 'greed' for money - but what he is either ignorant of, or is trying to hide, is the fact that we are not all equal in our pursuit of greed, in the modern world - there are a few very, very, VERY big manipulators who essentially turn all the wheels any way they want, and then many little innocent greeds who think they are scheming and planning to make a million, but in reality are no better than the marks at the carnival, and know not what they do. They all lose, in the end.
And then he, once again it is not clear whether out of sheer ignorance or because he is intentionally hiding important things, goes along with the current spin that money is some kind of natural object like rain or gold, and just is kind of there, with noone at all responsible for making it, and all anyone can do is work with it the best they can - which is, of course, completely wrong, and is one of the major causes of our current problems, that so few people are aware that private banks create and manipulate our money supply for their private profit.
But all good CBC stuff - they talk intelligently enough that the unaware listener, who likes to think they are of the top 5% or something, are completely fished in, if they don't understand already that they are hearing pure propaganda.
Ferguson did come up with an interesting term, Chimerican - he means Chinese and American, and refers to the globalisation of money - but one wonders if he isn't a bit more intelligent than he lets on to the CBC people, and his neocon supporters, and this is really another play on words - think Chimera!!! - and the fact that everything he is talking about in this interview, and one presumes his book, is a chimera, a false superficial thing concealing a much more important thing underneath.
It's quite an interesting thing to consider from outside the box - it's as if we are all game players, very serious games, of course, with fortunes accumulated, countries controlled, the lives of millions of people impacted - but all at the pleasure of the game master, the Banker, who allots the money that controls all of this things as if he (no real shes involved at the top level of this game) is God. And so he is, as long as we accept this power.
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So much to deconstruct, so many windmills to flail away at, so little time in a day to do so polling the sheeps - like most of the CBC 'in depth' stuff, this is at the same time complete laughable BS, but also quite instructive, when considering what is going on inside the box - are you really worried, a little worried, or an idiot, are basically the choices they give you here, and a WHOLE lot of pre-feeding of propaganda to get the right answer out of you - which they will then tell others to create a bandwagon effect - the manipulation never ends around here. Note the 'YOU' aspect - CBC radio people aren't worried, they have good and secure jobs. Politicians aren't worried - they make over a hundred thou a year, with lots of perqs, and only got to hang on to their job for six years to get a half decent pension (and the recidivism rate for MPs is quite high). Bank executives aren't worried - even the lowest of them make far more than politicians, and as a corporate entity they own enough politicians to make sure the gold keeps flowing and enough media to make sure nothing gets printed that would expose them. But YOU now - well, this is your chance to have your voice as a citizen on the CBC poll!! go for it.
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I know it's insulting to keep talking about people like they were sheep in a pen being driven around hither and yon by a pig or something, but fuck it just gets so angering sometimes when they act as if that is exactly what they are, so much of what I write about here is so obvious, yet so few seem to have any clue at all, and most simply deny. The leaders and the sheeps - stimulus-response, stimulus-response. Why do you believe these people when they do nothing but lie about everything important???? What else is one outside the box supposed to think of you all? We feel sorry for you, we understand you have been raised to be as you are, and the indoctrination reinforcement is non-stop - but - but - ????????????????? As the old saying has it, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck - well, you probably got a duck.
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So much to say. So little time.
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Friday - CBC National radio news - again, damage control mode leads the day - you know all that money everybody is losing in the falling stock market? Look on the good side!!! You might be able to claim the loss on your tax return!! Great!! - actually not - a real media would be going after a lot of people here, not protecting them - is it a good idea to have so much of the economic prosperity of this country tied so strongly to the stock market? Why should Canadians work hard and productively for years, and build a prosperous country, and then have it trashed because of a gang of stock speculators? That is obviously crazy, at least for most Canadians - it works good for those who have the depth of wealth to hang on through the storm, and pick up lots of valuable stuff at pennies on the dollar later on - more consolidation of wealth at the top, more ordinary people taken to the cleaners. But a real media, working for We the People, would be doing some serious investigating and questioning here - but the Corporate Broadcasting Corp is protecting its masters. As always.
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Canadians question Rae's ability to lead during economic crisis: poll - this bears some looking at - starting with WHY such a 'poll' was done in the first place? It appears from this, and other 'stories', that the fix is being set up for Ignatieff already - not really clear why, but I suppose he fits the neocon 'manly man' appearance better than Rae, or something, thus will be more sellable to the cowboy sector. Rae could be seen as a bit effeminate by the predator class, who don't much go for that image. Regardless of why, though, the 'story' is as obviously completely manufactured as the headline is misleading - there was nor is no generaly muttering around kitchen tables in Canada, or bar room tables, or church social dinners, or over shovels in driveways, or anywhere else, about 'We don't trust that Rae guy, you know...' - not in the same way, for instance, as you DO have conversations all across the country about, say, Canada should not be in Afghanistan, or thank god that a**hole Bush is out the door, or various other things - it was just a very leadingly worded question, at the behest of some 'anonymous' party, which sure adds to the believability index. It's very shallow attempted manipulation, just nails in the Rae coffin - and something no respectable media would be talking about, at least in this way. But then, the CBC hasn't had much respect amongst the intelligent people (all 824 of us left at last count - if you think, for instance, Canada is a democracy or bin Laden outfoxed the US defence system on 911 and he and his buds 'hate our freedoms' which drove them in blind hatred to this dastardly deed, or turn your brain off in front of the tv for more than an hour a day, sorry you don't qualify) for quite some time.
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Ah, every now and again something happens that surprises and pleases. I continually sit here whilst listening to the CBC wondering how so many people let them get away with the spin and editorializing with which they continually frame anything of importance, as oft commented on, but helpless to do anything. And then last night we were treated to a guest evidently not well enough vetted who told off the hostess right on air, that her spin was not appreciated, and could she explain herself, and etc - it was truly a sound for sore ears. You can listen to a guy named Deane tell Ms Harris (guest hosting the Current) off here, at least if the tape hasn't 'unfortunately' become 'no longer available' or something (the CBC has been known to do this with particularly irksome guests, I think particularaly of a Mel Hurtig phone-in from Ottawa a few months ago, where he was telling any number of truths that the CBC people don't especially like told about what their masters are up to - the tape mysteriously got 'corrupted' almost immediately....). The story is also commented on, with some relevant quotes, in the NP, who always like anything bad about the CBC - CBC's The Current runs into a little headwind on the Clintons.
Any bets on a return appearance by Mr Deane? heh heh little joke there.
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Luxury travel bills contradict Tories' frugal image - they're only scratching the surface here - I for one would like to see Peter McKay's travel log for the years since he betrayed David Orchard to give the Cdn Business Party their main tweedledee voice in parliament, just for instance. But from outside the box, you can here one reason why there is a ready supply of people ready to betray their fellow citizens and sign on as puppet politicians doing the will of the corporate overlords whilst lying to everyone about what they are really up to.
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Wanted: A party with vision, by former Trudeau 'good friend' Deborah Coyne. Funny what the Star won't allow on their comments pages - a lot of stuff I offer gets 'lost' during the moderation process - they allow any kind of name-calling, esp rightwing trolls slagging 'socialists' and etc, but they won't allow hardly anything that criticizes their own editorial policy or questions their bias, or ones like this that try to look out of the box and comment on corporate rule in general. In contrast, the rightwing places I comment, both NP and Globe, allow pretty much anything I post. My theory is that the rightwingers are more secure of their power, and the brainlessness of their followers who mindly reject anything even remotely sane, but the Star (and the CBC is the same, rejecting quite a lot of what I try to post), as the Big Momma arm of the Big Bro-Big Mo dichotomy we live under, attracts people who think a bit more, and are more open to questions in general, and are apt to start thinking things Big Mo doesn't want them thinking if pointed in certain directions, so don't allow anything too logically persuasive that points in those directions. Whatever - this is what they don't want people reading there, for some reason:
Ms Coyne thinks only Libs have a vision? Really! That would have come as a surprise to many others, for instance we might think of ol Sir John A, who seemed to have a pretty solid vision for the country, or another Tory namesake about 100 years later they called The Chief, who was pretty beloved of the people and also had a pretty positive vision, or another prairie lad named Douglas who, if Ms Coyne cares to check, was actually considerably more responsible for things like medicare and pensions and so on than Trudeau or Pearson. We might also question her definition of 'vision', as it would be the opinion of many of us that both the Libs and the Cons, of the 21st century variety at any rate, do indeed have a vision - it is just not a 'we the people' sort of vision, but a 'we the banking-corporate elite' sort of vision, as espoused by people like Tom d'Aquino and the business lobby, a vision which sees a handful of rulers and a host of powerless workers, a Banker-CEO's paradise, as it were.
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Sunday
- and then we have Bob Rae calling for more of the same - Bob Rae: How to deal with the economic crisis - I dunno Bob, it's been stupid action from our government (that would be either branch of the Big Business Party that has been in control since the mid-70s, initiating their obviously seriously flawed 'deregulate EVERYTHING', slash taxes and defund social programs and infrastructure maintenance, let banks create all our money whoowhoo!! (check out Banketeering http://www.rudemacedon.ca/banketeering.html if you're not sure why that has been the biggest bad idea of them all) and etc policies that have caused all the problems, and quite frankly as I look around I don't see anyone acknowledging that they understand what they have been doing the last 30 years that has caused all this mess - so why would we look to them now to get us OUT of the mess they got us into? We do indeed need new ideas, but they're much more likely to be found on Green Island ( http://www.rudemacedon.ca/greenisland.html ) than anywhere around your neck of the woods ...
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Deficits essential, Harper says - there are other views of history, and mistakes made - the central mistake made during the 30s was failing to expose and stop the central cause of the crash, and the depression, and which remains our central problem today - banks are creating most of our money, and getting paid interest on it. Absolute insanity, guaranteed periodical meltdowns. more here - Banketeering http://www.rudemacedon.ca/banketeering.html
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