Derivatives : The Unregulated Global Casino for Banks

http://demonocracy.info/

SHORT STORY: Pick something of value, make bets on the future value of "something", add contract & you have a derivative.
Banks make massive profits on derivatives, and when the bubble bursts chances are the tax payer will end up with the bill.
This visualizes the total coverage for derivatives (notional). Similar to insurance company's total coverage for all cars.

LONG STORY: A derivative is a legal bet (contract) that derives its value from another asset, such as the future or current value of oil, government bonds or anything else. Ex- A derivative buys you the option (but not obligation) to buy oil in 6 months for today's price/any agreed price, hoping that oil will cost more in future. (I'll bet you it'll cost more in 6 months). Derivative can also be used as insurance, betting that a loan will or won't default before a given date. So its a big betting system, like a Casino, but instead of betting on cards and roulette, you bet on future values and performance of practically anything that holds value. The system is not regulated what-so-ever, and you can buy a derivative on an existing derivative.
Most large banks try to prevent smaller investors from gaining access to the derivative market on the basis of there being too much risk. Deriv. market has blown a galactic bubble, just like the real estate bubble or stock market bubble (that's going on right now). Since there is literally no economist in the world that knows exactly how the derivative money flows or how the system works, while derivatives are traded in microseconds by computers, we really don't know what will trigger the crash, or when it will happen, but considering the global financial crisis this system is in for tough times, that will be catastrophic for the world financial system since the 9 largest banks shown below hold a total of $228.72 trillion in Derivatives - Approximately 3 times the entire world economy. No government in world has money for this bailout. Lets take a look at what banks have the biggest Derivative Exposures and what scandals they've been lately involved in. Derivative Data Source: ZeroHedge.

Source : http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/derivatives/bank_exposure.html

Robert W. McChesney : The Political Economy of Media

http://www.thepoliticaleconomyofmedia.org/

More than any other work, The Political Economy of Media demonstrates the incompatibility of the corporate media system with a viable democratic public sphere, and the corrupt policymaking process that brings the system into existence. Among the most acclaimed communication scholars in the world, Robert W. McChesney has brought together all the major themes of his two decades of research. Rich in detail, evidence, and thoughtful arguments, The Political Economy of Media provides a comprehensive critique of the degradation of journalism, the hyper-commercialization of culture, the Internet, and the emergence of the contemporary media reform movement. The Political Economy of Media is mandatory reading for anyone wishing to understand and change media, and the political economy, in the world today.

Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Communication Revolution, The Problem of the Media, and Rich Media, Poor Democracy.

The Grip Of Death - A Study Of Modern Money, Debt Slavery And Destructive Economics by Michael Rowbotham

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grip-Death-Slavery-Destructive-Economics/dp/1897766408

A lucid and original account of where money comes from and why most people and businesses are so heavily in debt. It explodes more myths than any other book this century, yet it's all about subjects very close to home: mortgages, building societies and banks, agriculture, transport, global poverty, and what's on the supermarket shelf. The author proposes a new mechanism for the supply of money, creating a supportive financial environment and a decreasing reliance on debt.

Michael Rowbotham is a political and economic writer and commentator based in the UK who is best known for his two books The Grip of Death (1998) and Goodbye America (2000). The Grip of Death focuses on what he believes to be inequities in the practice of fractional reserve banking (which he equates with counterfeiting) and the economic distortions he believes to be inherent in the so-called debt-based monetary system which almost all nations utilise in the modern age. In Goodbye America Rowbotham argues that Third World debt is immoral, invalid, and inherently unrepayable. He argues that this 'unjust' debt should be canceled immediately.

HOW TO RULE THE WORLD : The Coming Battle Over the World Economy

http://www.democracyuprising.com/book/

Right now a debate is taking place over what values should define our international order. For global elites, it is a debate about how to rule the world. Laying out a new and original framework for understanding globalization politics in the Obama years, Mark Engler describes the evolving conflict over America’s role in the world. Past visions include the Clinton-era model of an expanding, corporate-controlled global economy and a Bush-era “imperial globalization” based on U.S. military dominance. How to Rule the World explains how these visions overlap and also how, at critical moments, they clashed with one another. It is written, however, in the hopes that neither will prevail. Even as Wall Street CEOs and Washington militarists argue among themselves, citizens’ uprisings in the United States, in an increasingly progressive Latin America, and beyond are bringing to life a vibrant “democratic globalization” based on economic justice, human rights, and self-determination.

Engler, a journalist, activist, and policy expert, details the conditions at the root of the current global economic crisis and explains how the globalization debate has profoundly shifted since the days of the Seattle protests: Countries are rebelling against deregulated market fundamentalism. The roles of international institutions like the WTO, IMF, and World Bank are dramatically changing. U.S. unilateralism and the disastrous war in Iraq deepened international divisions. As a result, the stage is now set for a critical new debate about the global economy.

¡Rebelaos! - Publicación por la autogestión

Publicación REBELAOS
https://www.rebelaos.net/

Herramientas y recursos para impulsar el desarrollo de autogestión en el ámbito local, mediante la interacción en red y la autoorganización desde abajo.

Stanley Milgram : Obedience to Authority Or Just Conformity?

http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/02/stanley-milgram-obedience-to-authority.php

What psychological experiment could be so powerful that simply taking part might change your view of yourself and human nature?

What experimental procedure could provoke some people to profuse sweating and trembling, leaving 10% extremely upset, while others broke into unexplained hysterical laughter? What finding could be so powerful that it sent many psychologists into frenzied rebuttals?

Welcome to the sixth nomination for the top ten psychology studies and as you'll have guessed it's a big one. Hold on for controversy though, as this study has come in for considerable criticism with some saying its claims are wildly overblown.
Explaining human cruelty

Stanley Milgram's now famous experiments were designed to test obedience to authority (Milgram, 1963). What Milgram wanted to know was how far humans will go when an authority figure orders them to hurt another human being. Many wondered after the horrors of WWII, and not for the first time, how people could be motivated to commit acts of such brutality towards each other. Not just those in the armed forces, but ordinary people were coerced into carrying out the most cruel and gruesome acts.

But Milgram didn't investigate the extreme situation of war, he wanted to see how people would react under relatively 'ordinary' conditions in the lab. How would people behave when told to give an electrical shock to another person? To what extent would people obey the dictates of the situation and ignore their own misgivings about what they were doing?

The experimental situation into which people were put was initially straightforward. Participants were told they were involved in a learning experiment, that they were to administer electrical shocks and that they should continue to the end of the experiment. Told they would be the 'teacher and another person the 'learner', they sat in front of a machine with a number of dials labelled with steadily increasing voltages. This was the 'shock machine'. The third switch from the top was labelled: "Danger: Severe Shock", the last two simply: "XXX".

During the course of the experiment, each time the 'learner' made a mistake the participant was ordered to administer ever-increasing electrical shocks. Of course the learner kept making mistakes so the teacher (the poor participant) had to keep giving higher and higher electrical shocks, and hearing the resultant screams of pain until finally the learner went quiet.

Participants were not in fact delivering electrical shocks, the learner in the experiment was actually an actor following a rehearsed script. The learner was kept out of sight of the participants so they came to their own assumptions about the pain they were causing. They were, however, left in little doubt that towards the end of the experiment the shocks were extremely painful and the learner might well have been rendered unconscious. When the participant baulked at giving the electrical shocks, the experimenter - an authority figure dressed in a white lab coat - ordered them to continue.

Results

Before I explain the results, try to imagine yourself as the participant in this experiment. How far would you go giving what you thought were electrical shocks to another human being simply for a study about memory? What would you think when the learner went quiet after you apparently administered a shock labelled on the board "Danger: Severe Shock"? Honestly. How far would you go?

How ever far you think, you're probably underestimating as that's what most people do. Like the experiment, the results shocked. Milgram's study discovered people are much more obedient than you might imagine. 63% of the participants continued right until the end - they administered all the shocks even with the learner screaming in agony, begging to stop and eventually falling silent. These weren't specially selected sadists, these were ordinary people like you and me who had volunteered for a psychology study.

How can these results be explained?

At the time Milgram's study was big news. Milgram explained his results by the power of the situation. This was a social psychology experiment which appeared to show, beautifully in fact, how much social situations can influence people's behaviour.

The experiment set off a small industry of follow-up studies carried out in labs all around the world. Were the findings still true in different cultures, in slightly varying situations and in different genders (only men were in the original study)? By and large the answers were that even when manipulating many different experimental variables, people were still remarkably obedient. One exception was that one study found Australian women were much less obedient. Make of that what you will.

Fundamentally flawed?

Now think again. Sure, the experiment relies on the situation to influence people's behaviour, but how real is the situation? If it was you, surely you would understand on some level that this wasn't real, that you weren't really electrocuting someone, that knocking someone unconscious would not be allowed in a university study?

Also, people pick up considerable nonverbal cues from each other. How good would the actors have to be in order to avoid giving away the fact they were actors? People are adept at playing along even with those situations they know in their heart-of-hearts to be fake. The more we find out about human psychology, the more we discover about the power of unconscious processes, both emotional and cognitive. These can have massive influences on our behaviour without our awareness.

Assuming people were not utterly convinced on an unconscious level that the experiment was for real, an alternative explanation is in order. Perhaps Milgram's work really demonstrates the power of conformity. The pull we all feel to please the experimenter, to fit in with the situation, to do what is expected of us. While this is still a powerful interpretation from a brilliant experiment, it isn't what Milgram was really looking for.

Whether you believe the experiment shows what it purports to or not, there is no doubting that Milgram's work was some of the most influential and impressive carried out in psychology. It is also an experiment very unlikely to be repeated nowadays (outside of virtual reality) because of modern ethical standards. Certainly when I first came across it, my view of human nature was changed irrevocably. Now, thinking critically, I'm not so sure.

Image credit: Sharon Drummond

How The Mind Really Works : 10 Counterintuitive Psychology Studies

http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/02/how-the-mind-really-works-10-counterintuitive-psychology-studies.php

Ten psychological findings that challenge our intuitive view of how our minds work.

Some critics say psychology is just common sense, that it only confirms things we already know about ourselves.

Ironically this can be difficult to argue with because once people get some new information they tend to think it was obvious all along.

One way of battling this is to think about all the unexpected, surprising and plain weird findings that have popped out of psychology studies over the years. So here are ten of my favourite.

1. Cognitive dissonance

This is perhaps one of the weirdest and most unsettling findings in psychology. Cognitive dissonance is the idea that we find it hard to hold two contradictory beliefs, so we unconsciously adjust one to make it fit with the other.

In the classic study students found a boring task more interesting if they were paid less to take part. Our unconscious reasons like this: if I didn't do it for money, then I must have done it because it was interesting. As if by magic, a boring task becomes more interesting because otherwise I can't explain my behaviour.

The reason it's unsettling is that our minds are probably performing these sorts of rationalisations all the time, without our conscious knowledge. So how do we know what we really think?

Continue reading here

Teaching Critical Thinking : Practical Wisdom by bell hooks

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415968201/

In Teaching Critical Thinking, renowned cultural critic and progressive educator bell hooks addresses some of the most compelling issues facing teachers in and out of the classroom today.

In a series of short, accessible, and enlightening essays, hooks explores the confounding and sometimes controversial topics that teachers and students have urged her to address since the publication of the previous best-selling volumes in her Teaching series, Teaching to Transgress and Teaching Community. The issues are varied and broad, from whether meaningful teaching can take place in a large classroom setting to confronting issues of self-esteem. One professor, for example, asked how black female professors can maintain positive authority in a classroom without being seen through the lens of negative racist, sexist stereotypes. One teacher asked how to handle tears in the classroom, while another wanted to know how to use humor as a tool for learning.

Addressing questions of race, gender, and class in this work, hooks discusses the complex balance that allows us to teach, value, and learn from works written by racist and sexist authors. Highlighting the importance of reading, she insists on the primacy of free speech, a democratic education of literacy. Throughout these essays, she celebrates the transformative power of critical thinking. This is provocative, powerful, and joyful intellectual work. It is a must read for anyone who is at all interested in education today.

bell hooks is a world-renowned intellectual, cultural critic, and writer who is also Distinguished Professor in Appalachian Studies at Berea College in Kentucky. Among her many books are the feminist classic Ain't I A Woman, the dialogue (with Cornel West) Breaking Bread, the children's books Happy to Be Nappy and Be Boy Buzz, the memoir Bone Black and the general interest titles All About Love, Rock My Soul, and Communion. She has published seven titles with Routledge: Belonging, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, Where We Stand, Teaching to Transgress, Teaching Community, Outlaw Culture, and Reel to Real.

See : http://www.routledge.com/books/search/author/bell_hooks/

War Is a Racket : The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier

http://feralhouse.com/war-is-a-racket/

Originally printed in 1935, War Is a Racket is General Smedley Butler’s frank speech describing his role as a soldier as nothing more than serving as a puppet for big-business interests. In addition to photos from the notorious 1932 anti-war book The Horror of It by Frederick A. Barber, this book includes two never-before-published anti-interventionist essays by General Butler. The introduction discusses why General Butler went against the corporate war machine and how he exposed a fascist coup d’etat plot against President Franklin Roosevelt. Widely appreciated and referenced by left- and right-wingers alike, this is an extraordinary argument against war – more relevant now than ever.

In his penultimate chapter, Butler argues that three steps are necessary to disrupt the war racket:

1. Making war unprofitable. Butler suggests that the owners of capital should be "conscripted" before other citizens are: "It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war. The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labour before the nation's manhood can be conscripted. … Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our steel companies and our munitions makers and our ship-builders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted — to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get"

2. Acts of war to be decided by those who fight it. He also suggests a limited plebiscite to determine if the war is to be fought. Eligible to vote would be those who risk death on the front lines.

3. Limitation of militaries to self-defence. For the United States, Butler recommends that the navy be limited, by law, to within 200 miles of the coastline, and the army restricted to the territorial limits of the country, ensuring that war, if fought, can never be one of aggression.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket

James K. Galbraith - Inequality and Instability :A Study of the World Economy Just Before the Great Crisis

http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199855650.do

James K. Galbraith, Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin

As Wall Street rose to dominate the U.S. economy, income and pay inequalities in America came to dance to the tune of the credit cycle. As the reach of financial markets extended across the globe, interest rates, debt, and debt crises became the dominant forces driving the rise of economic inequality almost everywhere. Thus the "super-bubble" that investor George Soros identified in rich countries for the two decades after 1980 was a super-crisis for the 99 percent-not just in the U.S. but the entire world.

Inequality and Instability demonstrates that finance is the driveshaft that links inequality to economic instability. The book challenges those, mainly on the right, who see mysterious forces of technology behind rising inequality. And it also challenges those, mainly on the left, who have placed the blame narrowly on trade and outsourcing. Inequality and Instability presents straightforward evidence that the rise of inequality mirrors the stock market in the U.S. and the rise of finance and of free-market policies elsewhere. Starting from the premise that fresh argument requires fresh evidence, James K. Galbraith brings new data to bear as never before, presenting information built up over fifteen years in easily understood charts and tables. By measuring inequality at the right geographic scale, Galbraith shows that more equal societies systematically enjoy lower unemployment. He shows how this plays out inside Europe, between Europe and the United States, and in modern China. He explains that the dramatic rise of inequality in the U.S. in the 1990s reflected a finance-driven technology boom that concentrated incomes in just five counties, very remote from the experience of most Americans-which helps explain why the political reaction was so slow to come. That the reaction is occurring now, however, is beyond doubt. In the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis, inequality has become, in America and the world over, the central issue.

A landmark work of research and original insight, Inequality and Instability will change forever the way we understand this pivotal topic.

Agriculture Course : The Birth of the Biodynamic Method

http://www.steinerbooks.org/detail.html?id=9781855841482

Rudolf Steiner, Preface by Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, Translated by George Adams

When Rudolf Steiner gave these lectures eighty years ago, industrial farming was on the rise and organic methods were being replaced in the name of science, efficiency, and technology. With the widespread alarm over food quality in recent years, and with the growth of the organic movement and its mainstream acceptance, perceptions are changing. The qualitative aspect of food is on the agenda again, and in this context Steiner’s only course of lectures on agriculture is critical to the current debate.

With these talks, Steiner created and launched “biodynamic” farming—a form of agriculture that has come to be regarded as the best organically produced food. However, the agriculture Steiner speaks of here is much more than organic—it involves working with the cosmos, with the earth, and with spiritual beings. To facilitate this, Steiner prescribes specific “preparations” for the soil, as well as other distinct methods born from his profound understanding of the material and spiritual worlds. He presents a comprehensive picture of the complex dynamic relationships at work in nature and gives basic indications of the practical measures needed to bring them into full play.

These lectures are reprinted here in the “classic” translation made by Rudolf Steiner's English interpreter, George Adams. This edition also features a preface by Steiner's colleague the medical doctor Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, as well as eight color plates.

This is the course that began the biodynamic movement. This is the essential work for anyone wanting to understand and use Steiner's methods of food production.

Thomas Edison on Government Created Debt-Free Money

In December 1921, the American industrialist Henry Ford and the inventor Thomas Edison visited the Muscle Shoals nitrate and water power projects near Florence, Alabama. They used the opportunity to articulate at length upon their alternative money theories, which were published in 2 reports which appeared in The New York Times on December 4, 1921 and December 6, 1921. 

Objecting to the fact that the Government planned, as usual, to raise the money by issuing bonds which would be bought by the banking and non-banking sector — which would then have to be paid back with money raised from taxes, and with interest added — they proposed instead that the Government simply create the currency it required and spend it into society through this public project.

This is also the Prosperity proposal.

Thomas Edison made it plain in the following excerpt from The New York Times, December 6, 1921 issue (“Ford Sees Wealth In Muscle Shoals”).

You can download the archived article at this link which opens as a pdf http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=3&res=9C04E0D7103EEE3ABC4E53DFB467838A639EDE
Here, the reporter is quoting Edison:

“That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt.

“Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 — that is what it amounts to, with interest. People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work. That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost.

“But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20 per cent, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who directly contribute to Muscle Shoals in some useful way.

” … if the Government issues currency, it provides itself with enough money to increase the national wealth at Muscles Shoals without disturbing the business of the rest of the country. And in doing this it increases its income without adding a penny to its debt.

“It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30,000,000 in bonds and not $30,000,000 in currency. Both are promises to pay; but one promise fattens the usurer, and the other helps the people. If the currency issued by the Government were no good, then the bonds issued would be no good either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to increase the national wealth, must go into debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious values of gold.

“Look at it another way. If the Government issues bonds, the brokers will sell them. The bonds will be negotiable; they will be considered as gilt edged paper. Why? Because the government is behind them, but who is behind the Government? The people. Therefore it is the people who constitute the basis of Government credit. Why then cannot the people have the benefit of their own gilt-edged credit by receiving non-interest bearing currency on Muscle Shoals, instead of the bankers receiving the benefit of the people’s credit in interest-bearing bonds?”

This article appeared in Prosperity, September 2000

http://prosperityuk.com/2000/09/thomas-edison-on-government-created-debt-free-money/

Mark Pagel - Wired for Culture : Origins of the Human Social Mind

http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-06587-9/

A fascinating, far-reaching study of how our species' innate capacity for culture altered the course of our social and evolutionary history.

A unique trait of the human species is that our personalities, lifestyles, and worldviews are shaped by an accident of birth-namely, the culture into which we are born. It is our cultures and not our genes that determine which foods we eat, which languages we speak, which people we love and marry, and which people we kill in war. But how did our species develop a mind that is hardwired for culture-and why?

Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel tracks this intriguing question through the last 80,000 years of human evolution, revealing how an innate propensity to contribute and conform to the culture of our birth not only enabled human survival and progress in the past but also continues to influence our behavior today. Shedding light on our species' defining attributes-from art, morality, and altruism to self-interest, deception, and prejudice-Wired for Culture offers surprising new insights into what it means to be human.

Mark Pagel is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Reading.

The Next American Revolution : Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520269248

A world dominated by America and driven by cheap oil, easy credit, and conspicuous consumption is unraveling before our eyes. In this powerful, deeply humanistic book, Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary figure in the struggle for justice in America, shrewdly assesses the current crisis—political, economical, and environmental—and shows how to create the radical social change we need to confront new realities. A vibrant, inspirational force, Boggs has participated in all of the twentieth century’s major social movements—for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, and more. She draws from seven decades of activist experience, and a rigorous commitment to critical thinking, to redefine “revolution” for our times. From her home in Detroit, she reveals how hope and creativity are overcoming despair and decay within the most devastated urban communities. Her book is a manifesto for creating alternative modes of work, politics, and human interaction that will collectively constitute the next American Revolution.

Grace Lee Boggs, the recipient of many human rights and lifetime achievement awards, is an activist, writer, and speaker. She is celebrated in the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Boggs is the coauthor, with James Boggs, of Revolution and Evolution in the Twentieth Century and the author of Living for Change: An Autobiography. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, she is 95 years old.

Nancy Snow - Propaganda, Inc.: Selling America's Culture to the World

http://www.sevenstories.com/book/?GCOI=58322100337070

"Nancy Snow pulls the curtain on the US Information Agency and shows it to be just another front for corporate America."—Jim Hightower, author of There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos

"In [these pages], Nancy Snow shows herself to be a discerning, fair-minded investigator, a skilled writer and researcher, and a socially conscious citizen. No wonder she found herself unable to function within the U.S. propaganda machine."—Michael Parenti

An eye-opening overview of American cultural policy fully updated through the end of the Bush presidency, Propaganda, Inc. reveals how the United States Information Agency became a bureaucracy deeply distrustful of dissent, and one-way in its promotion of American corporate interests overseas.

Nancy Snow spent two years inside the Agency, and here provides an insider's account of its crooked relationship to corporate interests and war. Simply a must-read for those concerned with American propaganda and the war on terror.

Nancy Snow is an Associate Professor in the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. Since 9/11, Snow has become a frequent media commentator and public speaker on American foreign policy, influence, persuasion, propaganda, and the root causes of anti-Americanism. She received her Ph.D. in international relations from the School of International Service at The American University in Washington, D.C. From 1992 to 1994, she worked as a cultural affairs specialist and Fulbright program desk officer at the United States Information Agency and as intergovernmental liaison in the Bureau of Refugee Programs, U.S. State Department. She was a Fulbright scholar to Germany and a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. Snow is also the author of Propaganda, Inc.: Selling American's Culture to the World, in addition to many published articles in professional and mainstream publications including the Los Angeles Times and Newsday.

GOEBBELS' PRINCIPLES OF PROPAGANDA

http://www.psywarrior.com/Goebbels.html

German Nazi Party member Joseph Goebbels became Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister in 1933, which gave him power over all German radio, press, cinema, and theater.

In 1925 Goebbels met the party leader Adolf Hitler. In 1926 he was made Gauleiter, or party leader, for the region of Berlin, and in 1927 he founded and became editor of the official National Socialist periodical Der Angriff (The Attack). He was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928. By exploiting mob emotions and by employing all modern methods of propaganda Goebbels helped Hitler into power.

His work as a propagandist materially aided Hitler's rise to power in 1933. When Hitler seized power in 1933, Goebbels was appointed Reichsminister for propaganda and national enlightenment. From then until his death, Goebbels used all media of education and communications to further Nazi propagandistic aims, instilling in the Germans the concept of their leader as a veritable god and of their destiny as the rulers of the world. In 1938 he became a member of the Hitler cabinet council. Late in World War II, in 1944, Hitler placed him in charge of total mobilization.

As Reichsminister for Propaganda and National Enlightenment, Goebbels was given complete control over radio, press, cinema, and theater; later he also regimented all German culture. Goebbels placed his undeniable intelligence and his brilliant insight into mass psychology entirely at the service of his party. His most virulent propaganda was against the Jews. As a hypnotic orator he was second only to Hitler, and in his staging of mass meetings and parades he was unsurpassed. Utterly cynical, he seems to have believed only in the self-justification of power. He remained loyal to Hitler until the end. On May 1, 1945, as Soviet troops were storming Berlin, Goebbels committed suicide.

Listed below are the principles purported to summarize what made Goebbels tick or fail to tick. They may be thought of as his intellectual legacy. Whether the legacy has been reliably deduced is a methodological question. Whether it is valid is a psychological matter. Whether or when parts of it should be utilized in a democratic society are profound and disturbing problems of a political and ethical nature.

Based upon Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda by Leonard W. Doob, published in Public Opinion and Propaganda; A Book of Readings edited for The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

1. Propagandist must have access to intelligence concerning events and public opinion.

 2. Propaganda must be planned and executed by only one authority.

a. It must issue all the propaganda directives.

b. It must explain propaganda directives to important officials and maintain their morale.

c. It must oversee other agencies' activities which have propaganda consequences

3. The propaganda consequences of an action must be considered in planning that action.

4. Propaganda must affect the enemy's policy and action.

a. By suppressing propagandistically desirable material which can provide the enemy with useful intelligence

b. By openly disseminating propaganda whose content or tone causes the enemy to draw the desired conclusions

c. By goading the enemy into revealing vital information about himself

d. By making no reference to a desired enemy activity when any reference would discredit that activity

5. Declassified, operational information must be available to implement a propaganda campaign

6. To be perceived, propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be transmitted through an attention-getting communications medium.

7. Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false.

8. The purpose, content and effectiveness of enemy propaganda; the strength and effects of an expose; and the nature of current propaganda campaigns determine whether enemy propaganda should be ignored or refuted.

9. Credibility, intelligence, and the possible effects of communicating determine whether propaganda materials should be censored.

10. Material from enemy propaganda may be utilized in operations when it helps diminish that enemy's prestige or lends support to the propagandist's own objective.

11. Black rather than white propaganda may be employed when the latter is less credible or produces undesirable effects.

12. Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige.

13. Propaganda must be carefully timed.

a. The communication must reach the audience ahead of competing propaganda.

b. A propaganda campaign must begin at the optimum moment

c. A propaganda theme must be repeated, but not beyond some point of diminishing effectiveness

14. Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans.

a. They must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses

b. They must be capable of being easily learned

c. They must be utilized again and again, but only in appropriate situations

d. They must be boomerang-proof

15. Propaganda to the home front must prevent the raising of false hopes which can be blasted by future events.

16. Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.

a. Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat

b. Propaganda must diminish anxiety (other than concerning the consequences of defeat) which is too high and which cannot be reduced by people themselves

17. Propaganda to the home front must diminish the impact of frustration.

a. Inevitable frustrations must be anticipated

b. Inevitable frustrations must be placed in perspective

18. Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.

19. Propaganda cannot immediately affect strong counter-tendencies; instead it must offer some form of action or diversion, or both.

Source : http://www.psywarrior.com/Goebbels.html

How ordinary people will take power and change politics in the 21st century

http://theleaderlessrevolution.com/summary

There are few books that attempt to interpret the world and how it is run. The Leaderless Revolution offers a refreshing and pungent contrast to the Panglossian optimism of Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat but, like that book, it offers a way of understanding the world of the 21st century that is both clear and easily comprehensible. Carne Ross takes different angles on contemporary issues - economics, politics, the state of democracy, the environment and terrorism - wrapping them into a unified explanation of how money and power function to control the lives of the earth’s inhabitants, such that they feel powerless to affect their collective future. It seems that mankind has settled upon liberal democracy as the ideal form of government. Its triumph with the collapse of communism signalled the end of ideological struggle and thus of history. The Leaderless Revolution shows however that even in democracies, many if not most of the population feel that they are excluded from any agency over the issues that most trouble them, while governments appear less and less able to influence the global problems that threaten our peace and comforts. Mining the rich but little-examined history of anarchism, and updating the philosophy for today’s needs, The Leaderless Revolution offers a refreshing and original prescription for the problems of today. Not only an antidote to our global crises; Carne Ross offers, moreover, a route to fulfillment and self-realisation.

Carne Ross was a high-flying British diplomat who worked on many of the world’s toughest issues, including Afghanistan, terrorism, and climate change. After working on Iraqi WMD and sanctions at the UN Security Council, he was one of only two British diplomats to resign over the 2003 Iraq War. That experience forced him to confront the deeper problems of a volatile, globalized world. A frequent commentator on current affairs on CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera, and a contributor to Huffington Post and The Guardian, Ross also founded, and now runs, Independent Diplomat, a non-profit advisory group that assists democratic countries and political groups around the world. He lives in New York City.

Christopher Hayes - Twilight of the Elites : America After Meritocracy

http://www.chrishayes.org/about/bio/

A powerful and original argument that traces the roots of our present crisis of authority to an unlikely source: the meritocracy.

   Over the past decade, Americans watched in bafflement and rage as one institution after another –  from Wall Street to Congress, the Catholic Church to corporate America, even Major League Baseball – imploded under the weight of corruption and incompetence. In the wake of the Fail Decade, Americans have historically low levels of trust in their institutions; the social contract between ordinary citizens and elites lies in tatters.

   How did we get here? With Twilight of the Elites, Christopher Hayes offers a radically novel answer. Since the 1960s, as the meritocracy elevated a more diverse group of men and women into power, they learned to embrace the accelerating inequality that had placed them near the very top. Their ascension heightened social distance and spawned a new American elite--one more prone to failure and corruption than any that came before it.

   Mixing deft political analysis, timely social commentary, and deep historical understanding, Twilight of the Elites describes how the society we have come to inhabit – utterly forgiving at the top and relentlessly punitive at the bottom – produces leaders who are out of touch with the people they have been trusted to govern. Hayes argues that the public's failure to trust the federal government, corporate America, and the media has led to a crisis of authority that threatens to engulf not just our politics but our day-to-day lives.

   Upending well-worn ideological and partisan categories, Hayes entirely reorients our perspective on our times. Twilight of the Elites is the defining work of social criticism for the post-bailout age.

Source : http://www.randomhouse.com/book/207055/twilight-of-the-elites-by-christopher-hayes/9780307720450/

Time of the assassins a study of Rimbaud - Henry Miller

Time of the assassins a study of Rimbaud - Henry Miller

James Robertson : Future Money Breakdown or breakthrough?

http://www.greenbooks.co.uk/Book/414/Future-Money.html

Future Money explains in plain language and convincing detail how our money system is propelling us toward the self-destruction of our species – and what we should do about it. Our present money system frustrates the well-meaning efforts of active citizens, NGOs and governments to deal with our present ills and problems – including worldwide poverty, environmental destruction, social injustice, economic inefficiency and political unrest and violence within and between nations. Failure to reform the world’s money system urgently and radically – that is, from its roots up – could bring disaster for human civilisation before the end of this century. Future Money shows clearly how our money system operates and how it could be reformed so that it acts for the benefit of people and society rather than the opposite, and describes the obstacles that currently prevent that reform.

The world’s financial experts and leaders in politics, government and business, and most mainstream academic and media commentators, have demonstrated that they are not yet able or willing to diagnose and treat the profound and pervasive problems that are directly caused by the money system. Future Money speaks explicitly to active, independent-minded citizens, including young people, with the hope that it will help them to understand why people committed to careers in almost every important walk of life today find it difficult to recognise the problem and grasp the nettle. It shows why we have to take the initiative now, and urgently, to get the issue on to mainstream agendas worldwide.

James Robertson grew up and went to schools in Scotland and Yorkshire during the war, and then studied classics, history and philosophy at Oxford. In the 1950s he worked in the Colonial Office in Whitehall, as the remaining British colonies came towards independence. Development plans for Mauritius and Seychelles introduced him to the UK Treasury and public policy-making on money. The highlight was travelling with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on his 1960 ‘Wind of Change’ tour of Africa.

Three years in the Cabinet Office, working personally with the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, led to his first book, Reform of British Central Government (1971), and eventually to leaving the Civil Service for management consultancy and systems analysis. James then worked for nearly five years setting up and directing the Inter-Bank Research Organisation (IBRO) for the big banks. In 1973, with Alison Pritchard (later his wife), James started working independently. As a writer and adviser on future economic, social and ecological change, he combined his earlier experience and a new interest in ecology, feminism, futures studies and the ‘convivial society’ and ‘small is beautiful’ ideas of Ivan Illich and E. F. Schumacher. His book The Sane Alternative followed in 1978. Then in 1983 James and Alison helped Jonathon Porritt and Paul Ekins to set up The Other Economic Summit (TOES), later the New Economics Foundation (nef).

James has worked and lectured in many countries for many organisations and people, including the World Health Organisation, the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He has written other books and many articles and papers on aspects of sustainable development, government and money. In 1998 Green Books published his Schumacher Briefing (No. 1), Transforming Economic Life. His new book, Future Money, is due out in 2012.

In 2003 James received a gold medal from the Pio Manzù Centre, an international institute for the in-depth study of the main economic and scientific aspects of the relationship between man and his environment. Its Scientific Committee, whose President is Mikhail Gorbachev, called James “an outstanding example of a modern thinker at the service of society”.

James and Alison live in Oxfordshire. Until recently they have kept hens and ducks. They still grow vegetables and fruit, and get a modest amount of hot water and electricity from solar panels and photovoltaic (PV) slates.
Source: http://www.greenbooks.co.uk/Book/414/Future-Money.html

"Em tempo de guerra, a primeira vítima é a verdade." 

"In time of war the first casualty is truth"

- Boake Carter conforme citado em "Over 1200 World's Military Maxims & Proverbs: Including Ancient Indian Military Maxims on War and Peace"‎ - Página 16, de Gurdip Singh Bhatia - Publicado por Deep & Deep, 1968 - 115 páginas

Margrit Kenney : If money rules the world – who rules money?

Open publication - Free publishing - More interests

In the late seventies, environmentalists – among whom I count myself – were among the first to question the present money system, which – in order to function – requires exponential growth returns that the planet could never sustain. We discovered that there was a severe lack of understanding on the most basic facts about money amongst laymen as well as professional economists. Up to this day, it remains almost taboo among economists, bankers and politicians to discuss it publicly, as if the global monetary system was a fundamental given. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

http://www.margritkennedy.de/if_money_rules_the_world_-_who_rules_money.html

You can download this article as PDF file.

Margrit Kennedy - Interest and Inflation Free Money

Open publication - Free publishing

Prof. Dr. Margrit Kennedy is an architect, an ecologist, a financial expert and a critic of the prevailing economic system. As a Professor she headed the department of "Technological Advancement and Resource Efficient Construction" at the Universtiy of Hannover's architecture school. As early as 1982 she recognized that the broader application of ecological principals was inhibited by fundamental flaws in the monetary system, especially the consistent need for economic growth resulting from interest and compound interest.

Through her continuous research and scrutiny she became an expert on the subject, working on practical solutions for essential Problems:

How can we create a sustainable monetary system?

What characterizes monetary systems which do not collapse repeatedly and which serve us rather than control us?

Where can we find examples of well-working monetary systems in the past and present?

Margrit Kennedy - Geld ohne Zinsen und Inflation
issuu.com/helyipenz/docs/margrit-kennedy---geld-ohne-zinsen-und-inflation

Margrit Kennedy - Libérer l'argent de l'inflation et des taux d'intérets
issuu.com/helyipenz/docs/margit-kennedy--french---interest-and-inflation-fr

Margrit Kennedy - Dinero Sin Inflation ni Tasas de Interes
issuu.com/helyipenz/docs/margit-kennedy--spanish----interest-and-inflation-

Margit Kennedy (Russian) - Interest and Inflation Free Money
issuu.com/helyipenz/docs/margit-kennedy--russian----interest-and-inflation-

How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It

http://inequality.org/99to1/

The focus of the worldwide Occupy protests is creating a world that works for 99% of people and businesses, not just the richest and most powerful 1%. But who are the 99%? Who are the 1%? How extensive and systemic is inequality in different areas of society? What are its causes and consequence? How is inequality changing in our world? And what can be done about it?

For many years Chuck Collins has been a top leader in studying, speaking about, and writing about these questions. In this book he brings together in one place, for the first time, information that has been widely scattered in many different articles, reports, and websites. He provides revealing and powerful information about inequality in all realms of today’s world, including individual wealth and power, corporate wealth and power, media control, political influence, and other areas. He then describes the functioning of the Wall Street Inequality Machine and describes how inequality wrecks everything we care about. And he tells how people and groups are pushing back against inequality and taking action to reduce inequality and create a world that works for the many and not just the few.