Santa vs the Police State

"And now for a world government..."

And now for a world government
By Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
Published: December 8 2008 19:13



I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”.

Second, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: “For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr Blainey foresees an attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column.

But – the third point – a change in the political atmosphere suggests that “global governance” could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national sovereignty.

Barack Obama, America’s president-in-waiting, does not share the Bush administration’s disdain for international agreements and treaties. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, he argued that: “When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following.” The importance that Mr Obama attaches to the UN is shown by the fact that he has appointed Susan Rice, one of his closest aides, as America’s ambassador to the UN, and given her a seat in the cabinet.

A taste of the ideas doing the rounds in Obama circles is offered by a recent report from the Managing Global Insecurity project, whose small US advisory group includes John Podesta, the man heading Mr Obama’s transition team and Strobe Talbott, the president of the Brookings Institution, from which Ms Rice has just emerged.

The MGI report argues for the creation of a UN high commissioner for counter-terrorist activity, a legally binding climate-change agreement negotiated under the auspices of the UN and the creation of a 50,000-strong UN peacekeeping force. Once countries had pledged troops to this reserve army, the UN would have first call upon them.

These are the kind of ideas that get people reaching for their rifles in America’s talk-radio heartland. Aware of the political sensitivity of its ideas, the MGI report opts for soothing language. It emphasises the need for American leadership and uses the term, “responsible sovereignty” – when calling for international co-operation – rather than the more radical-sounding phrase favoured in Europe, “shared sovereignty”. It also talks about “global governance” rather than world government.

But some European thinkers think that they recognise what is going on. Jacques Attali, an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, argues that: “Global governance is just a euphemism for global government.” As far as he is concerned, some form of global government cannot come too soon. Mr Attali believes that the “core of the international financial crisis is that we have global financial markets and no global rule of law”.

So, it seems, everything is in place. For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious steps towards a world government.

But let us not get carried away. While it seems feasible that some sort of world government might emerge over the next century, any push for “global governance” in the here and now will be a painful, slow process.

There are good and bad reasons for this. The bad reason is a lack of will and determination on the part of national, political leaders who – while they might like to talk about “a planet in peril” – are ultimately still much more focused on their next election, at home.

But this “problem” also hints at a more welcome reason why making progress on global governance will be slow sledding. Even in the EU – the heartland of law-based international government – the idea remains unpopular. The EU has suffered a series of humiliating defeats in referendums, when plans for “ever closer union” have been referred to the voters. In general, the Union has progressed fastest when far-reaching deals have been agreed by technocrats and politicians – and then pushed through without direct reference to the voters. International governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic.

The world’s most pressing political problems may indeed be international in nature, but the average citizen’s political identity remains stubbornly local. Until somebody cracks this problem, that plan for world government may have to stay locked away in a safe at the UN.

Denver Criminal Cops Posing as Agent Provocateurs were Pepper Sprayed by an Unaware Deputy During the DNC

Denver Criminal Cops Posing as Agent Provocateurs were Pepper Sprayed by an Unaware Deputy During the DNC

ACLU wants probe into police-staged DNC protest
By Felisa Cardona
The Denver Post 11/07/2008

When a Jefferson County deputy unleashed pepper spray at unruly protesters on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, he did not know that his targets were undercover Denver police officers.

Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is questioning whether that staged confrontation by police pretending to be violent inflamed other protesters or officers during the most intense night of the four-day event.

The protest occurred Aug. 25 at 15th Street and Court Place near Civic Center. Police ultimately arrested 106 people, the highest number of arrests in a single day during the convention.

According to a use-of-force police report obtained by the ACLU, undercover Denver detectives staged a struggle with a police commander to get pulled out of the crowd without blowing their cover. The commander knew they were working undercover, and the plan was to pull them out of the crowd and pretend they were under arrest so protesters would be none the wiser.

A Jefferson County deputy, unaware of the presence of undercover police, thought that the commander was being attacked and used pepper spray on the undercover officers.

The report says that the commander and an undercover detective were sprayed, but it does not indicate how many others were affected. The report also doesn't say whether the pepper spray used on the undercover police was the first deployment of chemicals that night or whether the riot was already underway.

Denver police have said they were trying to control the crowd moving from Civic Center. The officers testified in court that they had intelligence that anarchists planned to gather in the park, then move toward the 16th Street Mall to wreak havoc at delegate hotels and other businesses. The activists had posted that plan on a publicly available website.

Probe requested

On Thursday, the ACLU of Colorado sent a letter to Denver's Independent Monitor, Richard Rosenthal, asking for the Internal Affairs Bureau to conduct an investigation of the pepper-spraying incident.

"The actions of the undercover detectives on August 25, 2008, may have had the effect of exacerbating an already 'tense situation,' as their feigned struggle led nearby officers and the public to believe that a commanding officer was being attacked by protestors and that the situation necessitated the use of chemical agents," says the letter, written by ACLU staff attorney Taylor Pendergrass.

"Such actions may have escalated the overall situation by causing officers on the scene to fear that the protestors threatened their safety, when in fact the struggle was only between uniformed officers and undercover officers," he wrote.

Denver Police Chief Gerald Whitman did not return a call seeking comment about the pepper-spray incident and whether the officers followed protocol by staging a disturbance with the commander.

Rosenthal said he had received the ACLU's letter about the pepper-spray incident.

He also received a letter from the ACLU last week requesting a probe into possible conflicting or false statements by police about the riot and whether the department withheld evidence in some of the protesters' criminal trials.

The ACLU contends videos show that protesters, as well as otherwise uninvolved onlookers, were never ordered or given a chance to disperse before they were surrounded and detained by police.

"The letters have been received, and I am in the process of reviewing and evaluating them," Rosenthal said Thursday.

As many as 60 protest suspects declined to accept plea deals after their arrests. Some cases have been dismissed and some suspects acquitted after a judge cited a lack of evidence.

Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com

* Read the ACLU's letter to the Office of the Independent Monitor (PDF) .
* Watch video from the August, 2008 standoff between DNC protesters and police at 15th & Court in Downtown Denver.
* Watch video of protesters getting sprayed with pepper spray, from the August, 2008 standoff.

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Here's more undercover cops acting as anarchists to incite a riot during an SPP protest in Montebello Quebec. At first the Quebec police department denied they were undercover police officers but days later they admitted it after people noticed the "anarchists" were wearing distinct yellow-marked police issued boots.

Judge Napolitano: Obama & McCain Both Ignoring the Constitution

Judge Napolitano: Obama & McCain Both Ignoring the Constitution

Peter Morici: "Hubris" of New York Aristocrats Hasn't Been Seen Since Just Before the French Revolution

Peter Morici: "Hubris" of New York Aristocrats Hasn't Been Seen Since Just Before the French Revolution
NationBuilder, 10/30/2008

Professor Peter Morici from the University of Maryland was on Lou Dobbs tonight and reminded America that such blatant corruption like the FED Bailout Bill last preceded the Revolution of Revolutions.

Professor Morici:

We haven't seen hubris on the part of aristocrats like those in New York since just before the French Revolution...They took half the profits of Lehman Brothers, put it in the pockets of the executives and essentially declared the place bankrupt. It's obscene. It's beyond reproach.

Steve Forbes Blames the FED for the Financial Meltdown

Steve Forbes Blames the FED for the Financial Meltdown
NationBuilder, 10/27/08

Steve Forbes correctly identifies the Federal Reserve (over and over) as the main cause of the financial meltdown.

FED Chairman Ben Bernanke: "Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry."

The FED Admits Causing Great Depression
NationBuilder, 10/26/08

Remarks by Governor Ben S. Bernanke (11/8/02):

The brilliance of Friedman and Schwartz's work on the Great Depression is not simply the texture of the discussion or the coherence of the point of view. Their work was among the first to use history to address seriously the issues of cause and effect in a complex economic system, the problem of identification. Perhaps no single one of their "natural experiments" alone is convincing; but together, and enhanced by the subsequent research of dozens of scholars, they make a powerful case indeed.

For practical central bankers, among which I now count myself, Friedman and Schwartz's analysis leaves many lessons. What I take from their work is the idea that monetary forces, particularly if unleashed in a destabilizing direction, can be extremely powerful. The best thing that central bankers can do for the world is to avoid such crises by providing the economy with, in Milton Friedman's words, a "stable monetary background"--for example as reflected in low and stable inflation.

Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.

Best wishes for your next ninety years.

Milton Friedman quotes:

The Federal Reserve definitely caused the Great Depression by contracting the amount of money in circulation by one-third from 1929 to 1933.

[and]

...One unsolved economic problem of the day is how to get rid of the Federal Reserve...

Milton Friedman on the purpose of the Federal Reserve and how they intentionally caused the Great Depression:

CIA Agent & Watergate Mastermind, E. Howard Hunt, Says LBJ Helped Murder JFK

CIA Agent & Watergate Mastermind, E. Howard Hunt, Says LBJ Helped Murder JFK
October 25, 2008

Who killed JFK? LBJ according to E. Howard Hunt (as well as LBJ's former attorney, Barr McClellan). Rolling Stone did an article last year on Hunt's audio taped confession but no media has yet to cover the recently released video of his deathbed bombshell revelation.

Jim Rogers vs CNBC

Jim Rogers vs CNBC

George Lilly for US Congress

If you live in Denver (Congressional District 1), please vote George Lilly for US Congress. He's been endorsed by Ron Paul and he'll fight for your liberty.



Diana DeGette is a criminal (or idiot) who voted for the FED bailout bill. A few days ago at a debate at Johnson & Wales University, DeGette said that the Federal Reserve wasn't the cause of the financial meltdown.

Here she is saying she's worried about inflation but then she rudely walks away when told the FED is what causes inflation.