Sunday, December 30, 2007

Karenga Reiterates The Importance of Kwanzaa

Karenga Reiterates The Importance of Kwanzaa

At his annul message in Philadelphia Maulana Ron Karenga the founder of the Pa-African cultural celebration Kwanzaa told an enthusiastic audience at the William Penn High School in North Philadelphia Kwanzaa calls its celebrants to take on a larger vison of themselves and the world. Appearing at an event sponsored by the local Kwanzaa Cooperative and the Philadelphia area Kawaida Organization which he founded, Maulana Karenga exhorted the listeners to use the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa called the Nguzu Saba to transform their lives and by extension the world. “Anchoring ourselves in the rich ancient and current resources of our own culture, we must extend outward, and be rightfully concerned not only with the well-being and flourishing of our families and community, but also with the well-being and wholeness of the world. As if to remind us of this responsibility, one of the three ways to say human being in Swahili is ‘mlimwengu’ which literally means ‘world dweller’, one who lives in the world. And we know from the Odu Ifa that we are divinely chosen to bring good in this world in which we live, grow and ground ourselves. It is here that the vision and values of Kwanzaa call on us to think and act in such a way that we not only prevent and counter evil and injury to the world, but also create the foundation and framework for its health, well-being and wholeness as a shared and ongoing good. Clearly, this calls for us to embrace principles and engage in practices which support and achieve this aim, and Kwanzaa offers as a clear path to pursue this in the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles. For these core values are not simply principles, but also at the same time required practices.”
The inter-generational audience was extremely receptive to Karenga’s message. They responded in the usual call and response manner, whenever Karenga said anything that resonated with them, shouting out “teach”, “tell it”, “come on”, “hold that thought” or “Ashe’” much to Karenga’s delight. Departing from his prepared text, Karenga challenged the audience to action, to take charge and restore order in the family, the community and world. “The health of the world is good for us. If the forests are destroyed, f the tropical forests are destroyed, if the ozone is destroyed and the waters are polluted and the ground are poisoned and kind of thing, so we can not think just in terms of a gang problem. We do have a gang problem, but it ain’t just in the community. The guy that globalizes the world is a bandit and a band of gangsters. Whoever thought that globalism was anything else but white thuggery spread abroad... You can’t keep giving an outlaw a pass.” The crowd roared in approval
Karenga not only s poke on global issues he also hit on problems in our community. “You can’t talk about being a strong parent if you let your children to take over your house. One of the saddest things you can see is to see older people bowing and bucking for their children. ‘Okay baby it’s your turn’. How can it be baby’ turn, baby didn’t even know there was a turn? Baby is baby, that’s why you call baby baby, baby hasn’t got made yet... You have to see yourself as a responsible person. I speak especially to the adults because the children will never grow up if you retrograde back to infancy. Your children are not your friends and they are not you peers. They are looking for how to direct their bodies towards good and expansive ends. In our culture we had traditions that had parents do just that, not just hand them a credit card or become an ATM machine to sell for them. Teach them to speak truth, do justice, to honor their elders and their ancestors, cherish intelligence and their children.”
Karenga tied his message about Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba to the need to take on a global view of life and commit oneself to do good and bring about a transformation of the world. “It is this unbending belief in the good under girded by the work and struggle that gives it life and lifts us up that makes us have faith that Darfur, Haiti and all oppressed people will eventually be free, that the victims of Katrina will rise above the ruins around them and rebuild, that justice will actually be for everyone, that we can find and follow a way to a worthy peace in the world, that the critical needs of health care, housing and hunger will be honestly confronted and met, and that we can together conceive a way to a new world, begin to walk towards it, work tirelessly for it, and eventually achieve and enjoy it together. If we practiced just some of these principles just some of the time what a wonderful transformation we could bring about in the world.”
The atmosphere in the school was warm and festive. An African Marketplace was set up in e hallway which offered educational and culturally oriented items. The program also featured performances showcasing positive organizations making a major impact on young people. Karenga’s lecture was preceded by performances by the Say Yes To Education Freedom Steppers and the Universal African Dance and Drum Ensemble. A video of the program was made for information about securing a copy call (215) 769-7324

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Friday, December 28, 2007

Will he Discovery of Major Oil Reserves Be Ghana's Curse?

Will The Discovery of Major Oil Reserves Be Ghana’s Curse?

“UK firm Tullow Oil has announced the discovery of 600 million barrels of light oil offshore from Ghana. Reserves in the Mahogany exploration well were far greater than the 250 million barrels than the firm had earlier forecast, it said. Tullow - which saw its shares rise 10% on the news - jointly owns the West Cape block where the drilling took place with Anadarko Petroleum. It was one of the biggest oil finds in Africa in recent times, Tullow said. Tullow and Anadarko firms share rights to the adjacent Tano basin, which could yield more oil.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6764549.stm
“Ghana has discovered an offshore oil field at its west coast in its decades exploration, which confirmed the oil potential in the oil thirsty western African country. Dana Petroleum, a British company, and the state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) announced that they have discovered offshore oil in the Western Tano Contract Area, about 32 km off the coast, with an output of 1,000 bpd. John Craven, Exploration Manager of Dana, told in Accra that the oil well won't be operational until a comprehensive evaluation is done. The drilling of the well, christened WT-IX, began last December and reached a total measured depth of 10,414 feet (about 3470 meters) and subsequent testing proved that hydrocarbons were present. Tom Cross, Dana's CEO, said the discovery confirms the belief that there is considerable potential in the Western Tano area. Dana holds 90 % ownership while GNPC has 10 % in oil well but can increase to 25 % after commercial development. Ghana is now spending about 30 % of its hard-earned hard currency to import oil every year, with Nigeria being its principal supplier.” http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/discover/dix01711.htm

Last week John Kufuor the president of Ghana announced a major oil find that he hoped would lead to prosperity and a brighter future for the African nation that recently celebrated its fiftieth year of “independence” from Western colonial rule. If normal patterns hold true just the opposite will occur as the bloodsucking parasites from the West descend upon the country and attempt to drain it of its natural resources, simultaneously plunging the nation deeper into debt, political instability and chaos. The US and the rest of the West as well as Asian powerhouse China covet oil because their economies as presently constituted are totally dependent upon it for survival.
West African oil in particular is lightweight and a better grade than some other crudes extracted around the world. New oil fields are being discovered off the coast of West Africa all the time and now offers a major source of oil. “Along a broad swath of West Africa, new technologies and higher oil prices have permitted offshore drilling at depths once not practical. Solutions to deep-water extraction problems (making the thick and sluggish oil found in such a low-temperature environment easier to pump, for example) mean that West African crude oil presently is being brought up from depths of up to 2,000 meters... West Africa, led by Nigeria and then Angola and Gabon, now supplies the US with roughly 15% of its oil, but that figure is expected to reach 25% over the next decade. West African crude oil tends to be of good quality, selling just below the Brent benchmark. It can reach refineries in the Gulf of Mexico in just 20 days, half the time required from the Middle East, at savings of 35 cents/b.” http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-1240840_ITM
From an Amerikkkan perspective since once extracted, West African crude can reach the US in a relatively short time, this makes West Africa in general and now Ghana in particular all the more attractive. The high quality of West African crude has the Europeans salivating, gleefully rubbing their hands as they scheme how to expropriate it out from under our brethren there. “West Africa is a strategic area for Chevron. Current production is at about 400 thousand barrels per day and expected to increase to about 500 thousand barrels per day in 2006 (Chevron equity share). Chevron's activities in West Africa involve production and exploration in Nigeria, Angola, The Republic of Congo and Chad. Chevron is the operator of concessions that produce Escravos, Pennington, Bonny Light, Cabinda, Nemba, Kuito, and, Palanca crude oils. Chevron also has equity production from concessions operated by other companies that produce N'Kossa Blend. Crude oil from Chad is piped to Cameroon and exported as Doba Blend. With the exception of Kuito and Doba Blend, these crude oils are mature, light, high quality raw materials suitable for the manufacture of high valued transportation fuels and specialty products. Kuito is a heavy crude oil. However, unlike most heavy crude oils from Latin America and the Middle East, Kuito is a mature crude oil. Its heaviness is caused by biodegradation resulting in the absence of a typical light naphtha fraction. Chevron's West African crude oils, including Kuito, are generally sweet and low in sulfur, nitrogen, and other heteroatoms.” http://crudemarketing.chevron.com/home.asp?africa
Several companies are currently wrangling for rights to drill and explore for oil in Ghana. “In 2005, Saltpond Offshore Producing Ltd (SOPL), which is owned by the U.S.-registered Lushann-Eternit (60 percent) and the state-owned Ghanaian National Petroleum Company (GNPC) (40 percent), signed a $5 million redevelopment project that will restart six wells on the Saltpond oil and natural gas field. SOPL hopes the additional wells will increase production from the current 500 bbl/d to 1,500 bbl/d. The former operator of Saltpond field, Agripetco, had shut the field down in 1985 due to decreasing output. Scottish-based Dana Petroleum is currently analyzing exploration targets in the deepwater section of its West Tano Block. The company previously drilled two successful test wells, WT-1X and WT-2X on Tano field, and made estimates that the field contained oil reserves of 200 million barrels. However, Dana Petroleum indicated that only a small amount of the oil would be recoverable due to geological reasons. Dana Petroleum operates the block with 90 percent interest and is joined with GNPC (10 percent).
In 2002, Oklahoma-based Devon Energy and Canadian independent EnCana entered into an agreement with the GNPC to explore for hydrocarbons offshore of southeastern Ghana in the Keta Basin. The companies are currently analyzing seismic data on the Keta Block. Devon has been active in Ghana since 1997 when it acquired the Keta concession. Houston-based Vanco Energy also signed an exploration agreement with the Ghanaian government in August 2002. In May 2005, Vanco Energy completed 3D seismic research on its Cape Three Points Deepwater Block, and the company plans to drill its first exploration well on the block in 2006. Finally, Dallas-based, Kosmos Energy signed a seven-year oil exploration agreement with Ghana. Kosmos will search for oil in the Tano Basin, adjacent to Vanco Energy’s Cape Three Points Deepwater Block. Kosmos is operator of the West Cape Three Points license with 86.5 percent interest and is joined with GNPC (10 percent) and E.O. Group (3.5 percent).” http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/ECOWAS/Oil.html
If the usual pattern holds, Western powers will attempt to destabilize Ghana first using the IMF, World Bank and US-Aid, then covert ops and if none of that works, they will push for direct military intervention ala Sudan and Somalia. “U.S. military involvement also seems to be following oil investment on the African continent. While Sudan’s horrific attacks on the Fur and other indigenous peoples of the country’s western Darfur region have finally come to the world’s attention, few have noted that the Pentagon has established a presence just across the border in Chad—not to respond to the genocide but to chase ‘terrorist networks.’ Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 10th Special Forces Group are also training troops in Mali, Mauritania and Niger under the program, aimed at halting infiltration into sub-Saharan Africa by the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Call and Combat, which has publicly pledged its allegiance to al-Qaeda. The new U.S. military presence comes just as ExxonMobil has targeted Chad for a major new thrust of oil development. New oilfields have opened in Chad’s Doha Basin, and a World Bank-funded 600-mile pipeline was completed in 2003, linking Chad to the Atlantic and Western oil markets.” Forgotten Oil Wars of the “War on Terrorism” By Bill Weinberg http://www.warresisters.org/nva0105-3.htm
Ghana is a relatively stable country but so was Nigeria several decades ago. Oil and other mineral resources the West covets will motivate the multi-national corporations to do what they do best, prompt their government stooges to do their bidding to get what they want. They and their government cronies will bribe, coerce, frame, set up, manipulate and murder African leaders to get whatever they want. This is how they operate all over the continent. “The continent's leading oil producer, Nigeria, has received more than $400 billion since its boom began in 1970, yet its Gross National Income per capita is about 25 percent lower than the average for sub-Saharan Africa. Corruption and poverty are rife, fuel shortages are endemic, and armed gangs regularly kidnap foreign oil workers and battle the Nigerian Army in the oil-rich Niger Delta. The annual budget of Angola, Africa's number two producer, is $31 billion, but its official figures for infant mortality are the among the worst in the world. ‘What most people don't understand about oil is that, not only does the money not filter through to the majority of the population, but it's much worse than that,’ says Nicholas Shaxson, an oil analyst at the London-based Chatham House think tank and the author of ‘Poisoned Wells,’ which examines how the resource affects countries. ‘It actively makes most people poorer.’” - Ghana aims to avoid the 'oil curse' President John Kufuor says he will put safeguards in place to ensure that newly discovered oil reserves will not be mismanaged. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0806/p04s01-woaf.html?page=2
Nigeria is a classic example of how the West’s lust for oil undermines indigenous peoples’ self-determination, their economies and their countries. “Oil has also had a deep influence on the Nigerian government. Since the early 1970s, the Nigerian government has annually received over half of its revenues – sometimes as much as 85 percent – directly from the oil sector. These oil revenues are not only large, they are also highly volatile – that is, they can fluctuate drastically in size from year to year, causing the size of government, and the funding of government programs, to fluctuate accordingly. For example, from 1972 to 1975, government spending rose from 8.4 percent to 22.6 percent of GDP; by 1978, it dropped back to 14.2 percent of the economy [World Bank 2002]. Few governments are able to cope with this kind of volatility, and it is not surprising – in retrospect – that the Nigerian government was unable to adhere to wise fiscal policies during the 1970s and 1980s, when oil prices fluctuated sharply. The decentralization of the Nigerian government made sound revenue management even more difficult, since much of the oil revenue has been automatically passed on from the federal government to the state and local governments. The ability of these governments to spend their funds wisely, and limit corruption, has been low. Nigeria’s oil wealth has also led to social and political unrest, particularly in the Niger Delta. The Igbo effort to secede from Nigeria, which led to the 1967-70 civil war, was deeply rooted in ethnic tensions and Nigeria’s colonial past; but the rebellion was encouraged by the presence of oil, and hence the belief that independence would be economically beneficial for the Igbo people. Similarly, the unrest among the Ogoni and Ijaw peoples in the Niger Delta can in part be traced to their desire to win a larger share of the region’s economic wealth. ” Nigeria’s Oil Sector and The Poor May 23, 2003 Michael L. Ross UCLA Department of Political Science Los Angeles, CA. 90046 http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/ross/NigeriaOil.pdf
Look for intrigue and intra and inter political party tensions to increase in Ghana and corruption to become more pronounced. Also keep an eye on the IMF, World Bank and US-Aid and monitor the “loans” they force upon the Ghanaian government. This will be the signal the Western elites are working behind the scenes attempting to gain greater control of Ghana’s government and its assets. When you see this, know full well a program of deliberate destabilization and advanced Neo-Colonialism much like is going on throughout Africa is about to show up in Ghana.

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Wednesday, December 26, 2007

What Is Inflation?

What Is Inflation?

“The most common cause of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. If everybody had 5 times as much money but the amount of goods and services produced remained the same, prices would naturally rise by a factor of 5. So the answer to avoiding inflation is simply to avoid printing too much money. Easier said than done.
Government leaders like to spend a lot of money on military equipment, roads, subsidies, building projects, etc., because this keeps them popular with their constituents. But getting money to pay for these things is often difficult. Raising taxes is as unpopular as government spending is popular. One alternative is to borrow the money, but sooner or later you have to pay it back. Probably the easiest way to pay for those popular government spending programs is to ‘print’ some more money.” The Study of Economics
Principles, Concepts & Applications http://www.dushkin.com/connectext/econ/ch11/inflation.mhtml

If you are like most AmeriKKKans you are noticing a sharp decrease in the purchasing power of your money, it is getting increasingly more difficult to make ends meet. You see the prices of most products like gasoline, food and consumer products steadily rising. Some erroneously call the rise in the cost of living, inflation. This is not so. The rise in prices or the cost of living is merely the result of actions taken by an elite cabal of private bankers that control the money supply, set interest rates, determine credit and monetary policies. Many people mistakenly believe the US government is the entity that prints paper bills. The US Treasury does print the money but it does so at the behest of the Federal Reserve Bank a privately owned entity composed of privately owned banks. “Federal reserve System. The central bank for the United States banking system and the institution that holds the primary responsibility for the making and execution of American monetary policies. Its bank notes circulate today as the United States' everyday paper currency. (Metal coins, however, are issued by the United States Treasury Department, not by the Federal Reserve.) The Federal Reserve System represents an almost unique hybrid or blending of elements of governmental power with elements of private ownership and control. Because the authors of the 1913 legislation that set up the Federal Reserve System felt that it was vital to insulate monetary policy from ‘undue’ pressure and influence by partisan politicians obsessed with their own short-range re-election prospects, the Federal Reserve was set up along the lines of an independent regulatory commission -- not as just one more agency of the Executive Branch that would be under the direction of the President and supervised closely by Congress. The private banking community was also given a major role in the running of the Federal Reserve System that continues to give banking interests privileged access to the process by which the US government's monetary policy is made.
The Federal Reserve System's highest decision-making body is its Board of Governors, which consists of seven members. Members of the Fed's Board of Governors are nominated for their positions by the President of the United States and then must be confirmed by a majority vote of the Senate before taking office. The members of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors serve very long terms (fourteen years), and, once appointed and confirmed, they may not be removed from office by either President or Congress (except through a cumbersome process of impeachment by Congress for serious violations of the criminal law). People selected for appointment to the Board of Governors have nearly always been professional bankers, executives of Wall Street brokerage houses, or, occasionally, professional economists. They tend to share many of the relatively conservative political and economic views of the business and professional groups from which they are drawn. Because the President can not fire them from their positions before their fourteen-year terms expire, members of the Board of Governors normally feel relatively free to ignore or oppose the President's preferences when they make U.S. monetary policies. Moreover, even though some members of the Board of Governors perhaps feel an ideological kinship or sense of political loyalty that might predispose them to support the policy views of the President who appointed them, the terms of the Governors are staggered, so that only one Governor's term expires every two years, making it unlikely that any President would be able to dominate the Board with a majority of his own appointees until near the end of his own second four- year term in office.” A Glossary of Political Economy Terms http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/federal_reserve_system
This is Orwellian doublespeak and obfuscation for an economic system set up by the Congressional flunkies of the private bankers back in 1913 to make sure they gained control over the money supply and economic policies of the United States. The Federal Reserve System is an independent entity that does not have to answer to the President or Congress and they do pretty much as they (and their fellow private bankers) please. Keep in mind the Federal Reserve System, not Congress and not the people, is the sole determiner of AmeriKKKa’s monetary policy. They determine how much money is in circulation at any given time. They set interest and credit rates, they are the ones who routinely bail out commercial banks when their reserves get low. They do this so there will not be any 1929 type runs on banks. “The primary reason why the banking industry generally supported the creation of the Federal Reserve System and continues to support it today despite the inconveniences imposed by the Fed's regulations, is the valuable privilege that membership brings to the bankers to count on the Fed for large emergency loans of cash if they someday need it to survive a ‘run’ on their bank. In a bank ‘run,’ large numbers of depositors frightened by rumors that their bank is about to fail suddenly begin crowding into the bank, demanding to withdraw all their deposits in cash. This exhausts the very limited cash reserves normally kept on hand in the bank's own vaults within a few hours. Since the large majority of the depositors' dollars on deposit are always out on loan to the bank's credit customers, and since it takes days or weeks to call in any sizable fraction of the loans outstanding, the bank would have to ‘go bankrupt’ and be liquidated by the courts unless it can raise enough cash somewhere on short notice to pay off the panicky depositors demanding their money. This is where the Fed steps in as rescuing angel with armored cars full of cash pulling up to the beleaguered bank within a few hours.
Bank runs are much more rare nowadays than they used to be, mainly because most depositors today feel much less reason to panic when they believe that they can get their money ‘for sure’ -- either by virtue of the Fed's stepping in with loans in the case of a short-term ‘liquidity crunch’ if the bank in question is relatively sound or (with more delay) by virtue of the insurance provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation if the bank really does turn out to be irretrievably in the red financially. And because runs are now both less likely to happen and less dangerous to the bank even if they do, bankers can earn higher profits by maintaining lower reserves than would otherwise be necessary and thus being able to lend out a higher percentage of their deposits at interest.” ibid
This is what we are experiencing now during the subprime mortgage/credit/monetary crunch! The Fed is pumping mad money to shore up the “liquidity” of banks that are taking major hits on the escalating mortgage and loan defaults and the exotic ways these loans were bundled with other bonds and investment packages then passed of to unsuspecting investors (like your pension fund or 401K). Western central banks, The Bank of England, the European Union Bank, the US Fed it their Canadian counterparts are pumping billions into their respective banks frantically hoping to forestall a major global meltdown. Once we understand the role of the Federal Reserve System what they do and how they do it, you will see it was Fed’s policies that brought on the current crisis in the first place, working in collusion with Wall Street, commercial banks, brokerage firms, insurance companies their employees and the Shadow Banking System (Hedge Funds, Derivatives etc). But I digress.
Inflation occurs every time the Federal reserve System pumps additional money into circulation. This increase in money subsequently lessens the value of the money already in circulation and subsequently drives up the cost of living for all of us. In addition to the subprime mortgage/credit/monetary crisis the Fed created, the Fed is exacerbating the situation by lowering interest rates while simultaneously ramping up the printing presses flooding the economy with their Federal Reserve Notes. This increase in the Federal Reserve Notes “money supply” in addition to the deliberate Fed policy to devalue their notes, the US dollar, is making the dollar worth even less both at home and overseas. The dollar is being devalued big time and the resulting inflation will cause the cost of everything to go up!
“Price inflation makes us lose value on the money we detain. It can fluctuate a lot over time. Many economic theories offer explanations about the causes. However, these theories rather explain increasing and lowering prices among products and services. They do not explain why inflation is permanent. The permanent inflation has a different cause. We’ll take a quick tour through different types of inflation. But, to start with, we will eliminate the confusion between the Consumer Price Index and price inflation... The monetary inflation is the cause of the permanent overall price increases we notice in the long run. It is the only inflation that counts over years and decades. Inflation, in the first place, refers to inflating the money stock. This leads to the increase of average prices. Today we also use the word ‘inflation’ for the increase of prices. Keep in mind, when the money stock grows and, simultaneously, productivity grows, it may happen, that the average prices don't increase or increase less quickly. The available money is spread out among a greater number of products and services and this helps keep prices down.” Secrets of Money Interest and Inflation by Rudo de Ruijter, Independent researcher, Court Fool.info September 2007 http://www.peacebytruth.com/main.php?
When the media talking heads speak of inflation they are deliberately attempting to confuse you to make you think the consequences of Fed policy are the cause and keep the real culprits (the Fed and the bankers) hidden. It’s not just the media talking heads, it’s the educational system both secondary as well as college who tell people inflation is rising prices rather than increased money stock (supply). They are dummying us down by lying and obfuscating the truth. So now you know inflation is an increase in the money stock (supply) and is the direct result of the Federal Reserve System pumping more and more money into circulation. The only thing that will alter this reality is to abolish the Federal Reserve System which is a privately owned entity. Unfortunately the last US president who tried to circumvent the money changers was John F Kennedy and that was one of the reasons why they killed him.

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Monday, December 24, 2007

Make Mental Decolonization A Priority

Make Mental Decolonization A Priority

“A part of the problem of mental illness is what people do to each other and not what mama or daddy or somebody else does to a child. A part of it is also how what mama does is reacted to on the part of the child. It is not so much that the European says we are inferior and that we are this and that, and that the European maligns our character et cetera: It is the belief on our part that what he says is true that drives us crazy. It is a crazy reaction to what he says, an insane and unthinking kind of approach to dealing with what he says about us, that maintains this craziness.” Amos Wilson The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness Eurocentric History Psychiatry and the Politics of White Supremacy page 95

As we prepare to enter a new year, many of us will make the customary annual New Year’s resolutions, we will subsequently fail to keep because we won’t replace old or negative habits with consistent new, healthier, more proactive patterns. We must keep in mind we are being programmed and subjected to mind numbing techniques and propaganda that not only induce us to buy and spend, but has an insidious design to construct our world view and “reality”. This alien world view and reality have at their core the pernicious notions of global white supremacy, African subjugation, menticide and externally induced self-negation. For the past five centuries coinciding with the rise of European hegemony over much of the world, Africans have been the prime targets of the rapacious barbarism of whites.
We see how they operate with their so called Global War on Terrorism which even most white AmeriKKKans know is nothing more than a bogus pretext for genocide, ethnic cleansing, Neocolonialism, perpetual war, pillage and plunder. They do it using lies and noble sounding phrases such as “bringing democracy and freedom” to the world to justify their onslaught of murder, theft and degradation. If the brainwashed majority of AmeriKKKans had any sense at all they would easily comprehend that when an outside entity like the US, one antithetical to the culture and ways of life of Iraq, Afghanistan and numerous other places around the world, forcibly dictates the type of government they operate, then the victims are not really free and the US is really not their benefactor. But no one has ever said AmeriKKKans had any sense.
Just as the fifteenth century Europeans said they were bringing civilization to non-whites who had stable well organized societies that just happened to have gold, vast mineral resources and exotic foodstuffs by using missionaries spouting tales about a mean spirited, capricious and vindictive giant white man god but backed by mercenaries and armies ready to kill and maim to steal those resources; their modern descendants say they are bringing freedom and democracy to benighted masses who just happen to live over millions of barrels of crude oil and the mineral resources the West needs to run their modern technology.
Once the pale faces revealed their true nature and motives, first world people valiantly fought the European invaders as they tried to exert and extend Eurocentric hegemony over them. The resistance was fierce but Europeans, revealing their true nature, introduced advanced weaponry and a jubilant willingness to use weapons of mass destruction to steal what they wanted. These advanced weapons and the Europeans’ inborn blood lust enabled them to wage ongoing wars of conquest and subjugation to subdue indigenous people all around the globe.
But in order to hold the ground they conquered and keep the natives docile and compliant the Europeans cunningly introduced mind control, fear (terror) and menticidal policies that induced a pathological self-hatred and insanity that have produced generations of mental illness and exocentric behaviors and orientation. As Steven Biko the South African freedom fighter keenly noted, “The most potent weapon in the arsenal of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” In effect for over five hundred years non-Europeans have been subjected to mental colonization, a psychological enslavement whose goal is the negation of indigenous identity and the squashing of all resistence to alien ideologies and hegemony.
This Eurocentric mental subjugation is demonstrated in a myriad of ways. “It entails every essential component of the concept/ideology of white supremacy, or the European paradigm. The current tide of globalization reinvents and reinforces the relations of exploitation and domination with the Western Caucasian world in the dominant position, a relationship that was initially concretized in the genocidal land and resource grabs of the 15th through 20th centuries. It further involves a strict ranking of national cultures and histories with the European at the apex and center of world development. It involves both and explicit and implicit demand of conformity to European/white social, psychological, intellectual, technical aesthetic and moral norms.” The Sankofa Movement ReAfrikanization and the Reality of War by Kwame Agyei and Akua Nson Akoto page7.
This demand for conformity to an alien, anti-life, aspiritual, repressive psychological and socio-political European paradigm is the root cause of the mental illness of the victims of this lethally oppressive system. “The central themes of the dominant schools of Greek thought: the will to power, male female and human nature alienation, conflict, materialism and an amoral despiritualized world view, would become the intellectual foundation for the western world view. The nobler path for humanity that shone forth from the Kemetic Mystery systems, was progressively reduced to the realm of the invisible in the western world; the invisible realm has become the realm of superstition. This despiritualized, alienated, materialistic, cerebral, intellectual orientation toward life was to continue in the thoughts of so called modern Western man.” Return To The African Mother Principle of Male Female Equality Volume 1 Oba T’Shaka pages 80-81.
The European males’ actualization of their pathological will to divide, dominate and oppress has been the legacy of over five hundred years of interaction between humanity and the European. Their aspiritual orientation has resulted in the continuation of their legacy of ruthless intra and inter tribal bloodletting as they spread this cultural pattern all over the globe. Ironically today these barbarians try to disguise their pillage, plunder and oppression using the noble sounding words and phrases of freedom and liberation. Obviously it would not behoove them to reveal their true motives. But as a wise man once said, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
Their fruits/actions/consequences reveal their true intent and motivation. Their real objectives are to rob, steal and kill. The sooner we wake up and accept this reality the better off we will be. I say better off because then we will be impelled an inner drive for survival to act in our own best interests. The animating spirit within each of us longs to be free, actualized and unfettered. To be our true and best selves we must be free to develop and use our minds, our imaginations and our talents freely and in an unlimited fashion. To be our true selves we must be free to actualize our full potential unencumbered by dehumanizing lies, propaganda and stifling social systems as we are now.
The key to our true liberation and actualization as human beings is freeing our minds from this lethal Eurocentic psychological and socio-political paradigm. Not only must we de/reprogram our minds by casting out the Eurocentric values, world view and behaviors, we must replace them with life affirming, life enhancing values, spiritual and metaphysical principles. Where do we get these values? From our African ancestors. Our scholars have led the way by researching and sharing the rich cultural legacy of Africa with us. We now have access to books, CDs and videos that share African values, social organization and reality from an African perspective. We must ingest them, internalize them and apply them to our lives so that our lives and our reality are changed for the better. By better I’m not talking about getting more bling, I’m talking about self actualization, freedom to be our true selves, on point and on purpose being who and what INFINITE WISDOM created us to be. We must begin to model what it means to live in integrity with our divine purpose and actually evolve into the person(s) and community the CREATOR planned us to be.
This will not be easy, it will be painful and awkward, yet it will be natural! The oppressor wants to control us, but we cannot allow their domination to continue. Look at what their system and hegemony are doing to the planet. No one in their right mind believes Europeans hold the key to a better world. The operative words here are, right mind. We must begin to regain our right mind. We must be about the business of mental decolonization. It will be an arduous task but one that will reap huge rewards for us, our children and the world. Freedom is not free, it will be very costly. Non conformity in this lethal system usually means the nail that sticks out gets hammered. However we must stick out, we most demonstrate courage, conviction, continuity and be willing to accept the consequences of our choices. The good news is most of the work will be done in secret, in our minds. Freedom and transformation will take place in our ideation first. We must mentally reinforce our desire to live free, and be our true selves. This begins by thinking. Energy follows thought. Link with like minded folks, share and support their liberating energy and actions. It will soon spread.
So far the oppressors cannot read our minds, so they will not know until they see our actions anything is going on that threatens their status quo. They cannot put you in jail for not watching television, consuming their media, buying their junk, going deeper in debt or spending quality time with your family and like minded folks. These are the first steps. The next steps are taking collective action like silently boycotting the corporate media, minimizing shopping in their stores and not buying into their culture. Freedom comes to those who think about it, believe in it and manifest in their lives, in their behavior and actions. Free your mind the rest will follow.

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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Will We Ever Learn?

Will We Ever Learn?

“Culture is essentially a way of thinking, perceiving, evaluating, and interpreting the world; a way of relating to others and to the physical-metaphysical world and involves an explicit and implicit set of rules of conduct which orders the overall social relations, arrangements and attitudes of a society. The power generated by such social arrangements, (alignments) and attitudes is utilized for maintaining and enhancing the well-being and integrity of the society; for procuring, processing and producing the material and non-material products characteristic of the society; and for substantiating its abilities to defend ad advance its interests in cooperation with or in opposition to other societies or groups.” Amos N Wilson Blueprint Black Power A Moral, Political and Economic Imperative fr the Twenty-First Century page 67

I played phone tag with Neil Blake the founder of the Blake radio network for two days before we were finally able to hook up yesterday. He shared with me he was pulling the plug on Rainbow Soul (www.Blakeradio.com) the twenty-four hour, seven day a week Internet talk radio channel he started six years ago. It was ironic he chose to do this a few weeks after winning a 2007 Black Web Award for the best Politics, Culture and Talk Internet radio station http://www.blackwebawards.com/2008/index. During our conversation Neil expressed his disappointment at having to struggle to pay the costs to operate the station out of his own pocket over the years. The station has built a loyal following over the years (in addition to being a pioneer in Internet radio Rainbow Soul is still one of the most popular black stations on the Internet) but for some reason the listeners have eschewed supporting his efforts financially. “We get over 50,000 hits a month, many of these are first time listeners, while others are repeats but if every listener gave one dollar every other month we would have the necessary revenues to keep the station alive.” Lamented Blake.
I have been associated with several Internet radio stations since 2000. Two went belly up for varying reasons. As a pioneer in Internet talk radio I’ve seen talk stations like The Black World Today which I helped start and New Black City which I joined after it was well established cease operations due to: the Dot Com bust, lack of advertising or a decision to go in another direction. in 2001 Neil Blake offered me the opportunity to come on Rainbow Soul after New Black City ceased operations. It has been a very enjoyable and uplifting relationship. He gave me an opportunity to produce a show on a conscious station designed for Africans committed to our upliftment, redemption, empowerment and liberation. This is what makes Neil’s situation and decision all the more tragic. The root reality is, supposedly conscious African people refused to support a station like Rainbow Soul. The station was a pioneer in black talk Internet radio programming, it provided an eclectic blend of quality programming by serious minded hosts who provided quality shows as was recognized by the 2007 Black Web Awards voting. None of us got paid, it was a labor of love. But as so called conscious Black folks, the global African community failed to support a unique and viable venue that was created and designed strictly for our betterment.
What’s so lamentable about the demise of Rainbow Soul is Negroes (need to grows, mentally dead people) as well as so called conscious Africans spend billions of dollars annually on activities and things that are literally killing us, degrading us and keeping us in mental and psychological bondage. For the so called conscious community to not support a vehicle created and constructed to inform and facilitate our mental decolonization and transformation is especially galling as we find ourselves bombarded by a corporate white supremacist media whose programming dummies down and distracts the masses, promotes lies and openly supports an increasingly militaristic and repressive police state. “Black folks spend all that money on hair care products we don’t control, drugs, cigarettes, bling and sex but won’t send us a few dollars to help keep the station on the air. I’ve literally spent thousands of dollar of my own money trying to keep this station going.” Shared Blake. “But at some point you have to cut your losses and move on. I’m proud of what I’ve done. It hurts me to do this because this is what the white man wants, and I know the potential of Internet radio.”
Rainbow Soul offered a variety of programming and was an example of how to blend cutting edge technology with eclectic content that can both educate and entertain. Rainbow Soul offered a creative and educational venue over the years to broadcasters, leaders, activists and educators like Bob Law, Queen Afua, Professor James Smalls, Deadra Shuler, Kanya Vashon McGee, Ted Terry, Manu Ampim, Dora Jones, Khaazra Maaranu, Eyele Yetunde, Robin Rose Bennett, Dora Jones, Brother Jamaal, Keid Obi Awadu, myself and a host of others. Neil Blake was a pioneer but more importantly he was a man of vision, character and commitment. He assisted a slew of folks as they launched out in Cyberspace and now there a numerous conscious Internet radio stations serving a variety of audiences and tastes, thanks to Neil’s efforts and support.
While Rainbow Soul was the most popular these new stations are finding their own voice and audiences. Unfortunately they too are struggling to survive, having a hard time keeping up with the technology and cultivating the financial support needed to stay alive. The Western model of media supported by commercial advertising has never worked well for black media, conscious or otherwise. Black newspapers, magazines and radio station do not get the advertising dollars they need, even if they are “top rated” to survive and prosper. If they are conscious, corporate advertisers shun them like the plague. “White advertisers are not going to support conscious media.” said Blake. “They just aren’t going to do it, even if the shows are non threatening.” But by definition conscious Black programming is a threat to the status quo of Eurocentric white supremacist, anti-African programming.
What lessons can we take from the demise of Rainbow Soul? It’s the same ol same ol, we have to realize we must support our media and institutions. If we don’t support LIBradio or Innerlight radio, Harambee or any of the other conscious stations, they too will go under. We are in a war for the hearts, minds and souls of African people. Conscious media outlets, media that challenge us to throw off the yoke of Eurocentric white supremacist thinking are a necessity. The only way media of this type can/will survive is if we support it. When will we accept this reality and this challenge and act accordingly? Are we too far gone, so brainwashed and programmed against ourselves we will no longer fight? Each one of us must look deep into our souls and psyche to answer this question.
Billions of dollars pass through our hands annually, how much of that money are we spending with black businesses? How much are we donating to causes that have our best interests at heart? Someone once observed , “Where your heart is there your treasure will be also.” From the looks of things our hearts are exocentric (outside our ethnic group) because 97% of our money goes outside our community. Our hearts must be towards bondage and degradation because that’s where and how we spend our money, to degrade ourselves to mimic and support our oppressors.
Will we ever learn? Will we ever change? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, with the same people expecting different results. Are we so negatively programmed, are we so brain-dead we hold on to our slave mentality repeating the same behaviors, oblivious to the both the process and the consequences? If so, we will continue to get the same counterproductive results and vehicles like Rainbow Soul will continue to starve for lack of support from the very people they are designed to reach, uplift, inspire and empower.

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Current Economic Woes Are The Result of Massive Fraud

Current Economic Woes Are The Result of Massive Fraud

“During the years from 2000-2007, the banks took in securitization products including mortgages (worth over $1 trillion) and issued commercial paper. The banks created a great number of off balance-sheet conduits and structures. As such, these structures fail to report full liabilities on the bank’s balance sheets. This is what I call RahC™ (Randomly Activated Hidden Contingency) and RahD™ (Randomly Activated Hidden Debt). The industry created a Shadow Banking System (SBS) [phrase coined by Paul McCulley, PIMCO]. Yes, you’ve seen this movie before. Remember Enron? Enron apparently, through a series of related entities garnered a massive off-balance sheet contingency that exposed the company to risks and liabilities in untold and unknown amounts, not respected by its investors, the government or society. Well, with off-balance sheet liability and exposure related to hedge funds, commercial paper and derivatives, our formal banking system is now trying to absorb the assets burdened with unknown quantities and qualities of RahC and RahD losses and liabilities now exposed in our Shadow Banking System. Moreover, the SBS is not backed by Federal Deposit Insurance nor does this system have access to the Federal Discount Window for liquidity. Not to rub salt in this wound, but my ‘free market purists’ friends should now recognize some need for ‘refined free market industry and government regulations.’ How many times must we see this movie of ‘extremes’? Literally, untold exposure is etched in the fabric of off-balance-sheet contingencies.”Shadow Banking System (SBS) http://shadowbankingsystem.com/html/shadowbanking.html

Once again the Bu$h crime family is involved in a massive rip off, transfer of assets, wealth redistribution, fraud, whatever you choose to call it that will impact ordinary AmeriKKKans quite negatively. The current mortgage/credit/monetary/asset meltdown is the result of massive systemic fraud. Contrary to the media talking head spin, the so called subprime crisis is not the fault of irresponsible borrowers. How can someone get a loan who has no job or get a loan for a house they obviously cannot afford or secure a refinance loan that is well over their means without collusion on the part of the lender? If it were just one bank, one mortgage broker or one mortgage company you could say well, that’s just one unscrupulous banker, broker or an isolated event. But when it is nation wide and you see it happening millions of times you know it is deliberate. When I say nationally and system wide I mean total collusion involving the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, the Fed itself, Wall Street investment banks, commercial banks, the bond rating services, mortgage companies, their brokers, insurance companies, real estate agents, the media and insider investors. This wide scale fraud involved whole industries coupled with government acquiescence and encouragement. So don’t fall for the okey-doke and blame it on Pookie and Shanaynay’s bad credit.
Most AmeriKKKans are totally unaware a “shadow banking system” even exists. Certainly most black folks are clueless about what is going on. That is why I write these types of articles to let you know what is happening. “What we are witnessing is essentially the breakdown of our modern-day banking system, a complex of leveraged lending so hard to understand that Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke required a face-to-face refresher course from hedge fund managers in mid-August. My Pimco colleague Paul McCulley has labeled it the ‘shadow banking system’ because it has lain hidden for years, untouched by regulation, yet free to magically and mystically create and then package subprime loans into a host of three-letter conduits that only Wall Street wizards could explain. It is certainly true that this shadow system, with its derivatives circling the globe, has democratized credit. And as the benefits of cheaper financing became available to the many as opposed to the few, placating and calming waves of higher productivity and widespread diversification led to accelerating economic growth, incomes, and corporate profits. Yet, as is humanity's wont, we overdid a good thing, and the subprime skim milk has soured.” The Shadow Knows - Bill Gross founder and Chief Investment Officer of Pimco. http://www.pimco.com
For an insider like Bill Gross to admit a shadow banking system exists and to point out its foibles as the cause of the current crisis is extremely enlightening. But Gross is not opposed to a shadow banking system. He just wants one that is transparent, one that investors can have confidence in. Unfortunately the ruling elites cannot be trusted to play fair. They have an agenda that is neither good for the country nor the economy. Greed and “power” to shape and ultimately undermine the economy are their motivation but the means is plain old fraud using the banks, mortgage companies, rating services and an unregulated shadow financial system of hedge funds, derivative funds, offshore accounts and the global market to weave a web of interlocking entities based on leveraged credit and debt that are now unraveling like a cheap sweater. This is all deliberate; it is a variation of the “pump and dump” stock market themes. “To add injury to insult, on July 9, 2007 the SEC eliminated the so called ‘Up Tick Rule’ which normally does not allow traders to bet on the down (tick). As a result, Wall Street investment banks bet on the down - that subprime mortgage investments would devalue and incur great losses. As their own portfolios lost value or went bankrupt, great monies were made shorting same; some would say accelerating the losses. There is nothing wrong with a more profitable shadow mortgage banking model per se. In fact, the economy can and does benefit from more shadow banking. This time, it needs to be supported by industry and/or government minimum transparency, liquidity and credit safety belts. The fact that the Shadow Banking System’s model is neither federally insured nor able to use the Federal Discount Window makes it vulnerable to market extremes and unnecessary loss and asset devaluation severities. It is simply not healthy to ignore or deny that our secondary market system is lacking a certainty safety-net for the non-conforming (non-agency) loan and commercial paper markets” Who’s Zooming Who? Solutions to the Hollow Promises of Wall Street’s Shadow Banking System http://shadowbankingsystem.com/Whos_Zooming_Who.pdf
Note, the Security and Exchange Commission the very agency charged with looking out for investors by making sure the system is transparent open and fair reversed its’ policy and allowed traders to bet the mortgage market would take a dive! Obviously the fix was in!! It was classic pump and dump! Especially since they already knew many of the loans were shaky in the first place. The fraud was compounded and expanded when the investment banks repackaged these same shaky loans as exotic sounding investment opportunities and they were given AAA rating by the rating services. This made them extremely attractive so the banks and mortgage brokers could market and sell them to suckers looking for huge returns on their investments. This was systemic collusion and fraud. It was accomplished by industry wide Wall Street investment bank cooperation; all part of the ruling elites’ scheme to tank the economy and reduce us all to debtor surfs and wage peons.
“The American Securitization Forum in June 2007, as well as most industry and government groups (SEC, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, Office of Thrift Supervision, Treasury Secretary Paulson, FDIC, National Credit Union Administration, Conference of State Bank Supervisors, National Association of Consumer Credit Administrators,American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators, Joint Economic Committee Chairman Schumer, October 2007, S&P Revised Guidelines of October 11, 2007, Moody’s Survey of September 21, 2007, etc.) recommended loan workouts or 'modifications' as an important immediate step to the current and impending mortgage meltdown. However, the September 21, 2007 Moody’s study entitled: Moody's Subprime
Mortgage Servicer Survey on Loan Modifications 'showed that most servicers had only
modified approximately 1% of their serviced loans that experienced a reset in the months
of January, April and July 2007.' The problems are multifold and complex. Not only do
we need to maximize loan workout modifications by overcoming issues of conflicting
authorizations in Pooling & Servicing Agreements, and failing lender and servicing
efforts, but we must align and resolve conflicting disincentives among all market
participants from borrowers to investors with law makers in between.” http://shadowbankingsystem.com/Whos_Zooming_Who.pdf
As you can see by the extremely low rate of loan modifications (adjustments) and the feeble plan the Bu$h administration recently came up with, the ruling elites have no real intention of resolving the problem or assisting the millions of folks facing default and foreclosure. Why should they, they’ve already made their money by selling the mortgages and by betting the bottom would fall out in their rigged con game!! In fact this is all part of their plan to destroy the working and middle classes and the system by siphoning off and transferring their wealth to the super rich. This is the same thing that happened during the depression before Roosevelt stepped in to save the farmers and home owners. (For that the bankers plotted a fascist coup against him which failed but not one of them went to jail! See Franklin Delano Roosevelt vs. the Banks: Morgan's Fascist Plot, and How It Was Defeated http://american_almanac.tripod.com/morgan3.htm )
As stated earlier the current fiasco is a variation of the Enron and Savings and Loan rip offs. Only this time the elites have not come up with a plan that calls for a taxpayer bailout, probably because they want a deep recession/depression. This way they can accomplish their nefarious agenda. Meanwhile the shadow banking system is imploding and because it is under the radar, the real damage will go unreported by the corporate media. Some of you are saying “this is a bit farfetched”. Not really when you consider the real US history or the fact 9-11 was an inside job or that ethnic cleansing was one of the goals of the Bu$h administration’s responses to Hurricane Katrina. We need to stop pretending our government and the people/corporations who bribe, control and tell them what to do aren’t a bunch of crooks, psychopaths warmongers and murderers.

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Monday, December 10, 2007

Bu$h the FED and Bankers CYA

Bu$h, the FED and The Bankers CYA

“But unfortunately, the ‘freeze’ is just another fraud - and like the other bailout proposals, it has nothing to do with U.S. house prices, with ‘working families,’ keeping people in their homes or any of that nonsense. The sole goal of the freeze is to prevent owners of mortgage-backed securities, many of them foreigners, from suing U.S. banks and forcing them to buy back worthless mortgage securities at face value - right now almost 10 times their market worth. The ticking time bomb in the U.S. banking system is not resetting subprime mortgage rates. The real problem is the contractual ability of investors in mortgage bonds to require banks to buy back the loans at face value if there was fraud in the origination process. And, to be sure, fraud is everywhere. It's in the loan application documents, and it's in the appraisals. There are e-mails and memos floating around showing that many people in banks, investment banks and appraisal companies - all the way up to senior management - knew about it”.
MORTGAGE MELTDOWN Interest rate 'freeze' - the real story is fraud Bankers pay lip service to families while scurrying to avert suits, prison Sean Olender Sunday, December 9, 2007 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?

The Bu$h administration announced their plan to “save” homeowners from default and foreclosure but it was really a PR scam and a ploy to CYA, cover your ass. Most serious economists know the real deal is not about saving working folks homes, the crisis is too far gone for that to happen even if the ruling elites really wanted to; and they don’t! This is another con game the bankers and shysters are playing to make the suckers think they care, but it is really all about minimizing their own liabilities. Go to http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/09/IN5BTNJ2V.DTL&feed=rss.business and read the enlightening article by Sean Olender. There you will get a small piece of the puzzle and glean a better understanding of just how disastrous the situation is. From Mr Olender’s perspective the “Interest Rate Freeze” is merely a cover to counter a recent Federal court ruling in Ohio which threw out a suit by Deutsche Bank which was attempting to foreclose on fourteen properties. The Court noted Deutsche Bank could not provide proof they owned the notes and liens on the said mortgages.
Deutsche Bank like all the other banks facing mounting losses in the mortgage/hedge fund/ derivative meltdown find themselves in the unenviable position of having sold mortgages and other so called “asset backed investment vehicles” (mortgages and bonds) by bundling them up in exotic packages and selling them to suckers looking for lucrative returns on their “investments”. Not only are banks like Deutsche Bank now taking the hit on the defaulting loans, they don’t even have the deeds or rights to the properties to document they hold the liens when they sue the borrowers for default ! A recent court decision in Ohio has put the bankers in a real lurch. “The Court's amended General Order No. 2006-16 requires Plaintiff (Deutsche Bank) to submit an affidavit along with the complaint, which identifies Plaintiff as the original mortgage holder, or as an assignee, trustee or successor-interest. Apparently Deutsche bank submitted several affidavits that claim that Deutsche was in fact the owner of the mortgage note, but none of these affidavits mention assignment or trust or successor interest. Thus, the Judge ruled that in every instance, these submissions create a ‘conflict’ and they ‘do not satisfy’ the burden of demonstrating at the time of filing the complaint, that Deutsche Bank was in fact the ‘legal’ note holder. While the decision is great for homeowners in distress (due to providing a new escape hatch out of foreclosure), it is a big blow to the cause of sorting out the high-finance side of the mortgage mess.”
Stop and think about the implications of this, the bankers since they’ve sold the mortgages to investors, don’t hold the liens, hence they cannot sue the homeowners when they default on the loans! Plus the bankers are also liable and will be sued when the investors discover the bonds and collateralized debt paper they hold is worthless. The Bu$h/Paulson interest rate freeze is a hollow attempt to get the bankers out from under both the crumbling portfolios they’ve sold and the potential suits that will surely come when the investors who purchased them attempt to recoup their money, dollar for dollar.
The Bu$h/Paulson interest rate freeze is an attempt to get borrowers (suckers) who have loans with less the three percent equity (a really minuscule amount) to resign/refinance with a new lender or the FHA. Once the suckers take the bait, the new lender will have access to the actual loan note. That way when the borrowers default (which most will since the rate freeze will not help them if the real reason for their default is a lack of income to pay the mortgage) the banks will have the notes/liens in their possession and not end up with nothing like Deutsche Bank. Keep in mind what happened to Deutsche Bank is the norm across the board, because they don’t possess the liens on the houses since the loans were bundled and sold to overseas investors, other banks, pension funds, hedge funds etc.
The real deal is that Bu$h and Co rather than sincerely trying to help working folks hold onto their homes, are scurrying around like rats on a sinking ship trying to cover their behinds. “Despite Thursday's ballyhooed new deal with mortgage lenders, does anyone really think that it can ultimately stop fraud lawsuits by mortgage bond investors, many of them spread out across the globe? The catastrophic consequences of bond investors forcing originators to buy back loans at face value are beyond the current media discussion. The loans at issue dwarf the capital available at the largest U.S. banks combined, and investor lawsuits would raise stunning liability sufficient to cause even the largest U.S. banks to fail, resulting in massive taxpayer-funded bailouts of Fannie and Freddie, and even FDIC. The problem isn't just subprime loans. It is the entire mortgage market. As home prices fall, defaults will rise sharply - period. And so will the patience of mortgage bondholders. Different classes of mortgage bonds from various risk pools are owned by different central banks, funds, pensions and investors all over the world. Even your pension or 401(k) might have some of these bonds in it.” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/09/IN5BTNJ2V.DTL&feed=rss.business
Once again the ruling elites are shafting us and no one will go to jail. At best, Congress may hold sham investigations but no one will go to jail (much like the so called military and intelligence failure that led to 9-11) The mortgage/credit/monetary collapse is merely a larger version of the Enron scandal which was facilitated by the collusion of Bu$h cronies, Wall Street and Arthur Anderson’s creative accounting schemes. It will make the Savings and Loan debacle where the Bu$h family (brother Neil, Daddy Bu$h and brother Jeb) along with a host of others made out like the bandits they are look like a romp in the park. This whole mortgage/credit/monetary collapse was deliberately orchestrated from the top in collusion with: Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve Bank, certain select Wall Street investment banks, the bond rating services, the mortgage companies (and their brokers/employees), the insurance companies and the corporate media talking heads/shills. They were all in on it. Now they are trying to cover their tracks, trying to absolve themselves from obvious culpability for the consequences that will surely come. They are trying to limit the suits that will come once the pension funds, bond investors and various hedge funds realize this was all a giant Ponzi scheme and they try to recoup some of the money they lost when they purchased these exotic toxic waste “investment vehicles” that have now turned into worthless scraps of paper.
“So with this decision, it appears confirmed that investors in the mortgage debacle may in fact own nothing---not even the bad loans they funded! It seems their right to the cash flow from the underlying properties does not extend to ownership of the properties themselves; thus clouding the recovery picture considerably. Charney further remarked to us: This opinion, once circulated and adopted by state and Federal courts across the country, will stop the progress of foreclosures, at first in judicial foreclosure states, across America, dead in their tracks. We agree with additional remarks Charney made pointing out that this decision has major adverse implications for the prospects of an amicable financial workout for the various investor contingents in mortgage-backed securities (MBSes). Doubt is cast on where the full write-downs will eventually land, and this uncertainty can only be expected to further harm the market value of MBS and MBS-based synthetic securities, already in shambles purely due to rising underlying delinquencies. Investors in these securities might have assumed---wrongly, it turns out---that they actually owned some ‘real estate’ in these deals. To paraphrase Jim Cramer, ‘They own nothing!’” Deutsche Bank Foreclosures Tossed Out of Ohio Federal Court - "They Own Nothing!" http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/government/banking_and_taxation_irs/news.php?q=1195091549
The real deal about the Bu$h/Paulson rate plan is this: “The plan, as all financial fixes have been under the present ‘Theatrical Economics’ is to delay, deceive and spins the inevitable.
The situation is already dire, and cannot be blamed primarily on adjustable mortgages. Holding rates at the teaser levels for the least worthy borrowers only delays the eventual failure at best by a few months because the foundation of economic conditions is deteriorating simultaneously. The legality of who may make this decision is clouded by the fact that the securitized form of the problem raises the question of legally who does the money lent really belong to and furthermore who has the right to postpone, to wrap around and opine of what class of mortgagee will receive the questionable but meaningless reprieve. The major beneficiary of this delay, defraud and spin scenario will be the legal community trying to sort out who has the right to do what to whom. Already a case has been heard and decided wherein the owner of a securitized debt instrument was determined not to have the legal right to foreclose. It only follows that a group of the same do not have the right to make changes in the agreement between the primary borrower and the primary lender. What a hell of a mess the derivative geniuses have made of the financial world. I do not think the father will forgive them, as they knew exactly what the outcome of their actions would be and did not give a damn. The fix contains little that will make a lender more comfortable with the borrower. Whatever benefit, beyond THEATRICS, is hard to quantify... There is a simple question. That question is can the same people who got you here, get you out of here. The answer is a glaring NO. The reason the answer is NO is that every tactic so far discussed is either hyper inflationary or a delay and deceive action. There simply is NO fix to the worlds largest F up created by the bubble man and his merry investment banker derivative dealer elves. All they can do is postpone and ultimately make worse as that is what postponing always does of a problem that has no solution. Very simply the little guy is screwed and some big guys have and are going down with the crowd.” The Longer The Drum Roll The Shorter The Plan
Author: Jim Sinclair http://www.jsmineset.com/ARhome.asp?
Don’t go for the media and government okey-doke. Don’t go for the smoke and mirror media show. You should know perfectly well by now Bu$h and Co. don’t give a damn about us. All this is designed to do is cover their own asses, protect the bankers from an avalanche of law suits so they can try to rip the people off even more.

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Friday, December 07, 2007

Creating False Hope

Creating False Hope

“The program is only delaying the inevitable. If you’re in a home you can’t afford and/or are currently unable to refinance, chances are you’ll need a sharp increase in income, a reduction in principle or a reduction in your interest rate to keep your home long-term. Delaying the ‘ARM day of reckoning’ by five years is unlikely to make a difference for most home owners.” 5 Holes in the Government's Mortgage Bailout Plan http://seekingalpha.com/article/56480-5-holes-in-the-government-s-mortgage-bailout-plan

Yesterday the Bu$h administration announced its plan to assist homeowners who are struggling to hold onto their homes amidst the ravages of the current housing/mortgage/credit/monetary crash. Bu$h, his Treasury Secretary, the HUD Secretary and representatives from the lending industry, investors, mortgage counselors and loan servicers held a joint press conference to announce the details of a five year interest rate freeze. The move is essentially a PR gambit to give the administration the appearance they are on top of this situation and assuage the anxieties and fears of lenders, investors, Wall Street, a gullible US public and the global economic community. The White House is touting this initiative as a “private sector” solution, meaning there is no taxpayer bail out for Wall Street or the homeowners nor is it a government intervention to stop the sub-prime mortgage tsunami from devastating more US homeowners and taking the US economy under. The problem with this plan is, it is not a real solution to the problems. This “plan” will not help most of the people facing foreclosure or who are feeling the angst of ARM resets that will balloon their mortgage payments up several hundred dollars a month.
The plan called HOPE NOW Alliance will only assist a small number of people facing default or foreclosure. The problem is the meltdown is not just in the “subprime” lending arena. Go to http://seekingalpha.com/article/56596-some-straight-talk-on-the-mortgage-mess and read the article entitled Some Straight Talk On the Mortgage Mess. Read it thoroughly and you will see why Bu$h’ plan is spitting into the wind. We must understand this is PR, strictly for show a total scam. The media focus is on “subprime borrowers” those folks supposedly with poor credit scores but as the article I asked you to read clearly points out, there are numerous other levels of borrowers who have higher/better credit scores who are also facing deep financial trouble not merely because they foolishly overextended themselves, but because the whole system is crooked from the top (Federal Reserve Bank, Wall Street, commercial lending institutions, the rating services, mortgage brokers) all the way to the bottom (straw or third party buyers, wannabee real estate moguls and speculators, folks trying to keep up with the Jones etc). The system is corrupt and crumbling and as the crisis worsens, more and more folks will feel the squeeze and succumb to the undertow. “Sub-prime aren’t the only kind of loans imploding. Second mortgages, hybrid intermediate-term ARMS, and the soon-to-be infamous Pay Option ARM are also feeling substantial pressure. The latter three loan types mostly were considered ‘prime’ so they are being overlooked, but will haunt the financial markets for years to come. Versions of these loans were made available to sub-prime borrowers of course, but the vast majority were considered ‘prime’ or Alt-A. The caveat is that the differentiation between Prime and ALT-A got smaller and smaller over the years until finally in late 2005/2006 there was virtually no difference in program type or rate.
The bailout we are hearing about for sub-prime borrowers will be the first of many. Sub-prime only represents about 25% of the problem loans out there. What about the second mortgages sitting behind the sub-prime first, for instance? Most have seconds. Why aren’t they bailing those out too? Those rates have risen dramatically over the past few years as the Prime jumped from 4% to 8.25% recently. seconds are primarily based upon the prime rate. One can argue that many sub-prime first mortgages on their own were not a problem for the borrowers but the added burden of the second put on the property many times after-the-fact was too much for the borrower. Most sub-prime loans in existence are refinances not purchase-money loans. This means that more than likely they pulled cash out of their home, bought things and are now going under. Perhaps the loan they hold now is their third or forth in the past couple years. Why are bad borrowers, who cannot stop going to the home-ATM getting bailed out? The Government says they are going to use the credit score as one of the determining factors. But we have learned over the past year that credit scores are not a good predictor of future ability to repay. This is because over the past five years you could refi your way into a great score. Every time you were going broke and did not have money to pay bills, you pulled cash out of your home by refinancing your first mortgage or upping your second. You pay all your bills, buy some new clothes, take a vacation and your score goes up!
The ’second mortgage implosion’, ‘Pay-Option implosion’ and ‘Hybrid Intermediate-term ARM implosion’ are all happening simultaneously and about to heat up drastically. Second mortgage liens were done by nearly every large bank in the nation and really heated up in 2005, as first mortgage rates started rising and nobody could benefit from refinancing. This was a way to keep the mortgage money flowing. Second mortgages to 100% of the homes value with no income or asset documentation were among the best sellers at CITI (C), Wells (WFC), WAMU (WM), Chase (JPM), National City (NCC) and Countrywide (CFC). We now know these are worthless especially since values have indeed dropped and those who maxed out their liens with a 100% purchase or refi of a second now owe much more than their property is worth.” http://seekingalpha.com/article/56596-some-straight-talk-on-the-mortgage-mess
Do you grasp the implications of all this? There are folks who have refinanced their homes so much by cashing in on the “appreciation” of their homes which are now falling in value they now owe more than the house is worth! Most of these people are not getting caught up in the resetting of interest rates, they are losing their homes because they can’t afford them. “The wires are reporting that the White House is working on a plan that would freeze rates on adjustable rate mortgages for certain borrowers, in an attempt to help curb the rapid increase in home foreclosures expected in coming months. While it certainly will help the situation, consider a slide from Countrywide (CFC)'s Keynote Presentation at the 37th Annual Bank of America Investment Conference in September which showed the following: Causes of Foreclosure (July 2007) 58.3% Curtailment of income,13.2% Illness/Medical, 8.4% Divorce, 6.1% Investment property/Unable to sell,5.5% Low regard for property ownership, 3.6% Death, 1.4% Payment adjustment, 3.5% Other” Rate Freezes Won't Solve Foreclosure Problem http://seekingalpha.com/article/56460-rate-freezes-won-t-solve-foreclosure-problem .
The chickens are coming home to roost big time! People lost their minds thinking they could borrow and spend wantonly and their day of reckoning would never come. Alas for an increasing number of AmeriKKKans their day of reckoning is either here or fast approaching. “Having been miseducated to the point where they cannot think rationally, Americans began using their houses as cash machines, refinancing as they went. In 2005, private households raised $1.08 trillion through mortgages. Of this amount, they only spent $95.1 billion on higher-priced homes. Spending on goods and services rose in total by $539.9 billion, relative to an increase in disposable income of only $354.5 billion. In other words, about one-third of the increase in consumer spending was based on home mortgage borrowing. The real estate bubble began to burst in the third quarter of 2005, with mortgage borrowing peaking at $1.23 trillion per annum. Falling steadily, by the second quarter of 2006, borrowing on home equity was down to $819.6 billion. Some of this sharp decline was also caused by increases in consumer credit costs.” Economic Cannibalism http://www.new-enlightenment.com/econ_crash.htm
Each passing month more and more families face default and foreclosure. The last thing Bu$h and Co. want is a deeper economic collapse (depression) on their watch, hence the HOPE NOW PR scam. The fact of the matter is, this program will only help a small number of people on the verge of default or foreclosure. “This plan was purposefully and carefully constructed to help virtually no one but lenders. The very last thing the lenders want is to foreclose on homes that are hugely underwater. What Homeowners Benefit? This plan will benefit homeowners who meet ALL of the following requirements: The homeowner has at most 3% equity. The homeowner is not hugely underwater on current loan to value. The home is in an area where home prices are not apt to plunge over the next few years. The freeze will permanently prevent foreclosure. It takes all four conditions before homeowners will benefit. The plan has negative benefit for nearly everyone in the small select group of people that meet the carefully crafted eligibility requirements.” Hope is Now a Sucker Trap Mike Mish Shedlock http://www.minyanville.com/articles/hope-homeowners-lenders/index/a/15141
Bu$h and Co don’t have it in them to do anything really good for the un-super rich, middle class or working folks. As I said previously this is all PR, smoke and mirrors to keep the hell hounds off his tail until he can distract the masses with some other bogus issue. But sooner or later the real deal will become more widely known and Bu$h will be seen for the ogre he really is.

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Tuesday, December 04, 2007

The Ripple Effect of the Housing Fiasco

The Ripple Effect of the Housing Fiasco

“Municipalities will start to feel the pinch with a decline in the property tax growth rate. Some places could even experience an outright decline in collections. The housing decline will also affect state coffers, as transfer taxes plummet along with home sales volumes. Florida, according to the mayors, could lose $589 million loss in property tax, $148 million loss in sales tax and $99 million loss in transfer tax. Gross domestic product, the group projects, will contract by $166 billion. The heaviest burden will fall in New York, the nation's largest metro area, where the gross metropolitan product (GMP) will go down by about $10.4 billion, according to the organization. Los Angeles's GMP will drop by $8.3 billion and Dallas and Washington will each experience $4 billion declines.” Foreclosures Mayors See Major Hit To Economy http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/27/real_estate

As more and more people wake up to the reality of the mortgage/credit/housing industry meltdown , they are beginning to connect the dots and see the consequences of this expanding financial disaster and the negative impact on all of our lives. At a recent US Conference of Mayors the assembled mayors of AmeriKKKa’s cities expressed major concern about the negative economic consequences of the escalating housing crisis. With housing construction at a standstill, large inventories of vacant houses, home prices in decline, defaults and foreclosures sky rocketing mayors around the country are worried their tax base/revenues will also see a decline in the coming months. “Standard & Poor's said Tuesday that its S&P/Case-Shiller index of home prices declined at a record pace in the third quarter. Meanwhile, the year-over-year fall tied the record for the 21-year-old index. Falling home prices and the related rise in foreclosures are not only hurting homeowners and investors. They threaten to sink local governments that rely on property taxes. The U.S. Conference of Mayors said that the ‘foreclosure crisis’ would result in a potential loss of $6.6 billion in tax revenues in the 10 hardest-hit states next year. The declines will come as the national economy creates 524,000 fewer jobs, increasing state costs for unemployment insurance and other assistance. The report, prepared by the economic and financial analysis firm Global Insight, forecast that 128 metropolitan areas would experience ‘sluggish’ economic growth of less than 2 percent in 2008—a full percentage point lower than would have occurred without the mortgage meltdown.” Housing Takes It on the Chin, Again by Mark Stein Nov 27 2007 http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/
Just as homeowners are struggling to make ends meet during this period of stagflation (stagnant wages or rising wages that fail to keep pace with escalating costs of living), local governments dependent on real estate assessments and property taxes as a major source of revenue are going to be hard pressed to make ends meet, balance their budgets and continue providing vital services. While the Bu$h administration repeats its mantra the economy is ‘resilient’, residents of many areas around the nation are hard pressed to keep their heads above the proverbial water. “With energy costs rising quickly, up 1.4% last month and 14.5% over the past year, inflation accelerated in October, up 3.5% compared to last October. If higher overall inflation like this persists, what impact is it likely to have on wage growth and consumer spending? The hourly wages of most workers—blue-collar workers in manufacturing and non-managers in services—have been growing at around 4% per year in recent months, and this has been fast enough wage growth to consistently beat inflation and boost these workers' buying power. Last month, however, faster price growth caught up to hourly wages, and real hourly wage growth was essentially flat-up 0.2%, when adjusted by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (see Chart). Since average weekly hours worked have also held steady or fallen slightly, real weekly earnings were also flat in October (no change on a yearly basis). Though job market reports have been mixed, the consensus among economists is that unemployment, which has begun to increase, is likely to continue rising in coming months. It is certainly unlikely that wage growth will accelerate in this climate, and more likely that both hourly wage growth and average weekly hours will slow. If so, the combination of faster inflation and steady or slowing wage growth will reduce the buying power of many workers. This, in turn, has the potential to slow consumer spending, a key factor that has been driving the economy forward in recent quarters. In other words, last month's lack of real wage growth may be a harbinger of where this important indicator is heading in future months.” When steady wage growth meets faster inflation http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20071128
The rising cost of living will hit home in a very real way for most AmeriKKKans as they are forced to tighten their belts and make do with less, but they will also see their state and local governments forced to cut costs, curtail services, lay people off and take other drastic measures such as increasing fees and tax rates in order to balance their budgets. “The housing bust will also affect state coffers. During the past two years, the number of homes sold has dropped some 40%. That has sent state transfer fees and deed and mortgage registration taxes plunging. That will have an indirect impact on city governments. ‘Any time there's fiscal stress at the state level, that channels down to local levels as well,’ said Diffley. What foreclosures and the housing bust do not reduce is the cost of services to heavily impacted communities. And many new costs arise along with foreclosures. For example, the suburban city of Shaker Heights, Ohio, will spend $500,000 this year just to maintain empty properties. The cost to Cleveland Heights merely to keep lawns trimmed at abandoned homes has risen to $75,000 annually from a mere $6,000 three years ago.” Foreclosure impact: Next stop, tax drop Soaring foreclosures will result in lower tax collections for hard-hit cities. http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/29/real_estate/foreclosure
What we are seeing is an economic pincer squeeze whereby working class folks are being stressed by both the rising costs of living and at the same time being forced to compensate for the loss of tax revenues from a deflating housing industry (rising unemployment, huge inventories, falling home prices, escalating defaults and foreclosures) as it adversely impacts state and local governments’ abilities to stay afloat and provide the needed services for their citizens. The corporate mind control apparatus is beginning to provide a glimpse of the stark realities facing many local governments and their citizens as the housing meltdown ripples throughout the US and global economy. Even though their homes may not be at risk, citizens in areas where there are large numbers of defaults and foreclosures will still pay a heavy price. Foreclosures indirectly impact the revenues of cities and municipalities and communities that are experiencing large housing stock inventories and falling prices. They will be forced to reassess properties and adjust their tax rates accordingly which will put more pressure on municipalities to raise the needed money. “Even if lenders sell off still viable homes to new owners, those homes could still bring in lower tax revenues. Many of these homes will turn over only at fire-sale prices and the new owners will want assessments redone. Existing homeowners in areas with plunging values will ask for reassessments too. At a town meeting in Cuyahoga County this week, the first question residents raised was, ‘How do I get my property revalued,’ said Rokakis. Rokakis reported that his county has already fielded 14,000 requests for reassessment in 2007 and he predicted between 20,000 and 25,000 more next year. The housing bust will also affect state coffers. During the past two years, the number of homes sold has dropped some 40%. That has sent state transfer fees and deed and mortgage registration taxes plunging. That will have an indirect impact on city governments. ‘Any time there's fiscal stress at the state level, that channels down to local levels as well,’ said Diffley.” Foreclosure impact: Next stop, tax drop Soaring foreclosures will result in lower tax collections for hard-hit cities. http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/29/real_estate/foreclosure
Falling revenues and rising costs will put more strain on local governments, strain that will not be alleviated by the states because state governments are also facing revenue shortfalls of their own. For many municipalities the only option remaining are: raising taxes, cutting services or both. And this doesn’t even begin to address the investment crisis where many cities’ pension funds or surplus funds were invested in Wall Street’s exotic investment schemes that are now unraveling. Once the smoke clears, they’ll discover their pension funds are short, that they are holding billions of dollars in devalued (worthless) bonds and “collateralized debt obligations”. Unfortunately many folks may soon wake up to the reality large portions of their pension funds, IRAs and investments were wiped out in the financial tsunami, thus putting their retirement nest eggs in jeopardy. So if you think the mortgage crisis doesn’t/won’t impact you, think again.

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Saturday, December 01, 2007

The Plot Thickens

The Plot Thickens

“Darfur is reported to have the fourth largest copper and third largest uranium deposits in the world. Darfur produces two-thirds of the world’s best quality gum Arabic—a major ingredient in Coke and Pepsi. Contiguous petroleum reserves are driving warfare from the Red Sea, through Darfur, to the Great Lakes of Central Africa. Private military companies operate alongside petroleum contractors and “humanitarian” agencies. Sudan is China’s fourth biggest supplier of imported oil, and U.S. companies controlling the pipelines in Chad and Uganda seek to displace China through the US military alliance with “frontline” states hostile to Sudan: Uganda, Chad and Ethiopia.
Israel reportedly provides military training to Darfur rebels from bases in Eritrea, and has strengthened ties with the regime in Chad, from which more weapons and troops penetrate Darfur. The refugee camps have become increasingly militarized. There are reports that Israeli military intelligence operates from within the camps, as does U.S intelligence. Eritrea is about to explode into yet another war with Ethiopia.” The US’s War In Darfur By Keith Harmon Snow http://www.countercurrents.org/snow231107.htm

The role of US imperialism in Africa is becoming wider known now as the multi-headed hydra of globalism, militarism, neo-colonialism and racism escalates its attempts to wreck havoc on the continent. Things are moving so rapidly they can no longer keep it quiet. I have been saying for several years now, the US has Africa in its cross-hairs and is itching to pull the trigger. The Western powers plan to bum rush the continent so they can seize and expropriate Africa’s rich natural resources and raw materials and use Africa’s geo-strategic location to their advantage. The corporate mind control apparatus suppresses news about Africa and the rapacious programs of exploitation, predation, depopulation and genocide the West is conducting in our motherland. The Europeans play their divide and rule trump card and rig the games so our brothers and sistahs over there are discombobulated and thwarted in their efforts to be self-determined actualized beings in their own lands. Using the bogus War on Terror and the disingenuous notion of humanitarianism as pretexts, the Bu$h administration is attempting to establish a permanent military presence on the continent called AFRICOM. Their goal is to have a launching and staging base of operations from whence to do additional dirt.
But the good news is so far the Africans (even some bought and paid for by the CIA) are baulking at this program. It remains to be seen how successful they can be in keeping the wolves at arm’s length. “The Bush administration's new obsession with AFRICOM and its militaristic approach has many malign consequences. It increases U.S. interference in the affairs of Africa. It brings more military hardware to a continent that already has too much. By helping to build machineries of repression, these policies reinforce undemocratic practices and reward leaders responsive not to the interests or needs of their people but to the demands and dictates of U.S. military agents. Making military force a higher priority than development and diplomacy creates an imbalance that can encourage irresponsible regimes to use U.S. sourced military might to oppress their own people, now or potentially in the future. These fatally flawed policies create instability, foment tensions, and lead to a less secure world. What Africa needs least is U.S. military expansion on the continent (and elsewhere in the world). What Africa needs most is its own mechanism to respond to peacemaking priorities. Fifty years ago, Kwame Nkrumah sounded the clarion call for a ‘United States of Africa.’ One central feature of his call was for an Africa Military High Command. Today, as the African Union deliberates continental governance, there couldn't be a better time to reject U.S. military expansion and push forward African responses to Africa's priorities. Long suffering the effects of militaristic ‘assistance’ from the United States, Liberia would be the worst possible base for AFRICOM. But there are no good locations for such a poorly conceived project. Africa does not need AFRICOM.” AFRICOM: Wrong for Liberia, Disastrous for Africa By Ezekiel Pajibo and Emira Woods (July 26, 2007 ) http://www.africaresource.com/content/view/404/68/
AFRICOM will be the permanent military tactical arm of US imperialism put in place to augment the covert ops and destabilizing economic policies of the IMF, World Bank and US-AID presently employed throughout the continent. In the US a cunning media propaganda campaign to justify military intervention in Sudan has been underway for several years now, while news of covert resource wars in Chad, Congo and elsewhere in the region have been deliberately suppressed. The media’s focus in Sudan is on the killing and displacement going on in Darfur. However the media is doing the bidding of the ruling elites, obfuscating the real issues, and disguising the real objectives which are to secure, control and expropriate the wealth throughout that region of Africa. “The Darfur region of western Sudan has been a hotbed of clandestine activities, gunrunning and indiscriminate violence for decades. The Cold War era saw countless insurgencies launched from the remote deserts of Darfur. Throughout the 1990s, factions allied with or against Chad, Uganda, Ethiopia, Congo, Libya, Eritrea and the Central African Republic operated from bases in Darfur, and it was a regular landing strip for foreign military transport planes of mysterious origin. In 1990, Chad’s Idriss Deby launched a military blitzkrieg from Darfur and overthrew President Hissan Habre; Deby then allied with his own ethnic group against the Sudan government. Sudanese rebels today have bases in Chad, and Chadian rebels have bases in Darfur, with Khartoum’s backing.[GN2] When the regime of Ange-Félix Patassé collapsed in the Central African Republic in March 2003, soldiers fled to Darfur with their military equipment. Khartoum supported the West Nile Bank Front, a rebel army operating against Uganda from Eastern Congo, commanded by Taban Amin, the son of the infamous Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, who heads Uganda’s dreaded Internal Security Organization. Darfur is the epicenter of a modern-day international geopolitical scramble for Africa’s resources.” The US’s War In Darfur By Keith Harmon Snow http://www.countercurrents.org/snow231107.htm
The West’s long range plan is to totally destabilize the whole region, balkanize it and bring it under the sway of the US, Britain, Israel and sordid Western powers. They want it all for themselves but most importantly they want to minimize the influence of China in the region. But China is not to be denied. “As for Sudan, as far back as the 1970s, before Sudan's civil war first started, American oil giant Chevron spent $1.2 billion dollars prospecting for new oil in Sudan. However after being kicked out of Sudan it was only a matter of time before America helped engineer and partly finance Sudan's civil war by backing the Christian rebels. Today what complicates this ugly situation is keen interest from China in Africa. With China's growing energy hungry economy and an increasingly unstable and arguably less predictable Middle East, China wants to dominate and take the largest resource slice out of Africa. Powerful states such as China are anxiously looking to diversify and find new alternative energy sources. China sources an estimated 30% of it's oil needs from Africa. In Sudan it has invested more than $5 billion dollars as it uses up to 80% of Sudan's daily domestic production estimated anywhere between 500,000-750,000 barrels of oil per day. It is estimated that Sudan holds at least 5 billion barrels of oil, mostly located in the South.” Darfur: The Colonial struggle over Sudan http://www.khilafah.com/kcom/analysis/africa/darfur
For AmeriKKKa to get its hooks and pipelines into Darfur and Africa as a whole they need a military presence. The bogus Global War on Terrorism provides the pretext for AFRICOM. AFRICOM will be the official US military presence on the continent, a rapid deployment force able to go anywhere to put their foots on the necks of recalcitrant natives the corporate media will brand as “terrorists” simply for having the temerity to demand the right of self-determination and who are willing to fight for their own country! Make no mistake about it, the multi-national corporations already have their private mercenaries on set as protection, but to make sure they can extract and exploit Africa’s resources they will need the protection and might of Uncle Sam’s killers.
Resources are at the heart of the conflicts throughout Africa. “Resource wars in the Congo (over diamonds and coltran) and in West Africa (over oil) have set the continent on fire. The U.S. has thus far engaged with these conflicts through Africa's national armies, who have increasingly become the praetorian guards of large corporations. None of this can be justified directly as a protection of the extraction of resources, so it has increasingly been couched in the language of the war on terrorism. The Pan-Sahel Initiative (created in 2002) draws U.S. Special Operations Forces to Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. In 2004, the U.S. extended this to the major oil producing countries of Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal and Tunisia and renamed it the Trans-Saharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative. After 9/11, the U.S. moved a Special Operations Force into a former French Foreign Legion base, Camp Le Monier, in Djibouti. In July 2003, the U.S. earned the right to deploy P-3 Orion aerial surveillance aircraft in Tamanrasset, Algeria. Under the guise of the War on Terrorism, the U.S. government has moved forces into various parts of Africa, where they were able to train African armies and to intervene in the increasingly dangerous resource wars. If the U. S. government is quieter in its approach, right-wing think tanks in the U. S. feel no such compunction. The Heritage Foundation has lobbied for the creation of AFRICOM for several years, and it is arguable that its work moved Donald Rumsfeld to consider an African Command. In a 2003 study entitled ‘U. S. Military Assistance for Africa: A Better Solution,’ the Heritage Foundation argued, ‘Creating an African Command would go a long way toward turning the Bush Administration's well-aimed strategic priorities for Africa into a reality.’ Rather than engage Africa diplomatically, it is better to be diplomatic through the barrel of a gun. ‘America must not be afraid to employ its forces decisively when vital national interests are threatened.’ Nevertheless, the U.S. will not need to always send its own soldiers. ‘A sub-unified command for Africa would give the U.S. military an instrument with which to engage effectively in the continent and reduce the potential that America might have to intervene directly.’ The AFRICOM would analyze intelligence, work ‘closely with civil-military leaders’ and coordinate training and conduct joint-exercises. In other words, the U.S. would make the friendly African military forces ‘inter-operatable’ not only with U.S. hardware but also with U.S. interests. When AFRICOM became reality Heritage's Brett Schaefer welcomed the ‘long overdue’ move. ...” http://alexconstantine.blogspot.com/2007/08/africa-oil-heritage-foundation-american.html
Keep in mind that large reserves of oil were only confirmed in the Darfur region within the last several years. As more and more of the natural resources that fuel Western lifestyles and technology are discovered in Africa, the psychopaths will move to instigate and foment more discord and wars to expropriate and exploit them. The plot thickens.

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