Online Journal Aug 9, 2007
Paul Craig Roberts

Early this morning China let the idiots in Washington, and on Wall Street, know that it has them by the short hairs. Two senior spokesmen for the Chinese government observed that China's considerable holdings of US dollars and Treasury bonds "contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency ." [ China threatens 'nuclear option' of dollar sales , by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, London Telegraph, August 9, 2007]

Should the US proceed with sanctions intended to cause the Chinese currency to appreciate, "the Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar."

If Western financial markets are sufficiently intelligent to comprehend the message, US interest rates will rise regardless of any further action by China. At this point, China does not need to sell a single bond. In an instant, China has made it clear that US interest rates depend on China, not on the Federal Reserve.

The precarious position of the US dollar as reserve currency has been thoroughly ignored and denied. The delusion that the US is "the world's sole superpower," whose currency is desirable regardless of its excess supply, reflects American hubris, not reality. This hubris is so extreme that only six weeks ago McKinsey Global Institute published a study that concluded that even a doubling of the US current account deficit to $1.6 trillion would pose no problem.

Strategic thinkers, if any remain who have not been purged by neocons, will quickly conclude that China's power over the value of the dollar and US interest rates also gives China power over US foreign policy. The US was able to attack Afghanistan and Iraq only because China provided the largest part of the financing for Bush's wars.

If China ceased to buy US Treasuries, Bush's wars would end. The savings rate of US consumers is essentially zero, and several million are afflicted with mortgages that they cannot afford. With Bush's budget in deficit and with no room in the US consumer's budget for a tax increase, Bush's wars can only be financed by foreigners.

No country on earth, except for Israel, supports the Bush regime's desire to attack Iran. It is China's decision whether it calls in the US ambassador, and delivers the message that there will be no attack on Iran or further war unless the US is prepared to buy back $900 billion in US Treasury bonds and other dollar assets.

The US, of course, has no foreign reserves with which to make the purchase. The impact of such a large sale on US interest rates would wreck the US economy and effectively end Bush's war-making capability. Moreover, other governments would likely follow the Chinese lead, as the main support for the US dollar has been China's willingness to accumulate them. If the largest holder dumped the dollar, other countries would dump dollars, too.

The value and purchasing power of the US dollar would fall. When hard-pressed Americans went to Wal-Mart to make their purchases, the new prices would make them think they had wandered into Nieman Marcus. Americans would not be able to maintain their current living standard.

Simultaneously, Americans would be hit either with tax increases in order to close a budget deficit that foreigners will no longer finance or with large cuts in income security programs. The only other source of budgetary finance would be for the government to print money to pay its bills. In this event, Americans would experience inflation in addition to higher prices from dollar devaluation.

This is a grim outlook. We got in this position because our leaders are ignorant fools. So are our economists, many of whom are paid shills for some interest group. So are our corporate leaders whose greed gave China power over the US by offshoring the US production of goods and services to China. It was the corporate fat cats who turned US Gross Domestic Product into Chinese imports, and it was the "free trade, free market economists" who egged it on.

How did a people as stupid as Americans get so full of hubris?

Terrorists Win: Americans Living In Perpetual Fear
Poll numbers confirm majority of Americans feel less safe than before 9/11 as more globalist figureheads promise huge attacks

Infowars.net August 8, 2007
Steve Watson

The majority of people in America feel less safe now than they did before the 9/11 attacks in spite of the introduction of terror related legislation and laws such as the PATRIOT act, the domestic spying program and the Military Commissions act, according to a recent scientific poll.

The poll commissioned by Hart/Newhouse and released by The Wall Street Journal and NBC News finds that 37 per cent of respondents feel the U.S. is more vulnerable to an attack today than it was six years ago, that is a significant rise of 14 points since last September.

Over a thousand people were asked " Do you think that, as a country, we are more safe, about as safe, or less safe than we were before the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?" . The results are summarized in the table below.

	Jul. 2007	Sept. 2006	Sept. 2005
More safe	34%	42%	31%
About as safe	27%	32%	37%
Less safe	37%	23%	31%
Not sure	2%	3%	1%

It should comes as no surprise to learn that more people feel less safe given that they have been subjected to a vastly increased daily dose of terror fearmongering for over a year now.

A whole host of government officials and neocon talking heads are literally promising that major attacks are on the way while more and more freedom stripping legislation is being passed by a whimpering Congress who have now proven that they hold no sway whatsoever over the neocon cabal inside the White House.

 

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The latest globalist choir boy to chirp into action is former CIA Director James Woolsey who has asserted that terrorists could strike the America with a weapon of mass destruction this summer or early fall. Woolsey even hinted that an upcoming terror attack may be nuclear:

Certainly the Soviets had atomic demolition munitions that were relatively small — ours were smaller, I think. But each of us had ADMS that could easily be carried by one man. That was also true of some of the smaller nuclear artillery shells that existed. So it's not impossible that a terrorist group could try to get hold of a former Soviet relatively small nuclear warhead.

In the same breath Woolsey also warned that if Iran fails to comply with international efforts to stop its nuclear weapons program, the U.S. will have no other option than to bomb it. He answered in response to ridiculous questioning from Neocon rag Newsmax which asked "Is Iran preparing military action against the U.S.?"

Of course, Woolsey's suggestion for what Americans can do in the face of this perpetual imminent attack is to pressure their representatives into not restricting the president's push to exert total authority over Congress and implement whatever big brother surveillance programs and martial law directives he sees fit:

Well, the thing that we can do in the short order that is most important is not to cut back on our intelligence capabilities, whether it's through restricting the president's ability to intercept communications or otherwise. We know how to do that reasonably well and don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot by cutting back on it.

Woolsey has repeated this same mantra over and over since 9/11, perhaps not surprisingly given that he is a director of the Washington-based private equity firm Paladin Capital, a company which, as the London Observer reported in 2003, was set up three months after 9/11 as a business opportunity which 'offer substantial promise for homeland security investment'.

Woolsey's remarks come on the back of the same type of endless warnings from The director of national Intelligence, Mike McConnell , FBI Director Robert Mueller , Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff all of whom have recently stated that a huge attack is imminent without giving any specific or credible evidence, instead referring to "gut feelings" and "imaginations"

The fear poll figures represent the fallout of these government figureheads dropping crude hints and hunches in addition to the mainstream media's completely inability to analyze and debate the facts rather than simply spewing out segment after segment of fearmongering terror repetition.

Take a look at this article from the so called conservative Editors of FamilySecurityMatters.org which echoes Woolsey's call for Americans to quietly accept the government's attempts to abolish the fourth amendment in the name of a "gut feeling":

A prime example of what not to do is the spectacle that transpired in the Senate just this past week with liberals insisting that court orders be obtained under the FISA program to intercept suspected terrorist conversations occurring between foreign countries! What are they smoking?

Citizens take note: whatever Senators wanted to enforce FISA restrictions on the president in these circumstances should, in our humble opinion, be kicked out of office. We are not playing paddycake with terrorists who lust for our deaths. This is all out war and our “leaders” need to get serious but fast about winning it. Note: Every Republican who voted was in favor of the amendments to FISA. They were joined by seventeen Democrats: Bayh, Carper, Casey, Conrad, Feinstein, Inouye, Klobuchar, Landrieu, Lieberman, Lincoln, McCaskill, Mikulski, Nelson (Fla.), Nelson (Neb.), Pryor, Salazar, and Webb. Twenty-eight Democrats, amazingly, voted against this vital measure.

Those vicious American people who actually want to hold onto their rights and freedoms, the very things they have repeatedly been told are the reason the terrorists hate them and attacked them in the first place, what ARE they smoking? Amazingly some Senators actually voted against allowing the government to covertly spy on every citizen in the country and in favour of the Constitution, what traitors!

The article them goes on to give a detailed analysis of what would happen should a nuclear bomb be detonated in a major city, with a further handy guide to how quickly you would die should radiological bombs be used on you or biological agents dispersed in your vicinity. Are you scared yet?

FDR said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."

America has become a market for fearmongering and the public is buying it. Remarkably we are being told that the only way to prevent this perpetual state of fear is to give up all our rights and not to question anything. If this is true then congratulations must go to the terrorists for they have won. However, it was not the "terrorists" we were warned about that took away our rights.

Noun 1. terrorism - the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear.

Are you scared yet?

If you have been scratching your head trying to figure out
why President Bush has pushed so hard for amnesty, here's
your "smoking gun."

An effort is underway to create a North American "framework"
that will all but eliminate hard borders between Mexico,
the U.S. and Canada. This "framework" includes a "trusted
travelers" program that allows "citizens of North America"
to move freely within the three countries.

No wonder the President is pushing amnesty!

On August 20-21, President Bush will join Mexican President
Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Harper for the second
Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) summit.

The SPP is what many believe to be the beginnings of the
infrastructure for the North American Union. The SPP's
stated goal is to:

    "...Consolidate our action into a North American
     framework to confront security and economic challenges,
     and promote the full potential of our people, addressing
     disparities and increasing opportunities for all."

This tri-lateral agreement already has resulted in regulatory
changes and open borders initiatives that clearly undermine
our sovereignty. The SPP is the one touting the "trusted
travelers" program to encourage migration of "citizens of
North America."

+ + Petition opposing a North American Union

Today, Grassfire is launching a national petition formally
opposing these and other efforts to create a North American
"framework" and undermine our nation's sovereignty.

I want to rally 100,000 signers before the SPP meetings this
month and have them on hand in Canada as part of a building
citizen protest against such efforts.

Please go here for more information and to sign:

http://www.grassfire.org/89/petition.asp?RID=12335028

+ + Exclusive interview with author Jerome Corsi

New York Times bestselling author Jerome Corsi just completed
a new book detailing our government's rapid move toward a
North American "union." It's called "The Late Great USA."

Corsi agreed to record a special interview "briefing" on the
NAU for our Grassfire team members. Go here to listen to
that interview and to access Grassfire�s detailed backgrounder
on the NAU and the NAFTA superhighway:

http://www.grassfire.org/89/petition.asp?RID=12335028

Of course the President denies that the SPP
is a precursor to a North American "Union."  But there is
mounting evidence that the SPP is creating precisely that
structure -- all without any congressional oversight!

Will you help me rally 100,000 citizens before this latest
SPP meeting convenes -- in less than two weeks?

Please sign and then forward this message to your entire email network.

Thanks in advance,

Steve Elliott, President

Congress must ACT now. We the PEOPLE have already spoken. Secure our borders TODAY! Send YOUR blast faxes to ALL 535 Congressman NOW. To Fax Blast Washington D.C. click here: http://faxdc.com/fence.htm Today National Guard troops assigned to help increase security along the U.S.-Mexico border are being pulled off the line a year earlier than expected. "The drawdown of Operation Jump Start's strength level is ill-timed and should be halted and re-examined," Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano wrote in a letter last week to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Miss Napolitano said President Bush's deployment of the Guard troops in her state had "made real progress" in cutting the number of people sneaking illegally into the country, and noted that the Border Patrol is not yet up to the manpower totals promised by the presidentially mandated program. The reductions, which began July 1 and will be completed by Sept. 1, will result in a cut of Guard troops in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas from 6,000 to 3,000 — half of that promised by Mr. Bush in 2006. In Arizona, the nation's most popular alien- and drug-smuggling corridor, the number of troops will be cut from 2,400 to 1,200. Congress must ACT now. We the PEOPLE have already spoken. Secure our borders TODAY! Send YOUR blast faxes to ALL 535 Congressman NOW. To Fax Blast Washington D.C. click here: http://faxdc.com/fence.htm

Mr. Bush ordered the National Guard troops' deployment while the Border Patrol recruited, hired, trained and assigned 6,000 new agents, a recruitment goal the agency expected to reach by the end of 2008. Members of New Mexico's congressional delegation also have asked Mr. Bush not to cut the number of National Guard troops stationed along that state's border with Mexico. From Oct. 1 through June 30, Border Patrol agents apprehended 682,468 illegal aliens, compared with 894,496 during the same period last year. While arrests declined, at the same time the amount of drugs seized on the border increased, with Border Patrol agents seizing more than 1.47 million pounds of marijuana (a 27 percent increase) and 9,514 pounds of cocaine (a 22 percent increase).

Already Congress has approved construction of about 700 miles of fence along the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is set to build 370 miles of it by the end of 2008. It's part of a border security plan some lawmakers say is necessary before Congress. But today the implementation of this border fence is nowhere to be found! TAKE ACTION NOW! To Fax Blast Capitol Hill, click here: http://faxdc.com/fence.htm It's time to send a LOUD MESSAGE to our hired hands in D.C.! It must be done today! America needs your help! Do your civic duty now from the comfort of your home or office. FAX HAMMER today, tomorrow will be too late and America will be lost! What are you waiting for? Thank You Patriot! Your friends at: FAXDC.COM

Tell Congress No Foreign Trucks on our soil and no NAFTA Superhighway. Send YOUR
blast faxes to ALL 535 Congressman NOW. To Fax Blast Washington D.C. click here:
http://faxdc.com/trucks.htm

As details of the Minnesota bridge collapse become clearer, the role of
international freight carried by NAFTA Superhighway trucks on I-35 remains an
important backdrop of the human tragedy and the traffic nightmare the city is
just now beginning to appreciate.

U.S. Navy divers have come to the scene to assist in efforts to find the eight
people who remain missing since the bridge collapsed last Wednesday.

As Minneapolis and St. Paul struggle to re-route traffic, passenger and truck
traffic along I-35 will be seriously disrupted, with increased congestion and
costly travel delays until at least the end of next year, at the earliest.

According to a document titled "Bridge Facts" posted on the Minnesota Department
of Transportation, or MNDOT, website, the bridge on I-35W carried 140,000
vehicles daily, including 4,760 commercial vehicles.

John Hausladen, president of the Minnesota Trucking Association, estimates the
number of trucks crossing the bridge prior to its collapse was more like 5,700.

By comparison, truck traffic at Laredo, Texas – the busiest crossing point for
trucks headed north into the U.S. – was approximately 3,994 per day, according to
figures in January.

Tell Congress No Foreign Trucks on our soil and no NAFTA Superhighway. Send YOUR
blast faxes to ALL 535 Congressman NOW. To Fax Blast Washington D.C. click here:
http://faxdc.com/trucks.htm

The Federal Highway Administration, or FHWA, characterizes Laredo as "the most
important truck crossing on the United States/Mexican border." The MNDOT was
warned that the volume of NAFTA trucks threatened the bridge.

The MNDOT document "Bridge Facts" points out Minneapolis span, despite the
deficiencies noted in years of official reports, was not under any truck
restrictions. At the time of collapse, it was considered safe, even for
overweight truck loads of up to 136,000 pounds.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

To Fax Blast Capitol Hill, click here: http://faxdc.com/trucks.htm

It's time to send a LOUD MESSAGE to our hired hands in D.C.!

It must be done today! America needs your help!

Do your civic duty now from the comfort of your home or office. FAX HAMMER today,
tomorrow will be too late and America will be lost!

What are you waiting for?

Thank You Patriot! Your friends at:

FAXDC.COM

PRESS RELEASE Davy Crocket to Bono: “It’s Not Yours To Give”…   Lancaster, PA: 8/8/07- The Constitution Party joins Americans who champion limited government by condemning a recent Republican National Committee move. The RNC has endorsed a proposal by Irish rocker Bono to commit American taxpayers to spending $30 million to “eliminate global poverty”.   “As if any amount of taxpayer funds would actually accomplish that goal. What usually happens is the money extracted from us to fund these wealth transfers first fills the pockets of foreign dictators while barely a trickle ends up lining empty food bowls” stated Constitution Party National Committee Chairman Jim Clymer.   “History has shown us socialism does not work. Bono’s ill-advised scheme is socialism. The Republican Party has agreed to consign Americans to the same fate as other socialist countries with its recent endorsement of Bono’s global goody bag.” Clymer further added.   The Constitution Party, the third largest party based on voter registrations (Ballot Access News), points out that Bono, outspoken on environmentalism, global wealth transfer and socialist policies in general, owns several mansions throughout the world and travels by jet. The four engine jet he flies (while admonishing Americans to drive a hybrid) gets about 3 miles per gallon.   “What we now see is the GOP  aligning itself with a man who advocates American taxpayers fund worldwide projects after he  moved his lucrative music enterprise out of his native Ireland and to the Netherlands to avoid  higher taxes” Clymer pointed out.   “The Republicans, the so-called party of ‘limited government’ whose control of the White House and/or both houses of Congress for a quarter century has resulted in quadrupled federal spending, would do well to heed the words of fabled frontiersman  and Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett. In the 1800’s this wise statesman said: “We have the right, as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please… but as members of Congress we have no right to … appropriate a dollar of the public money… as… charity”. Crockett said these words after a constituent told him when it came to using taxpayer money for humanitarian purposes: “It’s not yours to give!”   -30-

Please support the work of the Constitution Party by clicking here To unsubscribe from CPNC newsletters click here. Please visit our website at www.constitutionparty.org.

Jim Gilchrist, president of the Minuteman Project, Inc. and Raymond Herrera, the
Project’s national rally spokesperson, made the very first presentation of their
organization’s flag to Joe Loya, the father-in-law of Border Patrol Agent Ignacio
Ramos, at a Murietta-Temecula Republican Assembly ceremony in Temecula, Ca. last
Friday.

The blue and white flag consists of the silhouette of a 1700’s minuteman standing
with musket against a blue background and surrounded by 13 white stars.

Former U.S. Border Patrol Agent Ignacio “Nacho” Ramos and his partner, Jose
Compean, were imprisoned last January to terms of 11 and 12 years, respectively,
for the non-fatal shooting in 2005 of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila.

The agents shot Davila in the buttocks as he was transporting more than 750
pounds of marijuana into the United States through the Texas border town of
Fabens, Texas.  The drug smuggler was granted full immunity by federal prosecutor
Johnny Sutton to testify against the agents.

This case has caused national outrage, and dozens of congressmen as well as the
Minuteman Project, are publicly insisting President Bush grant an immediate
pardon to the two law enforcement officers.

“The Minuteman Project goes further than the congressional members,” said Jim
Gilchrist as he spoke to an audience of about 100 persons, “with demands for not
just a pardon, but an exoneration of any wrongdoing by the agents.”

“In addition,” Gilchrist said, “the Minuteman Project is urging compensatory
financial damages to be paid to the families of the two agents who have been
convicted and imprisoned under questionable circumstances.”

The Minuteman Project is also seeking similar exoneration for Texas Sheriff’s
Deputy Guillermo Hernandez, who was recently sentenced to 366 days in prison for
a similar incident.

Joe Loya said he would either keep the flag in his custody until  his son-in-law
is released, or he would give it to Agent Ramos to hang on the wall of his room
at the Federal Corrections facility in Phoenix, Az.

Go to our website at: http://minutemanproject.com
We need our help: https://www.mmp-host.com/organization/contribute.asp