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Live free or die a government dependent

BY Sovereign Marta

FREEDOM, Its something thats starting to become a foreign concept in this country, and Im not just talking about politics. From technology and mainstream media to the never ending quest to out keep up with the neighbors, Americans have become shackled down by our modern consumer culture. They have forgot what it means to be free.

Contents
Live free or die a government dependent ........................................................................................................................................... 1 ECONOMIC FREEDOM ............................................................................................................................................................................. 4 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY ......................................................................................................................................................................... 4 IF YOU CAN NOT UNDERSTAND THEN DON READ THIS ........................................................................................................ 4

INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
CUT THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE LOOP.................................................................................................................................. 6 DEPENDENCE ON THE GOVERNMENT TO SURVIVE? ................................................................................................................. 7 ALL PROGRESSIVE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS HAVE DARK SIDES .................................................................................................. 7 THE CHANGES THAT HAVE OCCURRED IN AMERICAN SOCIETY .......................................................................................... 9 SOLIDARITY STATEMENT FROM OWS ............................................................................................................................................10 WHERE DID THE NAME OCCUPY THE HOOD ORIGINATE FROM ......................................................................................12 BODY OF STORIES ON OWS ................................................................................................................................................................13 EIGHT SIMPLE TRUTHS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT 2012 ................................................................................................16 OUT IN SPACE ............................................................................................................................................................................................18 THE DECEPTION OF LIBERAL THINKING ........................................................................................................................................18 GLOBAL WARMING .................................................................................................................................................................................22 THE DAWNING OF THE NEW AGE ....................................................................................................................................................23 THE HOLY PRPHETS .................................................................................................................................................................................23 THE EARTH IS SUCH A MESS! IF YOU WERE GOD, HOW WOULD YOU FIX IT? ...........................................................24 CREATING PARADISE ...............................................................................................................................................................................25 TROUBLE IN PARADISE ...........................................................................................................................................................................25 THE MISSING SECURITY TAPES FROM ............................................................................................................................................28 THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ...............................................................................................................................................................28 BILDERBERG 2011 DISCUSSION LEAKED VIA MOLES INSIDE ...............................................................................................34 Independent thinkers are considered diseased by psychiatry...................................................................................................43 New Law By Obama To Jail 500,000 American Citizens ..........................................................................................................44

BANKING SECRET ......................................................................................................................................................................................46 THE SOUND AND THE FURY ................................................................................................................................................................50 HOW WERE TRAINED TO BE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE ..................................................................................................................51 ALL IN A DAYS WORK ...........................................................................................................................................................................51 CAUGHT IN THE PUBLIC........................................................................................................................................................................52 DISMAY AMONG THE NATIONS ........................................................................................................................................................53 THE LARGE FAMILIES THAT RULE THE WORLD ...........................................................................................................................53 GOVT FEARS MOST THAT THE PEOPLE ABOUT THEIR LIES ....................................................................................................56 ORANGANIC GROWERS ATTACK MONSANTO ...........................................................................................................................56 FDA Says You Have No Fundamental Right to Grow or Eat Healthy Food, ..........................................................................58 People 4 Social Sustainability (P.S.S.), Where do we stand? .......................................................................................................59 HOW TO SURVIVE COMFORTABLY OR WHAT............................................................................................................................62 FRIENDS ARE REALLY GOOD FOR ......................................................................................................................................................62 Food in Uncertain Times: ........................................................................................................................................................................65 How to Grow and Store the 5 Crops You Need to Survive .........................................................................................................65 I'm learning to Live Off the Grid in Stages .......................................................................................................................................68 How To Break The Chains of Stuff? ....................................................................................................................................................69 Less Stuff Doesnt Equal Happiness Either ....................................................................................................................................70 What True Frugality Is and What It Is Not ..................................................................................................................................71 Criteria for Choosing a Retreat Locale in the Continental United States (CONUS) ..........................................................71 Urban Gardening: You Can Grow Food, No Matter Where You Live ....................................................................................73 Off-Grid Rural Land is Gaining Popularity .....................................................................................................................................74 HOW TO BUILD SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES ..........................................................................................................................77 LAND LEASE COLORADO LAND BY OWNER ................................................................................................................................79 Cost for Building Straw Bail Homes $7000 .....................................................................................................................................81 How to Build an Affordable Eco-Friendly Home ...........................................................................................................................83 Dome Homes-Letter From: Kevin McGuckin-................................................................................................................................85 The Inn Place at Brenham, Texas .........................................................................................................................................................85 HOW TO LIVE OFF-GRID SUCCESSFULLY ......................................................................................................................................86 Going Green; DIY Solar Power! ...........................................................................................................................................................88

ECONOMIC FREEDOM

I am devoted to promoting economic freedom around the world. In case you haven't noticed, the world has become a very hostile place. Basic living has become really difficult for many of us, and is quite literally impossible for millions of people every year. Everything we need for survival: water, food, air, energy, biodiversity, compassion, have become jeopardized through our prioritization of profit over nature. Nature does not yield or negotiate. If we continually fight against it, nature will win. In other words, humanity - and countless other innocent species - could face extinction. The time has come to make some fundamental changes to our way of life, which has become both unsustainable and unjust. Economic freedom has been shown in numerous peer-reviewed studies to promote prosperity and other positive outcomes. It is a necessary condition for democratic development. It liberates people from dependence on government in a planned economy, and allows them to make their own economic and political choices.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IF YOU CAN NOT UNDERSTAND THEN DON READ THIS After long and hard thinking about politics, I have come up with a political philosophy. It's a short philosophy: Ideology is bad. I dislike ideologies in all forms: liberal, conservative, libertarian, whatever. Right at the moment, I think that the liberal/conservative divide is the single most harmful thing about American politics. Politicians don't seem to care about solving problems, they only want to know whether a particular idea is liberal or conservative, and then, presto, they are for/against it. Ideologies are an excuse for people to avoid thinking. Once people adopt a political philosophy that has all of the answers, they stop thinking and start rationalizing. I find it difficult to take anybody's opinions seriously when it is clear that they started with the answers, and then worked backward to select facts that would support their views, and ignore facts that don't. Most people declaiming their opinions succeed primarily in convincing me that they are too stupid to understand any viewpoint other than their own. In short, if you want me to take your opinions seriously, you will have to convince me that you in fact understand both sides of an issue.

Overall, I don't like people assuming that one opinion locates me at some point on a liberal/conservative scale-- I've never seen a logical reason why my opinion about, say, gun control ought to have some ideological correlation with my opinion about birth control. I'm not a liberal. I'm not a conservative. Mark me down as "other." That's the major part of my political philosophy: thinking good; ideology bad. For more of my opinions, the following points summarize my politics: Ditch the ideology, and tell me the facts. Freedom of speech is important. If there's one single point which is key to my political beliefs, it is an emphatic belief in free speech. Freedom of speech (and writing, and art) is critical to the free exchange of ideas, and any society that does not allow the free exchange of ideas will slide into totalitarianism. Yes, I do know the arguments against hate speech, against child pornography, against allowing terrorist to recruit on the internet, against several other good reasons that free speech shouldn't be unconditional. I understand and sympathize with them. But if anybody is given the power to decide that some particular form of speech is forbidden, this power is simply too easy to abuse. Or, to phrase it differently: Pay attention to the words you say when you try to curtail speech of people you don't like: they are the same words you will hear when others take away your right to speak. Freedom of speech is so important to me, that for a while I was considering listing this as the only political view I have. However, as somewhat less important subjects, here are the rest of my (hard thought-out) political opinions: Technology is a tool for solving problems. (I'm in favor of appropriate technology: that means the technology that is appropriate to the problem.) Prosperity is better than poverty. Or, to quote the campaign of a former president, it really is "the economy, stupid." We have a nice planet here, let's not destroy it.

Sovereign Marta
by Sovereign Marta on Monday, December 5, 2011 at 11:00pm

INTRODUCTION

CUT THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE LOOP The United States Federal Government is spiraling our nation head long into bankruptcy. Our state governments are flat broke. The retiring Baby-Boomer generation will overwhelm America's entitlement programs in the coming decades. Our children and grandchildren will be forced into a life of servitude providing benefits to their parents only to find they have nothing left over for themselves when they reach old age. The time has come for Americans to fight back by helping our children live their lives free of government dependency by expanding private education, private healthcare and private retirement. And we don't need legislation or the permission of our politicians to achieve those goals. Americans want to shrink the size of government. They also want more benefits and want to allow poor people to have access to them. Can't be done you say. Well you would be wrong. There is a way; it's called the Live Free Movement. There is no benefit the government provides that the private sector can't offer cheaper and with superior quality. The goal is not to give up the social benefits we depend on but to help more and more Americans buy their own benefits on the free market and cut government out of the loop. If education, healthcare and retirement are so important why on earth would anyone let self serving corrupt politicians provide those things for us? The goal is to stop participating in their system and to create our own. We can't wait for Monsanto to grow a nicer plant for us. We have to turn to every inch of land we have into a productive landscape, and use our resources to change the world in front of us. Truly, Sovereign Marta www.nobillsforlife.blogspot.com www.causes.com/causes/665072-no-bills-for-life
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CALL TO PEOPLE OF COLOR FOR THE OWS WORKING GROUP Lets be real. The economic crisis did not begin with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in 2008. Indeed, people of color and poor people have been in a state of crisis since the founding of this country, and for indigenous communities, since before the founding of the nation. We have long known that capitalism serves only the interests of a tiny, mostly white, minority. Black and brown folks have long known that whenever economic troubles necessitate austerity measures and the people are asked to tighten their belts, we are the first to lose our jobs, our childrens schools are the first to lose funding, and our bodies are the first to be brutalized and caged. Only we can speak this truth to power. We must not miss the chance to put the needs of people of colorupon whose backs this country was builtat the forefront of this struggle. The People of Color working group was launched on October 1, 2011. Join us at http://groups.google.com/group/POC-working-group?hl=en. For inquiries, we can be reached by email at unified.ows@gmail.com. We can also be found online at http://pococcupywallstreet.tumblr.com.

DEPENDENCE ON THE GOVERNMENT TO SURVIVE? A number of analysts, many of whom predicted the 2008 crisis, are starting to warn Americans to prepare for another financial crash. Trend forecaster Gerald Celente is advising people to buy a guns, gold and prepare for major riots in the next year. While, I dont think anyone can predict exactly whats to come, one thing seems almost inevitable. This country seems to be teetering on the edge of a major financial crisis like nothing we have seen before. None of the problems that caused the crash of 2008 have been resolved, and since 2008 the country has only added to the problem. With the U.S. Debt clock quickly approaching $15.5 trillion in debt, I dont see how any rational person can not see that there is major trouble ahead. Worried that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. dollar are on the brink of collapse, lawmakers from 13 states, including Minnesota, Tennessee, Iowa, South Carolina and Georgia, are seeking approval from their state governments to either issue their own alternative currency or explore it as an option. Just three years ago, only three states had similar proposals in place.

ALL PROGRESSIVE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS HAVE DARK SIDES All progressive social movements have dark sides, but some are more prone to them than others. Occupy Wall Street and its spin-offs, with their populist, anti-elitist discourse (We Are the 99%) and focus on finance capital, have already attracted all kinds of unsavory friends:

antisemites, David Duke and White Nationalists, Oath Keepers, Tea Partiers, and followers of David Icke, Lyndon Larouche, and the Zeitgeist movement. On one hand, there is nothing particularly new about this. The anti-globalization movement was plagued with these problems as well.(1) This was sometimes confusing to radicals who saw that movement as essentially Left-wing and anti-capitalist; when the radicals said globalization, they really meant something like the highest stage of capitalism, and so from their perspective, by opposing one they were opposing the other. The radicals often saw the progressives in the movement as sharing this same vision, only in an incomplete wayand that they only needed a little push (usually by a cops baton) to see that capitalism could not be reformed, and instead had to be abolished. But for numerous others, globalization did not mean capitalism. Just as for the radicals, it functioned as a codeword: for some it meant finance capital (as opposed to industrial capital), while for others it meant the regime of a global elite constructing their New World Order. And either or both might also have meant the traditional Jewish conspiracys supposed global domination and control of the banking system. Whether they realized it or not, the many antiauthoritarians who praised this movement of movements as being based solely on organizational structure, with no litmus test for political inclusion, put out a big welcome sign for these dodgy folks. And in that door came all kinds of things, from Pat Buchanan to Troy Southgate. But still, the anti-globalization movement in the United States was initiated by an anarchist / progressive coalition that in many ways controlled the content and discourse of it, giving it a classic Popular Front feelthe same way the old Communist Parties controlled large progressive coalitions for many decades. In contrast to this, Occupy Wall Street immediately took on a purely populist approach. There are different ways to understand and oppose capitalism. There is a structural critique, usually associated with Marxism but often shared by anarchism, which seeks to understand the internal dynamics of capital and sees it as a system, beyond the control of any particular person or group. There is also an ethical critique, popular among religious groups and pacifists, which focuses less on the whys of capital and instead concentrates on its effects, looking at how it produces vast differences in wealth while creating misery, scarcity, and unemployment for most of the world. Last, there is a populist vision, which can transcend Left and Right. Populists have a narrative in which the elites are opposed to the people. On one hand, this can be seem as a vague kind of socialism which counterposes the everyday worker against the truly rich. But it also lacks any kind of specific analysis of class or other social differencesthe 99% are treated as one homogenous body. Usually the people are seen as the nation, and these 1% elites are perceived to be acting against the nations interests. From a radical, anti-capitalist viewpoint, this narrative may be wrong and incomplete, but by itself is not dangerous. In fact, many progressive and even socialist political movements have been based on it. But the populist narrative is also an integral part of the political views of conspiracy theorists, far Right activists, and antisemites. For antisemites, the elites are the Jews; for David Icke, the elites are the reptilians; for nationalists, they are members of minority ethnic, racial, or religious
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groups; for others, they are the globalists, the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, the Federal Reserve, etc. All of these various conspiracy theories also tend to blend in and borrow from each other. Additionally, the focus on Wall Street also has specific appeal to those who see the elite as represented by finance capital, a particular obsession of the antisemites, Larouchites, followers of David Icke, etc. The Rothschilds are the favorite standin codeword of choice to refer to the supposed Jewish control of the banking system. Much has already been said about the Occupy movements refusal to elucidate its demands. On one hand, this has been useful in mobilizing a diverse group of people who can project what they want to see in this movementanarchists, Marxists, liberals, Greens, progressive religious practitioners, etc. On the other hand, this has been useful in mobilizing a diverse group of people who can project what they want to see in this movementRon Paulists, libertarians, antisemites, followers of David Icke, Zeitgeist movement folks, Larouchites, Tea Partiers, White Nationalists, and others. The discourse about the 99% (after all, these Right-wingers and conspiracy mongers are probably a far greater proportion of the actual 99% than are anarchists and Marxists), along with the Occupy movements refusal to set itself on a firm political footing and correspondingly to place limitations on involvement by certain political actors, has created a welcoming situation for these noxious political elements to join. So far, the overwhelmingly progressive nature of many of these Occupations has kept this element at bay. But it is only the weight of the numbers of the progressive participants that has done this. There are neither organizational structures within the Occupy movement, nor are there conceptual approaches that it is based on, that act to ensure this remains the case. So it is not unreasonable to expect that, especially as participation declines, some of the Occupations will be taken over by folks from these far Right and conspiratorial perspectives. All participants might rightly see themselves as part of the 99%. The real divisive question will then be, who do they think the 1% are? THE CHANGES THAT HAVE OCCURRED IN AMERICAN SOCIETY

There has been much written, and much said, by some people who have looked at all the changes that have occurred in American society in the past 20 years or so, and who have looked retrospectively to earlier history of the United States, and indeed, of the world, and come to the conclusion that there is a conspiracy of sorts which influences, indeed controls. major historical events, not only in the United States, but also around the world. This conspiratorial interpretation of history is based on people making observations from the outside, gathering evidence and concluding that from the outside they see a conspiracy. Their evidence and conclusions are based on evidence gathered in retrospect. I want to now describe what I heard from a speaker in 1969, which in several weeks will now be 20 years ago. The speaker did not speak in terms of retrospect, but rather predicting changes that would be brought about in the future. The speaker was not looking from the outside in, thinking that he saw conspiracy, rather, he was on the inside, admitting that, indeed, there was an organised power, force, group of men, who wielded enough influence to determine major events involving countries around the world. In addition, he predicted, or rather expounded on, changes that were planned for the remainder of this century.
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As you listen, if you can recall the situation, at least in the United States in 1969 and the few years thereafter, and then recall the kinds of changes which have occurred between then and now, almost 20 years later, I believe you will be impressed with the degree to which the things that were planned to be brought about have already been accomplished. Some of the things that were discussed were not intended to be accomplished yet by 1988. [Note: the year of this recording] but are intended to be accomplished before the end of this century. There is a timetable; and it was during this session that some of the elements of the timetable were brought out. Anyone who recalls early in the days of the Kennedy campaign when he spoke of progress in the decade of the 60's": That was kind of a clich in those days - "the decade of the 60's." Well, by 1969 our speaker was talking about the decade of the 70's, the decade of the 80's, and the decade of the 90's. Prior to that time, I don't remember anybody saying "the decade of the 40's and the decade of the 50's. So I think this overall plan and timetable had taken important shape with more predictability to those who control it, sometime in the late 50's. That's speculation on my part. In any event, the speaker said that his purpose was to tell us about changes which would be brought about in the next 30 years or so, so that an entirely new world-wide system would be in operation before the turn of the century. As he put it, "We plan to enter the 21st Century with a running start." SOLIDARITY STATEMENT FROM OWS To all those in the United States currently occupying parks, squares and other spaces, your comrades in Cairo are watching you in solidarity. Having received so much advice from you about transitioning to democracy, we thought it's our turn to pass on some advice. Indeed, we are now in many ways involved in the same struggle. What most pundits call The Arab Spring has its roots in the demonstrations, riots, strikes and occupations taking place all around the world, its foundations lie in years-long struggles by people and popular movements. The moment that we find ourselves in is nothing new, as we in Egypt and others have been fighting against systems of repression, disenfranchisement and the unchecked ravages of global capitalism (yes, we said it, capitalism): a System that has made a world that is dangerous and cruel to its inhabitants. As the interests of government increasingly cater to the interests and comforts of private, transnational capital, our cities and homes have become progressively more abstract and violent places, subject to the casual ravages of the next economic development or urban renewal scheme. An entire generation across the globe has grown up realizing, rationally and emotionally, that we have no future in the current order of things. Living under structural adjustment policies and the supposed expertise of international organizations like the World Bank and IMF, we watched as our resources, industries and public services were sold off and dismantled as the free market pushed an addiction to foreign goods, to foreign food even. The profits and benefits of those freed markets went elsewhere, while Egypt and other countries in the South found their immiseration reinforced by a massive increase in police repression and torture. The current crisis in America and Western Europe has begun to bring this reality home to you as well: that as things stand we will all work ourselves raw, our backs broken by personal debt and
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public austerity. Not content with carving out the remnants of the public sphere and the welfare state, capitalism and the austerity-state now even attack the private realm and people's right to decent dwelling as thousands of foreclosed-upon homeowners find themselves both homeless and indebted to the banks who have forced them on to the streets. So we stand with you not just in your attempts to bring down the old but to experiment with the new. We are not protesting. Who is there to protest to? What could we ask them for that they could grant? We are occupying. We are reclaiming those same spaces of public practice that have been commodified, privatized and locked into the hands of faceless bureaucracy , real estate portfolios, and police protection. Hold on to these spaces, nurture them, and let the boundaries of your occupations grow. After all, who built these parks, these plazas, these buildings? Whose labor made them real and livable? Why should it seem so natural that they should be withheld from us, policed and disciplined? Reclaiming these spaces and managing them justly and collectively is proof enough of our legitimacy. In our own occupations of Tahrir, we encountered people entering the Square every day in tears because it was the first time they had walked through those streets and spaces without being harassed by police; it is not just the ideas that are important, these spaces are fundamental to the possibility of a new world. These are public spaces. Spaces forgathering, leisure, meeting, and interacting these spaces should be the reason we live in cities. Where the state and the interests of owners have made them inaccessible, exclusive or dangerous, it is up to us to make sure that they are safe, inclusive and just. We have and must continue to open them to anyone that wants to build a better world, particularly for the marginalized, excluded and for those groups who have suffered the worst . What you do in these spaces is neither as grandiose and abstract nor as quotidian as real democracy; the nascent forms of praxis and social engagement being made in the occupations avoid the empty ideals and stale parliamentarianism that the term democracy has come to represent. And so the occupations must continue, because there is no one left to ask for reform. They must continue because we are creating what we can no longer wait for. But the ideologies of property and propriety will manifest themselves again. Whether through the overt opposition of property owners or municipalities to your encampments or the more subtle attempts to control space through traffic regulations, anti-camping laws or health and safety rules. There is a direct conflict between what we seek to make of our cities and our spaces and what the law and the systems of policing standing behind it would have us do. We faced such direct and indirect violence , and continue to face it . Those who said that the Egyptian revolution was peaceful did not see the horrors that police visited upon us, nor did they see the resistance and even force that revolutionaries used against the police to defend their tentative occupations and spaces: by the government's own admission; 99 police stations were put to the torch, thousands of police cars were destroyed, and all of the ruling party's offices around Egypt were burned down. Barricades were erected, officers were beaten back and pelted with rocks even as they fired tear gas and live ammunition on us. But at the end of the day on the 28 th of January they retreated, and we had won our cities. It is not our desire to participate in violence, but it is even less our desire to lose. If we do not resist, actively, when they come to take what we have won back, then we will surely lose. Do not
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confuse the tactics that we used when we shouted peaceful with fetishizing nonviolence; if the state had given up immediately we would have been overjoyed, but as they sought to abuse us, beat us, kill us, we knew that there was no other option than to fight back. Had we laid down and allowed ourselves to be arrested, tortured, and martyred to make a point, we would be no less bloodied, beaten and dead. Be prepared to defend these things you have occupied, that you are building, because, after everything else has been taken from us, these reclaimed spaces are so very precious. By way of concluding then, our only real advice to you is to continue, keep going and do not stop. Occupy more, find each other, build larger and larger networks and keep discovering new ways to experiment with social life, consensus, and democracy. Discover new ways to use these spaces, discover new ways to hold on to them and never givethem up again. Resist fiercely when you are under attack, but otherwise take pleasure in what you are doing, let it be easy, fun even. We are all watching one another now, and from Cairo we want to say that we are in solidarity with you, and we love you all for what you are doing. Comrades from Cairo.

At the turn of the century, Blacks prospered throughout America. Because they could not shop nor do business in the white community, they built their own business districts where Black dollars circulated throughout the Black Community. On May 32, 1921, the fortunes for these Africans would change forever. A Black man was accused of raping a white woman. This touch off a revolt that has not been repeated in American history. WHERE DID THE NAME OCCUPY THE HOOD ORIGINATE FROM The name Occupy the Hood was created by facebook member, Sovereign Marta who initially registered a facebook page as Occupy the Hood. The name was taken by its current user Malik who was a facebook friend of Martas. Later to find Malik registered several facebook pages such as Occupy the Hood Chicago.

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BODY OF STORIES ON OWS To all the white people talking about unity in the Occupy movement

Sometimes we need to spend time apart in order to come together. Sometimes we need to be angry in order to heal. Its like this: Im facilitating a workshop at Occupy Los Angeles about color blindness and privilege on the Left and a middle aged white man compares healing the divisions created by people of color trying to create caucus space to overcoming the systems that divide our communities, like policies that bar migrant kids (or kids with migrant parents) from attending public school in this state, like police violence that works against black-brown solidarity in our neighborhoods, like a corporate media that works to convince us that most of us dont have health insurance because poor people are using emergency rooms too much when really we know its because of corporate health care that puts profit over people. Its like this: race was invented by the few in power (referred to in the language of Occupy Movements as the 1%) to keep poor and working-class white folks from allying with everyone else because that alliance had (and has) the power to topple global capitalism. Its only if we work together that we can transform the world into one that works for all of us. But Occupy movements and rhetoric are missing something huge in order to get there. A lot of really smart people have written deep analysis of the problems with unacknowledged privilege at specific Occupy sites and in the broader Occupy movement and about how people and communities are working to unpack and resist that. I think a huge part of how we move forward is to reframe how we talk and think about unity. I hear lots of talk of unity at Occupy Los Angeles and from the wide internet world of access I have to other local Occupy movements. When I hear the word unity, my brain immediately goes to the word healing, because I think they are intrinsically linked. Like that we are working towards a world and a movement in which they mean the same thing. But whats different about the word healing and the word unity is that healing implies a process, it implies something that must righted, it implies we are not there yet but we are working on it, it implies a history and a present and a future and work that must be done to move between those three points in time. The word healing is often really loaded coming from the mouths of white people, privileged people in political spaces. It often is about reinforcing colorblindness, about erasing histories and current lived realities of oppression in an attempt to pretend we are all equal in the present moment. Its a word that has been co-opted by the individualistic, depoliticized self-help movement, a word that white culture often tells us means just taking care of ones own. The work of personal and collective healing within Occupy movements is justice work and is work that must happen for these movements to succeed.

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When I say that we need healing in our movements, I dont mean the same kind of healing that the Occupy Los Angeles participant I mentioned earlier in my post meant. I dont think unity means pushing everyone together without paying attention to different levels of power and privilege, to different experiences we have every day because of systems that treat us so differently based on the color of our skin, the language we speak, the amount of money and resources we have access to (even within the 99%), the gender we are seen as, our histories and experiences and the options we have been presented with. Capitalism hurts us all, but it hurts us all differently I think the Occupy movements have the potential to be a liberating space, a transformative space, a place where movements come together and form and swirl around, getting even just the littlest bit closer to the world we want to create. The only way we can build this is if we only call healing what is actually healing: creating space to acknowledge our different experiences of global capitalism, of the economic crisis, of histories of economic crises that last for generations in communities of color. Yes, healing comes from unity, but not unity that only comes from silencing. It comes from unity that is built, that is carefully, slowly, and painfully constructed, by listening to each other and realizing we have a lot to learn. Unity-as-a-healing-process is built on spaces that center those most impacted by the systems of oppression that harm all of us. It doesnt always feel good, it is not always easy and it is NOT constructed on anyones back or at anyones expense, or by leaving anyone behind and telling them we will deal with their issues later, once we fix this more important thing. Unity as a healing process doesnt necessarily start with all of us together. We have to grow our capacity to really share space, to listen to each other, to create room for all of us together. Vanissar Tarakali, a longtime white anti-racist organizer, talks about why she has seen it be so important for people of color and white people to meet in separate groups to when beginning to learn about and heal from racism: The purpose of this is for white people to build community, and support each other to challenge racism and white privilege; and for people of color to build community, and support each other to heal from the daily trauma of racism and internalized racism. The process of healing from the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual impacts of oppression and internalized oppression is different than healing from the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual impacts of alienation, guilt, self hate, defensiveness, and sense of superiority associated with privilege. Like both people who perpetuate violence and people who survive violence need to heal from that trauma, but they are really different (and initially incompatible) processes. The end goal can still be (and to me, still IS) building unified multiracial movements that reflect ALL of our experiences, including the most marginalized among us, as the end goal. But we have some work to do to get there. So if we start to see unity as a process instead of a forced assumption, if we start to understand the way that systems have been intentionally designed to divide us through the use of tools such as racism, sexism, and homophobia, how do we move forward? The synonymous healing and unity I want to be part of creating has to center those most impacted by the problem at hand, has to lift up our differences and the ability to listen to and

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truly hear each others diverse experiences, has to acknowledge and learn from our histories of trauma and violence and oppression and resistance. White privilege, the system of unearned benefits and advantages that is granted to white people by systems that deny these same things to people of color, teaches us white people that we know everything. In order to heal from the harms global capitalism has inflicted on us all and to build real unity, we have to learn to challenge these basic assumptions that we have been taught. We need to learn to breathe before reacting to something that challenges our worldview, our perhaps invisible assumptions of superiority and knowledge. We need to learn how to take the time to thoughtfully respond, instead of reacting out of places of defensiveness and hostility to proposals and ideas that we might see as divisive or diluting the message. This is not to say that anger does not have a legitimate space in the process of overcoming unchecked white privilege that is rampant in Occupy movements. People of color are rightfully pissed off at being yet-again marginalized in a space that is supposedly by and for the entire 99%. Actually hearing and taking into account this legitimate anger can help us as white people move forward in a way that is more accountable to the systems that grant us feelings of superiority and unearned benefits, often in ways we dont even notice. We white folks at Occupy need to engage in really listening: both to the lived experiences of folks who bear the brunt of global capitalism as individuals and communities, as well as to the histories of resistance, struggle, and movement building that have come before us. We need to build our understanding of whats really going on in this world, how they got there, and figure out how to lift up the voices and needs and skills of those most marginalized among us so that we are truly moving toward a transformed world that works for ALL of us. We need to challenge the assumption that white privilege teaches us that our experiences and ideas are the most valid and important. Lets take this as an opportunity to learn from other individuals and communities and organizations. To realize that our personal experience is important and not the end of possible personal experiences in the world. Lets really listen and hear what people are telling us, especially those who capitalism has silenced for centuries. One of the things about white privilege is we are taught to see our work and ideas as individual, as arising purely from ourselves and our own intellect/smarts/genius. Really movements are informed, whether we acknowledge this or not, by all movements that came before, by all organizations that have been throwing down and building for years. Lets connect to our personal and collective histories. Lets realize that we have a lot to learn. Self determination is a crucial value of Occupy movements and one that I share. But the systems that hold white privilege in place tell us that self determination is an individual process, one in which we only think about ourselves and our own needs and wants and desires and expect everyone else to do the same, starting from the same options and power and feelings of entitlement to advocate for ourselves. I see growing self-determination as lifting up the power inside all of us in a way that moves us closer to our selves and to collective liberation. I see self-determination as something that fits perfectly inside the framework of centering the voices of those most marginalized by capitalism: migrant people, formerly and currently incarcerated people, people of color, queer and transgender people, women, disabled people, and
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especially folks who fall into more than one of those identity groups. If we create a world in which those of us most marginalized by capitalism are free and have our needs met and our voices heard, then we have a created a world in which that is true for all of us. One of the important lessons we can learn from movement history is that weve already seen what happens to movements that marginalize those already marginalized. They fail. Many of us who can sell out do, many of us who can compromise our ways into cushy non-profit jobs and pretend like we are helping the less fortunate do and we are someplace so similar to where we started. There may be some change, but there is no healing. There may be a false sense of unity, but there is just all this hidden (or not-so-hidden) division. We can pretend to be doing this together, but until we do the work to make sure we are all at the table and that the table is even set in a way that anyone can come to, where anyones voice can be heard, we will just be doing this as alone and as divided as we are in the rest of the world. Until we center those who of us who are currently and systemically pushed to the margins, we will not be able to create a resilient and lasting unity that is BUILT ON our differences, instead of in spite of them. The divisions among us are created by systems. Lets learn to understand those systems by listening to each other and learning our collective history in order to build real unity and healing in the face of all that tries to keep us apart. Building true unity and healing will be painful, but it will also be liberating. Mad props to everyone who is already engaged in this work. Its hard as hell and it takes all of us, so lets get moving.

EIGHT SIMPLE TRUTHS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT 2012 Yesterday we discussed certain events that, in my view, are nearly mathematical certainties. Things like a restructuring of public pensions and Social Security in Europe and the US. Western governments blocking Internet and mobile networks. War. The US government being forced to issue debt in a foreign currency. All of these events are underpinned by a simple premise: 1) Public and private debts included, most western nations are insolvent. Big time. 2) History shows that economic growth in such an environment is nearly impossible when such a large percentage of GDP must be allocated solely to interest. Most countries in this position either default or [hyper]inflate. Both have catastrophic consequences. 3) Continued political and monetary intervention in the economy is counterproductive. From Cash for Clunkers to negative real interest rates, such intervention only serves to make the problems, and their impacts, much worse. 4) The combined ingredients of sovereign insolvency; a global financial system based on worthless paper currency; and consumptive, import-oriented, public entitlement economies have created conditions for an epic, long-term economic depression.

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5) Deteriorating economic conditions drive social unrest. [In fact, there's a great paper by two European economists which defines an explicit correlation between government budget cuts and things like rising crime rates, riots, and even attempted revolution.] 6) Faced with a marauding population that threatens their own survival, governments will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo: their power, our expense. Again, history shows that police states, boogeyman enemies, a total loss of privacy, capital controls, higher taxes, etc. will all become the norm. 7) None of these delay tactics can prevent human and financial capital from eventually migrating to where they are treated best. This will ultimately force a complete system reset by starving the beast. 8) This is not the first time this has happened, and it wont be the last. This time is NOT different. Our modern society is not a unique and special snowflake that can ward off the consequences that have plagued empires for millennia. Everything from the way I invest to how I allocate my time and plan for the future is based on this view. Its why Im in Chile, why we purchased a 1,000+ acre farm, and why we plan on sharing it with like-minded people. I may be a bit early, but Id much rather be early than thinking through these implications while Im packing my bags. After all, things can feel quite normal for a long time. Changes take place gradually, then faster and faster, until the decay looks like an upside-down hockey stick. The Roman Empire, for example, began its spectacular decline shortly after Augustus became de facto emperor in 27 BC. He was followed by a long series of dismal failures Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, etc. But Rome muddled along for hundreds of years, wavering between growth and decay. The changes were gradual. A little currency debasement here, a bit of excess spending there, and throw in plenty of assassinations and foreign wars for good measure. Along the way, though, thinking people could see the writing on the wall and many of Romes citizens set sail for greener pastures. The gradual changes became more and more pronounced and the more pronounced, the more people left. As Gibbon recounts in his seminal work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the city of Rome lost nearly 75% of its population in the Empires final 50years in the 5th century. History is full of other examples of once proud nations that, facing problems for decades (or even centuries), completely unwound in a matter of years. The Ottoman Empire. The Ming Dynasty. Feudal France. The Soviet Union. Bottom line, when the real change comes, it comes very, very quickly.

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Think about the pace of change these days. Its quickening. Europe is a great case study for this when concerns about Greece first surfaced, European leaders were able to contain the damage. There was disquiet, but it soon dissipated. Fast forward to today. We can hardly go a single day without a major, market-rocking headline. And European politicians attempts to assuage the damage have a useful half life that can be measured in days sometimes hours now. Like the Ottomans, the Soviets, the Romans before them, Western civilization is entering the phase where its rate of decline will start looking like that upside-down hockey stick. There is no crystal ball that can tell us exactly how/when it will all go down. It stands to reason that certain events (perhaps this years Presidential elections in the US, Russia, France, etc.) will be pivotal in the decline, but suffice it to say that time is not on our side given the pace of change. Each of us has a finite amount of resources time, energy, capital, etc. And I really want to encourage you to think clearly and deliberately about how you allocate those resources e.g. youre better off buying an ounce of gold than making a political campaign contribution. 2011 was a challenging year. 2012 will likely prove even more. But this isnt anything to dread. Its is an incredibly exciting time to be alive change should be embraced, not feared. Empires always run their course. Bubbles burst. But creative, thinking human beings always survive and thrive.

OUT IN SPACE You slowly become aware of your surroundings - darkness with bright points of light. Your perceptions deepen. You are floating, turning to face a bright, greenish blue, glowing orb. You realize it is the earth. You are flooded by feelings that can only be described as ethereal. This is how youve always imagined that God looked at things. Like looking through the zoom lens on a camera, you see thousands of problems of life on earth leap into your awareness. You feel like you are supposed to do something about them. You cant explain it, but somehow you realize that you have supreme power over all the earth and its inhabitants. It is very clear now. You must fix the problems. You always wanted to play God. Finally youve got the chance. You know exactly what to do. Youve thought it all out a hundred times before in your fantasies. You must somehow turn the earth into a paradise for man. THE DECEPTION OF LIBERAL THINKING Children of the sixties above all hated hypocrisy. To be a hypocrite means to lie or deceive. A hypocrite is a deceiver, pretender, faker, swindler, charlatan, imposter, fraud or cheat. It is

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everything despised by those who invested themselves in the Movement. Nobody likes to be tricked, made a fool of, laid waste by someone else's selfishness. In the Sixties it seemed like much of what the American Dream stood for was hypocrisy. The Establishment only got the 'haves' established at the expense of the 'have-nots'. We wanted to fix it so badly. We wanted there to be love and justice for everyone without discrimination. There should be no rich or poor, black or white, male or female just treat everybody fair and equal. Isn't that what the Constitution stood for and what love demanded? Something in the longing human heart knew it was true; love was the answer it had to be the answer. If the problem was hate and greed, it follows that the answer would be love. Who was it that told us it would be easy to love anyway? Hmm? I can't hear you. Nobody ever stopped to wonder too hard about who was going to teach us selfish human beings how to love. Did any of the prophets and philosophers demonstrate it beyond the rhetoric? The Sixties proclaimed "All you need is love". Many believers trust that God is love. Could you say that "All you need is God"? Maybe, depending upon the god you decide to believe in. It has to be the right one, the one whose truth is worth banking on. The bottom line is that the real God is really true. So He's the One you want to find. Forget the hypocrites, the pretenders. He is good and real and just and He is love. It is work to believe in Him in the face of the schemes of evil. Evil is smart too, very deceptive, and very skilled at leading us to believe that lies are true. Evil does not want us to believe God is true. Therefore he artfully uses us, robs us, violates us, and tells us it was God that did it. Who would want to believe in a God like that anyway? Many are trapped in the snare, just like Eve was. Liberals, especially. It sounded like a good point, the question evil asked Eve. It led her to doubt God's goodness toward her. She fell for it. I used to be a liberal; it was the same thing. The deception is subtle, not obvious. I had a tender heart that hated injustice and believed that people could fix it if they just focused on the right things and were not greedy and selfish. BUT, now I see, no one ever told us where we were going to get the power to not be greedy and selfish. Would it be subjective, left to every man and woman's own best judgment? The rich often do that, convincing themselves that "I worked hard for it; I deserve it." The basic lie of liberalism is to believe that man can fix it alone, without God, through education and human effort. In an effort to upgrade the human condition,liberals often inadvertently assault the essence of humanity: the human will, which all humans have, making them accountable for their choices. The 'victim' spirit that prevails today is wicked; it is wicked because it excuses the choices people make and blames it on their unfortunate circumstances. Remember the heros and heroines that were credited with glory because they somehow rose above those circumstances? How did they do it? They cultivated character and trusted something beyond their own understanding and their own righteousness. By and large they believed in God and His goodness; they clung to it. In the face of hardship, they did not get bitter, blame God and choose evil instead, justifying themselves while doing so. They took accountability and kept on devoting

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themselves to righteousness in the face of trying circumstances, instead of finding an excuse to choose evil and fail to take responsibility for their own choice. Man Lives Completely Without Money Daniel Suelo is 51 years old and broke. Happily broke. Consciously, deliberately, blessedly broke. Not only does he not have debt, a mortgage or rent, he does not earn a salary. Nor does he buy food or clothes, or own any product with a lower case "i" before it. Home is a cave on public land outside Moab, Utah. He scavenges for food from the garbage or off the land (fried grasshoppers, anyone?). He has been known to carve up and boil fresh road kill. He bathes, without soap, in the creek. In the fall of 2000, Suelo (who changed his name from Shellabarger), decided to stop using money altogether. That meant no "conscious barter," food stamps or other government handouts. His mission was to "use only what is freely given or discarded and what is already present and already running," he wrote on his web site, Zero Currency. The question many people wonder: Is he insane, or a mooch, or simply dedicated to leading a simple, honest, dare we say, Christ-like existence? They're good questions. And depending whom you ask, the answers vary. Suelo wasn't always a modern-day caveman. He went to the University of Colorado and studied anthropology, at one point considering medical school. He lived in a real house, with four walls, a window and a door, and shopped in stores, not their dumpsters. But over time he says he grew depressed, clinically depressed, mainly with the focus on acquisition. "Every time I made a resume for a job, signed my name to a document, opened a bank account, or even bought a banana at the supermarket, I felt a tinge of dishonesty," he said. He was born into an Evangelical Christian home in Grand Junction, Colo., and took his religion seriously. Eventually, he started wondering why "professed Christians rarely followed the teachings of Jesus--namely the Sermon on the Mount, namely giving up possessions, living beyond credit and debt--freely giving and freely taking--giving, expecting nothing in return, forgiving all debts, owing nobody a thing, living beyond payback of either evil-for-evil or good-for-good, living and walking without guilt (debt), without grudge (debt), without judgment (credit & debt), living by Grace, by Gratis, not by our own works but by the works of the true Nature flowing through," he said.

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Although he considered himself a Christian, he discovered that the same principles applied to Taoism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Mormonism, Shamanism, and Paganism. One year he went to Alaska and worked on the docks. But that, too, he says, felt dishonest. Instead, he and a buddy decided to live off the landspearing fish, foraging for mushrooms and berries. (Think Castaway, but with snow). Suelo (which means soil in Spanish) eventually hitchhiked back to Moab with $50 in his pocket. By the time he arrived, his stash had dwindled to $25. He realized that he only needed money for things he really didn't need, like snacks and booze. He began toying with the idea of living full-time without money. He traveled to India, and became fascinated by Hindu Sadhus, who wandered without lucre and possessions. He considered joining them, but then he realized that: "A true test of faith would be to return to one of the most materialistic, money-worshipping nations on earth, to return to the authenticity profound principles of spirituality hidden beneath our own religion of hypocrisy, and be a Sadhu there," he said. "To be a vagabond, a bum, and make an art of it - this idea enchanted me." And soon, that's exactly what he did. He says he left his life savingsa whopping $30in a phone booth, and walked away. But he didn't do it in a vacuum; he maintained his blog for free from the Moab public library. Rather than just sitting on a mountain and gazing at his navel, he wanted to have an impact on others, to spread his gospel. In 2009, Mark Sundeen, an old acquaintance he'd worked with at a Moab restaurant, heard about Suelo through mutual friends. At first, "I thought he must have lost his mind," Sundeen, 42, said in a telephone conversation. But then he began reading his blog, and grew intrigued. Sundeen divides his time between Missoula, Mont., and Moab, where he was once a river guide, and he paid a visit to Suelo's cave. Gradually, he said he realized that much of what Suelo was saying made a whole lot of sense. This was right around the time the economy crashed, and "It felt like a lot of what he was saying was prophetic," said Sundeen. "That money is an illusion, an addiction. That resonated with me after the collapse for the economy." Sundeen was so intrigued that he decided to write a book about Suelo, The Man Who Quit Money, which was published in March. While the book reviews have been generally positive, Suelo has come under fire by some who say he's a mooch, or a derelict, sponging off society without contributing. They are valid
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criticisms: This is a guy, after all, who's gotten arrested for train hopping, (what would Jesus say about that?). And he's not opposed to house sitting in winter--not exactly living off the land. And besides: How is he actually helping others by going without? It's not like he's solving world hunger, or curing cancer. Sundeen disputes these arguments. He doesn't accept any government programswelfare, food stamps, Medicare," he said. "The only ways in which he actually uses taxpayer funded derivatives is walking on roads and using the public library. So in that regard he's a mooch--he's using the roads and not paying taxes. But if you try to quantify the amount of money he's taking from the systemit's a couple of dollars a year, less than anyone's ever used." Instead, he is actively promoting "his idea that money is an illusion," Sundeen said. "The Fed just prints it up, it doesn't mean anything and it's going to lead us down the road to serfdom." Suelo simply doesn't want to contribute to that, and so he lives life on his own terms. That said, Sundeen wouldn't live the way Suelo does. "The appeal to me is the living outdoors part, but I feel like I got my feel of that working as an Outward Bound guide," he said. "At this point I have other priorities." Suelo, for his part, has no plans to bring money back into his life. "I know it's possible to live without money," he said. "Abundantly." GLOBAL WARMING by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:10am The last time Gods judgment was the flood; this time it will be the fire. Anyone who knows even a little of the potential of global warming knows what could come upon the earth. Global warming only takes into account what man is doing to the atmosphere, but what if the sun itself were to burn hotter? This is the meaning of the dreadful prophecy in the Book of Revelation: And the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun; and it was given to it to scorch men with fire, and men were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent, so as to give Him glory. (Revelation 16:8-9) This will be the fulfillment of Isaiahs prophecy, spoken some 2,700 years ago. Isaiah saw ahead of time the wickedness of the modern world, and he understood why the earth would be polluted: The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and those who live in it are held guilty. Therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and very few men are left. (Isaiah 24:56) The moral ruin of these days will be worse than the physical ruin, and the outer burning a foretaste of something more terrible. No one will escape who despises the authority of God in his
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conscience. The pressure on everyone to compromise in the last days will be tremendous. Who will stand? THE DAWNING OF THE NEW AGE by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:14am So there is a new age coming, but it will not enter quietly. Instead, it will be heralded by the most astonishing event the world has ever seen: the sun will go down at noon and rise again six hours later! Amos prophesied long ago: And it will come about in that day, declares the Lord, that I shall make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight. (Amos 8:9) This will not be some freak occurrence; it will happen over and over again. This will be one of the terrible troubles that will overtake the world as judgment for its evil ways; yet it will be a shield behind which Gods chosen ones will flee: For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall. And unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect, those days shall be cut short. (Matthew 24:21-22) Our Master Yahshua knew the prophecy of Amos and He knew what it meant. He saw that the length of the days would be cut short, rather than the number of the days, for that, too, is sealed in prophecy. He knew that the sun would go down at noon, and the earth would spin twice as fast as it does now. This would have profound effects on the world, fulfilling His unalterable words: And there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth dismay among nations, in perplexity at the roaring of the seas and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of the things which are coming upon the world; for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. (Luke 21:25-26) THE HOLY PRPHETS by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:11am Many things are recorded in the mysterious writings of the holy prophets of ancient Israel. Amos spoke thousands of years ago: Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7) The prophet Isaiah said at about the same time that just as the rain causes the plants to spring up, providing food for man and beast, So shall My [the Lords] word be which goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11) It is without doubt, then, that the many prophecies of the coming age of peace will come to pass, not through the efforts of men to unite a fallen Christianity and take over the political affairs of the world (Revelation 17:3-5), but through the direct intervention of God. The Son of God, the greatest prophet of all, described the days just prior to the end of this age with the grim word tribulation. Some of the events He describes are beginning to happen even now:
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And you will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not frightened, for these things must take place, but that is not yet the end. For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. (Matthew 24:6-8) He went on to say that these things are merely the beginning of the birth pangs. Only those with faith will see these events as leading to a better world; everyone else will be profoundly fearful. Men will actually faint from fear. The terrible state of the world in those days will cause most people to accept any leader and pay any price necessary to have peace and stability. In order to participate in the world system, they will go so far as to take a mark upon their forehead or hand. Those who do not conform will be hated like all non-conformists have been hated. But this time they will be denied the right to buy and sell anything, and will even face the death penalty (Revelation 13:15-17).

THE EARTH IS SUCH A MESS! IF YOU WERE GOD, HOW WOULD YOU FIX IT? by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:15am The Big Picture Ever so wearily the week drags by. Finally the weekend arrives. You cheerfully join the throngs of happy weekenders rushing home for their two day rest. Because of all the smog you always take public transportation. Of course it takes longer and you have to put up with pushy, obnoxious people. Friday afternoons are the worst; everyone is in such a hurry. The crowded bus arrives and you shoulder your way on board. At least you are doing something to save the earth. You could walk home, but it just brings you down. The litter-filled streets and noxious automobile exhaust depress you. Really, nobody is doing much of anything to preserve the environment. It seems as though people dont care that the environment is being destroyed for their own selfish pleasures. You arrive at your block, quickly walking the last twenty yards to your own little haven. You pick up your recycle bin from the front yard as you approach the door of your apartment. Casting a wary eye about for intruders you fish the keys from your pocket and begin unlocking all the locks. A strange, uneasy feeling comes over you - a premonition of something about to happen. Thoughts of a recent crime spree in the neighborhood start to work at you. All of a sudden, just opening your door fills you with dread apprehensions. What if your apartment is ransacked and all of your favorite possessions gone? Turning the last key, you fling the door open. Relief! It is just as you left it this morning. Sinking down on the couch, you try to push the world's problems out of your mind. You could almost laugh except the world is such a mess. You wish that somehow things could be different. If only you were in charge. You begin drifting off to sleep wondering just who is in charge. Suddenly a blinding flash of light engulfs you. You hear nothing, feeling only a strange sensation that everything is coming apart as the light penetrates you, bearing you away in its passing. To where? Am I dead? you wonder.

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CREATING PARADISE by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:18am You begin by changing all the petroleum to water - cool, fresh, clean water. No more autos. No more smog. With that water the deserts will bloom! You make rain come again to droughtstricken lands. You destroy all the weeds ... well, most of them. Everywhere the earth brings forth abundant food - more than enough for everyone. You fill the earth with animals again, the oceans with fish, and lots of whales and dolphins. Time to tackle the problems of man. How to do away with divisions? You know just what to do. No more countries. Take away all the borders. Make the earth one big country. Do away with centralized governments - let the people rule. To deal with race problems you turn everyone into a light, green color with no distinguishable ethnic differences. That should make everyone equal. Next you change the laws of physics, just ever so slightly ... so that gunpowder doesnt work, explosives dont explode. Nuclear energy just does nothing. No more ugly nuclear plants cluttering up your paradise. This will make them get on the stick about solar energy. For the interim, you leave the coal deposits, just changing them a little so that they burn clean. You realize as an afterthought that theyll have to dig them out by hand. But it wont really be a problem. Why, that alone should solve unemployment. You take away all the pests that you see no purpose for; no need to have poisons sprayed all over the place. Now everything can be organic. While youre at it, you take away cancer and disease. You cant quite deal with death; it somehow eludes you. But you do the next best thing and establish 120 years as a normal life span. You survey your handiwork. The earth is a perfect place for man. The stage is set for a glorious brotherhood of man. Just one more thing lies in the way - the whole idea of heaven and hell. So you erase it from the human consciousness. In one fell swoop you do away with religion, patriarchy, homophobia, and morality. You feel deeply satisfied that you have righted all the wrongs and opened the door for mankind to begin anew. TROUBLE IN PARADISE by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:20am You sense your celestial duty coming to an end. Everything is set in motion. You feel yourself falling back into the paradise you have just created. You find yourself standing in your doorway. Was all this just a fantasy? Nothing has changed; or has it? You notice the air. It has a clean, sweet smell. The birds are singing loudly. You cant hear any cars. Then you remember there arent any. You are in awe. It worked! The guy next door comes over. He's pale green just like you. He smiles and says hi, as he brushes past you into your apartment. He begins to check things out. Wait a minute, you protest. This is my place.

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Our place, he replies with a grin. Remember, the brotherhood of man. What's yours is mine. What's mine is yours. Since Ive got nothing, Im sure glad that you do, else wed both be in a pinch. Laughing, he picks up your stereo and several tapes. You protest, Wait a minute, you cant just waltz in here and take my stuff!" His face hardens into a threatening look. From his pocket he pulls an ugly looking knife. It's not yours anymore, brother! It's mine. Id sure hate to have to hurt my brother cause he wouldnt share. As he leaves with your stereo, he takes your wallet too. Your paradise is quickly becoming a nightmare. You cant keep anything for yourself and you know that when you need someone else's stuff they wont share. The days roll by. Without strong government, order breaks down. Anarchy and chaos reign. Gangs of vigilantes roam the land dealing out justice. Gangs of criminals roam about, too. It's hard to tell the difference. The restraints are gone and violence is everywhere. People just do what they want. No longer do they have to work to survive. Instead, they wander aimlessly about, looking for entertainment. There is no limit to their cruelty. Nothing seems to satisfy them. You dont understand. Everything you did was correct in your own way of thinking. How did things go wrong? You wake up in a cold sweat, fighting down panic as you look around your room. There's the stereo. It was a dream, after all. But a very troubling dream. Once man's needs were met he should have been able to live at peace with everyone else. You thought that circumstances and suffering made people choose evil; that if they could choose good then all men would. The truth dawns on you. Even in a perfect situation man chooses to do evil.

STATUE OF LIBERTY THE TRUE REASONS FOR HER CREATION THE LADY OF FREEDOM FOR ALL by Sovereign Marta on Monday, December 5, 2011 at 11:34pm New research into the origins of the Statue of Liberty, the 151-foot-tall monument to freedom erected in 1886 in New York Harbor, has been able to substantiate was a Tribute to Black Slaves. EDOUARD RENE DE LABOULAYE 1811-1883 As proof of the friendship and the community of emotions of the people of the two countries, Laboulaye pointed out that the people of the United States honored the remembrances of common glories, and loved Lafayette and his volunteers as they revered *American heroes. He declared that this common heritage was of far greater importance in America than the political acts of the French Government... Adapted from Harper's Weekly, December 15, 1866. * The brave black soldiers out of slavery ..Ed. ________ Thank God My Regiment an African One: The Civil War Diary of Colonel Nathan W. Quote:
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"[This book] is required reading for grasping the full range of obstacles that African Americans faced in their struggle for freedom and equality during the Civil War era" -- Civil War History. Louisiana Native Guards on Ship Island 1863-1870 Quote: 'While others dismissed the African-American regiments, the Second Regiment's commander, Colonel Nathan Daniels, expressed in his diary strong confidence in his troops. An ardent abolitionist from New York and Ohio, he ached to prove the regiment's worth in battle and for military glory. "Thank God my Regiment an African one, that I have been permitted to assemble them under the banner of freedom to do and die for their country & liberty-The 2nd Louisiana Regiment of Native Guards will yet have a name in history." Colonel Nathan W. Daniels, 2nd Regiment One especially interesting member of Daniels' command was his black major, Francis E. Dumas. A refined, educated, slave-owning plantation owner, Dumas spoke five languages, and his abilities impressed both Colonel Daniels and General Butler. Dumas enlisted his one hundred slaves into one company of the Native Guards, calling upon them to "break the bonds" of their fellow men. As a major, Dumas was the highest nonwhite commissioned officer to see combat during the war.' A History Lesson It is hard to believe that after my many years of schooling (secondary and post) the following facts about the Statue of Liberty was never taught. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people including myself have visited the Statue of Liberty over the years but yet I'm unable to find one person who knows the true history behind the Statue- amazing. Yes, amazing that so much important Black history (such as this) is hidden from us (Black and White). What makes this even worse is the fact that the current twist on history perpetuates and promotes white supremacy at the expense of Black Pride. During my visit to France I saw the original Statue of Liberty. However there was a difference, the statue in France is Black. The Statue of Liberty was originally a Black woman, but, as memory serves, it was because the model was Black. In a book called "The Journey of The Songhai People", according to Dr. Jim Haskins, a member of the National Education Advisory Committee of the Liberty-Ellis Island Committee, professor of English at the University of Florida, and prolific Black author, points out that what stimulated the original idea for that 151 foot statue in the harbor. He says that what stimulated the idea for the creation of the statue initially was the part that Black soldiers played in the ending of Black African Bondage in the United States. It was created in the mind of the French historian Edourd de Laboulaye, chairman of the French AntiSlavery Society, who, together with sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi,proposed to the French government that the people of France present to the people of the United States through the American Abolitionist Society, the gift of a Statue of Liberty in recognition of the fact that Black soldiers won the Civil War in the United States. It was widely known then that it was Black soldiers who played the pivotal role in winning the war, and this gift would be a tribute to their prowess. Suzanne Nakasian, director of the Statue of
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Liberty, Ellis Island Foundations' National Ethnic Campaign said that the Black Americans' direct connection to Lady Liberty is unknown to the majority of Americans, BLACK or WHITE. When the statue was presented to the U.S. Minister to France in 1884, it is said that he remonstrated that the dominant view of the broken hackles would be offensive to a U.S. South, because since the statue was a reminder of Blacks winning their freedom. It was a reminder to a beaten South of the ones who caused their defeat, their despised former captives. Documents of Proof: 1.) You may go and see the original model of the Statue of Liberty, with the broken chains at her feet and in her left hand. Go to the Museum of the City of NY, Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street write to Peter Simians and he can send you some documentation. 2.) Check with the N.Y. Times magazine, part II_May 18, 1986. Read the article by Laboulaye. 3.) The dark original face of the Statue of Liberty can be seen in the N.Y. Post, June 17, 1986, also the Post stated the reason for the broken chains at her feet. 4.) Finally, you may check with the French Mission or the French Embassy at the U.N. or in Washington, D.C. and ask for some original French material on the Statue of Liberty, including the Bartholdi original model. You can call in September (202) 944-6060 or 6400. Please pass this information along! THE MISSING SECURITY TAPES FROM THE WORLD TRADE CENTER Late on the night of August 23, 2001, at about 3 a.m. security cameras in the parking garage of the World Trade Center captured the arrival of two or three truck vans. Visual examination determined the vans were separate and unique from trucks used by janitorial services, including different colors and devoid of markings. More curious, all the janitorial trucks had pulled out of the Towers by about 2:30 a.mabout half an hour before the second set of vans arrived. According to my high level State Department source with a top security clearance, who disclosed the unusual nightly activity, no vans matching that description had entered the World Trade Center at such an hour in any of the weeks or months prior to that date. It was a unique event. Security cameras caught the vans leaving the Towers at approximately 5 a.mbefore the first wave of AAA personality types on Wall Street, driving Mercedes and BMWs, arrived to track the markets. For the next 10 to 12 nights, the same mysterious truck vans arrived at the World Trade Center at the same mysterious hour after the janitorial crews had left the building and before the most fanatic robber barons on Wall Street showed up for work. The vans appeared at the World Trade Center from approximately August 23, 2001 until September 3 or 4, 2001. After that last night, they never appeared at the Towers again. The vans were never heard of again, either. The 9/11 Commission was never informed of their surprising presence in the Towers three weeks before the 9/11 attack.
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Most of the 9/11 Truth Community has no knowledge of this extraordinary nightly activity, either. For all the publics ignorance, video from the security cameras could be the most significant missing part of the 9/11 puzzle. This State Department source was convinced the mysterious trucks were used to transport explosives into the building, and that an unidentified orphan team wired the World Trade Center for a controlled demolition in those late night hours. He has stayed quiet to protect his job, his retirement pension and his reputationknowing that others who spoke up have gotten fired or thrown in prison (myself included). Controlled Demolition Other evidence supports a controlled demolition of the Towers, as a supplement to the hijackings. Firefighters and maintenance crews reported hearing explosions popping through the Towers on 9/11. And previous reports indicate that dust from the World Trade Center tested positive for thermate explosives a derivative of a thermite [censored]. A thermite reaction involves a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum, while thermate adds an element of sulfur. When the iron oxide-aluminum mixture is ignited, a super vigorous reaction occurs, creating molten metaland dust, in the case of thermate. The reaction is extremely exothermic, meaning that a great deal of heat is given off, making for an incredibly powerful reducing agent. Even so, as the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attack approaches, the majority of Americans continue to be confused as to how a controlled demolition scenario fits with the airplane hijackings and aerial strike on the World Trade Centerwhich the whole world witnessed on play back over and over in the media, until the image was seared like a brand on our collective consciousness. Until now, there has been a false dichotomy that only one or the other style of attack could have occurred, but never both together. Some parts of the 9/11 Community itself vigorously dispute that both could have occurred as synchronized events. And most of the corporate media refuses to acknowledge the controlled demolition theory whatsoever. When the public understands 9/11 as a series of Real Time events throughout the month of August, 2001, the unfolding sequence of this tragedy makes a lot more sense. The difficulty is throwing out everything the public has been taught about 9/11created for the convenience of politicians and corporate media, who simplified the story for public consumption. First and foremost, contrary to all media reports and official claims, U.S. and foreign intelligence absolutely expected the 9/11 attack to occur citing airplane hijackings and a strike on the World Trade Center. Even the time frame was identified preciselyknown to be late August through mid-September. I relate here my own experience as evidence. It has been corroborated in courtroom testimony by Parke Godfrey, a computer science professor at York University in Toronto. He delivered his
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statement under oath in the Federal Courthouse of the Southern District of New York1000 yards from where the World Trade Center once graced the skyline. On August 2, the date of Robert Muellers Senate confirmation hearings to become Director of the FBI, my CIA handler, Dr. Richard Fuisz warned me not to travel to New York because the attack on the World Trade Center involving airplane hijackings was considered imminent, with the potential for mass human casualties and a possible miniature thermo-nuclear device (thermite). Our team aggressively tried to block the conspiracy. But not everyone was on board. Threats to Iraq As far back as April and May of 2001, a decision had been made at the top levels of the government that War with Iraq would be in play in the aftermath of a 9/11 scenario. As the primary Asset covering the Iraqi Embassy in New York, I myself was ordered to threaten Iraqi diplomats with War, if it was determined that Iraq possessed actionable intelligence about the airplane hijacking conspiracy and failed to hand it over through my back channel. After initially balking at the message, I was informed the threat originated at the highest level of government, above the CIA Director and Secretary of State. That could only be President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Iraqi diplomats threw up their hands: They had nothing to give us, they said. But go ahead, they told me. Send your FBI. They are welcome in Baghdad. We want peace with America. And maybe they will find something. For all the brouhaha after 9/11, the fact remains that George Bush took no action on Iraqs invite. There was chatter about the 9/11 conspiracy throughout the Intelligence Community all summer long. The greatest part of the Intelligence Community abhorred the scenario. My own Intelligence team, triangulating the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency pushed and pushed for actionable intelligence from Baghdad. However, though we could not understand what the hell was going on, our efforts kept running into a wall of interference from the Justice Department, with only superficial outward support. For the integrity of history, Americans and the world community have a fundamental right to understand what actions the Intelligence Community did undertake prior to the attackbecause it exposes the high level opposition running interference. August Timeline On Thursday, August 2, 2001 my CIA handler, Dr. Richard Fuisz and I discussed over the telephone our belief that the attack would be imminent. On Saturday, August 4 I visited the Iraqi Embassy in New York for the final time before 9/11, pushing for any fragment of actionable intelligence from Baghdad that could pinpoint the conspiracy.

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On the weekend of August 4-5spooky NSA types visited the office where I had a part time consulting job. Of course the office was closed for the weekend, and I wont speculate how they got inside. However, while snooping, they took a proof of life, for want of a better expression. It is a physical copy of the Wall Street Journal dated July 30, 2001the same week as my conversation with Dr. Fuisz addressed to the company, with the street address and name of the man I had been working for. The copy of the July 30, 2001 Wall Street Journal surfaced on my desk at homeNine Years after the attack while I was traveling in Japan on a speaking tour for the advance release of my book, Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq, which features a detailed analysis of our teams 9/11 warnings, the 9/11 investigation and a comprehensive peace framework developed with Iraqi diplomats. Given the upheaval in my life throughout the intervening decadeincluding a years stint in prison on a Texas military base, while the government covered up my teams 9/11 warnings and the true facts of Iraqi PreWar Intelligence theres no way a copy of the Wall Street Journal could have survived as desk clutter. Other Intelligence officers will recognize the significance at once. That hard copy of the Wall Street Journal proves beyond any question that other spooks were tracking our teams conversations about the conspiracy in real time fully 6 weeks before 9/11 occurred. A newspaper would have been thrown out of an office weeks before the attack. Somebody had to grab it up almost immediately after my conversation with Dr. Fuisz. See? Other teams tried to put together the attack scenario, too. All of it points to the frenetic activity in advance of 9/11. There was a lot of action behind the scenes. And Intelligence folk are anything but passive individuals. Quite the opposite, theres a lot of creative risk-taking and proactive problem solving. None of these people sit on their hands. Americans still dont know that: On Monday, August 6, I met with Dr. Fuisz and we hammered out a plan of action for alerting the White House that this hijacking conspiracy should move to emergency status. That same Monday, August 6, the CIA handed President Bush a memo warning about an expected terrorist conspiracy involving Al Qaeda. Though I could be mistaken, I have always believed Dr. Fuisz contributed to that report. If not, it proves again that a broad spectrum of U.S. intelligence was moving to high alert status, far enough in advance to block the attack. Following instructions from Dr. Fuisz, on Tuesday, August 7 or Wednesday, August 8, I placed an emergency call to the private staff of Attorney General John Ashcroft. Identifying myself as the Chief U.S. Intelligence Asset covering Iraq and Libya at the United Nations, I delivered our warning about a conspiracy involving airplane hijackings and a targeted strike on the World Trade Center. I requested an emergency broadcast alert through all Federal Agencies seeking any fragment of intelligence involving airplane hijackings and a strike on the World Trade Center. I warned the

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attack was imminent with expectations of mass casualties, and that it should be regarded as Emergency Status. Attorney General John Ashcrofts private staff immediately gave me a telephone number at the Office of Counter-Terrorism, and told me to repeat what I had just told them to the person at that number. Immediately I complied. Later that week on August 9 or 10, I drove over to the Arlington, Virginia home of my second cousin, Andrew Card Chief of Staff to President George Bush ready to deliver the same message. I waited two hours in my car outside of his home. Occasionally neighbors peeked outside their curtains, while I chain smoked cigarettes in the hot car. (Yes, I have quit smoking.) Driving away, I remember thinking that I might be making the greatest mistake of my life. My Own Private Hell during the Cover Up I am extremely proud of our team efforts before 9/11 and throughout the 9/11 investigation. For all that, Americans are learning about this very late because I got into great big, bad trouble with the Feds when I tried to talk. I suffered five (5) years of indictment on the Patriot Act and one year of prison on a military base without a trial, when Republicans decided to reinvent the facts about 9/11 and Iraqi Pre-War Intelligence, denying Iraqs contributions to the 9/11 investigation and the existence of a comprehensive peace framework. Our relationship soured as I became convinced Republicans at the top echelons allowed 9/11 to happen, killing thousands of innocent Americans and international citizens, so they could build a phony case for War against Iraq and Afghanistan. I was outraged that the American government has done this to itselfas a pretext for military aggression and massive deficit spending in support of the military industrial complex, which is bankrupting the Middle Class. And I was quite vocal in expressing my belief that Americans have a right to full disclosure about our activities before 9/11 and the Iraqi War. And the devil take politicians! Without question I posed a grave threat to political grandstanding on 9/11 and the myth of Washingtons outstanding leadership performance on terrorism. Many times I have thought of myself as Dorothy in the Land of Oz pulling back the curtain on the Wizard, and exposing his deceit before the hapless, trusting Munchkins. In truth, the spooks did a great job before 9/11. Everything moved with lightning speed ahead of the threat. We could have stopped 9/11 easily if the Justice Department had fulfilled requests for inter-agency cooperation. There was plenty of time to alert NORAD or post an anti-air craft battery on top of the World Trade Center buildings. Thats why the GOP leadership had to take me outbecause I refused to back off that point. If I had been free, the American people and the world community would have learned the truth much sooner. Controlled Demolition

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Unhappily for all of us, because of private conversations with sources like my State Department colleague, I have reached additional conclusions that our team was not the only one at work before 9/11. Though none of us expected this to happen, I have come to believe that our efforts collided with a force of equal resistance, in the form of an orphan team also watching the events unfolding like us. As a long-time participant in multiple terrorism investigations, I have personal knowledge that most terrorist attacks are noisy, smoky and chaotic without achieving maximum destruction of the target. The 1993 World Trade Center attack by Ramzi Youseff and Sheikh Abdul Rahmon of Egypt killed 5 people. The bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in the Port of Aden, Yemen killed 12 people. Without extra push, this 9/11 attack would never have killed so many people either100 people at the very most. Add to that a recipe of incompetent pilots who functioned as Intelligence Assets themselves in a few cases Again from personal experience, I know that Assets are heavily scrutinized at all times by handlers from multiple agencies. I am convinced that an inner circle anticipated the event, and saw that their boys flying those planes could not achieve maximum damage sufficient to achieve their War agenda in Iraq. I cannot blame Americans for feeling overwhelmed, even heart-broken by these revelations. But bottom line jet fuel fires could not have collapsed both of those Towers, or Building 7, pretty much evaporating the entire steel frame of the buildings into dust and molten steel. Add to that the CIAs urgent reports that a miniature thermo-nuclear device would be used in the attack and thats why I had to stay out of New York City. The strange nightly activity at the World Trade Center three weeks before the attack clinched it for me. I am 100 percent convinced those Towers were wired for explosives. Yes, hijacked airplanes struck the towers. But bringing down the Towers to secure War with Iraq required some extra umph. I cannot speculate who wired the towers with explosives. I could make a guess, but my training as an Asset requires me to stay focused on what I have observed first-hand, and to recognize my own limitations. So why should the world care? At this point, it is most critical for Americans to stop politicians in Washington from using 9/11 for grandstanding and personal ambitions. The War on Terrorism has perpetrated a fraud on all of us. Those who support the War on Terror are destroying our fiscal economy and our Middle Class. Thats why Americans must learn the truth about 9/11. Its reached a crisis point where we must get off this merry-go-round of defense spending. We must end the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Otherwise this fraud of 9/11 is going to ruin our great country for all time. I only hope it isnt too late already.
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BILDERBERG 2011 DISCUSSION LEAKED VIA MOLES INSIDE by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 3:58pm Understanding the Bilderbergers and their way of thinking and what they are planning! Also, some hard facts.....and very grim reading! Be warned! See Conclusion. Here's a few extracts........From Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase and beyond, the system is imploding: banks, financial markets, bond markets, housing markets. And now, we can add the United States to the list of bankrupt nations. US dollar has lost 12% of its value in one year. And China, for the first time, has become a net seller of US treasury bonds. What it means is that the bond bubble is about to explode and when it does, take a front row seat and enjoy the fireworks. This is once in a lifetime opportunity. Chinas warning was reiterated at the Bilderberg conference by a first time Chinese delegate, that USGs planned attack on Pakistan will be interpreted as an act of aggression against Beijing. The Bilderberg Group is not the end, but the means, to a future One World Company Limited. The ultimate goal of this nightmare future is to transform Earth into a prison planet by bringing about a single globalised marketplace, controlled by One World Company, financially regulated by a World Bank, and populated by a dumbed down population whose lifes needs will be stripped down to materialism and survival " work, buy, sex, sleep" all connected to a global computer that monitors our every move. And it is becoming easier because the development of telecommunications technology together with profound advances in present-day knowledge and new methods of behavior engineering to manipulate individual conduct are converting what, in other epochs of history, were only evil intentions, into a disturbing new reality. Each new measure viewed on its own may seem an aberration, but a whole host of changes, as part of an ongoing continuum, constitutes a shift towards total enslavement. The background In the world of international finance, there are those who steer the events and those who react to the events. While the latter are better known, greater in numbers, and seemingly more powerful, the true power rests with the former. At the centre of the global financial system are the financial oligarchy today represented by the Bilderberg group. Bilderberg organization is dynamic, in that it changes with the times, absorbs and creates new parts while excreting the remains of the decaying parts. Members come and go, but the system itself has not changed. It is a self-perpetuating system, a virtual spider web of interlocked financial, political, economic and industry interests with the venetian ultramontane fondi model at the centre.

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Now, Bilderberg isnt a secret society. It is not an evil, all-seeing eye or a Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. There is no conspiracy even though a lot of people with their infantile fantasies see it as such. No group of people, and I dont care how powerful they are, sit around the table in dark room, holding hands, staring at a crystal ball, planning the worlds future. Bilderberg is not a Cartesian fantasy world, in which the isolated intentions of some individuals, instead of the dynamics of social processes, shape the course of history as the movement of evolving ideas and themes over successive generations. It is clinically significant, that todays more popular varieties of wild-eyed conspiracy theories, reflect the peculiarly pathological style in infantile fantasy associated with the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter cults. The characteristic form of mental action these cults express, is the magical power of the will, acting outside real physical space-time dimension. Its a meeting of people who represent a certain ideology. Bilderberg is a medium of bringing together financial institutions which are the worlds most powerful and most predatory financial interests. And at this time, it is that combination which is the worst enemy of humanity. Not OWG or NWO as too many people mistakenly believe. Rather, the ideology is of a ONE WORLD COMPANY LIMITED. Back in 1968, at a Bilderberg meeting in Canada, George Ball, the then Under-secretary for Economic Affairs with JFK and Johnson said: Where does one find a legitimate base for the power of corporate management to make decisions that can profoundly affect the economic life of nations to whose governments they have only limited responsibility? The idea behind each and every Bilderberg meeting is to create what they themselves call THE ARISTOCRACY OF PURPOSE between European and North American elites on the best way to manage the planet. In other words, the creation of a global network of giant cartels, more powerful than any nation on Earth, destined to control the necessities of life of the rest of humanity. Iraq One of the key discussion points regarding Iraq centered on the future of the US mission in the country given that the eight-year occupation is coming to an end. Under the heading oeWhat rights do we have in Iraq? Bilderberg delegates discussed whether the USG is entitled to some kind of squatters rights. For now, this issue is off the charts, but in the foreseeable future the story will undoubtedly get lots of mainstream attention. What concerns everyone involved is the last page, the ending to the Iraqi occupation. If the US military leaves Iraq, something that most Bilderberg delegates do not see plausible, under what conditions and agreements will this be made possible? As one American delegate reminded his colleagues, as of October 1, 2011, full responsibility for the US presence in Iraq would officially be transferred from the military to the Department of State. Translation: we might well be sold a false bill of good by the mainstream press. USG has no intentions of ever leaving Iraq, even if ownership changes hands. What one US delegate stated can sum up US position on Iraq: when you think of Iraq, think big. Indeed, to understand US position in the country, one only needs to remember that the US

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mission in Baghdad is the worlds largest embassy, built for just under $1 billion and comparable in size to the Vatican and visible from space. One European delegate asked point blank if after eight years of war, anyone can truly say that it was worth the effort. At a staggering cost of trillions of US dollars, over five thousand US lives and over a million innocent Iraqis killed few can admit to the spectacular failure of the mission. With the supposed upcoming transfer of power from the Department of Defense to the Department of State, one is left to wonder exactly what will the US mission be in Iraq beginning in 2012. As another European Bilderberg retorted: oeIt is any ones guess. The US delegates pointed to the fact that there is a stable government in the country as a result of a democratically held elections. He was reminded that the initial reason for the invasion had to do with finding and eliminating weapons of mass destruction. The concern for their freedom was an afterthought, said one European. There was also talk of major financial investment in Iraq to jumpstart their weak economy. However, most attendees agreed that the investment was completely self-serving, centered on the US embassy and justifying its existence and costs. Middle East Lets start with the conclusion: As cash for counter-revolution is dolled out by the billions, the future of the great 2011 Arab revolt looks grimmer and grimmer. Bilderberg fully backs draconian repression and perpetual war all across the Persian Gulf and is willingly using its staunch ally, Saudi Arabia to do it bidding. This war will include every nation in the Middle East except for Israel. Saudi Arabia is a strategic partner, not only because it is a repressive Monarchy and a dictatorship, thus unaccountable to an electorate, but also because of their oil as strategic energy reserve. Instability across the entire Middle East allows Bilderberg an excuse to push oil prices to a $150180 per barrel. This would put tremendous political pressure on Germany and the European Union on the one hand and on China and its economic and political aspirations on the other. Keep in mind that no matter how you role the dice, Bilderberg wins. Back in the summer 2008, oil shot up to $147 a barrel, something I predicted back in May 2005, after the Bilderberg conference in Rottach-Egern where it was decided to manipulate prices to that level by the summer 2008. At the time, JP Morgan was advising the Chinese government that China buy all the physical crude oil because it is going to $200 a barrel. What few people know, is that almost all of the price of oil is pure speculation, manipulated by the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index. Thus, Wall Street controls the oil price irrespective of supply and demand. Rest assured, that this is all part of a long range objective to control not only the oil price but the world financial markets. If you take a closer look, Saudi Arabia has their fingers in every Middle Eastern pie. Take Egypt. The House of Saud has just given Supreme Military Council leader Field Marshall Tantawi US$4 billion in cash. In Yemen, the Saudis are buying Yemeni tribes with money, in the name of stability in the region. In Bahrain, they are overtly supporting the National Human Rights Organization whose president was appointed by King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa in 2010.

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Then, last week, at the White House, US President Barack Obama received Bahrains Crown Prince Salman al-Khalifa. For strategic purposes, oil-rich Bahrain is a key US ally in the Gulf region, and hosts the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet. Finally, theres the Muslim Brotherhood to be understood in the context of the carefully orchestrated US/Saudi counter-revolution. From Syria to Egypt, Brotherhood is working very close with Egypts Military Council as a reqard for good behavior. CHINA Of great concern to Bilderberg is China's entrance into African politics at the supra-national level as well as their protagonism in many of the African continents disparate corners. For years, China scoured the continent for natural resources virtually unchallenged. Now, the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) is building a gigantic African Unions headquarters complex in Addis Ababa. If Brussels is the capital of Europe, than Addis Ababa is the newly crowned capital of Africa. Bilderberg has acknowledged that their corporations have been unable to compete with Chinese State owned companies because the price is right free. Whats more, as Bilderberg readily admitted, China distinctly lacks the colonialist label that still taints European-African relations, which gives it unfare advantage in the area. Another area of concern to Bilderberg is Chinese deft northern African diplomacy. Under the radar, China is outmaneuvering the United States and its western allies. For example, Libyas foreign minister Abdelati Obeidi visit to Beijing allows China a major opportunity to counter American influence in the international arena, and enhance its image as a friend of the Muslim world. Furthermore, China has not missed the opportunity to enhance relations with new governments in Egypt and Tunisia after their leaders fell during the recent uprisings. Chinas economic might According to the latest IMF forecast, Chinas economy will be the worlds largest in real terms in 2016" just five years from now. In real terms, meaning using purchasing power parities (PPP). That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies. Against the backdrop of Middle east conflict, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and destruction of the world economy greater doubts were raised over both the U.S. dollar and the giant Treasury market, which have been propped up for decades by their privileged status as the liabilities of the worlds hegemonic power. According to Bilderberg, whoever is elected U.S. president next year will be the last to preside over the worlds largest economy. Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the size of the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take Americas share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. Chinas would reach 18%, and rising. For comparison, just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of Chinas.

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As Bilderberg recognizes, this is more than a financial perspective. It is the end of the Age of Americas economic hegemony. America overtook Great Britain as the worlds leading economic power in the 1890s and never looked back. There is a silver lining in this for the United States. To counterbalance Chinas economic encroachment, Asian nations are increasingly turning to the United States for support. As one Bilderberger admitted, the rise of China, and the relative decline of America, the socalled paradigm shift, or revolutionary changes in geopolitics, is the biggest story of our time. IRELAND The discussion on Ireland was led off with sobering statistics which none of the attendees wanted to hear. Just like Greece, Ireland is an economic nightmare, close to becoming yet another European economic protectorate. Even though the official statistics of unemployment is up to 15%, Bilderberg internal numbers are much closer to 21%. Not to be outdone by the spectacularly bad news, the interest payments are half of all the income tax raised in the country and the debt is growing. Whats more, the total debt is 100% of Gross Domestic Product. Irelands unpaid bank debt, around 125 billion, as well as Irish State fiscal debt, courtesy of EUIMF partnership has weighed down the Irish economy and Irish taxpayers with a burden so great that it is beyond Irelands capacity to carry it. What is inevitable, admitted Bilderberg attendees, is just like Greece, Ireland will need a second bailout from the EU-IMF. Others were even more blunt. The European Union is in a survival crisis, said one European Bilderberger. What seems to worry Bilderberg is the lack of fortitude and political will across the European Union. As one Bilderberg financial analyst stated, the markets are stuck between the rock and the hard place. The markets can cope with good news and they can cope with bad news, but what the financial markets cant stand, is indecision. And thats all we have across the board. Nobody has any ideas how to get out of this. But, as another Bilderberg bluntly reminded the attendees, it is not one but three crisis we have to deal with: a debt crisis, a political-economy crisis, and a political crisis. And as Bilderberg knows, it is impossible to deal with all three at the same time. Bilderberg has admitted that the Irish banks are in over their head, having tremendous difficulties raising funds, while at the same time, the banks are bleeding money, as people have lost faith in the system. With the Northern Rock experience in Britain still fresh in everyones mind, the Irish are not taking any chances. For now, the mainstream press has kept this information under wraps, but as Bilderberg admitted, it is just a matter of time before it explodes in our faces. One Irish Bilderberger admitted that the Irish banks could very well run out of money before the Irish government does. However, what worries Bilderberg is the reaction of the Irish citizens. As one Bilderberg asked, will Ireland want to borrow money to pay back the bondholders and European banks who gambled on the Irish boom? To solve the mounting crisis, European government is proposing a massive power grab as part of a long-range plan to save the Union. If the plan is approved, the EU government will set the rules
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in the future and police itself and any nation, which breaches the rules or disagrees with the draconian measures implemented by the EU, will have their voting rights withdrawn. As one European Bilderberg openly admitted, What we are heading towards a form of real economic government. GREECE Greece is dead. The message coming out of the Bilderberg meeting is unmistakable. Greeces troubles have not only exposed the structural flaws of the European Monetary Union, but have also exposed the structural problems in the global economy. Government officials around the world have responded to the debt problem by adding more debt. Unfortunately, piling debt on debt cannot solve the problem. This is what a Ponzi scheme, Las Vegas-like secret casino looks like. To keep the pyramid-like structure from acute economic collapse, more and more money is doled out by those wishing to keep the speculation going. The crisis response has only exacerbated a dynamic that created the crisis to begin with: Easy credit means debt. Historically, financial crises typically lead to sovereign debt crisis. And sovereign debt crisis typically led to currency crisis and extremely difficult economic times ahead. The sovereign debt crisis is still unfolding. Last year, Europe, trying desperation to solve the crisis of weak countries within the Euro zone, devalued the Euro and inflated away the debt in order to stop the downward spiraling. The problem is three fold. First of all, member states cannot devalue its currency to make its exports more competitive. Second of all, it cannot undertake an expansive monetary policy. Finally, it cannot mount an appropriately expansive fiscal policy because of the restrictions of the EUs growth and stability pact. Thus, as European member states do not control their monetary policies, debt devaluation becomes the only option. EU is literally backed into a corner. As Bilderberg admits behind closed doors, Greece can never pay back what it owes the markets. Never. And they are not the only ones. Former Dutch Finance Minister Willem Vermeend wrote in De Telegraaf that Greece should leave the euro, given that it will never be able to pay back its debt. And thats something that Bilderberg elite know and understand very well. Real unemployment figures are around 19%. According to IMF Bilderberg attendee, 2012 projected unemployment figures for Greece will top 25%. Bilderberg can only pray this information never makes it onto the front pages of leading mainstream periodicals. At the 2011 meeting, Bilderberg was looking at ways to restructure Greeces debt, not for the benefit of Greece, but rather for the benefit of the financial elite who stand to lose their shirt if Greece fails. On the other hand, a default would destabilise markets and lead eventually to rating downgrades of other weak euro zone states such as Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal. ECB officials have repeatedly cited the risk of market turmoil in explaining their opposition to a Greek debt restructuring. One face-saving option being considered is a debt exchange. Holders of Greek bonds would exchange them for longer-dated bonds, giving Greece a few more years to pay back the 340 billion euro debt. However, for this option to work, private investors must be convinced to share the burden of rescuing Greece. If the option of private investors doesnt work out, France was
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being considered as the backer of the debt exchange, according to sources at the Bilderberg conference. At the same time, the European Union and IMF are preparing to announce a second bailout of Greece, thus acknowledging that the first 110 billion euro rescue which was launched in May 2010 has been a spectacular failure as Athens misses its fiscal reform targets by a mile. But there is another problem with a voluntary debt exchange. How do you persuade investors who were burnt the first time to take part in it, again? In the end, if Bilderberg has their way, taxpayers will be burdened with a large part of the bailout of bad speculations and government debts. A second bailout will include unprecedented and draconian external supervision of Greeces economy, both public and private spending. This worries Bilderberg, especially in light of 2010 massive national protests across the country. The scenario of Greeces exit from the Euro is now officially on the table, as are ways to do this. As in Iceland, the Greek austerity measures are to be put to a national referendum " with polls reporting that some 85 percent of Greeks reject the bank-bailout-austerity plan. Greeces labor movement always has [missing portion] In Greece, more than 85% of Greek citizens are against the proposed reforms. PAKISTAN China is Pakistans new best friend. This is a major geopolitical shift. It comes on the heels of Obama administration approval of aggressive tactics against Pakistan, amongst them, first use of nuclear weapons by NATO to prevent their potential use by terrorists or a rogue state. According to the London Sunday Express: US troops will be deployed in Pakistan if the nations nuclear installations come under threat from terrorists out to avenge the killing of Osama Bin Laden Barack Obama would order troops to parachute in to protect key nuclear missile sites. These include the air forces central Sargodha HQ, home base for nuclear-capable F-16 combat aircraft and at least 80 ballistic missiles. Enter China. Chinas warning was reiterated at the Bilderberg conference by a first time Chinese delegate, that USGs planned attack on Pakistan will be interpreted as an act of aggression against Beijing. The stakes are perhaps as high as they have ever been for the post-Cold War United States as Bilderberg dealt with quagmire in Pakistan. As one European delegate stated, US is the worlds most powerful nation, but it is not more powerful than the world. Everyone agreed on the grave danger of general war growing out of the US-Pakistan confrontation. From geopolitical point of view, the USG is concerned with Chinas increased protagonism in the region. China has built a port for Pakistan at Gwadar, which is close to the entrance of the Strait of Hormuz. US delegates expressed concern that the port might become a Chinese naval base on the Arabian Sea. This obviously affects India, USs new best friend in the region. We have a perfect storm in the making. A nuclear US supporting a 1.2 billion strong nuclear Indian against Indias archenemy, nuclear Pakistan and their new best friend, a 1.4 billion strong nuclear China.

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Bilderbergs attempt to create conditions for a Sino-Indian confrontation have Russia as one of the key players. With both Russia and China working diligently to bring peace to Libya, the purpose, as Bilderberg recognises is to reduce the influence of western powers, and ensure oil supplies for China from Libya. It still remains to be seen just how a consensus amongst Bilderberg attendees will be reached on the issue, but the US scenario is easily discernible. To effectively counter a Sino-Pakistani duopoly, Washington will seek a way to maneuver itself out of the confrontation by using India to do its bidding. By the time India and China realize that they have been played and used into mutual destruction by the United States, it will be too late for either to back down without losing face. Once again, the key to understanding India-China confrontation is Russia and its role in the future One World Government-One World Company Limited. Until Russia is subjugated, Bilderberg and their bidders cant realistically hope for full control. By eliminating both Asian superpowers, Russia will be left alone, surrounded by US missile bases and isolated from Europe by NATO, which now includes former Soviet republics, mostly antagonistic towards Russia. Whats more, as Bilderbergers agreed, a cultural degradation has left a large percentage of Russian youth admiring the US for its alleged freedom as a stark counterpoint to the excesses of Russian oeauthoritarian state, which they have been sold by the mainstream western press to be a mere continuation of the old Soviet system. With Russia eliminated, the US will focus its military on South America. Chavez will be overthrown, followed by his allies such as Ecuador and Bolivia. However, Pakistan is one part of the multi pronged Asian strategies set in motion by the US Government and Bilderberg. In 2002, one of the key issues discussed at the Chantilly Bilderberg conference that year centred on Bilderberg led plan for a 10-year war to eliminate terrorism, involving both military and diplomatic initiatives. It eventually became known as Operation Noble Eagle. In fact, Bilderberg understands that what we are in fact dealing with is an evolving process leading to an endless escalation of war across the global stage. Asia is one of the areas of operations. Middle East and Magreb is another. THE ECONOMY If we were living in the real world, the headline, which best describes the current financial situation would read: The end is near. We are in the middle of an economic financial meltdown. For Bilderberg high-financial managers the problem is how to postpone defaults for as long as possible" and then to bail out, leaving governments (taxpayers ) holding the bag, taking over the obligations of insolvent debtors. With overwhelming cross section of the worlds population against it, the trick is to override democratic politics. As Bilderberg agrees, for this to happen, economic policy must be transferred from elected government bodies to those of financial planners,making the economy entirely dependent on them, with public borrowing creating an enormous risk-free market for interest-bearing loans. This explains what George Ball, the then Under-secretary for Economic Affairs with JFK and
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Johnson said back in 1968, at a Bilderberg meeting in Canada: Where does one find a legitimate base for the power of corporate management to make decisions that can profoundly affect the economic life of nations to whose governments they have only limited responsibility? This is how financial oligarchy replaces democracy. The role of the European Central Bank, IMF, the World Bank, Bank of International Settlement, the Federal Reserve and other financial oversight agencies has been to make sure that bankers got paid. The problem with todays system is that the world is run by monetary systems, not by national credit systems. If you are smart, you dont want a monetary system to run the world. You want sovereign nation-states to have their own credit systems, which is the system of their currency. Above all, the possibility of productive, non-inflationary credit creation by the state, which is firmly stated in the US Constitution, was excluded by Maastrich as a method of determining of economic and financial policy. Now, in Europe, that cant be done because in Europe, the governments are subject to control by private banking interests, called independent banking systems, which is blocked constitutionally from creating credit for governments. These institutions have the power to regulate government, and to dictate terms to government. Think about this institution within this European edifice called ECB. It tries to function like a European independent central bank, which has no government. There is no government. There is no nation. Its a group of nations run by a private bank. The supposed independence of the Central Bank is the decisive control mechanism for private financial interests, which historically in Europe has been installed as an authoritative instrument against an economic policy of sovereign governments oriented towards the General Welfare. European banking is a remnant of a feudal society, in which private interests" as typified by ancient venetian cartels or by the Lombard league which went down in the Dark Age in the 14th century. CONCLUSION What we have today is not a liquidity crisis, but an insolvency crisis. The United States is now $14.3 trillion in debt. Plus, the government running up a trillion-dollar deficit for the third straight year, something no country in the history of the world has ever done. There is a confirmed double-dip in housing market with prices plummeting more than during the Great Depression and a fresh roll over in bank stocks, with companies like Bank of America and Citigroup giving up every penny of gains theyve made in the last two years, but it is not only Bank of America and Citi, it is every financial institution in America. From Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase and beyond, the system is imploding: banks, financial markets, bond markets, housing markets. And now, we can add the United States to the list of bankrupt nations. US dollar has lost 12% of its value in one year. And China, for the first time, has become a net seller of US treasury bonds. What it means is that the bond bubble is about to

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explode and when it does, take a front row seat and enjoy the fireworks. This is once in a lifetime opportunity. The Bilderberg Group is not the end, but the means, to a future One World Company Limited. This organization has grown beyond its secretive beginnings to become a key nod in the decision making of the elite. The ultimate goal of this nightmare future is to transform Earth into a prison planet by bringing about a single globalised marketplace, controlled by One World Company, financially regulated by a World Bank, and populated by a dumbed down population whose lifes needs will be stripped down to materialism and survival" work, buy, sex, sleep" all connected to a global computer that monitors our every move. And it is becoming easier because the development of telecommunications technology together with profound advances in present-day knowledge and new methods of behavior engineering to manipulate individual conduct are converting what, in other epochs of history, were only evil intentions, into a disturbing new reality. Each new measure viewed on its own may seem an aberration, but a whole host of changes, as part of an ongoing continuum, constitutes a shift towards total enslavement. And as we watch the world go to hell in a hand basket, we find ourselves at the crossroads. The road we take from here will determine the very future of humanity and whether we will become an electronic global police state or remain free human beings. Remember, it is not up to God to bring us back from the new Dark Age, it is up to us. Forewarned is forearmed.

Now independent thinkers are considered diseased by psychiatry by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 4:07pm (NaturalNews) Psychiatrists have been working on the fourth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and, in it, they hope to add a whole slew of new psychiatric disorders. Unfortunately, many of these disorders are merely differences in personality and behavior among people. The new edition may include "disorders" like "oppositional defiant disorder", which includes people who have a pattern of "negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures." Some of the "symptoms" of this disorder including losing one's temper, annoying people and being "touchy". Other "disorders" being considered include personality flaws like antisocial behavior, arrogance, cynicism or narcissism. There are even categories for people who binge eat and children who have temper tantrums.

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Children are already over-diagnosed for allegedly being bipolar or having attention-deficit disorder (ADD), which results in their being prescribed dangerous antipsychotic drugs. To categorize even more childhood behaviors as psychiatric disorders will only further increase the number of children who will be needlessly prescribed antipsychotic drugs. Each new revision of DSM has included controversial new additions, and this newest version is no exception. In fact, the manual has increased considerably in size over the years. What is most disturbing about the current proposed revisions is the blatantly brave, new way in which socalled medical professionals are viewing individual characteristics. Children who exhibit unique eccentricities in accordance with their unique personalities, in general, would be categorized as having a mental illness. If this criteria had been used in past centuries to diagnose illness, there may have never been people like Mozart or Einstein who ventured outside the norm and came up with new or unique ideas. A Washington Post article captured the essence of this concept perfectly in the following quote: "If seven-year-old Mozart tried composing his concertos today, he might be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and medicated into barren normality." The perception that character differences are somehow a psychic illnesses not only absolves individuals of personal responsibility, but it takes away their unique personhood. It reduces people into subjects that cannot think for themselves, but rather have to be controlled through drugs. Which brings us to perhaps the biggest thrust behind the DSM revisions: the drug companies. Pharmaceutical companies stand to gain a lot for having virtually every person categorized as mentally ill and in need of drugs. A more accurate approach to the situation is to assess the psychiatrists and drug lords who are contriving such nonsense as being the true possessors of mental illness. Perhaps these people are the ones that need to be institutionalized.

New Law By Obama To Jail 500,000 American Citizens Or More For The Crime Of Opposing Their Government. by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 4:15pm Foreign Ministry reports circulating in the Kremlin today are warning that an already explosive situation in the United States is about to get a whole lot worse as a new law put forth by President Obama is said capable of seeing up to 500,000 American citizens jailed for the crime of opposing their government. Sparking the concern of Russian diplomats over the growing totalitarian bent of the Obama government is the planned reintroduction of what these reports call one of the most draconian laws ever introduced in a free society that is titled "The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act".

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First introduced in the US Congress in 2007 by Democratic Representative Jane Harmon, this new law passed the US House of Representatives by a secretive voice vote, but failed to pass the US Senate, after which it was believed dead until this past week when it was embraced by Obama who became the first American President to name his own citizens as a threat to his Nations security. In what is called the National Security Strategy document, that is required of US Presidents by their Congress, that embraces the dictatorial ideals of the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act", Obama has ordered his Federal police and intelligence forces to begin targeting Americans opposed to him and his radical socialist polices. Obama's top counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, in speaking to reporters about this new "strategy" says it makes the problem of home-grown terrorists a top priority because an increasing number of individuals in the US have become "captivated by extremist ideology or causes." The Times of London is further reporting that Obama's new National Security Strategy "officially" ends America's "War on Terror" in what they call "a sweeping repudiation of the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military strikes." And as Obama begins re-focusing his forces from fighting America's foreign enemies, to those opposed to him in his own country, it is important to remember the warning about this new law given by the former CIA official, Philip Giraldi, who had previously warned of the Bush-Cheney plan to attack Iran with nuclear weapons, and who said: "The mainstream media has made no effort to inform the public of the impending Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. The Act, which was sponsored by Congresswoman Jane Harman of California, was passed in the House by an overwhelming 405 to 6 vote on October 24th and is now awaiting approval by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which is headed by Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Harman's bill contends that the United States will soon have to deal with home grown terrorists and that something must be done to anticipate and neutralize the problem. The act deals with the issue through the creation of a congressional commission that will be empowered to hold hearings, conduct investigations, and designate various groups as "homegrown terrorists." The commission will be tasked to propose new legislation that will enable the government to take punitive action against both the groups and the individuals who are affiliated with them. Like Joe McCarthy and HUAC in the past, the commission will travel around the United States and hold hearings to find the terrorists and root them out. Unlike inquiries in the past where the activity was carried out collectively, the act establishing the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Commission will empower all the members on the commission to arrange hearings, obtain testimony, and even to administer oaths to witnesses, meaning that multiple hearings could be running simultaneously in various parts of the country. The ten commission members will be selected for their "expertise," though most will be appointed by Congress itself and will reflect the usual political interests. They will be paid for

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their duties at the senior executive pay scale level and will have staffs and consultants to assist them. Harman's bill does not spell out terrorist behavior and leaves it up to the Commission itself to identify what is terrorism and what isn't. Language inserted in the act does partially define "homegrown terrorism" as "planning" or "threatening" to use force to promote a political objective, meaning that just thinking about doing something could be enough to merit the terrorist label. The act also describes "violent radicalization" as the promotion of an "extremist belief system" without attempting to define "extremist." As an example of those American's Obama will be targeting, Giraldi further writes that The Simon Wiesenthal Center, in testifying before the US Congress in support of this new law, swore that an organization called "Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth" was an example of a homegrown terrorist organization, leading one Russian diplomat in this report to state "If 1,200 of America's top architectural and engineering professionals are deemed terrorists simply because they question their governments propaganda than truly no one is safe in the United States anymore". As another example of how dictatorial the Obama regime has become, and as the Gulf of Mexico oil debacle has now become the worst ecological disaster our World has ever seen, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, this past week slammed American reporters for "asking too many questions about BP". Leading one to ask that if Obama's regime can't be asked about this disaster, what can they be asked about? The answer is apparently none, as Obama himself, just this past week, in announcing his signing of a new law called the Press Freedom Act refused to answer any reporters questions and abruptly left them standing in stupefaction over the irony an ordeal that shows how far America has fallen. Another irony apparently lost upon the American people is that their President Obama, who has been dubbed "The Great Communicator", now holds the dubious distinction of having held less press conferences than any American President in modern history. And if yesterday's press conference, his first in nearly a year, was any example one can see why as incredulous press corps was left astounded that Obama had no knowledge of the firing/resignation of one of his top officials. In all of these events one fact, beyond all others, stands out....in what was once called "The Land of the Free, And the Home of the Brave".....the United States today has become "The Land Of Slave, And the Home of the Coward"....and these Americans have only themselves to blame. BANKING SECRET By Sovereign Martaon Monday, December 5, 2011 at 11:26pm How Banks Alter Your Promissory Note Convert It Into a Negotiable Instrument Loan You the Proceeds of Their Fraudulent Conversion
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I have been discussing the nature of bank loans and asking questions about the accounting that takes place and how the customer becomes the depositor and who is the lender in a loan transaction. I have compiled this short explanation to answer these questions and eliminate many of the other questions that are not relevant. The message I want to convey is that our entire banking system is "all made up," it's a fiction, and we have a difficult time comprehending the truth because of the erroneous beliefs and conclusions we have been trained to follow by false advertising and ignorance. Reality is the labor we trade everyday for the labor of other people. The record of that labor is a unit of currency. Everything else is imaginary and consists of! artificial limits and psychological perceptions. Notes, Mortgages and Signature Loans A promissory note is not negotiable in the consumer marketplace (general economy) until a depository institution (bank) takes ownership and deposits it into an account. (A consumer cannot buy groceries with a promissory note.) The account into which the deposit is made appears as an asset equal to the value of the note and a liability equal to the negative value of the note. The entries balance to zero. The record of this transaction is made in an accounting ledger that is subject to audit and public disclosure. This method conforms to the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and the rules promulgated by the Federal Reserve Board. Example, a $100,000 promissory note on deposit: for Bank Customer (depositor):Asset Liability Balance + $100,000 - $100,000 $0 The bank then draws a check from this account to pay the seller of the property being purchased. The seller's bank accepts the check as a deposit, just like the first bank that accepted the note as the deposit. The note is the money owned by the maker, the bank customer, before the bank (lender) takes ownership and deposits it. The note or deposit is then transferred to the seller of the property in the form of a check to pay for the property. The first bank obtained ownership and possession of the note without risking any assets and in exchange for giving the bank the note and making it negotiable in the consumer market place, the bank customer agrees to pay the bank the value of the note, what the bank calls "principal," plus interest and fees. The idea of a "principal" is a fiction that represents the value of the note; it is not the actual note. There is no principal. The money for the property came from the buyer's note. The buyer could not give the note to the seller directly because the banking system will not allow it, it would be considered counterfeiting without the bank being involved. The bank must claim the existence of principal so that interest can be charged against something. The bank cannot charge interest against the note because it was used to buy the property. The bank is charging interest against the value of the note, what it calls the "principal." The customer's money, the note, was first deposited into the bank's account and then transferred to the seller's bank account. Only banks can do this because only banks have the license and the monopoly in the banking industry. Only banks have access to clearing houses (databases for commercial paper) for checks, consumers do not, so consumers are not able to negotiate checks or notes without the banks.
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The cost to the consumer, or bank customer, for this service is what the bank calls the "principal" plus interest and fees. The bank secures the payment of this money by having the depositor, the bank customer, sign a mortgage. A mortgage is a lien against property that gives the bank legal title and one hundred percent equitable interest until the customer acquires more equity by payment. The customer acquires legal title once the mortgage is satisfied. There are two transactions, one where the note buys the property and the other where the buyer pays the bank for providing the service of moving (birthing) the note into the economy to make it negotiable, otherwise known as the mortgage. The first transaction is called the note and the second is called the mortgage. The mortgage is a bank receivable, an asset to the bank, and the bank wants the depositor of the note, its customer, to believe that the bank originated the funds for the purchase of the property and that paying on the mortgage is the way to pay it back. Because the customer is truly the depositor, the originator of the funds, it is the principal or the value of the note that is owed to the customer and not to the bank. Legally, the mortgage should be set aside as being null and void for failure of consideration and disclosure violations of the truth in lending law; however, experience tells us the best way to remedy the inequity of the arrangement is to sue the bank for the return of the deposit, "money lent." Yes, many of our subscribers have forced many banks to withdraw their complaints in about three to six months of litigation (both secured and unsecured collection). In fact, it has worked perfectly in all of the collections described in our publications with the exception of mortgage and student loan collections. In these categories of collections, we have seen the banks default in some and are waiting for results of the rest, but over the last eight years and approximately 2,000 collections, no collector or creditor has succeeded in taking any property of our subscribers who follow the program, for any collection. The bank is unable to identify the source of the funds for the principal it claims to be owed and against which it is collecting interest and fees. Because there are only two parties to the note and two parties to the mortgage (borrower and lender), and one of them cannot establish that it provided the funds for the account, we must conclude that the other party, the bank customer, provided the funds that created the account. If the bank truly provided the funds like it wants everyone to believe, then the bank would be able to identify the account that was debited when the loan account was created. In reality, the bank customer is paying the value of the note twice, once by trading his note for property and the second time by paying the bank what they call the principal, then he pays an additional two or three times the value of the original note in interest. If the truth were admitted, an equitable arrangement would be where the bank is allowed to maintain its monopoly and only charge the customer a fee for creating money. The customer would buy property with his note through the banking system, and the bank would charge a fee for this, maybe a percentage of the note. The fee would be limited by law to less than the value of the note. Instead, the bank receives the value of the note at no cost plus two or three times the value of the note in interest and if you don't pay, the bank gets the property as well. Here is how the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago explains the process: TWO FACES OF DEBT-- Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago "For an individual institution, they arise typically when a depositor brings in currency or checks drawn on other institutions. The depositor's balance rises, but the currency he or she holds or the
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deposits someone else holds are reduced a corresponding amount. The public's total money supply is not changed. But a depositor's balance also rises when the depository institution extends credit-either by granting a loan to or buying securities from the depositor. In exchange for the note or security, the lending or investing institution credits the depositor's account or gives a check that can be deposited at yet another depository institution. In this case, no one else loses a deposit. The total of currency and checkable deposits-the money supply-is increased. New money has been brought into existence by expansion of depository institution credit. Such newly created funds are in addition to funds that all financial institutions provide in their operations as intermediaries between savers and users of savings. But individual depository institutions cannot expand credit and create deposits without limit. Furthermore, most of the deposits they create are soon transferred to other institutions. A deposit created through lending is a debt that has to be paid on demand of the depositor, just the same as the debt arising from a customer's deposit of checks or currency in a bank." Again here is how the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago explains the process: The actual process of money creation takes place primarily in banks. As noted earlier, checkable liabilities of banks are money. These liabilities are customers' accounts. They increase when customers deposit currency and checks and when the proceeds of loans made by the banks are credited to borrowers' accounts. In the absence of legal reserve requirements, banks can build up deposits by increasing loans and investments so long as they keep enough currency on hand to redeem whatever amounts the holders of deposits want to convert into currency. This unique attribute of the banking business was discovered many centuries ago. Then, bankers discovered that they could make loans merely by giving their promises to pay, or bank notes, to borrowers. In this way, banks began to create money. More notes could be issued than the gold and coin on hand because only a portion of the notes outstanding would be presented for payment at any one time. Enough metallic money had to be kept on hand, of course, to redeem whatever volume of notes was presented for payment. Transaction deposits are the modern counterpart of bank notes. It was a small step from printing notes to making book entries crediting deposits of borrowers, which the borrowers in turn could 'spend' by writing checks, thereby 'printing' their own money. page 3 If business is active, the banks with excess reserves probably will have opportunities to loan the $9,000. Of course, they do not really pay out loans from the money they receive as deposits. If they did this, no additional money would be created. What they do when they make loans is to accept promissory notes in exchange for credits to the borrowers' transaction accounts. Loans (assets) and deposits (liabilities) both rise by $9,000. Reserves are unchanged by the loan transactions. But the deposit credits constitute new additions to the total deposits of the banking system. The typical "mortgagor" (bank customer) pays the bank (mortgagee) three times the value of the note (deposit). Two-thirds of that money comes from interest and one-third is what the bank calls the principal, the amount the bank claims was loaned. Because the bank cannot prove that it loaned the principal, we must conclude that the principal originated from the customer, the other party to the note and mortgage agreements. This is a well-known fact in the industry as you can see by the above quoted publication. Bank employees do not understand this but we have found that bank officers usually have an understanding or will refuse to discuss it.

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This process is identical for credit cards, signature loans, even guaranteed student loans along with any other "bank loan" made by any depository institution operating under the rules of the Federal Reserve System. The same rules apply equally to assignees of depository institutions such as mortgage companies. I have not seen any case law affirming these banking practices but from my experience and research, I can say that the reason is because the banks never allow disputes raising these issues to be published on the record of any court. They either settle or withdraw. An approved application for credit is entered as a deposit in the same manner and using the same accounting principles as in the deposit of a promissory note. The approved application for credit is the promise to pay and the value of the highest credit limit is the deposit. Interest is charged against the dollar amount claimed to be owed to the depository institution. Instead of a mortgage, the customer receives monthly billing statements mysteriously, you will not find these types of terms disclosed on any agreement with a bank; however, because of basic accounting principles, the true agreement can be created from the accounting. It can then be verified against the written instrument or agreement. The ledger will show the note as being deposited and no money debited from a bank asset or from another depositor's account. Banks are not permitted to loan other depositor's money or their own assets, but it is the accounting that proves this. We can then use this verifying technique to expose the truth and the fact that the written agreement did not disclose all legal obligations of the parties. These terms were not fully disclosed because the bank's attorneys wrote the agreement and the bank receives an incredible benefit from not disclosing it. The bank receives many times the value of your deposit (note or credit application) without risking one single dollar worth of assets. In fact, the bank sometime! s takes your property when you don't pay according to the terms of the "written" agreement, not the true agreement. It is my opinion that if the banks were to conduct their businesses honestly, they would directly admit, in each "loan" transaction, that the customer's note or credit application provides the funds for the account and that the fee the bank is charging for this service is the value of the deposit plus fees and interest. The banks could admit that the basis for the fee is that the Federal Reserve System has been allowed to monopolize our economy and has been licensed to create money by the United States. Consumers could then be free to decide if this was equitable. It might lead to banks charging a flat fee per transaction instead of getting the value of the deposit plus two or three times the value of the customer's money for free. Imagine a world where you could take your note into a depository institution and pay twenty five percent of the value of the note, over a period of months or years, just to use the service? Instead of paying $300,000 to use $100,000 of your money, you would only pay $25,000 over the same period of time. The banks would still make a profit and other factors could reduce the amount of money created each year. I do not think this is a solution, but it may suffice until we can restore a precious metal backed currency. "It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. Henry Ford

THE SOUND AND THE FURY

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by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:26am Talk to any average individual in our society and you will find him to be a man of diverse knowledge. By reading his daily newspapers, weekly periodicals, and National Geographics, along with watching the morning talk shows, the nightly news broadcasts, various 'Specials', plus hourly radio news reports, he has amassed a wealth of facts and figures (not to mention, a strong opinion about most every controversial question of the day). On most any contemporary subject he will be "full of sound and fury",but as Shakespeare so aptly put it, "signifying nothing". Though he is a product of years of media consumption, he will eventually die, stuffed full of it, deceived into thinking that he himself has lived a full life. Every bit of his own passion and potential were cleverly drained from him through devices ranging from comic books in childhood to complex documentaries in old age, leaving him worthless as far as accomplishing anything real and concrete. He is active in abstraction but passive in reality. With this type of mind-set prevalent in society, the evil one has a basis to eventually level out the masses and make them ready for his man of lawlessness, the so-called Anti-Christ.

HOW WERE TRAINED TO BE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:24am There is a principle of the evil one at work in this present western society. We call it LEVELING. Though symptoms of this have been seen in previous times, it has surely reached its pinnacle in our generation. Such a principle can only take place at a time when individuals in the society have lost their own passion and vitality and have become incapable of saying or doing anything contrary to the LEVELED norm. Ultimately, it steals from the individual his very life. He can no longer stand firm in anything, is powerless to speak the things deep in his own heart, and is unable to "take dominion" over anything, being himself totally dominated and manipulated without even being aware of it consciously. He is lulled into believing that he is satisfied and content in a "Walter Mitty" state of nothingness. He no longer has the potential to become what he was created to be; he is totally dull especially in regards to his need for salvation. Putting man into this mental state is the goal of the evil one's work. The leveling of the individual begins in early childhood, when his young mind searches and reaches out for everything. In this present age, the evil one's ultimate tool for subduing a child is the seemingly innocent television set. In previous generations the destructive power of leveling could be mainly seen in the press. It was one of the only "media" at that time that had the power to level society. Certain cognitive individuals such as Soren Kierkegaard (from whom some concepts in this paper were taken) saw through the press and exposed it for what it was. Had men such as Kierkegaard been alive today to see this destruction magnified as it is by television and the other modem media tools, he would surely have been appalled. ALL IN A DAYS WORK by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:25am Nowadays the 'loving parent' sets little Johnnie in front of the TV set at the earliest age possible. Who knows? He might be pacified by it, if only by observing its color and action. From then on Johnnie remains out of one's hair. No longer is he searching and reaching, but rather sits
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passively and watches quietly. All his passions have been subverted and redirected into mere mental gymnastics. After several hours of gazing into that box, little Johnnie drops off to sleep, totally exhausted from his tiring day of 'non-active activity'. As he grows older this process only matures and deepens in his personality. Perhaps Johnnie would have grown up to be an impassioned zealot, striving to satisfy a desire deep within himself for justice to be done on earth. As he saw all the injustice around him through the years of his youth, he may have been grieved to the point that as he reached early manhood, he would have been stirred by his fiery heart to take action against it. But not so today. Johnnie's fire has been safely exhausted through hours of thrilling adventure stories, frightening science fiction, erotic love stories, and mind-boggling quiz shows, not to mention the even greater amounts of time spent viewing the emotionless world news commentaries. All together, these have left Johnnie a heady mass of fact and fiction with no life of his own. At night, Johnnie crawls into bed, satisfied by vicariously having climbed Mt. Everest, killed three wanted bank robbers, loved a beautiful debutante, judged and condemned to death a soldier who deserted his post in the midst of a bloody battle, and to top it off, won $10,000 by answering that one question which had baffled all the other contestants on the late, late quiz show. Yawning, he drops off to sleep dreaming of another day of challenges like the one he has just lived through. Actually all this took place as Johnnie sat passively in his big, soft easy chair, munching on the potato chips he was convinced to buy during one of the commercials. Johnnie himself never really did anything. His own voice was silenced at a very young age. He is no threat to the leveled norm, having been unconsciously molded into the pattern of this present age. But there is one thing that does rile ol' Johnnie up. It is when he hears of someone who has done something that he calls 'radical'. It bothers him when someone takes a stand contrary to the norm. It doesn't matter whether that stand seems right or just. That isn't the question. What gets to him is the fact that someone has the passion to disagree. Johnnie doesn't even realize why it bothers him so. Poor Johnnie! CAUGHT IN THE PUBLIC by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:29am The media is the prime implement in this leveling process. In order to level people, the first thing the media does is to rob each individual of his identity as an individual. The media has successfully done this by massing all the people of society into a creation of its own, an abstraction called THE PUBLIC. "THE PUBLIC feels this way," "THE PUBLIC won't tolerate such action much longer","THE PUBLIC is outraged", "THE PUBLIC is now tending toward this view", and so on, are all common phrases of the media. Yet, THE PUBLIC is actually a phantom, a mirage, a totally abstract implement used to reduce everyone to the same level. In order for the individual to allow himself to be so classified, and thus subtly manipulated, his own passion, vitality, and potential must be weakened to the point that he can find within himself no concrete identity upon which he can take hold. The media thus gives this gutless individual the identity for which he is so desperately grasping. He finds his niche, safely nestled among the ranks of THE PUBLIC. Yet in reality the public does not really exist at all. It is only a springboard through which the media can manipulate this spineless mass of society. The public is an abstraction. You could
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never unify all the individuals who supposedly comprise this group. Their real thoughts on any given situation at hand are never known. And it is only the most ignorant who suppose that they are getting an accurate representation of this elusive mass in the various scientific-sounding, media-sponsored public opinion polls. No, the public remains intangible and immeasurable.

DISMAY AMONG THE NATIONS by Sovereign Marta on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 12:12am Radio and satellite communications will be disrupted since the earths magnetic field will be increased. The life cycles of all kinds of animals, plants, insects, and trees will be radically affected by the abnormal rising and setting of the sun. The God of heaven will use the forces of nature to execute His judgment upon mankind: Do not be deceived; God is not mocked; whatever a man sows, this he will also reap (Galatians 6:7-8). A humanity that sows corruption will reap corruption. The earth surviving at all will be a miracle. The waves will roar and the seas will crash. The sudden change in the rotation of the earth will have a catastrophic effect on the climate (B. G. Hunt, "The effects of past variations of the Earths rotation rate on climate," Nature, Vol. 281, pages 188-191, Sept. 20, 1979). The added warmth of the sun will greatly increase the intensity of the ocean storms, as will the melting water from the polar ice caps. Right now scientists are keeping watch on volcanic activity in one of Antarcticas mountain ranges, buried under an unimaginable volume of ice. If the heat of that volcanic activity were to release that mass of ice, causing it to slide into the ocean, the level of the oceans would suddenly rise about twenty feet worldwide! That event in itself would cause huge tidal waves to devastate the coastlines, and in combination with the earth spinning twice as fast, their intensity would be staggering. Add to that catastrophic earthquakes and volcanic activity triggered by the tremendous rotational stress as the earth deforms, flattening at the poles and bulging at the equator. So great will the upheaval be that this amazing prophecy will be fulfilled: And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty ... And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. (Revelation 16:18,20) All of these things will come upon those who reject the rule of God. Some will reject Him by rejecting the voice of their conscience which condemned them when they did wrong; others will reject Him by rejecting the mercy He offers in Yahshua, the Son of God. He, the coming King, is now a long way off, but when He returns it will be too late to make peace with Him. (Luke 14:31-33 looks ahead to the awesome encounter of Revelation 19:11-16.) At His return, He will destroy those evildoers who have escaped the burning sun, raging sea, and tumultuous earth. Today, however, these words are still being preached: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the good news (Mark 1:15) What will you do?

THE LARGE FAMILIES THAT RULE THE WORLD

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by Sovereign Marta , November 22, 2011 at 3:55pm Some people have started realizing that there are large financial groups that dominate the world. Forget the political intrigues, conflicts, revolutions and wars. It is not pure chance. Everything has been planned for a long time. Some call it "conspiracy theories" or New World Order. Anyway, the key to understanding the current political and economic events is a restricted core of families who have accumulated more wealth and power. We are speaking of 6, 8 or maybe 12 families who truly dominate the world. Know that it is a mystery difficult to unravel. We will not be far from the truth by citing Goldman Sach's, Rockefeller's, Loeb's Kuhn and Lehman's in New York, the Rothschild's of Paris and London, the Warburg's of Hamburg, Paris and Lazards Israel Moses Seifs Rome. Many people have heard of the Bilderberg Group, Illuminati or the Trilateral Commission. But what are the names of the families who run the world and have control of states and international organizations like the UN, NATO or the IMF? To try to answer this question, we can start with the easiest: inventory, the world's largest banks, and see who the shareholders are and who make the decisions. The world's largest companies are now: Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Let us now review who their shareholders are. Bank of America: State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, FMR (Fidelity), Paulson, JP Morgan, T. Rowe, Capital World Investors, AXA, Bank of NY, Mellon. JP Morgan: State Street Corp., Vanguard Group, FMR, BlackRock, T. Rowe, AXA, Capital World Investor, Capital Research Global Investor, Northern Trust Corp. and Bank of Mellon. Citigroup: State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock, Paulson, FMR, Capital World Investor, JP Morgan, Northern Trust Corporation, Fairhome Capital Mgmt and Bank of NY Mellon. Wells Fargo: Berkshire Hathaway, FMR, State Street, Vanguard Group, Capital World Investors, BlackRock, Wellington Mgmt, AXA, T. Rowe and Davis Selected Advisers. We can see that now there appears to be a nucleus present in all banks: State Street Corporation, Vanguard Group, BlackRock and FMR (Fidelity). To avoid repeating them, we will now call them the "big four" Goldman Sachs: "The big four," Wellington, Capital World Investors, AXA, Massachusetts Financial Service and T. Rowe.

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Morgan Stanley:"The big four," Mitsubishi UFJ, Franklin Resources, AXA, T. Rowe, Bank of NY Mellon e Jennison Associates. Rowe, Bank of NY Mellon and Jennison Associates. We can just about always verify the names of major shareholders. To go further, we can now try to find out the shareholders of these companies and shareholders of major banks worldwide. Bank of NY Mellon: Davis Selected, Massachusetts Financial Services, Capital Research Global Investor, Dodge, Cox, Southeastern Asset Mgmt. and ... "The big four." State Street Corporation (one of the "big four"): Massachusetts Financial Services, Capital Research Global Investor, Barrow Hanley, GE, Putnam Investment and ... The "big four" (shareholders themselves!). BlackRock (another of the "big four"): PNC, Barclays & CIC. Who is behind the PNC? FMR (Fidelity), BlackRock, State Street, etc. And behind Barclays? BlackRock And we could go on for hours, passing by tax havens in the Cayman Islands, Monaco or the legal domicile of Shell companies in Liechtenstein. A network where companies are always the same, but never a name of a family. In short: the eight largest U.S. financial companies (JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, U.S. Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon and Morgan Stanley) are 100% controlled by ten shareholders and we have four companies always present in all decisions: BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity. In addition, the Federal Reserve is comprised of 12 banks, represented by a board of seven people, which comprises representatives of the "big four," which in turn are present in all other entities. In short, the Federal Reserve is controlled by four large private companies: BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and Fidelity. These companies control U.S. monetary policy (and world) without any control or "democratic" choice. These companies launched and participated in the current worldwide economic crisis and managed to become even more enriched. To finish, a look at some of the companies controlled by this "big four" group Alcoa Inc.,Altria Group Inc.,American International Group Inc.,AT&T Inc.,Boeing Co. Caterpillar Inc.,Coca-Cola Co.,DuPont & Co.,Exxon Mobil Corp.,General Electric Co. General Motors Corporation,Hewlett-Packard Co.,Home Depot Inc.,Honeywell International Inc.,Intel Corp.,International Business Machines Corp,Johnson & Johnson JP Morgan Chase & Co.,McDonald's Corp.,Merck & Co. Inc.,Microsoft Corp.,3M Co. Pfizer Inc.,Procter & Gamble Co.,United Technologies Corp.,Verizon Communications Inc.,Wal-Mart Stores Inc.,Time Warner,Walt Disney, Viacom,Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation., CBS Corporation,NBC Universal

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The same "big four" control the vast majority of European companies counted on the stock exchange. In addition, all these people run the large financial institutions, such as the IMF, the European Central Bank or the World Bank, and were "trained" and remain "employees" of the "big four" that formed them. The names of the families that control the "big four", never appear. IS IT TIME TO START NAMING THESE FAMILIES ???

GOVT FEARS MOST THAT THE PEOPLE ABOUT THEIR LIES

by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 4:27pm Area 51 is a military base, and a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. It is located in the southern portion of Nevada in the western United States, 83 miles (133 km) north-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military airfield. The base's primary purpose is to support development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems. The base lies within the United States Air Force's vast Nevada Test and Training Range. Although the facilities at the range are managed by the 99th Air Base Wing at Nellis Air Force Base, the Groom facility appears to be run as an adjunct of the Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, around 186 miles (300 km) southwest of Groom, and as such the base is known as Air Force Flight Test Center (Detachment 3). Though the name Area 51 is used in official CIA documentation, other names used for the facility include Dreamland, Paradise Ranch, Home Base, Watertown Strip, Groom Lake,[8] and most recently Homey Airport. The area is part of the Nellis Military Operations Area, and the restricted airspace around the field is referred to as (R-4808N), known by the military pilots in the area as "The Box" or "the Container". The intense secrecy surrounding the base, the very existence of which the U.S. government barely acknowledges, has made it the frequent subject of conspiracy theories and a central component to unidentified flying object (UFO) folklore

ORANGANIC GROWERS ATTACK MONSANTO by Sovereign Marta on Monday, February 13, 2012 at 10:07pm On January 31, 2012, a hearing on GMO's was held in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. On the evening news you often times see convicted former Wall

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Street financiers walking out of the doors of this courthouse in New York City. This court is the setting for a major legal battle which will impact all grain farmers in the United States. The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association squared off against Monsanto. The case, at the moment, goes off on a legal issue of whether the organic farmers have standing to bring a declaratory judgment action against Monsanto. Simply, the question is whether the organic farmers have suffered harm which allows them to get their case before a court for a possible trial. The case involves 96 plaintiffs claiming that "Society stands on the precipice of forever being bound to transgenic agriculture and transgenic food. Coexistence between transgenic seed and organic seed is impossible because transgenic seed contaminates and eventually overcomes organic seed." Plaintiff's complaint filed in June, 2011, claims "transgenic seed, and in particular Monsanto's transgenic seed, is 'injurious to the well-being, good policy, or sound morals of society' and threatens to 'poison people,' [and] Monsanto's transgenic seed patents are all invalid." (No question about their position!) On January 31 the Plaintiffs argued they are afraid of Monsanto suing plaintiffs for patent infringement. The argument being if there is drift of GMO pollen onto organic crops and the organic crop is contaminated, allegedly, Monsanto will sue for patent infringement. The organic farmers believe that Monsanto harasses farmers and in its complaint, claims that Monsanto has sued over 144 farmers for patent infringement. Monsanto's counsel stated on numerous occasions during the argument that Monsanto has never suggested to the organic producers that it would enforce patent rights against them. Counsel argued "The company has never brought legal action against an inadvertent against somebody who didn't want to make use of the traits that are manifested in our transgenic products..." The complaint in 163 paragraphs reads like a horror show involving the dangers of GMO seeds. "The Prince of Whales (sic) said it quite clearly, 'And if they think its somehow going to work because they are going to have one form of clever genetic engineering after another then again count me out, because that will be guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time." The brief in Paragraph 113 claims that Monsanto's transgenic seed has the potential to create severe negative health effects. In fact, the brief claims Monsanto's glyphosate or as we producers know it Roundup is harmful to human health and cites a 2005 study that concludes there are endocrine and toxic effects of Roundup on mammals. Paragraph 114 claims there are studies suggesting an association between the use of Roundup and the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Further the brief alleges a study shows that from a 50,000 person sample of pesticide applicators there is a "suggested" link between glyphosate use and multiple myeloma. In Paragraph 115 of the complaint, Plaintiffs cite a study suggesting that there is an association between glyphosate use and animal miscarriages.

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The plaintiffs in this lawsuit make it very clear they do not want to use or sell transgenic or GMO seeds. So in order to get into court, the plaintiffs are using a declaratory judgment action which claims they fear Monsanto will sue them but the real goal is, as they say in their first claim for relief, that each of Monsanto's patents, which are listed in the complaint, are invalid because each patent is either "prior art" or that each patent is invalid because it fails to satisfy requirements of the United States Code. In plain English, plaintiffs are seeking to destroy the patents that Monsanto has developed in providing transgenic seeds to the farmers of the world. Plaintiffs in this case represent a broad array of organic and conventional producers. There are thirty-six agriculture and food safety organizations, fourteen seed businesses, and thirty-three farms and farmers. Plaintiffs include Center for Food Safety ("CFS"), a Washington, DC nonprofit environmental advocacy which was established in 1997 to challenge harmful food production technologies. CFS claims it is the leading public interest organization litigating the harmful environmental and socioeconomic impacts of genetically engineered crops. Beyond Pesticides, Inc. which claims to protect public health and the environment and runs a clearing house for information on the hazards of genetically modified organisms. The lead plaintiff is an organic farmer from Maine who has lead "the farmers' march" to Zuccotti Park in support of the Food Justice Committee of the Occupy Wall Street movement. He claims support from President Obama who he says has "promised mandatory labeling of genetically modified products and we must hold him to that." The transcript of the U.S. District Court hearing on January 31 suggests to me as a trial lawyer that the case will be dismissed. If not, it will be a case all of you will be hearing about in 201 FDA Says You Have No Fundamental Right to Grow or Eat Healthy Food, Its a Privilege by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 4:00pm Heres a quick follow-up article to the one posted a few days ago about the Rawesome Food Club raid. Feast your eyes on the following statements released by the Food and Drug Administration regarding the raid. Note: Below, Plaintiffs refers to James Stewart, Rawesomes founder, Sharon Palmer, owner of Healthy Family Farms, and Victoria Bloch. The trio were charged with the production and sale of unpasteurized goat milk, goat cheese, and other products; and with mislabeling cheese. They were also charged with four counts of conspiracy to commit a crime. According to the FDA Plaintiffs assertion of a new fundamental right to produce, obtain, and consume unpasteurized milk lacks any support in law. There is no deeply rooted historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds. Plaintiffs assertion of a fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families, is
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similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish. Im gonna say something real crazy here: if the above statements released by the FDA dont freak you out, youre clueless and a big part of the problem. The fact that they can state that all Americans dont have a fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families is downright dictatorial. If the Constitution doesnt protect us with respect to what we choose to eat or not eat, its a useless document useless because it seems those who rule over us have no reason to abide by it. Why have a Constitution if government agencies risk nothing by ignoring it? Instead, the FDA should be punished. Every agent involved, from the FDA down to the clueless LAPD drones who blindly accepted their orders, should be jailed. After all, they are the ones who committed a crime on that day; not James Stewart, Sharon Palmer and Victoria Bloch. And this is why my hope is dwindling for our future. Things like this occur and no one cares. Not a blip on the radar for most. They just continue on with their daily routines, not the slightest bit aware that every day, another theft of liberty occurs, trickling away the rights our forefathers fought and died to obtain. Doesnt that disgust you!? Doesnt that make you sick!? Ive grown more and more contemptuous toward those who are ignorant and content in that ignorance. These are the true enemy of the free. These are the people who represent the ultimate problem; not the ruling elite. Because if everyone woke up, the ruling elite would no longer be rulers.

People 4 Social Sustainability (P.S.S.), Where do we stand? by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 8:35am For centuries the blatantly materialistic nature of the monetary system has created a type of social, spiritual, and individual repression on members of society. The current day society, world-wide was built on the backs of marginalized and indigenous groups the world over. Occupied, colonized, and stolen lands of peoples around the world have been exploited by monetary interests for their resources. Genocide, Slavery, Serfdom-ship and Neo-Peasantry in developing or undeveloped regions by the new lords and barons of the system is common. NeoFeudalism is the current nature of the imperialist era under which we exist. We... People 4 Social Sustainability (P.S.S.) exist to address the evil nature of the monetary system as it relates to: racism, sexism, homophobia, serfdom-ship, slavery, etc. We promote the only alternative to the current chaos of Capitalist and Communist monetary nations of the world A Resource Based Economy. Where we stand On The Consumer, and Labor: For the absolute rights of consumer over the interests of private and state-owned business. Give all consumers the right to oversight and participation in the decisions, and practices, of businesses in a cooperative fashion. Give all working class consumers a common and equal stake in a business. In capitalist nations, ensure that all working class consumers at a company are given an equal share of stock in the companies they work at. Give workers the right to oversight of their bosses, elections, and the
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ability to impeach their managers, and executives. Guarantee everyone a Living Wage, Living Time (or time to have and enjoy life). Defend unions and evolve them into skills guilds capable of cross-training working consumers in multiple functions. On Social Services: For the establishment of Holistic Public Service Consumer Cooperatives (HPSCCs), Create HPSCCs for Health care, Child Care, Housing, Nutrition and Schooling, and give all members of society free access. Provide all people with the most up-to-date standards of Holistic Health Care available. End the use of Freudian Psychology in mental health treatment and guarantee Jungian and Holistic treatments to all patients of mental health. Guarantee childcare to all single parents, and provide them with assistance in child rearing. Creation of HPSCCs for Nutrition that will provide food to all those who need it for free, with healthy holistic meals as well as individualized nutrition plans, consultations, and supplements. Free Socratic Universities with guaranteed admission for all people, that provided free digital text books for all students. Use the ancient Socratic method of education in which discourse, critical thought, and discussion is the learning method. On Banking: Shut down the world reserve banking system, and the federal reserve bank in any country where it exists. No to centralized state banking, whether it be in capitalists nations or the false illusion of workers controlled nations. No more secret cabals of international bankers who socially engineer economic crisis to further their agenda. No to a one world currency, no to regionalization of currency, no to governments of the worlds deficit spending. Shut down the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, NATO, and dissolve the U.N. Security Council. Forgive all home loans to low income people and all members of poverty stricken communities. end property taxes for low income and poverty stricken people. On Genetic Engineering, Biotechnology, and Cybernetics: Bring up on criminal charges of bio-terrorism, Monsanto corporation, and charge their executives with crimes against humanity. Hold legally accountable before an international peoples tribunal any corporation or entity which engages in bio-terrorism through its products, or business practices. No to the patenting of genes by any entity, No to biologically grown humans (test tube babies), No to genetically modified foods and crops, End the intentional infection of the crops of indigenous agrarian communities in Latin America, India, Philippines and other places by bio-tech seeds. No to unnatural biological practices which are a violation of the spirit of nature itself. No to cybernetic and microchip implants in people ,all violators should be held criminally responsible. No to the Scientific Method which denies the existence of an unobservable world, switch to the Alchemical Method, replace Science with Alchemy which acknowledges the unobservable world. On Racism: All people are 99.9% genetically identical; the notion or idea of race is a socially constructed one based on historical caste divisions. We do not promote division on the basis of the pigmentation of skin. Create a worldwide league of cultures to enrich, protect, and preserve the rich and vibrant cultural traditions of all people. On Homophobia: For fair an equal treatment of all people in society, decriminalize all aspects of marriage worldwide whether it be same sex marriages or divorce. No more power in the hands of governments over what individuals can and cannot do. For the creation of stonewall brigades to defend all members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community against hate crimes.
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On Feminism: For the full equality of men and women in all aspects of life. End the enslavement and trafficking of women worldwide, for the creation of community direct action brigades to challenge sex traffickers and rally the community to sites where the selling of children and trafficked women takes place. Decriminalization of prostitution and full criminalization of parasitic pimps who turn women into commodities. Full reproductive rights for all women with an extensive program of education and access to contraception. For the establishment of Public Consumer Cooperative daycare facilities for all mothers or father who find themselves as single parents. Equal treatment for all people who identify as women regardless if they are transgender or not. On The Environment: For peoples environmental defense brigades, independent of governments that will have the power to police natural and protected habitats. Given the power to cite businesses and government entities alike for crimes against the earth and nature. Have independent environmental defense brigades present during all new construction projects; give them the power to do surprise inspections of factories, chemical plants, etc. Allow them to make sure all products meet strict environmental standards. End the practice of whaling! Hold all countries and companies criminally accountable for carrying out the practice regardless if they are responsible or they simply allowed it to happen. Give international whale protection groups the power to legally board and inspect vessels at sea for whaling allowing them to cite violators. On Drugs and Controlled Substances: Decriminalize the use of drugs, no one should be criminalized for using drugs. Stop jailing people for using drugs and being addicted, provide care at Public Consumer Cooperative Holistic Rehabilitation centers. On Modern Castes and Classes: No to the Neo-Feudalism created by world wide banking cartels both legal and illegal. End the practice of modern day serfdom-ship with sweatshops the world over. Give control of all sweatshops to the workers and allow them to elect and fire their own managers, as well as allow them to sell the goods they produce on international markets. Make companies pay reparations and back-pay to all sweatshop workers, hold companies doing business with known sweatshops criminally liable before consumer tribunals with the power to grant monetary damages. End the practice of modern day peasantry and give all farmers cooperative control of their own crops so they can create a worldwide fair-trade system that promotes growers cooperatives, and manufacturing cooperatives. On Occupied and Indigenous Lands: Many nations of the world have been built on indigenous peoples lands whether we speak of native americans in the United States, Aboriginal people in Australia and Japan, or even indigenous people in Latin American. Return control of lands to the indigenous, aboriginal and native peoples of the lands. End the practices of state terrorism, carried out by Israel in the West bank, as well as the practices of terrorism carried out by extremists in Palestine. For a secular multi-faith, multi spiritual all-encompassing all inclusive place for all people in the west bank. On The State: Allow local communities to police themselves and create social service brigades which are made up of and represent the cultural diversity of the community. Create elected civilian review boards with the power to subpeona and hold tribunals over local police forces, state / provincial police forces, and federal and international policing agencies. Hold a vote of all the citizens of the entire country before war can be declared on another country. Dismantle state
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armies and replace them with as-needed confederations of state and community militias controlled directly by the people. Take the power of capital punishment away from the governments of the world over and end all state secrets and allow all citizens access to secret government research; whatever it may be on. Release all data currently held by governments and the fraternities of the 1% on unknown phenomenon to the public. HOW TO SURVIVE COMFORTABLY OR WHAT FRIENDS ARE REALLY GOOD FOR by Sovereign Marta on Monday, December 5, 2011 at 11:41pm Once you have studied the realities involved in surviving a long term catastrophe (years, not weeks), it becomes painfully obvious that maintenance of a reasonable comfortable standard of living in a post disaster situation is beyond the resources of one individual or one family. It is simply impossible to know enough... to learn enough... or to afford enough to meet all the needs of a family unit living at more than a bare subsistence standard of living... a standard of living far below what we would now consider to be "third world". This is a future I would wish upon my family only if death were the only alternative. We can, however, do better... much better. "How?", you ask. "With a little help from our friends" is the answer. Team work is the key to survival, not only individual survival, but survival of an acceptable standard of living... even survival of a productive society. It is simply not possible to cover all of your future needs from within your family unit. For example, you may be a great gardener, but can you build and maintain the tools necessary for production level farming. Even if you can forge plowshares and tan leather for tack, what if your animal gets sick, or what if your family gets sick? Can you diagnose the problem, and if you can, will you have stored the supplies needed to treat the problem? What if you are a great farmer, a great blacksmith, a great vet, and a physician on the side? What if someone attacks your family while you are in the field? Who will spin the yarn? Who will weave the cloth? Who will make the clothes? Who will tan the leather? Who will make the shoes? Who will teach your children? Even if you have every one of these skills, you are not likely to have the current resources to stock the supplies needed to maintain the trade. Even if you stock everything that might possibly be needed for every one of these trades, there will simply not be enough hours in the day to meet even your most basic needs. What is the answer? The answer is specialization. This is the root foundation for human society. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Forget the idea that you will survive in your secure fortress with your solar power, your tons of wheat, and your thousands of rounds of ammunition. You will succumb to a superior force, or to disease, to starvation, or to isolation and depression. The "dream" survival situation would be a small, relatively isolated community with a large agricultural base and some manufacturing resources. It would have its own power supply,
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temperate weather, and a good mix of trade skills. Very few of us have the luxury to live in such a plane. In fact there are very few such places at all. Even if you can find one, they are not likely to welcome a total stranger into their community during the turmoil of a post-catastrophe situation. If you know of such a place, consider moving there now, even if it means a career change and an income reduction. You may have to give up your weekly trips to the symphony and the theatre, and you might not have a choice if 15 different French restaurants, but you might find your live very much richer for the safety, fraternity, and slower pace of life. I realize that we cannot all live in small town utopia, and even in these communities, the vast majority of people don't give a moment's thought to post-disaster survival. They don't have on hand even a fraction of the supplies needed to carry on their trade for even a few days out of touch from the regional and national distribution system. Life in America is just too comfortable just now to think about things. So what can you do? You can learn all you can about everything you can. You can stock up on reference books. You can collect all the supplies needed for short term survival and intermediate term subsistence. But most importantly, you can learn a practical skill, then stock deep in what you do well, then recruit friends of like mind who will do the same for other complementary skills. A carpenter with some wheat and a rifle with loads of ammunition might be in a poor situation with a sick or hungry child. A carpenter who has seen fit to put aside a top quality set of hand tools and several hundred pounds of nails might be a rich man in a community with a need for shelter and building skills. A physician may be a lousy shot and unable to defend his family, but a physician with the tools to diagnose illness and a stockpile of medicines to treat them is guaranteed to have the whole community turn out in his defense. The combination of his knowledge and his supplies, not necessarily either one alone is what makes him an immense asset to the community. The whole is again worth more than the sum of the parts. After realizing that the team or group approach to preparedness is superior, one must consider what skills are essential in order to know what to learn or who to recruit. Skills might be divided into essential or primary, and desirable or secondary, based on whether they are necessary for personal or cultural survival respectively. Primary skills needed for personal survival, and the people to provide them, might include: 1) Sustenance - storage, preparation, and production of food and water A) farmers B) serious gardeners C) cooks and bakers 2) Shelter - short and long term protection from hazards of toxins, fire, radiation, the environment, and antisocial behavior, including maintenance of existing shelter A) builders - electricians, plumbers, carpenters, masons B) wood cutters C) sanitation or radiation engineers D) mechanics 3) Security - protection from the antisocial conduct of insiders or outsiders
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A) law officers B) military personnel or veterans C) hunters or others skilled with weapons D) administrators (yes, even after the great disaster there will be a need for a few petty bureaucrats. Someone has to keep the ducks in a row.) 4) Medical care - maintenance of the personal and public health of the community A) physicians, especially Family Practitioners and Surgeons, a Pathologist might have his place but would be of less general use than a primary care clinician or surgeon. B) dentists C) nurses, physicians' assistants, paramedics, EMTs, ex-military medics D) pharmacists E) sanitarians and public health officials Secondary skills are things you personally might be able to live without, but society cannot. 1) Education A) teachers - parents can teach, but not as well or as comprehensively as someone who is trained in it professionally. Note also that teachers frequently make good administrators if you don't want any real bureaucrats in the group. B) parents - education is their principle job anyway. C) lawyers and accountants - Their primary skills may be useless, but they are well educated people. Don't let lawyers administrate, however, unless you want a new world as screwed up as the old. 2) Transportation - life proceeds very slowly when you must walk everywhere. A) mechanics - There will be no shortage of surplus vehicles, but keeping them running will be a task. B) chemists and/or distillers - Those surplus vehicles and machines must run on something. C) animal breeders - If you can't get the truck run you can ride an animal. This form of transportation is also edible and produces fertilizer. Petroleum may be hard to come by as well. D) wood and leather workers - to make harnesses, saddles, wagons, etc. 3) Communications - vastly increases the efficiency of production, distribution, and security. 1) ham radio operators - they almost always have plenty of equipment and they think a lot about emergency preparedness. 2) telephone technicians - the telephone system will still be there but keeping it working will be a vital help to the community. 3) electricians or electronics technicians - the generation and storage of electricity is vital to communications and very helpful to almost every other sector of the community. 4) athletes - If you can't get the message there any other way, you can always send a runner. Others might add quite a few more categories to this list, but it's easy to see that the scale of the task in mastering even a fraction of these skills is beyond reasonable expectation. A practical way of dealing with this problem can be found in studying the organizational principles of the U. S. Army Special Forces. Among the concepts taught in the Special Forces is the idea of limited specialization. Every Special Forces soldier is expert in the basic skills of soldiering such as weapons, movement, concealment, survival, etc., but he is also a specialist with very advanced knowledge in one particular area such as communications, intelligence, demolition, or medical. Every team

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member is familiar with the skills of the others, but he is expected not only to be able to utilize his skills in a superior manner, but also to teach his skills to others. The Special Forces soldier is a consummate warrior, but his principle mission is not to fight but to teach, lead, and inspire. The "survivalist" should consider this to be his mission as well. The Regular Army NCO would be expected to lead a squad of ten or so men. The Special Forces NCO would be expected to teach his skills to a large number of indigenous sympathizers and then lead a group as large as a company or a battalion... jobs usually held by captains or lieutenant colonels. So too should the dedicated survivalist consider himself a leader and teacher. After having mastered the basic skills of self- reliance his next priority must be to master his specialty skill, and having learned it well, to stockpile the tools of his trade. He must then work on the other specialties important to survival, with special emphasis on skills not yet filled by recruitment. A good plan would be to become a specialist in one of the primary or secondary skills, develop a good working knowledge of all of the primary skills, and become familiar with the secondary skills. The camouflage clad, rifle toting loner of the popular media isn't practicing survival, he is practicing for suicide. Don't imitate him, and don't recruit him. Survival means teamwork, and the bigger the team the more comfortable the future. Just think, if everyone thought like a survivalist, then it's likely none of us would ever need these skills and supplies we work so hard to obtain. The best life insurance policy is the one you don't have to collect on. Food in Uncertain Times: How to Grow and Store the 5 Crops You Need to Survive by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 4:03pm Having food resiliency is as much about learning how to store and use food properly as it is about growing it. The key is learning interdependence not independence. In an age of erratic weather and instability, its increasingly important to develop a greater selfreliance when it comes to food. And because of this, more than ever before, farmers are developing new gardening techniques that help achieve a greater resilience. Longtime gardener and scientist Carol Deppe, in her new book The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and SelfReliance in Uncertain Times, offers a wealth of unique and expansive information for serious home gardeners and farmers who are seeking optimistic advice. Price: The basic issues are getting more control over our food, getting lots higher quality and more delicious food, and enhancing the resilience of our food supply. There are three ways to do that. The first is through local buying patterns and trade. A second is through knowing how to store or process food that is available locally, whether we grow it ourselves or not. The third is gardening. In The Resilient Gardener, I talk as much about storing and using food as growing it. I love gardening, but not everyone is in a position to garden every year of their lives.

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However the person who has learned to make spectacular applesauce or cider or apple butter or pies can often trade some of the processed products for all the apples needed. Buying local food supports local food resilience. A couple hundred pounds of gourmet-quality potatoes tucked away in the garage potatoes that you have learned to store optimally represent serious food security, whether you grew them or bought them from a local farmer right after the harvest. Our buying and trading patterns and our skill at storing and using food as well as gardening are all part of our food resilience. All can serve as the starting point to begin taking greater control over our food. So the first thing I would say is, garden if you can and if you enjoy it. Whether you garden right now or not, though, learn more about how to store and use the food that is grown locally. Lots of times, it is storing and using that is more of the missing link than gardening. Most gardeners know how to grow field corn. But most dont have the knowledge to turn corn into gourmetquality fast-cooking polenta or savory corn gravy or even cornbread (without using wheat or other things they cant grow), let alone fine-textured cakes. Most gardeners can grow potatoes. But most dont know how to store their potatoes optimally. Most can grow blue potatoes. But most try to prepare their blue potatoes just like whites or reds. Few know how to turn a blue potato into spectacularly delicious food. In The Resilient Gardener, I spend as much time on how to store and use food as how to grow it. We humans trade. We enjoy it, and it greases the social wheels. Sometimes we use intermediaries like money, sometimes not. Sometimes the trades are formal. Sometimes we call it gifts. I trade or sell or gift part of the best I have. Part of the best of others comes back to me. My friends, neighbors, and exchange networks are part of my resilience. I aim for greater selfreliance. I like to enjoy doing more for myself. And I love to garden, and to grow food. Gardening for resilience, as you discuss, also means choosing your crop varieties for optimum self-reliance and hardiness. Whats the most fantastic quality of each of the five crops you talk about in your book potatoes, corn, beans, squash, and eggs? Potatoes are a great source of both carbohydrates and protein. They have protein levels comparable to the most protein-rich grains by the time you adjust for water. They yield more carbohydrate per square foot than anything we can grow in temperate climates. They yield more protein per square foot than anything we can grow except beans. They have good levels of vitamin C and significant amounts of calcium and other minerals. They are the easiest of all staple crops to grow. They yield much more carbohydrate and protein than anything else per unit labor. Small grains take fine seed beds, meaning tillers, tractors, or draft animals. Anyone with a shovel can grow potatoes. And potatoes can be grown on rough land, land just converted from lawn or pasture or patch of weeds. Grains usually require special grinding equipment. Anyone who can build a fire can cook potatoes. Potatoes grow well in places too cold or wet for grains. Potatoes are far more impervious to nasty weather than grains. Cool or cold or wet stormy weather that can harm, delay, or even destroy, corn, squash, and other summer crops are likely to make the potatoes grow more happily than ever. So growing both potatoes and other crops provides a balance that provides resilience. Potatoes yield well on limited fertility, too. And in most areas of the country, they can be grown unirrigated, even where all other summer crops require irrigation. Note:
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Check out the Patriot Seed Store for their new Seed Vault, an air & water tight capsule with 5,000 hearty non-GMO seeds. The seeds are selected for the shortest growing season, most nutritional and most resilient varieties to ensure your Liberty Garden thrives when you need it to! About one acre is tilled. Its divided into six sections. One section were turning into permanent garden beds to grow a big variety of garden crops, everything from amaranth greens and garlic to lettuce and strawberries. The rest is field crops that get rotated around each year. The field crops are all in rows spaced at 3. (Or 7 for the big squash.) The basic 3 spacing is what is needed to get our rototiller between the rows, that is, when the rototiller works. Which it doesnt always. The acre of crops is as much as we want to tend by hand when the rototiller is uncooperative. In addition, its as much as we want to water. This kind of spacing means we need to water the most water needy crops only once per week in August, the most water-short month, and less the rest of the time. And with this spacing, the potatoes dont have to be watered at all. And everything could at least survive a good while if it didnt get watered at all, even in August. The permanent beds are 4 across, the biggest we can reach across comfortably, with aisles between them that are alternating 3 and 1. That space is a compromise. Nate, being 32, can tend and harvest a garden by bending over or squatting. So if the garden was just his, he would space the beds with aisles 1 wide. That way, he would have the most possible planting area for the total area that needs to be watered. And there would be as little aisle space that needs to be weeded as possible. Im 64. My back and knees rebel against squatting or bending over for very long. I can hoe comfortably using the right kinds of tools that permit me to work standing upright with my back straight. I can also tend and harvest comfortably on my hands and knees, but that takes aisles 3 across. If we split the difference, I wouldnt be able to harvest from any of the rows. With alternating aisle widths, and Nate tending and harvesting preferentially from the narrow aisles, we can both tend and harvest. And we have lots more bed space than if we used 3 aisles for everything. We dont put sides on our beds, incidentally. If we did that, we would have to tend all the space near the sides by hand, squatting or on hands and knees. With no sides on beds, the beds can mostly be tended by hoeing from a comfortable standing position, with a straight back. In The Resilient Gardener, I talk a good bit about the labor implications of various gardening styles and practices as well as what tools and methods to use if you have back problems. Most people garden in a way that strains or trashes their backs or knees. That is totally unnecessary if you match gardening styles and tools to your physical needs. When gardening bigger areas, this matching is especially important. In our field, one major section is potatoes, about 23 varieties. Yellows, blues, reds, whites, bakers, boilers, early varieties, late varieties. The number of varieties gives us some resilience with respect to diseases as well as potatoes that are great for every possible cooking method, and that have many different flavors. We choose varieties based primarily upon spectacular flavor, but also upon storage ability and yield and disease resistance when grown under our conditions. We grow our spuds organically, with no irrigation, and with only the modest levels of fertility of the sort that can be obtained simply by turning under a legume cover crop. Our spud patch should give us at least a thousand pounds of spuds, which will be prime eating quality through February, through April for certain varieties. Part of that long storage is appropriate choice of
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varieties. The rest of it is our method of storage, which is sophisticated low tech. We store the potatoes in our attached garage. Thats low tech. What is sophisticated is that we have figured out exactly what containers to use for optimum storage, and a maximum-minimum thermometerhygrometer sits in the storage area. We occasionally open the garage door or the door to the house as needed in winter to control temperature or humidity. Our potatoes dont get irrigated. We grow them at 16 in the rows instead of the 8 12 so as to have one important staple crop that doesnt require irrigation. That cuts down our water use and gardening labor. In addition, if the electricity failed and we couldnt irrigate, our practice of growing potatoes without irrigation would really matter. Not irrigating also gives us especially clean, disease-free spuds. In addition, the flavors are much more intense than when the potatoes are irrigated. Water and fertility needs are very much affected by spacing. If we crowded the spuds more, we would need more fertile soil, probably imported fertilizer, and irrigation. MG: For gardeners who are just starting out, do you think theres something intimidating about the idea of the perfect garden? CD: The issue of how to get a garden as perfect as possible that isnt my issue. My issue is, how can I get the highest yield of the most delicious food for the least possible time and effort? Im lazy. I want to garden efficiently. Perfectionism really gets in the way of gardening efficiently. I dont talk about very much about perfectionism. Instead, I talk about what I call selective sloppiness. I have spent a lot of time figuring out what I can get away with not doing. I even have a section in The Resilient Gardener that lists lots of things gardeners are frequently told to do that are unnecessary or even counterproductive. Then, of those things that actually do matter, the question is, exactly how sloppy can I be about them and still get the results I want? What is the most appropriate level of sloppiness? What is, if you will, perfect sloppiness? While Im at it, I have to bring up that old adage that goes Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Nonsense! Most things worth doing are not worth doing well. They are only worth doing sloppily. And lots of what most of us spend much of our lives doing is not worth doing at all. Anything not worth doing at all is certainly not worth doing well. Forget perfectionism! Im not perfect. Youre not perfect. The rest of our lives arent perfect. Why should our gardens be? Lets make practical gardens, resilient gardens. And lets manage our resilient gardens with cheerful, unapologetic selective sloppiness. I'm learning to Live Off the Grid in Stages Ever wish you could just unplug from your current hectic life? Maybe quit your stressful job, move to a farm with several acres,build your own solar panels, and spend your remaining time living off the grid. Yeah, me too. The problem is that this type of lifestyle seems so simple, but is terribly difficult to pull off these days. Why? Because we have become slaves to our stuff myself included. We have our houses, our cars, our expensive hobbies, our electronic gadgets, our new furniture, our designer clothes, etc.

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We spend the majority of our lives working to pay for the stuff that keeps us from living a life with more freedom. Along the way we usually manage to accumulate debt buying more stuff than we can afford. So then we spend even more time working to repay the money we borrowed to buy the stuff that we work to pay for in the first place. Whew! Its a vicious cycle. How To Break The Chains of Stuff? So how do we break the cycle? How do we join others who are living off the grid? It isnt easy. I believe the very first step is to stop accumulating stuff. Draw a line in the sand (or on your front porch), and vow not to allow anything else to enter your home unless it is a necessity or improves your quality of life in some way. If something qualifies under those two conditions, you must save for it and pay cash. No more borrowing! The second step is to take a look around your house, and your budget. Are you paying for things that you could really live without? The $40 gym membership, or the $15 Netflix membership, may not seem like much by themselves, but how much of a nest egg would be required just to cover those expenses? The idea is that you can estimate how much of your nest egg would be required to maintain your current expenses. I used Netflix as an example: At roughly $9 a month, our Netflix membership sets us back $108 per year. To continue paying for Netflix out of passive income earning 4% per year, I would need a $2,700 ($10825) savings balance. So I would need to save $2,700 just to cover my monthly $9 Netflix membership. Imagine how much a $500 per month car payment would require? Frightening isnt it? When you think about things from this perspective it makes it a little easier to separate needs from wants. Discover Your Passion The next step in living off the grid is to discover your passion. Ask yourself: If you didnt have to wake up tomorrow morning and work for money, how would you spend your time? Gardening? Fishing? Volunteering? Teaching? Some people enjoy what they do (believe it or not), and wouldnt want to give up their jobs. The rest of us go to work to pay the bills, and look outside of paid employment for self actualization. The point is to figure out what it is you want to do with your life, and figure out how to do that more often. By eliminating bills, downsizing your home, avoiding the accumulation of stuff, etc, you might be able to afford to spend more time working on your passion, instead of your job. Think In Terms of Sustainability The freedom to unplug from the hustle and bustle of our current lives and live off the grid doesnt come without sacrifice. Many choose to give up creature comforts like cable television, an automobile (or two), or even electricity (paid-for energy, that is). Some are able to harness the power of the sun through solar power, or wind, to generate power for their homes. Imagine how nice it would be to lose that utility payment! Wells can supply water, and gardens or small farms may provide a percentage of a familys food source. I feel the need to pause here and add a disclaimer to this email. My tone may have seemed preachy in the lines above. I live in a neighborhood, have no mortgage (gone) and no car payment or education debt, and I have a job, and I was a energy hog when it comes to air conditioning, and I am learning how to produce enough crops to build more than a couple salads.
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I am about as on the grid as one can be. But I have purchased a few acres of land and learning how to build a solar system once I am living on the land. But Im also a daydreamer, and at times when Im lost in my thoughts I think about how nice it would be to get rid of all this stuff and start over. I think about how I raised my kids to be less materialistic. I think about how much I would enjoy devoting more time to gardening, and spending time with my grand kids, and teaching self sufficiency, and building projects around my house. And then I ask myself, why cant I do these things? I know the answer, and I know what needs to happen, mechanically, to get there. Its getting there that is the hard part. Less Stuff Doesnt Equal Happiness Either Most of us would agree that a materialistic life is not a fulfilling one. More clothes, bigger houses, the latest electronic gadgets, newer and flashier cars these things might bring temporary enjoyment, but a life based around acquiring things can feel pretty empty. The reason is simple stuff doesnt equal happiness. So what about the idea that many people have nowadays that less stuff equals happiness? Its really the same mindset carried to the opposite extreme. One group thinks that buying another new thing will make life better one more purchase will make life happier. The other group thinks that ridding themselves of another existing possession will make life better one more act of purging will make life happier. Both groups are putting far too much importance on things. Its possible to be happy living in one room with few possessions or in a mansion filled with the finest of everything. Its also possible to be miserable in both situations. Lasting happiness comes from relationships and spiritual and emotional fulfillment it isnt determined by how much stuff you have, or the process of acquiring it or purging it. The person who has simplified his life isnt happy because he has less stuff he is happy because he has achieved inner peace. There are some very good reasons for purging and decluttering, but compulsive purgers who purge for the purge itself are just as excessively focused on stuff as compulsive shoppers are. And that is not the path to achieving true and lasting simplicity. The Tiny Home Movement I have talked about the Tiny Home Movement in the past, and how a growing number of people are giving up their large homes in search of a simpler way of life. A new documentary from Kirsten Dirksen with Fair Companies, called We the Tiny House People , showcases people who downsized their lives and took an alternative approach to life. The thing that intrigues me about the Tiny Home Movement, is how ordinary everyday people are finally starting to wake up and realize, that they dont need to buy into the modern American Dream. Thats not to say I dont believe in the American Dream, I just think its been warped into some perverse gimmick to convince people they need to go into massive amounts of debt to be happy. In my opinion thats not a dream, it sounds more like a nightmare.
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What True Frugality Is and What It Is Not Have you ever noticed how many of the same people who are trying to promote a simple lifestyle make frugality into a negative concept or how they routinely equate frugality with being cheap or miserly? Somehow frugality has become almost synonymous with deprivation and denial, and understandably, this kind of negative frugality turns most people off. It turns me off too The good news is that true frugality isnt like that. When frugality is based on your own values and what YOU want out of life, it can only be a positive influence. Its also important to remember that true frugality isnt just about spending less money how you choose to spend your time and how you choose to conserve other resources should all be a part of the total equation. True frugality isnt complicated once again, the key is simply finding the balance that is right for you and the way you want to live only this time the balance is about spending, not spending, and saving. True frugality feels amazingly empowering. When you regularly make conscious and deliberate decisions not to waste your hard-earned dollars on things that have little or no value to you, in favor of focusing your resources on what IS important to you, you are taking control of your life. Sensible frugality is the tool that will help you achieve financial freedom and financial freedom will make your dreams and lifestyle choices possible. It really IS as simple as that. You dont need to drastically change your life to start living more frugally. It doesnt matter if you live in an apartment or own your own house if you live in the city or deep in the boonies, if you live alone or have a house full of family it is almost a certainty that there are areas where you can eliminate waste, make more thoughtful decisions and more deliberate choices. Start small be consistent and work toward finding the frugal balance that is the right fit for you. Your life will only get better. Criteria for Choosing a Retreat Locale in the Continental United States (CONUS) by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 12:01am When doing radio interviews or when giving lectures, I'm often asked where the "perfect" place is for a survival retreat. The short answer is: There is none. Granted, there are a lot of places that are much better than others, but there is no single "one size fits all" perfect place. Like buying a pair of boots, the decision has as much to do with the size and shape of the foot as it does the maker of the boots. Everyone has their personal needs and expectations, as well as their own ideas of how a retreat should be configured. (See my Profiles page for many examples that show this diversity.) Some people prefer dry climates while others can't stand them. Some folks like the feeling of privacy provided by a wall of trees where others would feel claustrophobic. Some need the stimulation of exposure to the arts, while others could care less. And some have good health, while others need to live close to medical specialists.

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Even more importantly, before deciding where you might move, you have to weigh the Risks and Benefits of moving at all. From an actuarial standpoint, you might have nearly as good a chance of living to a ripe old age if you stay in the suburbs. It all depends on your personal "worst case scenario". If your envisioned worst case is an economic depression similar to that of the 1930s--with a relatively intact infrastructure--then you might conclude that there is no need to relocate. (You can just "stock up" and stay put where you are.) But if your worst case is a full scale whammy--such as a terrorism campaign that levels cities and/or causes a long term griddown societal collapse, then you will probably want to move to a remote, lightly populated farming region with plentiful water. I'm not in the business of making scenario-based decisions for people. Those decisions are up to you, as an individual. Once you decide that you definitely want to move, then, yes, I certainly have some good suggestions on potential locales for you. As a Christian, I believe that any major decision should be preceded by prayer. Seek God's providence for your life. You can only do that if you have repented of you sin and have begun a Christian walk. In deference to the nature of this forum and the wide range of views held by my readers, I won't go into great detail about this. But you know where I stand. Deciding exactly where to relocate is not an exact science. You can gauge the potential threat and plan accordingly. But you can never be sure what will happen and where you will truly be safe. But you can sleep well, knowing that at least your percentage chances will be higher if you make the move. There is an apocryphal story about a man who was living in Virginia in the late 1850s. He could see the U.S. Civil War brewing, and he wanted no part of it. He realized that his native Virginia was likely to be heavily contested territory, so he set about finding the safest place possible where he could shelter his family during the coming war. After much searching and deliberation he finally found a peaceful place that was far, far away from where the anticipated the battles would occur. He moved his family up to Pennsylvania--a little farming town called Gettysburg. Basic Criteria Once you have selected a potential region to concentrate on, select an experienced local real estate agent. Odds are that you wont be able to find one that specializes in retreat properties. So it may take a while and a few false starts before your agent starts showing you the right type of properties. The following is a basic criteria list that you can give a real estate agent. (Tailor to suit your particular needs): Plentiful water--preferably spring fed or an artesian well. (Pumped well water would be an inferior second choice.) Good exposure for gardening and photovoltaics. Not on a flood plain and in aregion with minimal natural disaster risks. (See this map: Where to Live to Avoid a Natural Disaster.) Southern exposure (for those reader in the northern hemisphere, naturlich)--particularly important at higher elevations "Panoramic views. This usually means a hilltop location with open fields of fire and defendable terrain. The concept of holding high ground goes back to prehistory. Yes, I know, that this is mutually exclusive with the concept of having a house that is not

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in line of sight of any major road. TANSTAAFL. Decide on one or the other. But don't buy a place that has neither attribute. A diverse and healthy local economy. (See the City Data web site to do your reserch on demographic information.) Minimal noxious weeds. (Russian Thistle, Teasel, Russian Knapweed, Yellow Star Thistle, etc.) Not in the path of real estate developers. Look at where suburban developments have been established in the county. Suburban tracts tend to follow a line of march in certain directions especially where there is level terrain. Note that in most regions row crop farmland and orchard land is at the greatest risk because it is easy to subdivide. Put on your thinking cap and do some extrapolation. If your intended area is in the path of the sprawl within 10 to 15 years then start looking in a different direction in less advantageous terrain, or a little further out of town. If it has an existing house, a house with fireproof/ballistically-protected (e.g. masonry) construction. Note: If it is also in an earthquake prone area, you might weigh the odds in this regard and opt instead for more earthquake safe timber-frame construction. Low housing costs. As discussed in detail in some of my previous blog posts, dont overlook examining as many factors as possible including home and car insurance rates, property taxes, and so forth. This useful Internet tool compares cost of living in two cities. An active, growing farmer's market. I have found directories of Farmer's Markets posted on the web for Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. The presence of farmer's markets is a good indicator for towns with retreat potential. Furthermore, in a post-collapse America, it will likely be the farmer's markets that will be the genesis of a revived economy. Not near any nuclear power plants. My personal preference is to select a retreat in a mixed farming/ranching/timber region in lowhumidity area of one of the American Redoubt states. I generally discourage folks from living in coastal regions for health reasons, risk of tidal waves or hurricanes, oil tanker mishaps, visits by foreign terrorists, and the outside chance of dramatically rising or falling sea levels in the event of a climate shift. I also discourage relocating to anywhere within 150 miles of the Mexican border. (Note: I'm not a racist--just a realist. The crime rate is higher near the border, and in the event of civil war in Mexico or any number of variations on TEOTWAWKI there could be a huge influx of illegal immigrants.) Urban Gardening: You Can Grow Food, No Matter Where You Live by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, November 22, 2011 at 4:04pm Gardening is regaining popularity as a pastime for all types of people across the world, with gardens popping up in the most unexpected places. While the traditional image of a garden may not exactly fit into the reality of most urban environments, the fact is you can grow your own food whether you live on a rural farm or in a tiny Manhattan apartment. Urban gardening is all about using space wisely to regain a closer connection with your food and beautify your home or neighborhood.

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There are a handful of different types of urban gardens, and the ones were going to focus on here are indoor gardening, container gardening, community gardening and guerilla gardening. Perhaps youve got a tiny townhouse yard, a balcony, a south-facing window or perhaps you live in a basement apartment that wont support anything but mold. You can still grow enough of your own food to save a considerable amount of money and enjoy the freshest, healthiest produce possible. Container Gardening Growing Food on a Small Scale

Off-Grid Rural Land is Gaining Popularity by Sovereign Marta on Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 2:03pm The number of people who are contemplating relocating to rural areas so they can live off-grid is increasing. I have received enough phone calls from people searching for off-grid properties in the past few months to prompt me to look into what these buyers are searching for. This article highlights some of the characteristics that are appealing to off-grid land buyers. Before you read the list below, please allow me to say that prospective buyers for off-grid properties are often unfairly stereotyped as being anti-government, alarmists, militia members, and conspiracists. There is certainly an assemblage of people living off-grid that fit that description, but there are also a number of families that want to get back to the land and lead a more sustainable, environmentally-conscious lifestyle. One of our agents sold an 80 acre parcel that joined the Talladega National Forest to a man that wanted to build a yurt and farm and hunt his land. I mention the motivations of some of these buyers so that land agents and brokers do not dismiss a buyer because of a pre-conceived notion about a prospective customer. 1. Distance from a big city. Many of these buyers like the idea of being far enough away from big cities to prevent people from easily walking to their land, but also want to be close enough to enjoy some of the amenities the big city offers like shopping, restaurants, and quality medical care. There is a train of thought that reasons if there is a mass exodus from the larger cities, then you should own land that is not easily accessible by throngs of people looking for food and shelter. Marion, Alabama, where I live, is 25 miles to the closest Super Wal-Mart, so I am already in the small number (10%) of Americans that are over 15 miles from a Wal-Mart. I appreciate the sentiment that a little geography is a better buffer between neighbors than a 6-foot privacy fence. Rural areas that are 60 to 100 miles from a larger city are going to be appealing to off-grid buyers.
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2. Water source. To be off-grid, land needs to have access to a reliable source of fresh water. Alabama is blessed with numerous rivers, streams, creeks, lakes, aquifers, and ponds. This type property requires the ability to drill a private well or utilize an existing spring or creek to bring water to the home. Additionally, the land will need to pass a percolation test and be permitted by the County Health Department to ensure that the soils allow for the septic system to function properly and remain sanitary. 3. Agriculture/Gardening. Off-grid buyers are often interested in growing their own livestock, keeping a garden, planting an orchard, raising poultry and farming fish on their land. Locating a property with fertile soils and a long growing cycle are important for increasing the prospect that a farm can be more self-sufficient. 4. Joining National Forest or Wildlife Areas. I personally believe, that Good Forests Make Good Neighbors. Owning land that borders large tracts of government or privately-owned is desirable because it limits who will be moving in next door. Many of these forests are open to public hunting and use, so finding a property that joins an out-of-the-way corner of the forest helps limit the number of hunters you will see and increases the amount of usable land youll have. 5. Minimal Building and Zoning Restrictions. Buyers are looking for areas where they can build energy-efficient or unconventional dwellings and use atypical materials if they desire. I mentioned earlier a man that wanted to construct a yurt, and there are some people in Hale County, Alabama that have used old blue jeans and earth to fashion a home. In addition to exotic home construction, it is also appealing to be able to erect a HAM radio tower, have a wind turbine, water wheel, or other structures that are limited in urban areas. 6. Energy Sources. One primary consideration would obviously include energy-generating potential from solar, wind, mini-hydro, and geothermal opportunities. In order to be off-grid and self-sustaining a property must afford the owners a reliable and efficient method of creating power that can be harnessed to supply whatever appliances they must use. Other considerations for off-grid property would be the availability of satellite internet and telephone, rural land prices, annual property taxes, hunting restrictions, firearm freedoms, road maintenance (if heavy snows restrict use), and other features that allow owners to be selfsustaining. It appears that the market for off-grid rural land is going to continue growing over the next few years, and is a segment that rural land brokerages and agents should probably pay attention to.

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HOW TO BUILD SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES by Sovereign Marta on Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 12:53pm This is a guest post I wrote for the Online Community Report. Ilove my community. Whether Im talking about my role at NetSquared, my blog, or my network of friends, I am inspired every day and find value in, and rewards for, my participation. Regardless of whether I feel like, or am trying to be, a community builder, the community always provides opportunities for others to join me. These spaces are built on distributed power and that makes the community a moving, growing, living thing that I am a part of, rather than a weight, trouble, or burden that Im responsible for. But, it aint easy. Being a Community Builder (I refuse, on principle, to use the word Manager) is a lot of work. So, how do you do it without losing sleep or sanity? Heres my 33 to Sustainable Community Building. 1. There are no shortcuts Lead by example Interact, use tools, and create and share content the way you want your community members to do so. Seeing you leave a comment, or share a resource, will model the desired behavior so others can see what to do (especially if they are new to social media or new to your community) and how to do it (especially if they are new to your tool or platform). Operate in public When it comes to administrator or moderator activity, always conduct it in public unless it requires or involves personal information. Dont send a private welcome message do it in public so others can benefit (they too can see, join in, and find someone new)! Dont remove or edit contributions, but leave a comment to suggest how they can be improved. If theres offensive or inappropriate behavior, note it in public so others can learn whats OK and what isnt, and feel empowered to help moderate as a community. Ask for feedback and help Asking for help or ideas means that 1.) you trust the community, 2.) you know that your community is valuable and smart, and 3.) you are interested in collaborating (not dictating). Dont be shy about it post blog entries or conversation starters, share your own feedback (operate in public), and provide places for the community to share ideas or feedback at any time (not just on specific ideas or proposals).

2. Know your community Let the community know itself Working in networks means that the center (thats you) is no better than any of the other parts. You dont have all the answers, all the information, all the best jokes. So, help your community know its self. Messages shouldnt just be about you, stories shouldnt just be about you. Find
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content and value from the community that you can help put the spotlight on; find stories and change-makers from the community that you can support. Make connections and introductions. Know your role Knowing your community means figuring out what they need from you, how they need your help, how they need you to help them to succeed. Some communities may need a manager to help keep everything moving along, and others may need an operator to make connections and recommendations. Some communities need a friend to share ideas and honest feedback, others may need a champion that can help push ideas and opportunities forward. Find your role (by asking for feedback and help!) and take pride in operating the way your community needs. Help it grow Part of knowing your community means recognizing when it needs new blood, a fresh wind, or a change of pace. That doesnt always mean just one or the other. New blood = new members. If this is the case then help the community to promote itself and attract others interested in participating. Fresh wind = new topics or ideas. Sometimes, conversation can grow stagnant and ideas can fail to materialize into projects. It is your role to help find new inspiration. Change of pace = new way of operating. This may mean that the community has outgrown its facebook group and needs someone (you) to help move it onto the next platform/space where it can do more. You may need to be the one willing to say what everyones thinking and take on the task of making change. 3. Strive to be replaced Encourage interaction without you The goal of operating in public and leading by example is to enable the community to know how to operate without you. There can be interaction and exchange without your permission. There can be conversation without your moderation. Encourage the community to take control by giving them the responsibility and opportunity to do so. Reward and spotlight leaders Your goal should be to be replaced by other community members, as this means that youve created something so valuable, with members so dedicated to it, that they are willing to steer the ship and man the sails themselves. To begin nurturing those who may become the captains, start highlighting members who are contributing value. Shine the spotlight on those taking on extra responsibility. Operate in public by thanking them for their work in a way thats visible to the whole community. Share your toolbox Theres no way that the community can take responsibility and contribute equally with you if you hold the key to a hidden set of tools. Open up all functionality to anyone who has proven their elevated role in the group. Share resources like strategies, best practices, and examples with the community so everyone can learn and contribute at the level you do. By sharing resources, youll probably find that the community has some to share back that will make your work even better, too! But remember: all communities are unique, just like the members who comprise them. You cant expect every group to operate the same way as others, or for one successful example to hold true in another setting. Communities are made up of people and the best approach you can
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have is to remain human. Organizations are buildings: they arent any fun, they arent very conversational, and theyre often made of neutral colors. Youre a human: youre passionate, youre interesting, and you have something to say. So even if you have different tools, different ideas, and different goals from one community to the next throughout your work, remember to stay human. For more on my experience with community building, read Online Community Building: Gardening vs Landscaping. To get the original post on the Online Community Report, click here. LAND LEASE COLORADO LAND BY OWNER by Sovereign Marta on Monday, January 30, 2012 at 4:46pm ______________________________________________________________________________ EMAIL TO SOVEREIGN MARTA Subject: Re: Free land to those who want to live sustainably From: Meadowlark Colorado Date: Tue, January 17, 2012 5:55 am Dear Marta, The article on fox is what I believe you saw, and it was somewhat confusing. We are a co-op, and membership in the co-op allows you group-ownership of the land, which is then leased-back to the members and non-members of Meadowlark. The rent, which are set by the members, amount to a total of $0.10 per meter per year (about $33 per acre per month) and your share of utilities (if you use them). These offset real costs of the co-op. Whether you use your land sustainably or not is your choice, and you don't have to be a member of the co-op to lease land. We do require organic compliance so that all leaseholders can apply for organic status with the USDA if they desire. We also have a prohibition on marijuana, whether for recreational or medicinal use. Animals need to be compassionately treated, with food, water and shelter provided every day. if you wish to conform to the laws of the land, and the democratic will of your neighbors (which you can participate in as an equal), and pay your fees on time like all other members, especially your utility bill, you are very welcome here. Here, you'll find that even pagans and catholics and jews and buddhists and christians all get along just fine, and no matter your personal beliefs, if you are a woman of your word, you can keep the trust of your neighbors. If you are still interested, please do not hesitate but do call, and I can show you what land is left, and it can be yours today. Aaron Brachfeld President, Meadowlark 720-295-5275 DENVER - With 60 acres of donated land, a couple from Arvada has started the Meadowlark Cooperative and they're giving away parcels of property for free.

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Aaron Brachfeld and Mary Choate say with job loss and widespread foreclosures, this future town could be the answer to freedom for a lot of people. "When customers are having a hard time paying rent and are losing their homes and are going out on the street," said Aaron Brachfeld, Vice-President of Meadowlark Cooperative. "I feel an obligation to make sure they can make a place to stay and build a new home." "I like the animals; I like the space," said Ashley Stephens who moved to Meadowlark from California with her husband. "I don't like the city." She's raising roosters and other animals on her free land. They got their animals for free on Craigslist and have built a temporary home out of otherwisewasted wooden pallets. "I love it," said Stephens. "The fact that I'm not working for anybody else. That I'm working for me." It's located a few miles south of I-70 and Agate, Colorado. Brachfeld and Choate have been working on the "plan" for more than 2 years and people started moving there 2 months ago. They farmed land in Arvada for many years and now teach people how to farm. They are authors of several farming and agriculture books. "All I have to do is sign my name and I get a free parcel of land, no money?" asked FOX31 News reporter Sari Padorr. "No money," replied Brachfeld. "We don't do a background check. We don't ask criminal history. We don't ask what religion you are. We don't ask what you intend to do. We don't even ask what species you are." But you do have to pay for the house you build on the free land and also agree to join the Co-op. That means once a month, you either share your crop or share a small percentage of your earnings. And you don't have to farm the land if you don't want to. "You can make, sell and trade widgets if you want to," said Brachfeld. If you do farm and it takes a couple of years for your crops to come in, you don't pay your share until then. That monthly money will go toward turning Meadowlark into a town that has a school, library, general store and its own doctor. There are some rules and regulations that have been put together by its members and overseen by a lawyer, but if you don't like them, as a member you can change them.
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By a vote of course, which could be held by members voting through text messaging. "It's freedom," said Brachfeld. "It's what you need to do, it's what you want to do, and it's what you can afford to do." For more information, contact Meadowlark Vice-President Aaron Brachfeld at meadowlarkcolorado@gmail.com or call 720-295-LARK(5275). The official website is not active yet.

Cost for Building Straw Bail Homes $7000 by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 6:40pm The first little pig built his house out of straw because it was the easiest thing to do. The second little pig built his house out of sticks. This was a little bit stronger than a straw house. The third little pig built his house out of bricks (The Three Little Pigs) Now the first little piggys house is coming back into style with a new eco-trend to make homes based on straw. The straw bales, not only provide structural integrity to the walls, but also functions as an all-natural insulation. Straw comes from grain. Grain turned into hay is harvested food feed keeping the seeds in tact to be used for animal feed. (Thus why your friends may correct your Hey and tell you Hay is for horses). Straw is a disposable material; it is often burned with the fields. Instead of adding to the black smoke, which often clouds farming communities for weeks during burn season, some innovative contractors are using the raw material to build homes with. Since its disposable, the cost of straw is low, and you could get a 480 square foot home for less that $10,000. Here are a list of things I found on Solarhaven.org, they would be good to run through before you gather up any bales: 1 - are willing if not eager to live simply 2 do most of the work yourself 3 use recycled materials whenever possible (and do lots of scrounging) 4 twist a few friends arms to help you once in awhile (free pizza works everytime) 5 price shop around for the best deals on all materials, especially the expensive items like solar panels, composting toilet, and metal roofing prices vary a great deal 6 stick to the simple design features below fancier roofs or a concrete foundation, for example, really add to the cost 7 can build your starter straw bale without having to permit it (more on this later) Whilst researching straw bale construction I found that there was a large misconception in the bale construction community. Alex Morrison, a straw bale construction expert cleared up the
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confusion on his site (strawbale.com). You may read about houses being made out of hay bales, even those building the homes themselves may say this. So what is the difference between hay and straw? Straw is just the stalk of the grain, whereas hay contains the seed and grain. But they both look the same right? Right. So why shouldnt you use hay for your house, because if you do you may find grass growing from your walls, and the seeds will attract critters. A straw bale home easily traps heat and utilizes natural solar energy, supplementary heating costs are generally low, depending on climate. Estimated budget of a straw bale home; according to Solarhaven.org: Straw Bale House: - Gravel for foundation $100 - Polyethylene bags and barbed-wire for earth bags $60 - 120 construction grade straw bales @ $4.50 each $540 - Bamboo for external pinning $50 - Galvanized R-profile metal sheeting for roof (new) $800 - Screws with polypropolyne washers $40 - Guttering materials for the rain water catchment system $100 - 3 thin-wall pipe and connectors $40 - Some wood for window and door bucks which can not be scrounged $100 - Material for external strapping $100 - Two 6 sliding-glass patio doors (used) $150 - Eight single-pane windows (used) $200 - Window caulking tubes $75 - Used sink $30 - Lime and high-clay content soil for adobe/line plaster $300 - Washed sand $100 - How could I have forgotten that? $500 - Subtotal = $3450 Utilities: - Composting toilet $1200 - Two 100 watt PV panels $900 - Three deep-cycle lead-acid batteries (refurbished) $150 - 300 watt DC-AC sinewave inverter $150 - Battery cables, connectors, wire, and 12 volt lights $250 - Solar hot water unit $700 - Wood-burning stove (used) $150 - Pipe and roof sleeve $50 - Subtotal = $3550 Total Expenses for House and Utilities: $7000 (under the conditions outlined at Solarhaven.org) The straw bale home is ideal for the do-it-yourselfer, the person who wants to be one with the earth and reduce his/her imprint on it. Online there is a bunch of information that can take you step by step through the design/ construction process.

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How to Build an Affordable Eco-Friendly Home by Sovereign Marta on Friday, February 10, 2012 at 8:17pm Natural Building: Description: Using natural building materials lowers the cost of construction, enabling anyone to build and afford their own eco-friendly home. Natural building materials such as earth, stone and straw are sustainable, safe, nontoxic, easy to work with, and only require minimal tools and basic skills. This article examines earthbag building -- a low-cost, low-tech way of building with earth that is rapidly gaining in popularity. There are dozens of building methods and design techniques that enable virtually anyone to build their dream home at rock-bottom prices. The solution lies in natural building - using locally available, low-impact materials such as earth, stone, straw and small diameter wood, in conjunction with timeless vernacular building methods. Our grandparents didn't need a quarter million dollar bank loan to build their house. Instead, they used time-tested skills passed down from generation to generation. They learned what materials and designs worked best in each climate through many years of experience. Much of this knowhow got brushed aside in the post-WWII building boom, but the good news is these skills haven't been lost. Countless thousands of owner-builders have made the switch and are now living in comfortable, beautiful, nontoxic homes built of natural materials, and you can too. And thanks to the Internet, information on these skills is just a click away (and usually free). Natural materials have been the number one preference of homebuilders since the beginning of human history. But look at the junk that's being foisted on us today: plastic coated particleboard cabinets, fiberboard, vinyl siding, sheetrock (paper covered chalk), synthetic carpet, cheap furniture that falls apart in a couple years. Virtually all of which off-gas toxic materials into your home for years, mold and burn like crazy in a fire. And the bank wants you to work for 30 years for the 'privilege' of living in one of these soulless boxes. The reason I love working with natural materials is because there are so many benefits. First of all, most of the materials are dirt cheap: sand from nearby streams or river beds, straw bales from local farmers, clay free for the digging and so on. A thrifty do-it-yourselfer can scrounge a large part of what they need from construction sites and yard sales. And as far as beauty, there's no comparison. A home built of natural materials is more like a work of art that's personalized to match your lifestyle and needs.

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Although there are many different natural building methods, let's take a closer look at earthbag building. Originally developed by the military for bullet and blast resistant structures, modern builders are using the same basic process of filling and stacking bags to build homes, shops, offices, schools and more. Earthbag houses are unsurpassed for their low cost and simplicity of construction. An average person can learn each step of construction in a minute or so just by being shown. It really is that simple, no kidding. No expensive machinery is needed and most people already have the basic tools required around their home - shovels, buckets, garden hose. And earthbag houses can look anyway you like, including roundhouses, domes, curved walls, hexagonal, rectangular, you name it. Here's an overview of one example to show what's possible. A small home like this can be built for under $5,000: * Gravel-filled earthbag foundation: The first few courses of bags are filled with gravel to prevent moisture wicking up in the walls. Place the bags on top of a gravel-filled trench to drain water away. * Earthbag walls: Most people use soil from or near the building site. In cold climates you can use insulation in the bags such as volcanic rock, perlite, etc. to create a superinsulated wall. All you have to do is fill the bags, stack them end to end in level courses and tamp until solid. One or two strands of barbed wire between courses add tensile strength and help hold the bags together. * Add recycled windows, doors, old pipes for vents, sinks, etc. You can use barrels or tires to form arched openings. Bottles embedded in walls add a splash of color and some extra light. * Roof: You can build a dome and eliminate use of wood altogether. You also can recycle lumber from construction sites, or gather it from local forests (my favorite). Done correctly, this actually improves the health of the forest and reduces risk of forest fires. A metal roof is a good choice for capturing rainwater. Add plenty of ceiling insulation to keep the home comfortable. Rice hulls and cellulose are two good choices. * Earth plaster and floors: With wide roof overhangs of 3 feet or so to protect walls, earth plaster is the way to go. Wraparound porches are even better. Earth is safe, easy to work with, beautiful and usually available free or at low cost for truck deliveries. Earthen floors are becoming trendy in expensive homes, partly as a fad and partly because they are resilient underfoot and look great. They look like leather once sealed. Earth floors can last hundreds of years or longer with proper maintenance and, like most of the ideas presented here, are dirt-cheap. * And be sure to incorporate solar design into every aspect of the home for comfort and energy savings. You can capture the sun's energy to heat and cool your home, enhance daylighting, heat your water and even cook your food with a solar oven.

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Dome Homes-Letter From: Kevin McGuckinThe Inn Place at Brenham, Texas by Sovereign Marta on Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 6:54pm On a stretch of Interstate 35, in Central Texas between Waco and Waxahachie, is an enormous caterpillar. The curious stop to explore and come across Monolithic Dome Village. The caterpillar is a manufacturing warehouse; there are dome offices, dome storage buildings and upwards of 60 domes rented out as single person dwellings. I was informed that these buildings are green in every way. They will withstand winds of 450 miles an hour (FEMA rates them as near absolute protection), they are environmentally friendly and have an R value of 60. Their lifespan is measured in centuries, they dont burn, or rot, or get eaten by termites. I decided to sign up for the workshop that Monolithic offers to learn how to build them. Like most people who take the workshop I was hoping to learn how to build a dome for our future home. But I also wanted a career change and a more secure retirement program and had considered buying old houses for rentals as a way to ease into retirement. During the course David South stressed again and again how important it was for every community to have affordable housing for the working people of the area and encouraged each of us to return home and build some rental domes to rent to working people with modest income. He had the complete story of the demographics supporting this type of housing for this type of renter and the financial facts to back up every step of how to make this a successful project. I took the bait. After completing the course it took a while to get things rolling. First there was the land that had to be purchased. There were two main requirements: accessibility and public water. Then I had to establish a relationship with a bank. My local bank couldnt handle the concept so I had to pound the pavement until I found a bank with a broader outlook. The branch manager was receptive to the plan, but wanted a nicer package to present to the loan committee. He sent me to the local Small Business Development Center at Blinn Junior College. They were intrigued by the concept as well and started to put together a business plan to take to the bank. But they werent satisfied to use Monolithics demographic figures and did studies on our county, and discovered that the figures were exactly the same for this area. Brenham has a population of about 15,000. They picked apart all the costs and projections and concluded that this was a great project. I got the loan. Building commenced at the beginning of the summer of 2006. The buildings are 20 feet in diameter giving a living space of 314 square feet. There are windows front and back and a front door (top half is glass) which permits plenty of light to enter. Inside the dome is one wall that divides the bathroom from the studio area. We provide a bed, two chairs, table, full size fridge, microwave and window blinds. The folks at Monolithic can be hired to help as much or as little with the construction, as desired. My plan was to do it myself with my own crew and that would have worked had I not contracted shingles in the eye and face and was obliged to quit in the middle of construction. Monolithic came down and saved the day by completing the first eight shells for me.

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Construction continued once I recovered but with all construction nothing ever goes totally as planned. We had our share of hiccups but overall the domes got built and were rented as soon as completed and for the first year of operation we have had 99% occupancy. Phase II consists of eight more domes, four which I began renting in January 2008. The others should be ready to rent any day. I made some small internal design changes in these domes as I learn what works better, but overall the design provided by Monolithic would be hard to beat. I have been making my living in the wholesale nursery business and I cant stress how much a good landscape job improves the looks of the whole property. As soon as we have these next four finished, I expect to get the financing to carry on and build sixteen more. The whole project has been a complete success for me and I would encourage everyone who is involved with domes to replicate Monolithics concept in their community. I took the bait, but discovered there wasnt a hook!" The Inn Place Kevin McGuckin & Hannah Mallon 776 Hohenwalde School Road Brenham, TX 77833 979-289-5174 innplacebrenham@gmail.com

HOW TO LIVE OFF-GRID SUCCESSFULLY by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 7:58pm If you have been wondering how to live off grid , is it really possible , and can I do it, the quick answer to all of these questions is, "Yes!". The long answer is still yes, just with a lot more things to take into consideration. Living off grid will take a commitment of time, resources, and determination. You will really need to believe in what you are doing, have a vision for it, and want to make it work despite the obstacles that will plague you. Living Off Grid Takes Practice Living off grid is not the easiest way to live. Until you do it you don't even know the things that you are going to have to give up. The big things are easy to figure out: Refrigerators Heating systems Television Kitchen Appliances There are other things that many people don't think about until they are actually in the midst of it.
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Tools Hair dryers Clock radios Washing machines PDAs Can openers Coffee makers

There are a myriad of small electronics that people use daily that may not work with your new lifestyle. It isn't that they are necessary objects, they are conveniences. Yet, for many of us, convenience gives us the foundation of our lives. If you are still thinking of living off grid then there are a few decisions to be made. Where To Live Off-Grid

When you go off grid are you going to do it in your current home? Will you need to move? Will you choose to build a new home or restore an old one? What part of the country will you choose?

Knowing how to live off-grid in different environments will help you to make the choice that is best for you. Going Off Grid Where You Live Now You might think that those questions are secondary but they are not. It is entirely possible to go off grid right where you live, if you own your own home. In fact you can begin learning how to live off grid today. Solar panels can be added. Circuits can be turned off. Water can be discontinued and wells can be dug. Research should be done into alternative forms of energy, appliances, and different ways to run a household when standard energy isn't being used. It is harder to move off grid in a subdivision but it can be done, depending on your homeowner's association and local policies. Moving to a New Location If you are planning to move then take the time to consider your needs, desires, and the various benefits and negatives of different parts of the country. For example, in Texas where I live the benefit is apparent. The winters are basically mild. While we do get cold snaps they are interspersed with warmer weather. There are a total of three growing seasons. It doesn't take a whole lot to stay warm in the winter if you can handle 50 to 60 degrees. On the other hand we can go two to three months in the summer with out a drop of rain. This means that you will be hand carrying water to your garden. Summers are hot. Living without air conditioning when it is 110 outside is challenging, at least until you get used to it. If you are going to make a move then you should consider areas where there are not extremes of temperature or of rainfall. Things to Consider The other important thing to consider is the locality.
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Will you continue to work at a job? If so how long will your commute be? How far can you afford to live from the place that you work? Is the location you are looking at economically sound? Will you have access to groceries, church, gasoline, medical care?

All of these questions will need to be researched and answered before you begin to look at moving to a new location.

Going Green; DIY Solar Power! by Sovereign Marta on Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 8:09pm When beginning a solar energy DIY home conversions project, one question many people have before they start is: What will I need to complete the conversion? Of course before you start with anything, you should get a good DIY solar guide, and youll be walked step by step through the process of setting up your solar energy solution. Aside from that though, lets cover the basics of what youll need to go solar! There are 7 main components youll need when wiring up a solar energy solution for your home. It should be noted here that were talking about converting a home, and not just creating portable solar energy solution (in which case youll only need 4 components). Convert Your Home Today: Before you install your home energy solution, youll need the following components. These are listed in the order they will be wired into your solar energy system. 1. Solar Panels In most DIY applications these will be built by you. You order discount photovoltaic cells, and assemble those into 50W, 75W, or 100W Panels. 2. Array DC Disconnect This simple device is basically just a switch. It allows you to cut the DC power from your solar panels should system maintenance be required. If you shop around youll likely pay less than $25 for this component. 3. Charge Controller Most home systems will be built with a battery backup. The charge controller ensures that a consistent amount of power is sent to the batteries, and that the batteries dont discharge at night. Again, if you shop around for this component, it wont be a large expense. 4. Deep Cycle Batteries To store the power from your solar panels, you will need deep cycle batteries. If you find reconditioned batteries, these can be obtained for fairly cheap. Better yet, you can get old batteries for free and recondition them yourself. 5. System Meter This component is actually optional, but it is suggested so that you have a clear way to see how much power is being fed into your home from the solar panels. 6. Converter Since your solar panels produce DC power, and your home runs on AC power, the converter makes the solar energy usable by your home. A 1500W converter likely wont cost you more than $50.

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7. Backup Power Most systems will also include some sort of backup power. In an off grid application this would generally be a generator. In a city or town, the power grid itself provides the backup. From there the system gets wired into your home breaker box. At this stage, unless you are qualified, you might consider getting a qualified electrician to install the system. At any rate, you now have an idea of what will be needed to get your home running on solar energy. If you havent done so yet, you should also consider downloading a copy of one of the top guides to teach solar panel DIY. Doing so will ensure you have all of the information you need to get the conversion finished right the first time!

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