The pigs are at the Sanford trough

There has been a media firestorm surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin, the 17 year old tragically killed in Florida last month. Martin, who was unarmed and black, was returning home from a 7-Eleven when he was gunned down by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, who is half Spanish and half white, had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. 

Photo from: AP

  

The tragic death of Martin is undeniable. A young man cut down before even reaching the age of adulthood by the hand of an adult, is a tragedy that has a unique sting to it. Anytime a child or teenager is raped or murdered by an adult; it always cuts deeper and this is no exception.  

Now, much of this case is still pending but it appears this was a murder and if it was race motivated or not, is anyone’s guess at this point. The only person that could answer that for certain is Zimmerman and Zimmerman only. If it is in fact a hate crime, then Zimmerman wouldn’t be the first or the last white man to kill a black male. Just as there will be black males who kill white males. 

The motives for individuals involving any violent act have to be taken at a case by case basis. There is crime and murder everyday involving all races in a variety of ways and this will continue happening everyday, until the day every man exists this earth. In fact, the more the population grows, the more tragedies there will be, it's just simple math.

What is interesting to this author, is the relevance of this situation in terms of race and the charge of racism. How often do we look and say that these events that take place so often daily are racially motivated? And if they were, then it would be a racist committing a murder. There is nothing you can do to stop these events from happening; it’s up to each of us individually to do so. 

Racism and terrorism is the necessary evils of a free and open society, it's consequences we have to live with. We don’t have to like it, but it's individual responsibility that will keep them at a minimum, not exclusion and division; they only fuel the fires of the very same things they are against.

However, don’t tell that to those people who make a living off division, collectivism and race baiting that bit; it wouldn’t fit their agenda. And wouldn’t you know it, as soon as this tragedy started to simmer towards a boiling point across the country, the usual suspects had arrived (well at least half anyway) all feasting on this tragedy like pigs at a trough. Under a guise of racial justice, you can’t help but notice the stench of wicked self promotion, racism and cynicism trailing their every move, like freshly flattened skunk; beneath a tire on the road to collectivism.

Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson Sr have become synonymous, if not the face of every national crime, injustice, slandering etc etc involving a black victim and a white perpetrator or instigator, for the last forty years. Both of their entire careers and livelihood, have been made possible by racism, and the dividing of people based on race and creed. But above all, the creation of national headlines based on isolated incidents, is where their pockets get lined in emerald.

I could understand the national outcry if we were seeing an influx of murders like this happening everywhere but that isn't the case. We live in a country of 300+ million; it’s statistically unavoidable to not have incidents like this happen. Even if this case was involving the grand wizard/master of the KKK, it’s still an isolated incident. One person killing another person isn’t indicative of anything broad or sweeping.

In this case, we have a potential racist who uses self defense and felt his life was in danger even though the kid was unarmed while Zimmerman was. Zimmerman felt fear for his life even as he was following the young man. Pretty damning to me and he should be tried and/or punished accordingly. You also have the police department who didn’t arrest Zimmerman or at the very least detain him for questioning. This is also worth an investigation from local or state authorities. But how this is a national story is beyond me.

Even our own President’s Press Secretary,  Carney said as much earlier this week:

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Trayvon Martin’s family but obviously, we’re not going to wade into a local law-enforcement matter.”

But that didn’t last long, as we all know by now. The president, true to his populist DNA, flipped the script and appeased to those calling for justice when the media began to run with this story. By doing so he did the exact opposite of what he said (and it was the right thing to do then and now) just days earlier, he waded into it. And why wouldn’t he? A populist running for re-election following the breeze of the assembling masses? Surprise…surprise. Titus Livius said it best:

The populace is like the sea motionless in itself, but stirred by every wind, even the lightest breeze.

Mr. Livius, I would like you to meet our President of the United States, Barack Obama; he is the Pacific Ocean in terms of populace seas. Our President however isn’t a race baiter, he isn’t out to divide anyone more so than any politician is by political nature. Al Sharpton however does not share that trait with our President. These were his quotes this week concerning this tragedy speaking at a rally in Sanford, Florida. Notice the vast amounts of pronouns and the context and which how they are used.

 

“Violence is killing Tray Martin, on’t act like we are the ones [who are] violent. We didn’t shoot nobody.”

“I want our people to understand that how you behave is going to be a reflection on this case”

“[No matter] how angry we get, don’t let them make you act in a way that they will say, ‘see, that’s what to think with Trayvon.’”

“We are going to act intelligent, we going to act dignified. And, we’re going to be determined. We may be angry, but we’re not mad dogs. We’re too smart to fall for [that].”

This is deliberate, divisive language. This is man who’s made a career of divisiveness. Outside of working as James Brown’s manager (that must have been pretty cool to be honest) for a brief stint, what has he done to create anything or provide a service before getting his own show on MSNBC? He’s been a preacher at some point just like Jesse Jackson was and just like Jesse Jackson, he has only made a living creating movements and rallying around isolated incidents to gain national exposure for his own personal gains.

Al Sharpton has appeared on numerous television shows, has tax fines from the IRS and leans, been fined by the FEC for breaking campaign finance rules – the man is opportunist, and a hot mess of greed, corruption and exploitation. I would call him the biggest leech and scourge on the black community but that distinction belongs to Jesse Jackson. Jesse Jackson hasn’t made the trip to Florida from what I have heard as of yet, but he did offer up this tidbit:

"Blacks are under attack." 

From whom you might ask? “Big Business” is according to Jackson. 

Blacks are under attack, indeed. But the attacks are coming from within, under a masquerade of outrage while concealing the truth that is self promotion via division and sensationalism. After all, if we eliminate racism what would that do in terms of job security for these two? Jesse's on a roll, apparently it is big business that is responsible. Exploitation is big business (just ask MSNBC and Al Sharpton) because it's always turning profits; to bad that there is a victim and family in mourning to make this happen.

Hyperinflation, the end game or will it be crippling interest? Choose your side.

Recently I saw an interview done with Kyle Bass, which was done in early November as a part of AmeriCatalyst 2011. The interview was over an hour in but if you start at the 46-minute mark, I assure you will be glad you did as it will lead you to the same conclusion that I came to and its one I want to address today. That is concerning the Keynesian debt system and interest payments on the debt. 

Kyle Bass, who founded Hayman Capital in 2006, made a fortune betting against the sub-prime mortgage bond market. Yes, that same bond market that was at the forefront of the great meltdown in 2008-present. You can also find Bass’s surging rise to the top in Michael Lewis’s book 'Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour'.

Towards the latter part of this interview, Mr Bass says that if the FED raises the interest rates, for every 1% point moved higher it will “create an additional 140 billion in interest expenses”. That got me thinking.

The FED is already on record saying they will not move interest rates until 2014 at the earliest, so the amount of liquidity in the system will only explode until then. That we know is a given.

What isn’t a given is what happens when they do raise interest rates. Kyle Bass seems to think that the Keynesian end point is zero and that, of course, would lead to massive hyperinflation. I assume that to be somewhat true as well, although I think the FED will do something to intervene to prevent that from happening, because:

A. they are too arrogant not to

B. their sole responsibility is to control our money supply.

So, even with unemployment news getting better the last few months, we are still (as we have said before) in the period of time of the worst, extended lack of job growth; then any point in modern Keynesian history. There is another factor and that is the FED isn’t going to raise rates for the next few years; then it hit me.

What happens when the FED has to go the Volckeresque route and raise rates too early 80’s height to stave off inflation, assuming zero isn’t the end game?

Will we see a repeat of the “October massacre” of ’79 sometime in the future, where interest rates were raised dramatically? In 1979 inflation was running at 13%. After those interest rate hikes by Volcker over the next few years, inflation dropped to 3.2%.

That, however, was not the politically smart thing to do at the time but it was the prudent thing for the country going forward. It also brought on a recession and I can’t think of any politician let alone anyone from the FED willing to do so in this day in age outside of Ron Paul.

“Strictly speaking, it probably is not “necessary” for the federal government to tax anyone directly; it could simply print the money it needs. However, that would be too bold a stroke, for it would then be obvious to all what kind of counterfeiting operation the government is running. The present system combining taxation and inflation is akin to watering the milk; too much water and the people catch on.” – Ron Paul

 

It is also important to note, that interest rate hike also made the perfect organic soil for a vast economic expansion to blossom as well, go figure.

If we know the interest payments are 450 Billion on the debt last year (combining both public and intra debt) and we have heard from Kyle Bass that for every point raised brings about an additional $140 billion in interest… and if we approached the prime rate today what Volcker’s prime rate topped out at 21.5 percent, what would our interest payment be?

It would be a whopping 2.9 Trillion in additional interest payments…annually. On top of the 450 billion currently obligated by law to pay… annually. Thus the interest payment today, on the debt, at early 1980 levels; would be about as much as the entire federal budget is today. If that isn’t a sign of the times and further proof of us living beyond our means, I don’t know what else is. No wonder Bass thinks the end game is zero. No wonder he has over 20 million nickel coins and bars of gold in his drawer… hyperinflation here we come!

The post 9-11 double-sided coin

The continent of Africa has been in the news quite a bit of late and it's been a mixed bag of reasons why. Economically speaking, there has been astonishing progress and growth in emerging markets like Angola, who has seen its GDP increase over 1000% since 2000. There has also been a major boom in China and African trade agreements, as more and more African nations are brokering deals to send their vast resources into the commodity starved eastern power. George Clooney was arrested protesting at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington for the ongoing civil war that is ravishing the nation. Then we have had the blitz of KONY 12 the last few weeks and the bizarre twist, in which we seen the creator of the viral sensation get arrested for creating a scene in public naked and belligerent. 

The most fascinating aspect of KONY 12 wasn’t the astounding swath of attention through social networking then subsequent conventional media. It wasn't Jason Russell's public meltdown caught on camera. Nor was it the removal of an African warlord, because even when he was arrested, somebody would fill the vacuum. No, the single most important aspect of this “movement” is something nobody is talking about and that is the American public double standard.

For over a decade now, we have all at one time or another heard the world Islam and it immediately became synonymous with the word terrorism. I have done it. We see it in person, in the media (all facets of the media) and every other aspect of our lives. It’s only human to do so, considering the coverage and the emotional impact a 9-11 will have on a country. When you add the fighting of two wars to defeat terrorism, it only adds to the cognitive dissonance we experience as a whole.   

However, an open mind and a clean motive will allow you to understand that Islam, like any other widespread religion, is for the most part, made up of peaceful, good natured people. If we take the 1.5+ billion people whom call themselves Muslims, it is mathematically unavoidable to not have some bad apples. We have seen just 19 Hijackers on 9-11 send the world into a tailspin. We have heard of just 75-100 people alone taking on the US military in Afghanistan. To this day that has us still counting losses in blood and treasure. Economically, the cost being somewhere in the hundreds of billions. In the form of life, priceless.   

It is expected and highly probable to have a small percentage of people be violent and/or suicidal by human nature alone. Then suppose you factor in degrading aspects like: lack of education, no commerce to provide steady work or access to true representative government… the numbers of bad apples only swell.

And that is where we find the disconnect in our rational.

Here we have a tyrant, named Joseph Kony, who leads the Lord’s Resistance Army. That “Lord” at the forefront of the acronym isn’t some arbitrary name for a gang. It means what it does in Uganda, as it does here. That "Lord" being the very same as the Jedeo-Christian "Lord". Joseph Kony is the mastermind of a  guerrilla war against the Ugandan government (whom are Muslim’s) as he is hell bent on installing a theocracy ruled by the Ten Commandments; to replace the Islamic theocracy already in place. Where have we seen this movie before? Oh yhea, it’s called the Crusades. 

Dont tell that to people like Rush Limbaugh though. He actually went on his radio program trying to politicize the situation last year after Obama sent in 100 troops to "to remove them from the battlefield".  Now I personally don't agree in any military engagements in Sudan or Uganda, but i also don't defend a guy like Joseph Kony because it's politically expedite either. Now Rush Limbaugh later apologized for it days later but the damage was done. Here you have in Rush, a Christian-Conservative defending Joseph Kony based on the fact that he was a Christian, without even so much of a thought who or what he has done.

That is the type of mindset many of us here in the states use when the subject of religion comes up regarding Islam. What Limbaugh did was a microcosm of what most of us have done and many of us still do, we relate Terrorism to Islam and Christianity to righteousness. Even though Kony himself is a terrorist responsible for countless murders, executions and war crimes - it was assumed at face value he being a Christian, he was "fighting the good fight". Now most people who watched the video seen him for whom he was but the fact that he was calling himself a Christian goes relatively unnoticed, while anytime a brown person commits an act of terrorism, his relgion is bundled alongside his actions.

Just like many self described Christians, such as Jim Jones and David Koresh, their acts don’t jive with the overwhelming majority of Christians. Could those two and Joseph Kony actually find biblical evidence and accounts justifying their actions? Sure. The Old Testament is littered with stories or commands to kill non believers amongst other heinous acts. One of the most telling comes from Deuteronomy (13:7-12 NAB):

If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him.  Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you.  You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.  And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. 

Now, many of you are probably saying to yourself, well those laws were for Jewish people and those were their laws... and you would be correct. However, the Bible doesn’t come with a disclaimer and if it is truly the word of God, why should it? And if it is simply a case of “lost in translation” like many parts of the Bible when something controversial comes up (funny how that problem never arises with the messages of eternal love and forgiveness) why would God trust man in the first place? Why trust an obvious fallible messenger   to be the courier of his word, if he cant even copy the word from one sheet of paper to the next without error? That however is another discussion for another day.

So, because books like the Bible and the Koran are obviously open to interpretation, you will always have people for a myriad of reasons using these books as a tool (consciously or subconsciously) to justify or promote what they read literally. Most Christians do not do this. Just as most Muslims do not. However, many here in the states, seem to lose sight of that.

The Koran has many passages where it talks of peace with “people of the book” meaning Christians and Jews. Yet some Muslims choose to find other passages that contradict those passages in favor of something more hostile, because it suits or justifies their means to an end. Just as what happens with some Christians and their relation with the Bible. There is plenty of uplifting and spiritual enriching lessons to be found in both books, but like the Koran (and YouTube) there is dark places to go and find the justification for almost anything you want.

So, if we are to condemn Joseph Kony as a murder and support (and i do) that he is someone who should be found and put to death based on his actions and nothing else, fine. If we are to ignore his motives and his faith as a Christian, separating them from his cruel and ruthless actions, fine again. Then, it is only logical we treat Muslim extremists the same way.

Irony is a dish best served with a pair of latex gloves.

We all have seen the video or heard about KONY 12. Launched just two weeks ago, KONY 12 was/is a viral campaign who's sole goal is to not put an end to the Lord’s Resistance Army, who operate in Uganda. No, the goal is to gain awareness, so much so, that by the end of 2012, we will have seen the arrest of one Joseph Kony, head of the LRA.

Now, as we all have heard by now, the creator of KONY 12, Jason Russell, has apparently left the reservation. According to multiple reports (well basically police reports) he was arrested for not only stripping in public but for also "having a go" in the solitary sense, in public (think Pee-Wee Herman)...while screaming. Whoa. So needless to say, its rather amusing, the irony of the situation. Not that anyone is keeping score, but lets suppose we are, what would it look like so far?

Image courtesy of  http://knowyourmeme.com/

 

D'oh!