By way of information:You did post a click link to my referenced story. However, the only way to gain any useful information would to be to scroll down the entire page. Go to search and enter David Stockman. Only then is there any mention of this incredible story! I happen to believe that the people of the world should know that under a Republican controlled Congress, and George W Bush, a giant scam was perpetrated, leading to the "Housing Bubble." Ric

The aforementioned post is gone! It only referenced Dr. Machan's comments briefly. Speaking in the op-ed section of Tuesdays New York Times, former OMB head under Reagan, David Stockman stated that forty years of failed Republican policy had ruined the U.S. economy. You posted it for all of 15 minutes before taking it down! This was "THE," significant news event of the day! From the " Inner Sanctum " of the reagan white house. One of the architects of the failed "trickle down" theory, finally admitted that "THEY" GOT IT WRONG! rIC

Reply from The Daily Bell

Send the post again. We didn't remove it. Actually, strike that. We just checked. Your post is up.

You are funny, Bill Ross. I have read a bit of his work. Albert J Nock is a hoot (and a genius)!

Back in the "Guten" old days, written works were thrown out there for all to see. Occasionally, he mentioned in one of his essays, something he had previously said, be it an idea, a contextualized version of a phrase, or an observation, would circle the globe and return to him, all brand new, like a boomerang.

And that made him feel good.

OK Weeble, against my better judgment, I'll bite: WTF is a "Nock moment"?

Albert J. Nock?

"It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own."

Click to view link

Bill Ross: "You know you wanna". Geez, I feel I am having a Nock moment.

"The internet was invented in the US " but we do not hold the sole monopoly on attempts by governments to control it." ..... Posted by Lukester on 8/11/2010 12:37:42 AM

Lukester, It is Certifiable Madness bordering on Evil Badness to think to Control the Uncontrollable, and Others will tell One and All that its Simply Better Greater Use Delivers All Goods Virtually. ..... which is Natural in CyberSpace ZerodDay Trading Futures.

And it does help if you are extremely comfortable in deeply psychotic and even psychopathic fields.

For the pedantic who may judge some as ignorant for spelling mistakes:

Neuremburg = Nuremberg

Cut and paste is impartial. Errors and truth are treated equally...

@Pat Fields

The "Neuremburg Trials" have great merit, especially in establishing the central point that "individuals are responsible for their own actions and, following orders (or process) is no excuse for criminal acts". Contrast this with current claimed unaccountability (irresponsibility) of the state's minions, especially judges. Of course they will not hold themselves and cronies to account. Which begs the question: who will?

Having said this, nothing is ever purely good, or bad. The Neuremburg Trials were a sham, for the simple reason of double standards. War crimes of the allies, such as the firebombing of Dresden, nuclear attacks on Japan or, in general targeting civilians to "shock and awe" were completely unnecessary and illegal by the very standards that the Neuremburg Trials used against the losers. In other words, these trials provided plausible rationalizations and pretexts to sugar coat (and maintain consent of the governed) for what "might is right" arbitrarily wanted to do.

The law was once a dual edge sword, cutting all aggressors against peace and civilization down with impartiality. Now, the law only cuts those who interfere with arbitrary power down. It is now "rule by corrupt man", determining who lives and dies, as opposed to "rule of law":

Click to view link

When Judges reach across Sovereign jurisdictions, they reach too far. The ONLY Lawful Jury is of one's peers and of one's vicinage.

The "Neuremburg Trials" were an horrendous precedent that deserve to be castigated in history's annals, not glorified.

DB: "This is a vague statement indeed."

Great retort. I add that you missed the central point, that Lukester was implying the tired old "those who cry conspiracy are insane, since conspiracy is (insert false rationalization why it is improbable)"

The TRUTH is:

Civilization is the way that people honestly and peacefully cooperate by trading goods and services for mutual self-interest.

Conspiracy is the way that criminals cooperate for mutual self interest in forcefully or fraudulently depriving the civilized of their just rewards for being so.

In theory, the maximum number of conspiracies is number of criminals divided by 2. In other words, conspiracies are VERY common.

And, when the law is wielded by criminals, criminals become dominant and civilization socially / economically implodes by the destruction of the peaceful and honest environment required to be productive.

From a historical timeframe perspective, assuming these criminals remain unopposed, they will consolidate their power and will no longer have to be stealthy and conspire out of sight. Then, it will be pure "might is right" until the whole thing implodes due to no reason (apart from guns, aimed at our and our families heads) to be productive.

Then, the cycle of fall and rise of civilizations starts again. They fall by intent (predators destroy reason / ability to be productive) and rise by freedom (no organized dominant force able to prevent people from cooperating for mutual self-interest)

I, for one, am determined not to be complicit in these crimes against humanity and civilization and definitely would prefer to not be put in the position of truthfully stating "told you so, but you were too stupid to notice, stuck in your parochial intellectual rut which includes only your immediate surroundings, preconceptions and goals at the expense of others"

I found an excellent companion piece to my previous post. It is at Click to view link . A comment by Paul B. Farrel titled; Reagan Insider: GOP destroyed U.S. economy . Referencing David Stockmans comments in a New York Times op-ed piece. I do not believe you are as free thinking as you purport to be. or you never would have pulled my post of an hour or so ago!

Reply from The Daily Bell

What post? Send it again. We just checked. Your post is up.

Well, I am not "endlessly" anything, as I've only been around here for about a week. =:-)

But I will read further among your articles, learn from your ideas, and keep my own counsel on these other points. I commend you for the fine work that you do in many respects, so it's appropriate for me to stand back at your admonishment.

Respectfully.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely!

Nope, I am not agitated in the least! I am cool calm and collected.

I used to revel in (attempted) intelligent put-downs (where they didn't even know it was happpening), but derision is so yesterday for me. This is so much more difficult.

Part of me wishes you would go away, but the other part wishes I could understand you better. I don't get to talk to a psychologist very often without payment, so this is good, as someone else is paying your bill.

I guess it is going to get boring fast, if you stay or continually negate Conspiracy Theories, though.

Wonderful post Daily Bell editors. There's a little bit of hyperbole in there, but only insofar as you are portraying my comments as necessarily aligning me in opposition to all the excellent points you make.

You are constructing an artificial opposition, between the views I hold, the admirable points you make, and the point I was making " that *despite* the very many true points you enumerate, this community has become overheated with the propensity, like a trained knee-tendon, to jerk in the direction of conspiracy at every newly released news article.

It's there " in the remarkable uniformity with which every breaking piece of news is examined *first* from the angle of what collusion could have caused it's occurrence. This is a natural "circling of the wagons" effect which encroaches on people's world views, as the staple fare here is precisely the analysis of the erosion of civil liberties. My point was perhaps just one small shade subtler than the black and white dichotomies you are wishing to portray it as.

That the emergence of new technologies most certainly *does* introduce along with it's beneficial aspects, the lively evolution also, of it's ripe promise of mass control. To imagine that the technology of the Internet exerts no attraction to law agencies, (abusive or not is not the point examined here) along with bloggers, and any number of other socio-political groups, would be merely evidence of polarized thinking.

The internet was invented in the US " but we do not hold the sole monopoly on attempts by governments to control it. The willingness is there in many countries, although I'm sure I agree with you we are in the lead. What I'm suggesting otherwise, is that any community which focuses day after day upon a narrow band of concerns, after a while will begin to evidence exaggerated traces of the emotional baggage that is typical to those concerns.

So you get posters who become so reflexively suspicious of every last new scrap of news, that the posted reactions look like a bunch of polarized steel filings, all aligned in one direction in front of a powerful magnet. Conspiracy, and top down control, seep in as themes on each and every topic to the point of getting a bit overdone. The topic is livelier when it's invoked more sparingly. That does not mean really sparingly " just a *little bit* more sparingly.

And as to Weeble, with his suggestion (unless I misunderstood the comment above) that I am providing him with a profile of "the psychology of a madman", he perhaps only serves to illustrate the slightly overheated psyche that's at work whenever someone suggests that this very community has pursued it's "beleaguered freedom" meme so devotedly over the years that it's reflexes risk getting slightly conditioned. The comment seems markedly overwrought. Way over the top, and agitated.

You need to be able to greet new pieces of news, such as the recent death of Matt Simmons, without immediately tabling hypotheses that he'd been done away with, otherwise this place risks getting a tinge of the absurd along with the wonderful, probing and serious research that you do. Is this a reasonable point to make?. After all, we just barely got through the thesis that BP's CEO was doing away with some of his employees, no?

How much of the dark suppositions becomes too much? Love your work Daily Bell " and your post above is indeed inspiring in many points " I say that with utmost sincerity, and even deep concern which I share with you and so many of your members. I'm on your side if or when it comes down to the barricades " but that does not invalidate the point " there is such a thing as "overdone" also.

Now, I wish Weeble would come up with some more intelligent put-downs. If he was obliquely referring to my comments as deranged, he's exhibiting a marked degree of hyperbole himself. Of course maybe I misunderstood this comment " but I could not for the life of me understand what else he might mean.

Bottom line Daily Bell. You speak much truth " but it should not harm you, that someone new comes to this community with a perspective not yet fully acclimatized to the general tenor of comments here, and comments on the extraodinary proliferation and ubiquity of conspiracy theorizing going on " like wallpaper " everywhere " maybe I'm imagining it, but it seems to me, every last scrap of news gets treated to this same shellack. Collusion. Conspiracy. Elites orchestrating massive results with exquisite control.

My suggestion was, that the emergence of a technology such as that which has "wired togther the world" has as a natural corollary, that the state, which in various forms has been coercive throughout history, would see opportunity and move to introduce itself. Some of your description suggests that only our modern states have sought to exercise coercion. Not so. That part really is like moss growing on a stone.

The story of the encroachment of "the state" (read kings and all landed rentiers in earlier epochs) is as old as history in one form or another. It merely has discovered and exploited it's natural niche in the technologies presented by the internet. Nothing controversial about that thesis at all.

Reply from The Daily Bell

"Maybe I'm imagining it, but it seems to me, every last scrap of news gets treated to this same shellack. Collusion. Conspiracy. Elites orchestrating massive results with exquisite control."

The Daily Bell editors and friends and (sometimes) its feedbackers accept that there is a familial power-elite of extraordinary wealth that traces its history back hundreds if not thousands of years and believes it has a natural right to rule. There is plenty of evidence of this if one chooses to look - much of it generated in the past decade and placed on the 'Net.

The "secret" history of the world is emerging. It will continue to emerge for years to come no matter what the enemies of freedom and human action try to do. These powerful technologies manifest themselves over time and are not subject to immediate interdiction no matter how much the Western (mostly US) intelligence community - in the service of such elites - would like to think.

The Daily Bell analyzes the evident and obvious dominant social themes of the elite that has exercised considerable control over the Western world. We did not arrive at these conclusions lightly nor should they be denigrated or trivialized. Such conclusions in fact are decades in the making and the result of painful study at much personal cost, even at a time when free-market sources were almost entirely suppressed as they are not now. If people have families or children - and that includes the functionaries of the state - they should be most concerned about where the West is headed.

In two years' time, even as a small site, the Daily Bell has managed to make its points well. We understand our impact. It is at least our second attempt, and we have fought hard, at considerable cost, to make these points.

Anyway ... you come here to comment and then are amazed to find statements about "Elites orchestrating massive results with exquisite control." That is in fact the hypothesis of the Bell. The "exquisite control" has slammed smack into the truth-telling of the 'Net much as the powers-that-be slammed into the Gutenberg Press 500 years ago.

That resulted in the Renaissance and an interregnum of freedom that created many positive effects for humankind in our view. For you to be astonished by the Bell's perspective is either naive or purposefully patronizing.

There is only one small Bell. (Some at least might consider that a blessing.) But there are thousands of sites, many of them lavishly funded, that you can visit that will not write of conspiracies nor "elites." Such writers and editors as work there have their own preoccupations and different ways of looking at the world. You may be more comfortable there.

But if you choose to visit the Bell, there is no reason for you to be surprised, or to provide evidence your surprise over and over in various statements. You are welcome to contribute your own perspectives and to add to the Bell's analysis or provide caveats, or even contradictions. But if you believe you will continue to feel moved to complain generally and continuously about the Bell's fundamental purpose (and its audience), as you have in your recent posts, then we would suggest you find other sites more to your liking.

Endlessly attacking the the Bell's fundamental perspective - its reason for being - is not productive for you or for those who visit here.

I came across an article today talking more about Naomi Campbell and whether or not she told the truth. Who cares! I guess in the days of reality TV and TMZ a celebrity endorsement is more powerful than the story or the information. I have to admit that I saw Naomi Campbell and Charles Taylor in the same headline and was intrigued, slightly.

It is nice to see the psychology of a madman up close and personal every once in a while. The subtle nuances and twists of truth, to reach a truly sophisticated end is remarkable to see in action. People like him, remind me of why I am here.

Your speech rivaled Charlie Chaplin's final speech in The Great Dictator. Bravo, DB!

It is not a clearly structured conspiracy to encroach upon the individual's privacy. It is a natural law set in place by the emergence of the internet and tracing technologies which emerge naturally as one of it's capabilities.

The technology with which to trace individuals through the net emerged along with the general emergence of the PC, the web, and electronic traces which it's entirely to be expected are left by people, and the "percieved need" for surveillance's implementation in the internet space, arose **in response to** that technological capability emerging.

As predictable as moss growing on a damp stone. Those who see the erosion of privacy as occurring due to a concerted, top-down-directed conspiracy, are looking at the phenomenon (surveillance of course is real) through the wrong end of the anthropological or technological telescope.

Not that I'm surprised, as everyone here is popping sweet and crunchy conspiracy pills like smarties. Yum. Chomp chomp chomp. Yum. More subterfuge please! Chomp chomp. Etc.

Reply from The Daily Bell

This is a vague statement indeed.

Using your logic, all governments ought to be engaged in a "race to the bottom" - to spy on their citizens as aggressively as possible. In fact, Britain and America are among the most militant. America alone supposedly has over 18 spy agencies employing millions in one sense or another, especially when one adds in the civilian support of AT&T, Google, FaceBook and numerous other technology leaders that have been unconstitutionally (and unconscionably) intimidated or co-opted by the FBI, CIA, "Homeland Security" etc. into supporting domestic spy efforts. There are spies on top of spies, and spies spying on spies, as the Washington Post (of all papers) recently documented.

These institutions label as incipient terrorists those who believe in limited government. They are suspicious of military veterans who wish to support the literal truths of their constitutional oath. They are contemptuous without end of the civilians they are charged with "protecting" - but in actuality expect to intimidate and coerce at the behest of the powers-that-be. They are the functionaries of a massive and obscene military-industrial complex and the bulwark of a gulag-like prison-industrial complex. At any given interval this merciless enterprise incarcerates 3 million or more, many for obscure or irrational offenses that a civilized society would look on with disgust.

No, all governments are not engaged in such activities, certainly not to the extent of the increasingly brutal Anglo-American axis. Forget for the moment about Britain, (which is on its way to installing more public spy cameras than there are citizens). Examine America for just a moment. From the botched and suspicious investigations of the 9/11 Commission, which Commission members themselves have disavowed, to the endless, serial falsehoods of the despicable military-industrial complex, to the ongoing genocidal campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps Iran, America increasingly bestrides the world like a truculent and vengeful colossus.

At home, malevolent vestiges of this former republic re-arrange themselves in constrictor-like fashion to choke off remaining opposition to the evolution of the 21st century Super State. Its schools are organized along Bismarckian military lines, its children are deliberately taught lies about the nation's socio-political evolution and its mainstream media spouts ruinous Keynesian falsehoods that (fortunately) even the economically illiterate are starting to question.

But what about you? What in your background or professional enterprise leads you to speak out in apparent support of what is evidently and obviously a vastly expanded authoritarian - even totalitarian - state in the making?

You are in favor of the tazering of children and elderly people? You find the employment of SWAT teams to confiscate ounces of marijuana satisfactory? You believe the CIA's evident and obvious involvement with the drug trade (millions understand this by now) to be a "crunchy conspiracy pill?" You believe the evolution of central banking and the graduated income tax (both unconstitutional) were merely serendipity? You believe the 1,000-page Patriot Act, that was evidently prewritten and jammed through Congress after 911 while military police patrolled federal chambers was a signal and manifest coincidence?

Overseas, you the find the generous use of depleted uranium weapons to be "as predictable as moss growing on a damp stone?" You find the strafing and targeting of civilians in "kill zones," to be "subterfuge?" You would hold that the nation-building in Afghanistan, especially, is the end result of some kind of "natural law?" The authoritarian mind is a wonder! One is baffled by its subtleties and its appreciation of the "necessities" of reality. Have those involved in the undermining of civil society no families, no friends, no direct mooring to the world they are working so hard to unravel? Don't they care about their children?

Is there, in fact, a "'perceived need' for surveillance's implementation in the internet space [that] arose **in response to** that technological capability emerging?" Not in Switzerland. Not even necessarily in Canada (or not yet). Not in various countries in South America, Africa or even Asia. Only the Anglo-American axis has seemingly perfected these obscenely brutal tricks and generated the necessary infrastructure to implement them. And yet despite the best efforts of those who are determined to organize Western society along increasingly authoritarian lines, the overall march toward a 21st century super-state has begun to leave the rails. The very technology you apparently celebrate is undermining the secretive efforts of those who believe it is their manifest duty to rule and organize the affairs of the "slave-like" other.

You may believe that the elite's manifest drive toward control, its efforts at regionalization and ever-greater political and currency unions 'is not a clearly structured conspiracy, but how then would you explain it? How is it that every war, every natural disaster, every social failure results, these days in ever-increasing attempts at centralization of power and authority? It is not this way in all epochs, or in all countries.

There is something profoundly amiss with the polity and intent of the Anglo-American axis. It grows moreso even as its citizens become more restive and discontent. The Internet may indeed be manufactured into one large spying enterprise. But its byproducts of enlightenment and historical realism have already taken hold and the information is being passed among families and friends, not just in America, not just in Britain, but in China and Asia and South America - around the world, in fact. There is really nothing to be done about it. It is history in-the-making. And history cannot be intimidated, cannot be spied-upon, cannot be persuaded or misled. There is your natural law. Change is coming.

"Connolly Amendment to Protect Kids from Online Predators Passes House "

Translation: Found it! a warm and fuzzy pretext to provide us with the capability (organizational, technological, legal) to identify those who are exercising forbidden speech / providing forbidden information and / or interfering with our control of information and the intellectual environment and, hence choices of people. History taught us that brute force does not work (our minions, exercising force ultimately get uppity and think they should be master, plus, people refuse to be productive, if they are aware of their slavery). So, we use Environmental Control 101 to make people believe they have no other choice and, besides, we're the good guys...

THINK about it:

Click to view link

Also, consider WHY they do not dare allow you to CHOOSE:

Click to view link

The CHOICE is obvious...

You KNOW you wanna...

When it comes to the "World Court", I hope our muddle headed politicians in the U.S. remember the "Connally Amendment".

Reply from The Daily Bell

You're in favor of this?

Connolly Amendment to Protect Kids from Online Predators Passes House
Feb 4 2010

Click to view link

Congressman Gerry Connolly's amendment to protect children and young adults from online predators and other cyber-crimes passed the U.S. House of Representatives as part of the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act to improve internet and computer safeguards in the private and public sectors.

The Connolly amendment passed 414-4 in the House with strong bipartisan support. The larger bill, including the Connolly amendment, passed the House by a vote of 422-5.

'It is critical that we reach children at a young age in the classroom so they develop a healthy sense of caution as we instruct them about the wonders of technology, Connolly said. 'The threat to children from online predators and child pornography is very real.