As if Our Current Slave Labor Nation Wasn't Enough Today, a New Executive Order to Authorize Government-dictated American Slave Labor Force

""When President Obama signed Executive Order 13603, entitled, "National Defense Resources Preparedness," in 2012, many immediately saw it for what it certainly can be: An order mobilizing a huge force of American slave labor.

The 10-page document is essentially a blueprint for a complete federal takeover of the entire U.S. economy, an act that dwarfs, by far, what Obamacare has successfully taken over (the entire health insurance market, for starters).

In particular, the plan calls for taking control of:

-- "all commodities and products... that are capable of being ingested by either human beings or animals";

-- "all forms of energy";

-- "all forms of civil transportation";

-- "all usable water, from all sources";

-- "health resources... drugs, biological products, medical devices, materials, facilities, health supplies, services and equipment"; and

-- forced labor (or "induction" as the Executive Order delicately refers to military conscription).

Unlimited power

In addition, federal officials will be permitted to "issue regulations to prioritize and allocate resources" (what gets taken first, in what amounts, and who gets them). And each government department and agency "shall act, as necessary and appropriate" (meaning, they will pretty much get to do whatever they deem as necessary and appropriate).

Granted, a lot of this language had appeared in prior Executive Orders that were periodically issued during the Cold War.

However, more than previous national security-related EOs, 13603 reads more like a document created by a totalitarian administration intent on, and obsessed with, controllingeverything.

The order, for example, doesn't bother to even discuss the (negative) implications to personal liberty and constitutional processes. There is no attempt to explain, moreover, how full government control over the economy and governing processes would enable officials to effectively deal with the various trappings of disaster: cyber attack, suicide bombings, sniper shootings, chemical warfare, nuclear missiles or any other threat.

More likely, the government's responses would be more inefficient, ineffective and feckless (think Hurricane Katrina or Superstorm Sandy, on a much larger scale), because that is the nature of massive bureaucracy: inertia, in-fighting and bureaucratic red tape.Nothing gets done in a timely, cost-effective manner.

But Obama, via his EO, has essentially guaranteed such a response, and what's more, he's prepared to force Americans into "service" in the process.

Others noted that complete authoritarianism coupled with chronic inefficiency would more than likely trigger the formation of underground resistance and other movements and networks aimed at circumventing and even undermining the national authority. Talented people with various, critical skills might even be tempted to flee the country for pockets of freedom close by (Canada) or elsewhere in the world.

And again, there is nothing in Obama's order ensuring protection of constitutional rights. Indeed, there is plenty in his order that guarantees usurpation of constitutional rights – privacy, speech, assembly, private property, due process, state's rights.

In the past, presidents pushing to expand their power past constitutional limitations have often used "emergencies" to do so. The most current "emergency" was declared by President George W. Bush on Sept. 14, 2001, and it continues to remain in effect to this day.""

Obama's order has no time table, 

timeline or constraints on government

Read On:

http://www.naturalnews.com/050397_Obama_Executive_Order_slave_labor_force.html

6,000 Stores Closing Nation Wide as Retail Chains Start to Collapse

""The long feared “retail apocalypse” may be hitting with little or no fanfare if a growing list of store-closing plans by major chains is any indication.

Major U.S. retailers have announced the closing of more than 6,000 stores from coast to coast. The list includes only those retailers that have announced plans to close more than 10 outlets this year and next.

For example, 1,784 Radio Shack stores are vanishing, 400 stores in the Office Depot/Office Max chain by 2016, and 340 Dollar Tree/Family Dollar stores.

The growing list of stores getting shuttered coincides with the decline in discretionary consumer spending over the past six months.

“Expect to see more storefronts closed at malls across the country,” one retail watcher told WND. “It’s getting ugly out there.”

Another factor, the source said, is that Americans’ credit is maxed out – a problem that will impact holiday season sales later this year.""

http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/retail-apocalypse-6000-chains-closing-stores/

US Warfare State Regime Only Means Keeping Nation from Total Collapse

""The US has always been a warfare state. However, the character of US imperialist warfare has changed dramatically. For over two centuries, the US regime’s purpose for war, whether on indigenous peoples, Black people, or nations all over the world, was to expand the productive forces of capitalist exploitation. War preceded the vast profits accumulated from chattel slavery, land grab, and resource extraction in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The foundation of white supremacy and capitalism allowed the US regime to consolidate its expansion despite episodes of periodic crisis. Recent events, alongside a steady fall in the rate of capitalist profit, indicate that US imperialist warfare no longer produces the dominance the system seeks. Now more than ever, US imperialism wages war to prevent its inevitable collapse.

US imperialism is in a state of retraction all over the globe. Cuba’s recent victory in negotiating itself off the so-called “terrorist” list is case and point. For almost six decades, Cuba’s revolution has been a beacon of hope in the midst of the misery imposed by US imperialism in Latin America. Cuba’s continued refusal to give up Assata Shakur and its socialist system, complete with free healthcare, education, and housing, has kept the island nation an enemy of the US state. Yet, beginning in December 2014, Cuba has negotiated the freedom of the Cuban 5 and struck a deal for more fraternal relations with Washington. These major victories for the Cuban revolution have setback US imperialism’s age old plan to institute a neo-colonial government. Although Cuba will always face attacks from US imperialism as long as it exists, such diplomatic victories bring much needed security in a period of hostility.

Cuba’s major gains in the diplomatic arena are emblematic of US imperialism’s decline in Latin America generally. Cuba and Venezuela’s leadership have spearheaded a movement to build an independent and integrated Latin America, especially through the institutions of UNASUR and ALBA. What once was US imperialism’s primary sphere of influence is no longer. To counter the revolt against neo-liberalism in Latin America, US imperialism has continued to pursue the overthrow of Venezuela, Ecuador, and other non-aligned nations, while expanding its military reach in Africa and Asia.  In 2014, the US conducted 674 military operations throughout Africa and helped coordinate the destruction of socialist Libya in 2011. Furthermore, Washington has pursued a policy of destabilization alongside its Israeli and GCC allies,sponsoring terrorists in Syria while conducting a fraudulent war against ISIS in Iraq.

These developments are indicative of a geopolitical shift away from US hegemony. Even as US multinationals and financial banks flood the world with parasitic “markets that suck workers and nations dry, the crisis of imperialism has spurred the development of a multi-polar order. China and Russia’s increased relations along with the formation of the Asia Infrastructure Bank and BRICS have struck fear in the eyes of the shrinking US imperial economy. The War on Terror gave a facelift to US imperialism’s war of containment and plunder under these conditions. In the process, US imperialism has murdered millions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and has militarized the borders of Russia and China borders in an effort to forestall the emergence of a global consensus on independent development.

Iran is seen by US imperialism as a major player in the development of a multi-polar world. US imperialism’s murderous military ventures seek to isolate and eventually overthrow Iran. In fact, NATO general Wesley Clark made this explicitly clear to Democracy Now’s audience in 2007 when he stated that Washington’s imperial design for the Middle East had Iran as its target. But Iran walked away from negotiations with the US and its allies with its sovereignty intact and S-300 missile systems from Russia as added defense. It appears that US led sanctions on the Islamic Republic and its proxy war in Syria and the region has, for the time being, failed to grant imperialism its ultimate wish of Iran’s demise. And with Russia’s agreement to distribute S-300′s to the Islamic Republic, the potential military intervention to achieve said wish is significantly reduced.

Just as Ed Snowden’s revelations didn’t stop the FBI from continuing to create the so-called terrorist attacks in the US as justification for a massive surveillance state, so too does US imperialism continue its worldwide march to war despite the geopolitical shift against it. Not long after Iran agreed to the nuclear deal put forth by imperialism, Washington sent two warships to Yemen to supposedly intercept ”Iranian weapons shipments.” This is hardly representative of a move to ease relations.""

http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-imperialism-wages-permanent-warfare-to-prevent-its-inevitable-collapse/5446533

Baltimore Protest Heard Around the World Sparks American Outcry Demonstrations in Cities Nation Wide

""Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Thursday evening, pushing their way through police lines and blocking access to a major highway.

Philly joined a growing list of cities on edge after 100 cops were injured, businesses looted and burned, cars destroyed and bystanders were pummeled in Baltimore Tuesday night, resulting in Maryland calling out the National Guard to restore a degree of calm.

Earlier in the day, crowds gathered for a “Philly is Baltimore” rally outside city hall and moved toward Rittenhouse Square. Protesters later surrounded a police car and stopped a bus, according to Philly.com.

A video of the protest showed crowds standing in the road near a major highway, shouting, “Shut it down!”

The march was organized to show solidarity with Freddie Gray, his family and Baltimore residents. Family members of Gray allege he was injured at the hands of police, and those injuries led to his death at a hospital several days later.

A woman named Angela told CNN, “This is about police ignoring the cry for treating everyone equally. We want answers, and we want them now.”

Another man said, “Police can get away with anything when it comes to a black person.”

Before the crowds broke through police lines, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan told CNN, “Protesters are citizens, not suspects. Our job as police it to keep them safe while they exercise their First Amendment rights.”

Sullivan said he’s not worried about violence in the city, according to the report.

Film footage of the scene showed crowds dancing in the streets and chanting, “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! These racist cops have got to go!”

In Cincinnati, Ohio, at least 300 people gathered outside the Hamilton County Courthouse and began marching to police headquarters. Protesters chanted, “No justice, no peace. Let’s take back our streets!” Police threatened arrests of protesters who didn’t stay on the sidewalks.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, protesters attempted to enter an I-71 ramp, but police said they had the situation under control.

Downtown Baltimore was unusually quiet Thursday, with some major tourist attractions closed.

Thursday night was a cakewalk compared to the mayhem in cities the night before all sparked by the earlier mayhem in Baltimore where a 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew was instituted the day after the uprising.

The Baltimore riots were triggered by the death of a young black man, Freddie Gray, who died while in police custody. Police gave their findings on the death of Gray to the state prosecutor Thursday. The results of the police investigation were sent to State Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who will decide whether to bring charges against any of the six officers who were involved in arresting and transporting Gray April 12. Gray died a week later of a severed spine, touching off days of protests, violence and mass arrests.

Some 12 cops were seriously injured – enough to be placed on medical leave and 15 on light duty. In addition, 106 people who had been arrested during the disturbances have been released because police have been unable to charge them during the 48-hour period after their arrest.

According to the Washington Post, the prisoner sharing the police van told investigators he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed he “was intentionally trying to injure himself.”

However, a man identifying himself as that prisoner has come forward to say the police report is inaccurate.

“All I did was go straight to the station, but I heard a little banging like he was banging his head,” the man, Donta Allen, told WJZ-TV, which reported Allen had been arrested on suspicion of stealing cigarettes.

In Baltimore, gun violence has reportedly surged, with at least five people shot in three separate incidents, according to the Baltimore Sun.

“Since the National Guard and outside law enforcement agencies were deployed to certain areas of the city in response to Monday’s unrest, the city has seen six homicides,” stated the Sun report. “Protests have been peaceful, but unrelated gun violence has spiked.”

Protests in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and Oakland, California, are scheduled for Friday, which is also May Day.""

http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/round-2-protests-spread-to-more-u-s-cities/

Mainstream Media Lies for a Better America, One Nation Under Oligarchy

""The corporate mainstream media with its well-paid journalists and increasing concentration of ownership bows to the concerns of advertisers. It tends to be privately owned and its owners have a vested interest in maintaining an economic system based on private ownership and in manufacturing consent for it. Moreover, such outlets these days are increasingly part of major conglomerates, which may include armaments manufacturers, banking or industrial concerns, and will not therefore adopt stances or report on stories that are harmful to the interests of the wider organisation.

The public is thus given access to a world view that is distorted in favour of state-corporate interests. Such interests have succeeded in getting across the message that, for example, the ‘free market’ is the best way to deliver goods and services to people, state provided welfare is bad and ‘individual responsibility’ is good, ‘austerity’ is necessary, privatisation increases efficiency, an endless ‘war on terror’ must be waged on designated enemies, well-being is measured in terms of a never-ending quest for GDP growth, the US and NATO are the ‘world’s policemen’, giant agribusiness must displace peasant farmers to secure food security and gross inequalities and unregulated corporate power are both necessary and legitimate.

Over the past 15 years, numerous ‘alternative’ news websites have sprung up that challenge these assumptions and the belief that ordinary citizens should be passive consumers of a predetermined news agenda. There are now dozens of popular news sites that inform people of issues the mainstream media has deliberately failed to tell people the truth about. There are also many more sites with global reach that exist to scrutinise specific sectors, hold practices to account and counter corporate propaganda (for example, GMWatch, Corporate Europe Observatory, Food & Water Watch, Campaign Against the Arms Trade, etc.).

The existence of ‘alternative’ independent sites has led the European Union to express concerns about the ‘damaging’ effects of people having access to these sources of information. The EU argues that societal consensus is being eroded as people are being ‘led astray’ by dissenting voices on the internet. In the report ‘A free and pluralistic media to sustain European democracy’, the EU feels there is a danger that people are being misguidedly radicalised. It advocates EU funding for ‘responsible’ journalism, getting the EU’s viewpoint across regularly and prominently in the media and placing controls on the net. The EU perceives this to be ‘pluralism’.

What is ‘responsible journalism’?

An article by Annie Day indicates that as a result of its destabilisations, coups, mass bombings and death squads, the US military and the CIA have been responsible for a figure of an estimated ten million deaths since 1945. Yet the corporate media never describes any of this as constituting a form of mass terror. Through the cynical hijacking of the concept of ‘terror’, the US now attempts to justify its ongoing tyranny through a ‘war on terror’, which goes unquestioned on a daily basis by the mainstream media.

Ukraine is the latest example of a US-backed terror campaign, which the corporate media has consistently failed to question. As the world edges ever closer to nuclear war, the mainstream media merely parrots the official lie coming from Washington that the situation is all due to ‘Russian aggression’.

You can also add to that ten million, countless others whose lives have been sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit, which did not rely on the military to bomb peoples and countries into submission but on the IMF, World Bank and WTO. It begs the question how many lives have been cut short across the world because of the inherent structural violence or silent killing of the everyday functioning of predatory capitalism? 

The appropriation of wealth through a system that funnels it from bottom to top via a process of accumulation by dispossession is celebrated by the corporate media as growth, prosperity, and freedom of choice, despite evidence that, from Greece to Spain and beyond, the reality for the majority has been falling wages, increasing poverty, the stripping away of choice and misery.

So where is the ‘responsible journalism’ that the EU calls for?

Does it lie with those journalists in the corporate media whose claim to respectability is their rigid professionalism, their accountability, their objectivity?

If you can call professionalism, accountability and objectivity being in the pay of and not wishing to offend advertising interests, officialdom and powerful corporate interests then they are paragons of absolute responsibility.

Peddling their high salaried deceptions, they have failed and continue to fail the public and genuinely hold power to account. By shining their ‘investigative’ light on ‘parliamentary procedures’, personalities, the rubber stamping of policies and the inane machinations of party politics, they merely serve to maintain and perpetuate the status quo and keep the public in the dark as to the unaccountable self-serving nature of power broking and the unity ofinterests that enable Big Oil, Big Finance, Big Pharma, Big Agra and the rest of them via their secretive think tanks and policy initiatives to keep bleeding us all dry. 

But that’s the role of the media: to help reinforce and reproduce the material conditions of a divisive social system on a daily basis. It’s called having a compliant, toothless media. It’s what the corporate media itself calls part of ‘liberal democracy’. And in this type of ‘liberal democracy’, it is people like Edward Snowden or Julian Assange who expose the wrongdoings of the political-corporate elites that are hounded.

It was George Orwell who said that journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed and everything else is public relations. Orwell was correct. Former CIA boss General Petraeus stated in 2006 that his strategy was to wage a war of perceptions conducted continuously through the news media, while John Pilger observes that the role of respectable journalism in western state crimes – from Iraq to Iran, Afghanistan to Libya - remains taboo. Its role has been to serve as first-choice cheerleader for illegal wars.

Intelligence agencies secure media compliance

There are of course some good journalists working in the corporate mainstream media. But if you think this article mounts to little more than a one-sided attack on the ‘mainstream’ media, you may need to think again.

Many readers will be aware of a recent story about the former editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany’s largest newspapers, who claimed that he accepted news stories written and given to him by the CIA and published them under his own name. 

This revelation came as a shock to many. But it should not have because  in the UK, for example, the British intelligence agencies along with the CIA has for decades strived to ensure that the mainstream press and TV complied with the interests of the Establishment. In addition to making sure that the British left was subverted, infiltrated and made toothless, the mainstream media was molded by the intelligence agencies to parrot the Establishment’s viewpoints and aims.

How this was achieved is described in the article ‘The Psyops War: British Intelligence and the Covert Propaganda Front and the CIA’s Interference in British Politics.’ ""

http://www.globalresearch.ca/countering-the-lies-of-the-mainstream-media/5441427