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Thursday, April 4, 2013

Morals? Obama's Got No Morals!


Where Is Obama’s Moral Clarity on North Korea?

J. Christian Adams
April 3rd, 2013 - 5:54 pm
Welcome to 2013. Maybe the Mayans couldn’t add correctly. A tiny totalitarian regime is threatening the United States with nuclear attack, and the president has barely spoken on the matter since the threats were made. It isn’t hard to imagine how other presidents would have reacted differently.
First consider Bill Clinton. Forget the motivations, one thing is for sure — Clinton wasn’t afraid to speak with moral clarity in international affairs. He led NATO against a thug Serbian regime’s ethnic cleansing. Clinton labeled evil as evil.
Imagine how Ronald Reagan would have reacted to threats of nuclear attack on the United States by Kim Jong-Un.  For starters, I suspect Reagan would have begun a dialog with Kim’s victims years before a nuclear crisis erupted.
North Korea has become the world’s largest gulag. North Koreans are even two inches shorter than their South Korean counterparts. Kim Jong-Un’s hereditary totalitarianism has produced a nation of malnourished shrimps.
Reagan would not have been quiet about their circumstances.
Reagan spoke to the victims of communist totalitarianism around the world, and reassured them that freedom’s light remained lit. History tells us that the victims, even in the most controlled parts of the Soviet Union, heard Reagan. His words gave them hope, and eventually gave them courage to tear down walls.
Reagan spoke with moral clarity to the communist slave masters about the immorality of their regimes. He delegitimized communist governments by speaking directly to communism’s victims. He provided a moral contrast between America that is good and great and communist regimes that were evil and destined for the dustbin of history.
Speaking these truths directly to the victims of communism made peace more likely, even as the domestic left warned that such clarity was destabilizing.
The cheapest and most peaceful way for the crisis on the Korean peninsula to diffuse is for the slaves of Kim Jong-Un to throw off their slavemaster and join the ranks of people who have emerged from the darkness of communism to the light of freedom.
This cannot happen if the American president fails to speak with moral clarity. One wonders whether Obama is even capable of rhetorically elevating America’s status as a beacon of liberty. After all, his formative years and most of his political career were devoted to cataloging problems and grievances with America, and demanding transformative breaks from the past.
But circumstances in Korea demand that this president mature, and quick. Even if regime change isn’t in the offing, moral clarity informs American might. It’s time for Obama to abandon his silly flirtation with American nuclear disarmament. And most of all, it’s time to talk about the blessings of human liberty, and how liberty is obtainable, even to Korean slaves.
Providence gave the dull grey enslaved world Ronald Reagan’s voice of hope, and the world changed. It’s time this President learn something from a man whose legacy he has thus far rejected at every turn.

Americans Are Stupid!

Somehow Americans have been cohersed into thinking that gun background checks are good even though nearly 50% think that it will lead to gun confiscation. Don't they know that when the government confiscates weapons, you lose your rights?

Every nation that went onto kill millions of their citizens, ALWAYS has started with gun confiscation. Look at Russia under Stalin and China under Mao as two great examples. If we let this go on, the United States will follow that ugly tradition.

Conservative Tom


Gun poll: Most say background checks may bring confiscation

By Jonathan Easley 04/04/13 07:47 AM ET
A plurality of Americans believe the federal government could use information gleaned from expanded background checks to confiscate legally-owned firearms, according to a Quinnipiac survey released Thursday.
But the poll also showed support for background checks remains nearly universal.
According to the survey, 48 percent said they believed the government could use background check records to  guns, while 38 said the government could not.  Ninety-one percent favored background checks anyway, and only 8 percent are opposed.
“In every Quinnipiac University poll since the Newtown massacre, nationally and in six states, we find overwhelming support, including among gun owners, for universal background checks,” Quinnipiac University Polling Institute director Peter A. Brown said in a statement. 
“American voters agree with the National Rifle Association, however, that these background checks could lead someday to confiscation of legally-owned guns.”
President Obama on Wednesday was in Denver seeking to build public support for expanded background checks, arguing it’s a common-sense approach to reducing gun violence in the country.
Obama blasted the National Rifle Association for opposing the measure, which is among the key elements in a bill Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to bring to the floor next month. The NRA says universal background checks are the first step toward a national gun registry.
“We’re not proposing a gun registration system, we’re proposing background checks for criminals,” Obama said, urging gun owners to “get the facts.”
“The opponents of some of these common sense [gun] laws have ginned up fears among gun owners,” the president added, alluding to the notion the government would use the registry to confiscate guns.
Background checks, once called the “sweet spot” for gun control reform by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), have faced roadblocks in Congress, as Republicans argue existing laws aren’t enforced and that the record keeping requirements it would entail are akin to a federal registry.
Some conservatives have argued that the registry could lead to the government confiscating legally-owned guns. 
When the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the universal background checks bill along party lines last month, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said he opposed the legislation because it could lead to “confiscation.”
Democrats say this argument is conspiratorial, and Schumer accused Grassley of “cheapening” the debate by bringing up confiscation.
When broken down along party lines, 61 percent of Republicans say background checks could lead to confiscation, against 25 percent say they could not. A majority of independents also believe this – 51 to 36. Among Democrats, only 32 percent said universal background checks could lead to confiscation.
The Quinnipiac University poll of 1,711registered voters was conducted between March 26 and April 1 and has a 2.4 percentage point margin of error.


Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/291789-poll-most-say-background-checks-could-lead-to-gun-confiscation#ixzz2PVBxmPUG 
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Are You On A Government List?

With the government collecting information on all Americans, one wonders what they have on us. How about you? We suspect that they are collecting cell phone communications, emails, texts, and yes even those innocuous blogs, like Conservative Musings!

Innocent information held in the hands of bad people is a recipe for disaster. A phrase can be taken out of context can be made to look like a major conspiracy. A boast turns into a threat. A disgusted moment becomes a hate crime.  

The idea of the government collecting information on Americans is chilling.  It is not the information, it is the possible misuse of same and the power that comes from having that information.  For example, we once knew this IRS agent (he is now deceased) who would write down the plate of someone who cut him off in traffic. He would then look up the offenders name  and turn it over to the investigative unit. H would brag about ruining the other driver's day! Does every IRS agent do this, we don't think so, however, but if only 5% do, we have a problem.

The same goes for the information collected by these fusion centers.  It WILL get misused. There never will be enough safeguards in place to avoid human nature. And some humans when they have the possibility to impress their will on others, will.  Information on others is a powerful weapon and must be very carefully controlled or better yet, not collected at all.


Conservative Tom

P.S. A great example of government information collection overkill is the 60 or 21 page ObamaCrapCare application. What an over-reach!



Fusion Centers Collecting Information About Possibly Problematic Americans

April 2, 2013 by  
Fusion Centers Collecting Information About Possibly Problematic Americans
PHOTOS.COM
The Federal government used the 9/11 terror attacks as a catalyst in its quest to create a nationwide surveillance network sophisticated and powerful enough to collect dossiers on virtually all American citizens, in most cases without warrant, in the name of homeland security. One of the most powerful tools at the state’s disposal in recent years has been so-called fusion centers, which allow for citizen data to be collected and stored in central locations for access by all levels of law enforcement.
Homeland Security estimates that it has spent somewhere between $289 million and $1.4 billion in public funds to support State and local fusion centers since 2003.
Civil liberty advocates have long maligned the data collection centers as unConstitutional because they can be used to collect data on Americans who simply make seditious statements or are wary of the government’s actions. This means Americans who practice Constitutionally guaranteed free speech in criticizing government in the public sphere through protest, print or Internet activity could be swept into the vast bureaucratic dragnet that fusion centers cast in the search for potential terrorists.
In fact, the results of a two-year bipartisan investigation by the U. S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations made public late last year underline the concerns of fusion center detractors with findings of wasteful spending by fusion centers engaged in feverish  terrorist witch hunts.
The Senate report found that the Nation’s more than 70 fusion centers actually do very little by way of providing the American populace practical protection from terror; instead, they damage civil liberty and waste taxpayer money.
From the report:
  • The investigation found that DHS intelligence officers assigned to state and local fusion centers produced intelligence of “uneven quality — oftentimes shoddy, rarely timely, sometimes endangering citizens’ civil liberties and Privacy Act protections, occasionally taken from already-published public sources, and more often than not unrelated to terrorism.”
  • DHS officials did not provide evidence to the Subcommittee showing unique contributions that state and local fusion centers made to assist federal counter terrorism intelligence efforts that resulted in the disruption or prevention of a terrorism plot.
  • The investigation also found that DHS did not effectively monitor how federal funds provided to state and local fusion centers were used to strengthen federal counterterrorism efforts.  A review of the expenditures of five fusion centers found that federal funds were used to purchase dozens of flat screen TVs, two sport utility vehicles, cell phone tracking devices and other surveillance equipment unrelated to the analytical mission of an intelligence center.  Their mission is not to do active or covert collection of intelligence.  In addition, the fusion centers making these questionable expenditures lacked basic, “must-have” intelligence capabilities, according to DHS assessments.
While the warrantless government data collection and massive abuse of taxpayer money are cause for concern for the average American, there is something even more disheartening to keep in mind about fusion centers: The people in charge — as is almost always the case with failed government-run money pits — feel they are providing Americans with a valuable service. Worse yet, the criticism they have received over the past several months puts pressure on them to double down on spying efforts in order to justify the existence of the centers via some measure of perceived positive result.
That’s what makes comments like those made by Arkansas State Fusion Center Director Richard Davis over the weekend particularly unsettling. In an attempt to clear up misconceptions that fusion centers are purposefully designed to spy on U.S. citizens, Davis announced that they actually are designed to do just that; but, never fear, the centers take a look only at scary “anti-government” types.
“The misconceptions are that we are conducting spying operations on US citizens, which is of course not a fact. That is absolutely not what we do,” he told a FOX affiliate.
Davis continued, noting that his office focuses mainly on developing international plots as well as, “domestic terrorism and certain groups that are anti-government. We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information.”
And, here comes the scariest statement that could be made by a man working for a government-created spy apparatus that is fingered for wasteful spending and Constitutional abuse in recent headlines.
“I do what I do because of what happened on 9/11,” Davis said. “There’s this urge and this feeling inside that you want to do something, and this is a perfect opportunity for me.”
Luckily for Davis and his fusion center cohorts (who, remember, have not actually provided any “unique contributions that state and local fusion centers made to assist federal counter terrorism intelligence efforts that resulted in the disruption or prevention of a terrorism plot”), there is a growing trend of demonizing small-government activists and virtually anyone seeking contrarian alternatives to the current political zeitgeist.
A good example on an organization making it easier for fusion centers to prove their false worth is the Southern Poverty Law Center, which — presumably bored with, or perhaps bankrupt of race-baiting ideas — has squarely focused its accusations of hate on Americans who would prefer a version of America with a smaller government.
Hearkening back to its roots and blaming the Nation’s decision to elect and re-elect a black President for perceived growth in the number of “conspiracy-minded antigovernment ‘Patriot’ groups” in recent years, the SPLC breathlessly exclaimed with the release of its latest “Intelligence Report”:
Now, it seems likely that the radical right’s growth will continue. In 2012, before Obama’s re-election and the Newtown, Conn., massacre, the rate of Patriot growth had slackened somewhat, although it remained significant. Anger over the idea of four more years under a black, Democratic president — and, even more explosively, the same kinds of gun control efforts that fueled the militia movement of the 1990s — seems already to be fomenting another Patriot spurt.
Even before the election last year, self-described Patriots sounded ready for action. “Our Federal Government is just a tool of International Socialism now, operating under UN Agendas not our American agenda,” the United States Patriots Union wrote last year in a letter “sent to ALL conservative state legislators, all states.” This means that freedom and liberty must be defended by the states under their Constitutional Balance of Power, or we are headed to Civil War wherein the people will have no choice but to take matters into their own hands.
In its effort of essentializing that all small government advocates or persons who proudly refer to themselves as patriots are terroristic in nature, SPLC and those who accept its ideology eagerly create an entire class of unwitting homegrown terrorist.
As previously noted by Personal Liberty, SPLC counts the following among potential small government troublemakers, people who it lists alongside the likes of white supremacists and neo-Nazis:
  • Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
  • Representative Trey Radel (R-Fla.).
  • State lawmakers in Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee who proposed laws that sought to prevent Federal gun control from applying to their States.
  • Sheriff Richard Mack.
  • FOX News Radio host Todd Starnes.
  • ConservativeDaily.com’s Tony Adkins.
  • Chuck Baldwin, a Montana-based Patriot leader long associated with the Constitution Party.
  • The Oath Keepers.
This author would be willing to bet that he and many of you also fit the bill to be grouped alongside SPLC’s list of hysterical small-government advocates.
For people like those at the SPLC and the Nation’s fusion centers, it doesn’t matter that Americans have the Constitutionally protected right to speak out against what they perceive to be government’s shortcomings and abuses. The name of the game for them is remaining relevant. That is to say, if SPLC actually focused on fighting racism and fusion centers focused on tracking legitimate terror threats (which would likely get them in trouble with SPLC for profiling), both enterprises would have little with which to busy themselves.
It is far easier for the two to attack the millions of Americans cognizant of and angry about too big, too wasteful and woefully inept bureaucracy in America. The aforementioned Senate report on fusion centers notes that they have gone so far as to collect information on individuals who placed political stickers in public bathrooms or participated in protests against government actions. And while the information may sit and collect dust forever, precedents set throughout American history (Alien and Sedition acts, Japanese internment) make it frighteningly possible that it could be put to a more sinister use.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Voter Registration Part Of ObamaCrapCare


Obamacare Application Includes Voter Registration

Obamacare Application Includes Voter Registration
Kyle Becker
  • On March 25, 2013
  • https://twitter.com/kylenbecker
Obamacare’s purpose is not to ‘reduce healthcare costs’ or to insure all Americans (heck, Democrats want illegal immigrantsto take advantage, too): its real raison d’etreis to buy votes with other people’s money.
Not a single Republican voted for Obamacare, so let’s not be confused about the following. The 61-page Obamacare draft application to enroll in the entitlement program includes directions on registering to vote. Voter participation by eligible citizens is healthy in a Constitutional republic, but there are more appropriate venues to do voter registration drives. Paul Bedard ofWashington Secrets reports:
The 61-page online Obamacare draft application for health care includes asking if the applicant wants to register to vote, raising the specter that pro-Obama groups being tapped to help Americans sign up for the program will also steer them to register with the Democratic Party.
On page 59, after numerous questions about the applicant’s identity and qualification for Obamacare, comes the question: “Would you like to register to vote?” The placement of the question could lead some to believe they have to register to vote to get health care.
Paul Bedard’s article raises a good point, namely: What does the Department of Health & Human Services plan to do with the monstrous volume of information on each patient/citizen/voter? More to the point, it doesn’t matter, because it shouldn’t have this information to begin with.
With word getting around that the IRS will play a major role in enforcement of Obamatax, and will be monitoring bank accounts for compliance, who can doubt that Obamacare is a rubric for state control over nearly every aspect of Americans’ lives? Who can doubt that it’s the means for the Democrats to lock up perpetual power in a vicious dependency circle?
Mainly young voters, who tend to be insulated from economic pressures due to their parents’ generosity and the debt-spending of the American government, which will eventually run out.
demcare
Damage to the economy be damned. The program was originally pitched as a cost cutter, but its $900 billion ten-year price-tag is three times this cost and is slated to add $6.2 trillion to the long-term debt. Sounds an awfully lot like another disastrous program, which came under LBJ:Medicare.
Let’s do a brief recap of Obamacare’s lies/false promises:
  • If you like your current insurance you can keep it.
  • If you like your doctor you can keep him or her.
  • Obama Care will not add one dime to the deficit.
  • The ten-year cost of Obama Care will be $900 billion.
  • Obamacare will cover everyone.
These have all turned out to be untrue, according to Forbes. In addition, Senate Democrats recently defeated a measure that would deny illegal immigrants from receiving healthcare benefits. So Democrats are giving away entitlements to people from other countries now!
But let’s take a look now at just how out-of-whack the costs are for Obamacare compared to the supposed actual problem of “49 million” uninsured. Betsy McCaughey wrote a scathing columnthat showed that “at least 40 million people could be uninsured in 2016, only 9 million fewer than before the law was passed.” Commentary by Stephen Green of the PJ Tatler:
A trillion dollars over ten years, usurping the doctor’s role in determining care, jacking up insurance rates to ruinous levels, bankrupting the 57 states, rationing, death panels, and all the rest — in order to solve the 30 billion dollar problem of 49 million uninsured. And of those, 40 million still might not get covered?
Arg16Don’t doubt for a minute that there won’t be voter registration forms on foreign-language Obamacare applications. Some people from other countries in the U.S. are legal immigrants; but estimates have it that nearly 30 million people total from all different countries are here illegally (including on overstayed visas). How are we going to pay for them all? And how are we going to treat them all, with six in ten doctors retiring early because of Obamacare?
The bottom line is the reason we have private property and voting is so that citizens can choose their representatives in Congress. It is not so that people can vote for benefits out of the U.S. Treasury or for the party that doles it out to them. If Americans want a chance todismantle Obamacare, they better vote in 2014, period.
Note: As Editor Bubba Atkinson points out, gun registration questionnaires do not include voter registration forms. Motor voter registration does not imply any party favoritism, per se.

Cyprus Future Not Assured


Mohammed El-Erian is very bright and has a special handle on foreign

 investments. We trust his experience and expertise when he talks 

about the future for Cypus. The following post exposes the threat

 to not only the country but all of the Eurozone.

Pimco’s El-Erian: Cyprus Capital Controls Are Just 'Circuit Breakers'

Tuesday, 02 Apr 2013 11:09 AM
By Michael Kling



Harsh capital controls are only a stopgap measure for the eurozone's
 Cyprus crisis, cautions Mohamed El-Erian, CEO and co-CIO of Pimco.

Capital controls offer a "short reprieve" at best. If not followed by
 more essential — and probably controversial — decisions, in a matter
 of weeks the controls will become part of an even deeper problem,
El-Erian writes in a guest blog for CNBC.

In an attempt to prevent a bank run, the country's bailout agreement
 limits how much depositors can remove from bank accounts and
take abroad.

"History tells us that this approach only works if controls are followed
 by a re-alignment of economic incentives and by offering the population
 a genuine hope for recovery and return to normalcy," he states.
 "Otherwise, what is viewed initially as a 'circuit breaker' ends up
making the underlying situation worse."

The controls will strangle what little economic growth remains,
 El-Erian explains.

With less access to savings, consumer spending will plummet.
Investment activity will grind to a halt because of substantial
disruption in demand. Capital flowing into Cyprus will stop, and
 capital will only flow out. Even routine corporate activities will
 be limited, as part of companies' working capital is trapped.

And that's just the immediate impact. Over the long term, Cyprus
 must find an economic driver to replace its banking business, he says.
That will not be easy. Although the country's position is not impossible,
 finding a mix of agriculture, tourism and light manufacturing will take
time.

"Cyprus can hope that its tragic situation," El-Erian notes, "will unlock
more generous funding from the 'Troika' of the European Commission,
 the European Central Bank [ECB] and the [International Monetary Fund]."

Leaving the euro "seems equally unpalatable to Europe given contagion
 worries," he adds, warning that a spillover could a systemic threat even
 if limited.

The ECB's options are limited, he maintains. "Wherever they look, Cyprus
 and its European partners are running out of easy options."

Instead of stopgap measures, they must restore growth and jobs

In an effort to create that kind of growth, Cyprus President Nicos
Anastasiades plans to end the ban on casinos, reports the Guardian.

Gambling is legal only on the northern, Turkish side of the island.
 Anastasiades announced plans for tax exemptions on business profits
reinvested in Cyprus, encouraging landlords to reduce rents, encouraging
 banks to lend for longer terms at lower rates and reducing electricity costs.


Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.moneynews.com/FinanceNews/El-Erian-Cyprus-stopgap-eurozone/2013/04/02/id/497414?s=al&promo_code=13024-1#ixzz2PQNZ7l3G

The ObamaCrapCare Nightmare Starts

For those of you who have a hard time filling out your 1040EZ,  the new ObamaCrapCare form is going to be an absolute nightmare.  In the following article from Forbes, you will just start seeing the absolute government over-reach and lack of simplification.

Whether you complete the 61 page internet form or the 26 "simplified" paper one, we assume that most
Americans will look at the number and complexity and put it aside and basically say "screw the money I could save."    The form will take hours to complete.. Additionally, you have to accumulate a lot of information from your employer, your income information, your smoking status and other info.  We are sure there will be questions about your gun ownership!


This is only the beginning, it will only get worse!

Conservative Tom

Here is the link, if you dare:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottgottlieb/2013/04/03/to-sign-up-for-obamacare-start-filling-out-the-forms-now-and-hire-a-good-accountant/

Or: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/14/want-obamacare-heres-the-21-page-draft-application/

GAO Asked To Investigate DHS Ammo Purchases


If GOP lawmakers cannot get an answer from DHS on the ammo purchases, how are mortal citizens expected to.  This all is very disquieting. Lies and deceit are all hallmarks of a corrupt Administration!


Conservative Tom


Republican lawmakers seek GAO check on DHS ammunition purchases

By Pete Kasperowicz 04/03/13 10:50 AM ET
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study the weapons and ammunition purchases of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The request is the result of months of criticism about DHS' plans to buy 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the next several years. Many Republicans have highlighted DHS' plans as an enormous expense, although DHS says the goal is to save money by buying in bulk.
Still, such a large purchase has made some conservatives nervous that the government is building up its stockpile of ammunition, at the same time that the Obama administration is looking to put limits on gun ownership.

Some have also noted that DHS plans to buy thousand of hollow-point rounds, and that DHS' total purchase would give it a roughly 15-year supply.

Duncan left open the possibility that DHS' planned purchases will be made for legitimate reasons, but said DHS has failed to communicate why.

"[O]ne thing that is certain is that DHS has done a poor job communicating with Congress, the media and the American people on this issue," Duncan said Tuesday. "That is why I've asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct an independent review into these ammunition purchases, and why I will continue to pressure DHS to be more transparent about this topic.

Duncan and McCaul asked the GAO to compare its current ammo purchases with those made it the past, how much excess ammo DHS has, and how the department ensures that it buys weapons and ammo in the most efficient way possible.

An aide to Duncan said GAO has indicated it would start the process of conducting the analysis "relatively quickly."

DHS has tried to answer many of these questions about ammunition purchases over the last few weeks. Earlier in the week, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) posted a letter he received from DHS that said DHS ammo purchases have fallen off since fiscal year 2010, and that it plans to spend $37 million on roughly 100 million rounds of ammo in the current fiscal year.

Duncan also noted that DHS put out a summary of its ammo purchases in late March. That summary said ammo purchases are largely used to keep its roughly 72,000 armed agents trained on their weapons.

DHS said its ammunition purchases have remained constant since 2006.


Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/291625-gop-lawmakers-ask-for-gao-study-on-dhs-ammo-purchases#ixzz2PQEEr6jS 
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Tuesday, April 2, 2013

North Korea Issue


Will Globalists Use North Korea To Trigger Catastrophe?

April 2, 2013 by  
Will Globalists Use North Korea To Trigger Catastrophe?
PHOTOS.COM
Whenever discussion over North Korea arises in Western circles, it always seems to be accompanied by a strange mixture of sensationalism and indifference. The mainstream media consistently presents the communist nation as an immediate threat to U.S. national security, conjuring an endless number of hypothetical scenarios as to how they could join forces with al-Qaida and attack with a terroristic strategy. At the same time, the chest puffing of the late Kim Jong Il and the standard fare of hyper-militant rhetoric on the part of the North Korean government in general seem to have lulled the American public into a trance of non-concern.
In the midst of the latest tensions with the North Koreans, I have found that most people are barely tracking developments and that, when confronted by the idea of war, they shrug it off as if it is a laughable concept. “Surely” they claim, “The North is just posturing as they always have.”
The high-focus propaganda attacking North Korea on our side and the puffer fish methodology on their side have created a social and political atmosphere surrounding our relations with the Asian nation that I believe places both sides of the Pacific in great danger. North Korea has the potential to become a trigger point for multiple economic catastrophes, and there are people in this world who would be happy to use such crises to serve their own interests.
The mainstream view being espoused by globalist-minded politicians and corporate oligarchs with an agenda is that North Korea is a nuclear armed monstrosity ready to use any subversive means necessary to strike the United States. The idea that the North is working closely with al-Qaida has been suggested in everything from White House briefings to cable news to movies and television. The concept of pan-global terrorist collusion and the cartoon-land “axis of evil” has been prominent in our culture since the Administration of George W. Bush. It has even been making a resurgence lately in the MSM, which presented countries like Iran, Syria And North Korea as the primary culprits behind the failure of the U.N. Small Arms Treaty.
Of course, what remains less talked about in the mainstream is the fact that these nations refuse to adhere to the treaty because carefully placed loopholes still allow major powers like the United States to feed arms into engineered insurgencies. Why would Syria or any other targeted nation sign a treaty that restricts its own sovereign ability to trade while giving teeth to internal enemies trained and funded by foreign intelligence agencies?
The establishment brushes aside such facts and consistently admonishes these countries as the last holdouts standing in the way of a new world order, a worldwide socioeconomic cooperative and pseudo-Utopia. The path to this wonderful global village is always presented as a battle against stubborn isolationists, non-progressives who lack vision and cling desperately to the archaic past. The values of personal and national sovereignty are painted as outdated, decrepit and even threatening to the newly born world structure. The image of North Korea is used by globalists as a kind of straw man argument against sovereignty. North Koreans’ vices and imbalances as a culture are many; but this is due in far larger part to their communist insanity, rather than any values of national independence. It is their domestic hive-mind collectivism we should disdain, not their wish to maintain a comfortable distance as a society from the global game.
As far as being an imminent physical threat to the United States, it really depends on the scenario. The North Koreans have almost no logistical capability to support an invasion of any kind. The nation has been suffering from epidemic famine for well more than a decade.
To initiate a war outright has never been in the best interests of the North Koreans, simply because their domestic infrastructure would not be able to handle the strain. However, there is indeed a scenario in which North Korea could be influenced to use military force despite apprehension.
With the ever looming threat of famine comes the ever looming threat of citizen revolution.  When any government is faced with the possibility of being supplanted, it will almost always lash out viciously in order to maintain power and control, no matter the cost. Sanctions like those being implemented by the West against North Korea today, at the very edge of national famine, could destabilize the country entirely. I believe the North would do anything to avoid an internal insurgency scenario, including attacking South Korea to acquire food stores and energy reserves, as well as other tangible modes of wealth.
North Korea’s standing army, obtained through mandatory conscription, is estimated at about 1.1 million active personnel, very close to the numbers active in the U.S. armed forces. But North Korean reserves are estimated at more than 8 million, compared to only 800,000 in the United States. If made desperate by economic sanctions, the North Koreans could field a massive army that would wreak havoc in the South and be very difficult to root out on their home turf. Asian cultures have centuries of experience using asymmetric warfare (the kryptonite of the U.S. military), and I do not believe it is wise to take such a possible conflict lightly, as many Americans seem to do. It is easy to forget that the last Korean War did not work out so well for us. At best, we would be mired in on-ground operations for years (just like Iraq and Afghanistan) or perhaps even decades. Like North Korea, we also do not have the logistical economic means to enter into another such war.
The skeptics argue that we will never get to this point, though, because North Korea has brandished and blustered many times before, all resulting in nothing. I see recent events being far different and more urgent than in the past, and here’s why:
  • The West needs to realize that North Korea is under new leadership. The blowhard days of Kim Jung Il are over, and little is known about his son, Kim Jong Un. So far, the young dictator has followed through on everything he said he would do, including the multiple nuclear tests that the West is using as an excuse to exert sanctions. To assume that the son will be exactly like the father is folly.
  • Many people claimed that North Korean threats to abandon the Armistice in place since 1953 were empty, yet they dropped it exactly as they said they would at the beginning of March.
  • The North has begun cutting off direct communication channels to the South, including a cross-border hotline meant to help alleviate tensions through diplomatic means.
  • The North has officially declared a state of war against the South. This has been called mere “tough talk” by the U.S. government, but the speed at which these multiple developments have occurred should be taken into consideration.
  • At the beginning of this year, silver purchases by the North from China surged. For the entire year of 2012, the government purchased $77,000 worth of precious metals. In the first few months of 2013, North Korea has already purchased $600,000 in silver. The exact size of the North’s precious metals stockpile is unknown. Though seemingly small in comparison to many purported metal holdings by major powers, this sudden investment expansion would indicate a government move to protect internal finances from an exceedingly frail economic environment.  Metals are also historically accumulated at a high rate by nations preparing for war or invasion in the near term.
Again, all that is needed to instigate an event on the Korean Peninsula are tightened sanctions. The establishment knows this, though another Gulf of Tonkin incident (an openly admitted false flag event) may be on the menu as well.
Given that the chances of a shooting war are high if sanctions continue, it might be wise to consider the consequences of conflagration in Korea.
Dealing with a large army steeped in asymmetric and mountain warfare will be difficult enough.  In fact, an invasion of North Korea would be far more deadly than Afghanistan, if only because of the sheer number of maneuver elements (guerilla-style units) on the ground. But let’s set aside North Korea for a moment and consider the greatest threat of all: the dollar collapse.
As I have discussed in numerous articles, China, the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, has positioned itself to decouple from the American consumer and the dollar. This is no longer a theoretical process as it was in 2008, but a very real and nearly completed one. Mainstream analysts often claim China would never break from the dollar because it would damage their export markets and their investment holdings. The problem is, China is already dumping the dollar using bilateral trade agreements with numerous developing nations. It isn’t just talking about it; it is doing it.
The development of a decoupled China is part of a larger push by international banks to remove the dollar as the world reserve currency and replace it with a new global currency. This currency already exists. The International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) is a mechanism backed by a basket of currencies as well as gold. The introduction of the SDR on a wide scale is dependent on only two things.
First, China has been designated the replacement consumer engine in the wake of a U.S. collapse. They have already surpassed the United States as the No. 1 trading power in the world. However, they must spread their own currency, the Yuan, throughout global markets in order to aid the IMF in removing the dollar. China has recently announced a program to sell more than $6 trillion in Yuan denominated bonds to foreign investors, easily fulfilling this need.
Second, China and the IMF need a scapegoat event, a rationale for dumping the dollar that the masses would accept as logical. A U.S. invasion of North Korea could easily offer that rationale.
While China has been playing the good Samaritan in relations with the United States in dealing with North Korea and has supported (at least on paper) certain measures including sanctions, China will never be in support of Western combat actions in the Pacific so close to their territory. The kind of U.S. or NATO presence a war with North Korea would generate would be entirely unacceptable to the Chinese, who do not need to respond using arms. Rather, all they have to do to get rid of us would be to fully dump the dollar and threaten to cut off trade relations with any other country that won’t do the same. The domino effect would be devastating, causing U.S. costs to skyrocket and forcing us to pull troops out of the region. At the same time, the dollar would be labeled a “casualty of war” rather than a casualty of conspiratorial global banking designs, and the financial elites would be removed from blame.
Ultimately, we should take North Korea seriously not because of the wild-eyed propaganda of the mainstream media and not because they are “doing business with terrorists” or because they are a “violent and barbaric relic of nationalism,” but because a war in North Korea serves the more malicious interests of globalization. No matter what happens in the near future, it is important for Americans to always question the true motives behind any event and ask ourselves who, in the end, truly benefited.
 –Brandon Smith