Cash is Out, Bartering is King

 

Tess Pennington
Activist Post
It’s yard sale season now! It’s a great place and time to practice bartering skills and pick up cheap but valuable items. Part of my preps are acquiring items the majority of folks take for granted but will have huge value in an economic collapse situation. Fire, water, smokes, salt, spices, sanitation/hygiene items, etc. are just a few things that will buy me things I need and can’t produce myself in a SHTF event. Don’t think it can happen here. Look at Greece. Spain is soon to follow.
Reality tells us that we may soon be coming to a point in which cash is no longer king.  The economy has been drying up for years.  Over one million Americans filed their initial unemployment claim over the last month.  The dollars we bring home are buying less on every trip to the grocery store.
Few of us are completely self-sufficient.  There are always going to be a few things that we cannot make for ourselves.  If your personal preps are in order, consider investing your prep dollars in a new way: purchase barter items!

A lot of things that are inexpensive now will be invaluable later.  As the economy collapses even further, people will be focused on survival and the barter system will reignite.  Barter items will be far better than cash – you can’t eat a dollar!

What kind of items will be worth their weight in gold?  Check out this list for a few suggestions:

• Matches and lighters
• Seeds
• Canning jars, lids and rings
• First aid items
• Tools
• Water Filtration Supplies
• Sewing supplies
• Vitamins
• Salt
• Feminine Hygiene Supplies
• Vitamins
• Fishing Supplies
• Fuel (gasoline, propane, kerosene, etc)
• Sweeteners such as honey, sugar and syrup
• Coffee/Tea
• Carbonated beverages
• Liquor
• Cigarettes/tobacco
• Small packages of food (baggies of beans/rice, etc)
• Livestock
• Cooking oil
• Firewood
• Farm supplies (pesticides, fertilizer, etc.)
• Weapons, Ammo *
• Batteries
• Warm clothing
• Hats/Gloves (think about those little dollar store stretchy items)
• Soap/shampoo
• Hand sanitizer
• Dental care items (toothbrushes/toothpaste/floss)

*Caution: Exercise great discretion when bartering with weapons and ammunition.  It is entirely possible that those items could be used against you to take your supplies.  These are items to be bartered only with someone you trust implicitly or as an absolute last resort.
Barter items can be purchased at the dollar store, the flea market or at liquidation houses.  Don’t forget yard sales – even though you already possess a meat grinder, someone who has ammo that you need might not have one. Items that you can acquire and store inexpensively may one day be more valuable than gold.
Don’t forget about the items that you can produce yourself.  This goes hand-in-hand with the barter of skills.  Stock up on the supplies you need to create the following items for a long-term flow of “income”.

• Fresh produce
• Ammunition (see *caution above)
• Home canned items
• Preserved meats (jerky, ham, etc)
• Warm knitted or crocheted items (mittens, hats, scarves)
• Yarn spun from animal fibers
• Homemade candy
• Homemade soap
• Homemade candles
• Wooden or clay bowls and plates
• Herbal remedies

Use this list to get your creative juices flowing.  What items do you possess the ability to make?
Which of these items will be particularly useful if the grid goes down or if the economy crumbles?
What items are you stocking up on for life in a potential barter-based economy?  Please share your ideas below!
Related Activist Post Articles:

• 10 Easy DIY Career Opportunities
• 10 Ways to Survive Skyrocketing Food Prices

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
Contributed by Tess Pennington of Ready Nutrition. Tess Pennington is the author of The Prepper’s Cookbook: 300 Recipes to Turn Your Emergency Food into Nutritious, Delicious, Life-Saving Meals. When a catastrophic collapse cripples society, grocery store shelves will empty within days. But if you follow this book’s plan for stocking, organizing and maintaining a proper emergency food supply, your family will have plenty to eat for weeks, months or even years.

Cash is Out, Bartering is King
Activist
Wed, 21 May 2014 00:21:00 GMT

The US Department of Agriculture Needs Submachine Guns...And This Is Why

 

Wendy McElroy
Activist Post
On May 7, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) posted a notice on the government's Federal Business Opportunities site in order to solicit bids on an undisclosed number of submachine guns.
The notice read, in part,

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, located in Washington, DC, pursuant to the authority of FAR Part 13, has a requirement for the commerical [sic] acquisition of submachine guns, .40 Cal. S&W, ambidextrous safety, semi-automatic or 2 shot burts [sic] trigger group, Tritium night sights for front and rear, rails for attachment of flashlight (front under fore grip) and scope (top rear), stock-collapsilbe [sic] or folding, magazine - 30 rd. capacity, sling, light weight, and oversized trigger guard for gloved operation.” [Note: spelling errors in original]

Speculation On The Why of Submachine Guns
When President Abraham Lincoln established the USDA in 1862, he called it the “People's Department.” The USDA website lists its current areas of authority as: Assisting Rural Communities; Conservation; Education and Research; Food and Nutrition; and, Marketing and Trade. The agency has over 100,000 employees. Why do employees of the People's Department need semi-automatic machine guns to do their job? What would the job description be?

Second Amendment sites have speculated that the most likely recipients are agents of the US Forest Service (USFS) Law Enforcement & Investigations unit; the USFS falls under USDA control.
Although this seems likely, there are also counter-indications. The solicitation notice makes no mention of the USFS, and those agents are already armed. The Wikipedia site on USFS states “Special agents are normally plainclothes officers who carry concealed firearms, and other defensive equipment...” Moreover, the weapon being solicited is typically used for close quarter operations, such as inside a building or into a crowd, rather than in an open or unpopulated area.
Several people have attempted to reach the two “public servants” listed in the notice as USDA contacts for interested weapon companies. Attempts to contact Linda F.B Josey, head of the Procurement Management Branch, reach an auto-reply that states she is “out for training.” Desiree Clayton, the contracting officer, is "not in the office at this time."
The news site Politico managed to get an answer. Politico reported, “USDA spokeswoman Courtney Rowe says the guns are needed by the more than 100 agents employed by the law-enforcement division of the department’s Office of the Inspector General. They’ve carried machine guns for 20 years, she notes. USDA OIG officers 'are placed in very dangerous law enforcement situations,” another USDA official told POLITICO. 'They make arrests, they serve subpoenas and they engage in undercover operations'.” What sort of “very dangerous law enforcement situation” does the USDA confront?
Assuming The USFS Is The Intended Recipient
The USFS is closely allied with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and often provides it with back-up. A key reason is because the two agencies share responsibility for managing an estimated 167 million acres of public rangeland in America, with the USFS presiding over more than half. The BLM recently laid siege to the ranch of Cliven Bundy. A timeline on the Bundy conflict provides insight into the relationship of the two agencies.
In March 1993, the BLM designated hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land in Nevada for conservation efforts and closed it off to livestock grazing. Since the 1930s, federal rangelands in Nevada have been managed primarily by the BLM (or its predecessor) and the USFS. Rancher Cliven Bundy called the BLM move a “land grab.” He claimed Nevada owned the land and he refused to remove his cattle.
In 1995, the USFS was responsible for overseeing 7 million acres in Nevada and became quickly entangled in conflict with ranchers. In April 1995, USA Today reported,

Thursday evening, a small bomb went off in the U.S. Forest Service office in Carson City, Nev....

"If it was sent as a message," says Forest Service spokeswoman Erin O'Connor, "we got it." Ultimately the issue will be settled by the courts, but ranchers who say they can't afford to raise livestock without greater access to public land are taking matters into their own hands -- setting up what some officials fear is an inevitable and dangerous confrontation. The situation is becoming so tense that federal workers now travel mostly in pairs and are in constant radio contact with district offices.
"I'm concerned about the safety of my employees," says Jim Nelson, Forest Service district manager for Nevada. "They can't go to church in these communities without having someone say something. Their kids are harassed in school. Stores and restaurants are not serving them."

A year later, more pipebombs had exploded in the offices of the USFS and the BLM.
In 2002, another Nevada rancher was found guilty of grazing on federally-claimed land. His sentence affirmed the USFS's authority over the disputed area.
Skip forward to April 2014. There were a series of conflicts with the Bundys and their supporters on one side, and armed BLM and other agents on the other. A photojournalist described one incident. “We were on a bridge in southern Nevada in the midst of a tense standoff between the BLM and a group of angry ranchers, milita-members [sic] and gun-rights activists. It seemed as if we were a hair’s breadth away from Americans killing Americans right in front of me.” He reported “the man with a rifle beside me....aimed his weapon in the direction of [BLM] officers,” and said “I’ve got a clear shot at four of them.” Ultimately, no shots were fired.
Such stand-offs are undoubtedly among the “very dangerous law enforcement situations” that the USFS anticipates. The agency is hardly alone in stockpiling military weapons and ammunition. Bob Owens at the website Bearing Arms observed, “This is part of a trend to arm every branch of federal government, whether the individual agency has a legitimate need for a paramilitary force or not."

Conclusion
No agency seems innocuous or too small to avoid becoming paramilitary. On August 13, 2012, the Business Insider reported, “ the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is looking for 46,000 rounds of ammunition for the National Weather Service.”
After all, nothing says “public servant” like an armed enforcement agent who points a gun while checking the level of rainfall. That's especially true if he packs a submachine gun which ordinary Americans cannot obtain without a Federal Firearms License.
Join the other Dollar Vigilantes discussing this article.
Wendy McElroy is a regular contributor to the Dollar Vigilante, and a renowned individualist anarchist and individualist feminist. She was a co-founder along with Carl Watner and George H. Smith of The Voluntaryist in 1982, and is the author/editor of twelve books, the latest of which is "The Art of Being Free". Follow her work atwww.wendymcelroy.com.

The US Department of Agriculture Needs Submachine Guns...And This Is Why
Activist
Tue, 20 May 2014 23:18:00 GMT

"September 11 - The New Pearl Harbor" - Full version (1/3)

Wireless Microchip Implant Set For Human Trials

 

Nicholas West
Activist Post
Once again, it seems that yesterday's conspiracy theory is today's news. 
However, the signposts have been there all along. Microchip implants to track pets and livestock and the elderly are now widely available, while microchipping kids is not far off. Extensive animal testing has been conducted on monkeys to enable them to control devices via brain-computer interface. Edible "smart pill" microchips have been embraced as a way to correctly monitor patient dosages and vital signs.
In the name of health and security - always the dynamic duo for introducing the next level of science fiction into everyday reality - a new wirelessly powered implant a fraction the size of a penny, as seen above, promises to offer a whole new ease of medical monitoring and drug delivery.
Futurist and a director of engineering, Ray Kurzweil, has discussed at length the imminent Human Body 2.0, which will incorporate medical nanobots that that can deliver drugs to specific cells and also identify certain genetic markers by using fluorescent labeling. Once these nanobots have entered the body, Kurzweil indicates that they could then connect our brains directly to Cloud computing systems. Most significantly, Kurzweil states:

It will be an incremental process, one already well under way. Although version 2.0 is a grand project, ultimately resulting in the radical upgrading of all our physical and mental systems, we will implement it one benign step at a time. Based on our current knowledge, we can already touch and feel the means for accomplishing each aspect of this vision. (emphasis added) [Source]

The wireless microchip is one of those "benign" steps. Using a technology called "mid-field wireless transfer" researchers from Stanford, as reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, seem to have solved the problem of how to provide a low-consumption power source that can wirelessly recharge implantable microchips. They cite a range of benefits:

(The)work could lead to programmable microimplants like sensors that monitor vital functions, electrostimulators that alter neural signals in the brain, and drug delivery systems that apply medicine directly where needed. All without the bulk of batteries and recharging systems required today.

[...]

So far, the wireless charging system has been tested in a pig and also used to power a pacemaker in a rabbit. The next step is human trials. Should those prove successful, it will likely take a few years before the system is authorized for commercial usage. (emphasis added) [Source]

To those who have not looked into the issue of microchipped humans, this might sound all well and good within the realm of medicine. However, if we have learned one thing about sci-tech, it always has a tendency to spread - especially in an age of ubiquitous surveillance amid "security threats" of every stripe. 
We can see the propaganda push beginning within corporate media that, indeed, microchips will not be limited in scope. As reported by Michael Snyder, a recent BBC article entitled "Why I Want a Microchip Implant" hides nothing in where this is all likely to lead:

Ultimately, implanted microchips offer a way to make your physical body machine-readable. Currently, there is no single standard of communicating with the machines that underpin society – from building access panels to ATMs – but an endless diversity of identification systems: magnetic strips, passwords, PIN numbers, security questions, and dongles. All of these are attempts to bridge the divide between your digital and physical identity, and if you forget or lose them, you are suddenly cut off from your bank account, your gym, your ride home, your proof of ID, and more. An implanted chip, by contrast, could act as our universal identity token for navigating the machine-regulated world. (emphasis added)

Beyond the clear privacy and health implications of literally opening up your body to security breaches - as all computerized systems are now known to have gaping holes - there is the question of radiation. The Stanford researchers insist that this "breakthrough discovery in wireless power requires roughly as much energy as a cell phone and exposes subjects to radiation levels well below the threshold for human safety," but an increasing number of studies show that cell phones and wireless technology are a grave threat to human health. Here are some of those sources:

• 34 Scientific Studies Showing Adverse Health Effects From Wi-Fi
• New Studies Show Health Risks From Wireless Technology
• Cell Phone Industry Beats Public Health Concern in Maine
• Mobile phones can cause brain tumours, court rules.
• Neuroscientist Exposes Dangers of Electromagnetic Fields

And not only a threat to humans. It is now being shown that birds lose their internal compass in environments polluted with various electromagnetic fields. It is also commonly thought that bees, dolphins and other animals are highly sensitive to electromagnetic radiation.
Lastly, we can never discount the role of the military anywhere within science, as most of what we see trickle into the consumer realm comes from military-funded labs like those at DARPA. And what we see there is not very comforting.
The U.S. military has been looking for ways to create super soldiers who are resistant to diseases and bioattacks through microchipping. Then we have DARPA's investigations into Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as a form of remote mind control that would be made vastly easier through a tiny wireless brain implant.
One thing is for certain, Ray Kurzweil's Human Body 2.0 is being worked on as we speak. The only thing left to wonder is who will be in control of it?
Here is the official video from Stanford:
Recently by Nicholas West:

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Wireless Microchip Implant Set For Human Trials
Activist
Tue, 20 May 2014 21:26:00 GMT

Tax Reform is Useless Without Spending Reform

 

Tax Reform is Useless Without Spending Reform

written by ron paul

sunday may 18, 2014

Recently, Republican leaders in Congress unveiled a "tax reform" plan that they claimed would provide the American people with a simpler, fairer, and more efficient tax system. While this plan does lower some tax rates and contains some other changes that may make next April a little less painful for Americans, there is little in it to excite supporters of liberty.
Taxes may even increase under this plan for some Americans, as it eliminates some of those tax deductions labeled “loopholes.” When I served in Congress I opposed bills that “closed loopholes” because closing loopholes is just a fancy way of saying raising taxes. Anything that leaves more money in the hands of the people is beneficial to both liberty and economic efficiency. As economist Thomas DiLorenzo put it, "...private individuals always spend their own money more efficiently than government bureaucrats do,” therefore sound economics, as well as a concern for liberty, requires opposition to any proposal to "let government bureaucrats spend more of the people's hard-earned money.”
Tax reformers also stray from sound economics when they endorse a tax system that is designed to direct consumption and savings. I share the concern that the current tax system distorts people’s behavior by discouraging savings. However, the solution is not for the government to create a tax code that punishes consumption in order to encourage savings. A truly efficient market is one where individuals are completely free to determine how to allocate their incomes between consumption and savings. No politician or bureaucrat can know the proper allocation of savings and investment that meets the needs of every individual, and government policies designed to cause individuals to devote more of their income to savings than they otherwise would distorts the market just as much as policies that encourage excess consumption.
The Republican tax plan adopts what is called “dynamic scoring.” Dynamic scoring is designed to recognize that tax cuts, by incentivizing work and investment, can increase revenue to the government. This is the argument of the famous Laffer curve. It has always seemed odd to me that a supposed free-market economist would argue for tax cuts on the grounds that it would enrich the state's coffers. After all, the more money the state has the greater its ability to violate our liberties. Does this mean that those concerned with liberty should vote against tax cuts? Of course not; the solution is to make sure tax cuts are big enough that they cost the government revenue.
Sadly, politicians in Washington refuse to consider any tax plan that would decrease government revenue. This is because the prevalent attitude in DC favors protecting the welfare-warfare state over protecting our liberties. As the obsession with the Laffer curve shows, even many alleged supporters of the free market only pretend to support liberty as a means to enhance the well-being of the welfare-warfare state.
Many politicians in Washington also forget that deficit spending is itself a tax. When the government runs deficits it uses money that could be more efficiently used by the private sector. Deficit spending also leads the Federal Reserve to monetize debt, thus burdening people with the inflation tax.
Instead of worrying over the latest plan to enable the government to more efficiently take our money, people who want to advance liberty must focus on breaking the intellectual and political consensus in support of the welfare-warfare state. Only then can we radically reduce all taxes, including the most insidious and regressive of taxes -- the inflation tax.

Related

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• The Coming Non-Intervention Revolution - 16 April 2013
• The Interventionist Failures and How To Fix Them - 17 April 2013
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• Congress Exploits Our Fears to Take Our Liberty - 22 April 2013

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Conspiracy Theorists Vindicated: HAARP Confirmed Weather-manipulation Tool

 

image Wikipedia Commons

Catherine J. Frompovich
Activist Post
The most damning aspersion that can be lobbed against any person, or the exposure of “secret government activity,” overwhelmingly is “Conspiracy Theorist.” That pejorative ‘handle’ is equated with imbecile mind-activity with aspersions often suggested as ‘tin hat wearers’. Well, step aside all you doubters and listen up carefully to what took place in the halls of Congress on May 14, 2014 regarding the weather modification system known as HAARP.
In the YouTube below Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) asks some pointed questions about HAARP. However, readers may not be surprised at the answers, but the mainstream media ought to be wiping oodles of egg yolk from its collective face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX3IOHpe6sY
In the report “Air Force Admits Weather Control via HAARP and New Tech,” David Walker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology and Engineering, very-matter-of-factly states that they took over from the Navy and will be moving on

to managing the ionosphere, what the HAARP was really designed to do, to inject energy into the ionosphere to be able to actually control it… [CJF emphasis added]

Furthermore, the U.S. Air Force intends to dismantle the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Gakona, Alaska, by or during the summer of 2014! [1]

Built at a cost of more than $290 million, the site has 180 antennas on 30 acres that are used to direct energy into the ionosphere, which is 55 miles to 370 miles above the Earth, and monitor changes in the flow of charged particles. Stevens was the godfather of HAARP, which he helped start two decades ago with annual earmarks slipped into the defense budget. [1]

It seems that no research facility can be found to take over the HAARP Alaska facility. Could that be an indication that the weather modification system is regarded unfavorably? I find that as a possibility and extremely interesting, especially in view of all the technology that was invested and built into it. If no one wants to continue operating HAARP, will the State of Alaska be interested in it for education research purposes? But then, maybe HAARP-at-sea-ships, i.e., the Tesla Weapon Platform SBX-1, probably will be the most effective ‘on-site’ HAARP facility rather than one remotely stationary on land.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqhME0dD5Ds
However, there are numerous HAARP facilities in other countries around the globe that the Tesla Weapon Platform SBX-1 possibly could interact with. But then, we have to wonder what Assistant Secretary Walker was referring to when he stated that they got out of HAARP Alaska what they wanted and were moving on…moving on to what?
May 2nd, 2014, I published “What’s With the Weather and Chemtrails?”  Readers may want to review in light of the latest “bombshell” acknowledgement by Walker at a Congressional hearing.
Conspiracy theories and theorists truly have been vindicated about HAARP.
Knowing the dogged research we, who are proclaimed ‘tin hat theorists’, perform and circulate, this writer feels extremely confident that other information regarded as ‘conspiracy theories’ about vaccines and other ‘sacred cow’ secrets also will be vindicated at some forthcoming date—just when, who knows—since it all depends upon who has the integrity to stand up and tell the facts of what’s been going on that the U.S. media, press, TV, and controllers won’t permit be made public until it’s too late to get objection going to stop the destruction of the planet and humankind.
It’s graduation time, theorists. Throw your tin hats into the air and let them fall wherever they may land. Hopefully, they will land on some mainstream media journalists’ heads so they can wear them and become empowered to tell the facts of what’s really going on.
Notes:
[1] http://www.adn.com/2014/05/14/3470442/air-force-prepares-to-dismantle.html?sp=/99/100/&ihp=1
Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.
Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.
Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.
Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008).

Conspiracy Theorists Vindicated: HAARP Confirmed Weather-manipulation Tool
Activist
Sat, 17 May 2014 16:50:00 GMT

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Two Constitutions of America

 

Anthony Freda Art

Susan Boskey
Activist Post
How in the world did we get here? Families struggle with the joblessness and debt left by the corporate takeover of life. They are bombarded with a mean-spirited right/left emotional tone in public debate which gets nastier by the day. All the while, “The Powers That Be” (TPTB) are full-speed ahead inventing new ways to expand laws to micro-manage the lives of everyday Americans. Who knew?
Kick the bums out! Elect leaders who care! Reform the system! Get money out of election campaigns! Protest! Amend the Constitution to get rid of human privileges by corporations! Write your Congressman! And don’t forget to vote!
But really, aren’t we simply witnessing too little too late?
The quest for political reform fails to address the source of the problem. The real culprit is the way we humans think and behave and how our behavior so often falls to the lowest common denominator of what we can get away with. The “do no harm” adage of the Golden Rule as what works in human relations holds little sway in the 21st century digital world. Instead, the mantra which rules, spoken mostly in hushed tones, goes something like, “Get as much as you can any way you can.”
Certainly we find unspeakably corrupt behavior played out in politics and business, but lo and behold, such deceitful behavior begins squarely with the lowly individual. Name-calling, lying, cheating, bullying, stealing, back-biting, character assassination and the joy of dominating others, describes a few of the choices people make at home, at work and, of course, in politics. Considered practically normal, this style of relating is the basic personal crisis of conscience justified by, “but everyone is doing it!”

The Invisible Power of Context

Americans are culturally conditioned to believe that their country is the foundation of freedom and truth and they have neither knowledge nor interest to fact-check what their leaders and media tell them. - Lawrence Davidson, professor of history, West Chester University in Pennsylvania, 2014

A country’s political and financial “container,” or context, has the power to shape and define the scope of possibilities for its people. However, we lose sight of this fact and instead focus on the problems caused by governing systems. For example, American education teaches a version of American history that consistently overlooks and under-reports certain events, particularly those leading up to and surrounding the creation of the Constitution of the United States and the U.S. Government. It was by these events that the direction of the country was forever changed in ways that departed greatly from what we have been led to believe. A universal principle is at work here: any context, political or otherwise, has overarching influence on the content within it, e.g. as does the sun on every aspect of its solar system.
In this essay, I hope to shed light on a couple of the missing pieces to the puzzle of a pivotal moment in American history. Perhaps the reader will take away a bigger picture and begin to consider how what happened then laid the foundation for the financial, political, social and personal ills faced by the 99% today, and also discover the hidden-in-plain-view remedy available for the taking.
The First Form of Governance in America
The story of America began with British colonists-turned-Americans and their individual rights and self-governance even as the American Revolution was underway. Setting the stage was the Declaration of Independence, ratified on July 4, 1776, and the first federal constitution, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, drafted mid-1776 (hereafter called the Articles or first constitution). John Dickinson of Pennsylvania penned the combined input of the delegates from each of the thirteen colonies that convened to create the Articles, America’s first governing document. It was adopted November 1777, and ratified in 1781 by all thirteen fledgling states.
In effect, this first constitution elevated the common man to the same status as that of a sovereign king, i.e. a self-governing “free inhabitant.” Each of the several states functioned autonomously within a purely voluntary and decentralized federal system. English Common Law, based on God-given “natural” law, was inherited from England as the law of the land. Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, discerned the existence of a new American jurisdiction and the lack of authority British King George III had over it while referring to the first American constitution:

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

The stated purpose of the new, loosely-formed Union was to fend together against foreign invasion. United under the Articles, free inhabitants of the several states were able to protect themselves in ways not otherwise possible separately. The period of 1777 to 1789 was a time of general prosperity in America as the earliest Americans enjoyed benefits of the confederation without obligation of federal citizenship.

The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever. —“The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union,” 1781

Not long after the 1781 ratification of the Articles, federal leaders agreed on what they saw as the many weaknesses inherent to the Articles since provisions for a supreme court, a commerce clause, the regulation of foreign trade, a standing army and the enforcement of taxation, had not been included. Over the years historians agreed the Articles were a failure, an opinion few would ever challenge.
In 1787 the Congress of the Confederation authorized that the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention could be held, however, with a resolution of specific, clearly stated limitations, “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures.”
As they say, the rest is history. It was at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention that the 1787 Constitution of the United States came into existence. Interestingly, most Americans believe that it was with this second constitution that the country began. Ask anyone, and most people will tell you they had little to no idea about the years of American history prior to 1787.
The Articles have been listed as one of the four Organic Laws (founding laws) of the United States of America, along with the Declaration of the United States of America, 1776, the Northwest Ordinance, 1787 and the Constitution of the United States 1787, listed at the beginning of the U.S. Code (official compilation of all U.S. laws).
The Second Form of Governance in America
As people know from experience there are two sides to any story. Yet few learn the other side of the story about America’s beginnings. The other side of the American story reveals how to many Americans at that time, the idea of the 1787 Constitution of the United States was less about “a more perfect union…of, by and for the people” and more about implementing the Federalist plan to concentrate federal power in the hands of a few.
Free inhabitants, led by the likes of Patrick Henry, feared exactly this, a centralized system reminiscent of a form of governance like that of the British Empire they had so recently escaped. Behind the cover of patriotism, it turns out that their fears were well-founded, The Constitution of 1787 and the U.S. Government it established was nothing less than a bloodless coup of the original American jurisdiction and way of life by a small group of powerful businessmen.
The short version of the coup is that at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention the Framers of the 1787 Constitution ignored the Congress of the Confederation’s resolution allowing only revisions to the Articles. Instead, they created an entirely new (unauthorized) second constitution and in 1789 proclaimed it ratified, though by only nine states and not the thirteen, as required by the Articles. On their own terms and by their own authority, the Framers created an illegitimate constitution and instituted a U.S. Government of manmade statutory law.
The creation of this second constitution and its government slipped in under the radar of most free inhabitants because they did not have the higher education necessary (as did the Framers) to figure out what had just happened. Many believed what the Federalist Papers told them; they would be recipients of a “more perfect union” because “all power of government was with the people.”
Yet for Patrick Henry and his cohorts, the incremental erosion of freedoms and liberties upon the establishment of the new U.S. Government did not go unnoticed. Essentially, these were the structural shifts from English Common Law to manmade statutory law, and from decentralized self-governance of “do no harm” to a centralized government of compelled performance (force). Autocratic government representation reverted back to serving the interests of an elite tyranny of the minority, the wealthy landowners.
Fast forward to today and the many statutory laws and regulations such as the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) legalizing indefinite detention of U.S. Citizens while denying them a trial by jury. By written law, U.S. Citizens have become potential enemy combatants or domestic terrorists, i.e. enemies of the state. Who benefits?
Herein is the overarching national myth for those with ears to hear: the myth is that we live in a nation of, by, and for the people. The second constitution marked a turning point backward, not forward, for the American people because the model for the U.S. Government used by the Framers was the British Monarchy, a fact well-documented in the notes of delegates attending the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Rule by a few, defined as oligarchy, differs only slightly from rule by a monarchy. Oligarchy (olig-archy) offers a handful of additional rulers beyond one king (mon - archy). The late comedian Bill Hicks described it this way, “You are free to do as we tell you.”
The Good News of Territorial Jurisdiction
As mentioned above, the body of law recognized by the first constitution was English Common Law, also known as unwritten law. Whereas under the second constitution the body of law recognized was statutory law, also known as written law. A statute is written by a state or federal authority. A characteristic of all written laws is that they must identify the boundaries (physical borders) of the land it owns, within which live the people to whom (and only to whom) its laws apply, also known as territorial jurisdiction.
While the Supremacy Clause of the second constitution declares it to be “the supreme law of the land,” former attorney and law researcher Dr. Eduardo Rivera says, not so fast. He asserts that the claim of supremacy is limited to the lands within the United States territorial jurisdiction. Therefore, statutory law of the U.S. Government applies exclusively to Americans living on federally-owned lands.
In 1807, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall delivered the death blow to the authority of English Common Law in the U.S. court system. In the decision, Ex parte Bollman and Swartwout 4 Cranch 75, he stated that written law (i.e. statutory law) was the exclusive law of the United States courts. His decision confirmed that a jurisdiction is defined by written law and “cannot transcend that jurisdiction.” A common law and statutory law system could exist simultaneously as different territorial jurisdictions.

Courts which originate in the common law possess a jurisdiction which must be regulated by their common law, until some statute shall change their established principles; but courts which are created by written law, and whose jurisdiction is defined by written law, cannot transcend that jurisdiction. The reasoning from the bar, in relation to it, may be answered by the single observation, that for the meaning of the term habeas corpus, resort may unquestionably be had to the common law; but the power to award the writ by any of the courts of the United States, must be given by written law. —Ex parte Bollman and Swartwout 4 Cranch 75 (emphasis added)

It has historically been well-established that King George III ceded his thirteen colonies to the new United States of America. Less well-known is that with the second constitution, lands that had been owned by the temporary government of the Northwest Ordinance were transferred in ownership to the newly formed United States/U.S. Government in 1789. Americans living within the borders of the Northwest Territory were, therefore, the (only) Americans subject to the statutory law of the new U.S. Government. Otherwise, the free inhabitants of the thirteen original states remained under the territorial jurisdiction of the first constitution and English Common Law by which they had been created.
What makes this period in American history so significant today? Since the Articles were never legally repealed (in writing), they not only remain valid per the Organic Laws above mentioned, but also as the governing document for current-day free inhabitants NOT living on federally-owned land. It is no surprise we were never told.
Why should you care about any of this? There’s a maxim in law that says, “Things that are different are not the same.” Apples are not oranges, right?
Apples: first constitution/decentralized several states/voluntary federal participation/ English Common Law/conscience/God-given rights
Oranges: second constitution/centralized federal government/compelled performance (force)/statutory law/commerce/manmade legislated rights (privileges)
Two totally different territorial jurisdictions exist simultaneously in America today. What Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence about King George III being unable to subject the new Americans to a foreign jurisdiction reverberates today with a U.S. Government and its “Acts of pretended Legislation,” meaning those of a foreign jurisdiction that actually has succeeded in subjecting free inhabitants to laws that do not apply to them.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation.

Federally-Owned Lands
Federal land ownership has changed and expanded beyond the time when it was only the land inside the Northwest Territory that was federally owned. Now “the Federal Zone” is a force to be reckoned with. A government document, “Congressional Research Service: Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data 2012” reports, “The federal government owns roughly 635-640 million acres, 28% of the 2.27 billion acres of land in the United States.” Including:

1. The District of Columbia
2. Federal Zones within States and Counties and lands of the Bureau of Land Management 
3. Territories of the United States 
4. U.S. and Overseas Military Bases  
5. Foreign Embassies, Veteran’s Hospitals and U.S. Post Offices 
6. U.S. Coastal Waters
7. National Parks
8. Most U.S. Airport Property

You Can’t Get There from Here
The number of Americans who agree that the federal system is broken and cannot be fixed is growing despite those who keep trying. A centralized U.S. Government of statutory law is largely a commercial system governed by the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). Given the structural design and operating principles of consolidation and centralization of such a system, power thereby defaults into the hands of a few. While these principles of an overarching commercial system remain firmly intact, there can be no possibility for genuine reform. It is structurally impossible.
Libido dominante, the lust for power, coined 2000 years ago to describe the founder of the Roman Empire, Augustus Caesar, is still what drives people, and especially in a system where so much of life (including people and nature) has been commoditized. The lust for power, no matter how you slice it, unleashes the worst of human behavior that affects people and places. Individually we neglect to look in the mirror, admit culpability as imperfect creatures, and commit to making changes in the only way change can begin and take root – with ourselves. When enough of us, from “authorities” to celebrities and children, voluntarily replace self-interest with conscience as our operating principle and reclaim the willingness to “do the right thing” in any situation, only then can something collectively amazing happen for America.

It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.  - David Brin, author

Free-inhabitant Americans today have unwittingly become the beneficiaries of the lost authority of the Articles. Given the continued validity of this governing document, individuals, families and organizations can set out to reconfigure their relationship with a foreign jurisdiction of U.S. Government statutory laws that do not apply to them. In order for a renaissance of individual freedoms and liberties to take hold and be sustained, it will be because the first constitution and all it stands for has again had life breathed into it.
Please do your own research to confirm the information I have shared in this essay. May this, the other side of the American story, inspire and encourage you in ways that make a difference. Thank you for your kind attention.
Susan Boskey, alternative financial consultant, thinker, freelance researcher and writer, author of the book, The Quality Life Plan®: 7 Steps to Uncommon Financial Security www.AlternativeFinancialNow.com and was instrumental in bringing to market the book, Beyond the National Myth: waking up in the land of the free.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Two Constitutions of America
Activist
Sat, 17 May 2014 16:11:00 GMT

The Fall of Mainstream Media: When Propaganda Fails, Humanity Awakens

 

Dees Illustration

Jeff Berwick
Activist Post
It doesn't happen often, but The New York Times (NYT) has truthfully reported on something recently.
On what did it report? Well, on itself, and how alarmed it is due to its own increasing irrelevance in the face of new sources of information.
NYT is well-aware of the "New Media," as a 96-page internal report, sent to top executives last month, makes clear. Obtained by Buzzfeed, the report "paints a dark picture of a newsroom struggling more dramatically than is immediately visible to adjust to the digital world, a newsroom that is hampered primarily by its own storied culture."
The report ignores its traditional mainstream (MSM) competitors and takes a closer look at new digital companies like First Look Media, Vox, Huffington Post, Business Insider and Buzzfeed.
“They are ahead of us in building impressive support systems for digital journalists, and that gap will grow unless we quickly improve our capabilities,” the report states. “Meanwhile, our journalism advantage is shrinking as more of these upstarts expand their newsrooms.”
“We are not moving with enough urgency,” it says.
A central issue for NYT is “a cadre of editors who remain unfamiliar with the web.”
“Many desks lack editors who even know how to evaluate digital work,” the report continues.
A few suggestions NYT is looking into is a TED talks-style event series and an expanded op-ed platform, including location-based local news and information.
But it is too late...

STATING THE OBVIOUS
At the very least, thank you, NYT, for stating the truth even though it was an internal document not meant for the public. And, even if it was already painfully obvious. Still it took bravery for such a dinosaur to admit its own obsolescence.
The paper's model is obsolete, but even worse than the model has been the paper's lack of interest in the truth. As the US empire has grown more out of control, more dangerous, and more insane, the NYT has functioned as a fourth branch of government, a gatekeeper for a totalitarian world a la 1984 or Brave New World.
But the gig is up. The world knows NYT's complicity in erecting a sick and deranged world, and unless the paper breaks major news stories and outs itself as an undeniable friend of freedom, it will continue to lose revenue. No more can NYT expect to serve the elite and its bottom line at the same time.  In the age of the Internet, what David Rockefeller was once grateful for is no longer possible:

We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years...It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.

Mainstream media is definitely dying, and this is a VERY good thing. The root of the word government combine as "to control minds."  The root of the word "govern" is control and the root of "ment" is mind.  Without control over minds via the media, the government will lose all control. More young people now get their news from the Internet than television. In mere years most everybody will get their news from the Internet because nobody will trust the mainstream:

This data shows that it is really only those over 65 years old who are still completely brainwashed. Not all, of course.  But many or most. 
Newsweek (which I call Newspeak) has released its last print issue. You'll remember one of Newsweek's last attempts to be relevant again was uncovering the wrong Satoshi Nakamoto as the creator of bitcoin. They found some guy with the right name in the phone book...You know, "quality journalism"...
Clearly the only valuable part of MSM media sites is in the comments section which debunks 90% of the articles published. Popular Science was so overwhelmed by people bringing facts into many of their articles that the site shut off its comments section.
CNN's viewership is at a record-low (the network recently laid off 40 journalists), while CNBC has suffered a viewership collapse as well.

But once Larry King said that CNN would be better off showing re-runs of Spongebob Squarepants 24 hours a day, you knew it was over...
Larry King left CNN because he knew it would collapse. He left CNN for the Russian government propaganda channel, RT, because it is more respected and features more truth about the West. Twenty years ago, this would be have been unheard of for Larry King! A career-ender! Not today...Nope. Today it is a respect-earner. Oh, how things have changed...
THE NEW MEDIA TAKEOVER
The New Media has taken over. Alex Jones is almost a household name and groups like Luke Rudkowski's We Are Change have revolutionized how people get information. (Editor's Note: We Are Change offers "Change Media University" to learn how to become a real investigative journalist that we highly recommend.  Forget traditional school). For years now the most popular MSM personalities, like Glenn Beck, have followed the playbook of new media personalities in a bid to remain relevant. Now, in order to remain relevant people like Glenn Beck need to quote or interview people in the "alternative media".
It was not all that long ago that John Kerry and Zbigniew Brzezinski said that the Internet, simply put, is making it hard for them to govern. Secretary of Statism, John Kerry, before a group of State Department workers told the audience that the world has been "complicated" by "... this little thing called the Internet and the ability of people everywhere to communicate instantaneously and to have more information coming at them in one day than most people can process in months or a year."
According to Kerry, the Internet "makes it much harder to govern, makes it much harder to organize people, much harder to find the common interest."
Z-Big echoed his sentiment, saying that public access to information stopped war with Syria.
Bill Clinton, laughingly even suggested the need for a "Ministry of Truth" over the Internet, run by the US federal government, that would censor anything it did not deem to be "truth".
In 5-10 years people will look at you funny if you tell them you watch mainstream media. Why? Because there is no real information nor substance on mainstream media. If you want to know what's happening in your world, and what's important, then stay tuned to The Dollar Vigilante Blog and The Dollar Vigilante Newsletter where we break down The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI) in a manner upon which you can act. More than editorials, the TDV team is determined to augment our reader's lives beyond the capacity of the dinosaur mainstream media.
To comment on this article click here.
Anarcho-Capitalist. Libertarian. Freedom fighter against mankind’s two biggest enemies, the State and the Central Banks. Jeff Berwick is the founder of The Dollar Vigilante, CEO of TDV Media & Services and host of the popular video podcast, Anarchast. Jeff is a prominent speaker at many of the world’s freedom, investment and gold conferences as well as regularly in the media including CNBC, CNN and Fox Business.

The Fall of Mainstream Media: When Propaganda Fails, Humanity Awakens
Activist
Sat, 17 May 2014 14:33:00 GMT

If You Are Doing Nothing Wrong You Have PLENTY to Fear – 30 Examples

 

Posted on April 25, 2014by Food for the Thinkers

By Doug Newman – email me
________________________________________________________

Sometimes I just want to pimp slap people.

Last summer, I was at dinner during a sales convention. The conversation didn’t get political until someone mentioned the NSA.

There is one in every crowd. Someone piped up and said, “They can spy on me all they want. I am not doing anything wrong.”

They sang this song in Germany in 1933. And they sang it with unprecedented gusto in the months following 9/11, all in the name of  “security” and “keeping us safe”.

We were at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the world’s second largest hotel. Nothing in the post-9/11 “national security” apparatus would prevent a terrorist from walking in, setting off a bomb, and killing hundreds or even thousands of people.

The more important questions are: How do you know you are doing nothing that could be construed as wrong by some state functionary? How do you know you are not breaking some law somewhere? And why are you so implicitly trusting that your government would never do anything evil with the information it has collected on you?

This is not purely an academic matter. The practical implications are profound.

I give you several examples.

1. Niakea Williams went to her son’s St. Louis-area elementary school one day to pick up her son, who has Asperger’s. The school was put on lockdown and Mrs. Williams was escorted out in handcuffs.

2. Adrionna Harris was almost expelled from her middle school in Virginia Beach after taking a razor blade away from a fellow student who was trying to harm himself.

3. Read what Houston police did to this man who gave 75 cents to a homeless person.

4. A little known Denver parking ordinance can get you a $25 fine even if you haven’t exceeded the two-hour limit.

5. Police in Iowa City, Iowa, seized $50,000 from this couple without charging them with a crime.

6. Alberto Willmore lost his teaching job in Manhattan over a totally bogus marijuana arrest. Even though he was never convicted of anything, he was unable to get his job back.

7. Norman Gurley was arrested in Lorain County, Ohio, because a compartment in his car could have been used to transport drugs.

8. Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed 80-year-old Eugene Mallory in his own bed during a meth raid. No meth, or any other illegal drugs, was discovered.

9. Paul Valin contacted police to report that he found a backpack full of what he believed to be meth-making equipment 15 miles from his home near Des Moines. As a result, the DEA placed his house on its list of meth labs.

Ryan Holle

10. Ryan Holle of Pensacola, Florida, lent his roommate his car on night in 2004. As a result, Holle is currently serving a life sentence without possibility of parole for pre-meditated murder.

11. New York police seized Gerald Bryan’s cash in a nighttime raid in 2012. Even though Bryan was cleared of any wrongdoing, the stolen cash was deposited in the NYPD pension fund.

12. Robert Duncan is currently serving two years in a California prison, even though the business in which he worked was legal in California.

13. Jordan Wiser spent 13 days in jail after Jefferson, Ohio, police found a pocketknife during a warrantless search of his car.

14. During a school lockdown in Clarksville, Tennessee, David Duren-Sanner gave police permission to search his car as he had “nothing to hide”. Police found a fishing knife. Duren-Sanner, who previously had never been to the principal’s office, was suspended for 10 days and then sent to an alternative school for 90 days.

15. Look what happened to these parents in Napa, California, even though the medical marijuana prescriptions they had were completely legal.

Eileen and Brandon Bower

16. Eileen Ann Bower of suburban Pittsburgh had her newborn child taken from her for 75 days because of a false positive drug test.

17. Jerry Hartfield of Bay City, Texas, has spent the majority of his life in prison, even though his conviction was overturned in 1980.

18. Jason Dewing of update New York wasfound guilty of violating a law that did not exist.

19. Don Miller of Waldron, Indiana, had his home raided by FBI agents who seized hundreds of cultural artifacts from around the world. Miller was neither arrested nor charged with anything.

Fedcoats raid Don Miller’s house.

20. This San Diego couple was pepper-sprayed and tasered by police who had erroneously identified their vehicle after being stolen.

21. The good news is that Brian Aitken of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, had his prison sentence commuted. The bad news is that he was originally sentenced to seven years behind bars for possessing two legally purchased guns.

22. This special needs student in McDonald, Pennsylvania, was charged with felony wiretapping for recording other students who were bullying him mercilessly.

Abner Schoenwetter

23. Abner Schoenwetter of Miami served over six years in prison for – you can’t make this stuff up – violating Honduran fisheries law.

24. Read what happened to John Filippidis of Hudson, Florida, when he was pulled over by state police while driving unarmed through Maryland.

25. In a case of mistaken identity, Lewis James of Durham, North Carolina, “was handcuffed and later jailed under a $1.425 million bond” after he had contacted the police to notify them of a dead body in the middle of the road. As someone put it on Facebook, “Don’t call the cops. Ever. Even if you find a dead body. Just don’t ever call the cops.”

26. Read what happened to Diane Avera of Meridian, Mississippi, when she went to Alabama to buy Sudafed, even though she did not know that this was illegal.

Andy Johnson and family.

27. Andy Johnson of Uinta County, Wyoming, faces EPA fines of $75,000 per day for building a pond on land that he owns.

28. Douglas Zerby of Long Beach was shot and killed by police while watering his lawn because some idiot neighbor thought the hose nozzle was a gun.

29. Darien Roseen was arrested and had his vehicle searched by sheriff’s deputies in Payette County, Idaho, simply because his Colorado license plates led them to believe that he could have been carrying marijuana.

Brian Banks was a high school All-American linebacker whose career and life were interrupted by a false rape conviction. The Atlanta Falcons gave Banks a tryout in 2013.

30. Brian Banks of Long Beach spent five years in prison and five more years as a registered sex offender as a result of a rape conviction. And then his accuser changed her story.

These are not “isolated incidents.” There are no doubt countless other examples of people who were doing nothing wrong, yet were harshly punished.

Also, consider the following:

• The Internal Revenue Code is 73,955 pages and millions of words long. No one has read it cover-to-cover and no one knows every aspect of it. Yet if anyone violates any of its provisions it can mean fines, prison or even death.

• We are often told that “ignorance of the law is no defense.” To the right is a picture of the Yale Law Library. Do you know every law contained within these tomes?

• Read what various emissaries of the Amerikan police state have done to these veterans who went all over the world to“fight for our freedom.”

• Seventy-two types of Americans are classified as terrorists in various government documents. Senator Harry Reid has now added a seventy-third category.
• Read how police have used asset forfeiture laws to seize millions of dollars from people without charging them with any crimes.

• Read this list of eight ways people commit felonies without even knowing it.

• Read this article and pay special attention to these words from former NSA official William Binney: “The problem is, if they think they’re not doing anything that’s wrong, they don’t get to define that. The central government does.”
• Read how the Innocence Project has helped exonerate over 300 wrongfully imprisoned people, many of whom were on death row.
• Attorney Harvey Silverglate argues that the average American commits three felonies a day without even knowing it.
• This Ford executive claims that, thanks to GPS, “we know everyone who breaks the law.”
• Although it has been estimated that there are over 3000 types of federal criminal offenses, no one knows the exact number for sure.

So, do you still feel you have nothing to fear?
__________________________________
Fascinating article from The Chronicle of Higher Education:“Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’”.