statism watch

While it’s true that capitalism must rest on a solid ethical foundation, ethics, at least a rational secular ethics, provides guidance in making choices and determinations of value in the personal sphere, introducing no contradictions between the rights of individuals. What Ratzinger and his fellow globalists advocate, on the other hand, is a form of ethical authoritarianism, where wealth is redistributed to meet the ends of social engineers who centralize power in their own hands. History has shown that not only do such projects end in tragedy, but that the church is often there to provide ethical camouflage for the rulers of its day. (That is, when the church is not invested with poitical authority as well.) Is it mere coincidence that Gordon Brown has called for a new world order from the pulpit of St. Paul’s Cathedral, or that Tony Blair converted to catholicism after years of consulting with prominent priests and essentially hiding his faith? (NB: Yes, we know St. Paul’s is Anglican..)

Update (2009/7/13): On Saturday, at the conclusion of the G8 meeting, Stephen Harper sought an audience with the Pope and after a photo op, sat down for a 90 minute private meeting with him. The encyclical was explicitly one of the topics of conversation. What else did they have to discuss behind closed doors?

Flashback: Gordon Brown chooses pulpit as latest platform to push New World Order

John Hooper, The Guardian
July 7, 2009

Global recession caused by greed, says pontiff, economic crisis is ‘clear proof of effects of sin’

Pope Benedict today pinned responsibility for the worldwide recession squarely on greed and an amoral fascination with technological progress for its own sake.

This must be tackled, he said, by the creation of a global political authority and financial order based not just on the search for ever greater profits, but on ethics and a sense of the common good.

The pontiff made the appeal in a 144-page encyclical – a reflection on doctrine that is the highest form of papal writing – three days before he was due to discuss the global downturn with Barack Obama.

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More of the same rhetoric from Brown, and the drive is already on for a second round of stimulus packages – one of President Barack Obama’s advisors is calling for one.

Flashback: US Senate Blocks Bill To Audit The Fed As Government Prepares For Second Round Of Looting | Canada is now on the national securities regulation bandwagon | Financial crisis: Worst may be still ahead, says IMF chief | Flaherty looks for way to end stimulus | ‘New world order’ needs better economic grounding: Carney | ‘Reduced pace of deterioration’ indicates economy on the mend: Flaherty | Volcker sees crisis leading to global regulation | Gordon Brown seeks sweeping reforms to give IMF global ’surveillance role’ | A New World Financial Order: It Better Work This Time | Flaherty calls for mandatory IMF surveillance | Document Outlining IMF Economic Dictatorship Uncovered/Leaked? | Gordon Brown calls for new world order to beat recession| IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central bank” as crisis spreads

Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail
July 7, 2009

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned in an interview on the eve of today’s G8 summit that the world is now facing a “second wakeup call” – a crisis of growth and employment as severe as the credit crisis of the past year.

“I would say that in April we were having to deal with the problems that were caused by the failure of banks. Now we have to deal with the challenge of resuming growth in the world economy,” Mr. Brown said in an interview with the Globe and Mail and other media at 10 Downing Street.

“And that means that banks must lend, trade must resume with protectionism exposed where it is happening, we must keep commodity prices at a level that enables growth to continue to happen; we must invest because investment is key to many countries’ futures – and I mean private investment as well as public investment – and we must do something to help the million[s of] unemployed across the world.”

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Flashback: Congressman Ron Paul Slams Federal Reserve’s New Dictatorial Powers | Federal Reserve To Be Given Sweeping New Powers | HR 1207: Battle To Audit The Fed Has Only Just Begun | Geithner Said to Have Prevailed on the Bailout | Banks won’t say where U.S. bailout money going | Paulson, Bernanke defend change of plan: $700-billion now to be given directly to banks | Congress Accuses Federal Reserve Bagman Of Bailout “Bait and Switch” During Angry Hearing | U.S. government won’t use bailout fund to buy troubled assets | The Bush gang’s parting gift: a final, frantic looting of public wealth | Why Paulson’s Plan is a Fraud | Congressman Ron Paul: Bailout Will Destroy Dollar, World Economy | Congressman Ron Paul Schools Fed Chairman Bernanke on the Bailout Plan | Private Federal Reserve Makes Power Grab as Bush, McCain Urge Congress to Approve Plan

Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
July 7, 2009

Senator Jim DeMint slams Fed’s monopoly, questions where trillions in bailout funds has gone

A Senate amendment based on Congressman Ron Paul’s successful House bill to audit the Federal Reserve was blocked by the Senate yesterday evening on procedural grounds, as Jim DeMint slammed the Fed for refusing to disclose where trillions in bailout funds had gone, while a top Obama administration advisor called for a second “stimulus” package to be prepared.

Republican Senator DeMint had attempted to get a provision attached to the 2010 spending bill that would have removed restrictions on auditing the Fed’s discount window operations, funding facilities, open market operations and agreements with foreign central banks and governments.

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A Goldman-Sachs trading platform could be used to distort the market? Shocking.

Flashback: Taibbi: NYSE ends transparency to protect Goldman Sachs | Goldman Sachs: The Great American Bubble Machine | 10 U.S. banks to repay U.S. bailout money | Top Senate Democrat: bankers “own” the U.S. Congress | Barclays, Lloyd’s, RBS join Goldman-Sachs in the black | Goldman-Sachs to repay TARP loan, resume private operations, bonuses, at “earliest time” possible | Wall Street’s Big Takeover | Investment industry criminal makes a run for it, gets caught at border with money stuffed in shoes | Behind the panic: Financial warfare over the future of global bank power | Goldman-Sachs Alumni Hold Reins of Financial System

Grant McCool, Reuters
July 7, 2009

Computer expert accused of stealing trading codes

The purported theft of a Goldman Sachs (GS-N140.85-1.69-1.19%) trading platform threatens to cost it millions of dollars, a prosecutor told a court, but so far the bank has not reported damage to its business.

Questions were raised about the security of proprietary trading systems at a court hearing on July 4 for a former Goldman computer programmer arrested on a charge of stealing the information, which was copied to a server in Germany.

If the stolen information, or trading code, is allowed to go to a competitor who can start trading with it, “the bank itself stands lose its entire investment in creating this software to begin with, which is millions upon millions of dollars,” warned U.S. prosecutor Joseph Facciponte, according to a transcript of Saturday’s proceeding.

He added that because of the way this software interfaces with the various markets and exchanges, the bank has warned it could be used to “manipulate markets in unfair ways.”

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Flashback: Pro-rights ‘Charter 08′ Manifesto author could face prison in China | Police pounce on 20th Tiananmen anniversary | Tiananmen Square: briefly, anything seemed possible | China begins internet ‘blackout’ ahead of Tiananmen anniversary | China executes two men, ‘guilty’ of killing 17 police before Olympics | Tibet’s best friend? China, of course | Monks taken for ‘re-education’ before Tibet uprising anniversary | Psychiatric treatment used to ’silence’ Chinese critics | Beijing peasants bullied, beaten off of family farms by state-developer blocs | China names 8 alleged Olympic terrorists | Doubt Arises in Account of pre-Olympic ‘Uighur’ Attack in China | Rounded up into torture camps: the ‘undesirables’ China doesn’t want you to see | Pentagon Front Groups Release Laughable Olympics “Terror” Video | Beijing Taxis Are Bugged ‘For Driver Safety’ | Journalists beaten for reporting on separatist attacks in China | Chinese citizens dutifully file protest applications in Beijing, suffer detention | Bombs explode, Washington-based Intelcenter releases yet another terror video, China cracks down on transport security | Mass Arrests as Beijing Prepares for Olympics | China creates mobile execution vans, organ theft suspected

The Independent
July 7, 2009

Something terrible has happened in Urumqi. The Chinese state media says 140 people were killed and more than 800 injured in clashes between police and protesters in the capital of Xinjiang province at the weekend. Uighur groups claim the death toll is significantly higher. Beijing says the local authorities suppressed an anti-Han Chinese pogrom. The Uighurs claim the police fired indiscriminately on peaceful protesters. Whichever narrative is closer to the truth, there is little doubt that this constitutes the bloodiest official crackdown in China since Tiananmen Square 20 years ago.

According to some reports, the trigger for these protests was a fight between Uighur migrant workers and Han Chinese in the city of Shaoguan in south-eastern China last month. But Beijing has accused Uighur groups based overseas of orchestrating the attacks as part of a separatist campaign of terror. This is a familiar tune. Ever since the 11 September attacks on the US in 2001, Beijing has sought to present the Muslim Uighurs as allied to al-Qa’ida and other international Islamist terror groups. There is clearly a separatist movement in Xinjiang, as the sporadic attacks on government targets since the early 1990s demonstrates. But China has produced no evidence of a connection between the Uighur independence movement and foreign terror groups. Moreover, Beijing can hardly be considered an innocent party when it comes to the relations with the Uighurs.

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Flashback: Canada eyes arms sales to Pakistan | Canadian military getting 1,300 new heavily armoured trucks for ‘domestic use’ | Afghan mission cost: up to $18B | ‘Some’ Troops to stay in Afghanistan past 2011: McKay | Canadian military acquiring new helicopters, drones | Federal government quietly releases $490B military plan | Over 100 complaints about access to govt. info on Afghan mission: report | Army begins using $150,000 artillery shells | ‘What is it they’re trying to hide?’ NDP asks for military export data | Canada’s military exports soar as numbers go unreported: CBC investigation

CBC News
July 7, 2009

The federal government will announce roughly $5 billion in new funding for light armoured vehicles for the military, including repairs to the LAV III fleet, CBC News has learned.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay will make the announcement Wednesday during a stop at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick.

Roughly $1 billion will be used to upgrade LAV III models.

The remaining $4 billion is to be spent on a “new family of land combat vehicles” that would include:

• A close-combat vehicle that would work with the army’s Leopard tanks.
• A new armoured reconnaissance vehicle.
• A new armoured engineering vehicle to carry equipment such as plows and building materials.

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Flashback: Mysterious people tailing recently repatriated no-fly-list refugee | UN rushes Abdelrazik terror allegations onto website in wake of exoneration | Ottawa will allow Abdelrazik to return to Canada | Ottawa defies court, refuses emergency travel documents to citizen trapped in Sudan | Canadian Courts don’t buy word of government | Court orders Ottawa to let Abdelrazik return to Canada | Committee calls on Cannon to let Abdelrazik appear in Ottawa | Canadians secretly interrogated Abdelrazik, papers show | Parade of excuses continues as Ottawa denies citizen’s repatriation | Supporters defy law, buy plane ticket for Montrealer stuck in Sudan | Ottawa balks at travel permit for man trapped in Sudan | Family of Canadian stranded by no-fly list to make public appeal

CBC News
July 7, 2009

Montrealer Abousfian Abdelrazik said Tuesday he’s seeking justice for the years he spent stranded in Sudan as a suspected associate of al-Qaeda.

“I want those people who play a role in this matter to face justice, not because I seek revenge.… I want this not to happen to any Canadian citizen anymore,” Abdelrazik told the media after appearing in court Tuesday afternoon.

Abdelrazik flew back to Montreal 10 days ago, after being stranded in Sudan for six years because his name appeared on a United Nations no-fly list for alleged terrorist ties. CSIS and the RCMP dismissed the terrorism allegations against him and a Federal Court judge recently ordered the Canadian government to fly Abdelrazik home.

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