School District Called Police on Students 1,745 Times in Single School Year

(For California if the student has 3 offenses they get 25 years to Life, and no Removal for just vandalism of Graffiti!!!)

 

School District Called Police on Students 1,745 Times in Single School Year

By Bigad Shaban, Michael Bott and Mark Villareal

 

Watch Video:

A Bay Area school district recently referred more students to police than nearly every other district in the country. Bigad Shaban reports in a story that first aired September 29. (Published Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2015)

Updated 43 minutes ago

Read the first part of this two-part story here.

An NBC Bay Area investigation into the use of police on school campuses found one Bay Area school district called police on its own students so many times they outranked nearly every district in the country.

East Side Union High School District in San Jose referred students to police 1,745 times during the 2011-2012 school year, ranking them 14th in the country, according to data collected by the U.S. Department of Education.

• InvestigativeDisproportionate Number of Disabled, Black Students Arrested

Critics say that when police handle school discipline, the line between childish misbehavior and criminal activity is often blurred leaving some students with a criminal record before they hit puberty. Certain groups of students find themselves face-to-face with police more often than others, with African Americans and students with disabilities referred to police at disproportionately high rates.

At East Side Union High School District, Superintendent Chris Funk said a combination of factors led to the extreme numbers of police encounters on campus. Zero-tolerance discipline policies and insufficient staffing numbers meant that police were being called when it wasn’t always appropriate.

“I think that we had a practice here where we were relying too much on having the officer do the facilitation and the legwork versus the administration doing the legwork,” Funk said.

To put those numbers in perspective, Oakland Unified School District only referred 12 students to law enforcement during the same year, despite enrolling nearly 15,000 more students than East Side Union High School District. No other Bay Area school district came close to East Side Union’s numbers.

• More From NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit

“I think what happened was because of zero-tolerance policies, there was a period of time where people just went to the police and had students cited for everything,” Funk said. “Now, we’ve really narrowed that gap.”

The U.S. Department of Education has not released police referral data since the 2011-2012 school year, so NBC Bay Area filed public records requests with each of the Bay Area’s 25 largest school districts to obtain the most recent data. 20 school districts provided the information by our deadline.

The Investigative Unit found that East Side Union’s referrals dropped dramatically to just 214 during the 2013-2014 school year.

Bay Area School Referrals to Law Enforcement (2013-2014)
California schools referred 31,961 students to law enforcement, according to the latest available statewide data for 2011.
To get the most recent numbers, the Investigative Unit individually requested the latest student disciplinary data from 20 of the Bay Area's largest schools. In many districts, schools refer students of color and students with disabilities to law enforcement at a much higher rate than their peers.

 See Chart:

Source: Bay Area School Districts
Credit: Scott Pham/NBC Bay Area

Funk attributed the decline to doubling the number of counselors in the district and placing social workers on every campus.

“Those positions are just starting to come back in the last two years,” Funk said. “We hired 207 new staff members in the last two years as budgets continue to grow. There were a lot of loop-holes where kids were falling through the cracks, and hopefully we’re closing them now.”

However, the district’s lower referral rates are still among the highest in the Bay Area. The Investigative Unit also found that minorities and students with disabilities were still sent to police at disproportionately high rates.

During the 2013-2014 school year, children with disabilities made up 10 percent of the population, but totaled 25 percent of all students referred to law enforcement. Hispanic children represented 47 percent of the population, but 73 percent of all the students referred to police.

The practice of staffing police on school campuses is not unique to East Side Union High. School-based “resource officer” programs began in the 1950s, but grew in the 1980s and 1990s to weed out drugs, weapons and violence from schools.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 76% of all high schools have police or security officers on campus. While the goal of these policies is to make schools safer, some believe they can actually harm students.

“There are tragic long-term consequences,” said Laura Garnette, Chief Probation Officer for Santa Clara County.

When a child enters the criminal justice system at an early age, Garnette said, they begin to identify as a criminal and are more likely to offend again in the future. It is part of a phenomenon known as the “School to Prison Pipeline”, where zero-tolerance policies criminalize certain behaviors and funnel students from the school system into the justice system.

Schools that aren’t well resourced with counselors and staff tend to lean more heavily on police, according to Garnette, which can lead to students getting in serious trouble for some not-so-serious misbehavior. If a student is cited by police for that conduct, it is the equivalent of an arrest and goes on a child’s criminal record.

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Garnette says her probation officers drop nearly 70% of juvenile cases because they do not find them serious enough to get referred to the District Attorney for criminal charges.

“I think we certainly see a lot of cases where we think, ‘seriously?’” Garnette said. “The consequences of having the criminal justice system and police intervene in what by most people’s account is normal adolescent behavior is tragic.”

However, even if no charges are filed, the arrest still shows up on a student’s criminal record.

That was the case for 15-year-old Adrian Crosby. Crosby, who is autistic, was in seventh grade at Bret Harte Middle School in San Jose when he used a small rock to write his initials on the sidewalk outside the school. School staff called the campus resource officer, and Adrian received a juvenile citation for vandalism.

• InvestigativeWhy It's Legal For People to Solicit You When You're Shopping

“It is just unbelievable,” said Aida Crosby, Adrian’s mother. “It brings me chills down my back and it is injustice. It is injustice.”

Adrian’s probation officer closed his case two years ago, but Aida said her family was never told Adrian would still have a criminal record. Aida said she had no idea until the Investigative Unit explained the process to her. By law, the Crosby family will have to wait until Adrian turns 18 before they can petition the court to seal his juvenile record.

“The feeling is a feeling of desperation,” Aida said. “It’s a feeling…like they have cut the oxygen out of you – like you can’t breathe and it’s painful and it makes you kind of want to give up.”

Published at 11:00 PM PDT on Sep 29, 2015

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/School-District-Called-Police-on-Students-1745-Times-in-Single-School-Year-330015791.html

Islam quiz has U.S. parents 'outraged'

Islam quiz has U.S. parents 'outraged'

'They're not teaching 10 Commandments' but Muslim prayers allowed

Published: 16 hours ago

Leo Hohmann

Above is an excerpt from a quiz given to students in Walton County, Georgia.

Hundreds of irate parents are planning to attend the Walton County, Georgia, school board meeting Oct. 10 to convey their outrage over their children being taught the religious beliefs of Islam in middle-school social studies.
The outrage erupted over a quiz handed out to students asking them to answer questions related to the five pillars of Islam, the Quran as the “holy” book of Muslims, and the conversion prayer known as the “shahada,” which states, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.” Perhaps most disturbing to Christian parents was the “correct” answer that the Muslim god Allah is the “same god” that is worshiped by Christians and Jews.
At the same time Islam is being studied in detail, the beliefs of Christianity are glossed over, parents say. They now have more than 2,300 parents and concerned citizens who have joined a Facebook group dedicated to opposing the school system’s methods of teaching comparative religions.
“I believe my children are my responsibility, and I believe I need to be the one teaching them what we believe instead of the school,” Bill Green told News 95.5.

Watch local TV report from Fox 5 News below:

'Nothing about 10 commandments'
Parent Michelle King told WSB-TV she's upset because students seem to spend a lot more time learning about Islam than any other religion.
"My daughter had to learn the (shahada), and the five pillars of Islam, which is what you learn to convert," King said. "But they never once learned anything about the Ten Commandments or anything about God."
"What they are learning goes against my religion completely," she said.
Kim Embry, spokeswoman for the Walton County School District, said in an interview with Fox 5 that some Christian students may need to learn more about Islam than Christianity since they're already familiar with the Christian faith.

Watch Embry's comments below:

Ryan Breece launched the Facebook page in an attempt to get school officials to alert parents to upcoming lessons on religion or other sensitive topics. They say that would give them a chance to opt their children out of assignments with which they disagree.
Breece said he pulled his sixth-grade daughter out of recent lessons on Islam, and her grade suffered as a result. He doesn’t think that's right.
"We need to see the assignments, and we need to be able to opt out without any grade negativity on our children," he told News 95.5, adding that he expects hundreds of parents to attend the Oct. 10 board meeting with similar demands.
Breece said Tuesday he has been invited to a private meeting with the school board Wednesday at 9:15 a.m.
"Fox News will be there," he wrote on the group's Facebook page. "Please come and gather in the parking lot or lobby to show your support. Now it's time for us to show we all care about this issue."
The Board of Education building is at 200 Double Springs Church Road, Monroe, Georgia.
The education standards being used in Walton County are the same standards used in all of Georgia and there have been complaints in the past. Last year, parents from Cartersville Middle School in Cartersville, Georgia, contacted WND and said their school was inviting Islamic teachers to come and indoctrinate their children about the tenants of Islam.
The latest controversy was touched off when Youth Middle School gave a fill-in-the-blank test on the basics of Islam as one of several examples of controversial lessons (correct answers in parenthesis):

• "In 610, Muhammad was told by the angel (Gabriel) that he was a (prophet) sent to Earth by (God)
• "He began preaching a new monotheistic faith called (Islam) – (Surrender) to God"
• “Basic beliefs of Islam:
• "Followers of Islam are called (Muslims) who believe in (one) God, called (Allah)
• "Allah is the (same God) worshiped by Jews & Christians
• "Muslims believe Muhammad was the (last) of God’s prophets
• "The teachings of Muhammad were written down in the (Quran) …, the holy (book) of Islam."

Other assignments delved into the five pillars of Islam – pilgrimage to Mecca, giving of alms, fasting and prayer five times a day, along with the associated Arabic words and phrases.
Arabic is the fastest-growing language in U.S. public schools, likely due to the 70,000 foreign refugees, the majority of them Muslim, who are being resettled annually by the Obama administration in cities and towns across the U.S.

Just latest in long line of complaints by parents
This type of parental uproar over Islamic teachings in public schools has become endemic across the U.S. in recent years, with complaints by parents popping up in school districts nationwide since 2011.
Christina Michas, founder of Operation Jericho Project and co-founder of Citizens United for Responsible Education, has been tracking the encroachment of Islam into public schools for several years, and she says it's obvious that atheist groups are not nearly as concerned about Islam in the schools as they are about Christianity.
"It's everywhere," she said, noting that a teacher in Texas who gave students a more accurate history of Islam got fired. She was referring to the case of Dale Wolverton in Richmond, Texas.
Wolverton was forced to resign on April 8 when the Hamas-supporting Council for American-Islamic Relations filed a complaint against him for handing out brochures detailing the bloody history of Islam, ABC News reported.
Tennessee pastor Greg Locke in Mt. Juliet recently encouraged students to "take an F" on their test about the Islamic religion over what he described as "absolute brainwashing of religion," EAGnews reported.
Locke pointed out in a viral video that local history books include about 28 pages on Islam, but only "a half-page of watered down Christianity," according to the Tennessean.
Dozens of teachers and administrators in Pennsylvania's Lebanon School District attended a taxpayer-funded workshop at a local mosque to learn about Islam, EAG News reported in June.
About 50 staffers from the district attended the workshop led by former district Arabic translator Mohamed Omar, who "took time off from his new job as a case worker for the Department of Human Services in Philadelphia to share his knowledge of Islam with the staff, which included Superintendent Marianne Bartley and several other administrators," the Lebanon Daily News reports.
Afterward, they headed to the nearby Lebanon Valley Mosque to join an Islamic prayer service with the congregation, according to the Daily News.
This is the second year the school district has held the mosque workshop.
"There was no mention of objections or threatening letters sent to the school district by atheist groups that typically scream foul with religious-themed school events," EAG News reported.

Teachers and staff from Pennsylvania's Lebanon School District bow to Allah inside a local mosque.

For the teachers it appeared to be all about comparing cultures and conveying them as equal.
"It's important that we educate ourselves about cultures that are different from our own and that we try to eliminate some misunderstandings," English as a second language teacher Lara Book said. "Although our cultures are different, the fundamentals of them are similar and we all want the same things: happiness for our families health, and success. Although we might go about finding those things in our lives differently, from a cultural standpoint, we all want the same thing."
Meghan Frick, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Education, said school systems in Georgia have "pretty broad freedom" in how they teach the required Georgia Performance Standards in social studies.
"They have that standard and it's just a couple of sentences, and they can teach that to students however they choose," she said. "We don't dictate a curriculum, we don't tell them what worksheets to hand out or what textbooks to use."
In Castle Rock, Colorado, earlier this year, the Douglas County School System required middle-school girls to comply with a special dress code suitable for visiting a mosque in Denver. The school system sent a note home to parents that read:

"THERE IS A DRESS CODE FOR THIS TRIP: All students must wear appropriate long pants. Ankles must be covered. Girls must bring wide scarves or hooded sweatshirts for the mosque."

Once at the mosque, the students were told to bow to Allah.

School girls in Littleton, Colorado, don the required attire as they get ready to enter a mosque in Denver.

"Shariah in the classroom," wrote Pamela Geller, author of "Stop the Islamization of America," on her website. "Here again we see anywhere American law and Islamic law conflict, it is American law that has to give way."
Geller adds, "The subjugation and oppression of women are enshrined under the Shariah. Young school girls should not be forced to 'respect' a dress code that represents honor violence, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, child marriage et al."
The Jersey City Board of Education recently voted not to close schools for the Muslim holiday of Eld al-Adha. It has been reported that a Muslim woman in attendance made a veiled threat saying: “We’re going to be the majority soon."
New York City schools already sanctions the closure of schools for Muslim holidays while Christian holidays such as Christmas are referred to generically as "winter recess."
In 2013 at Lumberton High School in Texas, girls were encouraged to dress up in burqas during a geography class to expose them to "world cultures, religions, customs and belief systems." There was no clothing brought for the students to experience dressing like a nun or Orthodox Jew, according to a Front Page Magazine report.
The Lumberton teacher was quoted by a student as saying, "We are going to work to change your perception of Islam" from one sullied by terrorism into one hoping for peaceful coexistence.
Thomas More Law Center is representing the father of an 11th-grade La Plata High School student in Maryland who was given a failing grade for refusing to complete assignments she considered to be Islamic indoctrination.
She had to affirm, similar to the Georgia quiz, that "there is no god but Allah" and the remaining five pillars of Islam. John Wood, a former Marine, demanded his daughter be given an alternative assignment, but the school refused and banned him from school property.
"We're talking about assignments where the right answer is, ‘There’s no god but Allah,' and that Allah is the same god that is worshiped in Christianity and Judaism,” Michas said.
Lack of balance in teaching about Islam
But what is most troubling about these assignments is they never provide any balancing material on the dark side of Islam, Michas said.
For instance, there is no mention of the harsh treatment under Shariah law of women, homosexuals, Christians, Jews or other religious minorities. There is no teaching on the recurring strong themes of jihad throughout Islamic history, or that Muhammad personally beheaded at least 600 Jewish men and pubescent boys after they unconditionally surrendered at the Battle of the Trench in Medina, taking the women and children as slaves.
There is nothing about female genital mutilation, or the fact that a woman must have multiple male witnesses to press charges for rape or she will be blamed for the “crime.” Nor are students taught that the Quran (in 4:34) says its acceptable for Muslim men to strike a disobedient wife.
"I lived in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, all over the Middle East. My father was in the Air Force,” Michas said. “I saw how women are treated over there."
Women are also entitled to only half as much inheritance as their male siblings under Shariah.
But American school children are being fed a distorted view of Islam in U.S. public schools, Michas said.
She said the largest textbook provider, United Kingdom-based Pearson, has been bending for years to the will of influence agents tied to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The texts often state as fact that Muhammad was the "last prophet."
'Connect All Schools'
Michas said the Islamization of American schools has been going on since at least 2011 and just keeps getting worse.
She traces the phenomenon back to 2009 and a program called “Connect All Schools,” which came out of the Obama administration’s U.S. Department of Education. WND has previously reported on the program and its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood.
The stated goal of the initiative is to "connect every school in the U.S. with the world by 2016." On its website, the organization reports that 316 internationalized U.S. schools have already connected with 140 countries, the majority of them from the Middle East and Africa.
The Qatar Foundation International, or QFI, partnered with the U.S. State Department and Department of Education in the launching of Connect All Schools. The QFI is closely linked to the Al Jazeera news network and the Muslim Brotherhood, WND reported.
Vartan Gregorian, a board member of the QFI, was appointed in 2009 to President Obama’s White House Fellowships Commission.
WND previously exposed that Gregorian served as a point man in granting $49.2 million in startup capital to an education-reform project founded by former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers and chaired by Obama.
Documentation shows Gregorian was central in Ayers’ recruitment of Obama to serve as the first chairman of the project, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge – a job in which Obama worked closely on a regular basis with Ayers.

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Copyright 2015 WND

http://www.wnd.com/2015/09/islam-quiz-has-u-s-parents-outraged/

State of the Delusion

State of the Delusion

Posted By: Swami [Send E-Mail]
Date: Wednesday, 30-Sep-2015 11:30:41

Freedom and Democracy: an American Illusion?

http://wakeup-world.com/2015/09/30/freedom-and-democracy-an-american-illusion/

30th September 2015

By Alan Adaschik

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Language defines the world within which we live because through language we define and shape ideas and concepts that are the basis of what we think. In turn, what people think determines how they behave. Therefore, controlling the behavior of people is simply a matter of shaping their world by defining the concepts that form the basis of their thoughts.

There are three ways to accomplish this: Redefine concepts and ideas slowly over time to accommodate desired changes, allow unwanted concepts and ideas to fade into obscurity, and prevent undesirable concepts and ideas from developing.

In America today, the process of controlling people through language has been developed to a fine art by those in government with the cooperation of the media, our educational institutions, and the entertainment industry. The use of the socially acceptable phrase “politically correct” exemplifies this. In the final analysis, politically correct thoughts are nothing more than those acceptable to the ruling establishment. The unfortunate aspect of this situation is that they are correct only because they are acceptable. Merit, reality, principle, reason, logic, and/or constitutional concerns have nothing to do with determining their degree of acceptability. During the cold war, communists subscribed to the notion of politically correct thought; the only difference was that we called their politically correct thoughts propaganda or brain washing.

The end result of a successful thought-control process is the general acceptance of change because those affected are not aware that a change took place. The situation changed, but the description of the situation changed along with it and, to someone not paying attention, nothing changed. While this is all well and good for harmony and tranquility’s sake, there is an inherent grave danger when those in government can wield this kind of power. It enables them to make changes at our expense and not in our best interest. This is why our Founding Fathers added an amendment procedure to our Constitution. They strongly believed that it is morally repugnant for government officials to use stealth to make fundamental changes to how we our governed and that the only acceptable way for such changes to be made is by informed consent of the citizenry after careful consideration of the implications associated with the change being considered.

Unfortunately, in the United States of America today, governmental change by stealth is the order of the day and things have progressed to the point where not only is consent of the governed a dysfunctional concept, it has been almost entirely replaced by deception and illusion. We are truly now a nation of the con and conned and we euphemize this lamentable state of affairs by calling it “politics“. Unfortunately, the end result of the “politics” we are talking about is that not only have we been robbed of our heritage and birthright, we are now being ravaged and looted economically with the complicity and cooperation of those entrusted to protect us.

The above statements and conclusions are anathema to most Americans, which does not in any way reflect upon their validity or truth, but instead, indicates how successful the change-makers have been in achieving their ends. This can be clearly established to anyone’s satisfaction by a careful examination of two of our most revered and sacred concepts; freedom and democracy. These words exemplify the very essence of Americanism and they role off our lips as sacred and inviolate truths. Millions of Americans have died for the sake of these words and it is taken for granted that those who made this supreme sacrifice have not died in vain, but have they?

The “real” truth, out there for anyone to see if they just open their eyes, is that what we call freedom today is not the same freedom we enjoyed in the past and the U.S. nation is democratic in name only. If our Founding Fathers suddenly arose from their graves and surveyed our present situation, to a man, they would hold that not only are we not free and not a democracy, but instead a subjugated and downtrodden people.

Freedom and Democracy an American Illusion - Freedom

Freedom is an easy concept to understand. One is free when able to do as one wishes. However, there are obvious limitations to our freedom; the first one being physical reality. We are free to jump off a building if we wish, but if we do, there is a severe consequence for exercising this kind of freedom. Similarly, other people are a limitation to our freedom. An individual’s freedom ends where another person’s begins. From this it necessarily follows that the more people around, the less freedom everyone has. This is why people in a young and relatively un-populated United States enjoyed far more freedom that Americans do today. But this is not why our Founding Fathers would conclude we are not free.

To understand their point of view, it is necessary to realize that there are two distinct aspects to freedom: personal freedom and political freedom. Personal freedom is the freedom to make personal choices such as what channel to watch on television, what to eat for dinner, whom to marry, whether to take a walk or not, etc. However, political freedom was far more important to the Founders than personal freedom because they clearly understood that the only way to have and ensure personal freedom was to protect and preserve political freedom. They believed that without political freedom, personal freedom is at risk because it can be compromised at any time. Therefore, when drafting our Constitution, foremost in the Founders’ minds was to create a document that ensured and protected political freedom. As an after-thought, they later added the Bill of Rights to ensure that some highly important personal freedoms were specifically protected.

What is political freedom? Political freedom is the inalienable right of self-government and it was identified by Abraham Lincoln when he described our government as being “of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Unfortunately, in America today, most people do not realize the significance of these words and only think of them as a historical curiosity, but in truth, they are the very touchstones of political freedom.

“Of the people”, means that private citizens hold office, not professional politicians. “By the people”, means the people as a group determine how they will be governed and this function is most emphatically not the providence of elected officials alone. “For the people”, means that our government is our servant and not our master. This is what the Constitution of the United States of America is all about, this is the primary goal the Founders had in mind when drafting it, and these are the principles they enshrined therein. Underscoring these principals and necessary to ensure their perpetuation are our inalienable right to free speech, our inalienable right to petition government for the redress of grievances, and our inalienable right to hold those in government accountable for their actions under the Constitution. In addition to the foregoing, the final element necessary to ensure freedom is the two underlying principles of enlightened democracy; majority rule tempered by the protection of minority rights.

The issue on hand that would be of major concern to our Founding Fathers and should be to us, is how well does the government we presently live under measure up to the above-described principles? Unfortunately, upon examination, the answer to this question is painfully obvious; it does not.

Freedom and Democracy an American Illusion - Of thePeople

First and foremost, we do not have a government that is “of the people”. Instead, our elected representatives are lifelong professional politicians whose first order of business is feathering their own nest and protecting the status quo. However, this is not the worst of it because in the United States of America today it takes a tremendous amount of money to run for national office. Therefore, in keeping with a desire to look out for their own interests, the very first order of business of a professional politician is to ensure that those providing him with money and support continue to do so. The only way to do this is to do their bidding. No one with power and influence contributes to and supports politicians so they can independently vote their conscience in the best interests of this nation and its people. Therefore, the real first order of business of a professional politician is to vote to please those who contribute money and do favors for them. Doing what is best for the people of this nation is secondary.

“By the people”: Instead of living under the government created and bestowed upon us by the Founders, how our government functions and operates has been changed through the years, not by amendment as required by our Constitution, but, wrongfully, by simple legislative acts. In other words, the government we presently live under is not the brainchild of our Founding Fathers as we delude ourselves into believing, but instead, the handiwork of professional politicians whose loyalties and motives have just been discussed.

“For the people”: A healthy economy is in everyone’s best interest and many politicians, especially Republicans, subscribe to the trickle-down theory of economics as follows; when corporations earn profits, for the most part, they are reinvested in the economy thus creating jobs and adding to the prosperity of all concerned. This kind of thinking is used by politicians to justify their catering to special interests. True, it is self-serving to a degree, but in the past such thinking had validity and did no real harm to the nation. However, this is no longer true. Special interests and the corporations they represent have become globalized. In other words, our situation is now such that those who call the tune that politicians dance to are concerned with global issues and have no concern for the well-being of Americans and the American worker. This being the case, the trickle-down theory, as far as Americans are concerned, is bankrupt. When politicians cater to special interests and help corporations earn money from Americans, this money is invested overseas where it is cheaper to do business. The end result of this is a steady flow of wealth out of the country that is robbing us of our prosperity. Our elected representatives pretend to be for us, but in deference to those who back them, knowingly act to allow this to happen, belying what they pretend to be.

Freedom of speech: It takes great courage for someone to speak out against what is wrong with government in America today and this does not just mean running the risk of being ridiculed or labeled politically incorrect. Speaking freely about how we are governed in the United States of America today will affect your job, opportunities for employment, opportunities for advancement through promotion, and your ability to earn a living for you and your family. If the consequences for speaking freely are this severe, then free speech is not free and has a terrible cost associated with it.

Petition Government: In America today, writing to elected officials is a waste of time for matters of substance because professional politicians cater to special interests when it comes to deciding such matters. This being the case, our final redress should be the courts. However, the courts have wrongfully and unconstitutionally ruled that citizens alone or in concert have no legal recourse over the actions of Congress that affect all citizens equally as a group. It is more than ironic that the Judicial Branch of our government, which is constitutionally tasked with ensuring that the other branches of government abide by constitutional precept, has acted in an official capacity to ensure that the other branches of government do not have to and that no one, not even all of us acting together, can do anything about it. Not only is this a gross and flagrant violation of our Constitution, it abrogates one of our most important inalienable rights.

Accountability: Americans can no longer achieve redress of their grievances by petitioning government officials or by suing them in a court of law. Thus, we have no means of holding them accountable other than voting them out of office. However, voting them out office will only produce results if there are alternative candidates who hold different views from the incumbent official that coincide with ours. While some third-party candidates offer such options, the simple truth of a matter is that the two major parties have such a lock on the electorate and elective process that addressing issues about how we are governed through the ballot box is impossible. The inescapable result of all this is that elected government officials are accountable to no one other than the special interests that help get them elected and keep them in office.

Majority Rule: The only thing that the majority really decides in America today is whether Twiddle Dum or Twiddle Dee will hold office. However, average citizens have absolutely no say in who becomes Twiddle Dum or Twiddle Dee and once either one is elected, as far as our system of government is concerned, they are one and the same person. Furthermore, there are many important actions taken by our government today that, if the truth were known, the majority would be dead set against, yet our government is able to take these actions anyway.

Freedom and Democracy an American Illusion - Minority Rights

Minority Rights: Minority rights in America have come to mean rights solely associated with one’s color, creed, gender, sexual preference, or national origin, and no longer includes protecting the rights of an individual against majority preferences and excesses. Not only are the minority rights of an individual no longer afforded any special kind of protection by government, we have also been stripped of our God-given inalienable rights. Our perception of rights and minority rights has changed and because of this, we docilely accept a government that instead of protecting our rights extends or takes them away at will.

In conclusion, Americans are free to go to the bathroom when the need arises, but when it comes to enjoying the elements that comprise political freedom, all of them have been compromised and are essentially dysfunctional. Yet, we go about our business thinking this is not the case. We think we are free because we confuse personal freedom with political freedom and no one in government, the media, or our educational institutions will risk their jobs or future well-being by clearing up our misconceptions. We have lost the only thing that ensures our personal freedom — our political freedom — and an inevitable result is that we are now losing our personal freedom as well.

If we have been robbed of our political freedom by those elected to serve us, what then does this say about the kind of democracy we have? No American would intentionally vote away our political freedom, yet it is gone and has been taken from us without our consent. This makes a mockery of democracy and establishes that the democracy we have is only an illusion.

For several generations, this nation was locked in a cold war with Communism. Indeed, we called ourselves the free world and looked upon those living in the Soviet Bloc as enslaved and downtrodden. The question is how free are we today in comparison to those who used to live under Communism. The truth is that we are now not much better off than the citizens of the Soviet Union during the cold war. We have a two-party system that in matters of substance is one party, we no longer have inalienable rights, we no longer own the fruits of our own labor, our property is not safe and secure from confiscation and seizure, we are being systematically robbed of our wealth and heritage, and we can be arrested and held without being charged or tried at the discretion of government bureaucrats. Where then is the freedom that we take such pride in having?

Americans are no longer free and democracy is just an illusion kept alive by the ruling establishment so they can have their way with us. This would be the verdict of our Founding Fathers if they were alive today and this is the verdict that would be reached by any intelligent individual who impartially examines our present situation. 

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=29037 

China Limits Overseas Cash Withdrawals For Its Citizens

China Limits Overseas Cash Withdrawals For Its Citizens

Latest attempt to stop money flooding out of the country

by CNN Money | September 30, 2015

Have a lot of yuan in China? Beijing would like to keep it that way.
The Chinese government is clamping down on the amount of cash its citizens can withdraw from ATMs overseas, its latest attempt to stop money flooding out of the country.
The restrictions apply to holders of UnionPay bank cards issued in mainland China. For the remainder of 2015, withdrawals will be limited to 50,000 yuan ($7,868). Starting in 2016, an annual limit of 100,000 yuan ($15,737) will apply.
UnionPay customers are also bound by an existing daily withdrawal limit of 10,000 yuan per card.
Read more

http://www.infowars.com/china-limits-overseas-cash-withdrawals-for-its-citizens/

 

Global Wealth Destruction: World Market Cap Plunges $13 Trillion

Global Wealth Destruction: World Market Cap Plunges $13 Trillion

Loss hits two-year low

by Zero Hedge | September 30, 2015

Since the start of June, global equity markets have lost over $13 trillion.

(The last time global market dropped this much – Bernanke unleashed QE2)

World market capitalization has fallen back below $60 trillion for the first time since February 2014 as it appears the world’s central planners’ print-or-die policy to create wealth (and in some magical thinking – economic growth) has failed – and failed dramatically.

To rub more salt in the wounds of monetray policy mumbo-jumbo, despite endless rate cuts and balance sheet expansion around the world, the last 4 months have seen an 18% collapse – the largest since Lehman.
It appears “Wealth” creation is just as transitory as The Fed thinks every other outlier is.

http://www.infowars.com/global-wealth-destruction-world-market-cap-plunges-13-trillion/

 

blueprint for the global enslavement of humanity

The United Nations 2030 Agenda decoded: It's a blueprint for the global enslavement of humanity under the boot of corporate masters

Friday, September 04, 2015
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) This week, Michael Snyder published an important article entitled The 2030 Agenda: This Month The UN Launches A Blueprint For A New World Order With The Help Of The Pope.

That article references this UN "2030 Agenda" document that pushes a blueprint for so-called "sustainable development" around the world.

This document describes nothing less than a global government takeover of every nation across the planet. The "goals" of this document are nothing more than code words for a corporate-government fascist agenda that will imprison humanity in a devastating cycle of poverty while enriching the world's most powerful globalist corporations like Monsanto and DuPont.

In the interests of helping wake up humanity, I've decided to translate the 17 points of this 2030 agenda so that readers everywhere can understand what this document is really calling for. To perform this translation, you have to understand how globalists disguise their monopolistic agendas in "feel good" language.

Here's the point-by-point translation. Notice carefully that nowhere does this document state that "achieving human freedom" is one of its goals. Nor does it explain HOW these goals are to be achieved. As you'll see here, every single point in this UN agenda is to be achieved through centralized government control and totalitarian mandates that resemble communism.

Translation of the UN's "2030 Agenda blueprint for globalist government" (controlled by corporate interests)

Goal 1) End poverty in all its forms everywhere

Translation: Put everyone on government welfare, food stamps, housing subsidies and handouts that make them obedient slaves to global government. Never allow people upward mobility to help themselves. Instead, teach mass victimization and obedience to a government that provides monthly "allowance" money for basic essentials like food and medicine. Label it "ending poverty."

Goal 2) End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Translation: Invade the entire planet with GMOs and Monsanto's patented seeds while increasing the use of deadly herbicides under the false claim of "increased output" of food crops. Engineer genetically modified plants to boost specific vitamin chemicals while having no idea of the long-term consequences of genetic pollution or cross-species genetic experiments carried out openly in a fragile ecosystem.

Goal 3) Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Translation: Mandate 100+ vaccines for all children and adults at gunpoint, threatening parents with arrest and imprisonment if they refuse to cooperate. Push heavy medication use on children and teens while rolling out "screening" programs. Call mass medication "prevention" programs and claim they improve the health of citizens.

Goal 4) Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Translation: Push a false history and a dumbed-down education under "Common Core" education standards that produce obedient workers rather than independent thinkers. Never let people learn real history, or else they might realize they don't want to repeat it.

Goal 5) Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Translation: Criminalize Christianity, marginalize heterosexuality, demonize males and promote the LGBT agenda everywhere. The real goal is never "equality" but rather the marginalization and shaming of anyone who expresses any male characteristics whatsoever. The ultimate goal is to feminize society, creating widespread acceptance of "gentle obedience" along with the self-weakening ideas of communal property and "sharing" everything. Because only male energy has the strength to rise up against oppression and fight for human rights, the suppression of male energy is key to keeping the population in a state of eternal acquiescence.

Goal 6) Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

Translation: Allow powerful corporations to seize control of the world's water supplies and charge monopoly prices to "build new water delivery infrastructure" that "ensures availability."

Goal 7) Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

Translation: Penalize coal, gas and oil while pushing doomed-to-fail "green" energy subsidies to brain-dead startups headed by friends of the White House who all go bankrupt in five years or less. The green startups make for impressive speeches and media coverage, but because these companies are led by corrupt idiots rather than capable entrepreneurs, they always go broke. (And the media hopes you don't remember all the fanfare surrounding their original launch.)

Goal 8) Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Translation: Regulate small business out of existence with government-mandated minimum wages that bankrupt entire sectors of the economy. Force employers to meet hiring quotas of LGBT workers while mandating wage tiers under a centrally planned work economy dictated by the government. Destroy free market economics and deny permits and licenses to those companies that don't obey government dictates.

Goal 9) Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Translation: Put nations into extreme debt with the World Bank, spending debt money to hire corrupt American corporations to build large-scale infrastructure projects that trap developing nations in an endless spiral of debt. See the book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins to understand the details of how this scheme has been repeated countless times over the last several decades.

Goal 10) Reduce inequality within and among countries

Translation: Punish the rich, the entrepreneurs and the innovators, confiscating nearly all gains by those who choose to work and excel. Redistribute the confiscated wealth to the masses of non-working human parasites that feed off a productive economy while contributing nothing to it... all while screaming about "equality!"

Goal 11) Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Translation: Ban all gun ownership by private citizens, concentrating guns into the hands of obedient government enforcers who rule over an unarmed, enslaved class of impoverished workers. Criminalize living in most rural areas by instituting Hunger Games-style "protected areas" which the government will claim are owned by "the People" even though no people are allowed to live there. Force all humans into densely packed, tightly controlled cities where they are under 24/7 surveillance and subject to easy manipulation by government.

Goal 12) Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Translation: Begin levying punitive taxes on the consumption of fossil fuels and electricity, forcing people to live under conditions of worsening standards of living that increasingly resemble Third World conditions. Use social influence campaigns in TV, movies and social media to shame people who use gasoline, water or electricity, establishing a social construct of ninnies and tattlers who rat out their neighbors in exchange for food credit rewards.

Goal 13) Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Translation: Set energy consumption quotas on each human being and start punishing or even criminalizing "lifestyle decisions" that exceed energy usage limits set by governments. Institute total surveillance of individuals in order to track and calculate their energy consumption. Penalize private vehicle ownership and force the masses onto public transit, where TSA grunts and facial recognition cameras can monitor and record the movement of every person in society, like a scene ripped right out of Minority Report.

Goal 14) Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

Translation: Ban most ocean fishing, plunging the food supply into an extreme shortage and causing runaway food price inflation that puts even more people into economic desperation. Criminalize the operation of private fishing vessels and place all ocean fishing operations under the control of government central planning. Only allow favored corporations to conduct ocean fishing operations (and make this decision based entirely on which corporations give the most campaign contributions to corrupt lawmakers).

Goal 15) Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

Translation: Roll out Agenda 21 and force humans off the land and into controlled cities. Criminalize private land ownership, including ranches and agricultural tracts. Tightly control all agriculture through a corporate-corrupted government bureaucracy whose policies are determined almost entirely by Monsanto while being rubber-stamped by the USDA. Ban woodstoves, rainwater collection and home gardening in order to criminalize self-reliance and force total dependence on government.

Goal 16) Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

Translation: Grant legal immunity to illegal aliens and "protected" minority groups, which will be free to engage in any illegal activity -- including openly calling for the mass murder of police officers -- because they are the new protected class in society. "Inclusive institutions" means granting favorable tax structures and government grants to corporations that hire LGBT workers or whatever groups are currently in favor with the central planners in government. Use the IRS and other federal agencies to selectively punish unfavorable groups with punitive audits and regulatory harassment, all while ignoring the criminal activities of favored corporations that are friends of the political elite.

Goal 17) Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Translation: Enact global trade mandates that override national laws while granting unrestricted imperialism powers to companies like Monsanto, Dow Chemical, RJ Reynolds, Coca-Cola and Merck. Pass global trade pacts that bypass a nation's lawmakers and override intellectual property laws to make sure the world's most powerful corporations maintain total monopolies over drugs, seeds, chemicals and technology. Nullify national laws and demand total global obedience to trade agreements authored by powerful corporations and rubber-stamped by the UN.

Total enslavement of the planet by 2030

As the UN document says, "We commit ourselves to working tirelessly for the full implementation of this Agenda by 2030."

If you read the full document and can read beyond the fluffery and public relations phrases, you'll quickly realize that this UN agenda is going to be forced upon all the citizens of the world through the invocation of government coercion. Nowhere does this document state that the rights of the individual will be protected. Nor does it even acknowledge the existence of human rights granted to individuals by the Creator. Even the so-called "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" utterly denies individuals the right to self defense, the right to medical choice and the right to parental control over their own children.

The UN is planning nothing less than a global government tyranny that enslaves all of humanity while calling the scheme "sustainable development" and "equality."

1984 has finally arrived. And of course it's all being rolled out under the fraudulent label of "progress." 

http://www.naturalnews.com/051058_2030_Agenda_United_Nations_global_enslavement.html#

The Worst Part Is Central Bankers Know Exactly What They Are Doing

The Worst Part Is Central Bankers Know Exactly What They Are Doing

September 25, 2015

This article was written by Brandon Smith and originally published at Alt-Market.com

The best position for a tyrant or tyrants to be in, at least while consolidating power, is tyranny by proxy. That is to say, the most dangerous tyrants are those the people do not recognize: the tyrants who hide behind scarecrows and puppets and faceless organizations. The worst position for the common citizen to be in is a false sense of security and understanding, operating on the assumption that tyrants do not exist or that potential tyrants are really just greedy fools acting independently from one another.
Sadly, there are a great many people today who hold naïve notions that our sociopolitical dynamic is driven by random chaos, greed and fear. I’m sorry to say that this is simply not so, and anyone who believes such nonsense is doomed to be victimized by the tides of history over and over again.
There is nothing random or coincidental about our political systems or economic structures. There are no isolated tyrants and high-level criminals functioning solely on greed and ignorance. And while there is certainly chaos, this chaos is invariably engineered, not accidental. These crisis events are created by people who often refer to themselves as “globalists” or “internationalists,” and their goals are rather obvious and sometimes openly admitted: at the top of their list is the complete centralization of government and economic power that is then ACCEPTED by the people as preferable. They hope to attain this goal primarily through the exploitation of puppet politicians around the world as well as the use of pervasive banking institutions as weapons of mass fiscal destruction.
Their strategic history is awash in wars and financial disasters, and not because they are incompetent. They are evil, not stupid.
By extension, perhaps the most dangerous lie circulating today is that central banks are chaotic operations run by intellectual idiots who have no clue what they are doing. This is nonsense. While the ideological cultism of elitism and globalism is ignorant and monstrous at its core, these people function rather successfully through highly organized collusion. Their principles are subhuman, but their strategies are invasive and intelligent.
That’s right; there is a conspiracy afoot, and this conspiracy requires created destruction as cover and concealment. Central banks and the private bankers who run them work together regardless of national affiliations to achieve certain objectives, and they all serve a greater agenda. If you would like to learn more about the details behind what motivates globalists, at least in the financial sense, read my article ‘The Economic Endgame Explained.’
Many people, including insiders, have written extensively about central banks and their true intentions to centralize and rule the masses through manipulation, if not direct political domination. I think Carroll Quigley, Council on Foreign Relations insider and mentor to Bill Clinton, presents the reality of our situation quite clearly in his book “Tragedy And Hope”:
“The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank … sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world.”
This “world system of financial control” that Quigley speaks of has not yet been achieved, but the globalists have been working tirelessly towards such a goal.  The plan for a single global currency system and a single global economic authority is outlined rather blatantly in an article published in the Rothschild owned ‘The Economist’ entitled ‘Get Ready For A Global Currency By 2018′.  This article was written in 1988, and much of the process of globalization it describes is already well underway.  It is a plan that is at least decades in the making.  Again, it is foolhardy to assume central banks and international bankers are a bunch of clumsy Mr. Magoos unwittingly driving our economy off a cliff; they know EXACTLY what they are doing.
Being the clever tyrants that they are, the members of the central banking cult hope you are too stupid or too biased to grasp the concept of conspiracy. They prefer that you see them as bumbling idiots, as children who found their father’s shotgun or who like to play with matches because in your assumptions and underestimations they find safety. If you cannot identify the agenda, you can do nothing to interfere with the agenda.
I have found that the false notion of central bank impotence is growing in popularity lately, certainly in light of the recent Fed decision to delay an interest rate hike in September. With that particular event in mind, let’s explore what is really going on and why the central banks are far more dangerous and deliberate than people are giving them credit for.
The argument that the Federal Reserve is now “between a rock and a hard place” keeps popping up in alternative media circles lately, but I find this depiction to be inaccurate. It presumes that the Federal Reserve “wants”  to save the U.S. economy or at least wants to maintain our status quo as the “golden goose.” This is not the case.  America is not the golden goose.  In truth, the Fed is exactly where it wants to be; and it is the American people who are trapped economically rather than the bankers.
Take, for instance, the original Fed push for the taper of quantitative easing; why did the Fed pursue this in the first place? QE and zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) are the two pillars holding up U.S. equities markets and U.S. bonds. No one in the mainstream was demanding that the Fed enact taper measures. And when the Fed more publicly introduced the potential for such measures in the fall of 2013, no one believed it would actually follow through. Why? Because removing a primary support pillar from under the “golden goose” seemed incomprehensible to them.
In September of that year, I argued that the Fed would indeed taper QE. And, in my article “Is The Fed Ready To Cut America’s Fiat Life Support?” I gave my reasons why. In short, I felt the Fed was preparing for the final collapse of our economic system and the taper acted as a kind of control valve, making a path for the next leg down without immediate destabilization. I also argued that all stimulus measures have a shelf life, and the shelf life for all QE and ZIRP is quickly coming to an end. They no longer serve a purpose except to marginally slow the collapse of certain sectors, so the Fed is systematically dismantling them.
I received numerous emails, some civil and some hostile, as to why I was crazy to think the Fed would ever end QE. I knew the taper would be instituted because I was willing to accept the real motivation of central banks, which is to undermine and destroy economies within a particular time frame, not secure economies or kick the can indefinitely. In light of this, the taper made sense. One great pillar is gone, and now only ZIRP remains.
After a couple of meetings and preplanned delays, the Fed did indeed follow through with the taper in December of that year. In response, energy markets essentially imploded and stocks became steadily more volatile over the course of 2014, leading to a near 10% drop in early fall followed by foreign QE efforts and false hints of QE4 by Fed officials as central banks slowed the crisis to an easier to manage pace while easing the investment world into the idea of reduced stimulus policies and reduced living standards; what some call the “new normal”.
I have held that the Fed is likely following the same exact model with ZIRP, delaying through the fall only to remove the final pillar in December.
For now, the Fed is being portrayed as incompetent with markets behaving erratically as investors lose faith in their high priests. This is exactly what the bankers that control the Fed prefer. Better to be seen as incompetent than to be seen as deliberately insidious. And who knows, maybe a convenient disaster event in the meantime such as a terrorist attack or war (Syria) could be used to draw attention away from the bankers completely.
Strangely, Bloomberg seems to agree (at least in part) with my view that the taper model is being copied for use in the rate hike theater and that a hike is coming in December.
Meanwhile, some Federal Reserve officials once again insinuate that a hike will be implemented by the end of the year while others hint at the opposite.
Other mainstream sources are stating the contrary, with Pimco arguing that there will be no Fed rate hike until 2016.  Of course, Pimco made a similar claim back in 2013 against any chance of a QE taper.  They were wrong, or, they were deliberately misleading investors.
Goldman Sachs is also redrafting their predictions and indicating that a Fed rate hike will not come until mid-2016. With evidence indicating that Goldman Sachs holds considerable influence over Fed policy (such as exposed private meetings on policy between Fed officials and banking CEO’s), one might argue that whatever they “predict” for the rate hike will ultimately happen. However, I would point out that if Goldman Sachs is indeed on the inside of Fed policy making, then they are often prone to lying about it or hiding it.
During the taper fiasco in 2013, Goldman Sachs first claimed that the Fed would taper in September. They lost billions of dollars on bad currency bets as the Fed delayed.
Then, Goldman Sachs argued that there would be no taper in December of that year; and they were proven to be wrong (or disingenuous) once again.
Today, with the interest rate fiasco, Goldman Sachs claimed a Fed rate hike would likely take place in September. They were wrong. Now, once again, they are claiming no rate hike until next year.
Are we beginning to see a pattern here?
How could an elitist-run bank with proven inside connections to the Federal Reserve be so wrong so often about Fed policy changes? Well, losing a billion dollars here and there is not a very big deal to Goldman Sachs. I believe they are far more interested in misleading investors and keeping the public off guard, and are willing to sacrifice some nominal profits in the process. Remember, these are the same guys who conned nations like Greece into buying toxic derivatives that Goldman was simultaneously betting against!
The relationship between international banks like Goldman Sachs and central banks like the Federal Reserve is best summed up in yet another Carroll Quigley quote from “Tragedy And Hope”:
“It must not be felt that these heads of the world’s chief central banks were themselves substantive powers in world finance. They were not. Rather, they were the technicians and agents of the dominant investment bankers of their own countries, who had raised them up and were perfectly capable of throwing them down. The substantive financial powers of the world were in the hands of these investment bankers (also called “international” or “merchant” bankers) who remained largely behind the scenes in their own unincorporated private banks. These formed a system of international cooperation and national dominance which was more private, more powerful, and more secret than that of their agents in the central banks.”
Goldman Sachs and other major banks act in concert with the Fed (or even dictate Fed actions) in conditioning public psychology as much as they manipulate finance. First and foremost, globalists require confusion. Confusion is power.  What better way to confuse and mislead the investment world than to place bad bets on Fed policy changes?
Heading into the end of 2015, we are only going to be faced with ever mounting mixed messages and confusion from the mainstream media, international banks and central banks. It is important to always remember, though, that this is by design. A common motto of the elite is “order out of chaos,” or “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Think critically about why the Fed has chosen to push forward with earth-shaking policy changes this year that no one asked for. What does it have to gain? And realize that if the real goal of the Fed is instability, then it has much to gain through its recent and seemingly insane actions.

http://oathkeepers.org/oktester/the-worst-part-is-central-bankers-know-exactly-what-they-are-doing/