In This New American Century 3

In this new American century our ability to affecting change within the existing political systems and governmental institution is deteriorating. Global elites, soulless mega corporation and governments have striped away many of the once held legal avenues for the redress of grievances.　 Greater feelings of helplessness, futility and despair force us to turn to our long held ideas and beliefs of what our country is and should be and find that these ideas and beliefs were just motivational hoopla, 20th century political propaganda and PR slogans that no longer fit into the strategic plans of this New American century. We feel ourselves being forced into action, but we are unclear in what way or how this action should manifest itself. We move about from here to there looking for way to express our feelings, we complain on the net, we send e-mails of this and that to him and her, but still we want to compel some kind of change. Where do we start, what do we do?

Truthful answers to some simple question is a good place;

What emotions are driving me to take action?

What has made me want to take action?

What were my reasons for not taking action before?

What has changed in my life?

In what area of my life do I need to take action?

Clearly defining your reasons for taking action will help you to understand what you to do to start and where you need to start. Begin within in your capability, defining and studying your own situation can help you recognize the reasons you have for getting into action and would help you to decide what are your goals and what methods you will employ to reach your goals. After you have discovered your reason, methods and goals the next step is to "READ!"

Just because you didn't go to college or your degree is in media doesn't mean that you can't become an expert in another subject now. Pick up a book if you studied the same subject for 30 minutes a day everyday for 1 month, you’ll know the basics, if you studied for 30 minutes a day for 2 months you’ll become knowledgeable, if you studied for 30 minutes a day for a 6 you will become an highly proficient and if you studied 30 minutes everyday for a 1 year you will have become an expert. Big government, soulless mega corporations and heartless global elites are afraid of an educated population, in their eyes an educated population is dangerous, an educated population taking action is status quo threatening.That is way we must see ourselves as people that can create study groups with friends, co-workers and family members. Get three or four friends together to study about one topic or have each of you study a different topic and teach it to the other members in your group.

Get three or four friends together to study about one topic or have each of you study a different topic and teach it to the other members in your group. Learn about your credit cards, the patriot act, peak oil, gun control, the bill or rights, the constitution, politics, the true number of Iraqi war dead, the lies of the past 5 presidents, politicians, finance, local government, carbon tax, taxes, how the IRS works or what you can do as citizens to get YOUR government to listen to you. Then take ACTION. Learn that in this new American century that you are the are the reason way you need to take action. You, your family, your neighborhood are the reason for you to act.

( A WORK IN PROGRESS)

Top banks all post steep losses
Saturday 16th May, 06:25 AM JST
TOKYO —

Top Japanese banks tumbled to steep annual losses, hit by bad loans and plunging share prices, but said Friday that they expect to turn a profit this fiscal year. Mizuho Financial Group Inc, Japan’s second-largest bank, posted a group net loss of 588.8 billion yen for the fiscal year ended March, swinging from a 311.2 billion yen profit a year earlier. It was Mizuho’s first annual loss in six years.Mizuho’s smaller rival Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc, or SMFG, reported a net loss of 373.5 billion yen, down from 461.5 billion yen profit in the previous year. Japan’s major banks managed to weather the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis with far smaller losses than their Western counterparts, but they are now facing the painful impact of of the global recession.

　

EFOP: Japan’s governmental policy of pinning the Yen to the US dollar to keep exports at a competitive level while at the same time maintain profitability for Japanese businesses is taking beating due to the huge drop in it’s export markets as well as trying maintain the Yen parallel path with the increasing speed of the devaluation of the US dollar.




Panasonic reports Y378.96 bil loss

Saturday 16th May, 05:04 AM JST
TOKYO —

Panasonic Corp sank deep into the red last fiscal year, joining a growing list of Japanese electronics makers who have fallen victim to a stronger yen and an unprecedented slump in global demand.The Osaka-based company Friday reported a 378.96 billion yen loss for the fiscal year ended March—its first loss in seven years—and expects to stay in the red in the current fiscal year. Business slumped across all segments amid lackluster demand for everything from flat-screen TVs and digital cameras to home appliances and semiconductors.

Sales were down 14.4% to 7.77 trillion yen, and operating profit tumbled 86% to 72.9 billion yen. The result represents a major reversal of fortune for Panasonic, which just last year posted a record net profit of 281.9 billion yen.

How can they say the Japanese Economy is on the Mend

Japan's Mizuho Financial Group Deep in Red

TOKYO (AFP) – Japan's Mizuho Financial Group said Friday it aimed to raise about eight billion dollars to shore up its finances after suffering its first annual loss in six years due to the credit crunch.
Japan's top banks were initially seen as relatively immune to a US-born credit crunch, but they have been badly burned by the financial crisis, partly because they have a large exposure to the stock market.

Japan grapples with deflation, weak investment
by Harumi Ozawa Harumi Ozawa – Fri May 15, 1:51 am ET

TOKYO (AFP) – Japan faces signs of mounting deflationary pressures and sluggish
business investment as the world's number two economy reels from its worst
recession since World War II.
Wholesale prices fell 3.8 percent in April
from a year earlier, the steepest drop in nearly 22 years, the central bank
said, raising concerns that Asia's biggest economy is slipping into another bout
of deflation.
Consumer price inflation turned negative in March for the
first time in 18 months and the fear is that Japan may see a repeat of its 1990s
deflationary spiral when falling prices led to weak consumer spending.

More young Japanese commit suicide amid slump
By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press Writer Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press Writer – Thu May 14, 11:34 am ET

TOKYO – The economic slump and subsequent job losses have driven
more young Japanese to commit suicide, with a record number of victims in their 30s, police said Thursday.

In This New American Century3

Our ability to affecting change within the existing political systems and governmental institution deteriorating, global elites, soulless mega corporation and governments have striped away many of the once held legal avenues for the redress of grievances.With greater feelings of helplessness, futility and despair the people turn to their long held ideas and beliefs of what the country is or should be and find that these ideas were just motivational hoopla, 20th century political propaganda and PR slogans that no longer fit into the strategic plans of this New American century.

We find ourselves increasingly disassociated, reviled, ignored, ill used and lied to by politician, government bureaucracies, greedy self-centered elites and predatory big businesses which view us as a tax cash crop to pay off the massive debt which they have created, as nameless bodies to fight their illegal wars, as over consuming slobs who are in the way of their plans for political and financial domination of the world.

We feel helpless and discouraged so we turn to our TVs, lap tops, latest electronic gizmos, video games, drugs, porn, alcohol, $4.00 cups of coffee, big cars, patio furniture, large amounts of unhealthy food, credit cards shopping, nameless faceless chat rooms or some other nonsensical activity or item that has no real mean and adds no real value to your life. These costly and highly advertised diversions in which we hide, in no way helps us to break out of our feelings of helplessness, frustration and resentment you have for the situation we find yourself in now.
( A WORK IN PROGRESS)

INFORMATION IS POWER

Center for Homeland Defense and Security

The CHDA

Altering the Mission Statement: The Training of Firefighters as Intelligence Gatherers

Blatus, Richard John (M.A. in Security Studies); Sep 2008 (cohort 0701-0702).

This NPS thesis investigates the role of firefighters as intelligence gatherers in the War on Terrorism. "The fire service is one of the premier emergency response agencies in the United States. As our nation strives to expand and enhance its homeland security efforts, firefighters have been recognized as an underutilized asset. The opportunity for firefighters to act as 'first preventers' in the war on terrorism is unmatched by any other emergency response agency. This, coupled with the warrantless search provisions afforded firefighters by the Constitution, makes firefighters the logical choice for training and inclusion into an expanded terrorism awareness initiative. Expansion of the intelligence-gathering capabilities of first responders, specifically firefighters, will not be without difficulty. The lack of training and educational opportunities afforded firefighters in this area, the changes in firefighting culture, the status of firefighters as an integral part of the community, are all obstacles that must be addressed. Firefighters respond to homes and businesses with unprecedented frequency. A multi-faceted approach involving training, community involvement, and operational awareness will streamline the utilization of firefighters in the area of threat recognition. Trained firefighters will help shoulder some of the burden placed on law enforcement while the utilization of a current asset will put forth a new best practice for the safety of our communities.
» Read full thesis https://www.hsdl.org/homesec/docs/theses/08Sep_Blatus.pdf&code=4da51a6a58d46a1a3463ddbe42f045e8

Citizen Preparedness Campaign: Information Campaigns Increasing Citizen Preparedness to Support Creating a 'Culture of Preparedness'

Bloom, Paula S (M.A. in Security Studies); Mar 2007 (cohort 0503-0504).

Citizen preparedness has been a requirement since the events of September 11, 2001 and was reinforced as a necessity after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in August 2005. Although National Strategy documents outline the requirement for citizen participation in national preparedness the requirement is through volunteerism using the Citizen Corps. There are currently readiness programs being conducted through the Citizen Corps, Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency but they are not coordinated across the federal state and local or proactive in nature. Proactive Information Campaigns using core and supporting elements can be one methodology to increase citizen preparedness to support the creation of a 'Culture of Preparedness', which includes citizen participation along with the all levels of government and the private sector. Homeland Security stakeholders can use the Information Campaign Model developed to formulate proactive information campaigns to increase citizen preparedness.
» Read full thesis https://www.hsdl.org/homesec/docs/theses/08Sep_Blatus.pdf&code=4da51a6a58d46a1a3463ddbe42f045e8

Power News

Know Thy Enemy:Profiles of Adversary Leadersand Their Strategic Cultures

Barry R. SchneiderJerrold M. PostEditors
July 2003(2nd Edition) USAF Counterproliferation Center Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama

Table of Contents
Front matter

Chapter 1 - Deterring International Rivals From War and Escalation
Barry R. Schneider
Chapter 2 - Killing In The Name Of God: Osama Bin Laden And Al Qaeda
Jerrold M. Post
Chapter 3 - The Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Radicalism
Gary M. Servold
Chapter 4 - Struggle for the Control of Pakistan: Musharraf Takes On the Islamist Radicals
Stephen F. Burgess
Chapter 5 - Kim Chong-il's Erratic Decision-Making and North Koreas Strategic Culture
Merrily Baird
Chapter 6 - The Crucible of Radical Islam: Irans Leaders and Strategic Culture
Gregory F. Giles
Chapter 7 - Saddam is Iraq: Iraq is Saddam�(Until Operation Iraqi Freedom)
Jerrold M. Post and Amatzia Baram
Chapter 8 - Syria Under Bashar al-Asad: Clinging To His Roots?
Christopher Hemmer
Chapter 9 - Muammar Qaddafi and Libya's Strategic Culture
Craig R. Black
Chapter 10 - The Need for Influence Theory and Actor-Specific Behavioral Models of Adversaries
Alexander L. George
Chapter 11 - Precise Assessments of Rivals: Vital in Asymmetric War Threat Environment
Jerrold M. Post and Barry R. Schneider
Contributors
(read more at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/know_thy_enemy/index.htm )


Modeling Violent Non-State Actors:A Summary of Concepts and Methods
Captain Jason Bartolomei, USAFMajor William Casebeer, USAFMajor Troy Thomas, USAFNovember 2004Institute for Information Technology ApplicationsUnited States Air Force Academy, ColoradoIITA Research Publication 4 Information Series

Modeling Violent Non-State Actors:A Summary of Concepts and MethodsINTRODUCTION AND SUMMARYViolent non-state actors (VNSA), such as terrorist organizations, play an increasinglyimportant role in the international security environment. Effectively deterring, coercing,disrupting or destroying terrorist organizations requires a subtle understanding of the factorsthat influence their growth and formation. Here, we discuss the importance of formulatingsystems-level computer models that may enable us to forecast VNSA growth, and that also giveus leverage for effects-based operations and planning. We apply tools from systemsengineering to turn our qualitative systems-level mental models of VNSA into quantitativecomputer models. By using a systems engineering approach, policy-makers will be able toexpand the number and quality of their mental models surrounding reasoning about how VNSAdevelop in order to gain deeper insights. The methodologies used in this project will be usefulfor analyzing any complex system, not just terrorist organizations. (read more http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usafa/modeling_vnsa.pdf )



Summer bonuses for Japan national servants to be cut by 10% (AP)
Summer bonuses for national civil servants will be reduced by about 10 percent this year, as proposed by the National Personnel Authority, the government said Friday. The decision was made as summer bonuses in the private sector are projected to decline due to the fast-deteriorating Japanese economy.

US newspapers eye government support
By Kenneth Li in New York (FT)
Published: May 10 2009 23:31 Last updated: May 10 2009 23:31A tentative, eleventh-hour agreement struck between The New York Times and the Boston Globe’s labour unions has meant that Senator John Kerry’s hometown newspaper has been rescued.
The New York Times has been locked in dispute since early April with labour unions at its lossmaking Boston Globe over $20m in cuts that included the elimination of lifetime job guarantees, but reached a truce last week.

Fraud in Japan booming as economy flounders
JAPAN has become Asia's main hotbed of fraud, possibly hiding financial deceptions on the scale of the Bernard Madoff ponzi scheme. Senior lawyers warned that economic upheaval and desperation to recover investments were bringing to light a number of financial scams and frauds against foreign companies and funds. Some are said to be on what one government official called a “breathtaking scale” and many have clear links to yakuza organised crime syndicates.

Homeland Security preps flu quarantine guidelines
From Raw Story http://rawstory.com/blog/

The Department of Homeland Security is preparing to quarantine people with confirmed swine flu infections, according to a newly released memo obtained by CBS News.
From CBS:
[The memo] says: "The Department of Justice has established legal federal authorities pertaining to the implementation of a quarantine and enforcement. Under approval from HHS, the Surgeon General has the authority to issue quarantines."
McGaw appears to have been referring to the section of federal law that allows the Surgeon General to detain and quarantine Americans "reasonably believed to be infected" with a communicable disease. A Centers for Disease Control official said on Tuesday that swine flu deaths in the U.S. are likely.
Federal quarantine authority is limited to diseases listed in presidential executive orders; President Bush added "novel" forms of influenza with the potential to create pandemics in Executive Order 13375. Anyone violating a quarantine order can be punished by a $250,000 fine and a one-year prison term.

Financial Times, US belatedly learns lesson from Japan

US belatedly learns lesson from Japan

By Gillian Tett

Published: May 8 2009 18:47 | Last updated: May 8 2009 18:47

In recent months, Japan’s sorry banking history has provided the world with plenty of reasons to worry about America. Now, however, it might offer a crumb of comfort, too.

The reason? In part, it lies with those stress tests that Washington has just conducted on its largest 19 banks.

During most of the past two years, the American leadership has been in a state of procrastination and denial in relation to its banking woes: first it tried to pretend that the financial woes were not too serious, since they were “contained”. Then it insisted that free market pressures would be enough to force the banks to come clean about their mess – without the need for the government to act.

In reality, the Americans were not at all unusual in taking that stance: when Japan’s banks first became plagued with bad loans in the early 1990s, the government in Tokyo took an identical stance – and continued denying the scale of woes for almost a decade.

But precisely because the Japanese were such past masters of procrastination – and learnt the hard way what that can do – they have been quietly dubious about much of what Washington has said about the banking woes in the past two years.

As long ago as the autumn of 2007, for example, Daisuke Kotegawa, a canny former financial bureaucrat who was central to Japan’s own banking clean up, pointed out to me that what was missing from the American debate was any effort to conduct an audit of Western banks.
(read more at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fc1c2760-3bf3-11de-acbc-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1 )

Unemployment Rate

Unemployment Rate - Expected Range 8.5 % to 9.0 % Reported 8.9 % Actual ???.

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT: FIRST QUARTER 2009 (ADVANCE)

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property
located in the United States -- decreased at an annual rate of 6.1 percent in the first quarter of 2009, (that
is, from the fourth quarter to the first quarter), according to advance estimates released by the Bureau of
Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter, real GDP decreased 6.3 percent.

The Bureau emphasized that the first-quarter “advance” estimates are based on source data that
are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 4). The first-
quarter “preliminary” estimates, based on more comprehensive data, will be released on May 29, 2009.

The decrease in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from
exports, private inventory investment, equipment and software, nonresidential structures, and residential
fixed investment that were partly offset by a positive contribution from personal consumption
expenditures (PCE). Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, decreased.

The slightly smaller decrease in real GDP in the first quarter than in the fourth reflected an upturn
in PCE for durable and nondurable goods and a larger decrease in imports that were mostly offset by
larger decreases in private inventory investment and in nonresidential structures and a downturn in
federal government spending.

Motor vehicle output subtracted 1.36 percentage points from the first-quarter change in real GDP
after subtracting 2.01 percentage points from the fourth-quarter change. Final sales of computers added
0.05 percentage point to the first-quarter change in real GDP after subtracting 0.02 percentage point
from the fourth-quarter change.

greeting 5 9 2009 111

California Students' Call for Condi War Crimes Probe Initiative of Stanford Anti-War Alumni Students

California Students' Call for Condi War Crimes ProbeInitiative of Stanford Anti-War Alumni and Students
By Prof. Marjorie Cohn

(efop this is a good article to view how people are re-waking to the power they once held. How long did it take for action?? why not 5 years ago? think about it and send me a note.)


Global Research, May 6, 2009
During the Vietnam War, Stanford students succeeded in banning secret military research from campus. Last weekend, 150 activist alumni and present Stanford students targeted Condoleezza Rice for authorizing torture and misleading Americans into the illegal Iraq War. Veterans of the Stanford anti-Vietnam War movement had gathered for a 40th anniversary reunion during the weekend. The gathering featured panels on foreign policy, the economy, political and social movements, science and technology, media, energy and the environment, and strategies for aging activists. On Sunday, surrounded by alumni and students, Lenny Siegel and I nailed a petition to the University President’s office door. The petition, circulated by Stanford Say No to War, reads: “We the undersigned students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other concerned members of the Stanford community, believe that high officials of the U.S. Government, including our former Provost, current Political Science Professor, and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, Condoleezza Rice, should be held accountable for any serious violations of the Law (included ratified treaties, statutes, and/or the U.S. Constitution) through investigation and, if the facts warrant, prosecution, by appropriate legal authorities.” I stated, “By nailing this petition to the door of the President’s office, we are telling Stanford that the university should not have war criminals on its faculty. There is prima facie evidence that Rice approved torture and misled the country into the Iraq War. Stanford has an obligation to investigate those charges.”
( If you want to read more go to) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13512