The Limits of Propaganda

Submitted by Dmitry Orlov  –  The ClubOrlov Blog

As Paul Craig Roberts has recently reported, the US government is in the process of launching an all-out war on truth. Those who express views contrary to the party line out of Washington will be labeled a threat. Eventually they may find themselves carted to one of the concentration camps which Halliberton (Dick Cheney’s old company) has constructed for $385 million. But that may take a while. In the meantime, we can expect lots of other, less dramatic developments. Indeed, some of these are already happening. Here they are, listed in order of severity.

1. Self-censorship. Those who have previously tried to get the truth out no matter what become more reticent and prone to equivocation when reporting on “hot” issues.

2. Topic-avoidance. They start avoiding certain “hot” issues that they feel are most likely to get them into trouble.

3. Response to harassment. A few incidents of mild official harassment cause certain blogs to start watering down their content, or pulling down content in response to harassment.

4. Blacklisting. The officials start censoring content on a case-by-case basis, blocking or shutting down certain internet sites that they consider seditious.

5. Blocking communications. The officials start dealing with the “hard cases” of uncooperative individuals who remain, shutting down their communications by disabling their cell phones, shutting down internet access, and by imposing travel restrictions so that the “hard cases” are forced to remain in places where they can be watched.

6. Detention. Those found to be truly uncooperative, who try to circumvent the restrictions, are rounded up and shipped off to the above-mentioned camps.

This may seem like a dire prognosis, but actually I just want to present a relatively complete list of public measures for your consideration. Yes, there will be a few “hard cases” who will insist on getting right in the face of Washington officialdom in futile hopes of somehow affecting the political process or winning over a few of their compatriots. But at some point such individuals become indistinguishable from people with mental problems. That is because if you live in the US, actually know how the political system there operates, and still think that the US is a democracy, then you DO have a mental problem. You can’t have it both ways: either you buy into the official propaganda, or you don’t.

Also, it bears pointing out that the vast majority of people in the US are quite happy listening to Washington’s propaganda, be it from Fox or NPR, don’t consider it propaganda, and have been conditioned to consider anyone who attempts to tell them the truth to be tin hat-wearing conspiracy theorist nut case. And that means that tin hat-wearing conspiracy theorist nut cases have a role to play. They are important to have, in the same way that a village idiot is important to have, so that children can learn what idiocy looks and sounds like. So, why bother sending them to a concentration camp?

And so it seems likely that the village idiots… ahem, truth-tellers will remain free-range for the time being, unless they really lose it and start tilting at windmills. But then that becomes a bona fide mental health issue.

Unless, of course, full-on war hysteria breaks out. In that case, while the external goons are busy pretending to be “not winning, not losing” but somehow “keeping America safe” in yet another wretched part of the world, the internal goons have to be kept busy. Rounding up undesirables would give them something to do.

Gold Rises, Silver Surges on Short-Covering and Physical Demand – Greece, Ukraine, Russia Risks

Submitted by Mark O’Byrne  –  GoldCore

– Gold rises over 2% while silver surges 4.4%
– Speculators caught off guard as prices rose forcing them to cover their short positions
– Concerns re defaults by Greece and Ukraine
– Geopolitical risk of conflict in Middle East and with Russia remain
– Price rises were accompanied by strong physical demand

Precious metals had their best day since January yesterday as the price of gold and silver rose substantially.

Gold rose over 2% and is now back above the important $1,200 per ounce psychological mark while silver surged 4.4% and is now comfortably above $16 per ounce.

Many factors seemed to have come together to generate the rise in prices but the primary cause seemed to be buying in the futures market which led to short covering which quickly propelled gold from $1,180 an ounce to over $1,205 an ounce in a short period of time.

Silver prices surged from around $15.80 an ounce to $16.45 an ounce or 4.1% prior to selling which capped prices below the $16.50 level.

Physical gold demand in the major Asian markets was positive after last week’s price fall, dealers told Reuters, with Shanghai premiums moving up toward $4 an ounce suggesting a return to more robust demand in the world’s largest buyer China.

Risk appetite remains high as seen in buoyant stock markets but some investors may be getting nervous about the near inevitable Greek default – and rightly so. European stocks have seen falls today.

The uncertainty regarding the outcome of such an event has been getting more attention in the media in recent days with the general consensus being that nobody has any idea what the knock-on effects might be – but that it would be far from pretty and could be a “Lehman moment” for the EU.

What Makes Brussels More Equal Than Others

Submitted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer  –  The Automatic Earth

Harris&Ewing Ford Motor Co. New medical center parking garage, Washington, DC 1938

Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad ran a little article recently that we’re surprised no other news organization picked up. It concerned a proposal in the European Parliament in which the parliamentarians got to vote on raising their own paycheck (always a good idea). The best thing about the story is that not everyone voted in favor.

Most did though. It much amused me to see that apparently it was Angela Merkel’s party, the German Christian Democrats, which was behind the proposal. Initially, they had even wanted double what they actually got. Here’s some numbers and details – and please forgive me for not being a math wizard -.

A Member of the European Parliament (MEP), according to the article, receives the following for their valiant and entirely selfless efforts at public service:

• Salary: €8000+
• Expenses: €4300
• A per diem allowance of €300 for every day a meeting is attended.

Per year that adds up to: €147.600 + €30,000 if 100 meetings are attended. Let’s say €180,000.

On top of that, the Parliament pays into MEPs pension funds, but we’ll leave that alone for now.

There are 751 MEPs, so total ‘salary’ costs are €135,180,000. But that’s just the start.

And we’re not yet adding translation costs, which apparently can add up to over €120,000 per day (!), or perhaps some €30-40 million per year.

Nor are we taking into account the estimated at least €200 million per year it takes to have the entire Parliament (MEPs, assistants, translators, employees, in total about 4000 people) move between Brussels and Strasbourg every month, an oddity that springs from a drawn-out power poker play between Germany and France. Do note: the constant move costs way more than all 751 MEP’s base salary + expenses.

No, the proposal discussed, concerns the added expense accounts MEPs receive for their assistants. At present, the amount involved is over €21,000 per month, and according to the people who receive it – and vote on raising it -, that’s not enough.

Truth Has Been Murdered

Submitted by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts – Institute for Public Economy

The Obama regime and its neocon monsters and European vassals have resurrected a Nazi government and located it in Ukraine. Read this statement by Elena Bondarenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament: http://slavyangrad.org/2015/04/18/statement-by-elena-bondarenko-peoples-deputy-of-verkhovna-rada-of-ukraine/

The Western media has created a fictional account of events in Ukraine. The coup organized by the Obama regime that overthrew the elected democratic government in Ukraine is never mentioned. The militias decked out in Nazi symbols are ignored. These militias are the principle source of the violence that has been inflicted on the Russian populations, resulting in the formation of the break-away republics. Instead of reporting this fact, the corrupt Western media delivers Washington’s propaganda that Russia has invaded and is annexing eastern and southern Ukraine. British and European politicians parrot Washington’s lies.

The Western media is complicit in many war crimes covered up with lies, but the false story that the Western media has woven of Ukraine is the most audacious collection of lies yet. Truly, truth in the Western world has been murdered. There is no respect for truth in any Western capital.

The coup in Ukraine is Washington’s effort to thrust a dagger into Russia’s heart. The recklessness of such a criminal act has been covered up by constructing a false reality of a people’s revolution against a corrupt and oppressive government. The world should be stunned that “bringing democracy” has become Washington’s cover for resurrecting a Nazi state.

Relevant Decomposing Spreads of Spreads

Submitted by Jeffrey Snider  –  Alhambra Investment Partners

This post is actually a companion to the last, looking into the discrepancy of breakevens with the broader credit market, but I felt it deserved attention all its own. As noted in that prior discussion, there is little indication that credit markets are at all re-evaluating prospects for “inflation” and recovery. If anything, they remain curiously stubborn against it even if they are not again, at this moment, moving rapidly in that pessimistic direction. In this case, absence of activity has to be taken as further suspicion because everything remains not brightly positioned steeper and higher but rather stuck at down and flat (indeed, this curious stability itself argues for a negative interpretation on credit interpretations).

That includes especially funding markets, which remain in some places likewise to the treasury curve. The eurodollar curve, for example, remains conspicuously lingering around the “worst” or most pessimistic views from early February.

The fact that the curve has failed to budge, at all, in the past few weeks despite the “dollar’ and crude swinging quickly in the other direction more than suggests that deep uncertainty and concern remain. To some extent, the swaps market seems to at least agree, but swaps may also be moving in a direction that is actually cause for greater concern – which is why I wanted to separate the analysis.

I noted last week that there is not just time value in bonds and credit, but also the same hierarchical structure for interbank existence. The reason for that is simple, as order in function produces order in results – the inverse case being equally valid. We can infer a breakdown in basic hierarchy as being suggestive of disorder in function.

In the past few months, just as breakevens have begun to warm the hearts of economists again, swap spreads have been decomposing out of their “expected” orderly arrangements. I have observed and highlighted this from time to time, but it has grown steadily divergent going back to around early January.

CONFLICT AND COMMONALITY BETWEEN MULTILATERALISM AND DEMOCRACY

Submitted by J.C. Collins  –  philosophyofmetrics

With the increasing socioeconomic tension in the United States, it is reasonable to expect that the population could begin to see the scaling back of police state methodology and the beginnings of a more democratic process which reflects the growing demand for fair and equitable representation.

Whether its protests and rioting against the abuse of power by police, or legislative bills demanding an audit of the Federal Reserve, the pattern of reversal is beginning to take shape.  Some assumption can be made and discussed regarding the rise of multilateralism and the effects of a waning unipolar American world.

History is littered with the remains of previous world powers, and their last attempts at hanging on to that power has made for a deep cultural deposit of material which has been used for everything from history lessons, to literature, and big screen epics.

With this transfer of power we are unable to completely define the negative aspects of the outgoing structure.  Though the US was the tip of the spear for the projection of power, the influence and leverage behind it have been more interwoven within the socioeconomic fabric of western cultural as a whole, whether its America, Canada, Europe, or proxy regions around the world.  As such, when the multilateral integration reaches a critical point of mass transition and intersection, the degradation and humiliation of western culture will reverse and the people will seek out an identity based on the principles of morality and vigilance which brought it to greatness hundreds of years ago.

The challenge presented to the people and their representatives will be in establishing a multilateral check and balance mechanism.  It is my contention that this process is further along than many would suspect, which is visible within the dialectic paradigm developing in American politics between predetermined governance platforms and campaigns.

It is interesting that politicians, like religious leaders, will invariably adapt and adjust to the changing mandates of a fluctuating cultural, and the demands made upon that culture by banking and business interests.  We can expect to witness, and in fact have already been witnessing, some of these external and multilateral demands.

Like all things in life, there are conflicts and commonalities between the emerging multilateral and the domestic sovereign demands made, both on and by, the governing structure of each region and country.  The assumption is repeated ad nauseam that international organizations and institutions undermine domestic democracy.  Though this may be true in some instances, it is not in all.  Where conflicts now exist, there may be commonalities in the near future. And where commonalities now exist, there may be conflict in the future.  Such is the motion and direction of the waters of history.

The Cultural and Socioeconomic Interception (CSI) methodology which has been used throughout human development is sometimes the product of covert and intentional manipulation of mass populations, but can also be the response to subconscious and unintentional manifestation of direction and desire, force and form, of the moral and intellectual collective. This manifestation can take the shape of a response to other intentional and unintentional CSI programs.

The Daily Debt Rattle

Submitted by Raúl Ilargi Meijer  –  The Automatic Earth

• The New Nothingness (Steen Jakobsen)

• The Real War On The Middle Class (Ron Paul)

• Over Half Of Americans Killed By Police Each Year Are Mentally Ill (Economist)

• Who Is Really Choosing America’s Next President? (ProPublica)

• If Greece Falls, No One Wants Their Prints On The Murder Weapon (Reuters)

• Greece Shakes Up EU-IMF Talks Team But Keeps Varoufakis (AFP)

• Greece PM Leaves Referendum Option Open, Rules Out Elections (Reuters)

• Grexit, Grimbo, now Grexhaustion, Acropolis Now?

• Greek President Promises Repayment of all Debt (Spiegel)

• The Limits Of Propaganda (Dmitry Orlov)

• Leaking CIA Secrets Leads To Severe Punishment, Unless You Are The Boss (RT)

• Maryland Governor Declares State of Emergency, Activates National Guard (CBS)

• The Hidden Lives Of Chernobyl’s Wildlife (BBC)

• Norway’s Shift From Oil Starts With Two Left Feet (Bloomberg)

• BP Oil Hunt Off Australia Coast Causes Fear of Another Deepwater Horizon (BBG)

• East Australia 1 Of 11 Areas Good For 80% Of World Forest Loss (Guardian)

• Is The Universe Really A 2-D Hologram? (Science Daily)