AnonOps Communications: ‘Anonymous’ targets Federal Reserve chairman Ben B...

AnonOps Communications: ‘Anonymous’ targets Federal Reserve chairman Ben B...:
"The most well-known hacker group, Anonymous, uploaded a video message to youtube yesterday calling for Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to ..."

"DON'T START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME!"--VAULT-BOY

RELIGION, FAITH, AND FACT: WHY "GOD" IS DESTROYING THE WORLD

In a world with the internet, space travel, heart transplants, and the human genome project, it's hard to believe that religion has never held a bigger place in global society than it does today. 85 percent of the world's population belongs to one form of religion or another. In most societies, religion is a constant fixture of daily life. Its influence is felt on the media, on education, and on governments worldwide. It is part of every culture and often guides our moral compass, both socially and individually. It brings us comfort and hope, promise and redemption; however, religion has a darker side as well.
  Man has killed one another over religious beliefs since the existence of religion. Religion has, historically, been tied to every major conflict and upheaval worldwide since ancient times. Empires have risen and fell in the name of religion. Man has committed horrible atrocities against his brother over a difference of religious beliefs and parents have slaughtered their children for it. Face it, the number one killer of humanity is religion.
  Rampant destruction and death rooted in religious ideology is clearly not a phenomenon from primitive eras. Today when we think of religious fanaticism we immediately equate it to the muslim faith and the terrorist organizations of the middle east. What if we looked a little closer to home and a little deeper within ourselves? What would we find? Certainly most American hate groups profess a deep love for christianity. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan preach hate against the jewish people while worshiping the jewish incarnation of a living god. What about anti-abortion activists whose religious beliefs guide them to defend the sanctity of life in the unborn while allowing them to take the lives of abortion doctors? Are they really that much different from a suicide bomber in Iraq who is willing to kill and surrender his own life for his beliefs? Churches such as the one that protests the funerals of american soldiers simply because they feel that america's tolerance of homosexuality is an abomination to God, certainly could be compared to the Taliban which also preaches intolerance and seeks to spread a message of religious rooted hate and oppression. Do our own hate groups not warrant the title of terrorists simply because they are american and...christian?
  As americans we preach tolerance and acceptance politically and socially, yet we fight homosexuality, abortion, and women's rights based on our christian views. What about the even more extreme instances of religious fanaticism in America? The Branch Davidian followers in Waco Texas believed their preacher was Christ himself. They shed blood and ultimately gave their lives for their religious beliefs. Similarly, Jim Jones led thousands to their death in Guyana under the auspices of religion. Despite what many would categorize as isolated incidents carried out by extremists, if you asked the average christian if they would die for their God, the answer would undoubtly be yes. If one's own life is meaningless in the face of religion, where does everyone else's lives rank?
  This is the problem with humanity. We have let ideology and belief cloud our judgement and guide our hand. The problem with beliefs is that they can't be changed. Beliefs don't allow for common sense, or equality, they don't allow for a change in structure or an adoption of new principles. Religious belief will always be rooted in archaic, out-dated, principles, set forth by a primative people; and yet we cling to it fiercely.
  Modern religion is a hypocritical dichotomy. All major religions preach a message of peace and yet each one feels justified in the blood they shed all over the world. Perhaps the biggest hypocrisy lies in christianity. The message of Christ was clear: Love thy enemy, turn the other cheek, and pray for the souls of those who would harm you. Yet It was our christian military that surprised an unarmed Osama Bin Laden and shot him in the face out of revenge. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for Bin Laden's death, but I'm not religious either. I don't preach tolerance while exacting revenge on my enemies. Were we truly christ-like in our pursuit of justice or is the notion of even pursuing justice against anyone an affront to christianity? Where do we draw the line? When is it okay to ignore biblical teachings and when should we force those beliefs on others?  One thing I know for certain, as an atheist I do not believe in the teachings of christianity, and apparently, neither do most christians. it is sad that the basic message of all major religions goes largely ignored while we kill one another, and that message is simple: Make peace among all people and treat everyone as you would be treated.
  While we view fanatics like Bin Laden and the Taliban as absolute evil operating under religious pretense; do the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq not have grounds to view us with the same contempt? Bin Laden knocked down 3 buildings in America, how may have we knocked down in Iraq and Afghanistan? Bin Laden is responsible for roughly 4000 American civilian deaths, we have killed hundreds of thousands of middle east civilians since 9/11. So much for turning the other cheek.
  The collective religious fervor in the world today will ultimately change the course of humanity drastically if not end it completely. No one will be rewarded with virgins, Jesus isn't coming to rescue us from death, and the mothership won't be picking us up. Our endtimes prophecies are convieniantly self-fulfilling and given the present state of the world, increasingly likely. Perhaps it is time to put away childish notions and mend fences with those who we view as different. At the very least, lets not let the fairy tales we tell ourselves, cost human lives.

DON'T START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME!
 

THE FIGHT OVER AMERICA (and why the people aren't invited)

  How will history read when the tale of our nation is told? We are the driving force in the world economy. We have been conditioned to become a nation of consumers and to worship at the alter of the dollar. Will we be remembered as the people who caused a global financial collapse? And what would that mean for you and I? would there be lawlessness in the streets? Would we kill one another for resources? We have seen what happened with the collapse of the soviet union. The long bread lines, scarce resources, people starving and miserable. That would be nothing if we caused a GLOBAL collapse. We are on the precipice of an unprecedented catastrophe. This will make the great depression seem like a hiccup in financial terms.
   We are approaching a fight in Washington which will determine the continued existence of the American way of life. Speaker of the house John Boehner, stated today that any agreement to raise the debt ceiling must include spending cuts in the trillions of dollars. Specifically he mentioned entitlements. Here is the situation: we owe a growing debt to all the nations who sell us the things we no longer produce, which is mostly everything. To pay this debt we either borrow money from one nation to pay another or we simply print money which in reality is an IOU. By printing money we automatically devalue the worth of our dollar until it is eventually worth less than the value of the paper its printed on.
     The two major political parties in America have matched each other tit for tat in undermining the will of the people by dividing them socially and economically, all the while causing the slow collapse of our economy. The Republicans ran up a costly debt fighting an unwarranted war in a sovereign nation and by deregulating the markets in a way which allowed the financial collapse of the housing bubble. Agree or disagree those are the facts. The Democrats in turn, are attempting to fix the problem by spending even more money, money that is not backed by any sort of collateral. Agree or disagree those too, are the facts. We have allowed our political divisions to cloud our judgement for too long. Both parties serve the dollar and not the people. And for our share of all this we have let everything happen right under our noses. We allowed them to turn us into a consumer nation and no longer a nation of innovation and production. We demand and they provide and as long as they make life easy and convenient and safe, we won't raise too much fuss. The proof is all around us, national test scores are on decline as the dropout rate rises, obesity is on the rise, health care is largely unattainable, we poison our food and environment and we create more waste than any other culture.
   We have long heard the political ideology of making "hard choices" and "personal sacrifices" but the case can be made that we need to redefine what hard choices mean, and what personal sacrifices we should be making. Do hard choices and personal sacrifice mean leaving the poor and working class without health care? Maybe it means leaving our elderly to die. The Republicans told President Obama to keep his hands off their medicare and scared people with talk of death panels, but now, they want to end medicare and replace it with a voucher system that will not cover costs for a huge portion of our nation's elderly.
   President Obama made the case that we should revitalize our economy in part by investing in clean energy. He may have been on to something, however, without delivering a solid proposal he did little to encourage serious consideration. But what if we provided massive tax breaks for businesses that work to develop clean energy. Maybe we could provide added government grants and loans to students seeking degrees in science and engineering related to clean energy research and development. That would help improve our educational standing as well. We could be the world leader in the future of energy production. How would we pay for such noble and Utopian ambitions?
  First we must close all satellite military installations world wide. The war is over, we beat Germany and Japan in the 40's, we can come home now. Also, we must approach the war on terror covertly and discreetly. As we have recently seen this approach is cheaper and more effective. This also means the national guard can help secure our borders, thereby guarding our nation. Furthermore, if we can use military resources to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure why can't we do the same here?
     In addition to military spending cuts we also need to re-evaluate our tax system. If we eliminate income tax and institute a national sales tax on all goods and services bought and sold in the U.S., we can capture vast revenue from illegal immigrants and foreign visitors alike. This also ends the debate over taxing the wealthy, all for only pennies on the dollar. We should also consider the way we tax, or rather don't tax large corporations. We should impose strict taxes on all businesses that use outsourcing as a means of maximizing profits. It is morally bankrupt to reward any American company that uses cheap foreign labor when we face record unemployment. Likewise those businesses who hire a large majority of American workers should receive a tax incentive. In addition we should consider instituting a windfall tax against large mega companies and specifically those deemed "too big to fail" that post record profits and bonuses while driving up the cost of living. We have sustained these companies and made them what they are, now it is time for them to sustain us.
    Additionally, we need to reform our welfare system. We have enslaved the poor with our current welfare system. By adding support services like drug rehabilitation, job programs, childcare services, and educational incentives as well as not cutting taniff and food stamps to those who work menial low wage jobs, we can begin to ween people off the welfare system. It is a fact that poor people who make more money will spend more and help stimulate the economy.With the money this proposal generates and the resources it makes available, we can provide health care to our nation, unprecedented educational benefits, a leaner consumption of foreign oil, increased entitlements, better defense of our borders, stronger economic growth, and a lower unemployment rate.
    At the end of the day though, all of that is just a pipe dream. The parties conspired to increase their worth through corporate means and now that the house of cards they built begins to topple, they grow ever more determined to fight to the death, only its the future of our nation that they gamble with. And yet despite our common problems we allow them to distract us with trivial matters and divide us on racial, cultural, financial, and social issues. Maybe if this all falls apart, if we default on our debts as a nation and cause a global collapse, if we see human suffering and death everywhere as the world fights for the scarce resources we have left, maybe we'll be getting what we deserve. Will history tell the story of a nation founded on equality and the value of it's people that eventually destroyed itself because they just couldn't overcome their differences and come together for the common good? Only time will tell.

DON"T START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME!--Vaultboy

DID BIN LADEN WIN?

  For ten years we have waged an unyielding war against the evil that would seek to eradicate our way of life. We have paid a high cost to avenge the tragic events of 9/11. I, like many other Americans, began to feel that our hunt for Osama Bin Laden had come at too high a cost. I felt, along with 70% of the country, that it was unlikely that we would find the Al-Qaeda leader, and that perhaps enough blood had been shed in our pursuit of him. May 1st 2011, President Obama delivered the news that so many of us felt would never come, "Justice had been done." I was instantly transported back to the events of 9/11. I thought of the watching the news that day and witnessing the planes as they struck World Trade Center towers, I thought of the images of a burning pentagon, and I thought about the ordinary people on flight 93 who fought the first battle in this costly war on terror. My mind filled with the images of people jumping to their deaths from the windows of the World Trade Center as the smoke and heat became unbearable inside the towers. I Thought of personal stories of that tragic day as well. Father Michael Judge, killed by falling debris while giving last rights to the dead, Todd Beemer, aboard flight 93 who told a group of heroic passengers, "Let's Roll", as they charged through the cockpit door and into history. I remember the towers coming down and the ash and dust covered New Yorkers who had seen a day like any other transformed in to a hell on Earth. I thought about that horrible day and the price we paid and I thought of the price we would pay for the next ten years. I thought of the thousands of lives we lost in the middle east and the hundreds of thousands of civilian lives lost as collateral damage in an undefinable war. I thought about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. I thought about torture and morality. In that moment of hearing that "Justice had been done", I lived the last ten years all over again.
  This war has always been the most unconventional in American history, with no clear enemy and no real boundaries we have sought to secure the world from the specter of terror. In the process we sacrificed our principles as a nation and our place of honor among the rest of the world.  We sacrificed our rights and imposed our will upon other peoples in other nations. To many, in our relentless pursuit of the enemy we became the enemy.
   On September 11, 2001, we united in a way we never have before, and on May 1, 2011 we did so again, only this time it was bittersweet. I joined the rest of America in celebrating the death of a man whose evil deeds touched every life on the planet in one way or another. But in our celebration it is easy to forget what we have become. No longer are we the world leader who can claim the moral high ground. We have seen our nation begin to crumble from widening divisions brought about as a result of 9/11. While ultimately we ended Bin Laden's life, we also secured his legacy among those who would see us destroyed. Once we stood as a nation of noble ideals and as a shining beacon of freedom and hope. In a post Bin Laden world we have surrendered our noble ideals for vengence, sacrificed our freedoms for an unattainable security, and given ourselves over to bloodlust. Bin Laden may be dead but did he win after all? He will be martyred by his followers and we will be reviled among the middle east nations. He may be gone but his legions of followers will surely grow. How much more blood will we spill chasing the nameless, faceless, enemy? Most of all did Bin Laden win a personal victory over each one of us? He made us view an entire culture as suspect, he made us give in to fear, he made us embrace questionable military tactics and sell out our principles. He divided us deeply on questions of morality, religion, and human rights. He desensitized us to the carnage of war and made us celebrate death. In the end perhaps he did in fact destroy the American way of life. Maybe our principles died along with our innocence on September 11, 2001. For all those lives lost on 9/11 and every day since, I hope not.

IN HONOR OF THOSE WHO GAVE ALL! --Vaultboy

JUSTICE IS SERVED!

President Obama announced last night that justice had been served after a navy SEAL team of about 2 dozen raided a compound in Abbottobad Pakistan. Today is truly a great day to be an American. Love him or hate him, President Obama got the job done when no one else could. Now lets bring our boys home!

 









                            WE GOT HIM!

The Real Price Of Oil

Oil. We all depend on it. We heat our homes with it, we fuel our cars with it, we use it to manufacture an enormous array of products. Oil, like it or not, is a part of almost every aspect of our daily life. But does that mean that we really need it? There are two issues at the heart of the oil debate: Money and American exceptionalism. The oil industry generates immeasurable profits, more so than any other industry. Even at the lowest levels of the industry the pay is excellent. An entry level position on an oil rig offers pay in excess of 20 dollars an hour, a generous sum of money given our financial crisis. That hourly wage is also the average cost of half a tank of gas for most people. While oil generates enormous profits for American oil companies it generates even larger profits for overseas nations. Americans consume one third of the world's oil supply but produce less than ten percent of it. We have little to no say in oil prices and, given our consumption and production rates, rightly so. Make no mistake about it we are in the midst of a crippling oil crisis that is never going to improve. The reason we will never have the required amount of oil at an affordable rate is because of our very nature as modern day Americans. In the late 1970's then president Jimmy Carter in a state of the union address, warned the American public of the wastefulness that was causing a fuel crisis at that time. That warning cost Carter the next election against Reagan. You see for some reason, we as Americans feel that simply because we are American, no one should try limit our consumption of oil, or point out that we are horribly wasteful as a society. Here are some interesting facts to illustrate just how wasteful we are:

1. America counts for roughly 5% of the Earth's total population yet we produce 40% of the trash worldwide.

2. Before being closed in 2001 the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island New York could be seen from space.

3. 49 million diapers are used every day in America and the vast majority of those diapers are petroleum based (thats oil we're wasting).

4. Every year the average American throws away 1200 pounds of organic waste that could be composted.

(these facts and more can be viewed here http://planetgreen.discovery.com/travel-outdoors/trash-landfill.html)  

While we are falling behind the rest of the world in several key areas, we are still number one in terms of wastefulness and trash production. Its not a matter of being a tree hugger or championing the global warming cause, it's a simple matter of individual responsibility and self control. Simply wasting resources and not controlling the amount of garbage we produce is not just irresponsible, it's Immoral. Why do we seem to heap every possible problem facing us onto future generations? Do we not have some responsibility to clean up our own messes? In the 70's we had an opportunity to ween ourselves off oil consumption, but we valued our convenience over our responsibility as global citizens then, as we do now. Not to mention we have generated vast amounts of wealth for countries that grow increasingly hostile toward us. Remember the 9/11 hijackers? the majority of them were Saudi Arabian, Saudi Arabia, our "ally" and number one contributer to our oil supply. Is it not plausible to assume that weaker oil producing arab nations who cannot defeat us militarily might be taking steps to defeat us financially. It's like fighting a war after you've given the enemy all of your ammunition. We will continue to crumble as a nation until we are no longer dependent on foreign means to power our country. In terms of creating an alternative energy source we are at zero hour. We can not assume that future generations will be able to solve this problem when our increasing financial troubles make the research and development of anything more and more difficult. We have an obligation to improve every aspect of our world for our children in the hopes that they will not struggle and suffer as so many of us have. In addition if we are truly concerned about oil consumption and waste among industrial emerging nations like China and India then we absolutely must lead by example. They will not seek to slow they're oil consumption simply because we tell them that its better for everyone else, we didn't want to when Jimmy Carter suggested it. At the end of the day no matter what you feel about the environment, global warming, or local oil drilling, there is one undeniable truth we all have to accept, there is only so much oil on the planet and when it's gone there will never be any more. Ask yourself "Do we really assume that we have the right to use it all up? Do we not owe it to the continued existence of our very species to develop renewable, cleaner forms of energy?" Well, do we?

DON'T START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME!--Vaultboy

My Thoughts On The "Birther" Issue

Here it is the ultra top secret, extra official Barack Obama Certificate Of Live Birth.
This is the only post I will ever address this issue on and the only reason is because of the large number of people who give this blatantly racist theory credibility. That's not to say that everyone who buys into this is racist. No in fact many of them are genuinely nice, honest, racially secure people. This rumor was started by someone who was likely not even racist. A Philadelphia attorney and Hillary Clinton supporter, filed suit against Obama alledging his ineligibility for the presidency (you can check out more about this here: http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/l/lawyersues.htm ). Now I can only guess at why this man would even question Obama's citizenship let alone sue him over it. But if you think back to the early days of the presidential race, the war was heated between Obama and Clinton, even in the face of inevitable defeat Hillary wouldn't concede to Obama. Is it that hard to believe that infighting among candidates of the same party is likely when competing for the nomination; and is it reasonable then, to assume that both sides may have fanatical supporters willing to resort to extreme measures to insure the nomination of their candidate. Maybe the attorney who made these allegations was provided information from another source whose motives we can only guess at, maybe he was a closet racist, or maybe and more likely, he was someone who knew the law and really wanted his girl to win. At any rate this allegation took root in the Tea Party uprising and has since grown into the Republican mainstream thanks to game show host and would be presidential candidate Donald Trump. The racists in America embraced this notion as their last chance to combat the likelihood of a black president. Today so-called birthers are comprised of three types of people: The racist element, those who are unaware of the facts, and those who know better but perpetrate this rumor as part of a political agenda. Most of America simply don't know the facts, so here they are: President Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. President Obama is in fact, the President. President Obama provided the legally accepted identification from the beginning. You see, this "long form birth certificate" is little more than hospital paperwork and in fact not a recognized means of identification in the first place. The one you and I have to show when needed, or short form, is the legal means of identification. As for those of you who continue to question why he never showed the long form when the public asked; well, maybe its because Hawaii does not release the long form unless the person obtaining it receives special permission from the state government. Even the President is subject to law. So it's kind of a pain in the ass to get this form, with running a country involved in two and a half wars and on the verge of total collapse, maybe he just couldn't find the time. But maybe Barack Obama the man who would be the first black president, anticipated race to be an issue. He probably prepared for every sort of racial and personal attack he could think of. He mastered the art of remaining cool and collected when facing these challenges. And maybe our nation's first black president felt that after winning the election he was owed this one small measure of civility and respect, that his word and his legal documentation would be accepted, as it was for every other president that held the office before him. He probably felt like his very citizenship should not be a sticking point when our country is facing numerous challenges. Not to mention the emotions it no doubt stirred to have the very nation he was chosen to lead, accuse him of being an alien. Now I don't know for certain that he felt any of those things, but I do know that he is a much bigger person than me, because if I was in his shoes and people told me that my papers weren't as good as everyone else's, I would have told them to kiss my Presidential, black ass!

DON'T START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME!--Vaultboy