The Political Class - Still Clueless About The Future But Still Making Predictions

I really get a kick out of our politicians when they try to make predictions of any sort. They keep trying and they keep getting them wrong but they continue to show the fortitude to go on with more fruitless predictions. Before reviewing the latest prediction from Harry Reid, let's quickly review the recent past history of politicians' predictions:

- In the run up to the invasion of Iraq, I vaguely remember Bush predicting that the military effort would cost less than $100 billion. I do not remember the exact number, $60 billion sounds familiar, but it was less than $100 billion. Well, many years later we know he missed that prediction by hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in ongoing expense before you even count the long term expenses of continuing care for our wounded and the interest on the debt that was incurred to finance the invasion. In all probability, the true cost of the invasion will exceed at least a trillion dollars, conservatively at least ten times higher than the original Bush prediction.

- When the Obama administration was hyping its economic stimulus package, the threat was if the package was not passed, unemployment could get as high as 8%. The economic stimulus package was passed and implemented. In hindsight, it is obvious the Obama administration would welcome 8% today since the unemployment rate zoomed right past 8% and has hovered just under 10% for a long time. Missed that prediction by just a little bit.

- It is also funny, and pathetic, when looking at another economic stimulus prediction, one that involved changing the rules as time progressed. The original intent of the stimulus package was to create a couple of million permanent jobs. However, as the stimulus money got spent, nowhere near a couple of million permanent jobs got created. That was when the prediction was changed from jobs created to jobs created and jobs saved. When that definition did not work, the prediction was changed from jobs created and saved to include jobs touched. Somewhere along the line the criteria for a job being permanent was relaxed to any job, permanent or temporary. Even with all of these definitional changes, this prediction still has not come true, given the much higher than expected unemployment rate.

- The bank bailout prediction was also pretty funny. Think back to the end of the Bush administration and how Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson were claiming that unless there was a massive taxpayer bailout of the U.S. banking system, the financial system of the world would crash and we would see the coming of the next Depression. Nice prediction but apparently way off base as far as being accurate. The bailout bill did get passed and signed and by November, 2009, the first "failing" banks were receiving their TARP bailout money.

However, one of the criteria for receiving the money was that severe restrictions were placed on the wage levels of bank executives. All of a sudden, many of these banks were scrambling to give back the TARP money, so much so that a mere seven months after the first TARP checks were cut, many of the banks had already returned their bailout money.

But let's reason this one out. If the banks that received the money were in such dire financial shape, how were so many of them able to return the money so quickly? Couldn't they have muddled through these few months somehow by slashing costs, issuing more stock, selling off assets, or taken any number of actions to get them through this short period of time? Or were these banks never really in trouble in the first place and just wanted a free lunch from the taxpayers via the political class and government? We could not have been that close to a Depression if the majority of the banks returned their TARP funds so quickly, mere months, so that their executive pay levels would not suffer.

- And now to the latest grand prediction, this one from Harry Reid, majority leader in the Senate. In a recent Associated Press article, Mr. Reid was extolling the Senate's passage of the bill that would extend the Bush tax cuts on January 1, 2011 as well as do a number of other things. Mr. Reid is quoted in the article as predicting that passage of the legislation would result in the creation of two million jobs.

If this was such a good idea and will actually create two million much needed jobs, why was this legislation not passed long ago? Wouldn't the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress wanted this passed before they got whooped on election night?

Also, with the exception of decreasing the Social Security tax for one year and adjusting the estate tax numbers, isn't the vast bulk of this legislation designed to keep the status quo? If the status quo so far has not generated two million incremental jobs, what makes Harry think that it will now? For a family with a breadwinner making $50,000 a year, their Social Security savings will be about $20 a week, hardly enough to create demand for 2 million new jobs.

Thus, I have no idea how Mr. Reid comes up with two million more jobs by keeping the status quo and giving American families back $20 a week. It makes you wonder how these people come up with these numbers. Just as the two million job number makes no sense, neither did the Bush Iraq number, the TARP prediction, the unemployment estimate, etc.

These constantly poor predictions of government actions raises a four part question:

1. Do our politicians really believe the numbers they spout out?
2. Do our politicians even understand the derivation and the logic behind the numbers they spout out?
3. Are they ever embarrassed when the reality comes nowhere close to the numbers they so confidently predicted?
4. Are they aware up front that the numbers are bogus and use them just to get their way or legislation passed? If this is the case, then we have a more serious integrity issue with our politicians then we thought we did.

The bottom line is their track record, and thus their credibility, is horrendous when it comes to predicting numbers and results and we would all be better off if we ignored future predictions from the political class. It is a waste of their time and credibility and usually a waste of our tax dollars. They should follow that old saying that goes something like this: "Better to remain silent and thought ignorant than to speak up and remove all doubt." Or in this case: "Better to not give a prediction and thought clueless of the future than to speak up and remove all doubt."

South Africa's Public Health Sidelined Over Political Power Play

During the Nationalist Party, or white government, days in South Africa, the only time the country made it into the international newspapers was when apartheid based atrocities and anti-apartheid campaigns were reported. It used to annoy the government immensely as they felt that the good stuff was being overlooked.

President Mbeki, and his apostles, must be feeling the same at this moment. The front page of the Independent in the UK says it all. 'A President in denial, a nation denied hope' is the headline. The article is in response to the firing of deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.

Ms Madlala-Routledge had worked hard to obtain some form of credibility for the government. She had been outspoken about new treatment campaigns to ensure medication was available to infected people and co-authored a five year treatment action plan. She had visited hospitals and pointed out how bad the health services were in some areas such as the Eastern Cape.

Mbeki and his Minister of Health Tshabalala-Msimang have been ridiculed by the world for their denial of the epidemic. Mbeki ascribed to the theory that HIV and AIDS were not linked and Tshabalala-Msimang maintained that eating beetroot and garlic were more useful than anti-retrovirals which she said were harmful to people. This is the country where coffins are made from cardboard because the wooden ones can't be made quickly enough to fill demand.

The Deputy was fired, according to the South African press, for having attended an AIDS conference in Spain. It was felt that this was wasting tax payers' money. Besides which this trip had apparently not been authorised. One might remember a Christmas a season ago when the Deputy President used tax payers' money to use the government jet to take herself and a couple of buddies off to a shopping holiday in Dubai. She certainly didn't get fired for that unauthorised trip.

Which all points to the fact that the Deputy Minister's firing had really very little to do with health issues. It has to do with political power. Mbeki has, during his years as president, surrounded himself with people whom he feels comfortable with and who have shown him total loyalty. These select few will remain within his orbit whether they do the job or not. The Deputy Health Minister, by undermining the power base of the Health Minister had to go.

Health Minister Tshabalala-Msimang is one of these apostles. She could decide to hand out arsenic pills at hospitals and she would not be fired. I suppose giving people beetroot and garlic to cure HIV/AIDS is about the same.

Political power is particularly relevant as the succession debate to Mbeki's rule hots up. The issue centers around the new leadership of the ANC which will be determined shortly. At the same time, the head of the ANC is automatically appointed as president of the country. According to the constitution, President Mbeki may only serve two terms and he is completing his second term now.

This is not really a serious issue. One needs to remember that the ANC acquired over two thirds of the vote during the last general elections. This means the ANC is able to change the constitution. It could very well mean that Mbeki is padding his supporter base in preparation for re-election. He has indicated that he wishes to stand for the ANC leadership.

The consequences of the political maneuvers being played out are dire though. The public health system is falling apart at a rapid rate, and not only with respect to HIV/AIDS treatment. Reports on the state of public hospitals are dire. According to one Doctor quoted in the Independent, people are dying in the queues.

The absolute tragedy is that South Africa has money in the bank to improve the health system. Not only did Finance Minister Trevor Manuel submit a surplus budget in February this year, but today's South African version of the Independent states that the taxman is heading for another big tax bonanza.

Never a more appropriate saying than the one that states that Rome burns while the politicians fiddle.

The Politics of Taxation and Accountability

Western historical experience with taxation has been that a government's increased financial dependency on tax revenues may generate governance benefits, because it encourages the accountability of the state to its citizens. Explicit or implicit agreement about who should pay tax, at what rates and for what purposes was reached through bargaining between the ruler and the potential taxpayers. In contemporary OECD countries issues of taxation remain central and important - especially around elections.

In contrast, taxation is not high on the domestic political agenda in Balkan countries. With the exception of Greece, the politics of taxation are, in general, limited to involve a few specialized interest groups, and tend to take place in non-public arenas. Small lobby groups pressure for exemptions, for rate reductions on imports, or bargain with officials or ministers about tax liabilities.

Local government taxation is, however, a major exception to this. Around election time, this form of taxation is often high on the political agenda of both national and local politicians.

But, this politicization of local government taxes does not increase tax compliance among citizens. To the contrary, it often undermines local government tax collection efforts. The main reason why issues of taxation has not entered the political agenda in those countries is that only a minority of citizens pay direct taxes to the state and the failure of revenue-raising seems most acute in countries that receive large amounts of aid. Partly as a result of this, donors are increasingly directly involved in recipient country tax policy making and administration. Typically, donors push for ambitious overall revenue targets. This may, in some contexts, have significant but unintended negative influences on (i) taxpayers' rights through coercive tax enforcement, and (ii) accountability by empowering the bureaucracy at the expense of elected politicians.

As part of the research programme, I have analyzed the relationship between taxation and accountability in the context of tax reforms carried out in a number Balkan countries. I focused on three interrelated issues affecting the relationship between taxation and accountability: 

i) The internal accountability of the tax system was assessed with reference to administrative reforms of the tax system; 

ii) ii) the democratic accountability of the tax reforms was analyzed by assessing whether the tax reforms created closer links between governments and their citizens; and iii) we also studied to what extent external accountability relations between governments and international donors affected domestic accountability relations.

In this part of the research project I emphasized the ongoing tax reforms in Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Serbia where reforms were introduced as part of the economic restructuring agreements with the international donor community.

The research has found that generally, the tax reforms have only to a limited extent succeeded in widening the tax net. Only formal business corporations appear visibly affected by the central government tax reforms. However, our research suggests that a voice and an organized response to the new revenue policies are developing within the business communities in the specific countries. The fact that these issues are being treated through formal, public organizations, rather than through bribery and public deals may indicate the beginning of a link between economic elites and government in issues of revenue generation.

My research indicates that it is not easy to introduce democratic accountability through externally imposed tax reforms. The tax reforms carried out in were to a large extent formulated and imposed by the international donor community. To meet the targets set by the IMF and Ministry of Finance, the revenue authorities in have focused on increasing collection and compliance from existing taxpayers rather than attempting the more complicated task of widening the tax base. Attempts to meet externally set tax-to-GDP targets may undermine democratic accountability if legal processes and taxpayers' rights are set aside in order to comply with external accountability demands. The semi-military operations to prevent smuggling and tax evasion in Uganda illustrate this concern. Our findings suggest that if coercion is accepted as an integral part of tax collection it is unlikely that state-society relations can become more accountable and democratic.

Politics and Hydrocooperation

Environmental deficiencies, not abundances, explain the development of irrigation technologies - and irrigation permitted the emergence of urban civilization. One anthropologist states, "the remarkable truth concerning the origins of sophisticated agricultural economy and urban civilization within the ancient world was its area in regions of limited in drinking water supply".

Researchers have noted how the quantity of available water may be paramount in determining the sociopolitical structures. For example, the temperate and humid climate along European rivers did not force population nucleation and therefore urban civilization appeared late. Others suggest that the continual shifting of centers of power in Mesopotamian background had been connected using the degradation of irrigation systems as nicely as military and economic situations.

Wittfogel (1956) attributed the growth of centralized bureaucracy and autocratic rule to growing connection of water through irrigation and navigation. The combination of hydraulic agriculture, a hydraulic government, plus a single-centered society constitutes the institutional essence of hydraulic civilization.

This permitted an accumulation of rural and urban populations that, though paralleled inside a couple of nonhydraulic territories of small-scale irrigation, such as Japan, has not been matched by the higher agrarian civilizations based on rainfall farming.

These hydraulic civilizations covered a vastly larger proportion of the surface of the globe than all other substantial agrarian civilizations used together. Other research workers support these views. Some note that the centralized authority of Sasanid rule, within the Sistan region, which can be within the southwestern corner of present Afghanistan, created the establishment of a complex irrigation network possible.

This was the region wherever Zarathushtra discovered refuge (Gyuk, 1977). Others argue that the capability to manage drinking water lies at the middle of vigorous debate more than the rise and fall with the Mayan civilizations. They theorize that intense agriculture, coupled with centralized drinking water management, most likely needed a high degree of social group.

They use archaeological work at Tikal as evidence to additional speculate that lack of adequate water reserves in drought, instead of military or political conflict, may have triggered abandonment of lowlands (Booth, 1991). At the other end with the spectrum, research workers talk of how online community irrigation engendered a democratic spirit and a feeling of online community (Glick, 1970).

For instance, sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spanish irrigation was generally initiated, organized, financed, built, and maintained by local communities. Some suggest that the change in political organization toward higher or lesser centralization may better be observed as social responses to environmental degradation.

Even though initial responses to increased environmental degradation might have been elevated centralization, long term degradation resulted in decentralization. Communities have moved from sedentary farming to nomadic pastoralism and back. The conclusion is that irrigation in and of by itself does not necessitate political centralization. Also political centralization doesn't require the use of canal irrigation. In fact, the main civilizations seem to have experienced repeated expansions and collapses of political empires (Lees, 1973).

The Wittfogel thesis may be accustomed to partially explain the development with the irrigated western United States. The western United States is seen as an example of the motion to large-scale bureaucracy, if not centralization of arid societies, based on large-scale irrigation (Worster, 1992). Another political scientist finds that regardless of which political framework is utilized, distributive techniques, collective goods and so forth, the outcomes are the same.

Those with energy will obtain the access to the drinking water whether through prices, participation, or, administrative procedures (Ingram, 1990). This is definitely borne out in American literature and films dealing with western drinking water, such as the Milagro Beanfield War (Nichols, 1974) and Chinatown (1974).

One of the primary reasons that no more entities like the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) had been begun within the United Says is because of the resistance from other large-scale water bureaucracies, which felt threatened (Leuchtenburg, 1952). By implication this notion of irrigation's tendency to large bureaucracy, or "impulse to empire," is sometimes extended towards the history of foreign help given by Western nations.

Some of that help, in part, helped create "clones" of large-scale irrigation bureaucracies, which today are now being asked to change. But strong community and participatory traditions have also flourished amid the large-scale motion of bureaucratic irrigation discussed above. For instance, in the United Says, there's a rich history of farmers' associations.

The Soil Conservation Support (SCS), which was the child of the large central bureaucracy, existed to foster community administration of soil. The agricultural extension services are another this kind of instance. Likewise, small-scale drinking water markets and trading have also flourished throughout the arid areas. Even the U.S. examples are greatest understood, like significantly of what we know historically, like a mixed program.

Making the physical water infrastructure in a collaborative and participatory way is now an important signifies for building the civic infrastructure and also the civil culture, or what numerous call the governance atmosphere.Water source management, with its existing debates over markets, pricing, planning, participation, and environmental assessment, is a meeting ground for these forces.

Such issues have historically been at the middle of drinking water means administration and also the rise and fall of civilizations. The fountains of old Rome, like standpipes in little villages these days or medieval cities of Europe, played roles in building civic lifestyle, as nicely as to quench thirst.

They have turn out to be occasions for civic dialogue and meeting locations central to creating sense of civic belonging and responsibility. Indeed the fountain was truly a civic function. It was the gathering place of the nations, believers and unbelievers. We ought to not forget that civil society, civic culture, and civil engineering share commons roots.

Whether it be irrigation associations, online community drinking water and sewage, as well as large-scale multipurpose river operations, water management forces us to connect and balance rights and responsibilities. Although this process is imperfect, balancing is undertaken, and the physical exercise is frequently useful in and of by itself.

Most democratic theorists see the experience of this kind of balancing as central to development of civic culture (Barber, 1985). Today there are many signs of how particular technologies are subtly transforming conflict resolution, negotiations, and choice dynamics in water conflicts.

For example, software and visual displays facilitate the joint creation of models of water resources by political and technical stakeholders (USACE, 2004). They also raise the real potential for expanding options for political negotiators and choice makers. And as negotiation theory tells us, the ability to expand choices is often the crucial to prosperous negotiations.

Remote sensing technologies, even though not replacing the require for "ground truthing," provides countries and jurisdictions the ability to construct a pretty precise picture of drinking water flow in other jurisdictions, irrespective of the level of data sharing.

This technological capability transforms the relationships and negotiations between jurisdictions and will continue to do so. Trying to maintain it all secret or giving misleading information just won't function like it accustomed to; a lot more people have more access to information.

And all of this technology is disseminating, democratizing, faster than anyone predicted. Virtually all of the world's viable river basin organizations evolved, generally more than a period of a number of decades, in response to extreme hydrologic events. The achievement of shared data and trusted specialized expertise has been central to their achievement.

The interplay between the political and technical in achieving this state is complicated. But RBO viability, often demanded through the populations served, has eventually depended in excellent component on such trusted technical agents. Learning a lot more about the wisdom and viability of conventional water administration methods are essential payoffs of surveying drinking water and civilization.

These range from old technologies, such as discovered within the Negev or other areas in North Africa, to various procedures for irrigation release administration and hierarchy of rights revealed in court data in medieval Spain along with other locations.

The history of social organization close to river basins and watersheds is humanity's richest data of our dialogue with nature. It's among the most fertile areas for learning about how political and technical realms interact. There is a large and growing literature warning of future "water wars" - these authors point to water not only as a cause of historic armed conflict but additionally since the source that will bring combatants to the battlefield within the twenty-first century.

The historic reality may be very different. In the modern times, only minor skirmishes have been waged more than international waters - invariably other interrelated problems also factor in. Conversely, a lot more than three,600 treaties happen to be signed historically over various aspects of global waters (400 in this century on drinking water qua drinking water), numerous showing tremendous elegance and creativity for dealing with this critical resource.

This is not to say that armed conflict has not used place more than water, only that such disputes generally are among tribe, water-use sector, or state. What we seem to be finding, in fact, is that geographic range and intensity of conflict are inversely related. War more than drinking water isn't strategically rational, hydrographically efficient, or economically workable.

Shared interests along awaterway appear to overwhelmwater's conflict-inducing features and, once water administration institutions are in place, they tend to become tremendously resilient. The patterns described in this post recommend how the more valuable lesson of global drinking water is as a resource whose features have a tendency to induce cooperation and incite violence only in the exception.

However, a brand new sense of ethics and new skills of management are required to work in this reality.

Invisible Slavery System

Invisible puzzles are mechanisms hidden inside products and services you use, and the social/political systems you interact with. They are invisible due to the use of manufactured perception and deniability-tactics. These puzzles are designed to harness everyone's efforts to silently maintain and operate an Invisible Slavery System...

What would happen to the world economy if global problems like terrorism, global warming, pollution, drugs, cancer and AIDS were suddenly solved? These problems harness trillions of dollars per year, both directly and indirectly from the poor, the middle class, and the rich. This money fuels a large portion of our economy and it eventually makes its way to a very few select people, the "very few very powerful".

These "very few very powerful" did not use principles found in your everyday how-to business books. They and their families engineered special techniques that led to their success, and they kept these techniques a family secret for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. The funny thing is these techniques can be looked up quite readily, but they still remain secret to the vast majority because of the combination of a deniability cloak and a perception cloak.

I will now begin to explain my own theory about these secrets, and how they relate to what is really happening in the world today.

First of all, an "invisible puzzle" is just that, a puzzle that is invisible without some special way to view it. As it pertains to my theory, "invisible puzzle" more specifically refers to the deniable lines of function that are hidden inside the products and systems that we interact with. These invisible puzzles are there to control us in very direct tangible ways while shedding off proof of the real purposes behind them.

For example, when the bank processes several checks in one day for a specific customer they now wait to the end of the day and sort them by size, biggest first, smallest last. Many people wait to the last minute to deposit their money, so an unsuspecting customer walks in during the day and deposits the amount to cover the checks, asks for his balance, and breathes a sigh of relief to see that he was in time. The balance according to the deposit slip is in the black. He goes home with the feeling that everything is in order.

However, the checks that were held to the end of the day can be back-posted to a time before the deposit, since that is when they really came in. So the customer's account is then returned to the red prior to his deposit, as the checks that were not reflected before are back-posted. Then these checks get posted in size order instead of chronological order, causing the most possible overdrafts to be generated.

Then as the overdraft fees stack up, the customer's account goes further negative than it would have otherwise, making the deposit ineffective at stopping subsequent overdrafts from the following day's checks. The customer's account spins out of control by potentially hundreds of dollars without his immediate knowledge so that he won't know in time to fix it before the full damage takes place.

The combination of these things cause overdraft income to increase three to four times on average. And that's if he deposited cash. If he deposited a check then the deposit may post three days later (an arbitrary decision on the part of the bank) - and it doesn't matter if it's from a bank across the street. You could have just walked the cash across the street but that makes no difference to the bank. Sure, the bank can make any rule it wants, and the customer is legally at fault for letting his/her account go negative. But then the bank purposely manipulates their paperwork to triple their income from it. And they do it legally.

How? All they had to do to triple their overdraft income was to issue a notice to their customers stating something to the effect: "From this point forward, in an effort to better serve our customers, whenever there are multiple checks to process in the same day we will process the biggest one first, the second biggest one second, and so on, processing the smallest one last. In this way if there are insufficient funds you are more likely to get your most important check through, such as your mortgage or car payment."

This notice makes it impossible for the customer to accuse the bank of manipulating the paperwork for profit. The deniable alternate purpose (manipulation of paperwork to triple overdraft profits) is hidden behind a perception cloak (the statement that the change in calculations is to get your most important check through). As a result, this situation becomes an invisible puzzle.

Invisible puzzles can be used to manipulate, but you can't prove this intent because the stated purpose makes the potentially manipulative purpose deniable.

The interesting thing is, these invisible puzzles can be created through remote control. Every now and again a major world event hits the news, like the "9/11 terrorist attacks". Then millions of people everywhere are glued to the TV full of emotion over the event, waiting to see who is responsible and waiting to see what solution will be presented. Each time this happens no proof will be given for what really happened. That is one of the keys to their technique. This is because of the principle that when the truth is hidden people will then look to some other source for answers, like authority or stereotypes.

At this point perceptions are being engineered for a purpose. The purpose is to mobilize large groups of people into specific actions that create and enforce new invisible puzzles. In the case of the 9/11 terrorist event our security spending was tripled, dozens of new track & identify laws were launched overnight that wouldn't fly previously because of privacy activists, several major legislative acts and antiterrorist treaties were mysteriously completed in a matter of days (hmmm, I would have thought they would need more time than that), and our president declares to the world "any country that is suspected of harboring terrorists will be attacked". Was this a declaration to the world that we intend to deal with terrorists everywhere? Or was this a bully tactic to get other countries to sign our antiterrorist treaties to avoid suspicion of harboring terrorists so that we won't attack them? Another invisible puzzle?

The "terrorist event" was a perception-engineering tactic. It is easy to see that it was rigged, so long as you don't fall for the mind control. Then the antiterrorist treaty was pushed on other countries through a deniable bully tactic ("will attack if suspected of harboring terrorists", therefore better sign that treaty to avoid suspicion). Then the antiterrorist treaties were used as the Trojan Horse to carry a slew of new invisible puzzles into other countries.

This method accomplishes two things. First, it delegates the effort so the controlling entity has less work to do. Second, it cloaks what is really happening. Once this step is successful then honest people in key positions who are just doing their job will generate dozens of new invisible puzzles.

Of course they are doing their jobs while under the influence of the perception game at hand. So without knowing it they will create these new invisible puzzles, which control us through two or more levels of deniability. For example, when Canada signed on with our president's anti-terrorist treaties, they rerouted a major portion of their legal system to make room for the demands of those treaties. Through this process a slew of new invisible puzzles for Canada went into place, with little or no additional effort by those who actually designed them. In other words, the "very few very powerful" can efficiently delegate their work while simultaneously creating multiple levels of deniability - pretty slick if you ask me.

Proof of intent behind these invisible puzzles cannot be found individually (unless they somehow slip up - and in these very rare cases they execute "black ops" to immediately eliminate the evidence). Despite this lack of proof, if you look at how hundreds of these invisible puzzles fit together you will see how we are thoroughly enslaved by them, while channeling power and wealth to the "very few very powerful". Invisible puzzles hide inside just about every system you interact with (laws, computers, commerce, traffic, finance, school, etc.) and they hide inside just about every product and service you buy. Whether by intent or by society's own clumsiness, my website shows how a network of these invisible puzzles form the infrastructure to an Invisible Slavery System. I show how the ISS is responsible for robbing 95% of what we do, through a myriad of seemingly unrelated issues that we are forced to contend with every day. Most people see it differently, because within this delusional perception-engineered-realm, the thought that they are actually slaves just does not make sense to them.

The net effect to living inside an invisible human slave colony is:

· Unending tangible issues that take away your hard earned money

· Severe reduction of your life span through manipulation of key cellular functions, plus the suppression and disabling of the human regenerating cell

· Severe reduction of your health through the consumption of garbage foods that we are taught to need and to like, and through the use of Trojan Horse consumables that carry aneuploidogenic substances

· Severe reduction of your intelligence through programmed psychological walls and triggers, shortened attention spans, altered brain chemistry, and keeping us too busy to ponder and question

· Stagnation of civilization as a whole as a result of the heavy burden and limitations imposed by the ISS

· Unending global issues that are never solved, due to all the lies that distort the truth about them

Why? To amplify and maintain control and profits.

People rarely question themselves, especially their convictions and their emotions, yet that is what's necessary to see the ISS. Our perspectives and emotions have been steered to support it rather than resist it. Our thoughts have been molded to work hard to maintain and operate the ISS, without any knowledge that it even exits. How can something so powerful take so much without our knowing it?

We interact within an environment that sets up the rationale and visualizations that make sense relative to each other, one thing explains the next thing, and so on, resulting in a complete circle of logical reasoning all based on itself, and all in support of a manufactured/manipulated world-view that they planned for our minds. I will show how these perspectives were engineered to get us to support and operate the ISS, and its diabolical web of deniable alternate purpose behind each of our actions. This oppressor is so good at strategy and mind control that he gets us to do his dirty work.

As Einstein once said, "The most important thing is to never stop questioning." And one thing I question is the base line that we tend to use to determine what is healthy, what is a normal life-span, what is the cost of living, what is a crook, what is justice, what is the correct way for a computer to operate, etc. These things have base lines, which stem from what we are used to. So if what we are used to is all messed up, then we simply can't see it - and we call it "normal" instead of "messed up".

When the truth is hidden from view what seems normal is accepted in its place. When we can't see it for ourselves, people in authority and others that we trust fill in the blanks for us. We get used to it, and it becomes "right" for us. And then we believe we did see it for ourselves, when we really didn't. Invisible puzzles are responsible for automatically organizing and triggering this process. It goes beyond manufactured world-views, as entire cultures and religions have been built from these manipulated perspectives. All to profit the "very few very powerful", or whomever it is that took control.

In the end we are handed a delusional realm to focus on while we work hard as slaves to meet the demands of a ruthless oppressor. An oppressor who steals 95% of your effort (through the combination of dozens of systems that you believe you have to interact with), feeds your body garbage that makes you sick (one of the systems for making the ISS profitable), feeds your mind lies (to keep the perception cloak in place), makes you too busy to ponder and question (so that you will continue to fall for the mind control), and having no regard for life kills us off at a young age (so we cannot wise up to the system). As long as we are kept busy and we cooperate fully we may be allowed to live a bit longer, but for the most part slaves are the most useful while they are young, healthy and gullible. After that they are generally slaughtered for profit. (The "slaughter" part is cloaked as something else, like cancer, heart failure or old age, courtesy of the ISS.)

The outdated social/political systems of today are unknowingly the legs and arms of the ISS. Through control, deception, and force, today's political/social systems unknowingly (for the most part) are used by the ISS to regulate, feed and monitor humanity like a herd of cattle, as they are put to work and ultimately slaughtered. In this mode real solutions to the world's problems will never be found.

The ISS controls your perspective, consequently channeling your emotions and perceptions, thereby prompting you to do precisely what the ISS wants you to do. Awareness is key. Real knowledge is key. And "free will thought" is key. However, perspective controls all of it.

Many people have been taught that what is legal is right, and what is not legal is wrong. As if this were an absolute base line for right and wrong. Some will even tie this into their religious convictions, so that it cannot be questioned at all. And some will come up with a "right and wrong" from a specific mix of the two. This is all a matter of brainwashing. As soon as you state something is right or wrong, without thinking it through for yourself from an unbiased perspective, then you are demonstrating how your mind is being controlled.

Many laws in the US had nothing to do with public opinion, and nothing to do with the congressman you voted into office. Many US laws are written in silently and quickly, with as little media coverage as possible. These laws are not "right" by anyone's definition except for those who want to control you. This does not mean all the other laws are ok. They were voted in by people whose perspectives were manufactured for them through mind control.

If you allow a bias of what makes something right or wrong cause you to feel that these laws are right without you yourself figuring out the details, then you are doing yourself and the rest of the world a big disservice. This is the center of the whole problem. Most of the support to the ISS comes from ordinary people who think with these preprogrammed (biased) perspectives. Democracy is designed so that these people - through taxes and voting - support the "system". That makes it very easy for a powerful entity to control the "system" through perception engineering tactics aimed at the normal person. A perception cloak hides the deniable lines of function behind the actions of these normal people, who are working hard on tasks which actually channel power and wealth to the ISS. And that in turn makes it virtually impossible for those who do see what's happening to do anything about it.

Unfortunately, this legal system that many people blindly support and equate to justice is in fact a cloaking device, used to hide the ISS tentacles through deniability mechanisms. The deniability cloak is based in law.

A law based society makes promises it will not keep. Solutions to the world's problems are worked on diligently but the problems are never solved. This is because the ISS uses problems like those to further its agendas.

Drugs, fraud, terrorism, global warming, human rights issues, cancer, AIDS, SARS, and other global issues are like chess pieces, played by the ISS as it maintains its control and its profits. The object is to deniably manufacture or twist a problem so there is no real solution to it in that form WHILE convincing us of the progress of current efforts to solve it AND WHILE convincing us of the continued threat this problem poses for humanity SO THAT we will continuously support the "cause" without actually finding a solution.

The perception cloak manifests false world problems and false solution-paths to real world problems, while the deniability cloak hides the control mechanisms that move into your life as a result. These control mechanisms enslave you while your mind is focused on the perception-engineered purpose for each. A law-based society makes this inevitable because it creates an ideal medium for invisible puzzles to control us. If the "very few very powerful" didn't take advantage of it somebody else would have. Therefore it is also inevitable that a "very few very powerful" ruling class exists. I'm saying that with or without proof, a law-based society inevitably generates an ISS that enslaves us. And this consequently makes it impossible to solve the world's problems.

Therefore real solutions to real world problems must work independently of law.

Did these "very few, very powerful people" design the ISS? Or perhaps some other mastermind? Is there really someone or some group that has nothing better to do than to work out the strategies to manipulate society for their profit? Or is this ISS merely an inadvertent byproduct of normal human civilization during its current very clumsy stages? Which one is it? Is there proof? And is there a solution?

After years of thought about this I came to the realization that the right information technologies would both reveal proof of the ISS to the world, and put an end to it. The technology I'm thinking of would have the same effect on the ISS as turning lights on in a dark room - all the mysteries in that room, the boogie men, the burglars, your kid brother, etc, would become visible. With lights you no longer have to guess. And you can see exactly what causes what, and how.

I'm thinking of technology that would reveal everything of concern to the public, making it visible and comprehensible to the average person. It would automatically obsolete and replace the ISS, accommodating solutions to the real world's problems without the use of deception and force. I see these revolutionary information technologies taking human traits normally considered bad (like greed) and satisfying them through new lines of motivation that naturally favor environmental and humanitarian concerns, individual rights, honesty, accountability and quality.

The natural (unregulated) capabilities of this futuristic technology will interact with the full spectrum of human endeavor, causing all these independent efforts to collectively work towards the good of society, the individual and the environment. Products will be created that last virtually forever, non-polluting energy solutions will be found and implemented, the truth about your water and air will be revealed and comprehensive solutions provided, etc. It will accomplish this through a combination of several key technologies that obsolete and replace most social/political systems of today, while facilitating the real solutions to the real problems.

Our minds are accustomed to thinking in terms of forced control hierarchies in all that we do. In order to make something useful we believe it has to be controlled through force. I call this "poisoned thought". You'll see it in the operation of computer software, the legal system, the home, and virtually everywhere that human thought created something we interact with. I believe that in each of these scenarios a collective effort from unbound freethinking individuals is more suitable. A collective of free thinking individuals who interact as they choose, using these advanced information technologies only when they see an advantage in doing so. A human collective represented by and orchestrated through the information technology, not a collective of selfless minds attached to computers. The free individual is very powerful, and a collective is very powerful. Advanced information systems will make possible never before conceived of benefits, resulting from an interaction between the unbound free thinking individual and a collective intelligence.

Optimal information technology is the real solution to all the world's problems, and it will also help us to escape from the ISS. I envision a technology that automatically generates collective Utilitarian solutions for genuine global issues, while supporting a Libertarian way of life. A technology that facilitates the individual rather than controls the masses. A technology that defends the individual against corruption, oppression and tyranny. A technology that is fair to everyone, protecting both physical and intellectual property without the need for law, and making everything of value to the individual visible to the individual. This new technology promises a future where the average cost of living is below two work hours per day per person. A future where poverty and sickness is almost non-existent, where problems of pollution and global warming are solved, and where war is a thing of the past. Law hierarchies, war machines, politics and track & identify systems will no longer be needed to solve these problems.

The concept of a collective can apply to other types of systems, not just political/social systems. Since poisoned thought has been instilled in us for thousands of years everything we build and do reflects it. This means the products we buy are handicapped by it, and the systems we live by limit us as a result of it. Possibly the most significant effect it has on society is to limit what the human mind is capable of. In my opinion this is why our minds operate in a mostly delusional state, our computers are extremely inefficient and error prone, our society cheats us, we continuously poison our bodies, we serve as delusional slaves (slaves that don't know they're slaves), our leaders take us to war, and our doctors kill us.

Once we cure ourselves of this poisoned thought our minds will then become more aware and more intelligent. Our computers will run thousands of times faster and better, and without the need for a gigantic support industry to keep them running. We will no longer have the need to poison our bodies by eating decayed processed and drugged foods. We will no longer work for a society that robs 95% of what we do. The need for war will disappear. And the entire medical industry will work towards the good of the patient, not rob him blind and kill him (as a result of the invisible puzzles placed in the medical industry by the "very few very powerful" ruling class).

Poisoned thought is involved in every system around you, your work, your computer, your government, and the products you buy - almost all are designed to control you through deniable lines of function. If poisoned thought were removed from these things life would improve 20 times.

This variation to the Libertarian Philosophy depends on future information technologies to work. The design to this futuristic technology is the ultimate puzzle. Once developed it will be the most significant achievement of mankind, past, present, and possibly future. And once it matures, there will be no more invisible puzzles.

Modern Congregations Are Buzzing About Church Paging Systems By Vitaliy Levit

Churches of all sizes are making the leap to embrace technology these days. Hymns and praise song lyrics are projected on screens so attendees don't have to bury their noses in a book. Even the smallest house of worship can afford to launch a website to connect with their community. Now, church paging systems are starting to catch on as well.

Larger "mega" churches can benefit from being able to page ushers and parking attendants to handle the flow of traffic in the interval between multiple Sunday services. However, the childcare arena is where a church pager system really comes in handy for congregations of any size.

Children's Church - Paging All Parents!

Not too many years ago, kids of all ages were expected to sit with their parents through a grownup church service every week. If you fussed or squirmed, your parents might have to haul you out in the foyer to "put the fear of the Lord" in you. In today's more humane worship environment, we realize that children have different needs than adults when it comes to church attendance.

Now, the nursery and a separate 'children's church' are becoming the norm. This means your staff members need a way to notify Mom or Dad when their little angels require parental intervention. If you have a church paging system, attendees feel more comfortable (1) leaving their infants and toddlers with caregivers. Expect attendance to increase as parents enjoy a more relaxing worship experience.

In most churches, nursery staffers are all volunteers. These dedicated servants are donating their time to watch congregants' children. As with any free benefit, people sometimes don't really value the time of those volunteering. It's pretty normal for folks to get caught up in conversations and socialization after a service. With time slipping away, nursery volunteers are left waiting, wishing that last parent would just pick up their kid already! With a church pager, they can send a polite reminder.

Types of Church Paging Systems

Obviously, having a beeper go off during a sermon is a no-no. That's why a typical church pager system uses a visual or vibrating signal. One choice is the LED display board. This is visible to all congregants and displays a numeric code when someone needs to go to the nursery. It's intended to be discrete. Only the parent knows which number is assigned to his/her child, right? Unfortunately, this illusion of privacy is shattered as soon as the anonymous parent creeps red-faced from the pew to go take care of a problem.

Other churches choose traditional pagers. This investment requires a set of strict rules. One facility in Canada (2) requires parents to exchange the church pager for their child at the end of the service. What if they lose the device? They have to pay a whopping $100 replacement fee. With a recession going on, some parents may just say "Keep the kid instead!"

The most modern approach involves simply having parents set their cell phones to vibrate. Then, they can receive a text message page from an app on a control iPod or iPhone set up in the nursery. This method is popular with church finance committees since start up and maintenance costs are low.

There's A Whole System Out There Running Your (And Everyone Else's) Universe

Of all these self help books, all those self improvement tapes, all the religious dogmas, every ideology, there is a single underlying system which explains how everything works and fits together.

Woooof. That's one heady statement to make.

But I've been working this over for over 8 years now as a steady research and collecting notes the earlier 40-some - on just about everything that crossed my path. So when I say that I've been able to boil down the universe into a single system, it just might be plausible.

The basic is back on the farm. Did you know that Nature runs the same, no matter what you believe, or practice, or what party you belong to? True. Plant a seed anywhere on this planet and as long as it has enough sunlight, enough nutrients, and is warm enough to do it's job - you'll have a sprouted plant. Keep these conditions long enough and that plant will make seeds so you can make more plants.

Heated greenhouses in Antarctica prove it.

So how do all these religions say they are the only way out and that all others are (whatever)? They are simply running marketing silos, trying to build a monopoly of belief and so finance their buildings and what-not.

That's a bit cruel, and perhaps steps on everyone's toes at once. But if you analyze organized religions against marketing data, that's what falls out. (There is even the modern saw that whatever party wins the election, they both act the same when in office.)

Back up a bit.

All - and I mean all - religions and philosophies contain certain common points. One of these is the "Golden Rule". Every single historical belief-system we have on this planet has recognized that there is a definite reciprocity on this mud-ball we live on. What ever you do has consequences - and these all come back to haunt or elevate you. Your choice - treat people like manure and you'll get manure dumped on you. Treat people with respect and you'll get respect. Be charitable, get charity. Help others, get helped.

On and on and on.

Most nations have outlawed capital punishment - who wants to cast that first stone?

I think that if you looked hard enough, you'd also find some recognition of the Law of Attraction in all these - but it's a different search. I know it's been written about in both the New and Old Testaments. And Huna mentions it - which is the oldest-known philosophic system still practiced on this planet.

Of course, this above would then be a complete study all on its own. And I'll leave that to theologists to study up as part of the postgraduate studies. I'll keep to the broad strokes.

Let's just go with this idea that, like Nature, we are all living on this planet under the same rules. We all have bodies which are different hues and shades, but all function the same. There are only so many blood types, and they can all be fixed with varying degrees of success when they get broken.

It is just logical that all these religions, cults, and belief-systems (extremist, moderate, conservative) work because of that underlying common system, not in spite of it.

How would I go about explaining it?

1. Take Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" as the base, and back up to Huna's 7 principles to explain how this works.

2. Expand to his Law of Success, and widen the scope to include Haanel's Master Key System, as well as Mental Chemistry.

3. Compare with Science of Getting Rich.

4. Examine the phenomenon of "The Secret", which is pushing the Law of Attraction.

5. Review Atkinson's works along this line, as well as Earl Prevette.

6. Back this up through Genevieve Behrend to Thomas Troward.

7. Which then brings us right back to Huna as an overall and underlying base for all modern self help.

8. Then come forward through current religions to show their similarities and posit the point that all religions (and all belief-systems/world-views) depend on a common system of philosophy in order to work at all.

9. Now, the base foundation for a common system could be laid, taking just the key points held in common by all above authors and Huna.

And this is just the beginning. Once you lay out the basic principles, personal techniques could be approached, so that anyone could improve just about anything in their lives (thought being the first point of creation, any system of thought would then enable anything to be created/achieved/acquired).

As well, an approach to world peace is possible. If all war is either economic or ideological in origin, it would be possible to show that everyone would be richer if you allowed free commerce, as well as other human freedoms.

This underlying system does exist. Interestingly, it isn't a question of proving it, but disproving it... Because it runs on faith for fuel. Faith is based on knowledge and understanding. Those that doubt only limit themselves. The best gains to be had are by thoroughly immersing oneself in the subject. You can't try out a pair of boots to see if they fit and wear well unless you put them on, first.