Saturday, December 31, 2011

Sinister Games with a "Free Market"



During my lifetime, there have been world events that I never fully understood.  Why were these things happening?  No one ever seemed to have a good explanation.  Some of these "unrelated" events have begun to create a pattern.  Take a look and let me know what you think:

The Sudden Disappearance of the Rain Forest
I never understood why, over the past two or three decades, has the Amazon rainforest, the so-called "Lungs of the Planet Earth" has suddenly been disappearing at an alarming rate.  Did  cattle ranchers suddenly come into alot of cash to clear their lands of trees? Why would South American governments fail to protect their most valuable asset?  Why is this happening so fast despite international outcry?  For example, in only six years (2000-2006) Brazil alone deforested an area of its rainforests the size of the country of Greece!  Since 1970, it has lost 232,000 square miles of forest.  That's like a goddam disappearing act!  What the heck is going on?

Presidents Dying in Airplane Crashes
Isn't it odd how many presidents of countries have died in airplane crashes?  Equadorian president Jaime Roldós Aguilera (1981), the Panamanian leader Omar Efraín Torrijos (1981), Polish President Lech Kaczinsky (2010), Philipine President Ramón del Fierro Magsaysay  (1957), Rwanda President President Juvenal Habyarimana (1994), Macedonian president Boris Trajkovski (2004), Pakistani president General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (1988), Mozambique President Samora Machel (1986), Iraqi President Abdul Salam Arif (1966), to name only a few.  I thought air travel was supposed to be the safest method of travel - especially if you are a national leader!

Corporations Have the Rights of "Natural Persons"
As an attorney, I was shocked to read about a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission in 2010.  That decision extended "corporate personhood" into a realm of nightmares.  Corporations now have the rights of real "natural persons" (just like you and me) under the First Amendment of the U.S. Consititution.  As a result, they are now free to lobby and pump as much money as they want into our "democratic" presidential elections!  Last year alone, the Fortune 100 corporations had $13 trillion of combined revenues (roughly equal to the size of our national debt).  Many of them, including oil drilling companies, are controlled by foreign nationals with interests not the same as ours.  We are no longer living in a democracy of "one man, one vote."  We live in a "more money, more votes" democracy now.  Our "national interest" is now a corporate interest.

$5 Million Gift and Estate Tax Exemptions Created
Another bizarre development:  In 2010, Congress passed tax legislation that raised the estate tax exemption to $5 million per person ($10 million per couple) and created a $5 million lifetime gift tax exclusion per person.  They are both much higher than they ever been historically.  Why now?  Aren't we in a recession?  In 2002, the estate tax exemption was only $1 million.  Now the wealthy are entitled to keep even more of their money than ever before in our American history.  Why?  So they can avoid paying taxes on their estates when they die and can gift millions of dollars to others during their lifetime tax-free.  The net effect of this legislation:  the rich get richer and the United States gets poorer.

The Global Collapse Caused by Bankers and Bailed Out by Governments
None of us will soon forget the worldwide financial crisis from 2007-2010. The stock markets around the world collapsed due to the totally strangely unregulated sale of mortgage derivatives; then the U.S. government bailed out banks to the tune of $700 billion in 2008 (more recent estimates suggest it was closer to $1.2 trillion); then we watched in total disbelief as Obama's Administration failed to attach any strings to the use of our money and the recipient banks gleefully showered their employees with more than $14 billion in year-end bonuses; mortgage lenders engaged in shady subprime lending practices resulting in the collapse of the housing market; and investment bankers share a revolving door with our government (see http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20001981-10391695.html for a shockingly long list of former Goldman Sachs employees making policy decisions in our highest ranking Democratic- and Republican-run administrations).  Former NASDAQ stock market chairman, Bernie Madoff, "made off" with $65 million in private client funds without detection by the SEC.   How is that possible?  Are only the foxes guarding the hen house now?

Corporations Buying Up Water Resources
Our world is running out of water.  Want to see the future?  Soon you will pay corporations, not governments, for bottled water.  Look at the Ukraine. I was told by a highly-successful Ukrainian businessman there is no more free water in the Ukraine. All water must be purchased in bottles.  That is our future also.  The state governments of Utah, Colorado and Washington have now made it illegal for you to collect the rainwater that falls on your own property!  Do you see the handwriting on the wall?  Meanwhile, many major oil companies are now shifting their investments into water resources and ownership of tracts of land containing underground water tables.  Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens has begun his quest to purchase as much land as possible above the huge Ogallala Aquifur, which stretches across 8 states and is one of the world's largest underground water tables, so he can begin deep drilling for water.  In 2006, he gave Texas legislators $1.2 million in campaign contributions and the next year he was able to turn his tract of land into an independent municipality with the power to take over neighboring (water-rich) lands using the governmental power of eminant domain.  Oh!  So, this is how it works...

These little examples may seem kind of disjointed and unrelated to you, but to me they are deeply related.  I recently read a book, first pulished in 2004, entitled "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," written by John Perkins.  It is one of the most disturbing books I have ever read and suddenly the mysterious events of my lifetime began to fall into place and make sense to me.  As Perkins, a former insider, explains it,  the world is being run and organized by a handful of multinational corporations, mostly banking, oil, construction and engineering consortiums, who through their distribution of money control governments (including the U.S.) and the CIA. 

Mega-corporations have forced entire developing nations into forced servitude by convincing them to accept sky-rocketing debt for infrastructure improvements that they cannot possibly pay back.  According to Perkins, corporations obtain "rights" to foreign drilling and resources by bribing a few top officials and making them fabulously wealthy in order to get them to steal land from the poor and give it to these corporations.  If they refuse to be bribed, they are assassinated.  Hmmm ... seems to explain some of those unfortunate airplane accidents and the sudden disappearance of the Amazonian rain forest not to mention all those fantastic tax benefits for the wealthy...

If you think this is just happening in "Third World" countries - think again.  Corporatocracy has arrived to enslave the Developed World as well.  We live in a "free market" society gone wild.  It is no longer "free" - that is an old myth.  We are slaves, even here in the United States.  We are all in danger.  Our environment is being raped.  We have lost our democratic voice in government.  The rich are indeed getting richer because they have implemented, step by step, the tools to keep themselves that way...

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Predictions Past & Future: The End of 2011 and the Dawn of 2012


In my December psychic development and mediumship workshop in New York City, I decided I wanted to honor the ending of the year 2011 and the beginning of the year 2012.  Both years were loaded with meaning for most of the planet.  At the beginning of last year, I had asked my students to make predictions about the Year 2011.  They were told to make a prediction about something political/economic, pop culture and the environment.  So, in this month's class, the last month of the Year 2011, I decided to research their predictions - at least those ones that were specific enough - and let my students know how they had done with their forecasting skills.

As I have repeatedly stated, I believe psychic skills are trainable.  Predictions are a form of clairvoyance.  Clairvoyance can be trained, although like any other skill, some people are more talented than others and can acquire the skill more easily. Feedback and confirmation are key to this type of training.  That is why I took the time to match my students' predictions with actual data.  It is very important in this field not to fear being wrong.  This fear of being wrong is the ego speaking.  Once the ego controls the process, psychic ability is lost.  So, my goal here is to show how most of my students were able to make highly accurate and verifiable predictions.  Even when they failed, it was often attributable to vagueness or failure to properly interpret their data.  But failure in prediction is inevitable and should never be feared.

Some of their predictions did not lend themselves to obvious verification, such as a shift in consciousness or attitudes toward healing techniques, increased love and peace, a desire to live simpler lives, a year of emotional crisis, something joyous will happen with the sky above water at the end of August, miracles involving the spiritual dimension.  And yet, many of these "vague" predictions still "feel" right to us.  But other predictions could easily be "matched" to factual data.

Correct Predictions:

1. Rumbles of war, could erupt, new fighting, month of May involves China or Middle East.
(2011 was the year of the "Arab Spring" revolutions)

2. Movement away from movie theatres, some closing.
(Only 1.27 billion movie ticket sales in U.S. in 2011, compared to 1.33 billion in 2010)

3. Key words for 2011 acute awareness and accountability.
(With Tea Party momentum to cut spending and the federal deficit, the $14 billion deficit in August, 2011 put a glaring spot light on the U.S. government's failure to be accountable for its mounting debt)

4. A major breakthrough with the cure of some kind of cancer.
(On August 12, 2011, a new treatment for leukemia was announced using "killer" white blood cells)

5. Snow, hurricane
(While this prediction was vague since it gave no location, it turned out to be highly accurate for the East Coast of the U.S., where the class is located, with a massive hurricane in August and record snow in October, 2011)

6. Sun flare, alot of flooding around the globe
(On June 7, 2011, a solar flare sparked the biggest eruption ever recorded on the sun, and more massive solar flare on November 4, 2011.  In addition, 2011 saw extreme flooding in several countries around the world including the U.S., Colombia, Italy, Pakistan, Thailand, Eastern Africa, and others)

7. Some kind of large major demonstration against the government, like the 1960's.
(The Occupy Wall Street movement, comprised of demonstrations reminescent of the 1960's Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements, began on September 17, 2011)

8. "Euro calamity" with the Euro itself or a European entity like France or Germany.
(The French and German governments have been the primary architects of a bailout of EU countries failing to pay back their debt, notably  Greece, Portugal and Italy, this year, and the EU countries are meeting the week of December 5, 2011, to decide the future of the EU currency)

9. There will be something with math and how it is taught to children.
(The national organization Common Core State Standards in Math created new standards in 2010 that were adopted in all but five states in the U.S. in 2011)


10.  There will be a surge of homebuying in the U.S.
(Sales of existing homes increased from 4.3 million in October, 2010, to 4.9 million in October 2011)

11. Civil liberties will be further eroded but people won't care because they will be distracted over a victory with the TSA
(December 6, 2011, Congress is scheduled to vote on the controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which has been called the greatest threat to American civil liberties, and three elderly women came forward December 6 to accuse the TSA of strip searching them at the airport)


As you can clearly see from these predictions, many of them were eerily accurate and could not have been easily "guessed" by data existing in December, 2010. 

Incorrect or "Less Correct" Predictions:

1. Mel Gibson will have a major breakdown, suicide or drug overdose
(On December 1, 2011, the judge in Gibson's misdemeanor battery case for attacking his former girlfriend praised Gibson for faithfully following his 12-step program)

2.  The U.S. economy will manifest a positive turnaround and an increase in Obama's popularity.
(There has been no economic turnaroun and only 43% of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing in December, 2011, as opposed to 46% who approved in December, 2010)

3.  The Israeli government will change soon.
(Didn't change during 2011 and Prime Minister Netenyahu appears to be trying to solidify his candidacy early with the Likud party, indicated in December, 2011)

4. Market improving in late spring, May-June, with a surge of homebuying.
(The Dow Jones dropped from May 6, 2011 when it was at 12,638 to June 24, 2011 when it was at 11,934)

5. Bill Clinton has a heart attack and survives.
(Nope and he turned vegetarian to improve his chances at not getting a heart attack)

6.  Something will happen in China - explosion?
(Coal mine explosion kills 29 workers on December 6, 2011, gas leak explosion in coal mine kills 19 miners on November 10, 2011, and rock explosion in coal mine kills 4 workers on November 4, 2011 - but China's coal mines are the most dangerous in the world and thousands of coal miners are killed in such accidents every year in China)

7. Miley Cyrus has big hit this year.
(On November 11, Miley released a remix of "Liberty Walk" dedicated to the Occupy Wall Street movement, the only soundtrack released by her in 2011)

Once we were done reviewing the year 2011, I asked my students to make predictions about 2012.  Yet, for all its doomsday implications, not a single one of my students predicted the end of the world on December 21, 2012, the end of the Mayan Calendar.  In fact, there was remarkable little focus on that date, other than to predict a Shift in Global Consciousness.  Most frequently predicted: Obama will be re-elected by a small margin and global weather will continue to intensify in its extreme behavior.  There were also some interesting predictions about the emergence of a new US political party, assassination of a Russian politician, a plane crash in Alaska, a religious politician achieving popularity, the extinction of an important species, a cure for herpes and AIDS viruses, the illness or death of a few major Hollywood celebrities, a major mudslide in California, a new genre of music, and many other fascinating predictions.

Send me your predictions for 2012 and I will add them to the analysis at the end of the year.  Stay tuned for 2012!