12-09-07
Perspektiven der Gelderkenntnis
Vortrag, gehalten auf der Commons-Sommerschule 2012 (Folien & Ton).
From: keimform.deComments
12-09-07
Neo-environmentalism, money and growth
Last month there was a great article by Paul Kingsnorth in The Guardian: 'The New environmentalism'. Here are some extracts to encourage you to read the whole piece (it's not long):Neo-environmentalism is a progressive, business-friendly, postmodern take on the environmental dilemma. It dismisses traditional green thinking, with its emphasis on limits and transforming societal values, as naive. New technologies, global capitalism and western-style development are not the problem but the solution...
According to the neogreens, growth has no limits ... Wilderness does not exist, "nature" is a human construct, and everything that matters can be measured by science and priced by markets. Only "romantics" think otherwise.
... The neo-environmentalists are growing in numbers at present not because their ideas are new, but because they offer a business-friendly worldview which, unlike the tiresome old green message, is designed to make people feel comfortable ... Optimism is permitted again. Indeed, it is almost mandatory.
But maybe the green movement was asking for it. For some time, mainstream environmentalism has demonstrated a single-minded obsession with climate change and technological solutions to it, to the exclusion of other concerns. Its language and its focus have grown increasingly technocratic and scientistic...
Global campaigning for an abstract "environment" does not appear to work. What does work is engaging with nature on a human scale. Perhaps the best rejoinder to those who believe the world is a giant spreadsheet is an engagement with its messy, everyday complexity. A kind of vernacular environmentalism; an engagement not with "the environment", but with environments as we experience them in lived reality. Perhaps it's time to go back to basics.
So we might learn what grows wild in our local area and whether we can eat it. We might build up a bank of practical skills, from horticulture to land management. We might go out at night and plant seeds in vacant flowerbeds near where we live. We might work on small-scale engineering projects, from water purification technologies to micro-solar panels. We might work to save bees or butterflies or water meadows or woodlands or playing fields that we know and have a relationship with. We might walk in the hills, or on the canal bank, or in the local waste ground; get to know our place and how it works...
12-08-23
Beyond Money
With the permission of the editor, we reprint the following post from the New. Clear. Vision. blog.The Foundation of the System’s Replacement by Robert C. Koehler
“Everyone loved him.”
The hole was too deep; these words couldn’t fill it. But there they remain, floating on the regret, vibrant with the possibility of a different kind of world. We’ve always been in the process of building that world, but the process has lacked a central cohesion . . . a god, if you will, to bless it and keep it.
Antonis Perris, an unemployed musician from Athens, found himself at age 60 living in a world where the love of his community didn’t matter and probably wasn’t even noticeable: He had lost his means to earn a living. Until Europe’s economic crisis hit, he had sustained himself and his elderly mother performing at local taverns. He had done well. Then business dried up. Finally, he reached a point where he saw no way to keep on living. The brief story of his death last May — one more “economic suicide” — was reported recently in the Washington Post:
“Everyone loved him,” a local café owner said. People would have helped him out, and helped his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. But they didn’t know how badly the two were doing. Now their deaths are a gash across the community, across the country and perhaps all of Europe — and perhaps large parts of the so-called First World, where the middle class is crumbling. The poverty and despoliation — the dark side of capitalism — are no longer contained, relegated to the Third World and the Third World pockets of the First.
The situation has gotten so bad that the idea of debt forgiveness is gaining mainstream cachet. Erik Kain, writing last October in Forbes, brought up “the old biblical idea of a jubilee — a national cancellation of private debts. . . .
“In many ways,” he observed, “rather than creating a sustainable economy built around steadily rising middle and working class wages, we’ve built an unsustainable economy built on consumer debt. That debt has propelled the growth we’ve seen in recent years, acting as a sort of perpetual Keynesian injection into the economy. Now we’re paying the price.”
While I see debt forgiveness as a move in the right direction — an acknowledgment that debt isn’t simply a moral failing, and that the wealth of creditors, who have in so many ways rigged the game in their favor, isn’t all the matters — I wince at the provincialism of those who limit their concern to the American middle class, or would do no more to fix the system than increase wages for the working and professional classes.
Better wages that are the result of devastated environmental regulations, or that come at the expense of the Third World or future generations? The economic crisis is global in nature and the flaws of the system are deep and profound.
“The economy’s only valid purpose is to serve life,” David Korten wrote this month in Yes! Magazine.
The economy should not be an end in itself, an irresistible force that we fail to serve at our peril — yet that’s the conventional attitude. The economic suicides of Europe and, indeed, of every country on the planet, are testimony to the prevalence of this belief. We serve money as though it were God. When it disappears from our life, the most honorable alternative, as we stare into the abyss, is suicide.
We live within an economic system that is cruel and impersonal, divorced from gratitude, empathy, compassion, love and nurturance. (Money, whatever else it is, is the root of all cynicism.) This system is also voracious. It’s eating the planet: eating, i.e., privatizing and selling back to us, what was once the human and environmental commons, the context of all life.
“Real capital assets,” writes Korten in his excellent essay, “have productive value in their own right and cannot be created with a computer key stroke. The most essential forms of real capital are social capital (the bonds of trust and caring essential to healthy community function) and biosystem capital (the living systems essential to Earth’s capacity to support life). We are depleting both with reckless abandon.”
Trapped within the present economic system, so many people have limited patience for what they value most deeply, e.g., the happiness and loving growth of children, the glorious fecundity of the earth, the peace that passes all understanding. Who has time? We all loved him, but . . .
As the system crashes, we have the opportunity to look beyond it. Let’s dig deeply to establish the foundation of its replacement.
Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning journalist, nationally syndicated writer, and Contributing Author for New Clear Vision. This post originally appeared on New. Clear. Vision. blog 22 August.
“Everyone loved him.”
The hole was too deep; these words couldn’t fill it. But there they remain, floating on the regret, vibrant with the possibility of a different kind of world. We’ve always been in the process of building that world, but the process has lacked a central cohesion . . . a god, if you will, to bless it and keep it.
Antonis Perris, an unemployed musician from Athens, found himself at age 60 living in a world where the love of his community didn’t matter and probably wasn’t even noticeable: He had lost his means to earn a living. Until Europe’s economic crisis hit, he had sustained himself and his elderly mother performing at local taverns. He had done well. Then business dried up. Finally, he reached a point where he saw no way to keep on living. The brief story of his death last May — one more “economic suicide” — was reported recently in the Washington Post:
The next morning, Perris took the hand of his ailing 90-year-old mother. They climbed to the roof of their apartment building and leapt to their death.Europe has had thousands of economic suicides in the last few years. They always shock the community. In Greece, which has been reeling in economic crisis for five years now, “The suicide notes left in coat pockets or on desks,” the Post writes, “. . . are being passed around on the Internet and studied like the final treatises of revered scholars.”
“Everyone loved him,” a local café owner said. People would have helped him out, and helped his mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s. But they didn’t know how badly the two were doing. Now their deaths are a gash across the community, across the country and perhaps all of Europe — and perhaps large parts of the so-called First World, where the middle class is crumbling. The poverty and despoliation — the dark side of capitalism — are no longer contained, relegated to the Third World and the Third World pockets of the First.
The situation has gotten so bad that the idea of debt forgiveness is gaining mainstream cachet. Erik Kain, writing last October in Forbes, brought up “the old biblical idea of a jubilee — a national cancellation of private debts. . . .
“In many ways,” he observed, “rather than creating a sustainable economy built around steadily rising middle and working class wages, we’ve built an unsustainable economy built on consumer debt. That debt has propelled the growth we’ve seen in recent years, acting as a sort of perpetual Keynesian injection into the economy. Now we’re paying the price.”
While I see debt forgiveness as a move in the right direction — an acknowledgment that debt isn’t simply a moral failing, and that the wealth of creditors, who have in so many ways rigged the game in their favor, isn’t all the matters — I wince at the provincialism of those who limit their concern to the American middle class, or would do no more to fix the system than increase wages for the working and professional classes.
Better wages that are the result of devastated environmental regulations, or that come at the expense of the Third World or future generations? The economic crisis is global in nature and the flaws of the system are deep and profound.
“The economy’s only valid purpose is to serve life,” David Korten wrote this month in Yes! Magazine.
The economy should not be an end in itself, an irresistible force that we fail to serve at our peril — yet that’s the conventional attitude. The economic suicides of Europe and, indeed, of every country on the planet, are testimony to the prevalence of this belief. We serve money as though it were God. When it disappears from our life, the most honorable alternative, as we stare into the abyss, is suicide.
We live within an economic system that is cruel and impersonal, divorced from gratitude, empathy, compassion, love and nurturance. (Money, whatever else it is, is the root of all cynicism.) This system is also voracious. It’s eating the planet: eating, i.e., privatizing and selling back to us, what was once the human and environmental commons, the context of all life.
“Real capital assets,” writes Korten in his excellent essay, “have productive value in their own right and cannot be created with a computer key stroke. The most essential forms of real capital are social capital (the bonds of trust and caring essential to healthy community function) and biosystem capital (the living systems essential to Earth’s capacity to support life). We are depleting both with reckless abandon.”
Trapped within the present economic system, so many people have limited patience for what they value most deeply, e.g., the happiness and loving growth of children, the glorious fecundity of the earth, the peace that passes all understanding. Who has time? We all loved him, but . . .
As the system crashes, we have the opportunity to look beyond it. Let’s dig deeply to establish the foundation of its replacement.
Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning journalist, nationally syndicated writer, and Contributing Author for New Clear Vision. This post originally appeared on New. Clear. Vision. blog 22 August.
12-08-21
Selbstentfaltung (English)
[English version of the original german article, translated by Pauline Schwarze — thanks a lot!]
“Have a lot of fun” is the legendary hacker greeting. Having fun? Isn’t that the epitome of our meaningless and dump “fun culture” of comedy & Co? Not at all. The greeting refers to the motivation of committing oneself to a complex and self-imposed task – such as software development or other nice and useful things. Voluntariness in these things is of the essence. Wanting to commit to a self-imposed goal is the purpose as well as an end in itself.
In the emancipatory context, this kind of motivation is referred to as Selbstentfaltung. The literal translation of this German word is “unfolding oneself” and denotes the ”ability to develop oneself in any way one desires”. In terms of terminology this might be a bit ambiguous since quite a few esoteric teachings use the same term with a different meaning behind it. Selbstentfaltung simply does not refer to an identity with supernatural powers, a existence in nirvana, a submission to others or some such. Instead, it refers to self-determination and the autonomy of cooperating with others.
It also does not refer to the bourgeois concept of “self-realization” which conveys the existence of a pre-determined identity of “self” that now simply needs to be “realized”. As if purchasing the proper accessories will help finding one’s own identity. Realizing oneself as a commodity monad. I buy, therefore I am – myself?
Marx and Engels defined Selbstentfaltung as “free development of each” which is the “condition of the free development of all”. At least figuratively, since they did not know the word we use today. But they did grasp its core meaning: Selbstentfaltung is the self-development that requires the development of every other person. From this point of view other people are to be included, not due to ethical or other external considerations, but rather because their inclusion is structural and unconditional.
There are two main prerequisites for Selbstentfaltung: Commons and Peering. Commons is the alternative to the commodity form. It is a social form in which vital things are not produced in a separate private production with a subsequent distribution via exchange, but living conditions are rather produced based on needs and in a way that assures mediation in advance.
Peering describes the above mentioned mediation in advance. Peering is characterized as communication and negotiations in which the participants are peers. It is an aspect of inclusion logic. Peering does not construct “the other” which needs to be excluded, but rather identifies others as peers that are included. This is an essential prerequisite (but no guarantee) for overcoming sexism, racism and other -isms.
Selbstentfaltung is to experience oneself as what we all are: societal humans in a human society. It’s nothing special because that’s what we always are. We just don’t get to experience it because we live separate form one another. I do my own thing, the others do theirs. To image one’s own development as separate from others seems rather absurd but still, we experience it this way.
Selbstentfaltung creates real and living motivation, a kind of motivation that is unattainable under the dictate of ubiquitous exploitation. But if motivation and exploitation can be cunningly combined, how about Selbstentfaltung? Can’t it be bought? Thus postmodern capital encourages us: “Do what you want as long as it turns a profit”.
The answer to that question is known as the “crowding-out” effect. Numerous studies examined what happens if people are financially rewarded for doing things they like to do anyway. Be it children or adults, poor or rich people who participated in the studies, the results were the same: Effort and results took a nosedive. It is frustrating, almost insulting, to be rewarded for fulfilling a fun task. Appreciation, yes please. Bribery? No thanks.
According to a second result of the studies, the effect of reduced pleasure in doing a formerly fun task only showed up under the condition of a reasonably secure living situation. As soon as people experience a significant existential pressure, effort and results remain high or even increase if money is given as a reward. But this does not constitute real motivated activity, but rather a internalized compulsion under the pressure of precarious circumstances.
We all know these thoughts: “I have to motivate myself to get this done”. Or more specifically: “Without a deadline I’m not getting anything done”. Still, we all suspect or know: If I have to “motivate myself” it’s not real motivation, but coercion and compulsion. Self-imposed internal compulsion that masquerades as motivation. Myriads of motivation seminars try to teach techniques to that very purpose. The message: “It’s up to you”.
Selbstentfaltung and real motivation are a different pair of shoes. In my motivated individual development (original: Entfaltung – unfolding) I realize my potential as a societal being in a reciprocal-inclusive way. Under capitalist circumstances this Entfaltung is only possible in niches we have to create for ourselves, even if only on a small scale. But this is the force that drives the commons-based peer-production.
Selbstentfaltung is the core of all things communist, and communist features can be found in all of human history. There have always been people who tried to overcome the obstacles to their own individual Entfaltung, but the circumstances did not allow such a thing. A generalized reciprocal inclusion was not attainable, because it ended up being at the expense of subordinates.
This has changed today. Capitalism, the epitome of structural-generalized reciprocal exclusion, has created the very material conditions we need to not only make Selbstentfaltung attainable but also generalizable. To this end it is necessary to become aware of the prerequisites needed for Selbstentfaltung.
From: keimform.deComments
12-08-17
“Social Innovations for Economic Degrowth” – paper on demonetization in US-journal “The Solutions”
In a new paper “Social Innovations for Economic Degrowth” for the renowned US journal “The Solutions”, Andreas Exner and Christian Lauk explain why money and markets necessarily lead to economic growth. They show which social innovations already are in place to overcome the growth impasse.
A mode of production able to degrow and to enter a steady-state afterwards, Exner and Lauk argue, is characterized by
- self-management instead of top-down management
- solidarity instead of markets
- autonomy from the state instead of state industry
This reorientation is practised in solidarity economies and the commons. It allows workers to orient themselves toward concrete needs, which can be satisfied, unlike profit production, and to reshape production, sorting out what is not needed or even harmful.
Such an economy without money would not be compelled to grow but could do what an economy in the Greek sense of oikonomia was originally meant to do: efficiently satisfy human needs for food, shelter, and cultural development.
they say, and conclude:
An economy that is able to degrow can also enter a steady state of constant production and consumption with low-level, highly efficient resource use. This could fulfill the very goal that the capitalist economy increasingly fails to serve: a good life for all.
A degrowth economy thus conceived would not only fulfill human needs much better than capitalism and the market economy, it would also be highly resilient. Firstly, because it would minimize vulnerability toward peak oil, secondly, because it would be based on reciprocity, trust and cohesion, making it flexible, innovative and adaptive.
Andreas Exner is working at EB&P Umweltbüro Gmbh and the Business University of Vienna, Christian Lauk works at the Institute for Social Ecology (IFF) at the University of Klagenfurt (Austria). In February 2013, their new book “Land and Resource Scarcities. Capitalism, Struggle, and Well-Being in a World without Fossil Fuels” will appear at Routledge.
12-08-16
Crossroads
Recently Pablo Salon posted a great piece on the so-called green economy on his blog: 'At the crossroads between green economy and rights of nature'. In it he castigates the rise of 'Natural Capital' as a way of defining and ruling nature for the narrow and damaging interests of capitalism. He uses the REDD scheme of carbon credits to highlight the dangers and absurdity of evolving capitalist practices for the natural functioning of forests, which benefits humans in the general rather than capitalists in particular. He asks us to '[i]magine what will happen when and if this same logic is applied to biodiversity, water, soil, agriculture, oceans, fishery and so on', concluding that:The "green economy" will be absolutely destructive because it is premised on the principle that transfusion of the rules of the market will save nature...
We need to overthrow capitalism and develop a system that is based on the Community of the Earth.I urge you to read the whole post.
12-08-16
National Weather Service Follows DHS In Huge Ammo Purchase
Hollow point bullets designed to cause maximum organ damage
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Why would the National Weather Service need to purchase large quantities of powerful ammo? That’s the question many are asking after the federal agency followed in the footsteps of the Department of Homeland Security in putting out a solicitation for 46,000 rounds of hollow point bullets.
A solicitation which appears on the FedBizOpps website asks for 16,000 rounds of .40 S&W jacketed hollow point (JHP) bullets, noted for their strength, to be delivered to locations in Ellsworth, Maine, and New Bedford, Mass.
A further 6,000 rounds of S&W JHP will be sent to Wall, New Jersey, with another 24,000 rounds of the same bullets heading to the weather station in St. Petersburg, Florida.
The solicitation also asks for 500 paper targets to be delivered to the same locations in Maine, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
The National Weather Service is is one of six scientific agencies that make up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The solicitation requires a response by August 21.
The NWS is following its federal counterpart the DHS in securing large quantities of ammo. Back in March,Homeland Security purchased 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets that are designed to expand upon entry and cause maximum organ damage, prompting questions as to why the DHS needed such a large amount of powerful bullets merely for training purposes.
As the Business Insider notes, hollow point bullets have been “illegal in international warfare since 1899.”
The DHS is also planning to purchase a further 750 million rounds of different types of ammo in a separate solicitation that also expires on August 20, including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls.
The DHS recently put out an order for riot gear in preparation for the upcoming DNC, RNC and presidential inauguration. The U.S. Army is also busy buying similar equipment.
The DHS also recently purchased a number of bullet-proof checkpoint booths that include ‘stop and go’ lights.
The federal government is clearly gearing up for the likelihood of civil unrest on a scale that could outstrip what we’ve already seen in countries across Europe.
While the establishment demonizes the second amendment in light of recent mass shootings and legislation is prepared to ban the sale of large quantities of ammunition online, the federal government is acquiring ammunition at levels necessary to fight a full scale domestic war.
UPDATE: The Washington Post now reports, via a statement from NOAA spokesman Scott Smullen, that the original solicitation contained a “clerical error” and that the “solicitation for ammunition and targets for the NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement mistakenly identified NOAA’s National Weather Service as the requesting office.” This still doesn’t explain why hollow point bullets, designed to cause maximum organ damage, are needed for shooting at paper targets. Was the delivery of the bullets to the NWS a cover for them being transferred somewhere else? It’s entirely possible given the sordid history of Fast and Furious, a federal government program under which guns were sent directly to Mexican drug cartels.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
NB: Neither I nor my husband are related to Paul Joseph Watson.
From: endmoney.infoComments
12-08-16
Social Security Administration To Purchase 174 Thousand Rounds Of Hollow Point Bullets
- Preparing for civil unrest? Ammunition to be delivered to 41 locations across U.S.
- Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, August 15, 2012UPDATE: DHS Now Covering Up Ammo Purchases?First it was the Department of Homeland Security, then it was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and now the Social Security Administration is set to purchase 174,000 rounds of hollow point bullets that will be delivered to 41 locations across the country.
A solicitation posted by the SSA on the FedBizOpps website asks for contractors to supply 174,000 rounds of “.357 Sig 125 grain bonded jacketed hollow point pistol ammunition.”
An online ammunition retailer describes the bullets as suitable “for peak performance rivaling and sometimes surpassing handloads in many guns,” noting that the ammo is “a great personal defense bullet.”
The synopsis to the solicitation adds that the ammunition is to be shipped to 41 locations within 60 days of purchase. A separate spreadsheet lists those locations, which include the Social Security headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland as well as major cities across the country including Los Angeles, Detroit, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Denver, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Seattle.
Hollow point bullets are designed to expand as they enter the body, causing maximum damage by tearing apart internal organs.
It’s not outlandish to suggest that the Social Security Administration is purchasing the bullets as part of preparations for civil unrest. Social security welfare is estimated to keep around 40 per cent of senior citizens out of poverty. Should the tap run dry in the aftermath of an economic collapse which the Federal Reserve has already told top banks to prepare for, domestic disorder could ensue if people are refused their benefits.
Indeed, earlier this year the Department of Homeland Security ran a drill called Operation Shield which included turning the entrance of a Florida Social Security office into a checkpoint manned by Federal Protective Service officers armed with semiautomatic rifles.
“With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building,” reported the Daily Commercial.
A rash of solicitations by federal agencies for hollow point bullets in recent months has stoked fears that the government is preparing for civil unrest caused by a financial collapse on a scale similar or even larger to scenes already witnessed in Europe over the last two years.
As we reported yesterday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has put out a contract for 46,000 rounds of hollow point bullets along with 500 paper targets.
Despite initially asking the bullets to be delivered to the National Weather Service, NOAA claimed this was a “clerical error” and insisted the ammunition was being sent to the Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement. Why powerful hollow point bullets that are designed to tear apart internal organs are needed for practice shooting at paper targets has not been explained.
Back in March, Homeland Security purchased 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets that are designed to expand upon entry and cause maximum organ damage, prompting questions as to why the DHS needed such a large amount of powerful bullets merely for training purposes.
This was followed by another DHS solicitation asking for a further 750 million rounds of assorted bullets, including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls.
The DHS recently put out an order for riot gear in preparation for the upcoming DNC, RNC and presidential inauguration. The U.S. Army is also busy buying similar equipment.
The DHS also recently purchased a number of bullet-proof checkpoint booths that include ‘stop and go’ lights.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
NB: Neither I nor my husband are related to Paul Joseph Watson.
From: endmoney.infoComments
12-08-16
DHS Classifies New Ammo Purchases Following Controversy
Federal agency blacks out amount of bullets being bought
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
The Department of Homeland Security has redacted information relating to the quantity of bullets it is buying following a controversy concerning the agency’s purchase of over a billion rounds of ammo, which many fear is a sign the federal government is preparing for civil unrest in the United States.
Despite the fact that documents are only supposed to be redacted if authorized by Congress or for national security reasons, a solicitation posted on the FedBizOpps website yesterday concerning ammunition purchases made by the DHS on behalf of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) contains numerous blacked out sections.
The classified portions of the document include references to the amount of 223 62 and 223 64 grain ammunition being purchased.
The solicitation explains how the contract put out by the DHS to purchase the ammunition was not subject to “full and open competition,” a process justified by what the DHS claims was an “unusual and compelling urgency” to acquire the bullets, noting that there is a shortage of bullets which is threatening a situation which could cause “substantial safety issues for the government” should law enforcement officials not be adequately armed.
The Department of Homeland Security’s decision to black out sections of the document, including the number of bullets being purchased, is likely to be related to a massive controversy which has snowballed over the last few weeks pertaining to concerns as to why the federal agency has purchased well over a billion rounds of bullets over the last 6 months alone.
The DHS’ decision back in March to purchase of 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets that are designed to expand upon entry and cause maximum organ damage prompted questions as to why the federal agency required such powerful bullets and in such large quantities merely for training purposes.
This was followed up by a more recent order for a further 750 million rounds of assorted ammunition, including bullets that can penetrate walls.
Given the fact that the DHS is also acquiring riot gear in preparation for civil unrest which could take place at the upcoming DNC, RNC and presidential inauguration, the purchase of ammunition in such massive numbers has stoked fears that the federal government could be preparing to use force against the American people.
This screenshot illustrates how the DHS has blacked out information pertaining to the amount of bullets being purchased.
The trigger for this could be an economic collapse that causes angry Americans to flood the streets similar to scenes witnessed across Europe over the last two years.
As Mike Adams writes, “The U.S. government clearly sees the writing on the wall. What lays ahead for America is a day of unbearable reckoning. The financial collapse will wipe out savings accounts, pensions, investment funds and equities of the working class, all across the nation. Imagine bank accounts being reset to zero, “bank holidays” enforced at gunpoint. That will unleash a wave of violent protests, social chaos and even talk of revolution. The government will almost certainly respond with a declaration of Martial Law, the rolling out of highway checkpoints, and before long, the use of live ammo on unruly protesters.”
The Social Security Administration has also recently purchased a large quantity of hollow point bullets, potentially signaling that authorities fear welfare riots could occur if benefit payments cannot be made. The NOAA also recently purchased 46,000 rounds of hollow point ammunition.
The DHS’ decision to censor information related to bullet purchases for immigration authorities could also be an attempt to assuage concerns that the agency is expecting to have to resort to force to deal with a mass influx of immigrants from Mexico.
Back in December, Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano directed ICE to prepare for a substantial inundation of immigrants into the United States, calling for the plan to deal with the “shelter” and “processing” of large numbers of people.
During the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, it was revealed that the federal government had established a contingency program under the pretext of a mass influx of immigrants called Rex 84. The program was a secretive “scenario and drill” developed by the federal government to suspend the Constitution, declare martial law, assign military commanders to take over state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American citizens determined by the government to be “national security threats.”
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
NB: Neither I nor my husband are related to Paul Joseph Watson.
From: endmoney.infoComments
12-08-16
DHS To Purchase Another 750 Million Rounds Of Ammo
Second massive ammunition buy this year fuels fears of civil unrest
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Monday, August 13, 2012
Fears that federal authorities are preparing for mass civil unrest have increased after it was revealed that the Department of Homeland Security is planning to buy a further 750 million rounds of ammo in addition to the 450 million rounds of hollow point bullets already purchased earlier this year.
A solicitation originally issued by the DHS in April but updated on Friday calls on suppliers to provide a plethora of different types of ammunition, including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls.
The PDF file for the solicitation lists the different units of ammo required by the thousand, with the total ammo purchase exceeding 750 million rounds.
“The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), Glynco, Georgia anticipates awarding multiple award indefinite delivery and indefinite quantity (IDIQ) firm fixed price (FFP) contracts for commercial leaded training ammunition (CLTA) of various calibers for law enforcement officer firearms training courses at the following FLETC facilities Glynco, GA, Artesia, NM, Cheltenham, MD and Charleston, SC and to other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies. The Government guarantees a minimum of 1,000 rounds per year on each resultant contract. Contracts will be for a base year and four (4) 12 month option periods,” states the synopsis.
Potential suppliers are required to respond to the solicitation before August 20.
The purchase comes in addition to an order for 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets which wasfulfilled by Alliant Techsystems Inc. back in March, news greeted by some as an indication that the DHS was arming itself in preparation to go to war with the American people.
Although the ammo purchases are ostensibly earmarked for training purposes, the DHS has been reticent to clarifywhy such an unusually large amount of rounds are necessary and why such powerful bullets are required merely for training drills.
This has led to speculation that the purchases are connected to confirmed preparations for civil unrest in the United States.
The DHS recently put out an order for riot gear in preparation for the upcoming DNC, RNC and presidential inauguration. The U.S. Army is also busy buying similar equipment.
The DHS also recently purchased a number of bullet-proof checkpoint booths that include ‘stop and go’ lights.
A recently leaked US Army Military Police training manual for “Civil Disturbance Operations” outlines how military assets are to be used domestically to quell riots, confiscate firearms and even kill Americans on U.S. soil during mass civil unrest.
On page 20 of the manual, rules regarding the use of “deadly force” in confronting “dissidents” are made disturbingly clear with the directive that a, “Warning shot will not be fired.”
The manual includes lists of weapons to be used against “rioters” or “demonstrators,” including “antiriot grenades.” It also advises troops to carry their guns in the “safe port arms” stance, a psychological tactic aimed at “making a show of force before rioters.” Non-lethal weapons and water cannons are also included.
The increasing likelihood of a full blown financial collapse in the coming months has also spurred federal agencies and the U.S. Army to hone their preparations for domestic disorder on a scale greater than riots witnessed in Europe over the past two years.
A 2008 report produced by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Institute warned that the United States may experience massive civil unrest in the wake of a series of crises which it termed “strategic shock.”
“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” stated the report, authored by [Ret.] Lt. Col. Nathan Freir, adding that the military may be needed to quell “purposeful domestic resistance”.
Last year, Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano directed ICE to prepare for a mass influx of immigrants into the United States, calling for the plan to deal with the “shelter” and “processing” of large numbers of people.
Watch a video analysis by Madison Ruppert below.
[Video in the original]
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.
NB. Neither my husband nor I are related to Paul Joseph Watson.
From: endmoney.infoComments