TBR News January 20, 2017

Jan 20 2017

The Voice of the White House 

Washington, D.C. January 20, 2017:  “Most working Americans must pay taxes and do not do so voluntarily.

Their taxes are automatically deducted by their employer and paid by him to the government.

Many other Americans, who work for themselves, do not pay taxes and have been hiding their profits outside the country.

The American authorities have been pressuring foreign banks to give up information on tax-avoids so they can be prosecuted and the money taken.

And this tax money is spent by the government on projects that would never be approved if brought to a vote by the public.

The government has nothing but contempt for the mass of the public and does it best to hide a large number of very unpleasant facts from them.

And now, thanks to so-called whistle blowers, much of this connivance is being made public.

When the MERS mortgage fraud becomes public, many politicians and government officials will suddenly resign, probably to ‘spend more time with their families’ and none in Federal prisons.”

 

Table of Contents

  • Wherefore Goes Germany?
  • China GDP slows as growth risks mount
  • Israeli Lawmakers Celebrate the New “King of the United States” With Evangelicals
  • Chelsea Manning, A Heroine for Our Times
  • 6 Tips for Avoiding the Worst Student Loan Repayment Traps
  • Obama administration spent billions to fix failing schools, and it didn’t work
  • The Assassination of Muhammad Zia
  • 9 incredible things we learnt from the CIA’s declassified documents – aliens, psychic powers and invisible ink recipes
  • ‘Mein Kampf’: Murphy translation: Part 13

Wherefore Goes Germany?

January 10, 2017

by “Alex”

Club Orlov cluborlov.blogspot.com/

About a year ago, in of a mood of despair and a sense of looming danger, I wrote an article, which Dmitry was kind enough to publish on his blog, titled Exit Strategy for Traitors. This article is an update. Nothing has changed fundamentally, but a lot has happened, and the situation has improved in just one single respect.

The daily influx of migrants heading for Germany through Turkey and the Balkans has dropped off significantly and the pressure on Germany has became manageable again, giving us some breathing space and making any sort of immediate civil war very unlikely. But we are still experiencing a steady deterioration in our security and our mood. The nation formerly known as Germany is dissolving before our eyes and being replaced with a half-assed dictatorship. The mixed bag of euphoria and shock of 2015 has turned into vicious trench warfare between the leftists, the ignorant and the rest.

Broken Borders

The borders of the EU remain wide open for any freeloader, criminal or terrorist who is halfway ambitious, and the numbers of the incoming are now at record levels for the sea route.

Frontex still picks up “refugees” by the thousands close to the African coast and brings them to Europe—the diametrical opposite of their original mission. People-smuggling is now happening on an industrial scale but is not paid for by the people being smuggled. Gone are the times of simple wooden floating coffins packed with dead migrants. Now well-equipped operatives now make sure that the invaders reach their destination. I wonder if any so-called “tragedy” with drowned migrants ever really happened. Remember those professional-quality photos of capsizing boats? What a nice coincidence that was—a disaster at sea and a photo op all in one!

In Spain, invaders violently storm the fortified borders by the thousands, yet no one does what once was a commonsense tactic in defending a border: shoot into the air, then take aim and open fire.

Deportations—once the proper procedure for those who manage to get through illegally—simply fail to take place. A short while ago, with major mass media fanfare, 50 Afghans where about to be deported by airplane. Leftist groups protested viciously. Only 35 got deported, the rest crawled back into the woodwork. Some of those who had been flown to Afghanistan immediately announced their intention to storm their way back into Germany. As this “mass deportation” exercise was running its course, some 3,000 new invaders landed in Italy; about 350,000 for all of 2016. Is there still any need to explain these are no refugees and that this is a deliberate, organized operation? The EU could end it within hours, but the standing orders say otherwise, because those in charge want them in.

Security

There have been many more robberies, violent attacks, sexual assaults and murders to keep track of in 2016. A very small fraction of them is still being reported by the Refugee Crime Map. According to a recent official BKA report, the invaders are committing an average of 800 crimes a day. The counterintelligence operation, Hoax Map, did not last very long, quickly becoming overwhelmed by this reality.

No-go zones occupied by the invaders, where the authorities fear to tread, are spreading in Germany, but compared to France, Britain or Sweden the situation in most German cities is still far better. Nevertheless, over and over again people go to the police are told that their reports would not even be taken, or that women should just dye their hair dark or stay home at night. In other words, the authorities are unwilling and unable to help us. We are warned not to resort to vigilantism, but we are not informed of our right to self-defense. Days after the terror attack in Berlin the EU ratified a new law to disarm everyone in Europe even further—even gamekeepers and sport shooters. To which I say, those who respect laws that kill them do not deserve pity.

Then again, Germany is not quite Syria yet. Germany is small by territory, but it is no small country by population, and it is not yet overwhelmed by the sheer number of invaders. Because of that, Germans can continue live in denial even now—until any one of them becomes a victim. (And when you do, you better keep quiet about it, or your own people will call you a racist!) It is much less safe anywhere you might go, at any time of the day.

Some of my less able-bodied friends have no sense of danger while in public. I do, and so I never leave the house unarmed, if not for myself, then for the not so unlikely case that I would need to defend someone else. I consider them negligent, but then again, my situational awareness by now is certainly on a nearly professional level. Most people are simply not cut out for coping with this sort of situation.

What is nowadays considered a normal week would have been thought of as a national emergency in 1980. Anyone my age, in comparing our childhood to the current reality, should recoil in horror and disbelief. But social norms are malleable, and the younger generations cannot even see that there is something wrong with having unguarded, undefended borders, because they have been taught that borders are outdated and a nuisance. Why should they long for national sovereignty and unity if they have never experienced them? Instead, they are being taught to accept crime, terror and forced Islamization. Those who refuse to accept this state of affairs are persecuted for being racist, fascist xenophobes.

Lügenpresse—German “Fake News”

The press in Germany remains borderline useless, but unfortunately we are still dependent on it for the raw information. To be fair, reports of crimes by invaders and government failure to obey the law by prosecuting them appear far more frequently now.

Even though the raw data is more available, every interpretation or comment we hear aims to obscure the Islamic invasion, play down its effects and to belittle its catastrophic consequences for the country. No one dares call it what it is—an invasion—let alone demand that it be brought to an end using the simple means that have been known for millennia.

The anti-German sentiment routinely expressed in German media is simply staggering. Just like the contempt routinely expressed for Trump’s supporters by the mass media in the US, they make no effort to hide their hatred and contempt for the average German citizen. The anti-white, anti-male, anti-child, anti-western, pro-Islamist tone of the commentary is the same in Germany as in much of Europe and the US, pointing clearly to a centrally organized and well-funded propaganda operation designed to support the invasion and to neutralize anyone who might oppose it. Women in niqabs and burkas now get airtime on talk shows, appearing alongside leftist “experts” endlessly recycling the same bogus talking points: why Islam is “a religion of peace” and has nothing to do with anything (and not at all a totalitarian political ideology); why Merkel was right to let in the invaders (and did not commit a horrific blunder); and why anyone unwilling to go along with the leftist, pro-invader agenda is automatically a dangerous racist, fascist xenophobe.

This line of reasoning is not popular with most Germans, and some publications, such as Spiegel, are now in dire financial straits because of their blind obedience in following the pro-invader program. But state TV and radio are directly funded by illegal taxes, sucking about 8.1 billion Euro per year out of our pockets, and will keep cycling through the same failed talking points regardless of how much the audience vomits. But our choice is between “fake news” and no news at all.

When the beautiful daughter of an EU politician was brutally raped and drowned by a migrant in Freiburg last year, Tagesschau, the flagship newscast of state TV channel ARD did not report it at all and was forced to justify this two days later. They then called it “only a case of regional interest,” making an even bigger mockery of themselves, because by then even the Washington Post took up the story. Similar things have happened on several similar occasions, and in each case the exposure the story received through social media made these events into running jokes. So, not reporting the news at all will not work any more, and it is time for Plan B: actual, real censorship of social media.

This plan is now in play, with the Merkel régime threatening to heavily fine social media platforms for… “fake news,” of course! The Ministry of the Interior is about to create a Disinformation Defence Center, to battle “fake news.” If you think that it sounds like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, or the MfS in the old East Germany, that’s because it is. To be located very close to Merkel’s office in Berlin, this center is supposed to “react very fast” to “disinformation” on social media, especially with an eye toward the general election in 2017, because fake news could “influence” said election and avoid the predetermined outcome (by making the voice of the people heard).

How effective this will be remains to be seen. The East German secret police (STASI) can’t be reconstituted overnight, but with full cooperation from Google, Facebook, Twitter and others, who seem ready to succumb to political pressure, the DDC could turn out to be quite effective. It would then become the second most effective part of the German government, after the tax collectors.

Loss of Control

If you take a look at the state of the German national government and its executive from a historical perspective—say, that of the 1990s—it now seems to be in total disarray and an advanced state of decomposition. Take, for example, the terrorist, allegedly responsible for the truck-based terror attack in Berlin in December who was, of course a “refugee.” He was the second suspect, after the first one was found to be “innocent”—just an illegal migrant with nine false identities! He was released, never to be seen again, probably collecting benefits using identity number ten.

The “real” perpetrator was Anis Amri, a Tunisian. He came from a “safe country,” Italy, where he had been sentenced to four years in prison and was released 2015. He had been denied asylum in Italy and in Germany, but deportation had been suspended, because most conveniently he had “lost his papers.” He has had at least fourteen false identities and probably collected benefits under each. He was constantly being observed even as he tried to buy automatic weapons from an undercover agent, then tried to get other Salafists to become suicide bombers. Yet the police saw no reason to arrest and deport this drug dealing, violent criminal and wannabe terrorist.

Even after he killed 12 people in Berlin, he somehow managed to get away. A full day after his attack his mobile was “found” in the cabin of his truck. It then took another day to “find his papers,” in that same cabin of that same truck. One day after that the police “accidentally” announced their intention to make a raid in North Rhine-Westphalia, an easy six-hour drive from Berlin. The press arrived there first and waited for hours for something to happen, but nothing happened because the police screwed up the arrest warrant. So, astonishingly, they did not get him, and the chief of police announced that “he is gone.” During the first two days the police made available a “wanted” poster of the terrorist with his eyes pixelated to—wait for it!—to protect his privacy! Only after Twitter and Facebook took over and released proper photos did they they change theirs, but then used an outdated photo, and put a 100-thousand-Euro bounty on his head. After making some number of detours across several EU borders he was eventually shot dead in Italy by some properly incentivized Italians.

Many people in Germany cannot make up their minds whether to be happy with the death of a terrorist or to call the whole story a pathetic farce/false flag/blunder/fabrication. Or all of the above. It is becoming harder and harder to tell truth from fantasy and incompetence from willful sabotage. But if their orders were to display complete incompetence, the German authorities could not have possibly done a better job.

When once in a while the police do a good job, our traitors in office now consider this to be rogue behavior. During this New Year’s Eve security measures in Cologne and other cities were extreme, in an effort to prevent the mass sexual assaults by migrants that had happened last year. Nevertheless, thousands of Migrants, mostly North Africans, drifted in from all over the country, and even from France and Switzerland, to “celebrate” again with the local women. Many of them where kettled early on by thousands of policemen, but even then the operational command was worried that the situation would again spin out of control. This was a clear case of “reconnaissance through hand-to-hand combat” conducted by the invaders.

The only acknowledgment of these events by German politicians was in the form of a harsh critique over the use of racial profiling against the North Africans. For every problem there is now a diversion, while solutions are not sought after at all. With the press docile and the social media about to be gagged, nobody will be able to ask any hard questions. If something is wrong, then it’s probably because of “Russian hacking,” and if somebody doesn’t like that, then it’s probably “racism.” That ought to be enough to keep everything afloat.

The Political Situation

How does German public opinion change in in light of all this? The normal political process has ceased to exist, replaced by complete political polarization. There is no longer any middle ground: either you pray to Holy Merkel, or you are an enemy of the state. Either you go along with every lie they tell you, or you are a Nazi. The government makes no effort to win the consent of the governed; instead, they rely purely on intimidation. Merkel is a de facto dictator, just because nobody challenges her in any way at all.

During the last party conference she faced allegations from party members that she was attempting to create a cult of personality, holding hands with migrants, yet they reelected her as the party leader by 89.5% of the vote on that same day. Merkel does not even refer to us as citizens or Germans any more. She repeatedly referred to us as “those who have lived here for quite a while.” The obvious implication is that we do not have any rights or privileges superior to “those who have not lived here for quite a while”—i.e., the invaders.

For reasons that should be perfectly obvious, this cannot possibly work. You cannot govern, even by force, by proclaiming your own citizenry to be the enemy. Hillary Clinton tried that, referring to half of her would-be constituents as “a basket of deplorables.” And where is she now? Same place Merkel is going. Total alienation of the Germans from their political class can have only one end result: total replacement of Germany’s political class.

Once voters becomes fully aware of the situation, they are lost to the old parties forever. That is the reason why resistance is building so slowly: most of the voters have to break with practically every political belief they have ever held, actively destroying their false sense of security, giving up on the backing they had once received from the state by being good, law-abiding citizens and by voting however their parents had voted because the government would always be on your side in the end. It is now very clearly on the side of their enemies—the terrorists, the rapists… the invaders.

But even those who no longer believe anything that the mass media dishes out shy away from talking about it in public out of both imaginary and justified fears for repercussions. Public denunciations are very common. Speak your mind just once, and you may never be promoted, or lose your career.

For those who do decide to leave the old politics behind, it is a bit like going underground. It certainly feels a lot more serious than just entertaining an alternative opinion. We are not complete outlaws yet, but if the ANTIFA [the “anti-fascists”] beat you up or burn your car, do not expect any sympathy.

There are some fringe groups that are working to form an underground resistance. Apart from the more international national identity movement, which is quite active in Germany, most of them aim at a new constituent assembly. Of course, this can only come to pass once the current political landscape has been overturned. Social media is full of well-meaning but for the most part powerless people. It is a giant Revolutionaries Anonymous that helps its members cope.

For those of us preferring the difficult, democratic path to reform, there is still only the AfD [Alternative für Deutschland]. The party gained massive support over the last year. By the end of 2016 they counted 25000 members and 300k friends on Facebook, and garnering about 16% of the votes nationwide. But compared to the behemoth CDU, with its 400k members, it is still very small. In perspective, however, their influence may become enormous.

But why should we rely on politics when our opponents are not really politicians at all but traitors—our mortal enemies, hellbent on destroying our country, ruining us financially, promoting Volkstod [national death], child marriage, acceptance of Sharia law and replacement of the population with criminals and work-shy trash imported from failed states? To me, their Cultural Marxism is now nothing but a mental illness. Those who practice it are sick and dangerous and do not deserve our consideration or even our condescension. We should work to expose them and their agenda as toxic to any society. To believe that a nation, or even the white race, should be made to cease to exist by violent means and be replaced by third-world semi-society, must not be given a pass as an acceptable political viewpoint. That is called suicide or genocide, and those who espouse it should be banned from public life.

That’s why I believe we must fight them asymmetrically, on every level, and not only through the democratic political system. Everyone can and should do that. Completely ignore their hysterical attacks, and counterattack their every advance viciously. Exclude them from our midst, defining them as insane. Ridicule them at every turn, and never vote for them again, ever. Do not hope against hope that the miracle that happened in the US with the election of Donald Trump would happen here before the damage becomes irreversible.

This is the style that Trump embodies, and it is exactly what we need right now. He is no great statesman, and perhaps never will be, but he can and does speak clearly and without any restraint, bypassing mass media filters and ignoring the ensuing hysteria whipped up by establishment mouthpieces. He can be a shining example for others and will be, in my view, the most important ally of the people of Europe over the coming years.

In conclusion, I feel vindicated in almost every aspect of my last report. The trends are all still all there, but whether their final outcome will be war, social collapse or revolution is a question that remains as open as it was a year ago. Germany has been changed forever, and unless we undo everything that Soros and Merkel have done to us and become a conservative and self-aware country again, our prognosis will become increasingly dire.

China GDP slows as growth risks mount

In 2016, China recorded its slowest rate of growth in more than a quarter of a century, as the world’s second largest economy struggles to restructure amid explosive growth in debt and fears of protectionism

January 20, 2017

DW

China’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 6.7 percent last year, significantly slower than in the previous year, when growth had come in at a rate of 6.9 percent.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which released the data on Friday, said in a statement that China’s economy was, however, within “a proper range with improved quality and efficiency.”

The country’s lowest growth rate in 26 years was the result of domestic and external conditions that were “still complicated and severe,” NBS added in the statement. Nevertheless, the 2016 GDP falls within the government’s target range of 6.5 percent to 7.0 percent.

The Asian economic powerhouse has long been a key engine of growth in the global economy. But the country’s Communist leaders are trying to reduce China’s strong reliance on exports and infrastructure investment for growth in favor of higher consumer spending.

But the transition is proving difficult, with the crucial manufacturing sector struggling in the face of sluggish global demand for Chinese products and excess industrial capacity left over from the boom of the past two decades.

Year-end uptick

A bright spot in the figures released on Friday was provided by a higher-than-expected growth rate for the final quarter of 2016. Boosted by strong government spending and record bank lending, the Chinese economy accelerated at a pace of 6.8 percent, compared with the same three-month period a year ago.

In December alone, industrial production rose 6.0 percent year on year, while retail sales increased 10.9 percent. Property investment grew a surprisingly strong 11.1 percent in the month, from 5.7 percent in November, even as house prices showed signs of cooling in some major cities. But some economists do not expect the fourth-quarter rebound to extend far into 2017.

“A slowdown in the property market and steps to address supply shortages in the commodity sector ought to drag again on demand and output,” Tom Rafferty, regional China manager for the Economist Intelligence Unit, told the news agency Reuters.

Uncertainty and risks remain

Economists assume that the government’s structural reforms, including efforts to cool China’s overheated housing market, coupled with a potentially testy relationship with the new US administration will weigh on China’s growth this year.

Analysts of Swiss bank UBS also pointed to China’s mounting debt as a major financial risk to growth, noting that the country’s debt-to-GDP ration had risen to 277 percent at the end of 2016 from 254 percent the previous year, with an increasing share of new credit being used to pay debt servicing costs.

Therefore, economists expect China’s leaders to lower their economic growth target to around 6.5 percent this year, giving them more room to push reforms and contain debt risks.

“The key risk to the Chinese economy in 2017 and 2018 is the possibility that faster than expected US interest rate increases could intensify Chinese capital outflows and increase stresses on China’s financial system,” said Bill Adams, senior economist at US-based PNC Financial Services Group.

Others see Beijing’s relations with the Trump administration as the biggest unknown. Tim Condon, Singapore-based economist at ING, told Reuters that Trump advisers and cabinet-nominees had identified bilateral relations as in need of adjustment to support Trump’s objective of a manufacturing renaissance in the United States.

 Israeli Lawmakers Celebrate the New “King of the United States” With Evangelicals

January 20, 2017

by Zaid Jilani

The Intercept

Right-wing Israeli lawmakers in town for Donald Trump’s inauguration addressed prominent American evangelicals gathered at Greater New Hope Baptist Church in downtown Washington, D.C. on Thursday, lecturing them on the importance of moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and offering hope that President-elect Donald Trump would fulfill his promise to do so.

Speaking to a gathering that included a who’s who of Christian right leaders — including Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, Faith & Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, and Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson — Israeli Knesset member Yehuda Glick, who belongs to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, spoke about Trump’s election in messianic terms.

He began his remarks by approvingly quoting Psalm 72, which speaks of welcoming a new king. “It is a prayer for King Solomon, and it is the prayer for all kings and especially a prayer for the king of the United States.”

He then pivoted to explaining his own path to politics — how he went from a hardline rabbi advocating permanent settlements in the Palestinian territories to being elected as a Likud lawmaker — describing his victory as a miracle.

“Tomorrow, 21 hours from now, and 14 minutes, there will be another miracle!” he said, speaking of Trump’s election to sustained applause.

“Trump throughout his campaign, again and again and again repeatedly spoke about Israel and Jerusalem,” he reminded them, his voice escalating as if giving a sermon. “We’re so close, friends of Jerusalem and Israel! […] He can choose to be a Cyrus! He can choose to say Jerusalem, all nations should recognize Jerusalem!”

(Cyrus is the Persian King referred to in the Hebrew Bible who rescued Jews from their exile in Babylon.)

Moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is a goal sought by Israeli government officials, such as Netanyahu, who seek to make Jerusalem the undivided capital of the state of Israel. That would preclude the Palestinians from establishing a state that includes East Jerusalem — where 300,000 of them live today with severely curtailed rights. Most international observers believe that this would render the two-state solution impossible and thus be damaging to peace.

While campaigning for president, Donald Trump initially wouldn’t commit to moving the embassy — but by the end of the campaign cycle placed himself fully behind the relocation to Jerusalem. Asked about Trump’s current position on Thursday, incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer asked reporters to “stay tuned.” “There will be a further announcement on that,” he said.

At a briefing on Capitol Hill before the event, Glick was joined by Sharren Haskel, the Knesset’s youngest lawmaker and a fellow Likud member, who echoed many of the same themes in an interview with The Intercept.

“In this new administration, we have a lot of hopes,” Haskel told The Intercept. “We do hope that one of the first moves that Donald Trump will do is to move the embassy.”

Glick told The Intercept that many in Israel didn’t feel like Obama was willing to consider their point of view. “Can you imagine the president of France saying, ‘Listen I don’t think it’s a good idea that Washington should be your capital. Maybe Orlando!’”

(The residents of Washington, D.C. may be without full voting rights but they are not militarily occupied or denied citizenship like the Palestinians in East Jerusalem.)

“Jerusalem is the capital of Israel whether you like it or you don’t,” he concluded.

With Trump, on the other hand, Glick is hopeful.

“President Trump and Vice President Pence have both expressed what I feel, and I’m not a god, I don’t know how to read hearts, I have felt genuine true sincere friendship with Israel.”

Chelsea Manning, A Heroine for Our Times

Obama does something good – for a change

January 20, 2017

by Justin Raimondo

AntiWar

The commutation of Chelsea Manning’s sentence by President Barack Obama is bad politics – and, from my vantage point, the only moral act on his part that I can recall. It took balls to do this, and for that I have to give him credit.

One has to also note that the timing here is significant: with his party currently in the midst of a campaign to smear WikiLeaks – and the President-elect — as a Russian tool, Obama’s merciful act undercuts the entire basis of the charge that both Julian Assange and Donald Trump are agents of a foreign power. After all, Manning’s revelations were published by WikiLeaks, this supposedly perfidious agent of Russian intelligence. If the administration really believes that characterization of Assange’s outfit, then doesn’t freeing Chelsea – the Natasha of Boris and Natasha – encourage more acts of “espionage”?

Which brings us to the central issue in this case: is Chelsea Manning a “traitor,” as outraged neocons are now claiming? Is she guilty of “treason,” as the Fox News crowd – yes, even the usually sensible Tucker Carlson – would have it?

The answer is an emphatic “No!”

To begin with, she was never charged with treason. No doubt the government thought it could never get a conviction for treason, or else they would’ve done so. Part of the reason for that is that not a single document revealed by Chelsea’s actions was labeled “Top Secret,” which is in itself not a top-level category in our national security lexicon. Secondly, in spite of testimony at Manning’s trial that Osama bin Laden requested to see the Afghan war logs published by WikiLeaks, not a single person was killed or even injured as a result of this particular revelation.

The alleged harm to US national security was minimal to nonexistent – but the benefits to the people of the Unite States, and the world, by the publication of these documents is incalculable. Among the revelations made possible by Manning’s brave action were:

  • The exposure of US war crimes, including a video of US pilots murdering innocent Iraqi civilians: two children were among the casualties. The pilots were laughing and joking the whole time.
  • A State Department memo that characterized a US-backed coup in Honduras – lauded by Hillary Clinton – as illegal.
  • US diplomatic cables that clearly showed how the British government pledged to cover Washington’s ass in the Chilcott probe into how the UK was lied into the Iraq war.
  • A cable that detailed the massive corruption of the Tunisian government and Washington’s complicity in said corruption.
  • A cable that clearly demonstrated how our own diplomats misled the federal government and the media when Georgia attacked South Ossetia and initiated a showdown with Russia.
  • How the US and Britain broke a treaty outlawing cluster bombs.
  • How a “vice president” of Afghanistan skipped town with $52 million “in cash” – our cash.
  • How the government of Pakistan misused and outright stole millions of US taxpayer dollars meant to “fight terrorism.”
  • Cables detailing flimsy security at Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, which could cause them to fall into the hands of terrorists.
  • How the US spied on the United Nations, using its diplomats as intelligence agents.
  • A cable by US ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie in 1990 giving Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait, published by WikiLeaks in full for the first time.
  • Cables showing that the US military covered up – and condoned – the disgusting torture by the Iraqi government of detainees, some of whom were murdered while bound.

This is a very incomplete list.

Yes, Chelsea Manning broke the law – in observance of a higher law, one that compels those of good conscience to expose criminal and unethical behavior by those who hold power. For that, she should be honored, not jailed or demonized.

That all too many conservatives don’t understand this isn’t surprising – ever since William F. Buckley, Jr., abjured the libertarian origins of the Old Right to crusade for “a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores,” conservatives of the National Review sort have been the enemies of the good.

Nor is it shocking that leading Democrats, such as Sen. Bob Menendez, are denouncing the commutation: “You cannot ultimately put the United States at risk because of your individual actions by making public critical documents that are classified and secret.” Recently indicted for corruption, Sen. Menendez is here adding moral corruption to his record as a public servant: for the idea that the State and its alleged “security” must trump matters of morality and individual conscience is the essence of the authoritarian – and profoundly anti-American — mindset.

Although as of this writing President-elect Trump has not made any public statement on the Manning case, his spokesman, Sean Spicer, claims the PEOTUS is “troubled” by the commutation of what had been a 35-year sentence:

”You have an individual who’s convicted of espionage sentenced to 35 years in jail and … to see someone who has given away this country’s secrets and been convicted of it through military court, it’s disappointing. And it sends a very troubling message when it comes to the handling of classified information and … consequences to those who leak information that threatens the safety of our nation.”

It’s hard to know what else any US government spokesman could say: it is the nature of governments, all governments, to guard their secrets. And it is hard to see how any secrets can be kept if they are allowed to “leak” promiscuously – and yet this is precisely what government officials do all the time, most recently (and outrageously) those intelligence officials who are leaking evidence-free allegations against the incoming President.

Which is why I continue to be astonished at President Obama’s act: it runs contrary to everything we libertarians know about the nature of government. But there you have it. One can only thank him, and hope that Chelsea will get over the trauma she’s endured while continuing to crusade on behalf of justice and transparency.

6 Tips for Avoiding the Worst Student Loan Repayment Traps

January 20, 2017

by Ron Lieber

The New York Times

Whether or not you believe the allegations, the jaw-dropping dossier of sins that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau accuses the nation’s largest student loan servicer of committing is useful for two crucial reasons.

First, it’s a reminder of just how much can go wrong when we force inexperienced young adults, especially, to navigate a complex financial services offering. We shouldn’t be surprised, but we should be ashamed: Elected representatives cut support for higher education; sticker prices rose; teenagers and others applied for admission, signed up for debt and, in many cases, finished their degrees. Then came the bombardment of confusing loan and repayment options.

Nobody stitched this crazy quilt on purpose, but most clear-thinking humans who approach the system for the first time conclude that we are insane for allowing it to evolve this way.

Second, the bureau’s complaint offers a road map of sorts. For every major infraction that it accuses Navient, the servicer in question, of committing, there is at least one defensive move that borrowers can make to sniff out problems or keep them from happening in the first place.

Let’s take them in order:

  • KNOW YOUR LOANS Staying out of trouble with a student loan servicer starts with two questions: How much do you owe, and to whom? Answering those questions is confusing to newcomers for a couple of reasons. First, the servicer of the loan — the entity that collects payments and takes requests for any adjustments — is often not the original lender.

You can usually answer both questions at once for federal loans (those that come from the Education Department) through the National Student Loan Data System, where you’ll need to set up an online account.

Sorting out your private loans (those that come from banks and other similar entities) can be harder. Check copies of your credit report from the three major credit bureaus via annualcreditreport.com if you think you may have lost track of a loan, as lenders will almost always report the existence of the loan to the bureaus.

  • INCOME-DRIVEN PAYMENTS If you’ve got federal loans, you may be eligible for a payment plan that allows you to submit information on your income and family size and then reduce monthly payments to amounts that are affordable. Sometimes you don’t have to make any payments at all.

Not everyone knows that these programs exist. Savvy lawyers with big loans often do, but plenty of destitute people do not. And, the consumer bureau argues, Navient didn’t do a good enough job of explaining to borrowers that they might be eligible.

So all borrowers ought to educate themselves on the topic, just in case. And parents may want to check in with their college seniors and recent graduates, too. The Education Department’s repayment estimator tool can tell you whether you’re eligible. Elsewhere on the department’s website is a list of all the income-driven plans and some frequently asked questions.

You’ll need your loan servicer’s cooperation to enroll in an income-driven plan, and you may have questions for that servicer before you start. Here, Rohit Chopra offers a true pro tip: Don’t call. Instead, send your questions through your servicer’s messaging system.

“This gives you a paper trail,” said Mr. Chopra, who was the student loan ombudsman for the consumer agency before leaving for the Education Department and, later, the Consumer Federation of America, where he is now a senior fellow. Servicers often evaluate call center employees by how quickly they can get borrowers off the phone. When customers send messages, however, they often get standardized responses that are accurate because someone senior has vetted them.

  • STAY ENROLLED Signing up for an income-driven plan isn’t enough. You have to requalify each year with updated financial information, and the consumer bureau accused Navient of not properly informing borrowers of this fact or of the deadlines. As a result, many borrowers saw their payments jump, leading to budget chaos and a cascade of late payments and additional interest.

Don’t count on your servicer to inform you in large capital letters that THIS DEADLINE WILL COME EVERY YEAR. And don’t count on yourself to remember, either. Put it on your calendar for the month before your deadline and the week before your deadline, and on your spouse’s calendar, too, if you’re married. Tim Ranzetta, a financial literacy educator and advocate who once ran a business analyzing student lending data, also suggests using the FutureMe site to send yourself reminder emails that will arrive on the right days.

Yes, this should all be automated. There is bipartisan support for making it more so. So cross your fingers, but set up a flurry of redundant reminders in the meantime.

  • NO FORBEARANCE (IF POSSIBLE) If you run into trouble repaying your loan and you call your servicer to beg for help, it may offer you something called forbearance, which allows you to reduce or eliminate payments for a period of time. The interest, however, keeps adding up.

The consumer agency charged Navient with steering borrowers into forbearance when they may have had other, better options, including income-driven repayment plans. Why would it do that? Mr. Ranzetta believes that it may have something to do with how lenders pay servicers and whether the right incentives were in place to give the very best advice. He blogged about it in 2009 and 2010.

The bureau, which also nodded to that possibility in its complaint — and noted how much more time it can take to service borrowers who need hand-holding for income-driven repayment plans — believes that Navient may have cost consumers up to $4 billion in interest after putting people in multiple consecutive forbearances.

In a statement on its website, Navient said that it collects 60 percent less in compensation for borrowers it services who are in forbearance. It also disputed many other aspects of the bureau’s complaint.

If you have a private loan, your servicer probably doesn’t have any income-driven plans. But there still may be other options short of forbearance, like extending the term of a loan to lower payments. Here again, Mr. Chopra believes that you’ll have more success getting a list of all available possibilities if you make your inquiry in writing. Back when he was still at the consumer bureau, he posted a sample letter on its site for consumers to use.

  • DROPPING A CO-SIGNER Perhaps you had an older, more creditworthy relative co-sign your loan to qualify for a lower interest rate. And maybe you’re earning more as you get older, so you want to release that person from the legal obligation of repaying the loan if you can’t do it yourself. Servicers will often allow this if you make on-time payments for a certain number of consecutive months.

But, according to the consumer agency, Navient punished borrowers who had prepaid their loans and then skipped payments in subsequent months (with the company’s permission) by resetting the clock to zero on their consecutive monthly payment count. “It’s appalling,” said Lauren Asher, president of the nonprofit Institute for College Access & Success.

This gets to a larger, pervasive challenge that exists across lending land: How can you be absolutely sure that a bank or a servicer is crediting your payments exactly as you intend? Mr. Chopra suggests using the servicer’s own online interface, preferably with auto-debit if you’re sure you won’t bounce payments for lack of bank funds. That way, you can set things as you wish, check that it’s working for a few months and not have to write checks or push buttons in later months. You may get an interest rate discount for using auto-debit, too.

Don’t use your bank’s bill pay system, Mr. Chopra added, since the servicer may ignore any instructions you write on the check or in an attached memo. And if you just send a check through the mail yourself with nothing else in the envelope, beware. He said that in some big processing facilities, envelopes end up on conveyors that weigh them. If they sense there is nothing inside but a check, the envelope may undergo automatic processing where your instructions will be, you guessed it, ignored.

  • CHECK YOUR CREDIT (AGAIN) You can get a free copy of your credit report each year from the three major credit bureaus. One way to check up on your servicer is to grab a report every four months and then look for any late payments or other signs that things are amiss. The consumer bureau also accused Navient of potentially tarnishing the credit of disabled veterans and others who had received legal discharges of their loans.

If this all feels like yet another multi-item checklist for your checklist of multi-item checklists from all over your financial life, well, it is. I’m sorry. And the financial services industry isn’t, for the most part.

Any of the consumer bureau’s complaints sound familiar? If so, file a complaint with the bureau. Do it while you still can, since there’s a chance that our newly empowered elected officials will attempt to fire the bureau’s director, or strip the bureau of its power at the very least. “This is a reminder why it is so important that there is an independent consumer watchdog in Washington,” Ms. Asher said.

Obama administration spent billions to fix failing schools, and it didn’t work

January 19, 2017

by Emma Brown

The Washington Post

One of the Obama administration’s signature efforts in education, which pumped billions of federal dollars into overhauling the nation’s worst schools, failed to produce meaningful results, according to a federal analysis.

Test scores, graduation rates and college enrollment were no different in schools that received money through the School Improvement Grants program — the largest federal investment ever targeted to failing schools — than in schools that did not.

The Education Department published the findings on the website of its research division on Wednesday, hours before President Obama’s political appointees walked out the door.

“We’re talking about millions of kids who are assigned to these failing schools, and we just spent several billion dollars promising them things were going to get better,” said Andy Smarick, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who has long been skeptical that the Obama administration’s strategy would work. “Think of what all that money could have been spent on instead.”

The School Improvement Grants program has been around since the administration of President George W. Bush, but it received an enormous boost under Obama. The administration funneled $7 billion into the program between 2010 and 2015 — far exceeding the $4 billion it spent on Race to the Top grants.

The money went to states to distribute to their poorest-performing schools — those with exceedingly low graduation rates, or poor math and reading test scores, or both. Individual schools could receive up to $2 million per year for three years, on the condition that they adopt one of the Obama administration’s four preferred measures: replacing the principal and at least half the teachers, converting into a charter school, closing altogether, or undergoing a “transformation,” including hiring a new principal and adopting new instructional strategies, new teacher evaluations and a longer school day.

The Education Department did not track how the money was spent, other than to note which of the four strategies schools chose.

Arne Duncan, Obama’s education secretary from 2009 to 2016, said his aim was to turn around 1,000 schools every year for five years. “We could really move the needle, lift the bottom and change the lives of tens of millions of underserved children,” Duncan said in 2009.

Duncan often said that the administration’s school-improvement efforts did not get the attention they deserved, overshadowed by more-controversial efforts to encourage states to adopt new standards and teacher evaluations tied to tests.

The school turnaround effort, he told The Washington Post days before he left office in 2016, was arguably the administration’s “biggest bet.”

He and other administration officials sought to highlight individual schools that made dramatic improvements after receiving the money. But the new study released this week shows that, as a large-scale effort, School Improvement Grants failed.

Just a tiny fraction of schools chose the most dramatic measures, according to the new study. Three percent became charter schools, and 1 percent closed. Half the schools chose transformation, arguably the least intrusive option available to them.

“This outcome reminds us that turning around our lowest-performing schools is some of the hardest, most complex work in education and that we don’t yet have solid evidence on effective, replicable, comprehensive school improvement strategies,” said Dorie Nolt, an Education Department spokeswoman.

Nolt emphasized that the study focused on schools that received School Improvement Grants money between 2010 and 2013. The administration awarded a total of $3.5 billion to those schools, most of it stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. “Since then,” she said, “the program has evolved toward greater flexibility in the selection of school improvement models and the use of evidence-based interventions.”

Some education experts say that the administration closed its eyes to mounting evidence about the program’s problems in its own interim evaluations, which were released in the years after the first big infusion of cash.

The latest interim evaluation, released in 2015, found mixed results, with students at one-third of the schools showing no improvement or even sliding backward.

Even then, Duncan remained optimistic about the School Improvement Grants, which he said had — along with the Race to the Top grants — unleashed innovation across the country. Speaking about the two grant programs at a fast-improving high school in Boston in 2015, he argued that it would take time to see and measure their full effects.

“Here in Massachusetts, it actually took several years to see real improvement in some areas,” Duncan said at the time. “Scores were flat or even down in some subjects and grades for a while. Many people questioned whether the state should hit the brakes on change. But you had the courage to stick with it, and the results are clear to all.”

Smarick said he had never seen such a huge investment produce zero results.

That could end up being a gift, he said, from Duncan to Betsy DeVos, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for education secretary and is a prominent proponent of taxpayer-supported vouchers for private and religious schools.

Results from the School Improvement Grants have shored up previous research showing that pouring money into dysfunctional schools and systems does not work, Smarick said: “I can imagine Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump saying this is exactly why kids need school choice.”

The Assassination of Muhammad Zia

January 20, 2017

by Gregory Douglas

General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq ruled Pakistan from 1977 to 1988.. Appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976, General Zia-ul-Haq came to power after he overthrew ruling Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, after widespread civil disorder, in a bloodless military coup d’état on July 5, 1977 and imposed Martial Law. He assumed the post of President of Pakistan in 1978 which he held till his death on August 17, 1988.

His reign witnessed the enforcement of strict Islamic law within the country, the political stabilization of secession-threatening Balochistan following his setting-up of a separate military regime within the province, the passing of the controversial 8th Amendment into constitutional law, as well as the gradual privatization and subsequent rejuvenation of a previously declining economy.

He also fought a war by proxy in Afghanistan, aiding the Mujahidin against the superpower Soviet Union, in the Soviet-Afghan War. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the end of Détente, he was instrumental in providing United States-backed military aid to the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation and then later diverting them to the Kashmir cause in the late 1980s. His major contributions to the Mujahideen greatly aided them in inducing a complete Soviet withdrawal by 1988

Having become President in 1978, he secured his position as head of state through a referendum in 1984 which successfully ensured his rule as President for another five years. He lifted Martial Law and held partyless elections in 1985, and handpicked Muhammad Khan Junejo to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan. He dismissed Junejo’s government in May 1988 on several charges

Muhammad Zia ul-Haq was killed when a Pakistani Air Force plane exploded in midair and crashed in eastern Pakistan on August 17, 1988.

The American-made, four-engine C-130 exploded 10 minutes after it took off from Bahawalpur, 60 miles west of the Indian border, at about 4:30 P.M. The C-130, carried 30 people. There were no survivors.

Another casualty, on board at the time, was United States Ambassador, Arnold L. Raphel, who was accompanying General Zia.

Raphel was a career Foreign Service officer with extensive experience in the south Asian region.

Also killed were 10 of Pakistan’s senior army officers and Brig. Gen. Herbert M. Wassom, the chief American military attache in Pakistan.

The passengers were returning to Rawalpindi, headquarters for the Pakistani Army and President Zia’s base, after reviewing a field demonstration of the M-1 tank, which Pakistan was considering buying from the United States.

There is no question that the crash was due to sabotage. There was an onboard explosion that was caused by the activation of a device that was sensitive to altitude and set to trigger explosives when the aircraft reached a pre-determined height. Following the on board explosion, the plane went into a steep dive, recovered and regained altitude.

Then it dove a second time and crashed.

There were no distress signals from the pilot before the crash.

One witness who lived close to the crash site said by telephone that he saw the aircraft circle the field once before it exploded. ”The plane was emitting smoke, and then there was an explosion in the air,” said the witness, who refused to be further identified.

”The plane was engulfed in a big ball of fire, somersaulted and tumbled to the ground,” Azhar Imam Zaidi, a Government spokesman in Bahawalpur, was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. He said wreckage was strewn on a sandy plain six miles from the civilian airport. The Pakistani press agency reported that victims’ bodies were scattered over a large area.

In the background of the regime of Zia was the notorious BCCI, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. This was founded in 1972 by Agha Hasan Abedi and incorporated in Luxembourg and headquartered in London. At its peak years, the bank had almost 30,000 employees and over 400 branches in 78 countries, and assets in excess of US$20 billion, making it the 7th largest private bank in the world.

Subsequent investigations revealed that BCCI was involved in massive money laundering and other financial crimes and was deeply involved with the CIA in financing their illegal foreign operations. The CIA also made use of the professional services of the Lebanese-controlled Shakarchi Trading A.G. of Zurich.

Massive US investigations revealed that this company was the ”largest drug money laundering investigation ever conducted by U.S. law enforcement agencies.”

On July 5, 1991 customs and bank regulators in seven countries raided and locked down records of BCCI’s branch offices.

Investigators in the US and the UK revealed that BCCI had been “set up deliberately to avoid centralized regulatory review, and operated extensively in bank secrecy jurisdictions. Its affairs were extraordinarily complex. Its officers were sophisticated international bankers whose apparent objective was to keep their affairs secret, to commit fraud on a massive scale, and to avoid detection.”

And Zia was deeply involved in the international drug manufacturing and smuggling operations centered in Pakistan. The CIA was, and is, heavily involved with drugs and their drug profits ended up in accounts in the Habib Pakistani branch of BCCI.

As to the reason for Zia’s assassination, it is directly related to drug-running, funneling CIA clandestine funds to AlQueada. One of Pakistan’s senior general officers, Lieutenant General Fazle Huq, who ran drug running in northwest Pakistan for General Zia and used to meet regularly with CIA Director William Casey               .

Zia and his immediate circle began to siphon off monies from the BCCI accounts that the CIA deemed to be theirs and then threatened to throw the CIA out of Pakistan unless he personally received a larger percentage of the drug money profits.

By doing this, Zia signed his own death warrant.

The bomb that destroyed his aircraft, incidentally killing the American Ambassador, was placed on the plane by a Pakistani in the pay of the CIA, and who subsequently died in a ‘car accident,’ and the bomb fuse itself was flown into Pakistan in a diplomatic pouch after being assembled at Camp Peary in Virginia, a CIA asset near Williamsburg.

9 incredible things we learnt from the CIA’s declassified documents – aliens, psychic powers and invisible ink recipes

January 19, 2017

by Mark Molloy and Nick Allen

The Telegraph/UK

The CIA has just released around 13 million pages of declassified documents online spanning from the 1940s to the 1990s – so what have we learnt?

Discussions about assassinating Fidel Castro, information on Nazi war criminals and Cold War surveillance are among the trove of documents released under the Freedom of Information Act after pressure from activists.

Among the more unusual records include the CIA’s secret search for alien life, Uri Geller being ‘recruited’ by the agency and recipes for invisible ink.

  1. Uri Geller passed a psychic test

Spoonbender Uri Geller may have his sceptics, but the CIA were impressed by his psychic abilities after they tested his “clairvoyant” and “telepathic” abilities.

The US intelligence agency concluded he was a ‘convincing paranormal’ after secret experiments in 1973 which involved him successfully replicating the random drawings of an agent in a separate room.

“I did many things for the CIA,” Geller explained. “They wanted me to stand outside the Russian embassy in Mexico, and erase floppy discs being flown out by Russian agents.”

  1. The Stargate Project

The CIA was interested in the powers of Geller as part of the bizarre Stargate programme, a rather ambitious plan involving what the CIA called “remote viewing,” and trying to recruit “psychic warriors”.

  1. The CIA’s secret hunt for alien life

The CIA studied photographs of alleged sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOS).

One report featured an “unusual phenomenon” spotted on the Iranian / USSR border in June 1966, which lasted for around five minutes.

“We suddenly observed a brilliant white sphere approximating the colouration and intensity of [a] full bright moon,” the witness said.

“The sphere appeared suddenly and at the first sighting was approximately three times the size of a full moon.

“Toward the end of this period it became very faint and its enormous size seemed to fill the sky.”

  1. The threat of UFOS

Another report featured diagrams of what space craft from other worlds might look like and discussed if they were “a possible threat” to American security.

Pictures also showed agents experimenting with saucer-like objects.

“Since 1947, approximately 1,500 official reports of sightings have been received, of these about 20% are as yet unexplained,” one report says.

  1. Recipes for invisible ink

There were also recipes for making invisible ink published, and a report titled “How to open sealed letters”, showing how to get into people’s post without them knowing.

“Make a silver print, fixed and bleached in mercury chloride,” the recipe says. “To make visible, dip in hypo.”

The report adds: “Messages are printed on the human body with invisible ink. To destroy messages, the body should be scrubbed, and then washed with lime or lemon juice, to eradicate all markings.”

  1. Fidel Castro

The CIA was also interested in a conversation between American journalist Barbara Walters and Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro in 1977.

In the interview, Walters asks: “I sometimes feel that you feel everything, everything comes back to the CIA. When do you think -, or, do you have proof of the last CIA attack against you, the last plan, to perhaps assassinate you?”

  1. See into the future?

In 1980, it compiled a report into whether it was possible for clairvoyants to see in the future, or to use telekinesis to move objects.

“The report on “remote perturbation” said: “In view of the obvious military value of being able to disturb sensitive enemy equipment, it is to the advantage of the Army to assess the validity of the claims.”

  1. ‘Magician’ walks into laboratory

Another document discusses a so-called magician from Tbilisi, Georgia, who was apparently healing people with his hands in 1969, NewsTalk reports.

  1. The Berlin Tunnel project

During the Cold War, the CIA created a tunnel in Berlin to tap into the Soviet Army headquarters in the city.

Work began the using a US Air Force radar site and a warehouse in West Berlin as cover for the construction.

Construction took a year and the finished tunnel was 1,476 feet long. It ceased as an active operation in 1956, a report reveals.

 ‘Mein Kampf’: Murphy translation: Part 13

January 20, 2017

There have been a number of translations of Hitler’s seminal book. Most have been heavily editited so as to promulgate disinformation about Hitler’s views and remove passages that might offend the sensitive.

The Murphy translation is considered to be the most accurate and is being reprinted in toto here.

Our next publication of this work will be the unexpurgated original German edition.

German officialy- approved historians have recently released a highly doctored edition of ‘Mein Kampf’ that is selling very well in Germany.

Perhaps a free copy of the unredacted original work would do better in the same marketplace. Ed

 

VOLUME II: THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

 

CHAPTER VWELTANSCHAUUNG AND ORGANIZATION

The People’s State, which I have tried to sketch in general outline, will not become a reality in virtue of the simple fact that we know the indispensable conditions of its existence. It does not suffice to know what aspect such a State would present. The problem of its foundation is far more important. The parties which exist at present and which draw their profits from the State as it now is cannot be expected to bring about a radical change in the regime or to change their attitude on their own initiative. This is rendered all the more impossible because the forces which now have the direction of affairs in their hands are Jews here and Jews there and Jews everywhere. The trend of development which we are now experiencing would, if allowed to go on unhampered, lead to the realization of the Pan-Jewish prophecy that the Jews will one day devour the other nations and become lords of the earth.

In contrast to the millions of ‘bourgeois’ and ‘proletarian’ Germans, who are stumbling to their ruin, mostly through timidity, indolence and stupidity, the Jew pursues his way persistently and keeps his eye always fixed on his future goal. Any party that is led by him can fight for no other interests than his, and his interests certainly have nothing in common with those of the Aryan nations.

If we would transform our ideal picture of the People’s State into a reality we shall have to keep independent of the forces that now control public life and seek for new forces that will be ready and capable of taking up the fight for such an ideal. For a fight it will have to be, since the first objective will not be to build up the idea of the People’s State but rather to wipe out the Jewish State which is now in existence. As so often happens in the course of history, the main difficulty is not to establish a new order of things but to clear the ground for its establishment. Prejudices and egotistic interests join together in forming a common front against the new idea and in trying by every means to prevent its triumph, because it is disagreeable to them or threatens their existence.

That is why the protagonist of the new idea is unfortunately, in spite of his desire for constructive work, compelled to wage a destructive battle first, in order to abolish the existing state of affairs.

A doctrine whose principles are radically new and of essential importance must adopt the sharp probe of criticism as its weapon, though this may show itself disagreeable to the individual followers.

It is evidence of a very superficial insight into historical developments if the so-called folkists emphasize again and again tha they will adopt the use of negative criticism under no circumstances but will engage only in constructive work. That is nothing but puerile chatter and is typical of the whole lot of folkists. It is another proof that the history of our own times has made no impression on these minds.

Marxism too has had its aims to pursue and it also recognizes constructive work, though by this it understands only the establishment of despotic rule in the hands of international Jewish finance.

Nevertheless for seventy years its principal work still remains in the field of criticism. And what disruptive and destructive criticism it has been! Criticism repeated again and again, until the corrosive acid ate into the old State so thoroughly that it finally crumbled to pieces.

Only then did the so-called ‘constructive’ critical work of Marxism begin. And that was natural, right and logical. An existing order of things is not abolished by merely proclaiming and insisting on a new one. It must not be hoped that those who are the partisans of the existing order and have their interests bound up with it will be converted and won over to the new movement simply by being shown that something new is necessary. On the contrary, what may easily happen is that two different situations will exist side by side and that a WELTANSCHAUUNG is transformed into a party, above which level it will not be able to raise itself afterwards. For a WELTANSCHAUUNG is intolerant and cannot permit another to exist side by side with it. It imperiously demands its own recognition as unique and exclusive and a complete transformation in accordance with its views throughout all the branches of public life. It can never allow the previous state of affairs to continue in existence by its side.

And the same holds true of religions.

Christianity was not content with erecting an altar of its own. It had first to destroy the pagan altars. It was only in virtue of this passionate intolerance that an apodictic faith could grow up. And intolerance is an indispensable condition for the growth of such a faith.

It may be objected here that in these phenomena which we find throughoutthe history of the world we have to recognize mostly a specifically Jewish mode of thought and that such fanaticism and intolerance are typical symptoms of Jewish mentality. That may be a thousandfold true; and it is a fact deeply to be regretted. The appearance of intolerance and fanaticism in the history of mankind may be deeply regrettable, and it may be looked upon as foreign to human nature, but the fact does not change conditions as they exist to-day. The men who wish to liberate our German nation from the conditions in which it now exists cannot cudgel their brains with thinking how excellent it would be if this or that had never arisen. They must strive to find ways and means of abolishing what actually exists. A philosophy of life which is inspired by an infernal spirit of intolerance can only be set aside by a doctrine that is advanced in an equally ardent spirit and fought for with as determined a will and which is itself a new idea, pure and absolutely true.

Each one of us to-day may regret the fact that the advent of Christianity was the first occasion on which spiritual terror was introduced into the much freer ancient world, but the fact cannot be denied that ever since then the world is pervaded and dominated by this kind of coercion and that violence is broken only by violence and terror by terror. Only then can a new regime be created by means of constructive work. Political parties are prone to enter compromises; but a WELTANSCHAUUNG never does this. A political party is inclined to adjust its teachings with a view to meeting those of its opponents, but a WELTANSCHAUUNG proclaims its own infallibility.

In the beginning, political parties have also and nearly always the intention of securing an exclusive and despotic domination for themselves. They always show a slight tendency to become WELTANSCHHAUUNG. But the limited nature of their programme is in itself enough to rob them of that heroic spirit which a WELTANSCHAUUNG demands. The spirit of conciliation which animates their will attracts those petty and chicken-hearted people who are not fit to be protagonists in any crusade. That is the reason why they mostly become struck in their miserable pettiness very early on the march. They give up fighting for their ideology and, by way of what they call ‘positive collaboration,’ they try as quickly as possible to wedge themselves into some tiny place at the trough of the existent regime and to stick there as long as possible. Their whole effort ends at that. And if they should get shouldered away from the common manger by a competition of more brutal manners then their only idea is to force themselves in again, by force or chicanery, among the herd of all the others who have similar appetites, in order to get back into the front row, and finally—even at the expense of their most sacred convictions–participate anew in that beloved spot where they find their fodder. They are the jackals of politics.

But a general WELTANSCHAUUNG will never share its place with something else. Therefore it can never agree to collaborate in any order of things that it condemns. On the contrary it feels obliged to employ every means in fighting against the old order and the whole world of ideas belonging to that order and prepare the way for its destruction.

These purely destructive tactics, the danger of which is so readily perceived by the enemy that he forms a united front against them for his common defence, and also the constructive tactics, which must be aggressive in order to carry the new world of ideas to success—both these phases of the struggle call for a body of resolute fighters. Any new philosophy of life will bring its ideas to victory only if the most courageous and active elements of its epoch and its people are enrolled under its standards and grouped firmly together in a powerful fighting organization. To achieve this purpose it is absolutely necessary to select from the general system of doctrine a certain number of ideas which will appeal to such individuals and which, once they are expressed in a precise and clear-cut form, will serve as articles of faith for a new association of men. While the programme of the ordinary political party is nothing but the recipe for cooking up favourable results out of the next general elections, the programme of a WELTANSCHAUUNG represents a declaration of war against an existing order of things, against present conditions, in short, against the established WELTANSCHAUUNG.

It is not necessary, however, that every individual fighter for such a new doctrine need have a full grasp of the ultimate ideas and plans of those who are the leaders of the movement. It is only necessary that each should have a clear notion of the fundamental ideas and that he should thoroughly assimilate a few of the most fundamental principles, so that he will be convinced of the necessity of carrying the movement and its doctrines to success. The individual soldier is not initiated in the knowledge of high strategical plans. But he is trained to submit to a rigid discipline, to be passionately convinced of the justice and inner worth of his cause and that he must devote himself to it without reserve. So, too, the individual follower of a movement must be made acquainted with its far-reaching purpose, how it is inspired by a powerful will and has a great future before it.

Supposing that each soldier in an army were a general, and had the training and capacity for generalship, that army would not be an efficient fighting instrument. Similarly a political movement would not be very efficient in fighting for a WELTANSCHAUUNG if it were made up exclusively of intellectuals. No, we need the simple soldier also. Without him no discipline can be established.

By its very nature, an organization can exist only if leaders of high intellectual ability are served by a large mass of men who are emotionally devoted to the cause. To maintain discipline in a company of two hundred men who are equally intelligent and capable would turn out more difficult in the long run than in a company of one hundred and ninety less gifted men and ten who have had a higher education.

The Social-Democrats have profited very much by recognizing this truth. They took the broad masses of our people who had just completed military service and learned to submit to discipline, and they subjected this mass of men to the discipline of the Social-Democratic organization, which was no less rigid than the discipline through which the young men had passed in their military training. The Social-Democratic organization consisted of an army divided into officers and men. The German worker who had passed through his military service became the private soldier in that army, and the Jewish intellectual was the officer. The German trade union functionaries may be compared to the non-commissioned officers. The fact, which was always looked upon with indifference by our middle-classes, that only the so-called uneducated classes joined Marxism was the very ground on which this party achieved its success. For while the bourgeois parties, because they mostly consisted of intellectuals, were only a feckless band of undisciplined individuals, out of much less intelligent human material the Marxist leaders formed an army of party combatants who obey their Jewish masters just as blindly as they formerly obeyed their German officers. The German middle-classes, who never; bothered their heads about psychological problems because they felt themselves superior to such matters, did not think it necessary to reflect on the profound significance of this fact and the secret danger involved in it. Indeed they believed. that a political movement which draws its followers exclusively from intellectual circles must, for that very reason, be of greater importance and have better grounds for its chances of success, and even a greater probability of taking over the government of the country than a party made up of the ignorant masses. They completely failed to realize the fact that the strength of a political party never consists in the intelligence and independent spirit of the rank-and-file of its members but rather in the spirit of willing obedience with which they follow their intellectual leaders. What is of decisive importance is the leadership itself. When two bodies of troops are arrayed in mutual combat victory will not fall to that side in which every soldier has an expert knowledge of the rules of strategy, but rather to that side which has the best leaders and at the same time the best disciplined, most blindly obedient and best drilled troops.

That is a fundamental piece of knowledge which we must always bear in mind when we examine the possibility of transforming a WELTANSCHAUUNG into a practical reality.

If we agree that in order to carry a WELTANSCHAUUNG into practical effect it must be incorporated in a fighting movement, then the logical consequence is that the programme of such a movement must take account of the human material at its disposal. Just as the ultimate aims and fundamental principles must be absolutely definite and unmistakable, so the propagandist programme must be well drawn up and must be inspired by a keen sense of its psychological appeals to the minds of those without whose help the noblest ideas will be doomed to remain in the eternal, realm of ideas.

If the idea of the People’s State, which is at present an obscure wish,bis one day to attain a clear and definite success, from its vague and vast mass of thought it will have to put forward certain definite principles which of their very nature and content are calculated to attract a broad mass of adherents; in other words, such a group of people as can guarantee that these principles will be fought for. That group of people are the German workers.

That is why the programme of the new movement was condensed into few fundamental postulates, twenty-five in all. They are meant first of all to give the ordinary man a rough sketch of what the movement is aiming at. They are, so to say, a profession of faith which on the one hand is meant to win adherents to the movement and, on the other, they are meant to unite such adherents together in a covenant to which all have subscribed.

In these matters we must never lose sight of the following: What we call the programme of the movement is absolutely right as far as its ultimate aims are concerned, but as regards the manner in which that programme is formulated, certain psychological considerations had to be taken into account. Hence, in the course of time, the opinion may well arise that certain principles should be expressed differently and might be better formulated. But any attempt at a different formulation has afatal effect in most cases. For something that ought to be fixed and unshakable thereby becomes the subject of discussion. As soon as one point alone is removed from the sphere of dogmatic certainty, the discussion will not simply result in a new and better formulation which will have greater consistency but may easily lead to endless debates and general confusion. In such cases the question must always be carefully considered as to whether a new and more adequate formulation is to be preferred, though it may cause a controversy within the movement, or whether it may not be better to retain the old formula which, though probably not the best, represents an organism enclosed in itself, solid and internally homogeneous. All experience shows that the second o these alternatives is preferable. For since in these changes one is dealing only with external forms such corrections will always appear desirable and possible. But in the last analysis the generality of people think superficially and therefore the great danger is that in what is merely an external formulation of the programme people will see an essential aim of the movement. In that way the will and the combative force at the service of the ideas are weakened and the energies that ought to be directed towards the outer world are dissipated in programmatic discussions within the ranks of the movement.

For a doctrine that is actually right in its main features it is less dangerous to retain a formulation which may no longer be quite adequate instead of trying to improve it and thereby allowing a fundamental principle of the movement, which had hitherto been considered as solid as granite, to become the subject of a general discussion which may have unfortunate consequences. This is particularly to be avoided as long as a movement is still fighting for victory. For would it be possible to inspire people with blind faith in the truth of a doctrine if doubt and uncertainty are encouraged by continual alterations in its external formulation?

The essentials of a teaching must never be looked for in its external formulas, but always in its inner meaning. And this meaning is unchangeable. And in its interest one can only wish that a movement should exclude everything that tends towards disintegration and uncertainty in order to preserve the unified force that is necessary for its triumph.

Here again the Catholic Church has a lesson to teach us. Though sometimes, and often quite unnecessarily, its dogmatic system is in conflict with the exact sciences and with scientific discoveries, it is not disposed to sacrifice a syllable of its teachings. It has rightly recognized that its powers of resistance would be weakened by introducing greater or less doctrinal adaptations to meet the temporary conclusions of science, which in reality are always vacillating. And thus it holds fast to its fixed and established dogmas which alone can give to the whole system the character of a faith. And that is the reason why it stands firmer to-day than ever before. We may prophesy that, as a fixed pole amid fleeting phenomena, it will continue to attract increasing numbers of people who will be blindly attached to it the more rapid the rhythm of changing phenomena around

Therefore whoever really and seriously desires that the idea of the People’s State should triumph must realize that this triumph can be assured only through a militant movement and that this movement must ground its strength only on the granite firmness of an impregnable and firmly coherent programme. In regard to its formulas it must never make concessions to the spirit of the time but must maintain the form that has once and for all been decided upon as the right one; in any case until victory has crowned its efforts. Before this goal has been reached any attempt to open a discussion on the opportuneness of this or that point in the programme might tend to disintegrate the solidity and fighting strength of the movement, according to the measures in which its followers might take part in such an internal dispute. Some ‘improvements’ introduced to-day might be subjected to a critical examination to-morrow, in order to substitute it with something better the day after. Once the barrier has been taken down the road is opened and we know only the beginning, but we do not know to what shoreless sea it may lead.

This important principle had to be acknowledged in practice by the members of the National Socialist Movement at its very beginning. In its programme of twenty-five points the National Socialist German Labour Party has been furnished with a basis that must remain unshakable. The members of the movement, both present and future, must never feel themselves called upon to undertake a critical revision of these leading postulates, but rather feel themselves obliged to put them into practice as they stand. Otherwise the next generation would, in its turn and with equal right, expend its energy in such purely formal work within the party, instead of winning new adherents to the movement and thus adding to its power. For the majority of our followers the essence of the movement will consist not so much in the letter of our theses but in the meaning that we attribute to them.

The new movement owes its name to these considerations, and later on its programme was drawn up in conformity with them. They are the basis of our propaganda. In order to carry the idea of the People’s State to victory, a popular party had to be founded, a party that did not consist of intellectual leaders only but also of manual labourers. Any attempt to carry these theories into effect without the aid of a militant organization would be doomed to failure to-day, as it has failed in the past and must fail in the future. That is why the movement is not only justified but it is also obliged to consider itself as the champion and representative of these ideas. Just as the fundamental principles of the National Socialist Movement are based on the folk idea, folk ideas are National Socialist. If National Socialism would triumph it will have to hold firm to this fact unreservedly, and here again it has not only the right but also the duty to emphasize most rigidly that any attempt to represent the folk idea outside of the National Socialist German Labour Party is futile and in most cases fraudulent.

If the reproach should be launched against our movement that it has ‘monopolized’ the folk idea, there is only one answer to give.

Not only have we monopolized the folk idea but, to all practical intents and purposes, we have created it.

For what hitherto existed under this name was not in the least capable of influencing the destiny of our people, since all those ideas lacked a political and coherent formulation. In most cases they are nothing but isolated and incoherent notions which are more or less right. Quite frequently these were in open contradiction to one another and in no case was there any internal cohesion among them. And even if this internal cohesion existed it would have been much too weak to form the basis of any movement.

Only the National Socialist Movement proved capable of fulfilling thistask.

All kinds of associations and groups, big as well as little, now claim the title VÖLKISCH. This is one result of the work which National Socialism has done. Without this work, not one of all these parties would have thought of adopting the word VÖLKISCH at all. That expression would have meant nothing to them and especially their directors would never have had anything to do with such an idea. Not until the work of the German National Socialist Labour Party had given this idea a pregnant meaning did it appear in the mouths of all kinds of people. Our party above all, by the success of its propaganda, has shown the force of the folk idea; so much so that the others, in an effort to gain proselytes, find themselves forced to copy our example, at least in words.

Just as heretofore they exploited everything to serve their petty electoral purposes, to-day they use the word VÖLKISCH only as an external and hollow-sounding phrase for the purpose of counteracting the force of the impression which the National Socialist Party makes on the members of those other parties. Only the desire to maintain their existence and the fear that our movement may prevail, because it is based on a WELTANSCHAUUNG that is of universal importance, and because they feel that the exclusive character of our movement betokens danger for them–only for these reasons do they use words which they repudiated eight years ago, derided seven years ago, branded as stupid six years ago, combated five years ago, hated four years ago, and finally, two years ago, annexed and incorporated them in their present political vocabulary, employing them as war slogans in their struggle.

And so it is necessary even now not to cease calling attention to the fact that not one of those parties has the slightest idea of what the German nation needs. The most striking proof of this is represented by the superficial way in which they use the word VÖLKISCH.

Not less dangerous are those who run about as semi-folkists formulating fantastic schemes which are mostly based on nothing else than a fixed idea which in itself might be right but which, because it is an isolated notion, is of no use whatsoever for the formation of a great homogeneous fighting association and could by no means serve as the basis of its organization. Those people who concoct a programme which consists partly of their own ideas and partly of ideas taken from others, about which they have read somewhere, are often more dangerous than the outspoken enemies of the VÖLKISCH idea. At best they are sterile theorists but more frequently they are mischievous agitators of the public mind. They believe that they can mask their intellectual vanity, the futility of their efforts, and their lack of stability, by sporting flowing beards and indulging in ancient German gestures.

In face of all those futile attempts, it is therefore worth while to recall the time when the new National Socialist Movement began its fight.

 

 

 

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