Mar 17

Today’s News 17th March 2019

  • Trump's Coup In Venezuela: What You're Not Being Told

    Authored by Jorge Martin via Venezuelanalysis.com,

    Washington is growing increasingly desperate as its coup efforts go further south in Venezuela…

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    The failure of the February 23 “humanitarian aid” provocation on the Venezuelan border was a serious blow for Trump’s ongoing coup attempt. There were mutual recriminations between self-appointed Guaidó, Colombian President Duque and US Vice-President Pence. The US could not get a consensus from its own Lima Cartel allies in favour of military intervention.

    The coup was losing momentum. Then, on March 7, just days after Guaidó’s anti-climactic return to Caracas, the country was plunged into a nationwide blackout from which it has not yet fully recovered. What caused it? How is it related to the “regime change” attempt? And, most importantly, what are imperialism’s plans and how can they be fought?

    February 23 was supposed to be the coup’s D-Day. The idea was never to actually deliver “humanitarian aid” into the country, but rather to create a “people’s power” moment, where large crowds of opposition supporters on both sides of the border defied the Venezuelan armed forces, which, when faced with a large crowd of peaceful demonstrators, would then switch sides and join Trump’s puppet, Juan Guaidó. On the day, however, things did not go according to Washington’s plan. The crowds of opposition supporters did not materialise in the expected numbers. “Aid” trucks did not cross the border and by the end of the day, Rubio, Abrams and Guaidó were left with egg all over their faces.

    They made a big story about “Maduro burning the aid trucks” at the Santander bridge on the Colombian border. US officials even insisted this justified military intervention under the Geneva Convention. Never mind the fact that the Convention only applies in cases of war, the fact is that the aid truck that was burned was set on fire by a “peaceful” opposition supporter throwing a molotov cocktail at the Venezuelan border guards. Several media outlets (teleSUR, RT) explained that this was the case right from the beginning and even produced video footage to prove it. That did not stop US officials like Marco Rubio and John Bolton from blaming Maduro and the chorus of the world’s bourgeois mass media from parroting the lie:

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    Now, two weeks too late, even the New York Times has been forced to admit that “one [Venezuelan government] claim that appears to be backed up by video footage is that the protesters started the fire.” The same NY Timesinvestigation also concludes that the Venezuelan government was right in saying the US and the opposition were lying about the trucks containing medicine: “the claim about a shipment of medicine, too, appears to be unsubstantiated, according to videos and interviews.”

    The admission by the NY Times, though it is unlikely to be covered as widely as the initial false reports, is very significant. We knew the US was lying, right from the beginning, as there was proof. Now it has been forced to admit it. This should provide a salutary lesson for the next time the US or its Venezuelan opposition make any outrageous claims about the “Maduro regime.” The lesson is: “question everything Washington and the mass media tell you about a government they want to overthrow.”

    That evening, as if on cue, the Venezuelan opposition social media operation started to explode with the hashtag #IntervencionMilitarYA (#MilitaryInterventionNOW), aimed at putting pressure on the US and its allies to launch a military intervention in the country. The campaign is very revealing as to the character of the opposition (pro-imperialist and traitors to their own country), but also as to the morale of their ranks (they do not think they are the agents of “change” but rather invest all their hopes in Trump).

    Having been defeated on February 23, the meeting of the Lima Group of countries in Bogotá the following morning was a further setback. Let us remember that the Lima Group (more accurately known as the “Lima Cartel”) is an ad-hoc group of countries created with the explicit aim of overthrowing the Venezuelan government when the US could not get enough votes at the Organisation of American States for its bellicose resolutions. Before the meeting even started, there were public statements by Chile, Brazil and Paraguay explicitly ruling out military intervention.

    The case of Brazil is noteworthy because there is a major split within Bolsonaro’s cabinet, and between him and the Armed Forces. Under pressure from the generals and his own vice-president, General Hamilton Mourão, the far-right president has been forced to retreat from several of his public statements, specifically, support for the transfer of the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem and granting the US army access to a military base in Brazil. When the Lima Group decided in January to cut off all contact with the Venezuelan armed forces, the Brazilians kept communication lines open. The Brazilian army went as far as vetoing the presence of US soldiers in the border with Venezuela as part of the so-called “humanitarian aid” operation on 23 February.

    Contrary to the attitude of the Colombian state, which turned a blind eye and even helped the opposition rioters on the border with Venezuela, the Brazilians contained them and prevented clashes. The reason is not that the Brazilian generals are in any way progressive, nor that they stand by the principle of sovereignty, but rather they understand that any major conflict in Venezuela, including the possibility of a civil war, could have a major impact on Brazil, with which it shares a large and inhospitable border. The last thing the Brazilian generals want is accidentally getting sucked into a major armed conflict in Venezuela, which they know would not be a simple affair.

    Faced with such reluctance, the Bogotá meeting on 25 February ended with a statement that used strong words of condemnation and issued unspecified threats, but did not contain any serious commitment to the next steps in the “regime change” operation. The US announced the inclusion of a few more Venezuelan officials on their sanctions list, including four regional governors. Hardly the “military intervention now” that the opposition demanded.

    Media reports have talked of recriminations from Mike Pence (who had cut off his trip to South Korea to attend the meeting) to Guaidó. According to one report, Pence told Guaidó that “everything was failing in the offensive against the chavista regime, the biggest complaint was because of the continued loyalty of the armed forces to Maduro.” Apparently, Guaidó had promised the US that if they were to get “the main world leaders to recognise him… at least half of the high ranking officers would defect. It didn’t happen.” The other main criticism was regarding the Venezuelan opposition’s appraisal that Maduro’s “social base had disintegrated. The crisis revealed that support for the government has in fact diminished, but is not inexistent”.

    Of course, one should take such reports with a pinch of salt as sources are not quoted. However, the general frustration of the US with the Venezuelan coup is very real and makes this particular report plausible. Another reportin the Wall Street Journal talked of Chilean President Piñera and Colombian President Duque also being angry at Guaidó at the meeting:

    “The opposition had publicly sold the plan by promising that an outpouring of Venezuelans on both sides of the border would link up, Mr. Maduro’s security forces would back down and truckloads of aid would enter for hungry Venezuelans. ‘I think they built up expectations that weren’t carried out,’ said an opposition operative who was familiar with the discussions. ‘They built up that there was going to be more aid, that it would get in. And that the military would rise up. And it didn’t happen that way.’”

    The WSJ article is quite detailed:

    “‘As time passed, [Piñera] kept asking Guaidó where are the people who are coming from the other side?’ said the person. The responses weren’t satisfactory, he added. ‘Everything failed: coordination, information, organization,’ said a senior Latin American official.”

    The picture painted here is of an angry exchange in which all blamed Guaidó, when in reality Washington is responsible for the whole design of the coup. The US officials in charge of the coup were so frustrated that they started a completely ridiculous polemic against the media (CNN included), which had started to described Guaidó as “self-proclaimed” or “leader of the opposition” as opposed to giving him the title of “the interim president,” a title that Washington had worked so hard to create:

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    The hawks in Trump’s administration – Bolton, Pompeo and Abrams – made a series of fatal miscalculations.

    First, they assumed Maduro had no support whatsoever, underestimating the strength of anti-imperialist feeling in the face of a brazen US coup attempt, and the fact that, while support for Chavismo has diminished, it still managed to get over 30 percent of the census to vote for Maduro a year ago. Moreover, in the last few weeks, there has been a series of impressive, anti-imperialist mass rallies led by Diosdado Cabello in all states in the country.

    Second, they thought that the opposition was able to mobilise large numbers of people who are prepared to go all the way in an open clash with the government. In fact, the opposition ranks, having been betrayed by their own leaders in 2017 and defeated in their previous attempts in 2013 and 2014, are distrustful of the opposition leaders and sceptical about their own ability to remove the government they hate. They have put all their illusions and hopes in a US-led military intervention and that is a state of mind which can produce a large rally (for instance on January 23) but not a sustained mobilisation to overthrow Maduro.

    The failure of February 23 furthermore left Guaidó abroad, in Colombia. He thought he would come back victorious, at the head of a US convoy of “humanitarian aid,” but found himself having violated a court order not to leave the country and stranded in Bogotá. He started a short tour of Latin America, on board a Colombian plane, but soon the US called him to order. He discarded a plan to continue his tour in Europe and was told in no uncertain terms that he had to return to Venezuela as “he was losing momentum.”

    Again, Abrams, Bolton and Rubio attempted to build up Guaidó’s return as another D-Day, baiting Maduro to arrest him on arrival in order to build a casus belli for foreign intervention. It resulted in another flop. Guaidó returned on March 4, the assembled EU ambassadors received him at the airport and then he went to a rally in the east of Caracas… But to his disappointment and that of his minders in the US, he was not arrested (although he should have been arrested, there were plenty of reasons to do so).

    Blackout

    Then came the blackout. Starting on Thursday, March 7, just before 5pm, a major power failure affected 18 out of the country’s 23 states and the Capital District. In Caracas, the Metro stopped working and tens of thousands had to walk their way home, in the dark. After a few hours it became clear that this was a major incident and power would not be restored quickly. The government decreed Friday a national holiday.

    The country’s main electricity generator, the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric plant, known as El Guri Dam, had crashed. El Guri produces about 80 percent of the country’s electricity and restoring it is a delicate operation. It is now more than four days since the initial incident and power is only slowly being restored in many parts of the country. Over the weekend, on several occasions, electricity was returned to different parts of the country, only to be switched off again.

    The situation is serious. The government decreed another holiday for March 11 and 12. Back-up electricity generators keep power supply to essential installations, like hospitals, but there are serious problems with public transport. Shops do not accept card payments and many have increased prices and resorted to only accepting payment in dollars. There are also problems with the water supply, telecommunications (phone and internet) are very intermittent, and food stored in fridges and freezers risks being lost, etc.

    The government has blamed the blackout on sabotage at El Guri and of course Washington and the opposition have been quick to reject such idea, blaming the power cut on a wildfire affecting the 765Kv power line between El Guri and the Malena substation. This would have brought down the power line and then in turn triggered a security stoppage at the El Guri Hydro plant. However, the opposition have produced no actual evidence of such a fire and the New York Times correspondent Anatoly Kurmanaev has rejected this hypothesis:

    The government’s claim is that there was a cyberattack against the system that controls the El Guri turbines and regulates power generation and supply down the 765KV line to Malena. The government has also declared that, when power was restored on Saturday, March 9, there was another such attack, and that these attacks have been carried out by US imperialism.

    For those tempted to dismiss these accusations as a “conspiracy theory,” let us look at the following facts. First, the US and the mass media blatantly lied about the burning of the “aid” truck just two weeks ago. Furthermore, what credibility has Marco Rubio got? On March 10, he tweeted there had been an explosion at a “German Dam,” when in reality a Venezuelan opposition journalist by the name of Germán Dam had reported an explosion at a power substation.

    In an even more callous twist, Rubio “reported” 80 babies having died at a hospital in Maracaibo due to the blackout, only to be corrected by the chief of the Wall Street Journal South America Bureau: the hospital had recorded no neonatal deaths. None. Zero. Ninguna. Why should we believe anythingthese people say?

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    Secondly, such an attack is possible and has been carried out before, even on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems that are not online. For those interested, just look up the US-and-Israeli-made Stuxnet virus, which was used to attack Iran’s nuclear power programme in 2010. That virus specifically attacked Siemens control systems, like many of those that run the El Guri turbines. An article in Forbes by a specialist admits:

    “In the case of Venezuela, the idea of a government like the United States remotely interfering with its power grid is actually quite realistic… Given the U.S. government’s longstanding concern with Venezuela’s government, it is likely that the U.S. already maintains a deep presence within the country’s national infrastructure grid, making it relatively straightforward to interfere with grid operations. The country’s outdated internet and power infrastructure present few formidable challenges to such operations and make it relatively easy to remove any traces of foreign intervention. Widespread power and connectivity outages like the one Venezuela experienced last week are also straight from the modern cyber playbook” [my emphasis].

    While the article in the end says a different scenario is highly likely, it nevertheless highlights “the inability to definitively discount U.S. or other foreign intervention.”

    Third, there is the matter of timing. The coup was stalling. Guaidó had returned to the country but was clearly losing momentum. What better time to implement a major attack on the electricity grid, to demonstrate that the government is not in control, turn the population against the government and further intensify the propaganda about “humanitarian crisis” and “chaos”? Minutes after the outage was reported, Rubio, Bolton and Guaidó were already furiously and callously tweeting blame for the government and almost gloating at peoples’ suffering. The blackout has also taken place just days before the arrival of the EU International Contact Group mission which is to investigate in situ whether there is a “humanitarian crisis” or not. How convenient!

    Of course, to any explanation of the blackout, its severity and its prolonged nature, we must add several other factors.

    One is the fact that the Venezuelan grid has been starved of investment and maintenance for several years, something the left wing of the Bolivarian movement has discussed openly. The US is quick to point out this as the main cause, forgetting that sanctions have prevented the country from re-negotiating its foreign debt, which has sucked in an increasing amount of the country’s foreign reserves. We must add that the Maduro government has chosen to pay the foreign debt and hand over preferential dollars to the capitalists rather than use these reserves differently. This means that sabotage is taking place in a system that has already been weakened and therefore can be more easily damaged.

    Another is the fact that thousands of workers have left their jobs in the industry as a result of the economic crisis which has destroyed completely the purchasing power of wages. The first to leave were the more experienced and highly skilled, precisely those who will be needed most now when it comes to bringing back a very delicate and finely tuned system. This process of abandonment was aggravated after the last currency conversion in August 2018, when the government destroyed collective bargaining and wage differentials in the public sector.

    A third is that some of these problems would have been alleviated, or perhaps prevented, had the workers in the industry maintained the levels of workers’ control introduced during the Chavez government. Let us not forget that electricity workers at one point were at the forefront of the struggle for workers’ control, which was undone by the bureaucracy.

    Finally, the more recent US sanctions on PDVSA have prevented Venezuela from importing and producing the fuel needed for the thermoelectric plants that should have provided a back up when El Guri Hydro went down.

    What next for imperialism?

    The situation in Venezuela depends greatly on factors that are developing behind the scenes. It is impossible to say what is actually happening in the military barracks and in the officers’ quarters. The whole policy of US imperialism is designed to put pressure on them, by making the situation in the country unbearable, so that the generals perhaps draw the conclusion that their interests might be best served by removing Maduro from power. This is achieved by sanctions designed to hurt the economy. The latest development on this front are the threats issued by Bolton and Abrams to punish, not only US companies trading with PDVSA or the Venezuelan government, but also financial institutions in third countries. The aim is clear: to completely strangle the Venezuelan economy until it chokes the government into giving up. This is a criminal policy that is hurting the poor and workers of Venezuela first and foremost, completely discrediting the idea that Washington is at all concerned about an alleged “humanitarian crisis.”

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    As we have argued before, this ongoing imperialist coup attempt can only be fought back with revolutionary measures, striking blows against the coup plotters at home and their puppet masters abroad. (Flickr/The White House)

    As for the possibility of military intervention, it is clear that the US would like Latin American countries to front it, but there is no appetite in the Lima Group for military adventures, which can prove costly and damaging. That leaves the US with very few options, the main one being to increase the pressure, through sanctions, sabotage, provocations, etc. This much was admitted by Elliot Abrams in a conversation with two Russian pranksterswhen he thought he was talking to the Swiss president. He said: “We think it is a mistake tactically to give them endless reassurances that there will never be American military action. But I can tell you this is not what we are doing. What we are doing is exactly what you see, financial pressure, economic pressure, diplomatic pressure.”

    To this we have to add the ideas likely harboured by some in the US administration about the creation of a “Free Venezuelan Army” and their “president” getting control of some territory (preferably close to the border, perhaps in Tachira), in a repeat of operations used in Syria and Libya. An article in Bloomberg has revealed that renegade Venezuelan former general Cliver Alcalá had a group of 200 armed men in Colombia ready to cross the border on 23 February, but he was stopped by the Colombians. Rubio has also played up the issue of military defectors and Guaidó met with a group of them in Cúcuta, praising them for “defecting” and warning that “we will have to cross back”.

    There is also a sense of urgency for the likes of Bolton, Pompeo, Abrams and Rubio. They hoped for a quick resolution in this push for “regime change” back in January, but they failed. They probably calculate that they need a resolution well before the 2020 election in the US. Frustration and impatience only make them more dangerous and ready to deploy tricks they have not yet used.

    As we have argued before, this ongoing imperialist coup attempt can only be fought back with revolutionary measures, striking blows against the coup plotters at home and their puppet masters abroad. That means arresting them and putting them on trial. Expropriating the coup-plotting oligarchy as well as the multinationals. Above all, the revolutionary organisation of the people from below needs to be strengthened by arming and developing the militias in every working-class neighbourhood, introducing workers control in all factories and workplaces and generally unleashing the revolutionary initiative of the masses.

    Internationally, we need to continue and strengthen the campaign against our own imperialist governments in the US, the EU and the Lima Group countries, all of whom are, to one degree or another involved in this reactionary plot.

  • Families Are Crossing Southern U.S. Border In Record Numbers

    Undocumented immigrants travelling in family units have been crossing the Southern U.S. border in record numbers, as inferred to by arrest counts from Customs and Border Protection. 

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    In February 2019, more than 36,000 people were apprehended while trying to cross the border with their families, exceeding the number of other apprehended people by almost 6,000. As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, the number of families arrested has pushed total border apprehensions to an 11-year high in February.

    The number of immigrants apprehended with their family in fiscal year 2019 so far (October-February) has also exceeded the record for most family apprehensions in a whole year, set in FY2018.

    Infographic: Families are Crossing Southern U.S. Border in Record Numbers | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    Recently, more immigrants that are coming across the Southern U.S. border have travelled from countries in Central America, like Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador, while undocumented immigrants from Mexico remain the largest group. These migrants often claim asylum because of political turmoil in their home countries. Family units have been travelling as part of larger groups of up to 100 people, which have been branded as “migrant caravans” by different media outlets.

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    Customs and Border Protection said they had apprehended groups of 100 or more people on 53 occasions since October on the U.S.-Mexico border.

  • Social Media, Universal Basic Income, & Cashless Society: How China's Social Credit System Is Coming To America

    Authored by Brandon Turbeville via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Some well-informed Americans may be aware of China’s horrifying “Social Credit System” that was recently unveiled as a method of eradicating any dissent in the totalitarian state. Essentially freezing out anyone who does not conform to the state’s version of the ideal citizen, the SCS is perhaps the most frightening control system being rolled out today. That is, until you consider what is coming next.

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    Unbeknownst to most people, there appears to be a real attempt to create a system in which all citizens are rationed their “wages” digitally each month in place of a paycheck, including the ability to gain or lose money. This system would see any form of dissent resulting in the cut off of those credits and the ability to work, eat, or even exist in society. It would not only be the end of dissent but of any semblance of real individuality.

    Here’s how the Social Credit System operates in China.

    First, however, for those who are unaware of the Social Credit System as it operates in China, we should briefly describe just what has taken place there. The Social Credit System in China isn’t merely a punishment for criticizing the state as is the case in most totalitarian regimes, the SCS can bring the hammer down for even the slightest infraction such as smoking in a non-smoking zone.

    One summary of the SCS can be found in Business Insider’s article by Alexandra Ma entitled “China has started ranking citizens with a creepy ‘social credit’ system — here’s what you can do wrong, and the embarrassing, demeaning ways they can punish you,” where Ma writes,

    The Chinese state is setting up a vast ranking system that will monitor the behavior of its enormous population, and rank them all based on their “social credit.”

    The “social credit system,” first announced in 2014, aims to reinforce the idea that “keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is disgraceful,” according to a government document.

    The program is due to be fully operational nationwide by 2020, but is being piloted for millions of people across the country already. The scheme will be mandatory.

    At the moment the system is piecemeal — some are run by city councils, others are scored by private tech platforms which hold personal data.

    Like private credit scores, a person’s social score can move up and down depending on their behavior. The exact methodology is a secret — but examples of infractions include bad driving, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games and posting fake news online. (source)

    The article points out that violating the “social code,” can result in being banned from flying or using the train, using the internet, decent schooling, getting a job, staying in hotels, and having your pet taken away. China is also taking advantage of the mob mentality by branding violators as “bad citizens.”

    Almost everyone one of these “punishments” have already taken place in China as of the writing of this article and the country has announced its plans to have the system fully in place and functioning by 2020.

    The most frightening part? That system is coming HERE. Soon.

    While most Americans have scarcely noticed their descent into a police state, they are quick to dismiss the idea that such a system could be implemented in the land they still perceive to be free. However, all the moving parts are in place in the United States. They only need to come together to form the Social Credit System here.

    And they are coming together.

    Social media is one important method of judging “social scores.” This is mainly because of the willful posting of social media users on virtually every aspect of their lives. This data is extremely useful to governments who monitor and store the information acquired freely by users who give away the most personal and intimate details of their lives and do so without charge.

    Whether it is political opinions, pictures of yourself and your food, or private conversations over Messenger, that data is being sent directly to the corporation and respective governments then have access to that data via a variety of means and they put that data to good use.

    But despite the fact that social media acts as a giant web, snatching users information and acting as a useful tool of NGOs and governments in engineering social movements and human behavior, major social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter have become ubiquitous and common. They are nearly as essential communication tools for the 21st Century as telephones were for the 20th.

    The Social Credit System goes along with the dark side of social media.

    This is also despite the fact that social media has been proven to make its users depressed, angry, and less social. Much like any other drug, however, social media is addictive, causing real-world loss of quality of life while the user simply cannot tear himself away even when he knows it is best for him to do so. For that reason, it appears social media, whatever platform it may take, is here to stay. It’s also an important part of the structure of the coming technological control grid.

    But beyond the negative effects social media has on the mind of the individual or in the creation of top-down social movements, the “internet mob mentality” has now become a fact of American life. Any celebrity, business owner, or just a regular person can be subject to digital flash mobbing simply as a result of a 2-second picture ( see the MAGA hat kids or the Chipotle girl, for instance) where a person’s reputation is destroyed, their job/business is lost, or their career is over as a result of virtue signaling and “outrage” by masses of people on the internet who are simply following what they believe the rest of the herd is doing. We are in the age of digital lynchings. It doesn’t matter whether the victim was truly wrong. What matters is that he/she is punished as harshly as possible.

    The Social Credit System goes along with the move to a cashless society.

    And then we must address the coming cashless society. Indeed, we already live in a world that is replacing cash with digital currency. In some cases, the move to become cashless is made by social engineering and predatory marketing to convenience. In others, such as India, the cashless society has been brought forward by law.

    As I have written in many articles in the past, cashless programs are almost always first introduced under the guise of convenience. Then, as more and more people take the bait, the older methods of payment are seen as cumbersome and, eventually, are phased out completely. Mandates then replace what was once a personal choice.

    Yet, what is so ironic about these programs is that, while the program is touted as providing so much more convenience, even when putting privacy and Cashless Society issues aside and, with the program running at its optimum, they aren’t often really much more convenient.

    But that doesn’t stop the rollouts and it certainly doesn’t stop the mandates. It’s as if people believe that masses of scientists, corporations, and DARPA are putting their noses to the grindstone for their convenience and not some other purpose. Do we really believe that those organizations have, as their top priority, our health, freedom, convenience, or happiness? Do we really believe this or do we just not think about it at all?

    Regardless, with the disappearance of cash also goes the ability to live outside the mandates of the State which has always been the goal of moving toward a cashless system. The United States is rapidly approaching the phase out of cash as a means of exchange. Don’t believe it? Just go to your local convenience store with a $100 dollar bill.

    Enter the Universal Basic Income scheme.

    Then there’s Universal Basic Income. The UBI has been tossed around as a legitimate solution to poverty and violation of workers’ rights for some time. It’s an old idea and even establishment philosophers/activists like Bertrand Russell espoused it in the early 20th Century. But while economists debate the idea’s success in regards to those two issues, no one seems to notice how the UBI, taken in concert with cashless society and social media addiction, will coalesce to produce just the world mentioned at the beginning of this article.

    Without getting into the details of why a UBI is a bad idea in terms of society and economics, it is still useful to point out that the building blocks of the technological control grid are already in place and, with a UBI, those building blocks form a rather solid foundation.

    Here’s how the Social Credit System is already being used in America.

    With the ubiquitous presence of social media and the current culture of social media outrage, the social credit scheme is already in place. The State only needs to implement a coherent strategy that is no doubt itself already in place and merely waiting to be rolled out. Already, employers are able to check prospective employees’ credit scores on a condition of hiring and many now require social media passwords for the same reason. The SCS is right around the corner.

    Pair the SCS with the UBI, however, and you can easily see how the SCS can be the litmus test for whether or not you receive your “benefits.” This means that, in the very near future, we will see someone who dares say something politically incorrect, makes a bad financial decision, or drinks before 10 am, literally frozen out of society.

    If the government (or some private corporation) is in charge of doling out your “benefits” and the government/corporation is in charge of rating your social credit, what do we think is going to happen to violators? Already, governments are cutting social safety net payments to individuals who do not meet what those governments deem to be “acceptable” healthcare decisions. Similar schemes are in place where recipients are drug tested as part of the requirement for receiving “benefits.”

    This is how society progresses into totalitarianism, by the way.

    There are no doubt some readers of this article who were horrified at the society described within it but who then reached the paragraph above and justified the methods currently used against “welfare families.” The truth is that those readers are just another step in bringing this system about.

    Now a younger generation is being used for the same purposes, manipulated by social engineers and reinforced by the generation before them, of bringing in the technological control grid, one giant leap at a time.

    Of course, many people who read dire predictions such as these may be tempted to laugh at the idea that such a system could be implemented in the United States, one thing is for sure – the Chinese aren’t laughing. And we shouldn’t be either.

  • 10,000 Legal California Marijuana Growers In Jeopardy As State Faces Pot "Extinction Event"

    The cannabis industry in California could be heading for an “extinction event” if a new law granting extensions on temporary licenses doesn’t pass, according to a Sacramento Bee article. This would (obviously) contrast with the optimistic outlook for the potential multibillion industry that has been so widely reported on and followed over the last few years, as the rest of the nation watches California for cues on marijuana legislation.

    California lawmakers are on the hook to pass Senate Bill 67, designed to grant about 10,000 marijuana growers extensions to their licenses in the coming months. The bill has been sponsored by Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg.

    McGuire recently said in a hearing:

    “The bottom line is this: This bill is going to protect thousands of cannabis farmers, in particular, who did the right thing and applied for a state license after the passage of Prop. 64 but their temporary license is about to expire.”

    As a result of Proposition 64, California regulatory agencies were allowed to grant cannabis businesses a temporary license that was good for 120 days, and that would be eligible for a 90 day extension. A temporary license holder also had the option to apply for a one-year provisional license, in the event of unanticipated delays in becoming compliant with the California Environmental Quality Act.

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    The point was to allow growers to work while working on applying for their permanent license. But this has contrasted with the state’s (lack of) action, which has only granted “just a handful” of provisional and annual licenses. Only 52 full annual licenses have been issued out of more than 6900 applications that were sent to the California Department of Farm and Agriculture.

    Many of the temporary licenses are already starting to expire and the deadline to apply for an extension, December 31, 2018, has already passed. This means that state law needs to change, otherwise these temporary license holders will technically wind up operating illegally again.

    The new proposed legislation will grant a one-year extension to the deadline, pushing it to December 31, 2019.

    McGuire continued:

     “This is the worst way to transition a multibillion-dollar agricultural crop, which employs thousands of Californians. Without legal licenses, there isn’t a legal, regulated market in California. In a time where the Golden State is working overtime to bring the cannabis industry out of the black market and into the light of a legal regulatory environment. We can’t afford to let good actors who want to comply with state law fall out of our regulated market just because timelines are too short and departments have been unable to process applications in time due to the sheer number of applications.”

    Jackie McGowan, whose firm K Street Consulting represents the cannabis industry in California, said: 

    “We’ve named these ‘extinction events. This bill is a bill that the industry is very anxious to see passed.”

    Terra Carver, executive director for the Humboldt County Growers Alliance commented:

    “If nothing is done, there will be dire consequences such as imminent market collapse of hundreds of businesses in the region and through the state.”

  • Researcher Warns: Algos Are "Using And Even Controlling Us!"

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    One researcher is warning everyone that  “we are setting ourselves up for technological domination.” Dionysios Demetis warned that algorithms are “using and even controlling” human beings.

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    Humans are surrounded by algorithms and one researcher is not all that thrilled about the future prospects of technology and its grip on humanity. 

    “Our exploration led us to the conclusion that, over time, the roles of information technology and humans have been reversed,” Demetis, a professor at the Center for Systems Studies at Hull University in Yorkshire England, wrote in an essay for The Conversation. 

    “In the past, we humans used technology as a tool. Now, technology has advanced to the point where it is using and even controlling us.”

    This is not the first time Demetis has tried to warn humanity of the problems with advanced technology either. Demetis built on a paper he published last year with Allen Lee, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, in the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. The researcher also contends that we are in fact “deeply affected by them in unpredictable ways,” and humans made it that way. 

     “We have progressively restricted our own decision-making capacity and allowed algorithms to take over.”

    Demetis says that the worst case scenario would be a complete takeover of machines and artificial intelligence.  Already, most of the trading in foreign exchange markets is determined by algorithms that call the shots within tiny fractions of a second as opposes to humans, who are now seen as an “impediment.”

     “The people running the trading system had come to see human decisions as an obstacle to market efficiency,” Demetis wrote. Lawyers are also being replaced by artificial intelligence and some recruiters have an over-reliance on third-party tools to “weed out bad candidates.”

    This can set up humanity for a bleak and dystopian future where we will have no control over anything – machines will make all of our decisions for us.  “We need to decide, while we still can, what this means for us both as individuals and as a society.”

  • Housing Slump: Foreclosure Activity Jumps In Austin, Miami, San Diego, And Seattle

    ATTOM Data Solutions noticed that 60 of the 220 major U.S. metropolitan areas posted a y/y increase in foreclosure activity in January 2019, an ominous sign of deceleration in the housing market. 

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    According to the report, the hardest hit areas in January include Orlando, Florida (up 72% y/y); Austin, Texas (up 60% y/y); Miami, Florida (up 41% y/y); San Diego, California (up 12% y/y); and Seattle, Washington (up 10% y/y). 

    Across the U.S., a total of 29,382 U.S. properties started foreclosure proceedings in January, up more than 4% from the previous month and 2% from January 2018. January marked the second consecutive month with a y/y increase in foreclosure starts.

    More than two dozen states including Washington, D.C. posted annual increases in foreclosure starts. States with the highest activity include Florida (up 91% y/y); Texas (up 50% y/y); Washington (up 41% y/y); Hawaii (up 31% y/y); and Arizona (up 28% y/y).

    Mortgage companies repossessed 12,228 homes through foreclosure (REO) in January 2019, up 18% from the previous month but down 54% from 2018. The report notes that repossessions have moved higher for the third consecutive month with an overall y/y decrease. 

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    Zerohedge readers have been well informed on recent housing market gyrations that could undoubtedly make 2019 one of the worst years for real estate in quite some time. Homeowners are struggling to sell their homes as inventory floods that market – forcing prices lower amid higher mortgage rates. Housing affordability continues to plague millions who have been priced out of starter homes. All this comes as the U.S. is expected to rapidly slow as recession fears soar. 

  • A College "Education" Has Little To Do With Education

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    An old friend of mine, who taught political science for 25 years at the University of Colorado, was known to tell his students that the real reason they were there was to marry people from the right social class.

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    While perhaps a little overly cynical, this assessment certainly wasn’t totally wrong. Few parents have ever been overly concerned with the supposed education their children receive at a University like CU. The real concern has primarily been the receipt of a degree from a respectable – although not “elite” in the case of CU – university. And, whether they are consciously aware of it or not, an additional benefit has been to ensure that little Susie and little Johnny also become accustomed to the social mores and habits of a certain socio-economic class.

    Even if Susie doesn’t meet a doctor at college, it’s still best to send Susie to a place where she learns to socialize and interact with the sorts of people who will eventually become doctors and engineers and successful business people. When one is finished with his or her “education,” one has a nice degree to show for it, plus a social circle comprised of  presumably soon-to-be-successful people.

    So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that it turns out rich Hollywood actors with intellectually and academically mediocre children have become obsessed with getting their children into high-status colleges. They employ bribes and fake test scores to purchase what they’ve always been able to purchase otherwise: a stylish consumer product, which is essentially all a college degree is for most people.

    In a certain way, one has to admire these corrupt, cheating parents because they are too savvy to buy the nonsense that the higher education industry has been peddling for decades.

    As ridiculous as it sounds, there are still people in higher education who spout quaint theories about “liberal education” and how college is a time for self-reflection and becoming “immersed in the great books of the Western Tradition,” and so on.

    There is surely a tiny minority of college students who actually believe this — many of whom grow up to become professional students and college faculty — but college has long been largely about certification.

    While universities were founded in the Christendom of the middle ages with some lofty goals, the vast majority of families who sent their young people to universities didn’t share these goals. They sent their children to universities to attain degrees in subjects like canon law which afforded to the family greater social status and perhaps a coveted job in church or secular government.

    Yes, actually teaching certain skills has been important some of the time. Many of today’s oldest and most venerated universities, for example, were founded to train clergymen. Harvard University, after all, was created to deal with the problem of “an illiterate ministry,” was was thought to be all too common in colonial America. But by the nineteenth century, American universities had been converted to a broader model of education in which specific skills became less important, and the attainment of a degree became more important.

    Over time, training in other professions, such as secular legal studies, became important goals for colleges and universities, largely because the middle classes saw this sort of training as a ticket to prosperity.  Rarely was a college education sold to the middle classes as an exercise in intellectual self improvement or gaining an appreciation of Virgil and Dante. But even then, the educational aspects of a college “education” weren’t the most important part of the experience. Training could often be attained on-the-job in law as in other professions. The college degree, on the other hand, was valuable because it communicated a certain elite status.

    And this is what the middle classes really wanted most. After all, it’s hard to imagine an 1830s middle-class family patriarch, slaving away at the family shipping business, and scraping together tuition money for junior just so he can go have deep thoughts about the implications of the Peloponnesian War.

    On the other hand, there’s no doubt that the upper classes could afford more navel-gazing. Indeed, by the mid nineteenth century, American universities had adopted the ideas of the upper classes from England decades before: that universities are there to prepare members of the elite for “leadership” and “service” by making them broad-minded intellectuals.

    That, however, was never more than a boutique sort of education for the sons of the already-established elites.

    But if that vision of higher education ever reflected reality, it certainly doesn’t now. The idea that students go to college to attain a broad and liberal view of humanity and human history appears almost laughable today. Outside of the college programs that provide real professionally-relevant job skills, such as in engineering and computer science, a college education offers little more than daily recapitulation in learning the ideological views of today’s intellectual class. Outside a narrow worldview shared by a tiny elite of humanities and social science professors, very little is taught at all.

    Wealthy Hollywood types, being relentless and cynical social climbers, likely figured this out years ago. So they’ve now zeroed in on getting out of college all that college has to offer to someone who doesn’t have the intellectual chops to major in electrical engineering: a piece of paper that helps sustain membership in elite social circles.

  • NZ Threatens 10 Years In Prison For 'Possessing' Mosque Shooting Video; Web Hosts Warned, 'Dissenter' Banned

    New Zealand authorities have reminded citizens that they face up to 10 years in prison for “knowingly” possessing a copy of the New Zealand mosque shooting video – and up to 14 years in prison for sharing it. Corporations (such as web hosts) face an additional $200,000 ($137,000 US) fine under the same law. 

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    Terrorist Brenton Tarrant used Facebook Live to broadcast the first 17 minutes of his attack on the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand at approximately 1:40 p.m. on Friday – the first of two mosque attacks which left 50 dead and 50 injured. 

    Copies of Tarrant’s livestream, along with his lengthy manifesto, began to rapidly circulate on various file hosting sites following the attack, which as we noted Friday – were quickly scrubbed from mainstream platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Scribd. YouTube has gone so far as to intentionally disable search filters so that people cannot find Christchurch shooting materials – including footage of suspected multiple shooters as well as the arrest of Tarrant and other suspects. 

    On Saturday, journalist Nick Monroe reported that New Zealand police have warned citizens that they face imprisonment for distributing the video, while popular New Zealand Facebook group Wellington Live notes that “NZ police would like to remind the public that it is an offence to share an objectional publication which includes the horrific video from yesterday’s attack. If you see this video, report it immediately. Do not download it. Do not share it. If you are found to have a copy of the video or to have shared it, you face fines & potential imprisonment.“

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    Dissenter blocked in New Zealand

    Along with the censorship of online materials and investigation of content sharing platforms such as BitChute and 8chan – where the shooter posted a link to the livestream of his attack, social discussion service Dissenter has been blocked in New Zealand. Created by the people behind Twitter competitor Gab.ai – Dissenter is a browser extension which pops up a third-party comments section for any website where people can discuss content outside of the control of the website owner. 

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    On Saturday, Gab’s official accounts (@gab and @getongab) reported that “New Zealand ISPs have banned dissenter.com until it is “censorship compliant.””

    Update: Shortly after this article published, we were informed that ZeroHedge is unable to be reached by Votafone customers.

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    Milo banned

    Meanwhile, far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was banned from Australia in the wake of the New Zealand shootings after he said on Facebook that attacks like Christchurch happen because “the establishment panders to and mollycoddles extremist leftism and barbaric, alien religious cultures.”

    Australia’s immigration minister, David Coleman, said in a Saturday statement that Yiannopoulos’s comments were “appalling and forment hatred and division,” adding “Milo Yiannopoulos will not be allowed to enter Australia for his proposed tour this year.” 

    UK man arrested

    While the Christchurch attacks were utterly reprehensible, supporting them is now punishable in the United Kingdom. On Saturday afternoon, a 24-year-old man from Oldham was arrested on suspicion of sending malicious communications in support of the mosque attacks. It is unclear what he is alleged to have written. 

    The Greater Manchester Police said in a statement that they “became aware of a post on social media making reference and support for the terrible events in New Zealand,” adding “Police have made urgent enquiries and a man aged 24 from the Oldham area is now under arrest on suspicion of sending malicious communications.”

    “It is clear that people are worried and we really understand that… It is truly terrible what happened yesterday. It is hard to put into any form of words,” said Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson, who added “We have nothing to suggest any threat locally, but none of this can diminish how people feel and that is why we want to be there to offer more support at this difficult time.”

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  • Firearms Registration Act Introduced In Pennsylvania

    Authored by John Crump via AmmoLand.com,

    A new bill introduced in Pennsylvania would establish a gun registry within the state.

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    HB0768 is known as the Firearms Registration Act. The Democrats that introduced the bill were Mary Louise Isaacson (D), Angel Cruz (D), and Mary Jo Daley (D). Last Friday, the General Assembly referred the bill to the committee on judiciary.

    The bill would require gun owners in the Keystone State to register their firearms with the Pennsylvania State Police. Owners would have to provide the police with the make, model, and the serial numbers of all their guns.

    Along with the application that the gun owner must swear to under oath, the gun owner would have to submit fingerprints, two photographs that are no older than 30 days and go through a background check for each firearm that they own. This background check is the same one that they must go through to purchase a gun.

    In addition to this requirement, they must also provide the Pennsylvania State Police with their home and work address, telephone number, social security number, date of birth, age, sex, and citizenship. This requirement is more information than a person needs to vote.

    If the State Police rejects the person’s application, then they will have ten days to appeal the decision. The owner must turn their firearms into the State Police within three days of receiving notification of the rejection. If a person does not appeal the decision within ten days, their right is forfeit.

    A gun owner cannot transfer any unregistered firearm. Anyone caught with an unregistered gun is guilty of a crime even if they are unaware of the firearm registration status. Also just holding an unregistered firearm at a range is a crime.

    The gun owner must keep all firearms unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock. If a firearms owner doesn’t secure their firearm that way, they would be guilty of a crime. This rule even applies to homes with no children.

    The gun owner has 48 hours to update the State Police if they change jobs, phone numbers, addresses, or anything else on the application. If they do not update the State Police, then they could be prosecuted for violating the law.

    The certificate which will cost $10 per firearm will expire after one year. The gun owner would have to start the process over again to renew their certification. This process must be done 60 days before the certificate expires. The procedure can get confusing for gun owners with large collections.

    The bill makes no mention of how the state will enforce the law.

    Other states that have tried gun registration and bans have seen limited success. New Jersey has had zero magazines turned in since their magazine ban went into effect.

    New York saw nearly one million firearms owners defy the state law to register their “assault weapons.” The same thing played out in Connecticut when only 50,000 out of 350,000 registered their semi-automatic rifles.

    Expanding a registry to all firearms will be impossible to enforce without conducting door to door searches of houses. It is unclear how these Democrats plan to deal with this reality.

    None of the bill’s sponsor responded to our request for comment.

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