Snowden Docs Becoming Available

Posted on May 17, 2016 by marcia

The Intercept is opening up access to the Snowden archive

Starting today, the site will begin publishing internal NSA newsletters.

Nearly three years after Edward Snowden first exposed the NSA’s PRISM electronic data mining program, and his trusted journalist partners are finally ready to bring even more of those documents out into the open. Today, The Intercept announced two initiatives to further that goal: First, the site is releasing a cache of internal NSA documents that it believes will point other journalists towards noteworthy stories. And second, The Intercept will partner with other national and international media outlets to allow access to the sensitive documents in its possession.

For the first initiative, the site is publishing 166 documents from SIDtoday, the NSA’s internal newsletter that covered everything from “serious, detailed reports on top secret NSA surveillance programs to breezy, trivial meanderings of analysts’ trips and vacations,” according to The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald. Although they can occasionally seem trivial, Greenwald notes that the newsletters have been the source of “significant revelations in the past.” Moving forward, the site will periodically release new batches of SIDtoday newsletters with summaries of the content found in each, as they did with this story on the NSA’s involvement in Guantánamo interrogations.

While the second part of The Intercept’s announcement is less visible, the site says they have now navigated the tricky legal and security issues involved in allowing additional access to a wider range of publications of journalists. “We now feel comfortable that we can do so consistent with the responsibility demanded by these materials and our agreement with our source,” Greenwald writes. In addition to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Guardian — all of which published the original batch of leaks — The Intercept claims it has already shared the documents with more than a dozen media outlets around the globe, thus ensuring local journalists can cover the stories that affect them directly.

Mercury Retrograde

Posted on May 1, 2016 by marcia

What to Expect from the Upcoming Mercury Retrograde

Adam Elenbaas • 4 days ago

Today a special longer treatment of our upcoming Mercury retrograde!

First we should recognize that Mercury will turn retrograde in a Venus ruled sign, just as Venus is moving out of a Mars ruled sign (Aries), and into her own sign of Taurus where she is much more comfortable and empowered. Simultaneously we should notice that Mercury is being strongly emphasized through Jupiter’s upcoming station in Virgo. Both Mars and Saturn, as well as Neptune, are all moving through Jupiter ruled signs, and Jupiter is slowing down to station and turn direct in both the rulership and exaltation of Mercury (Virgo).

Putting this all together we can see some simple themes coming forward. Mercury is a planet whose broadest archetypal actions include analysis, investigation, consideration, skeptical inquiry, curiosity, deconstruction, and critical thinking. So during a retrograde period, especially during the stations, we may find ourselves seriously questioning, analyzing, or deconstructing something. Or we might find that various systems are being broken down into their parts or that they aren’t working correctly or that there is something standing out that needs more careful attention or revision.

From here the question becomes, “WHAT is being analyzed, deconstructed, broken down into its parts, or analyzed?”
Well, remember that this Mercury retrograde leads us back to Mercury’s position over Jupiter and Jupiter’s position in relationship to Saturn, Mars, and Neptune. Learning to see the community dynamics of the planets is an important part of any analysis.

Jupiter in Virgo represents a kind of puritanical, careful, perhaps naive but also meticulous breaking apart of various systems of doctrine, dogma, and belief or praxis. Whether we’re looking at politics or carpentry, religion, philosophy, or accounting, wherever there is a some outdated or unexamined system in place Jupiter in Virgo suggests a second look or a critical evaluation. This is naturally uncomfortable for Jupiter whose nature is more akin to building greater wholes and coordinating successful growth projects rather than taking systems apart or weeding through the parts of vast networks. However, the entire transit of Jupiter in Virgo may also represent a kind of “take it apart” so that it might eventually become better or stronger on the whole.

But it gets even more specific. Jupiter in Virgo is related to the interests and challenges of Neptune, Mars, and Saturn as well. Let’s start with Mars and Saturn.

Both planets in a Jupiter ruled mutable fire sign emphasize separation, schisms, feuds, and factions. Both planets represent the contentions, competitions, and crusades we are fighting on behalf of various new/old ideas and beliefs. With both of these planets being dominated by the square from Jupiter in Virgo, we are seeing not only the feuds of our underlying values and prejudices, many of which represent serious generational or historical divides, but we are seeing these feuds play out as they relate specifically to the deconstruction or critical analysis of entire systems of thought or practice (analysis of both our ideals and the practical implementation of ideals).

Underlying Jupiter’s disposition in Virgo is also the transcendental dream of Neptune in Pisces. Underlying all of these conflicts and systemic analyses are the images of our dreams, of the reaching for something transcendent, for something non-ordinary, for utopia, for salvation, for whatever we want most deeply but cannot see or name. We are looking for God, you might say, in the individual grains of sand..taking apart our sand castles, one grain at a time, until we’ve found the sacred source in each of them and can then, finally, rebuild our castle with renewed integrity…restored faith…a future worth living for.

The problem is that the waves keep coming and interrupting the process! Exception after exception slips in and confuses our counting, until we are forced to reckon with the unaccountable truth…we will never get to the bottom of this. In this sense Jupiter in Virgo is doing his deconstruction on behalf of that which cannot be satisfied. At some point we will say, “This will have to do.”

Now, let’s return all the way back to Mercury retrograde. If Jupiter in Virgo is emphasizing systemic inspections, then this retrograde is going to be an especially important time for these investigations. Because Mercury and Jupiter are stationing simultaneously, and then during Mercury’s retrograde Jupiter will turn direct…signalling the implementation or the change over, or the positive results of the analysis…the first fruits of a process that has been taking place since the beginning of winter when Jupiter went retrograde.

Why can we be so certain that this transformation will be beneficial? Because Mercury will be with Venus in Taurus and in a superior trine to Jupiter. All of which point to the positive integration or joining of disparate parts for the sake of growth. Out of the careful analysis, something cohesive, beautiful, and harmonious is likely to emerge. And remember that by August Jupiter will enter a Venus ruled sign for an entire year.

However, given the simultaneous Mars/Saturn retrogrades, it’s likely that this entire sequence will also continue to feature factions, feuds, and ongoing conflicts or sharp distinctions or debates between various ideas and practices. It’s also possible that the Mercury/Venus signature in relationship to Jupiter reflects compromises that are strategic but also somewhat divisive (driving a hard bargain, forcing someone’s hand, reluctantly giving up any ground to a perceived opponent, etc).
We’ll look more carefully at this over the next few weeks, but hopefully this gives everyone more to think about!

Prayer: Help us to reconsider, to hold each part up to the light, so that we might see as the one who sees everything.

from: http://realitysandwich.com/319935/what-to-expect-from-the-upcoming-mercury-retrograde/

Surveillance, Fear & Self-Censorship

Posted on May 1, 2016 by marcia

This is What Government Sponsored Mass Surveillance is Doing to Your Mind

Alex Pietrowski, Staff
Waking Times

Big Brother is watching you and he wants you to believe that if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear.

This is a lie, of course, and as we move deeper into the era of state sponsored technological surveillance, we see more evidence that the loss of privacy and confidence in inter-personal communications is transforming the individual into a compliant, self-policing ward of the state.

In one of the first empirical scientific studies to provide concrete evidence of the ‘chilling effects’ that government surveillance has on internet users, Oxford University professor Jon Penney looked at Wikipedia search data and traffic patterns before and after the 2013 revelations by Edward Snowden regarding widespread NSA surveillance of the internet. The results demonstrated an immediate trend towards self-censorship, as traffic and searches for terms like ‘Al Qaeda,’ ‘car bomb,’ and ‘Taliban’ showed nearly instant and mentionable decline.

The changes were statistically significant enough to indicate that many people automatically alter their own behavior upon realizing that a punitive authoritarian organization is monitoring them for legitimate or perceived wrongdoings.

“If people are spooked or deterred from learning about important policy matters like terrorism and national security, this is a real threat to proper democratic debate.” – Jon Penney

In 2013, the organization Pen America conducted a survey of writers in the United States showing that many were already self-censoring themselves in an increasingly oppressive atmosphere of government surveillance. The fear of being caught up in a dragnet of legal and financial problems was sufficient enough for many to change their tone and content, even though no direct physical threat existed.

“The results of this survey—the beginning of a broader investigation into the harms of surveillance—substantiate PEN’s concerns: writers are not only overwhelmingly worried about government surveillance, but are engaging in self-censorship as a result.” [Source]

Commenting on the effects of authoritarian governments which heavily surveil their citizens, Pen America also notes that, “historically, from writers and intellectuals in the Soviet Bloc, and contemporaneously from writers, thinkers, and artists in China, Iran, and elsewhere—aggressive surveillance regimes limit discourse and distort the flow of information and ideas.” This is without question the intended aim of such programs.

That study also included data which indicated how people curtail their online behavior and interactions with other people out of fear of being persecuted by the nanny state:

“Smaller percentages of those surveyed described already changing their day-to-day behavior: 28 percent said they had “curtailed or avoided activities on social media,” with another 12 percent saying they had seriously considered doing it; similar percentages said they had steered clear of certain topics in phone calls or email (24 percent had done so; 9 percent had seriously considered it).” [Source]

Furthermore, in a 2015 study by the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) examining how awareness of government surveillance affected people’s use of Google, the world’s most widely used internet search engine, researchers concluded that, “users were less likely to search using search terms that they believed might get them in trouble with the US government.”

In general, people’s behavior also changes in ways more favorable to an authoritarian government when surveillance both online and in the real world is as ubiquitous as it already is in American society. The state draws power from a compliant, acquiescent, and self-policing public, and when mass surveillance is applied to the citizenry, with the predictable result of creating a more submissive and conformist citizenry.

This idea was effectively brought to life in George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel, 1984, where the primary surveillance device of the individual was the telescreen, a digital device located in every home that could receive and transmit audio and video, giving individuals zero privacy in their own homes. The beauty of omnipotent surveillance such as this was that the government did not even have to actually be monitoring an individual, because the simple fact that they could be listening and watching was enough to frighten a person into voluntary compliance and self-censorship.

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You have to live – did live, from habit that became instinct – in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” – George Orwell, 1984

This principle is coming to fruition in our modern world in the form of the internet and social media. Couple this with the creation and publication of government watch lists of all flavors, where people can be arbitrarily restricted from travel, or worse, and we are marching headlong into a brave new world where freedom is tightly constricted not by law, but by a creeping ambiguous fear of what may happen to us if we step out of line. We are creating a society where people may have legally protected free speech, but they dare not use it.

“There is a reason governments, corporations, and multiple other entities of authority crave surveillance. It’s precisely because the possibility of being monitored radically changes individual and collective behavior. Specifically, that possibility breeds fear and fosters collective conformity. That’s always been intuitively clear. Now, there is mounting empirical evidence proving it.” – Glen Greenwald

from: http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/04/29/this-is-what-government-sponsored-mass-surveillance-is-doing-to-your-mind/

The Conspiracy of Education

Posted on May 1, 2016 by marcia

8 Ways School is Making Children Stupid and Depressed

BY SOFO ARCHON

children-playing-in-field

School is supposed to help children grow into mature, conscious, responsible, intelligent adults, who have mastered the art of living, and who can contribute their gifts to the world.

School as we know it, however, couldn’t be further from that. In fact, school, as it exists in most places across the planet, helps only to stunt children’s intelligence and fill them with stress and worries, which results in the chaotic world that we experience all around us.

Here are eight ways school is making children stupid and depressed:

1. It teaches children to conform

At school, children are taught to obey orders and blindly follow what they are being told. Children are told what to do, no matter if they like it or not. They are told to sit for hours upon hours at a desk without complaining, doing nothing other than memorizing information that most probably they will never need in their lives. They are told when to talk, when to move, even when to pee. By and by, children learn to stop trusting their inner voice and conform to what authority wants from them, which makes them suppressed, depressed, and unfulfilled.

2. It teaches children what to think, not how to think

School does not teach children how to develop their capacity to think logically so that they can reach to their own conclusions when presented with information. On the contrary, children are forced to believe in things they are being taught, no matter whether they are true or not, or whether they sprout out of their own understanding or not. Hence their critical thinking is prevented from improving, and as a result children are turned into stupid automatons.

3. It teaches children to be uncreative

Children’s imagination is wild, but school suppresses it. Children can be incredibly creative, but the Arts are almost nonexistent in most schools around the world, since a career path in the Arts is usually not considered as profitable. Instead of allowing children to explore their selves by spontaneously expressing their innermost thoughts and feelings through painting, music, theater, and so on, they are confined in four walls, learning boring things that don’t matter to them and don’t help cultivate their mind, heart, and spirit.

4. It teaches children to fear failure

Mistakes help us grow into wiser beings, but school is teaching children to fear failure, as if it is some kind of evil they need to avoid. Children at school are told to study solely in order to pass exams, and those who fail at exams are looked down upon, sometimes even mocked at, as if they are failures themselves. Therefore children learn to do their best in order to avoid making mistakes, which only prevents them from trying to achieve new things later on in life, lest they will encounter any possible failure.

5. It teaches children to think play is bad

Children find tremendous joy in playing, having fun, laughing, doing things for no reason or goal other than play itself. Play makes their heart pulsate with happiness and turns their life into a celebration. Slowly slowly, however, as children are growing up, they are taught that play is not good, since it’s not something productive, and that they should consider it simply as a waste of time. They are taught to be serious, uptight, worried about future ends, which is only making them depressed, not allowing them to let go and relax into the present moment, savoring all the beauties life has to offer.

6. It teaches children to avoid listening to their heart

Unlike adults, children are in touch with their heart. But after years of social conditioning, when they finally turn into adults themselves, they have created thick barriers between themselves and their heart, not paying attention to its voice anymore. This conditioning takes place mainly at school, where almost every day children are forced to do things they hate doing, that they find boring and futile, and which they are taught society will reward them for. As a consequence, they develop the habit of not trusting and following their inner voice and lose touch with what their heart is beating for.

7. It teaches children to associate money with success

Another way school is making children dumb and depressed is by having them confuse monetary gain with successful living. At school, children learn that the primary goal in life is to earn a good salary, and are being told to sacrifice almost one third of their lives learning and doing things just so they can get a degree that will allow them to find a job later in life and most probably work as corporate slaves. Thus children stop pursuing their passions that would give true purpose and meaning to their lives, and instead do dull things that only burden their psyche, and which merely achieve to help them survive but not truly live.

8. It teaches children to sacrifice today for the sake of tomorrow

The present moment is all that we have. The future, just like the past, doesn’t exist, and if we give it too much attention, we will not be able enjoy the here and now. Most people, however, don’t enjoy the present moment, but are always trying to achieve a future end or goal, thinking that once they achieve it, they will be fulfilled and happy. This mentality has been mainly imbued in them via schooling. At school, children are made to believe that sacrificing today by studying hard and following orders will reward them tomorrow by bringing them joy and freedom. Hence children learn to always be focused on the future, which is making them waste their lives and is filling them with regrets that results in immense anguish in their psyche.

from: http://theunboundedspirit.com/school-children/

What is Going On ?

Posted on April 24, 2016 by marcia

Survival Weekend: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

by Elle – 24/04/2016

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Survival Weekend: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Daisy Luther
Contributor, ZenGardner.com

Today on Survival Saturday, we have a series of stories that could all be headlined, “What could possibly go wrong?” Do you remember the reality show by that name, where a couple of guys apply science and logic to ill-conceived ideas and explain exactly what could go wrong when you power a skateboard with homemade rockets? Perhaps our future doom won’t be caused by some kind of epic disaster, but by the unwillingness of the people to actually accept reality and apply logic to it.

Survival Saturday is a round-up of the week’s news and resources for folks who are interested in being prepared.

This Week in the News…

Coming to a City Near You: Aerial Spraying of GMO Bacteria over Residential Neighborhoods

Since regular pesticide isn’t bad enough, the officials of Seattle, Washington have taken things one step further: they’re going to douse the city in a genetically modified bacteria in an experimental attempt to eradicate gypsy moths. What could possibly go wrong with that one? (Well, for one thing, the story about the Zika virus originating in the area of South America where GMO mosquitos were released comes to mind.)

If you ever wondered whether you might possibly be an unwilling participant in a science experiment, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that you are.

The Washington Department of Health has recommended that people stay indoors for half an hour after the spray. (They don’t mention anything about sealing doors and windows with duct tape or closing vents to the outside, but hey, maybe that’s just me.) Of course, the USDA, always a proponent of things GMO and unnatural, says everything will be just fine, claiming that “the acidic diet of most Americans renders the bacteria harmless, though it is persistent in produce and food products.” Apparently, this GMO bacteria pesticide has been sprayed on our food for a while now, although I must have missed the announcement of that practice.

Speaking of pesticides, if you’re trying to avoid them check out this newly-released list of the fruits and vegetable with the highest pesticide residue this year. Grab a kleenex, because the things that must now be purchased organically will make you weep.

Reality Is Mean

Let me preface by saying that this little rant does not reflect my opinions on who can use which bathroom. Honestly, I don’t care. There are stall doors. Don’t even get me started on pondering how bathroom laws would be enforced or how it isn’t the government’s place to be potty monitors. We have bigger problems in this country than who pees where and you’d be wise not to get sidetracked by that ridiculous debate.

Okay – back to the story.

I’ll never forget when my kiddo was in 4th grade. She was telling me about an event that happened in school and being very vague in her description of the girl involved. Finally, it dawned on me. I asked her, “Are you talking about the girl in your class who is black?” Since there was only one child in the class of African American descent, that did indeed narrow it down. But my daughter was horrified because the kids had been taught never to refer to a person’s race, even when it was the most accurate descriptor. If I thought that was absolutely ridiculous, I had no idea at the time what was coming down the pipe of political correctness.

Well, here it is. And what has come out of the pipe is the pure sewage of cognitive dissonance.

What could possibly go wrong in a society that politely accepts fantasy as fact? It seems pretty obvious to me that college students are being prepped for the world Orwell had imagined.

Here’s What’s Going on Behind the Pending Economic Disaster

I sent out an extra email last week because I stumbled upon a series of events that made me wonder if the economic collapse is truly upon us. The Fed (which isn’t at all federal, but that’s another story – and one you really should read) has issued warnings to 3 major banks that their contingency plans simply won’t cut it. Chillingly, the Fed wrote to JPMorgan Chase that their plan was “not sufficiently actionable” and that it contained a “deficiency” so great that it could “pose serious adverse effects to the financial stability of the United States.” Gulp.

Meanwhile, secret meetings between those in the economic know abounded last week and Saudi Arabia threatened the US with massive economic reprisals – and by massive, I mean billions and billions of dollars – if their part in 9/11 came to light in a bipartisan bill on the table in Congress that would allow victims of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks to sue foreign governments.

A commodity trader has come forward (sort of…anonymously) and said that the current plan in the economic world is even worse. In his own words:

Here comes my Very-REAL Conspiracy Theory: the stupid FED and other Central Bankers around the world acting in unison to artificially raise inflation so that they can hopefully get out of the F’ing mess they got themselves into with this low/negative rate BS. Call me crazy, and I am not a “conspiracy theorist” – but what is happening has absolutely no “reasonable” explanation. So I have to think outside the box…

The FED and other Central Banks have already destroyed the equity and other macro-financial markets… it is now turn for the commodities markets…

Gee…what could possibly go wrong if/when that plan is enacted? Read the rest of his theory here.

Oh – and on a related note, if you ever wondered why no bankers have gone to jail for their parts in the economic cluster pulling the rest of the country under – an insider explains exactly why in this article. What could possibly go wrong with ignoring that?

You’ve Got to Taste It to Believe It

Do you have the supplies you need to survive an interruption in the supply chain? Regardless of what type of disaster you are preparing for, it pays to have nutritious, long-term supplies that you can rely on. Preppers Market features the products I use to ensure my own family’s health and well-being. You won’t find any GMOs, any soy, or chemical preservatives in our foods. Gluten-free products are also available for those who do not tolerate wheat products.

Emergency foods are hard to fully appreciate without tasting. Before you make an expensive purchase, try our 4 recipe Sampler Pack: Pasta Primavera, Enchilada Beans and Rice, Granola and Sweet Habanero Chili.

Healthy food storage with GMO-Free ingredients and great taste are rare. I know you’ll be convinced when you taste test our food!

Go here to check out the high-quality offerings, or try a sample pack first. You won’t be disappointed in the delicious taste!

Remember How I Said Justice Scalia’s Death Would Have Serious Repercussions?

I’m not one to say “I told you so!” – wait – who am I kidding? I totally am.

So, here it is.

Remember how I said Scalia’s sudden death, whether it came from natural causes or he was murdered, could change everything? At immediate risk, it seems, will be our right to bear arms.

If you’re wondering what could possibly go wrong if we get someone left-leaning in office, consider that Scalia’s replacement could very likely be the deciding factor in whether or not the Second Amendment remains strong. And now, Chelsea Clinton has ~~danced on his freshly turned grave~~ affirmed the plan to poke even more holes in our right to protect ourselves and our families, and even points out how much easier it will be now that Scalia is no longer on the bench. As reported by SHTFplan:

“It matters to me that my mom also recognizes the role the Supreme Court has when it comes to gun control. With Justice Scalia on the bench, one of the few areas where the court actually had an inconsistent record relates to gun control.”

“Sometimes the court upheld local and state gun control measures as being compliant with the Second Amendment and sometimes the court struck them down.”

“So if you listen to Moms Demand Action and the Brady Campaign and the major efforts pushing for smart, sensible, and enforceable gun control across our country — disclosure [they] have endorsed my mom, they say they believe the next time the court rules on gun control, it will make a definitive ruling.”

Stock up, folks. Food, ammo, and firearms.

Oh – and on a related note, did anybody else notice that Prince was immediately autopsied and a Supreme Court Justice was pronounced dead over the phone and instantly embalmed, thus precluding the possibility of an investigation into his death? Just sayin’.

Anything to add to Survival Saturday?

Oh – I do! Here’s one last link. Remember how our cat disappeared on moving day? Well, our pampered housecat managed to survive almost 5 weeks in the forest, and now he’s back. Of course, it got me thinking about how we could all learn some survival lessons from a lost kitty – you can check out the story here, assuming you don’t hate cats or happy endings.

from: http://www.zengardner.com/survival-saturday-possibly-go-wrong/

More on Common Core

Posted on April 22, 2016 by marcia

Common Core Education: Surveillance and Sexualization of Children

Makia Freeman, Contributor
Waking Times

Common core is the set of educational standards for American children funded by Bill Gates, the very same man who is pushing GMOs, vaccines and other New World Order (NWO) Agenda 21-style schemes. In another example of blatant doublespeak, the curricula are named “Common Core State Standards”, despite the fact they were forced onto the states with bribes, came top-down from the US Federal Government and were written by the international elite. Common Core first came onto the scene in 2009, after Obama took office, using money from the $350 million stimulus package. Common Core is another manifestation of a long-held dream of the NWO manipulators to replace the family with the State, a plan laid out in novels such as Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which included reference to State hatcheries (i.e. State control of reproduction).

Common Core: Of the Manipulators, By the Manipulators, For the Masses

Did you know Common Core is actually copyrighted? It’s a private set of standards. It’s of the manipulators (since it’s owned by them), written by the manipulators, but it’s for the masses – all the “common” people not wealthy enough to go rich schools where the future leaders of the New World Order will learn an entirely different curriculum … one which probably trains them to become creative thinkers rather than the “obedient workers” John D. Rockefeller wanted common Americans to become. Even the Common Core logo resembles something hypnotic and discordant.

Educator Dr. Duke Pesta has been working tirelessly to expose Common Core for what it really is ever since it was launched 7 years ago. In his presentation, Duke reveals how the Government is already pushing for “public boarding schools” to be open from 8am to 8pm, 365 days per year! He quotes 2 men who were at the forefront of American education, Horace Mann and John Dewey. The latter was an open communist:

“We are who engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.” – Horace Mann

“The children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society …” – John Dewey

Is Common Core helping the school to replace the family as a surrogate parent? Is Common Core promoting the idea of collectivism, that the individual is subservient to the group, institution, system and State? It would appear so, but that’s not all it’s doing.

Common Core: Minimally Exceptional

Common Core is now being used in 47 out of 50 US states – in almost all public schools – and even if your children are in private schools or homeschooled, as long as they want to go to university or college, they will have to pass SAT/ACT tests written by the same man (David Coleman) who wrote the main English components! Common Core is not designed for local autonomy; teachers have to strictly follow its guidelines, or risk having students do poorly on the test. Duke plays video clips of 3 key men who were involved in creating Common Core:

“It would be great if our education stuff worked (Common Core), but we’re not going to know for a decade.” – Bill Gates

“Teachers will teach towards the test; there is no force strong enough to prevent teachers from teaching towards the test” – David Coleman, chief architect of Common Core, who never taught in an elementary school and never edited a scholarly journal. He has now joined College Boards writing SAT and ACT tests.

“[Common Core meets a] minimal definition of college readiness” (i.e. not for STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) – Jason Zimba, architect of Common Core mathematics, admitting “college ready” really meant ready for a non-selective community college

“Using Common Core math standards will put American students 2 years behind their international peers by the end of 8th grade, and further behind by the end of high school.” – Dr. James Milgram, who refused to sign off on the Common Core standards

To make matters worse, the Common Core assessments are meaningless tests, because the grading process is rigged (just like the votes in American elections)! Did you know that the people running Common Core advertised on Craigslist for temporary workers (at $9/hour) to grade papers? Then, these workers were told that they needed to mark papers to fit into a bell curve with standard deviations (a certain amount of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s etc.) and “needed to learn to see more papers as a 3”. In others words, they had to fit the results into a predetermined spread and ignore the actual quality of the paper!

Common Core Surveillance

This is all bad enough, but hold on, because now it starts to get really Orwellian. Children are being spied upon more and more under Common Core. Some of the ways are stealthy, such as through devices like iPads, as this article suggests:

“Initially, in order to continue to be eligible for Obama’s “Race to the Top” federal funding, states were obligated to implement a Student Longitudinal Database System (SLDS), used to track students from preschool through college (P20-WIN). Some of us may recall the many reports about measuring 400 data points … could these one to one devices be another carefully disguised method of software-driven mass surveillance of students?”

” … all across America, more and more classrooms will be filled with children innocently using their iPads or other handheld devices. Children may be playing interactive educational games, doing interactive assignments, and writing stories that can be easily shared with the teacher and other students. These seemingly harmless activities are in fact being used to collect personal and private information without the parents’ consent or knowledge. Could that educational game be used to measure your child’s mental state? Could those interactive assignments involve morally ambiguous questions that can be used to create a psychological profile of your child? Could that shared story be used to predict violent behavior?”

This Truth in Media article states that:

“Perhaps even more alarming is the fact that data collection will also include critical appraisals of individuals with whom students have close family relationships. The Common Core program has been heavily scrutinized recently for the fact that its curriculum teaches young children to use emotionally charged language to manipulate others and teaches students how to become community organizers and experts of the U.N.’s agenda 21.”

Some of the Common Core surveillance is data mining, as this article explains:

“In this modern computer era, digital personal data is gold, currently being traded like currency … the CEO of Knewton explains how Education is today’s most data mined industry. He explains “the name of the game is data per user”. From Amazon or Netflix they get 1 data point per user per day. Google and Facebook 10 data points per user per day. In education, Knewton gets 5-10 million actionable data points per student per day! Apparently, every sentence of every passage in digital content has a data tag and they can tell how interested a child is in a certain topic, how difficult it was, etc., etc. Ten million data points a day! This data grab is a gold mine to companies that want to market and design products. For venture capitalists, Education is the new hot commodity.”

The NWO manipulators also have plans to introduce all sorts of devices into the classroom which intrude upon the basic privacy of children, including a “facial expression camera”, “posture analysis seat”, “pressure mouse” and “wireless skin conductance sensor”. See this report entitled Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century for more details (pg. 62).

Common Core Sexualization of Children

Introducing kids to sex, including sexual education, at too young of an age, can be confusing and detrimental. A core theme of the worldwide conspiracy is the increasing sexualization of children, which is being fueled by the NWO manipulators’ indulgence in widespread pedophilia. The article Colorado School Employing “Anti-Bias” Curriculum Has Parents Asking Questions highlights how a Common Core aligned school is teaching an anti-bias curriculum. Sounds good, but this means more tyrannical and freedom-destroying political correctness, coupled with sex ed to 4 year olds! As an aside, the organization promoting this is “Teaching Tolerance” which is aligned with the Southern Poverty Law Center – the same one which covers up the truth by falsely branding people anti-Semitic etc.

Children are being encouraged to have sex and be sexual at an early age, which may well be developmentally inappropriate and harmful, given that amount of emotional maturity that is necessary to be involved in a sexual relationship. Now it’s going one step further. Some American public schools under Common Core are already giving advanced forms of birth control to children without parental knowledge. According to Duke, under Common Core, schools now have legal capacity to take teenage girls off campus to an abortion clinic to get an abortion – without informing or consulting parents!

Conclusion: Common Core is a Tool of the NWO

The word “common” in common core really means “lowest common denominator”. Essentially, Common Core is a form of socialism, Marxism or communism that brings everyone down to an equal level. George W. Bush let Senator Teddy Kennedy write the “No Child Left Behind” Act, which had too many stupid high-stake tests, too much social ideology and propaganda being injected, too little local teacher control and too much federal intervention. Common Core is all this on steroids: the ESSA Act (Every Student Succeeds Act) enshrines Common Core at the federal level, and retroactively legalizes all the illegal things the Federal Government did to get it through.

The bottom line is this: if you want your child to have your values, don’t throw him or her away to the State. Avoid Common Core all you can! Homeschool or find a private school that doesn’t do Common Core curriculum.

from: http://www.wakingtimes.com/2016/04/21/common-core-education-surveillance-sexualization-children/

No More Anonymous Browsing

Posted on March 30, 2016 by marcia

5 Ways Stores Track Your Every Move

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Posted on March 30, 2016 By Stephanie Catudal

Advertisements that pop up on your computer screen are not random. Every time you go online, marketers monitor and track the websites you search, the links you click on and the things you buy. Companies then tailor content and ads specifically correlated to your expressed interests and spending habits. While online, you are being watched, whether you know it or not.

Yet there is a marketing phenomenon afoot that is even more invasive, and it’s happening generally without your knowledge. Here are five ways you’re being surveilled when you shop in the real world, often without even knowing it.

Video monitoring

Think being accosted by salespeople as you enter a store is annoying? Well, some retailers now use video cameras to track customers walking the aisles of their stores. By using video analytics, companies can determine the age and gender of each customer while monitoring exactly what each person touches, looks at and picks up as they peruse the shelves.

RetailNext, the software that enables these tracking analytics, allows companies to pinpoint high traffic zones in their stores. Heat sensors are used to determine the most highly visited areas of each shop. This gives retailers valuable information as to where to place specific merchandise in order to maximize sales.

Smartphones

Yes, your phone may be “smart,” but when it comes to privacy your mobile device may not be doing you any favors. When you connect to a store’s free Wi-Fi, you are unknowingly allowing them access to track your movements as you shop. You are also giving them free rein to directly market to you.

By using GPS-type coding, companies can tell where you go and where you spend the most time in their stores. This “predictive modeling” information gives retailers important marketing information, like what merchandise you’re interested and in which department you spend the most time.

Store loyalty cards

Signing up for a store card might sound like a good idea at the checkout counter, but you’re getting more than store discounts by doing so. Grocery store discount cards are an important marketing tool, tracking and storing your spending habits each time you shop. In fact, store cards are one of the first ways retailers began specifically tracking consumers as individuals.

When you use your loyalty card, companies record each transaction you make under your specific customer profile and use your spending trends to predict future transactions. Retailers take your spending habits and use the information for marketing campaigns. While it is nice to get coupons for items you are actually interested in buying, it comes at a cost — your anonymity.

Smart lights

“Big Brother is watching” is taking on a whole new meaning with the advent of this new technology. Philips, the electronic company, recently released an LED lighting system that can be used in stores to track and communicate directly with your cell phone.

By connecting to your phone’s camera, these lights can tell marketers exactly where you are in a given store. There’s even an app that can be connected to this technology, allowing retailers to send real-time coupons for products located exactly where you’re standing in their shop. It may be nice to get some discounts while you’re shopping, but remember that rebates are not without cost. For one, your ability to withstand impulse buying is diminished.

Apps

When you download a store app in order to get discounts and promotions, you are also giving marketers direct access to your spending habits. Opening an app in its specific store allows the company to track your movements and send you promotions to “close the deal” on a purchase.

If you have used the app to make a shopping list, retailers can tell whether you’ve forgotten or decided not to buy a certain item on your list. The company can then send you additional promos or coupons to lure you back into buying that product.

Opt-out law

With the pervasiveness of online data collection, retail stores are given the ultimatum of either using ethically debatable tracking methods or be overrun by savvy Internet retailers. By shopping online, customers constantly give cyberspace marketers invaluable consumer information that allows them to specifically target their market audience. In order to compete with the ever-growing online market, physical stores are being forced to act like Internet sellers to keep up.

Luckily, there have been campaigns to limit consumer tracking, both on and offline. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is pushing for a “Do Not Track” bill to be passed by Congress. This law would make it easy for online consumers to curtail being personally monitored by cyber marketers. Likewise, the FTC is also working to make a consumer disclosure law for the use of retail video surveillance in stores. This would also enable customers to opt out of being monitored in certain situations.

Do you think it’s creepy to have your shopping tracked or monitored in stores? Or do you enjoy the benefits of receiving discounts specific to your tastes and interests?

from: http://www.thealternativedaily.com/stores-track-your-every-move/

Fashion & Conscience

Posted on March 29, 2016 by marcia

ECOfashion: Work Driven by Love

By Marci Zaroff

The art of design is like the art of life, both fueled by inspiration and consciousness. Applying a love mantra to one’s design, results in the manifestation of revolutionary ideas. Kahlil Gibran eloquently articulated my favorite quote, “Work is love made visible,” which sums up the notion that when we follow our hearts, our work becomes an expression of love.

In today’s interconnected world, and in the spirit of Jonathan Swift’s “Vision is the art of seeing things invisible,” design must be approached from a holistic vantage, appreciating its myriad of influences and its ability to affect positive change in the world. The foundation of creative vision is infused with a collaborative force, fueled by love, and ultimately translated into co-creation.

Like the evolution of art, and the embodiment of love energy — crossing all boundaries, nations, languages, ages, races and religions, so too does our planet and global community exemplify the brilliance of design on every level. From the Fibonacci sequence ubiquitous in nature, to the perfect symmetry and symbiosis of all living creatures in our universal ecosystem, to the rebirth of organic methodologies as the heart of agriculture, we can take note of our environment’s vibrational influence.

As humanity is again re-learning to live in harmony with our natural environment and each other, the dawn of an ECOrenaissance is being born. This lifestyle movement represents the intersection of reinvention, a reconnection to our true nature, and social innovation — a shift in old paradigms, with every thought, idea and action having a reason for being. Like life itself.

In my world of fashion, sustainable design is the DNA. Fibers, fabrics, dyes and finishes are carefully and mindfully selected, incorporating the principles of people, planet, prosperity, passion and purpose. Just as universal love serves as the soul of our physical and spiritual beings–the common thread of our existence — understanding how to minimize negative human and environmental impacts to create balance and unity, while reflecting on how to protect and build, or renew and restore, is the fundamental tapestry of ECOfashion.

Thinking systemically, a successful harvest begins with the healthy cultivation of seeds. And with authenticity, transparency and intention at the root of ethical design, a more awakened fashion movement can transform an industry that has historically neglected to look beyond the curtain.

It’s time we find the love and beauty at our collective source to adDRESS change and design a new reality. Somewhere along the path to fast fashion — and faster, busier lives — we’ve lost our way. Per Lao Tzu, “The journey of 1,000 miles begins with one step,” and it is up to us now to drive love, life and fashion forward in the right direction. It’s a new day, where we can be conscious without compromise; we can look good, feel good, and do good in the world — embracing the ultimate fashion statement: “love is the new black.”

Marci Zaroff coined the term “ECOfashion” and is an internationally recognized ECOlifestyle entrepreneur, educator, innovator and expert. She is founder of both Under the Canopy and Metawear, executive producer of “THREAD Documentary” and “Driving Fashion Forward, and co-founder of BeyondBrands, The Institute for Integrative Nutrition and I AM Enlightened Creations. Marci has received countless recognitions including Fashion Group International’s “Rising Star Award”, the Natural Product Industry’s “Socially Responsible Business Award” and New York Moves “Power Women Award”. www.marcizaroff.com

from: http://dreamchange.org/articles/blog/ecofashion-work-driven-by-love/

Economic Hit Man Redux

Posted on March 29, 2016 by marcia

More Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: This Time, They’re Coming for Your Democracy

Twelve years ago, John Perkins published his book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.” Today, he says “things have just gotten so much worse.”

Sarah van Gelder posted Mar 18, 2016

Twelve years ago, John Perkins published his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and it rapidly rose up The New York Times’ best-seller list. In it, Perkins describes his career convincing heads of state to adopt economic policies that impoverished their countries and undermined democratic institutions. These policies helped to enrich tiny, local elite groups while padding the pockets of U.S.-based transnational corporations.

I couldn’t help but think about Flint, Michigan, under emergency management as I read The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Perkins was recruited, he says, by the National Security Agency (NSA), but he worked for a private consulting company. His job as an undertrained, overpaid economist was to generate reports that justified lucrative contracts for U.S. corporations, while plunging vulnerable nations into debt. Countries that didn’t cooperate saw the screws tightened on their economies. In Chile, for example, President Richard Nixon famously called on the CIA to “make the economy scream” to undermine the prospects of the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende.

If economic pressure and threats didn’t work, Perkins says, the jackals were called to either overthrow or assassinate the noncompliant heads of state. That is, indeed, what happened to Allende, with the backing of the CIA.

Perkins’ book has been controversial, and some have disputed some of his claims, including, for example, that the NSA was involved in activities beyond code making and breaking.

Perkins has just reissued his book with major updates. The basic premise of the book remains the same, but the update shows how the economic hit man approach has evolved in the last 12 years. Among other things, U.S. cities are now on the target list. The combination of debt, enforced austerity, underinvestment, privatization, and the undermining of democratically elected governments is now happening here.

I couldn’t help but think about Flint, Michigan, under emergency management as I read The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

I interviewed Perkins at his home in the Seattle area. In addition to being a recovering economic hit man, he is a grandfather and a founder and board member of Dream Change and The Pachamama Alliance, organizations that work for “a world that future generations will want to inherit.”

FROM: http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/more-confessions-of-an-economic-hit-man-this-time-theyre-coming-for-your-democracy-20160318

Something to Consider

Posted on March 29, 2016 by marcia

As always: DO YOUR RESEARCH!

10 Reasons You Should Prepare For An Economic Collapse

March 28, 2016 | By Gaye Levy

It was not that long ago that the country of Greece suffered a devastating collapse of their economy. At the time, there was a lot of blame game going on but, at the end of the day, it was years of irresponsible and unrestrained spending that took them down. That, coupled with questionable accounting practices and misstated economic indicators left the Greek citizens befuddled and angry when the reality of a depression hit.

Could the same thing happen here? Not to be depressing but in going through my own thoughts as I answer the question “What am I least prepared for?”, I realized that it was time for a wake-up call and time to re-evaluate my own preps within the context of an economic collapse.

Looking back at what happened during or our own Great Depression, I have come to realize that an economic collapse, if it were to happen, would have the compound effect of combining all woes we so diligently prepare for into one huge mess – a mess that may take decades to resolve.

I worry about this, because, as prepared as I may be, I find it difficult to wrap my head around a mega collapse that will result in food and water shortages, power outages, civil disobedience, medical anarchy, and worse.

A global economic collapse, unlike a natural disaster which, as tragic as it may be, is a short term event, will change our lives forever.

Time for a Wake-Up Call

Back in 2012, Michael Snyder wrote about the lessons we can learn from the financial melt-down in Greece.

At the time, being a prepper in the United States typically branded you as an nut job. Now that preparedness has become more mainstream, I feel that we should review those lessons and take another look at the ramifications of an economic collapse.

Here are the 10 lessons along with my own thoughts as they might apply to an economic collapse in 2015 and beyond.

10 Reasons Why We Need to Prepare for an Economic Collapse

1. Food Shortages Can Actually Happen

Most people assume that they will always be able to run out to their local supermarket or warehouse club. Those of us that prepare, know better. It is those folks that do not prepare that we need to worry about.

2. Medicine Is One Of The First Things That Becomes Scarce During An Economic Collapse

When credit systems and distribution channels are compromised, medical supplies will not make their way to the local pharmacy. Any medicines and supplies that are available will likely be diverted for use by the power elite. Sorry to be such a cynic but we all know that there are privileged classes that have the power and the means to get whatever they want, even if it means denying the rest of the population with their fair share.

3. When An Economy Collapses, So Might The Power Grid

No money to pay workers and no fuel to fire the grid translates into no grid at all. Going without power for a week or two is one thing but going off grid for months or even years? We are a soft society accustomed to our comforts. Without the grid, our lives will be quite different than the life we live today.

4. During An Economic Collapse You Cannot Even Take Water For Granted

When the grid goes down, so goes the water treatment facilities that ensure that clean water flows from our faucets. I survived 12 days without running water. Do-able yes. Fun? Hardly, but I knew the water would come back on eventually. What if the water never came back on?

5. During An Economic Crisis Your Credit Cards And Debit Cards May Stop Working

Same thing. If the grid is down, our banking system will basically be down too. This means that credit cards and debit cards will be useless to transact business and make purchases.

6. Crime, Rioting And Looting Become Commonplace During An Economic Collapse

This is not a maybe. The haves will need to defend their property from the have-not’s. I also suspect that the “haves” (aka preppers) may have to defend themselves from government looters. It will be every man or woman on their own; defending what is theirs.

The young and healthy might be able to handle this but what about the elderly, the sick, and the disabled? Even if they prep, how will they defend themselves?

7. During A Financial Meltdown Many Average Citizens Will Start Bartering

Without credit cards, debit cards, and quite possibly currency, a barter economy will emerge. By the way, the best description I have read relative to how such an economy will work was is James Wesley Rawles book, Patriots.

Things will definitely fall apart during an economic collapse. Having supplies and especially skills to barter with not be an option.

8. Suicides Spike During An Economic Collapse

This happened in the 30s and it will happen again. When people no longer have hope, they feel that life is not worth living. My guess is people will start jumping out of buildings and may take family members with them in a suicide pact.

9. Your Currency May Rapidly Lose Value During An Economic Crisis

Let me take this one step further. Your currency WILL lose value during an economic collapse. It happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic and it has happened more recently elsewhere around the globe. We are not immune to runaway inflation coupled with devaluation of our currency.

10. When Things Hit The Fan The Government Will Not Save You

If you think that the government will come to the rescue of those that are suffering think again. Remember the aftermath of Katrina? Remember Super Storm Sandy?

It is foolhardy to believe that government assistance of any type will become available following a collapse. History has demonstrated over and over again that governments cannot be counted on when things hit the fan. You will be on your own so you better be ready mentally to accept that reality and the tough times that will ensue.

The Final Word

If you have made it this far you might be thinking “Gaye, we know all of that. That is why we prep.”.

Agreed; I am preaching the choir. But, that being said, the overwhelming ramification of having all of these things happen at once will be a blow to the psyche that is of greater magnitude than anything you can imagine.

Think about it. To prevail following a collapse you will still need to get up in the morning, go about your chores, and go about the business of living. This is going to take a level of fortitude that I can not fathom. Heck, there are some days, during these modern, comfortable times, that I can barely face the day and all of its challenges.

So where do we go from here? What solutions are there to get you through to that mental place you know you will need to go to?

Three things you need to remember are:

1. Only you can be counted on to take care of yourself and your family.
2. Leaning coping skills during times of calm will give you a heads up on coping during times of crisis.
3. Give yourself permission to worry, to be concerned, and to be a bit afraid. This will keep you alert and on your toes at all time.

At the end of the day, those that prepare will be in it for the ride. The real question is whether we have the mental fortitude to get there without losing are path along the way.

Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!

from: http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/10-reasons-to-prepare-for-an-economic-collapse/