http://thejournal.parker-joseph.co.uk/…

November 4th 2008

A COPY OF ORWELL’S ‘NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR’ SENT TO EVERY MP

An Internet grass-roots campaign will this week deliver a copy of George
Orwell’s prophetic novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ to every Member of
Parliament.

The books will be inscribed with the words, ‘This book was a warning, not a
blueprint’, and will arrive at Parliament on or before November 5th — a
date of well known historical significance for that building.

—————

Outraged by the continual attack upon civil liberties within our nation, a
fortnight ago the Libertarian Party proposed reminding those in Westminster
who they were elected to serve, and in whose interests the laws that they
pass are meant to function.

Spread purely by word of mouth, a campaign to send each Member of Parliament
their own copy of Orwell’s dystopian classic met with overwhelming support
on the Internet, with many more books pledged than the 646 required to
ensure that every one of our elected representatives receive a personal
copy. The Libertarian Party contributed just 75 books itself, with the
remainder coming (directly, or via campaign donations) from people of all
political parties, and of none.

The UK Libertarian Party leader, Ian Parker-Joseph, explained, “As the
people of Britain become ever more spied upon and ever more heavily taxed,
as the government attempts to control how much we should smoke, eat and
drink, as the state legislates to regulate ever more the minutiae of our
lives, the Libertarian Party want to remind people that we have the power,
and that our elected representatives work for us.

“The Libertarian Party would like the people of Britain to remember that the
state is the servant of the people, and not our master. Moreover, we wish to
remind those in Westminster of this fact.

“Many constituents of these MPs will be adding their own personal messages
to the books that they are sending,” added Mr Parker-Joseph, “and it is a
sad reflection of how far towards Orwell’s vision our country has already
slipped that some members of the public have expressed fear at the potential
consequences of simply sending their MP a 60 year old novel. One
correspondent wrote to me:

<< I told my wife I was taking part in this campaign and her and the
children’s answer was “don’t do it, you will get into trouble and have them
after us”. I have been told on numerous occasions by my wife that you cannot
win against the State so “why argue with them, why complain?”

She believes that you cannot fight against the Government or powers that be
and that if you do you will be watched and eventually “they” will come and
get you so it is best not to complain, make waves etc. >>

“What sort of society are we living in where people are so afraid of their
government? Something is very, very wrong here” concluded Mr Parker-Joseph.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1) The Libertarian Party was founded on November 21st 2007 and officially
launched on January 1st 2008. The party’s website can be found at:
http://www.lpuk.org
2) Further details of the party’s policies can be found in our manifesto:
http://www.lpuk.org/pages/manifesto.php
3) Libertarianism is a political philosophy based on support for individual
liberty.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
4) The Party’s blog regularly examines how the UK is slipping into the
totalitarian vision portrayed by Orwell. See, for example, here:
http://lpuk.blogspot.com/2008/10/1984-arrogant-tom-harris-mp-just-doesnt.html

Tom Harris, MP for Glasgow, received his copy of the book a few days ago. In his blog, Harris railed against the intended message in his blog:

[T]here seem to be an awful lot of people out there - perhaps dozens of them - who seem to get strangely exercised at the prospect of a “police state”. Except that what they define as a “police state” is a million light years from what Orwell himself described. CCTV cameras in the street? That’s just like Nineteen Eighty-Four, when families were monitored in their own homes, 24 hours a day! Can’t use racist terms to vilify people any more? Well, surely that’s thought crime, just like Orwell predicted!

What rubbish. As I’ve written here before, this is all paranoid fantasy, and why so many people get off on it, I’ll never know. I recently had the latest in a series of requests from constituents regarding CCTV. Requests to have the cameras removed? No, no, no… Requests for more cameras…

We live in a democracy, and just because those — including my anonymous benefactor — who get excited about such things are unhappy that Labour is in power, that does not make us anything other than a democracy. And democratically-elected governments govern with the consent of the people. Yes, even this one!

Yay democracy (republican democracy?)!! Even if it turns to tyranny it’s OK because obviously the people want it… it’s a government of the people, right?!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

Citigroup has agreed to buy Wachovia bank in a deal brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to avoid another major corporate failure in the midst of the ongoing financial crisis.

The FDIC announced the deal on its Web site this morning. No price for the transaction was included in the announcement. But the FDIC said that the deal hinged on a loss sharing arrangement between Citigroup and the FDIC, the agency responsible for insuring bank deposits.

Wachovia has been saddled by mortgage-related losses. Under the terms of the deal, Citigroup will absorb up to $42 billion of losses on a $312 billion pool of loans. The FDIC will be responsible for any losses beyond that, but was given $12 billion in Citigroup preferred stock and warrants in return for that guaranty.

The FDIC statement emphasized that Wachovia “did not fail,” and that its branches and other offices will be open as usual.

http://www.bloomberg.com/…

European governments stepped in to rescue Fortis, Bradford & Bingley Plc, and Hypo Real Estate Holding AG as tremors from the U.S. credit crisis reverberated around the world.

The U.K. Treasury seized Bradford & Bingley, Britain’s biggest lender to landlords, while governments in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg threw an 11.2 billion-euro ($16.3 billion) lifeline to Fortis. Germany guaranteed a loan to Hypo.

The interventions exposed how fallout from the crisis that drove Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. into bankruptcy and prompted a $700 billion U.S. bank-rescue package has gone global. It also added urgency to negotiations among European policy makers as to how they deal with banking collapses.

“The precarious global environment means the weakest links in Europe are now falling,” said Mamoun Tazi, an analyst at MF Global Securities Ltd. in London. “If banks continue not to lend to each other we’ll see more failures.”

More insider deals, more centralization, more government interference and control.

This is what happens when you have a system based on debt on a large scale. It’s inherently insolvent.

Update:

This is cute…

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a statement the FDIC action “demonstrates our government’s unwavering commitment to financial and economic stability.”

http://www.reuters.com/…

A meeting between top government officials and the heads of some of Wall Street’s biggest financial firms over the fate of Lehman Brothers broke up on Saturday but was set to resume on Sunday, a spokesman for the New York Federal Reserve Bank said.

“Senior representatives of major financial institutions reconvened on Saturday with U.S. officials at the New York Fed. Discussions are expected to continue tomorrow,” the spokesman said. Small groups were continuing to work into the night on unspecified issues that were raised at the meeting.

Efforts are under way among Lehman executives, potential buyers and government officials to craft a buyout plan for beleaguered Lehman, possibly before the weekend is over.

Lehman has become the latest victim of the global credit crunch but Treasury and the Fed have made clear they do not want to see taxpayer funds committed to any deal involving Lehman.

Among government officials at the meetings were New York Fed President Timothy Geithner, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox.

I wasn’t able to pay attention to the market the 11th and 12th as a result of attending the Service Nation Summit so I missed the Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch stock plunge. (Morgan Stanley didn’t do well, Fannie and Freddie dropped quite a bit too.) The Fed claims that they won’t step in with credit because Lehman has been doing poorly for some time and have access to the discount window. Seems last reported was that Lehman was perhaps to be broken up in three ways with “Bank of America would acquire the bulk of Lehman Brothers, including its mortgage assets. Barclays, Britain’s third-biggest bank, would take a smaller parcel including Lehman’s asset management and fixed income businesses, while Goldman would take the rest.” However other sources are claiming Barclays has backed out citing it “couldn’t get guarantees from the government or agree on a private-sector deal to mitigate what it called Lehman’s “open-ended” trading obligations.”

It’s going to be interesting to see what comes out. They really want to figure out something before Asia markets open. Tomorrow could be a really nasty day.

In other news JP Morgan is in talks to buy Washington Mutual. With all these buyups and mergers the results remind me more and more of the 1907 panic where its believed that JP Morgan spread rumors of bank insolvency in order to buy their assets up cheap after the bank run which would inevitably occur. The neo-merchentialist/corporatist system we have continues to increase the power and wealth of the bankers and power elite at the expense of all the rest and the public continues to dig their own grave by playing into the hands of the banks and politicians by requesting more regulation and nationalization which only further expands their power.

For those interested in knowing more about the history of banking in the United States, The Great Depression and why the Federal Reserve System is bad:

America’s Great Depression

• Free: http://mises.org/rothbard/agd.pdf
• Print: http://www.mises.org/store/Americas-Great-Depression-P63.aspx

History of Money & Banking in the United States

• Free: http://mises.org/books/historyofmoney.pdf
• Print: http://www.mises.org/store/History-of-Money-and-Banking-in-the-United-States–P191.aspx

The Case Against The FED

• Free: http://mises.org/books/fed.pdf
• Print: http://www.mises.org/store/Case-Against-the-Fed-The-P69.aspx

I just checked the news and it looks like Bank of America has pulled out too. The Fed is claiming it won’t provide any funds to prevent the collapse. Tomorrow is not going to be pretty. I also noticed that Mr. Greenspan is saying the obvious: “the U.S. credit squeeze has brought on a “once-in-a-century” financial crisis that is likely to claim more big firms before it eases.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/…

Grossly overweight children may be taken from their families and put into care if Britain’s obesity epidemic continues to escalate, council chiefs said yesterday.

The Local Government Association argued that parents who allowed their children to eat too much could be as guilty of neglect as those who did not feed their children at all.

The association said that until now there had been only a few cases when social services had intervened in obesity cases. But it gave warning that local councils may have to take action much more often and, if necessary, put obese children on “at risk” registers or take them into care. It called for new guidelines to be drawn up to help authorities deal with the issue.

“Councils are increasingly having to consider taking action where parents are putting children’s health in real danger,” he said. “As the obesity epidemic grows, these tricky cases will keep on cropping up. Councils would step in to deal with an undernourished and neglected child, so should a case with a morbidly obese child be different? If parents consistently place their children at risk through bad diet and lack of exercise, is it right that a council should step in to keep the child’s health under review?”

“The nation’s expanding waistline threatens to have a devastating impact on our public services. It’s a huge issue for public health, but it also risks placing an unprecedented amount of pressure on council services.”

Deadly facts

— Councils are spending tens of thousands of pounds widening crematorium furnaces to deal with fatter corpses

— Standard coffins are between 16 and 20ins wide (40-50cm) but coffins twice that size are being ordered to fit larger bodies

— Lewisham Council has ordered a 44in cremator from America and is taking coffins from the Midlands. A furnace has just been installed at King’s Lynn, Norfolk, for coffins a metre wide and Blackburn is to buy a 42in cremator

— New ambulances have been introduced across Wales with special equipment for fat patients, including a winch and an extra wide strengthened stretcher

— Fire services are threatening to charge police or hospitals a fee if they are called in to move grossly overweight people out of dangerous buildings

— Many schools are having to adapt their furniture to cope with heavier, wider children. Each larger table and chair costs about £30

— It is estimated that nearly 2,000 people are too fat to work

Another problem associated with socialism. One person’s problem is socialized and then everyone believes they have a say in your life. Isn’t that counter to what universal health care was advertised as? Everyone has care regardless of status or condition? You’d now be free from the worry of obtaining care. The problem is when you remove the incentive to take care of yourself you’re more likely to be worse off. The cost of not caring for oneself is spread out over the populous.

Karen DeCoster over at LewRockwell.com/blog made a good point: “I thought that the Department of Health banned the use of the word “obese” when referencing children?” Perhaps the local authorities haven’t gotten the memo yet.

I ran across this in the July 10th, 2008 issue of the Liberator. The sources are a Giving USA report and other related media coverage. I however was unable to find the report on their website.

According to Giving USA’s latest report:

• 2007’s record $306.4 billion in charitable giving is a rise of about 1 percent from the previous year, adjusted for inflation.
• Individuals accounted for the largest share by far. Indeed, most charitable giving — $229 billion or about 75 percent total – comes from individuals.
• About two-thirds of households with incomes under $100,000 give to charity.
• Half of individual giving went to religious groups. Religious congregations received one-third of the $306.4 billion, an increase of 2 percent from last year and a record dollar amount.
  
• As economic woes have increased worldwide, Americans are responding by redirecting some of their giving. Donations to international aid, environmental and human-services groups rose the most in 2007.
• Donations to international charities showed the single largest gain — a rise of about 13 percent.
• On average Americans gives 2.3 percent of their disposable income to charitable causes.
• Americans rank first in the world in giving as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), at 1.7 percent, followed by Great Britain (.73 percent). (These are 2006 figures.)

And this is after being taxed 50+ percent by federal, state and local governments. People ask how possibly could a free society take care of those in need… this is how. Just like it is now and was in the past. Real charity.

And then you have McCain advocating the starvation of millions of Iranians. He also studders while speaking of Bob Barr, speaks in the most general terms possible on improving the economy, and talks about cutting spending while wanting Congress to pass housing bills.

Update:

http://www.cnn.com/…

U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said: “Iran’s development of ballistic missiles is a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and completely inconsistent with Iran’s obligations to the world.”

Johndroe mentioned that the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany “are committed to a diplomatic path, and have offered Iran a generous package of incentives if they will suspend their uranium enrichment activities.”

“They should also refrain from further missile tests if they truly seek to gain the trust of the world. The Iranians should stop the development of ballistic missiles, which could be used as a delivery vehicle for a potential nuclear weapon, immediately.”

What obligations? Violation of UNSC resolutions? OOOOHHH scary. What exactly are they doing to do about it?

Listen Iran. Defense if for big boy nations. You need to wait till you grow up to play with such toys and threaten people.