What the Soldiers Did on Christmas 98 Years Ago

Frank Richards recalled:
"On Christmas morning we stuck up a board with 'A Merry Christmas' on it. The enemy had stuck up a similar one. Platoons would sometimes go out for twenty-four hours' rest -- it was a day at least out of the trench and relieved the monotony a bit -- and my platoon had gone out in this way the night before, but a few of us stayed behind to see what would happen. Two of our men then threw their equipment off and jumped on the parapet with their hands above their heads. Two of the Germans done the same and commenced to walk up the river bank, our two men going to meet them. They met and shook hands and then we all got out of the trench.
"Buffalo Bill [the Company Commander] rushed into the trench and endeavoured to prevent it, but he was too late: the whole of the Company were now out, and so were the Germans. He had to accept the situation, so soon he and the other company officers climbed out too. We and the Germans met in the middle of no-man's-land. Their officers was also now out. Our officers exchanged greetings with them. One of the German officers said that he wished he had a camera to take a snapshot, but they were not allowed to carry cameras. Neither were our officers.
"We mucked in all day with one another. They were Saxons and some of them could speak English. By the look of them their trenches were in as bad a state as our own. One of their men, speaking in English, mentioned that he had worked in Brighton for some years and that he was fed up to the neck with this damned war and would be glad when it was all over. We told him that he wasn't the only one that was fed up with it. We did not allow them in our trench and they did not allow us in theirs.
"The German Company-Commander asked Buffalo Bill if he would accept a couple of barrels of beer and assured him that they would not make his men drunk. They had plenty of it in the brewery. He accepted the offer with thanks and a couple of their men rolled the barrels over and we took them into our trench. The German officer sent one of his men back to the trench, who appeared shortly after carrying a tray with bottles and glasses on it. Officers of both sides clinked glasses and drunk one another's health. Buffalo Bill had presented them with a plum pudding just before. The officers came to an understanding that the unofficial truce would end at midnight. At dusk we went back to our respective trenches."

Bruce Bairnsfather remembered:
"The dawn of the 24th brought a perfectly still, cold, frosty day. The spirit of Christmas began to permeate us all; we tried to plot ways and means of making the next day, Christmas, different in some way to others. Invitations from one dug-out to another for sundry meals were beginning to circulate. Christmas Eve was, in the way of weather, everything that Christmas Eve should be.
"I was billed to appear at a dug-out about a quarter of a mile to the left that evening to have rather a special thing in trench dinners—not quite so much bully and Maconochie about as usual. A bottle of red wine and a medley of tinned things from home deputized in their absence. The day had been entirely free from shelling, and somehow we all felt that the Boches, too, wanted to be quiet. There was a kind of an invisible, intangible feeling extending across the frozen swamp between the two lines, which said 'This is Christmas Eve for both of us—something in common.'
"About 10 p.m. I made my exit from the convivial dug-out on the left of our line and walked back to my own lair. On arriving at my own bit of trench I found several of the men standing about, and all very cheerful. There was a good bit of singing and talking going on, jokes and jibes on our curious Christmas Eve, as contrasted with any former one, were thick in the air. One of my men turned to me and said:
"'You can 'ear 'em quite plain, sir!'
"'Hear what?' I inquired.
"'The Germans over there, sir; 'ear 'em singin' and playin' on a band or somethin'.'
"I listened;—away out across the field, among the dark shadows beyond, I could hear the murmur of voices, and an occasional burst of some unintelligible song would come floating out on the frosty air. The singing seemed to be loudest and most distinct a bit to our right. I popped into my dug-out and found the platoon commander."
"'Do you hear the Boches kicking up that racket over there?' I said.
"'Yes,' he replied; 'they've been at it some time!'
"'Come on,' said I, 'let's go along the trench to the hedge there on the right—that's the nearest point to them, over there.'
"So we stumbled along our now hard, frosted ditch, and scrambling up on to the bank above, strode across the field to our next bit of trench on the right. Everyone was listening. An improvised Boche band was playing a precarious version of 'Deutschland, Deutschland, uber Alles,' at the conclusion of which, some of our mouth-organ experts retaliated with snatches of ragtime songs and imitations of the German tune. Suddenly we heard a confused shouting from the other side. We all stopped to listen. The shout came again. A voice in the darkness shouted in English, with a strong German accent, 'Come over here!' A ripple of mirth swept along our trench, followed by a rude outburst of mouth organs and laughter. Presently, in a lull, one of our sergeants repeated the request, 'Come over here!'
"'You come half-way—I come half-way,' floated out of the darkness.
"'Come on, then!' shouted the sergeant. 'I'm coming along the hedge!'
"'Ah! but there are two of you,' came back the voice from the other side.
"Well, anyway, after much suspicious shouting and jocular derision from both sides, our sergeant went along the hedge which ran at right-angles to the two lines of trenches. He was quickly out of sight; but, as we all listened in breathless silence, we soon heard a spasmodic conversation taking place out there in the darkness.
"Presently, the sergeant returned. He had with him a few German cigars and cigarettes which he had exchanged for a couple of Maconochie's and a tin of Capstan, which he had taken with him. The séance was over, but it had given just the requisite touch to our Christmas Eve—something a little human and out of the ordinary routine.
"After months of vindictive sniping and shelling, this little episode came as an invigorating tonic, and a welcome relief to the daily monotony of antagonism. It did not lessen our ardour or determination; but just put a little human punctuation mark in our lives of cold and humid hate. Just on the right day, too—Christmas Eve! But, as a curious episode, this was nothing in comparison to our experience on the following day.
"On Christmas morning I awoke very early, and emerged from my dug-out into the trench. It was a perfect day. A beautiful, cloudless blue sky. The ground hard and white, fading off towards the wood in a thin low-lying mist. It was such a day as is invariably depicted by artists on Christmas cards—the ideal Christmas Day of fiction.

"'Fancy all this hate, war, and discomfort on a day like this!' I thought to myself. The whole spirit of Christmas seemed to be there, so much so that I remember thinking, 'This indescribable something in the air, this Peace and Goodwill feeling, surely will have some effect on the situation here to-day!' And I wasn't far wrong; it did around us, anyway, and I have always been so glad to think of my luck in, firstly, being actually in the trenches on Christmas Day, and, secondly, being on the spot where quite a unique little episode took place.
"Everything looked merry and bright that morning—the discomforts seemed to be less, somehow; they seemed to have epitomized themselves in intense, frosty cold. It was just the sort of day for Peace to be declared. It would have made such a good finale. I should like to have suddenly heard an immense siren blowing. Everybody to stop and say, 'What was that?' Siren blowing again: appearance of a small figure running across the frozen mud waving something. He gets closer—a telegraph boy with a wire! He hands it to me. With trembling fingers I open it: 'War off, return home.—George, R.I.' Cheers! But no, it was a nice, fine day, that was all.
"Walking about the trench a little later, discussing the curious affair of the night before, we suddenly became aware of the fact that we were seeing a lot of evidences of Germans. Heads were bobbing about and showing over their parapet in a most reckless way, and, as we looked, this phenomenon became more and more pronounced.
"A complete Boche figure suddenly appeared on the parapet, and looked about itself. This complaint became infectious. It didn't take 'Our Bert' long to be up on the skyline (it is one long grind to ever keep him off it). This was the signal for more Boche anatomy to be disclosed, and this was replied to by all our Alf's and Bill's, until, in less time than it takes to tell, half a dozen or so of each of the belligerents were outside their trenches and were advancing towards each other in no-man's land.
"A strange sight, truly!
"I clambered up and over our parapet, and moved out across the field to look. Clad in a muddy suit of khaki and wearing a sheepskin coat and Balaclava helmet, I joined the throng about half-way across to the German trenches.
"It all felt most curious: here were these sausage-eating wretches, who had elected to start this infernal European fracas, and in so doing had brought us all into the same muddy pickle as themselves.
"This was my first real sight of them at close quarters. Here they were—the actual, practical soldiers of the German army. There was not an atom of hate on either side that day."

John McCutcheon reimagined:


Joe Henry and Garth Brooks rediscovered:


Even Snoopy was inspired:


And now, after 98 years, what will we do?

G20 summit: Barroso blames eurozone crisis on US banks

EC president says European leaders have not come to Mexico to receive lessons on how to handle the economy

José Manuel Barroso at the G20 summit. Photograph: Bertrand Langlois/AFP/Getty Images

The opening day of the G20 summit was threatening to deteriorate into a fractious row between eurozone countries and other non-European members of the G20, notably the US, as EU commission president José Manuel Barroso insisted the origins of the eurozone crisis lay in the unorthodox policies of American capitalism.
As Europe's leaders came under intense pressure to act decisively to cure the euro's ills, and a campaign gathered pace to relax some of the austerity programmes laying waste to countries with unsustainable debt levels, Barroso said Europe had not come to the G20 summit in Mexico to receive lessons on how to handle the economy. Asked by a Canadian journalist: "Why should North Americans risk their assets to help Europe?" he replied: "Frankly, we are not here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to handle the economy.
"This crisis was not originated in Europe … seeing as you mention North America, this crisis originated in North America and much of our financial sector was contaminated by, how can I put it, unorthodox practices, from some sectors of the financial market."
Late on Monday , Antonis Samaras, the Greek election victor, announced he had agreed to build a coalition with the head of the socialist Pasok, Evangelos Venizelos, with aides saying they expected negotiations to be concluded by Tuesday. The moderate Democratic Left party may participate as well.
The European council's president Herman Van Rompuy, speaking alongside Barroso, said a draft G20 communique showed "support and encouragement for the euro area countries and leaders and for the European Union as a whole to overcome this crisis".
"We are not the only ones that are so-called responsible for the current economic problems all over the world," he said.
Germany's chancellor, Angela Merkel, is under pressure to soften her hardline stance on the austerity measures Europe imposed on indebted eurozone members, which the British chancellor George Osborne has claimed has killed economic growth. Barroso said he expected G20 leaders to "speak very clearly in favor of the approach the EU is following."
After the Greek election at the weekend, which may have shifted terms of the debate over how to shore up the euro, world leaders meeting in Mexico focused on the European crisis amid strong signs of big trouble brewing in Spain.
Madrid's 10-year cost of borrowing went through the 7% barrier on the bond markets for the first time in the single currency era, the level at which borrowing becomes unaffordable. The Spanish government demanded intervention from the European Central Bank.
Spain's prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, is expected to ask for up to €100bn in eurozone bailout funds for Spain's stricken banks at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Luxembourg on Thursday, senior Eurogroup sources said. Voicing exasperation with the European response to the debt crisis, Robert Zoellick, the outgoing American head of the World Bank, warned the G20 summit in Mexico of a growing rift between the Europeans in charge of the bailouts and the IMF.
"The world's waiting for the Europeans to say what they want to do," said Zoellick. He predicted a showdown between the IMF and Europe by the end of the summer in the absence of any decisive action.
Barack Obama was expected to press Merkel, in Mexico on Monday night on the issue of eurobonds – the pooling of liability for single currency countries' debt. But there is no chance of Merkel agreeing to underwrite the debt of other European countries for the foreseeable future.
Britain might have to seek fresh export markets outside the EU as the euro crisis was now facing such entrenched political obstacles that it could be impossible to resolve, he warned. "It may be that the eurozone crisis is going to continue for some time, in which case the UK must do all it can to put its own house in order and link up with the fastest growing parts of the world."
He said a longer term roadmap for a more stable single currency was going to be hard to achieve.
Fresh from his victory in the Greek election, the centre-right leader, Antonis Samaras, promptly tabled demands for a softening of the draconian austerity programme that Greece has to implement for the eurozone bailout.
Samaras, the prime minister-designate pledged to stick broadly to the Greek bailout terms but added: "We will simultaneously have to make some necessary amendments to the bailout agreement, in order to relieve the people of crippling unemployment and huge hardships."
Politicians and officials in Brussels and Germany appeared to suggest that the new Greek leader's demands could be at least partly satisfied by extending the repayment schedule on the bailout loans or lengthening the target deadlines for cutting the budget deficit.
There were also reports that the terms underpinning Ireland's bailout could also be relaxed, giving Dublin a much longer repayment schedule on the loans. The talk of rescheduling the Greek bailout terms surfaced quickly on Sunday night, with the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, suggesting the Europeans could alter the timings. That triggered a row in Germany among the political class over the pros and cons of going easier on Greece.
In Brussels, the respected Bruegel thinktank said: "It is now increasingly clear that the [Greek] programme is severely off track. The [Samaras] victory doesn't change this fact and it has become unavoidable to open a discussion about the shape and form of a new Greek programme. This is a fact now broadly acknowledged by policymakers and in particular by German officials who have openly discussed the possibility of stretching fiscal targets."
Martin Schulz, the German social democrat who presides over the European parliament, added: "The new Greek government will be able to count on our constructive cooperation in possible fine-tuning of its reform strategy and economic targets. If Greece sticks to its commitments, the EU can examine what could be done further to solve the crisis."
From Mexico, however, Merkel appeared to dismiss any easing of the Greek conditions. "The new Greek government has to implement the commitments entered into by the country. The programme framework has to be kept."
The eurogroup source said that Samaras was expected to show up in Luxembourg on Thursday for the meeting of eurozone finance ministers which will grapple with Spain and how to respond to the Greek election results.

Millions will see pensions slashed by up to 20% as new EU rules are set to send annuities plummeting

Millions of people could see the value of their pensions slashed by up to 20 per cent because of new EU rules.
Those with a £100,000 pension fund could be more than £1,100 per year worse off in retirement because of the reforms, research has shown.
The Solvency II rules, which are due to come into effect in January 2014, will force pension funds to hold a higher proportion of 'safe' Government bonds.

Historic lows: The returns on Government bonds have fallen to record lows - which will hit pensions when new EU reforms are brought in

As the bonds - called gilts - have such low rates of return it will drive down the returns on retirement fund annuities, which are used to pension income.
The reforms are designed to make pension funds safer and reduce the risk of them going bust.
Annuities, which set retirement income for life, have already fallen to historic lows because of the impact of quantitative easing.
At present, a pension annuity fund may invest 20 per cent in low-yield gilts and the rest in riskier corporate bonds which have a higher rate of return.

But under the new EU rules, annuity funds will be forced to hold a higher percentage of gilts.
New research by Deloitte suggests annuity rates will plunge by between five and 20 per cent when the directive comes into force in January 2014.
A £100,000 pension pot currently gives an income of £5,837, but once the regulations come into effect they will be between £292 and £1,167 a year worse off.

Plummeting pensions: New EU rules forcing funds to hold more Government bonds could see millions worse off in retirement

The return on government bonds has fallen in value because the Bank of England's quantitative easing programme has involved buying them up to inject an extra £325bn into the economy and investors are moving their funds from risky countries like Greece to Britain. This extra demand drives up their prices but consequently means that interest rate yields plunge.
Yields have fallen to historic lows, and the situation could get worse.

HOW NEW EU PENSIONS RULES WILL HIT INCOME IN RETIREMENT

The Daily Mail City team looks at the effects of the new EU rules that could force companies to hold more capital in case of emergency.
Glue-sniffing?
Solvency 2, not solvent abuse. It is a controversial new set of rules for insurance companies from the European Union.
Shouldn’t all firms stay solvent?
Yes. In the case of insurance companies, regulators like to know they have enough money to pay pensions, car insurance claims and the like.
So why the new rules?
At the moment there are different solvency rules across the EU, and the authorities would like to harmonise.
Any other problems?
There are worries that Solvency II might force insurers to hold more capital against annuities, which would mean smaller pensions – another blow for people retiring.

Dr Ros Altmann, director-general of Saga, said: 'As a result of quantitative easing which has forced gilt rates down so pensioners are getting less in retirement for the money they have spent their whole lives saving.
'The EU rules will make the value of pensions fall further. Its a series of pieces of bad news for British pensioners.
'As a result of these rules everyone will get much less pension out of their fund. We don't know exactly how much less.
'We are anxious that the UK Government should stand up for UK pensioners.'
She added that plunging annuity rates are putting young people off saving for retirement.
In a double-whammy for male pensioners, new rules banning gender discrimination could hit retirement incomes.
At present, men get higher annuities because of their shorter life expectancies.
Richard Baddon, insurance partner at Deloitte, said: 'Annuity rates will also be affected by the EU gender ruling, due to be implemented at the end of the year.
'Men and women will be offered the same rates and although it isn’t yet clear how this will impact insurer pricing, it could mean that annuity rates fall for men and rise for women.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/pensions/article-2160936/Millions-values-pensions-slashed-20-new-EU-rules-send-annuities-plummeting.html#ixzz1yFzFbFMO

Curing American Workers Of Green Card Blues And How Harvard Selects Students

John Williams of Shadow Stats tells us that the real US unemployment rate is 22%. Even the controlled press tells us that the youth unemployment rate is over 50% this summer.
A couple of months ago an attractive woman told President Obama that her husband was an electrical engineer who was unemployed for over two years. The President told her that he had been told that Green Cards are only issued after an employer could not find an American citizen to do that job. He promised to look into her husband’s case. Two months later her husband was still unemployed.
President Obama did give her and the rest of us an answer of sorts. On Friday he said he was going to ignore the law and allow illegal aliens to stay in America and attend college. The media sound bite sounded like it was for students., But it applied to any illegal under age 30 who came here in the past 14 years. By giving them two years to do whatever, he was granting them permanent residency. All they have to do is have a baby who will have instant citizenship.  That way they can get a drivers license and under the Motor Voter law of the Clinton era they can register and vote for Obama. They will qualify for affirmative action and get into professional schools and displace the younger generation from any hope of a career. That would allow the illegal aliens to replace citizens in the upper reaches of American society and power.
The younger American generation does not have many opportunities for a career that will pay them enough money to marry and have children. To date no Presidential candidate has bothered to address the fact that illegal immigration and affirmative action are robbing our young people of any ability to raise a family.
Green Cards have been given to illegal aliens who have been convicted of violent crimes in American courts. They are also given to illegal aliens working at manufacturing sites after they have been raided and the owners fined. To be fair this was standard practice under Bush and will likely continue under Romney.
All of these problems could easily be solved by honest and intelligent politicians. Unfortunately we have none in America.  My modest proposal is that all jobs held by Green Card holders be put up for open competition by listing them online and at local state unemployment offices so citizens could apply for actual existing jobs. After WW II returning soldiers were guaranteed their old jobs. All they had to do was walk in the door and the boss had to release whoever was filling that job. That is how the program to replace Green Card holders should work today. Of course the illegal aliens with criminal convictions in either the US or overseas should be immediately deported.
You might want to ask any congressional or senatorial candidate you are able to corner what they think of this plan.
I might add that I have attended lots of American universities and have seen affirmative action first hand. Most of the blacks attending Harvard are either  immigrants, have one white parent or are the children of Harvard graduates. Most are not from the American black community. of working people you see in your everyday life.
This is how Harvard selects students.
They first take care of the children of graduates who have made substantial gifts to the university. Then they take care of the children of the university’s professors. They also have to take care of the children of the National Security State. If your father is a general or is an assistant director of the CIA, FBI or the IRS, you go to the head of the line. I had a friend whose father had a high level IRS job and was interviewed by a professor whose research lab was so secret that my friend could never find in four years of looking. The Military Industrial Complex spends so much taxpayer money researching plagues, mind control other fun things to oppress the Gentiles. They feel this entitles them to giving their children admissions to the best schools. After these special people are admitted, they give out seats based on affirmative action for blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders and American Indians. Then they take care of a few native residents of Massachusetts because Harvard owns a lot of the real estate in the the state  and their exemption from property taxes is a hot local issue. Then they take care of the Jews. As an after thought, they give the remaining seats to whites. The Jews are not listed under  affirmative action. They hide amidst the whites.  But on a disproportionate basis Jews take white positions. This discriminates against the people whose ancestors died fighting to protect Israel in favor of those who have no relatives serving in either  Iraq or Afghanistan.
My regular readers are aware that I am convinced that Israel did 911 and that the Jewish owned media covered it up. That is treason.. It follows that I see no reason for Jewish students to be allocated seats in a medical or law school reserved for whites. Their tribe declared war on America. Why should we sacrifice for the people who declared war on America?
If you ever want to end affirmative action, just pass a law requiring that Jews be allocated no more than twice their numbers in the general population. So if the Holohoaxers say 2% of the Americans  are Jews then no more than 4% of the medical students at Harvard should be Jewish, Currently, the Jews claim only 25% of those students in Harvard professional schools are Jews, But I had a Jewish friend who made it into Harvard Med on affirmative action as she was a female.  Her father was a publisher and her mother a New York lawyer. She was one crazy woman. Other Jews said she she should not have been accepted. She told me she was told to tell the Gentiles she was a lapsed Protestant so the Jews could pretend they were only 25% of the student body.
We need a serious debate on affirmative action and illegal immigration. If we cannot get it when the unemployment rate is 22%, when will we get it? When the Gentile unemployment rate is 27%?  30%? Or maybe 33%?  Or maybe never.
Notes: Israelis are insane. If you doubt me read this before commenting. John McCain does not always tell you the truth.
5 Minutes To Self-Immolation Of The Israeli Empire
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/5-minutes-to-self-immolation-of-the-israeli-empire
There Never Was An American Empire Only A Machine That Consumed Us All
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/there-never-was-an-american-empire-only-a-machine-that-consumed-us-all/
One of my most popular articles about the pond scum otherwise known as bankers was:
25 Reasons To Absolutely Despise Bankers And Their Minions
http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/25-reasons-to-absolutrly-despise-bankers-and-their-minions/
If you never studied the Holohoax, now is the time. Israel should no longer be allowed to use it to justify their war crimes.
Holy Holohoax. My Government Wouldn’t Lie To Me.

Greek Workers Keep Working Without Pay

The stereotype of the lazy Greek worker, putting in long hours but not producing much, and not declaring everything to the taxman, has dogged the country’s efforts to get international sympathy.

Andreas Solaro | AFP | Getty Images

And this cliché has permeated public opinion elsewhere. Greece is perceived as the least hard-working country in Europe by the British, the Germans, the Spanish, Poles and Czechs, according to a recent survey by Pew. Greeks who were surveyed pointed the finger at Italy as the laziest country.

Yet the picture is far from clear-cut. Greeks have less vacation time, and their retirement age is rising from the current average of 61 under the terms of the bailout.

The average Greek worker puts in 2,017 hours per year, more than any other European country. This is partly because there are more self-employed people, who tend to work longer hours, and fewer part-time employees to drag down the average.

There is also a problem with low productivity, particularly in the public sector, which employs around one-fifth of the population. Asked about the public sector, workers in the private sector mutter darkly about inefficiencies.

As the economic crisis deepens and the second Greek election in two months looms on Sunday, CNBC met plenty of Greeks who are belying the stereotype of laziness working without being paid. 

 Staff at the Henry Dunant Hospital in Athens are still working despite being owed five months pay. The hospital’s new management team, parachuted in in February, has brought in a 15 percent pay cut – agreed with unions – but cannot even pay this until a tranche of financing comes through.

The hospital is in this predicament because it is run by a charitable foundation which used to get around 5 million euros ($6.3 million) annually. These funds have dried up following the euro [EUR=X  1.2688    0.0113  (+0.9%)   ] zone crisis. The private medical procedures which helped boost revenues have also shrunk dramatically.

“Some people are working because they hope their pay will come through. There’s also a problem with finding another job elsewhere. And there’s also a sentimental thing where they’re attached to their jobs,” Constantinos Mavrantonis, head of General & Colo-rectal Surgery at the hospital, told CNBC.

One of Greece’s best-known newspapers, Eleftherotypia (or “freedom of the press”), probably the closest Greek equivalent to The Guardian, all but closed down in December after the family business which backed it ran out of cash. Its staff haven’t been paid since August, yet around 600 of them (down from 850 last August) are planning two special editions of the newspaper around the election this weekend.

“We keep on working because we work in a business that has always been very liberal, we like the environment of the newspaper, and it is a newspaper that we truly believe in,” Katia Antoniadi, one of the journalists at Eleftherotypia, told CNBC.

“Of course, we also know that if we go out and look for another job we will get nothing, because the media in Greece is in crisis.”

Written by Catherine Boyle, CNBC. Twitter: @catboyle01

© 2012 CNBC.com

All Over America Government Agents of Tyranny Are Forcing Preppers Back On To The Grid

Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post

In recent years there have been huge numbers of Americans that have sought to go "off the grid" and live a more independent lifestyle. It has been estimated that there are now approximately 3 million "preppers" in the United States, and many of them just want to be left alone so that they can take care of themselves and their families on their own land. But that is not the way America works anymore.

In many areas of the country, government control freaks have essentially declared war on preppers and are attempting to force them back on to the grid. In some states, "nuisance abatement teams" are conducting armed raids on off the grid properties. Property owners are being cited for "code violations" and are being told that they are "bothering the neighbors". In some cases, trees and gardens are being forcibly removed. In other cases, entire structures are being relocated or torn down. And in the most extreme cases, property owners are actually being forced off of their properties completely by these control freaks. 

You see, the truth is that in America you don't really own your property. You are essentially renting it, and you can only do with it what the government allows you to do. And the government does not like people disconnecting from the grid and living an independent lifestyle. So these battles over property rights are probably going to get even more intense in the years ahead.

These days, many Americans are choosing to grow "survival gardens" as a way to help feed their families and become more independent of the system.

 But in some areas of the country these survival gardens are being forcibly ripped out by government control freaks. Just check out what happened to one unemployed woman in Tulsa, Oklahoma....

A Tulsa woman is suing the city's code enforcement officers after she said they cut down her garden with no cause.

Denise Morrison said she has more than 100 plant varieties in her front and back yards and all of them are edible and have a purpose.

She knows which ones will treat arthritis, which will make your food spicy, which ones keep mosquitoes away and treat bug bites, but she said none of that matter to city inspectors.

Last August, Morrison's front and back yards were filled with flowers in bloom, lemon, stevia, garlic chives, grapes, strawberries, apple mint, spearmint, peppermint, an apple tree, walnut tree, pecan trees and much more.

The government agents left her with nothing. They ripped her garden to shreds. She was relying on that garden for her food and her medicine. Because she is unemployed, she doesn't have any money to go to the store and buy all those things.

Now she is absolutely destitute....

'I came back three days later, sat in my driveway, cried and left,' Morrison said.

Oh, but at least the government agents can report that "everything is now up to code".

What is happening to this country?

In the state of California, armed "nuisance abatement teams" are intimidating property owners into getting connected back into the grid, and in some instances they are forcing homeowners off their land entirely.

When I first watched the videos posted below I got quite angry.

This first video is about government control freaks driving people off their land in the California desert....

This second video is also about what is going on with "off the grid" properties in California....

After watching those videos, it is easy to understand why millions of people have been leaving the state.

Those who are running things do not want us to be independent. Rather, they want us completely and totally dependent on the "nanny state" from the cradle to the grave. They want us as "connected" to the system as possible so that they can watch us, monitor us and control us.

Sadly, most Americans do not even realize that the United States is slowly but surely being transformed into a giant prison control grid.

This is happening in thousands of different ways.

For example, eventually all of us will not be able to go anywhere without our faces being recognized and recorded.

Yes, just like the movie Minority Report. In fact, facial recognition advertising billboards are already being used in Japan.

Facial recognition is even being used on the Internet. Facebook recently purchased a facial recognition startup company called Face.com. This startup company has technology that can positively identify you in any photo and can even guess your age.

The following is from an official statement on the Face.com website....

Facebook has acquired Face.com! Our mission is and has always been to find new and exciting ways to make face recognition a fun, engaging part of people’s lives, and incorporate remarkable technology into everyday consumer products. If you’re anything like us, Facebook is a part of your life every single day. We keep up with our friends and family, share interesting (or mundane) experiences from our daily lives, and perhaps most importantly for us, we share a LOT of photos.

The truth is that nothing any of us do on the Internet will ever be private again. That ship has already sailed.

We still have a lot of freedom to say what we want on the Internet, but that window is rapidly closing as well.

Internet censorship in the United States is growing at a very fast pace, and it is only a matter of time before entire websites start getting shut down for political reasons.

The following is from a recent CNN article about the explosive growth of Internet censorship....

In the last half of 2011, U.S. agencies asked Google to remove 6,192 individual pieces of content from its search results, blog posts or archives of online videos, according to the report. That's up 718% compared with the 757 such items that U.S. agencies asked Google to remove in the six months prior.

If they don't like what we do on the Internet, they will just come in and wipe it out.

If they don't like what we do on our land, they will just come in and chop it down or forcibly remove it.

We do not live in the "land of the free" anymore.

"Amerika" is becoming a prison state.

And every single year the prison grid gets tighter and more oppressive in thousands of different ways.

If you are doing something "out of the box" on your own property right now, you might want to keep it very quiet.

If the wrong person finds out, an armed "nuisance abatement team" might just show up at your door one morning and hit you with several dozen "code violations".

I don't know what country we are living in, but it sure isn't America.

This article first appeared here at the American Dream.  Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.

A Silver Bullet for the World Economic Crisis

Obama is in Mexico for yet another G20 meeting of the international socialist politburo.  We are told the discussions at the meeting are centered on the European economic crisis.
The United States government is set to spend about $2.4 trillion this year.  The mainstream propagandists are telling us that if Spain and Greece fold on their debt, it will wipe out our economy.  Spain is in debt $2.4 trillion and Greece is in debt $553 billion.  These are not little numbers by any stretch of the imagination, but the fact remains the total is about $553 billion more than we spend in a year.

Considering we do not owe the Greek debt nor the Spanish debt, how could this relatively small amount wipe up out?  Are we a part of some kind of bizarre international insurance pool wherein the guy across town totals his Volkswagen and we lose our farm?
This is all not but one big con.  Since when did we the people of the United States become responsible for the debts of other nations?  You will say we are not being told we have to pay that debt, but the fact is the central banks in Spain and Greece have already gotten billions in bailout moneys from the Federal Reserve borrowed in our names.
We are being told that the people of Germany are going to have to bail out Greece and Spain.  If so, what would any of it have to do with us?  Have we become nothing more than just another entry on an international elitist’s portfolio and when one of his stocks/countries loses wealth, the entire stock portfolio goes down?
I guess the US economy is going to have to completely crash before the US citizenry pulls its head out of the clouds and looks down to see the 101 elitist hands rummaging through its pockets.
Our debt, Spain’s debt, Greece’s debt, every debt of every country around the world has been created through what is an admitted fraud and all we seem to be able to do is listen to the thieves, who created the fraudulent debt, argue as to how we the people are going to pay to further finance it.
There is a silver bullet don’t you know.  It is right there in plain sight.  And every scum sucking one of these parasites that make up the insurgency in control of our government knows what that silver bullet is.  The fact is the silver bullet has already been used and has worked flawlessly.  But you will not hear about it through the mainstream banker owned propaganda machine.
So are you ready for the big secret?  Well here you go.
Iceland, on the verge of bankruptcy, fired the silver bullet.  They arrested the central bankers in their country, got rid of their central banks, and simply deleted the fraudulent debt that they did not owe, as it was created through an international criminal act.  And now the Icelandic economy is booming.  Go figure.
God bless the Republic, death to the international corporate mafia, we shall prevail.