OWS: Are Mindless Americans Falling Prey to theCollectivist Trap?

Patrick HenningsenInfowars.comOctober 11, 2011

A disturbing new trend has quietlytaken hold over simultaneousnationwide protests in the UnitedStates over the last few weeks.

Visible throughout the Occupy WallStreet (OWS) protests, is a techniquedubbed as “The People’s Microphone”.It has been deployed nationwide, and is becoming the dominant vehicle for group interaction andcommunication. So what is it?

According to the official OWS wiki page:

“New York City requires a permit to use “amplified sound.” Since Occupy Wall Street does nothave a permit, police have interpreted that to mean even the use of an electric bullhorn. As aresponse to such limitations, a phenomenon known as the “People’s Microphone” has evolved,where a person making a speech pauses while the nearby members of the audience repeats theprevious phrase (somewhat) in unison.” The entry adds, “The (People’s Microphone) effect hasbeen called “comic or exhilarating – often all at once.” Some feel this provided a further unifyingeffect for the crowd.”

Advocates of this new method claim that it is a work-around to restrictive city ordinances, andserves as a ‘progressive communication’ tool which allows groups to speak and achieve“community consensus”, and that the audience is asked to listen in a whole new way and toactually help transmit the message to others. They will tell you that accuracy and transparency arethe crucial elements to the People’s Microphone.OWS’s new People’s Microphone is quite simplya Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) application or technique. Its consensus arrival method,also known as “call-and-return”, has now become the audio device of choice- spreading across thecountry as quickly as the protests themselves.

Crowd participants slowly repeat each phrase the leading speaker is saying to them, with a seriesof hand signs used to provide the speaker and the group with feedback.

To the casual observer, this new system of communication may appear as compelling, as it ismetaphoric. It might also remind you of the infamous ‘pass the conch’ scene from the NobelPrize-winning novel by William Golding, Lord of the Flies.

It is a very slow and tedious process, often resulting in very few actual issues being fleshed out. Inmost cases, it takes triple the amount of time to convey the same amount of information that anormal speaker would accomplish by talking directly to the audience. But this can only be donewhen the group is forced to repeat the words of the speaker, so the speaker is forced to talkslowly, using fewer words at once. In this way, it is also a mesmerizing and extremely hypnoticgroup communication tool.

In this way, such NLP methods can also be used to promote ‘group-think’ and could be describedas collectivist mind control education at its very finest.

Successful NLP systems like this are commonly used by sales people in business, as well as inadvertising and of course politics, working in restricted bloc of words, and often with restrictedvocabularies.

Group moderators insist that this is done so that ‘everybody is safe’, and that the group is ‘doingthings properly’. Any interaction with a speaker can only be done by employing a series ofparochial child-like hand-signs, normally reserved for children attending school in K-8 grades.

There is certain appeal to ‘being part of the community’, where group leaders will ask the crowdfor a ‘temperature check’ in order to determine “how ‘the bloc’ feels about what someone hassaid”, and if what someone is in consensus with “the bloc”. The audience will offer up a handsignal of waiving both hands to show their approval.

Once a consensus is identified, it’s typical that members of “the bloc” will feel that they are part ofthe collective, and thus, “part of the change”.

Unfortunately, in this type of system most of the group have little idea of what they are actuallyrepeating, or who and what they are supporting with their hand signals, waving their hands, ormaking a triangle sign to communicate.

Watch as the speaker in the following video explains to his ‘bloc’ the collective will be banningany applause, because the clapping of hands might drown out someone within the collective who istrying to be heard. See this unfold in the bizarre Occupy Atlanta video below:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZlp3eGMNI&feature=

In the end, Occupy Atlanta organizers and the group became so enthralled with their people’sMicrophone that Congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis was not allowed an opportunity tospeak to ‘the bloc’. The ‘process’ eventually sent the Congressman packing.

The NLP ‘call-and-repeat’ mechanism can no doubt be used to hypnotic effect. Often these type oftechniques are used in order to filter out the free thinkers, intense self-policing at its most stringent.Notice that when group members are disagreeing, their hands are much lower, but at theirmaximum when ‘the bloc’ seems to all be in agreement.

What these protestors are hardly aware of, is that they may be participating a form of modern day

group-think. It is a form of social control whereby everyone in the group believes that they must allagree and must all be of the same mind. Armed with this power new tool, consensus promoters canbe bussed into sites around the country, training groups to chant key group-think talking pointsusing mnemonic phrases.

The collectivist trap

Participants truly believe in the process and that the process is very ‘democratic’, civilized, radical,effective, and thus, revolutionary. But few within these groups are actually aware of the NLPconcepts they have opted into, nor are they familiar with tried and tested mind control methods,nor the powerful political tool of collectivism. So it is not surprising that most will enthusiasticallyjoin in the group and religiously abide by its laws of conversation, following some scripted agendainstead of being spontaneous or truly radical.

The People’s Microphone can also lead a group to believe by these hand signal votes they cancreate a law and enforce it. This can often result in an oxymoronic “totalitarian-consensus”, wherea perceived consensus occurs, but in reality, a consensus was only reach because each member ofthe group was afraid to be ejected from the collective. Other video examples include OccupyAmherst, Occupy Tampa, and Occupy DC filmed by Adam Kokesh. All three can be viewedbelow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jfj2vPkV3s&feature=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66ca7QLkfi8&feature=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoPwo3STiXo&feature=

This form of mob mentality can be dangerous because the leader of a group is leading their flocktowards his or her direction of choice, but still offering them the illusion it is ‘what everyone in thecommunity wants’. In the classic film Dr Zhivago, scenes appear in which leading “intellectual”group-thinkers demolish the private property of others because, according to the collective, “theydon’t deserve to own it”.

Taking this concept is taken to its extreme form, a mob or individual within the mob couldintimidate or even physically assault a person, while the mob believe they are just watching whatthe collective, or ‘community’ wants to happen.

Hardly grass roots

It is already well documented that the original Occupy Wall Street protest was seeded by acollectivist George Soros funded foundation called Ad Busters, and allegedly supported by theshadowy agitator hacker group called Anonymous.

For the last decade, globalist foundations promoting democracy and freedom have been active infomenting uprisings all over the planet, and fresh off their international successes they have finallycome home to roost within the OWS movement.

But what is not as well documented is the involvement of the international CIA front organizationcalled the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS). This can be describedas a kind of consultancy for would-be revolutionaries, an organization of professionalagitators-for-hire who globe-trot, openly promoting their CFR-sponsored agenda- most notably inEgypt, where CANVAS trained and managed Egyptian protestors as early as 2009 in preparationfor the fabled ‘Arab Spring’ in 2010-2011.

Their projects are clandestine, kept secret while in preparation, names of clients are not publicallyavailable, are well funded by American intelligence services. Yes, they are now active on US soil.

It is important that readers understand how CANVAS was created from the Serbian political youthmovement called OPTOR!(translated as ‘Resistance!), who’s initial project was the overthrow ofthe Slobodan Milosevic government in Yugoslavia in 2000.

OPTOR’s support and funding network reads like a who’s who of CIA and globalist frontfoundations, including well known CIA front organization USAID, George Soros’s collectivistfront foundation Freedom House, and the National Endowment for Democracy whose operationalsuccesses include the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and theTulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, each heavily financed and backed by groups funded by orconnected to the U.S. government. Likewise, events in Tunisia, North Africa and Egypt wereorchestrated out of the finest detail, and it seems that events surrounding the OWS movement areno different.

Key operatives in OPTOR!, and later for CANVAS are Serbians Ivan Marovic and Srdja Popovic.After the fall of Milosovec, the western media hailed Marovic as a democratic genius, but it cameout his entire program came out of an elite Boston think tank’s ‘regime change’ manual, FromDictatorship to Democracy, written by a Harvard Professor Gene Sharp.

From the first days of OWS, it should be noted that Marovic was already on site, and guidinggroups by demonstrating the power of The People’s Microphone. Watch here as Marovic himselfleads crowds in the first days of the protests:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkM3BBtc7N0&feature=Some of the CANVAS professionally developed, ‘subversive’ revolutionary methods are outlinedin the incredible documentary film The Revolution Business, where paid facilitators are employedto train protesters, acting as a guide through the process which also includes communicationtechniques and the circulation of media talking points.

Mind control and the dumbing-down of America

“The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as manyindividuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent andoriginality” – H. L. Mencken

These NLP techniques have taken hold so quickly in across OWS are the very techniques that havealready been implemented throughout the nation’s public education systems, and are also present

in popular children’s programming.

Typically, participants in a mind control exercise engage in group-think, not unlike the participantsshown in these videos. Members of the group will also get an endorphin rush similar to what onemight receive during an evangelical church performance, or even at hip-hop concert, where theMC shouts, “now wave your hands in the air, and wave ‘em like you just don’t care.”

Charlotte Iserbyt was a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research andImprovement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, where she blew the whistle on a majortechnology initiative which would control curriculum in America’s classrooms shown in thedocumentary film, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.

Most Americans participating in the OWS have come through the state education system, whosechief objective, according to Charlotte Iserbyt, is teaching groups, and thus individuals- to beobedient.

The dominant message which is now coming out of the OWS protests across the US appears to be the collectivist idea of an unequal distribution of wealth in the United States, and this can only bedescribed as social engineer’s blueprint for a 21st century Bolshevik Revolution in America, and itis playing out right before our eyes as the millions of young, disaffected Americans search forsimple collectivist answers to society’s many ills.

One can certainly argue here, that the dumbing-down of America would serve such an agenda.

Establishing fear in a police state

Notice that we already have “free speech zones” in the US, while prospective protesters in the UKmust apply with the city police for a license to demonstrate.

Aside from the incessant need by most young Americans to be led by a lone, some singular voice,the underlying social engineering tool which has enabled the intellectual and sovereign castration ofAmericans, is quite simply… the fear of being arrested.

One singular thing that a decade of free speech zones, homeland security, surveillance and acomprehensive dismantling of the Bill of Rights(equally under both Bush and Obama) has achieved– is just that – a constant fear of a shadowy police state. Without this underlying fear, therepressive Soviet-style group-think scenes we see in these video could never have been possible.

The whole existence of the People’s Microphone is down to the fact that NYC police haveimposed draconian measures like banning megaphones. As far as requiring a license to protest inpublic, not using a PA system in public, or restricting filming in a public space, true patriots andbelievers in a free society should not seek ‘permits’ for anything, nor should they respect‘prohibitions’ on a citizen’s right to free speech and assembly.

Notice that not all cities in the USA prohibit bull-horning or amplified speakers, yet, American

activists have still voluntarily defaulted back to collectivist NLP method, People’s Microphone,initially unveiled at OWS in NYC.

More than anything, these videos of mindless call-and-repeat chanting show the deep problems anytrue freedom movement must overcome in reaching ‘the 99%’ in America.

Where it’s heading

From its onset, many writers and pundits within the independent media and freedom movementthrew their support behind OWS, with the sincere hope it focused on the deeper, fundamentalglobalist issues- like restoring the Constitution, the need for smaller government, the creation andcounterfeiting our currency through the Federal Reserve System, causing the inflationary boomand bust cycles that have been periodically culling the world’s upwardly mobile working andmiddle classes. Instead, the focus of both protesters and media has drifted towards system actorslike CEO’s, bankers and politicians, rather than address the very system itself.

If you take into account the level by which the Occupy Wall Street movement has already beenco-opted by the ‘progressives’ and the Democratic Party, and endorsed whole-heartedly bystaunch globalists within the US power-structure like Ben Bernanke, President Obama and NancyPelosi, this writer believes strongly that OWS will likely morph into a permanent left wingcounter-weight to the now Republican co-opted Tea Party movement.

The movement may have grown organically, but as we saw with Ron Paul’s initial Tea Party sparkin 2007, once a movement’s political gravity reached a certain stage, the establishment quicklydeploys its professional agitators, political operatives and mainstream media gate keepers in orderto control its motion and shepherd its evolution. Already, the mainstream media have injected thetalking point which most Americans are already parroting, that is: “America’s Occupy Movementis the Democrats’ equivalent to the Tea Party”.

What these movements do is function as an easy access, pressure-release valve for the controlledLeft and Right wings. Both parties in the US have become too rigid, offering little to a 21stcentury society that is now information-rich, but still insight poor, and generally cater to the lowestcommon social denominator. With unemployment and debts high, and opportunities sparse, thesimplified message of collectivism championed by celebrities like Michael Moore will certain holdan attractive appeal to many Americans who are unfamiliar with its well documented past horrors.

Soon, the Occupy London movement will begin in the UK. Based on recent trends in the US, thiswriter will also strongly predict that OWS’s British counterpart will quickly morph into anti-Torygovernment, pro-socialist, climate change/green movement, not least because the majority ofprotesters in the UK will be among the ranks of the unemployed, indebted students, and chronicstate benefit recipients- a fact which almost guarantees their loyal support of the UK’s socialentitlement control-grid, as well as memberships to the collectivist EU and UN supra-nationalorganizations.

In times of economic strife, populations are easily lured into a simple, ideological trap like

collectivism. Most participants in the OWS movement would be completely unaware of who isdirecting, steering their new ‘grassroots’ conversation.

To avoid the collectivist trap, participants in OWS events all across the US must first learn to readbetween the lines, or they may unwittingly become party to something completely different to whatthey thought they had signed up for in the first place.

The People Who Organized the “Occupied Wall StreetJournal” Newspaper

Andrew SteeleInfowars.comOctober 12, 2011

The Occupy Wall StreetMovement now has anewspaper called “TheOccupied Wall StreetJournal”. Supposedly themoney for it was raisedonline and the first issueprinted 50,000 copies.

The first page of it featured abeautiful woman holding atambourine, displayed to thereader in typical MadisonAvenue eye-catching style along with basic articles about the occupation, the most interestingbeing, “Occupation for dummies…How it came about, what it means,how it works”.

Attempting to answer some basic questions about the protests the article includes the followingexcerpts:

What are the demands of the protesters?

“Ugh‚ the zillion-dollar question. Again, the original Adbusters call asked, “What is our onedemand?” Technically, there isn’t one yet. In the weeks leading up to Sept.17, the NYC GeneralAssembly seemed to be veering away from the language of “demands” in the first place, largelybecause government institutions are already so shot through with corporate money that makingspecific demands would be pointless until the movement grew stronger politically. Instead, tobegin with, they opted to make their demand the occupation itself—and the direct democracytaking place there—which in turn may or may not come up with some specific demand. When youthink about it, this act is actually a pretty powerful statement against the corruption that Wall

Street has come to represent. But since thinking is often too much to ask of the American massmedia, the question of demands has turned into a massive PR challenge. The General Assembly iscurrently in the midst of determining how it will come to consensus about unifying demands. It’s areally messy and interesting discussion. But don’t hold your breath.”

Also…“Again, that depends on whom you ask. As Sept. 17 approached, the NYC GeneralAssembly really saw its goal, again, not so much as to pass some piece of legislation or start arevolution as to build a new kind of movement. It wanted to foment similar assemblies around thecity and around the world, which would be a new basis for political organizing in this country,against the over-whelming influence of corporate money. That is starting to happen, as similaroccupations are cropping up in dozens of other cities. I’ve heard some people saying, when LibertyPlaza was swamped with TV news cameras, “We’ve already won!” Others think they’ve hardlybegun. Both, in some sense, are true.”

So in other words “What do we want?! (Fill in the blank).”

While this particular article is vague on demands, the Declaration of the General Assembly on thepage before it lists every liberal cause under the sun as a grievance.

Despite the paper’s obscure articles, the men credited for organizing the paper– Arun Gupta andJed Brandt– in the past have been quite outspoken regarding their own beliefs on what needs tochange in America.

Arun Gupta is an activist and writer. He is the is a founding editor of The Indypendent newspaper. In this episode of RT’s Cross Talk (not sure when it was broadcast but it was uploaded toYouTube on September 26th) that asks whether or not capitalism is dead, he argues thatcapitalism led the United States and the world to its current economic state against others on thepanel who point out that it wasn’t capitalism but corporatism that led to the bailouts…a result ofbig government picking winners and losers.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnCOQ96dVgA&feature=

Jed Brandt is a writer, photographer, and artist whose work has appeared in The Indypendent. Heis also part of the Kasama Project, which according to its own website “is a communist project forthe forcible overthrow and transformation of all existing social conditions.”

On the Kasama Project web site’s “About” page, under the headline “REVOLUTION: rethinkingthe unthinkable” it states:

“We intend to identify those fault lines where radical thought and action can emerge. We want togo deeply among the people to prepare minds and organize forces for revolution; for a globaltransformation of human life; for the urgent rescue of the biosphere from capitalist destruction; forthe radical dismantling of the U. S. empire – its military, its nuclear weapons and torture camps;for the uprooting of intolerable racial inequalities and the archaic brutalities of male supremacy; forthe final liberation of humanity from the restless, soulless rule of capitalist profit making!”This clip of Brandt is from last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEEtScHIC1U&feature=

Though people like these two individuals do not represent the majority of Americans who arejustifiably outraged at government corruption and the theft of taxpayer money, people like themare being thrust to the forefront of the ‘Occupy’ protests in the media’s attempt to represent thelatest demonstrations of American anger as anti-capitalist. In the past, the scale of right vs. left hasbeen one that has featured those who believed the government should keep its hands off the freemarket on the right, and those who reasonably believed in private property and economic freedombut also in their perception of social responsibility and government safeguards on the left. Withmuch of the media coming out in general support of this increasingly radical steered movement, theleft bookend has been shifted dangerously closer to an area our grandparents who fought againstcommunism and its deplorable effects on humanity would have never believed our country wouldseriously venture into. The American people need to stand up now, reclaim their anger, and claimthese protests back in the name of reasonable people again, seeking not the end of capitalism andthe free market, but the end of the Federal Reserve as the first step towards real recovery.

Otherwise mad men will continue to fill the void.

Andrew Steele’s post first appeared on his blog, America 20XY.

Socialists control occupy wall streetprotest

Buckle Up: America Is Getting Very Angry And TheProtests Are Going To Become Much MoreFrightening

The American DreamWednesday, October 12,2011

The Occupy Wall Streetprotests and the rise of theTea Party movement haveboth changed America, butyou haven’t seen anythingyet. You better buckle up,because America is gettingvery angry and as theeconomy continues todecline the economicprotests are going tobecome much morefrightening in the yearsahead. Americans havebecome very accustomed toprosperity.Now that our prosperity isvanishing, people are starting to become very angry. The scary thing is that the vast majority ofour population now lives in tightly congested urban areas. That makes the potential for massrioting and civil unrest much greater. Back in 1910, 72 percent of Americans lived in rural areas. Today, only 16 percent of Americans live in rural areas. So what happens when you have millionsof incredibly angry people crammed into tightly congested metropolitan areas? Well, we are aboutto find out.

Over the past 4 years, we have seen some unprecedented things happen in America. First wewitnessed the rise of the Tea Party movement. Initially it pretty much was a true grassrootsmovement but now it has been mostly taken over by establishment Republicans. Now we arewitnessing the rise of Occupy Wall Street. While there are some grassroots elements to it, thereality is that Occupy Wall Street seems to be pretty much controlled by the Democrats. In fact,one individual was recently told that “Ron Paul signs are not welcome here” at a recent protest.

So we have the left and the right fighting with each other like cats and dogs. The Tea Partymovement and Occupy Wall Street both pretty much hate each other.

Meanwhile, those that control both political parties are enjoying the view.

But the people that are expressing their anger through protest movements such as Occupy WallStreet are not going to be content with the status quo for long.

The truth is that there is a lot of anger in the United States today, and that anger is rapidlygrowing. Millions upon millions of Americans are deeply upset about the economy and about ourfinancial system.

Right now, protests by both the Tea Party movement and Occupy Wall Street have been mostlypeaceful.

But that will not last indefinitely.

In fact, there are already signs that Occupy Wall Street protesters are not content with simplysitting in the park and banging on drums.

For example, protesters stormed the Senate Hart Office Building in Washington D.C. today. Ahandful of protesters were arrested.

Also, more than 50 protesters from the Occupy Boston movement were arrested today when theywould not do what police were ordering them to do.

But most notable of all was the march to the homes of certain millionaires up in New York. Earlier today, Occupy Wall Street protesters marched to the homes of Jamie Dimon, David Koch,John Paulson, Howard Milstein, and Rupert Murdoch.

Needless to say, that is going to seriously upset some people.

The home protests were not spontaneous. The truth is that they were highly organized. Organizers such as SEIU board member Stephen Lerner have been talking about them for quitesome time. In fact, you can hear him discussing plans for the upcoming protests at the homes ofthese millionaires back on October 3rdright here.

There is a lot about Occupy Wall Street that can be criticized (just check out this article), but onething that Occupy Wall Street is actually doing right is that it is focusing on the role of money inpolitics.

The big financial powers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on political campaigns. Just checkout this infographic. All of that money buys a lot of influence over the political process. If itdidn’t, the big financial powers would not be spending that kind of money.

But the big financial powers are not just spending money on political campaigns. It has now comeout that the big Wall Street banks can order New York City police officers just like they wouldorder pizzas. In fact, over a million dollars is going to be spent this way just this year alone.

A recent article that was posted on counterpunch.org detailed how this works….

One of the ingenious methods that has remained below the public’s radar was started by theRudy Giuliani administration in New York City in 1998. It’s called the Paid Detail Unit and itallows the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street corporations, including those repeatedlycharged with crimes, to order up a flank of New York’s finest with the ease of dialing the deli for apastrami on rye.

The corporations pay an average of $37 an hour (no medical, no pension benefit, no overtimepay) for a member of the NYPD, with gun, handcuffs and the ability to arrest. The officer isindemnified by the taxpayer, not the corporation.

New York City gets a 10 percent administrative fee on top of the $37 per hour paid to thepolice. The City’s 2011 budget called for $1,184,000 in Paid Detail fees, meaning privatecorporations were paying wages of $11.8 million to police participating in the Paid Detail Unit. The program has more than doubled in revenue to the city since 2002.

So expect the big Wall Street banks to be sending in orders for huge numbers of New York Citycops to protect them from the half-crazed Occupy Wall Street protesters.Sadly, if recent pollnumbers are any indication, the anger of the American people is not going to abate any timesoon….

*According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans that lack confidence in U.S. banks is now at anall-time high of 36%.

*According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, 90 percent of Americans believe that theeconomy is performing poorly and approximately 80 percent of Americans believe that it is“difficult” to find a job right now.

*According to a recent Rasmussen survey, 48 percent of all Americans believe that reductions ingovernment spending are “at least somewhat likely” to result in civil unrest inside the UnitedStates.

*Another recent survey found that 73 percent of all Americans believe that the nation is “on thewrong track”.

*According to a recent CBS News/New York Times poll, Congress has a disapproval rating of82%.

*A recent Rasmussen survey found that 85 percent of Americans believe that members ofCongress “are more interested in helping their own careers than in helping other people”, and thatsame survey found that 46 percent of the American people believe that most members of Congressare corrupt.

*According to a different Rasmussen survey, only 17 percent of all Americans now believe that theU.S. government has the consent of the governed.

*A recent Washington Post poll found that 78 percent of Americans are dissatisfied “with the waythis country’s political system is working” and that only26 percent of Americans now believe thatthe federal government can solve the economic problems that we are facing.

So what does all of that add up to?

It adds up to a U.S. population that is very frustrated and that is looking for outlets for thatfrustration.

As the U.S. economy continues to fall apart, that frustration is going to continue to rise.

What we are seeing all across America is only the beginning. We are going to see protestmovements and explosions of anger that we can’t even imagine right now.

Dark days are coming for America.

You better buckle up.

RON PAUL 2012

You Know That Your City Has Become A HellholeWhen

The Economic CollapseWednesday, October 12, 2011

All across America thereare cities and towns thatwere once prosperousand beautiful that arebeing transformed intoabsolute hellholes. Thescars left by thelong-term economicdecline of the UnitedStates are getting deeperand more gruesome. Thetax base in many areas ofthe nation has beenabsolutely devastated asmillions of jobs have leftthis country.Hundreds of cities are drowning in debt and are desperately trying to survive. Lastyear, city government revenues in the United States fell by another 2.3 percent. That was the fifthyear in a row that we have seen a decline. Meanwhile, costs associated with health care, pensionsand virtually everything else continue to explode. So what are cities doing to make ends meet? Well, one big trend that we are now witnessing is that many U.S. cities have been getting rid ofhuge numbers of employees. If you can believe it, 72 percent of all U.S. cities are laying workersoff this year. Social services and essential infrastructure programs are also being savagely cut backin many areas of the country. The cold, hard truth is that most of our cities are flat broke andthings are going to get even worse in the years ahead.

So how do you know if your own city has become a hellhole?

Well, a few potential “red flags” are posted below….

You know that your city has become a hellhole when most of the street lightsget repossessedbecause of unpaid electric bills.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when it announces that it will no longer prosecutedomestic violence cases in order to save money.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when it simply stops sending out pension checks toretired workers.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when it rips up asphalt roads and replaces themwith gravel because gravel is cheaper to maintain.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when it eliminates the entire public bus system.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when nearly half of all the people living there can’tread.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when one out of every ten homes sells for under$10,000.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when you can literally buy a house for one dollar.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when you have hundreds of people living in thetunnels underneath your streets.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when three of your past five mayors have been sentto prison for corruption.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when nearly half of the public schools in the cityget shut down because of a lack of money.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when you have dozens of young people rampagingin the streets that are thirsty for revenge and that are armed with bats, pipes and guns.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when it is considered to be one of the 10 mostdangerous cities in the world.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when thieves defecate in the back seat after theyhave broken into your car and taken your things.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when prostitution and drug dealing are two of theonly viable businesses that remain in the city.

You know that your city has become a hellhole when the police chief announces that the policedepartment will no longer respond to calls about burglary and identity theft due to very deepbudget cuts.

Many of the examples above may seem humorous at first glance, but the truth is that they revealjust how deeply tragic our economic decline really is.

This is one of the reasons why I write about our trade deficit over and over and over. Every singlemonth, tens of billions of dollars more wealth goes out of the United States than enters it. Everysingle month, we are getting poorer as a nation. Every single month, we lose more jobs andbusinesses.

Any politician that tells you that he or she can solve our economic problems without fundamentallyaddressing our horrific trade imbalance is lying to you. That means that there are a whole lot ofliars in both political parties.

If the number of good jobs continues to decline, the plight of the average American family is goingto continue to get worse. Home sales will continue to hover around record lows. The Americanpeople will continue to become increasingly frustrated with the economy.

The signs of decline are all around us.

Quit listening to the politicians and just open up your eyes and look.

END THE FED