The Unelected Banker Sitting in UK's Parliament to Make Life Easier for Banks

The Remembrancer is the only non-MP or civil servant with a seat in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.  He sits to the right of the Speaker in every session of parliament.  His sole purpose is to scrutinise and influence legislation in the interests of the banks. Nobody elected this representative into our parliament. What kind of democracy allows an unelected lobbyist for a wealthy elite to sit in its parliament to write laws in their own interests?

Who is the Remembrancer?

The current Remembrancer is Paul Double, a former barrister, and he has been in the role since 2003.  In that time, he has not provided a single interview to the media.  He has a budget of £5.3m, and a £500,000 staff which included six lawyers.

The City of London Website describes his activities and duties as thus:

“The City Remembrancer’s Office is one of the City’s traditional offices and dates from the reign of Elizabeth I. The Office holder is one of the City’s Law Officers as well as being a Parliamentary Agent and its Head of Protocol. The Remembrancer is charged with maintaining and enhancing the City’s status and ensuring that its established rights are safeguarded. As long ago as 1685 an order was made for the Remembrancer “to continue to attend Parliament and the offices of the Secretaries of State daily, and acquaint the Lord Mayor with the public affairs and other business transacted there, relating to the City”. In the contemporary context, this work encompasses day to day contact with officials in Government departments responsible for developing government policy, the drafting and promotion of legislation and responsibility for relations with both Houses of Parliament and their Committees including briefings for debates in which the City Corporation or its associated bodies have an interest. The Office also tracks the work of the GLA Assembly, and the GLA’s associated bodies.”

In short, while having no vote, the Remembrancer is granted direct access to decision makers and legislators in order to lobby for the interests of the City.  Nicholas Shaxson, author of the definitive investigation of the City of London ‘Treasure Islands’, refers to his role as the “world’s oldest ­institutional lobbyist”.

Read more at :-
http://wp.me/p3908w-sY

N.B. This is NOT taught on any Constitutional Law courses within the UK.

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The Awakening of a Conscience - William Blum on Edward Snowden and US Mass Surveillance

The Anti-Empire Report #118 

By William Blum – Published June 26th, 2013 

Edward Snowden 

In the course of his professional life in the world of national security Edward Snowden must have gone through numerous probing interviews, lie detector examinations, and exceedingly detailed background checks, as well as filling out endless forms carefully designed to catch any kind of falsehood or inconsistency. The Washington Post (June 10) reported that “several officials said the CIA will now undoubtedly begin reviewing the process by which Snowden may have been hired, seeking to determine whether there were any missed signs that he might one day betray national secrets.” 

Yes, there was a sign they missed – Edward Snowden had something inside him shaped like a conscience, just waiting for a cause. 

It was the same with me. I went to work at the State Department, planning to become a Foreign Service Officer, with the best – the most patriotic – of intentions, going to do my best to slay the beast of the International Communist Conspiracy. But then the horror, on a daily basis, of what the United States was doing to the people of Vietnam was brought home to me in every form of media; it was making me sick at heart. My conscience had found its cause, and nothing that I could have been asked in a pre-employment interview would have alerted my interrogators of the possible danger I posed because I didn’t know of the danger myself. No questioning of my friends and relatives could have turned up the slightest hint of the radical anti-war activist I was to become. My friends and relatives were to be as surprised as I was to be. There was simply no way for the State Department security office to know that I should not be hired and given a Secret Clearance. (1) 

So what is a poor National Security State to do? Well, they might consider behaving themselves. Stop doing all the terrible things that grieve people like me and Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning and so many others. Stop the bombings, the invasions, the endless wars, the torture, the sanctions, the overthrows, the support of dictatorships, the unmitigated support of Israel; stop all the things that make the United States so hated, that create all the anti-American terrorists, that compel the National Security State – in pure self defense – to spy on the entire world. 

... 

The United States has been trying to persuade European Union countries as well to allow it “back-door” access to encryption programs, claiming that this was to serve the needs of law-enforcement agencies. However, a report released by the European Parliament in May 1999 asserted that Washington’s plans for controlling encryption software in Europe had nothing to do with law enforcement and everything to do with US industrial espionage. The NSA has also dispatched FBI agents on break-in missions to snatch code books from foreign facilities in the United States, and CIA officers to recruit foreign communications clerks abroad and buy their code secrets, according to veteran intelligence officials. 

Read more at :-
http://williamblum.org/aer/read/118

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The recent achievements of US Foreign Policy under Obama

Pakistan has gone from 25% of the population in 2005 who consider America to their enemy to 92%. 
The reason most often cited in polls is the drone warfare program. 

Egypt went from a secular state to one ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood. 
Update 10/02 (Neither Obama or McCain were overjoyed when the Muslim Brotherhood were overthrown in July 2013 by a popular uprising of 20 to 30 million Egyptians protesting on the streets. 
People Power can still win - but it takes tens of millions of Moderates actually doing something tangible and visible and becoming Activists in the real world, not cyberland.)

Libya has gone from a secular state to one now ruled by Islamic Extremists.

The civil war in Yemen has been greatly exacerbated. 
Yemen is fertile recruiting ground for Jihadists. It has a large population of unemployed young males. 

As the recent Yemeni witness to Congress stated - the Jihadists had been trying to turn his village into their supporters for many years and failed. 
One drone strike did the Jihadists job for them.  

The Syrian "rebels" are almost exclusively comprised of Islamic Extremists. 

Many other Muslim countries have seen a rise in support of Islamic Extremists and a fall in support for America. 

The drone warfare program is a primary recruiting tool for the Jihadists. 

At least 176 children have been killed in Pakistan alone. 
While the pictures of the horrific injuries are hidden in the West, they are widely used as recruitment posters by the Jihadists.

The wars are being expanded into West Africa - starting with Mali. 
Algeria and Nigeria are obvious next targets to increase support for Islamic Extremism. 
Libya now serves as a secure base for the Islamists. 
Obama is moving US troops into 35 more African countries in 2013. 
He has already agreed to set up a drone a base in Niger with their government. 

The legitimate government of Mali was overthrown in a US/French sponsored military coup in 2012.

The civil war in Syria is being exacerbated. 
The US is supporting the FSA against Assad.
As reported in the NY Times and several other places, the FSA is almost completely comprised of Islamic Extremists. 
It also contains a significant proportion of foreign Islamist fighters - including a fair few from Libya who fought against the Americans in Iraq.

The US has been arming the Islamists for quite some time - both directly from Gaddafi's Libyan arms stores and via their proxies - Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

John Kerry is eager to start bombing Syria - he wants to get started immediately. The Pentagon pushed back.
Kerry sounds more war mongering than even John McCain.

The US has moved more troops into Jordan to stir up the unrest in Syria. 
Both Jordan and Lebanon are being unsettled by the events in Syria. 
Syria is of strategic importance - it lies on the route of gas and oil pipelines.
Particularly the proposed gas pipeline from Arabia to Europe via Turkey.   

Around 200 million more supporters of Islamic Extremism have been recruited as a direct result of the drone warfare program (nearly 100 million in Pakistan alone).

Tens of thousands of new Jihadists have been recruited from the ranks of those 200 million. 

The primary purpose of Obama's drone warfare program is to recruit lots more Islamic Extremists and Jihadists and that is exactly what it has done. 

The people in the American government are not stupid - if they didn't want to create more conflict and hatred around the world; and lots more Jihadists and Islamic terrorists they would do something different.

But where would the Military Industrial Complex be without enemies to fight? 

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Somebody is now trying to get the draft (rebranded) into the public consciousness

Instituting a form of the draft would be a very good way of controlling otherwise troublesome unemployed young males. They are expecting a LOT of them in the near future.

It would also be a good way of finishing the indoctrination and brainwashing for those who dropped out of school early.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/franklin-project-alan-khazei_n_3497796.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

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To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize - Voltaire

California man faces 13 years in jail for scribbling anti-bank messages in water soluble chalk
http://rt.com/usa/california-man-13-prison-banks-237/#.Uct1abJsnSM.twitter

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NSA admits that thousands of analysts can listen to US domestic phone calls without a court order

National Security Agency discloses in secret Capitol Hill briefing that thousands of analysts can listen to domestic phone calls. That authorization appears to extend to e-mail and text messages too.

Earlier reports have indicated that the NSA has the ability to record nearly all domestic and international phone calls -- in case an analyst needed to access the recordings in the future. A Wired magazine article last year disclosed that the NSA has established "listening posts" that allow the agency to collect and sift through billions of phone calls through a massive new data center in Utah, "whether they originate within the country or overseas." That includes not just metadata, but also the contents of the communications.

William Binney, a former NSA technical director who helped to modernize the agency's worldwide eavesdropping network, told the Daily Caller this week that the NSA records the phone calls of 500,000 to 1 million people who are on its so-called target list, and perhaps even more. "They look through these phone numbers and they target those and that's what they record," Binney said.

Brewster Kahle, a computer engineer who founded the Internet Archive, has vast experience storing large amounts of data. He created a spreadsheet this week estimating that the cost to store all domestic phone calls a year in cloud storage for data-mining purposes would be about $27 million per year, not counting the cost of extra security for a top-secret program and security clearances for the people involved.

Read more at :-
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/

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Get out there and WAKE SOME MORE PEOPLE UP #NSA Mass Surveillance

Use the NSA spy scandal to explain to people how America is being wrecked by BOTH parties.
There is only one party in America - the business party which works for large corporations not the people.
Get out there and WAKE SOME MORE PEOPLE UP.
We need millions more to become aware of what the government is really about.
If all of us that are aware, went out and persuaded 5 more - we would soon have the numbers to REALLY make a CHANGE for the BETTER in this country.

How to raise awareness - talk the following through with others :-

Explain Edward Snowden and the NSA spying scandal.
Get more people to sign the multiple petitions.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/its-up-to-each-and-every-one-of-you-now.html

Explain to people that the NSA's Mass Surveillance programs are not about combating terrorism, for which the are extremely ineffective - see Boston.
They are about obtaining material for blackmail, intimidation and suppression of political "dissidents", for which they are VERY effective - see Stasi.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/the-nsa-mass-surveillance-scandal-story.html

The uncomfortable truth for Barack Obama - he is a CORPORATIST not a Democrat.
Over 95% of Congress are Corporatists - they are NOT Republicans NOR Democrats - they are members of the BIG BUSINESS PARTY and do NOT work for the people.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/why-do-people-still-think-that-barack.html

How to turn America around from it's current death spiral.
How to create jobs and prosperity - instead of increasing poverty.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/how-to-fix-americas-economy-create-jobs.html

The Fiscal Cliff deal - how Goldman Sachs won and America lost.
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/fiscal-cliff-deal-why-goldman-sachs-won.html
Barack Obama's Corporate sell out
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/fiscal-cliff-deal-obamas-corporate-sell.html

The list of items that make up the over $1.3tn a year of Corporate Welfare
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/it-is-very-easy-to-cut-1tn-from-federal.html

It's a similar story in just about every other Western country.

In the UK none of the main parties have got any interest in jailing the senior bankers or fining the big banks more than token amounts for their multiple frauds and money laundering.
The UK should fine the big banks £100bn+
The UK is spending a massive amount on the military (read big arms companies) - over £50bn a year, it should be cut by 80% and the UK should stop being America's poodle in their Neocon wars.
How to fix the UK's economy :-
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/uk-perilously-close-to-triple-dip.html

The so called "austerity" measures in Europe haven't done anything to reduce government deficits.
Government cuts are mostly directed in the wrong areas and are outweighed by the increase in social welfare payments caused by extremely high levels of unemployment.
The other countries in Europe are all still protecting the big banks at the expense of the ordinary people.

How to fix Greece :-
http://ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/if-i-were-greece.html

The UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all part of the Five Eyes spying and mass surveillance agreement, with America's NSA.
As such they are spying on ALL of their citizens by getting one of the other of the other countries to spy on their citizens and swapping data.
The UK's GCHQ is collecting a lot of the data and passing it on to the NSA, from where it is shared by Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The largest collection of data within Europe is from Germany - as per the heat map in the NSA's Boundless Informant program. There's a tiny hint in the title - the NSA is spying on EVERYBODY.

The overall agenda of both the US and the UK is the takeover of the entire globe for the interests of the large banks, multinationals and big business - at the expense of the 99% of ordinary people.

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