Friday November 14, 2008, 4:08 pm
Help us Break the Matrix

What is BreakTheMatrix?
We're here because we're passionate about freedom.

We believe the message of freedom transcends political party, right vs. left, religion, race, and gender. We believe in America, and that Americans are desperate to hear a message of hope, optimism, and prosperity rather than the fear, negativity, and sensationalism that has taken over the mainstream media.

What are we doing about it?
We've created this website to gather freedom-minded people on the internet and create a community. But this is just our first step...

Where are we going with this?
While our community continues to grow (we're almost 10,000 strong!), we are developing content for our own BTM television and radio networks. Not just internet tv and radio - actual cable and satellite tv. Delivered right to your tv set, and to the tv sets of millions of people who might not have heard a message like this before.

What kind of content are we developing?
Original programming - we have several shows in development ranging from an anime series about two superheroines to a series exposing violations of the public trust to debate shows with a twist; Our original programming will be entertaining and hard-hitting, and will appeal to the masses while delivering our message of hope, prosperity, and freedom.

We are also partnering with several like-minded content providers, filmmakers and organizations that have already created compelling films, shorts, and documentaries promoting freedom.

And then there's YOU... we are nearly 10,000 people strong, and ALL of our content will be shaped by YOU - our community. Have something to say? Here's your chance! Get involved and help us make a difference!

All of this content is being aggregated into a 24x7 television channel that will be available to cable and satellite providers, as well as on the internet.

What makes our community unique?
We are a diverse group representing wildly varying beliefs and viewpoints, yet we all recognize it is imperative to look beyond our differences and unite for the cause of freedom.

How can you get the most out of the site?
Register and VOTE for your favorite content. Likewise, if you see something you don't think is valuable or productive, vote it down. Submit your own content.

If you're the social type, network with people and get to know your community. If not, just sit back and enjoy the action.

And most importantly, invite your friends. The bigger we get, the stronger we are.

Friday November 14, 2008, 4:12 pm

About the Bailout

A look at the numbers tells the story. With thanks to www.reason.com (“Bailout Balance Sheet”, November 7, 2008 by Katherine Mangu-Ward and Anthony Randazzo) the awful total so far looks like this:
$29 billion for Bear Stearns

$143.8 billion for AIG (thus far; it keeps growing)

$100 billion for Fannie Mae

$100 billion for Freddie Mac

$700 billion for Wall Street, including Bank of America (Merrill Lynch), Citigroug, JP Morgan (WaMu), Wells Fargo (Wachovia), Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and a lot more

$25 billion for the Big Three in Detroit

$8 billion for Indy Mac

$150 billion for stimulus package (from January)

$50 billion for money market funds

$138 billion for Lehman Bros. (post bankruptcy, through JP Morgan)

$620 billion for general currency swaps from the Fed

Rough total: $2,063,800,000,000—Two trillion and growing!

Not included in the above: hundreds of billions from the Fed to buy up commercial paper and lend out to other commercial firms.

What on earth is going on here?

Simple, actually. Our Treasury and Federal Reserve are loading debt on future generations and transferring the debt money to Wall Street criminals and commercial bankers—the very people who massively breached their fiduciary duties by creating this catastrophe in the first place. BreaktheBailout indeed.

The first post-bailout outrage came from the massive insurance giant AIG. After receiving an $84 billion taxpayer bailout, AIG turned right around and held a grand party for their executives at a cost in excess of $440,000. There was outrage on Capitol Hill, including threats to "get the money back." Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D. MD) thundered: "They were getting their manicures, their pedicures, massages, their facials, while the American people were paying their bills." But instead of any action, our Federal Reserve gave AIG another $38 billion after the party.

We heard lots of comments from presidential candidates and congressional leaders about not letting CEOs profit from the bailout, but the Wall Street Journal reported that, after the bill was signed into law, bailout czar Neil Kashkari (ex-Goldman Sachs) told a group of Wall Street executives that any restrictions on executive compensation in the bailout bill didn't really mean anything. As Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research wrote: "Of course, anyone who bothered to look at the bill already knew that the compensation restrictions were meaningless before the bill passed.

So why do we only see this reported in the media after the fact?"

Goldman Sachs has been scheduled to receive an estimated $10 billion in bailout money from the government. This firm responded by anointing 92 new members into its exalted status of partnership, and announcing bonuses of $210,000 per employee for 2008 -- a total bonus pool in excess of $6.8 billion. Similarly at Morgan Stanley, another giant bailout recipient, bonuses of $138,700 per employee were announced, with a total bonus pool in excess of $6.4 billion. Goldman and Morgan are prime offenders, but these firms were not alone-- this grotesque story repeats itself all across the Wall Street community. What we are seeing is crystal clear: our taxpayer bailout dollars flow into these Wall Street firms on one day, and out to their executives and employees as “bonuses” on the next.

The “bailout to bonus” issue is not unique to Wall Street. A floundering Royal Bank of Scotland received a massive bailout injection from British taxpayers in the amount of 20 billion pounds to stave off corporate bankruptcy. The reaction of Royal Bank of Scotland? They immediately announced bonuses for thousands of staff members (mostly in the investment banking division), totaling nearly two billion pounds. In the words of one frustrated British politician, as reported in the Guardian UK:

"The banks are making complete monkeys of us."

And monkeys we are. The financial suffering of ordinary American (and worldwide). taxpayers, not to mention future generations loaded with bailout debt obligations, seems not to have registered in the slightest with our banksters and their purchased political patrons. Behind closed doors they surely must be laughing at the foolishness of the people they purport to serve. Already the bankers are announcing that they have no intention of lending out any of the bailout money. Their strategy is clear: rebuild their balance sheets, and wait for better times to acquire new assets on the cheap. Moral hazard? No one in government knows or cares.

The time has come for fundamental change. During the bailout debate, 50,000 letters were sent to Congress and the media through The Campaign for Fresh Air & Clean Politics, and we were just one among many. But this letter campaign was only the beginning of our effort, and more and more of the American people are coming to realize every day that bailout legislation is not going to solve the economic crisis our country is facing. Even on the day the original bailout legislation passed, members of Congress were expressing concern it would not be enough, and already there is talk in Washington DC about Congress coming back to pass an economic stimulus package. Meanwhile, our country has lost trillions of dollars in wealth on stock exchanges in recent weeks, and we are seeing the biggest unemployment increases and reductions in payrolls in many years. The disastrous economic news at home goes on and on, while at the same time the US fights two long (and unwinnable) wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at a price reaching trillions of dollars. Meanwhile, the Congress just approved an additional $700 billion in defense spending for the next year.

Here’s What We’re Asking You To Do

CFACP has retained Breakthematrix to serve as our moneybomb organizer and service provider for a massive donations collection effort. Remember the famous moneybombs that raised millions for the Ron Paul presidential campaign? Well Trevor Lyman was the man behind those efforts, and he and his Breakthematrix colleagues are the leading experts in the world in online moneybomb fundraising. Here's how it works:

You enter your pledge today – RIGHT NOW-- by clicking the "Pledge" button on the side of this web site screen. This pledge becomes your commitment to make a tax deductible contribution to the BreaktheBailout Project at Campaign for Fresh Air and Clean Politics on December 7, 2008-- the moneybomb collection day. Visit our web site often over the next few weeks to watch the pledges mount, and to learn about the growing community of friends and supporters who are choosing to become Bailout Breakers with us. Then the key event – you COME BACK on December 7th (Pearl Harbor Sunday) and make your actual money contribution right here at www.breakthebailout.com. The power and force of the moneybomb is simple and straightforward. We all donate on the SAME DAY, and working together we send our bankers and political leaders a message they will never forget. So help us make it work.

Pledge today; add your name and link to the listing on our Bailout Breakers community page; then come back and donate on December 7th. Let’s show these bankers and politicians once and for all that there’s a powerful movement here that will settle for nothing less than an end to bankster ownership of OUR MONEY.

Why December 7th? It’s a Bankster Sneak Attack, That’s Why

On November 15, 2008, George Bush will host a global summit of international bankers and governments in Washington, DC. These people are coming together for the express and stated purpose of creating a new world financial order on the backs of taxpayers and future generations. Nothing but evil will come from this gathering—it’s a bankster sneak attack on our citizens and taxpayers.

Well, we at BreaktheBailout remember another grand sneak attack on America on December 7, 1941, and we remember how Americans of all ages, colors and walks of life came together in a unified response. The New World Order proposed by the globalist bankers is a direct attack on the liberty and sovereignty of all Americans-- let alone on the pocketbooks of American taxpayers and future generations-- and a coming together of the American people is called for now more than ever. We need to let these modern day globalist bankster sneaks know they WILL NOT BE ALLOWED to get away with their phony money scams. Let’s stand up to these banksters and faux leaders! Their banker bailouts are a fraud, just like their illusory money itself is a fraud! Their “new world financial order” is nothing more than an ongoing taxpayer ripoff—for generations to come! Don’t let their sneak attack work! Join our community of Bailout Breakers, and let's start building the strong and committed base that’s going to be needed to throw their failed policies (and people) out with the rest of the trash.

What Are We Planning To Do With the Funds We Raise?

In shorthand terms, the funds will be used to build a transpartisan community of Bailout Breakers; to spread our message about ending the bailouts and taking back control of our money; and to create the tools that are going to be needed for standing up to the banksters and their purchased politicians. For a more detailed explanation of what we intend to do with the donated funds, here:

http://www.breakthebailout.com/node/6

Please Become a Bailout Breaker Today; And We Thank You For Your Pledge.

Friday November 14, 2008, 4:13 pm
Thanks, Katii ! This looks promising !

Friday November 14, 2008, 4:20 pm
Thank you, Pamylle! Pass it on, darling!

Friday November 14, 2008, 4:28 pm
Thanks Pamylle for the alert. Thanks Katii for the post. I joined yesterday.

Friday November 14, 2008, 4:30 pm
Joining right now!!

Friday November 14, 2008, 4:31 pm
Looks good Katii

Friday November 14, 2008, 4:35 pm
Thank you Katii for the post! Thank you Pamylle for sending this to me!
Signed the pledge! Noted!

Friday November 14, 2008, 4:38 pm
YUP Let's give it a whirl.

Friday November 14, 2008, 4:56 pm
Noted and passed along...

Friday November 14, 2008, 4:56 pm
I'm proud to say neither of my democratic representatives voted for this bailout. What a load of horse crap. I'm currently unemployed and no one is giving me a handout, why should we bail out these companies for their mistakes? I'm living on my savings so I guess I won't get to retire, but it pisses me off that my granddaughter will have to pay for this crap. Fire the bums! Let them all sink and maybe this country will finally see the folly of corporate welfare!

Friday November 14, 2008, 5:41 pm
Noted and I will pass it on.

Friday November 14, 2008, 5:56 pm
Some people still don't know that the Treasury is the Central Bank and that they are not part of the government. That the Fed is the IMF and not part of the government and that the imf is a arm of the world bank. Who owns the world bank. Get rid of the world bank would also be a good start.

Friday November 14, 2008, 6:09 pm
That's right Lynda. And when the FED prints out this money for our goverment to "bailout" the corporate crooks, it charges our goverment interest. It's insane !

Friday November 14, 2008, 8:01 pm
Count me in, it's time to bring these gangsters to justice!!! J.F.K., tried to abolish the FED, and create a real U.S. CURRENCY, and since his assassination, America has been spiraling downward, by the hands of our (P)ost (C)onstitutuional government!!! This would have to be one of the worlds greatest heists, along with the vaults, at the twin towers, that were found empty on 9-13, when they sent in the rescue team, to retrieve the vast treasures stored there!!! Americas wealth, has been shipped right out of the country, right under our noses, with our governments blessing since the fake oil crisis of the '70s!!! This orchestrated destruction of Americas sovereignty, was well laid out in the :LEFT BEHIND" series, as if it was England's protestant plan, to create Rome/ Babylon revisited, by destabilizing the U.S.!!! We have given our nation to the Beast, but now, were are getting a clearer picture of just who they are!!!United we must stand, to defeat this hostel takeover of the world!!!

Friday November 14, 2008, 9:20 pm
Yes, over $2 trillion and rising. When I said that number many weeks ago people were still very skeptical about it. In truth, given that the people responsible have and use the power of the united states government to confiscate wealth that is being redistributed to the wealthy, I think, in addition to treason, a matter that in fact is the constitutional responsibility of the congress (Article 3), one that they MUST do, it is also functionally armed robbery.

Saturday November 15, 2008, 9:17 am
Noted, thanks Katie, AIG got $150 billion for their total cost for their bailout. Paulson needs to be fired immediately.

Saturday November 15, 2008, 10:42 am
I love the idea of a people's channel, and will look into this, thank you for sharing.
Regarding the bailout, those companies made bad decisions, and they (or rather we) are paying the price. I can see the logic in saving the companies, but the ceo's salaries should be reduced to minimum wage. This bonus stuff is BS.

Tuesday November 18, 2008, 1:20 pm
Thanks for the great site!

Sunday February 1, 2009, 10:56 am

Bailout Banks Gave The Finger To The AMerican Taxpayers


Banks collecting billions of dollars in federal bailout money sought
government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers to the U.S. for high-paying jobs, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.


-----

Yes, the corporate class has no discernible loyalties to our nation, other than knowing where to go for a handout.