The Red Pill Society
How Deep is the Rabbit Hole?

I read this article on the Washington Post website, thought it was interesting and wanted to share it with you all. Below is the article in it’s entirety.

By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 1, 2008; D01

At the Beverly Hills office of criminal defense lawyer Edward M. Robbins Jr., anxious new clients are showing up with an unexpected problem.

The clients put money in Swiss bank accounts, where it was supposed to stay secret. But now those depositors fear the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department will gain access to their bank records, Robbins said.

“They’re coming in from the cold. They’re nervous,” Robbins said.

And with good reason, the former federal prosecutor said. A lawyer who specializes in tax cases, Robbins thinks the government is gearing up to prosecute large numbers of Americans for failing to disclose foreign accounts on their tax returns and evading taxes on income generated by the accounts.

“If I were one of these guys with 10 to 50 million in my account, I’d be having an aneurysm,” Robbins said. “It’s an extremely dangerous situation for these guys.”

The legendary secrecy of Swiss banks has come under fresh assault lately from U.S. and European authorities who say their citizens have used the privacy to hide assets and dodge taxes.

The U.S. effort to capture back taxes targets Americans who hold undeclared accounts at UBS, one of Switzerland’s largest banks. The developments could put UBS in legal jeopardy and undo the reputation for confidentiality that has helped make a small nation in the Alps a magnet for international deposits.

UBS, which also has extensive operations in the United States, has been under investigation by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“UBS takes this matter very seriously and is working diligently with both Swiss and U.S. government authorities, consistent with Swiss law and the legal frameworks for intergovernmental cooperation and assistance,” UBS spokesman Mark Arena said by e-mail.

Over the summer, the IRS won permission from a federal court to demand that UBS turn over the identities of an estimated 19,000 American clients who have failed to disclose their Swiss-based accounts on U.S. tax returns. It remains unclear what has or will come of that effort. Swiss law restricts the bank’s ability to breach client confidentiality. Swiss law also gives clients the opportunity to oppose the release of their names through a judicial process that could slow any disclosures. (more…)

I don’t know how many times I need to say how totally screwed up the whole government is. How many times do I have to tell people they lied to us about a great many things INCLUDING 9/11. It was all part of a much larger plan. They know they can’t ask us or convince us to believe what they want us to believe. So they MANIPULATE the people with the most affective form of coercion… FEAR.   If the population feel the only way to progress is to allow the government to take control and do everything for us, then they get what they want. ABSOLUTE POWER! Those weak minded individuals who are too afraid to think for themselves, ask questions, demand answers and remind the government officials that they work for US are the very people they are targeting. Unfortunately these lemmings are a majority of society. These are very scary times we’re living in people. Believe it when I say if something isn’t done and done SOON, we’re headed to a place that we don’t want to be. The scariest part is that most people can’t see it. If their daily lives are made easier, they make more money, can buy better housing, buy better cars etc., they don’t care what else happens. STOP… look at the big picture people. We’re headed to a time that we’ve only read about in books or seen in movies. Maybe these creative people weren’t so far off as they were thought to be. The real question is… What are you prepared to do about it?

Tell everyone you know to read this blog and see this video. It’s THAT important!

This is an article taken from the Al Jazeera website. I know this is a heavily debated issue with lots of passionate verbiage from all sides of the argument. Well, that’s the very point of The Red Pill Society. Open conversation and debates over issues that affect our world. Don’t be so sure that your opinions are the only right answer. Different points of view can give a completely different description of events. At least be open to the fact that there may be another “truth” beyond what you think. I for one have always believed that the US presence in Iraq was driven by the desire to control oil. Are there other reasons? Of course. I’m not sitting at the table with George W. Bush to hear the real story. Do you seriously think they would tell us the REAL truth?

By Michael Schwartz

• Putting a country in your tank

Lately, even Democratic candidates for president have been weighing in on why the U.S. must maintain a long-term, powerful military presence in Iraq.

Hillary Clinton, for example, used phrases like protecting our “vital national security interests” and preventing Iraq from becoming a “petri dish for insurgents,” in a major policy statement. Barack Obama, in his most important speech on the subject, talked of “maintaining our influence” and allowing “our troops to strike directly at al Qaeda.” These arguments, like the constantly migrating justifications for invading Iraq, serially articulated by the Bush administration, manage to be vaguely plausible (with an emphasis on the “vaguely”) and also strangely inconsistent (with an emphasis on the “inconsistent”).

That these justifications for invading, or remaining, are unsatisfying is hardly surprising, given the reluctance of American politicians to mention the approximately $10-$30 trillion of oil lurking just beneath the surface of the Iraq “debate” — and not much further beneath the surface of Iraqi soil. Obama, for example, did not mention oil at all in his speech, while Clinton mentioned it twice in passing. President Bush and his top officials and spokespeople have been just as reticent on the subject.

Why then did the U.S. invade Iraq? Why is occupying Iraq so “vital” to those “national security interests” of ours? None of this makes sense if you don’t have the patience to drill a little beneath the surface – and into the past; if you don’t take into account that, as former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz once put it, Iraq “floats on a sea of oil”; and if you don’t consider the decades-long U.S. campaign to control, in some fashion, Middle East energy reservoirs. If not, then you can’t understand the incredible tenaciousness with which George W. Bush and his top officials have pursued their Iraqi dreams or why — now that those dreams are clearly so many nightmares — even the Democrats can’t give up the ghost. (more…)

The following is from Fox News and I have to ask, Aren’t we going overboard with political correctness? Either that or some people in Australia are really bored and this is the best fight they can come up with. What a joke I tell you. Get a life people!

By Janet Fyfe-Yeomans and Amanda Grant

SYDNEY, Australia — He is an unlikely revolutionary, but this Christmas, Santa is a rebel with a claus.

He is having the last laugh on political correctness — and it’s a great big fat belly laugh.

Santas across Sydney, Australia, are rebelling against attempts to ban their traditional greeting of “ho, ho, ho” in favor of “ha, ha, ha.”

Recruitment firm Westaff — which supplies hundreds of Santas across the country — has told its trainees that the “ho ho ho” phrase could frighten children and could even be derogatory to women.

Two Santa hopefuls reportedly quit the course because of the hullabaloo of the ho, ho, ho.

One would-be Santa has told The Daily Telegraph he was taught not to use “ho, ho, ho” because it was too close to the American slang for prostitute. He also quit.

“Gimme a break,” said Julie Gale, who runs a campaign against sexualizing children called Kids Free 2B Kids. “We are talking about little kids who do not understand that ‘ho, ho, ho’ has any other connotation, and nor should they.”

“Leave Santa alone,” she added.

Australian Childhood Foundation chief executive officer Dr. Joe Tucci said it was the latest example of political correctness gone mad.

“There is no stronger tradition for children than Santa’s ho, ho, ho,” Tucci said.

(more…)