29 Statistics About Extreme Income Inequality In America

Will The Banksters And The Corpocracy Eventually Own It All? 29 Statistics About Extreme Income Inequality In America That Will Blow Your Mind

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/will-the-banksters-and-the-corpocracy-eventually-own-it-all-29-statistics-about-extreme-income-inequality-in-america-that-will-blow-your-mind

Today, average Americans have less power relative to the monolithic corporate and governmental institutions that dominate our society than at any other point in U.S. history.  Sadly, this is not what our founding fathers ever envisioned.  Our founding fathers established a government "of the people, by the people, for the people", but what we have today is very far from that ideal.  In America today, wealth and power are very highly concentrated, and if you have neither wealth nor power than most of our politicians really do not have any interest in you.  Over the past several decades, those with huge amounts of money and power have been busy rigging the game so that the rest of the money and power slowly but surely funnels into their hands.  If current trends continue, the banksters and the corpocracy will eventually own it all.  Below you will find 29 statistics about extreme income inequality in America.  Sadly, most of these statistics will be out of date in a year or two because wealth and power will be much more concentrated by that time.

If you are a "Kool-Aid drinking Democrat" you are going to be really upset by this article.  If you are a "Kool-Aid drinking Republican" you are going to be really upset by this article.

Most Republicans have been brainwashed into believing that "capitalism" means cheerleading while the big corporations hoover up money and power.

Most Democrats have no trouble with big corporations either because most establishment Democrats have been brainwashed into believing that large concentrations of power (whether governmental or corporate) are generally good.  Most Democrats just wish that big corporations were a little less greedy and were a little more "socially responsible".

Today, the big banks, the big corporations and the federal government are all in bed with one another and it is average Americans that always lose out.

Our founding fathers tried to warn us about large concentrations of power.  They attempted to establish a very limited central government, they wanted to keep us free from the tyranny of the big banks and they were very suspicious of large corporations.

In a 2010 article, Rick Ungar noted that corporations were very seriously restricted in the early days of America....

After the nation’s founding, corporations were, as they are today, the result of charters granted by the state. However, unlike today, they were limited in how long they were permitted to exist (typically 20 or 30 years), only permitted to deal in one commodity, they could not own shares in other corporations, and their property holdings were expressly limited to what they needed to accomplish their corporate business goals.

My how things have changed.

"Capitalism" is supposed to be about the empowerment of individuals and families and small businesses.

Instead, today "capitalism" has come to mean something completely different.  Today, the biggest, meanest concentrations of wealth devour everyone else with a big assist from the government.

At this point, average Americans mean next to nothing in the political process.  This point was eloquently made in a recent column by Robert Reich....

The unemployed are politically invisible. They don’t make major campaign donations. They don’t lobby Congress. There’s no National Association of Unemployed People.
Their ranks are filled with women who had been public employees, single mothers, minorities, young people trying to enter the labor force, and middle-aged men who have been out of work for longer than six months. You couldn’t find a collection of people with less political clout.

I would not normally quote Robert Reich, but he made a good point.  If you don't have an army of lobbyists or any money to give to them then most of our politicians don't really care what you think or how much you are hurting.

Just think about the amount of power and money that Exxon Mobil or Wal-Mart has compared to the amount of power and money that an average American has.

Our society has veered very far from the egalitarian ideal that our founding fathers once hoped for.

The corporate giants are so powerful that it is next to impossible for small businesses to directly compete with them.

Just try it some time.

Many banks and corporations have become so big that the world literally cannot afford for them to fail.

For example, three U.S. corporations control approximately 90% of the world’s grain trade.

So what happens if those three corporations collapse?

That is something to think about.

But of course average Americans are never "too big to fail".  The big banks begged and begged for bailouts, but if you are late on your debt payments they will chuck you into prison.

Also, when wealth and power are so highly concentrated, economic rewards flow only to a few.  Corporatism (as opposed to true capitalism) produces a handful of winners and a whole lot of losers.

As I have written about previously, the middle class is being destroyed.  If current trends are allowed to continue long enough we eventually won't have much of a middle class left at all.

The following are 29 statistics about extreme income inequality in America that will blow your mind....

#1 In the United States today, the richest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.

#2 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own more than a third of all the wealth in the United States.

#3 The wealthiest 1% of all Americans own over 50% of all the stocks and bonds.

#4 The poorest 50% of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

#5 According to a joint House and Senate report entitled "Income Inequality and the Great Recession", the top one percent of income earners in the United States brought in a total of 10.0 percent of all income income in 1980, but by the time 2008 had rolled around that figure had skyrocketed to 21.0 percent.

#6 Between 1979 and and 2007, the average household income of the top 1% of all Americans soared from $346,600 to $1.3 million.  During that same time period the average household income for middle class Americans increased only slightly.

#7 According to Harvard Magazine, 66% of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.

#8 More than 3 billion people, close to half the world's population, live on less than 2 dollar a day.

#9 According to a new report from the AFL-CIO, the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.

#10 The number of "low income jobs" in the U.S. has risen steadily over the past 30 years and they now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States.

#11 Since 1979, real median weekly earnings for high school dropouts has declined by 22 percent.

#12 During this economic downturn, employee compensation in the United States has been the lowest that it has been relative to gross domestic product in over 50 years.

#13 Half of all American workers now earn $505 or less per week.

#14 Since the year 2000, we have lost 10% of our middle class jobs.  In the year 2000 there were about 72 million middle class jobs in the United States but today there are only about 65 million middle class jobs.  Meanwhile, our population has gotten significantly larger.

#15 Ten years ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per adult.  In 2010, the United States fell to seventh.

#16 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States were living below the poverty line in 2010. In the UK and in France that figure is well under 10 percent.

#17 Today, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#18 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.

#19 According to Moody's Analytics, the wealthiest 5% of households in the United States now account for approximately 37% of all consumer spending.

#20 The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.

#21 The U.S. poverty rate is now the third worst among the developed nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

#22 Approximately half of all American workers make $25,000 a year or less.

#23 The wealthiest 1% of the earth's population controls 39% of the wealth.

#24 It is estimated that over 80 percent of the world's population lives in countries where the income gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

#25 One year after the recent financial collapse the top 25 hedge fund managers earned a total of approximately $25 billion.  That breaks down to an average of $1 billion each.

#26 Bill Gates has a net worth of somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 billion dollars.  That means that there are approximately 140 different nations that have a yearly GDP which is smaller than the amount of money Bill Gates has.

#27 It is estimated that the entire continent of Africa owns approximately 1 percent of the total wealth of the world.

#28 The top 0.01% of Americans make an average of $27,342,212.  The bottom 90% make an average of $31,244.

#29 58 percent of the members of Congress are millionaires while only about 1 percent of the general population is made up of millionaires.

So what is the solution?

Well, our liberal friends insist that the solution to all of this inequality is to tax the rich and to distribute the wealth to the poor.

Well, there are three major problems with that.

Number one, when you raise taxes too high you eliminate the incentive to work hard.

Number two, when you make it too easy to depend on government handouts you create an underclass of economic parasites.

Number three, the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy have become masters at avoiding taxation no matter what the rates are.

Before you tax the rich too much, you might want to consider the consequences of doing so.

Why should someone bust his or her rear end to run a business and make a lot of money if the government is just going to come along and take over half of all the money that is made?

Personally, if I ever get into a tax bracket where over half the money I make goes to the government then I simply will not work nearly as hard at that point.

But if that starts happening on a large scale, then you have a significant loss of economic activity which hurts the economy overall.

Already, the top 20 percent of all income earners in the United States pay approximately 86 percent of all federal income taxes.

When the government "steals from the rich" and "gives to the poor", that also tends to create a large group of people that decides that it is easier to take from the government than it is to work for a living.

In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income.  Today, government transfer payments account for 18.4% of all income.

That is not a good trend.

At this point, U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.

That is not even close to sustainable, but nobody wants to give up their "government benefits".

Today, 59 percent of all Americans receive money from the federal government in one form or another.

Yes, there will always be those that cannot help themselves and we should always have a "safety net".

But when you look around it doesn't take a genius to figure out that things have gotten completely and totally out of control.

Right now, an all-time record 44 million Americans are on food stamps.

Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.

The U.S. government is even handing out billions of dollars to homeowners that are delinquent on their mortgages.

This is not a formula for long-term economic success.

When people get addicted to government checks they never want to stop.

But this is not what the poor need.

What the poor need are good jobs that pay good wages.  Unfortunately, we keep shipping millions of those jobs overseas.  So now the Chinese economy is thriving and our formerly great manufacturing cities are turning into hellholes.

Handouts do not give people hope, dignity and a future, but jobs can.

Also, as I have written about before, the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy have become masters at avoiding taxes.  There is a reason why approximately a third of all the wealth in the world is held in "offshore" tax havens.

What U.S. corporations are able to get away with is absolutely amazing.

The following figures come directly out of a report by Citizens for Tax Justice.  These are combined figures for the tax years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

During those three years, all of the corporations below made a lot of money.  Yet all of them paid net taxes that were below zero for those three years combined.

How is that possible?  Well, it turns out that instead of paying in taxes to the federal government, they were actually getting money back.

So for these corporations, their rate of taxation was actually below zero.

If you have not seen these before, you are going to have a hard time believing some of these statistics.....

*Honeywell*

Profits: $4.9 billion

Taxes: -$34 million

*Fed Ex*

Profits: $3 billion

Taxes: -$23 million

*Wells Fargo*

Profits: $49.37 billion

Taxes: -$681 million

*Boeing*

Profits: $9.7 billion

Taxes: -$178 million

*Verizon*

Profits: $32.5 billion

Taxes: -$951 million

*Dupont*

Profits: $2.1 billion

Taxes -$72 million

*American Electric Power*

Profits: $5.89 billion

Taxes -$545 million

*General Electric*

Profits: $7.7 billion

Taxes: -$4.7 billion

Are you starting to get the picture?

I wish I could make $7.7 billion, pay no taxes and have the government give me $4.7 billion on top of it.

Our system has become corrupted beyond all recognition.

We need to throw out the current system of taxation and come up with something entirely new.

In fact, the truth is that for most of U.S. history there was not a federal income tax at all.  But that is a story for another day.

If you believe in the U.S. Constitution and in the republic that our founding fathers established, then the very high concentrations of wealth and power in our society today should greatly concern you.  Income inequality is not a "Democrat" or a "Republican" issue.  A vibrant, thriving middle class should be a goal all of us can embrace.

But I have a feeling a whole lot of "Democrats" and a whole lot of "Republicans" were deeply offended by this article.  Feel free to express your opinion by leaving a comment below....

The Occult Symbolism of Movie “Metropolis” and its Importance in Pop Culture

The Occult Symbolism of Movie “Metropolis” and its Importance in Pop Culture

http://vigilantcitizen.com/musicbusiness/the-occult-symbolism-of-movie-metropolis-and-its-importance-in-pop-culture/

Fritz Lang’s 1927 movie “Metropolis” is one of those timeless classics that withstand the test of time. Rather than becoming forgotten and obsolete, “Metropolis” is increasingly relevant as many of its predictions are becoming reality. We will look at the  underlying occult message of the film and the usage of its imagery in the acts of  pop stars such as Lady Gaga, Madonna, Beyonce, Kylie Minogue and others.




Metropolis is a silent science-fiction movie released in 1927 by Fritz Lang, a master of German Expressionism. Set in a futuristic dystopia divided into two distinct and separate classes—the thinkers and the workers—Metropolis describes the struggles between the two opposite entities. Knowing that it was produced in 1927, viewing this movie today is quite an experience as many “sci-fi” aspects of the plot are eerily close to reality. Metropolis describes a society where the “New World Order” has already taken been implemented and a select elite live in luxury while a dehumanized mass work and live in a highly monitored hell.
As we have seen in previous articles on The Vigilant Citizen, Metropolis is excessively echoed in popular culture, especially in the music business. Whether it be in music videos or photo shoots, pop stars are often portrayed as the character Maria, an android programmed to corrupt the morals of the workers and to incite a revolt, giving the elite an excuse to use violence repression. Are pop stars used by the elite in the same matter, to corrode the morals of the masses?

Movie Analysis

The Workers

The workers at shift change.

The movie opens by showing the workers and their city, situated deep below the earth’s surface. They are shown dressed alike, walking in sync, holding their heads down in submission, resignation and desperation. Throughout the movie, the human cattle is depicted as being physically and mentally exhausted, highly impressionable and, let’s say it, all-around dumb. Like a flock of sheep, the workers move in crowds, are very impressionable and can easily be deceived. This description of the masses corroborates those of Walter Lippmann, an American thinker who, five years earlier in Public Opinion, compared the general public to a “bewildered herd” that is not qualified to manage its own destiny. Joseph Goebbels, the head of propaganda of the Nazi regime, was also in accord with the movie’s conception of the general public. Hitler famously said “How fortunate for leaders that men do not think”.
The workers labor in a monstrous machine, a hellish industrial complex where they must accomplish repetitive and dehumanizing tasks. At one point, the machine is compared to Moloch, the ancient Semitic deity honored by human sacrifices.

In one of his visions, Fredersen sees the Machine turning into Moloch. The workers are fed to the beast as human sacrifices.

Moloch the God Baal, the Bull of the Sun, was widely worshipped in the ancient Near East and wherever Carthaginian culture extended. Baal Moloch was conceived under the form of a calf or an ox or depicted as a man with the head of a bull. The sacrifices went through the “belly of the beast”.

The tasks assumed by the workers are purely mechanical, needing absolutely no brain power, making them nothing more than an extension of the machine.

The workers accomplish repetitive, mind-numbing tasks, stripping them of their humanity.

The Thinkers

The gleaming city of the Thinkers

If the workers live in a hellish underground dystopia, the thinkers conversely evolve in a gleaming utopia, a magnificent testimony of human achievement. This shiny city could not, however, be sustained without the existence of the Machine (Moloch) and its herds of workers. On the other hand, the Machine would not exist without the need to sustain a city. We find here a dualistic relation where two opposite entities exist in mutual dependence, a concept that has deep occult resonance.

In a thinly veiled reference to the hermetic axiom "As Above, So Below", the movie describes the mirroring yet opposite environments in which in the thinkers and the workers live in.

The hermetic Seal of Salomon visually depicts the concept of “As above, So below” while representing opposites energies mirroring each other to achieve perfect balance. Fritz Lang’s world perfectly recreates this concept.

Joh Fredersen, the Demi-God

The city was founded, built and is run by the autocratic Joh Fredersen. As the creator and only ruler of Metropolis, Fredersen is likened to the Gnostic demiurge, a demi-god who is creator and ruler of the material world.

Joh Federsen, plotting his next move. He is holding a compass, reminding viewers of his role as the “great architect” of Metropolis.

William Blake’s representation of the gnostic demiurge, creator and ruler of the imperfect lower plane, where sin and suffering prevails. The compass borrows from Masonic symbolism for God as the “Great Architect of the Universe”.

Joh’s son, named Freder, who, like all sons of managers, was enjoying a life of luxury, discovers the harsh reality of the workers of down under. Wanting to experience the worker’s reality first-hand, Freder descends to the lower level and trades places with a worker. Freder therefore becomes a Christ-like figure, a savior who descends from above. He also becomes enamoured with Maria, a saintly young women from the proletariat.

Maria

Maria, preaching to the workers.

Maria is a charismatic woman that is highly admired by her fellow workers. Understanding their suffering and despair, and knowing that a revolt is brewing, Maria preaches peace and patience, prophesying the coming of a “mediator”, who would become the “heart between the head (the thinkers) and the hand (the workers)
At one point, Maria tells the story of the tower of Babel, upon which would be written:

“Great is the world and its Creator! And great is Man!”

This statement has a deep resonance in Mystery Schools as it is taught that men have the potential to become gods through enlightenment. Throughout the ages, monuments and architecture were used to communicate the principles of the Mysteries and to celebrate the greatness of the human mind. Partially for those reasons, there are numerous links between Freemasonry and the Tower of Babel.

“As regards to Masonry, Babel of course represented a Masonic enterprise and early expositors reaped full benefit from the facts. They remembered that the people, who were of ‘one language and one speech’ journeyed from the East to the West, like those who have been tried and proved as Master Masons. When they reached an abiding place in the land Shinar, it is affirmed that they dwelt therein as Noachide, being the first characteristic name of Masons. It was here that they built their high tower of confusion. Out of evil comes good, however, and the confusion of tongues gave rise to ‘the ancient practice of Masons conversing without the use of speech.’”
-Arthur Edward Waite, A New Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and of Cognate Instituted Mysteries: Their Rites, Literature and History, Volume I

“In several early Masonic manuscripts – for example, the Harleian, Sloane, Lansdowne, and Edinburgh-Kilwinning – it is stated that the craft of initiated builders existed before the Deluge, and that its members were employed in the building of the Tower of Babel.”
- Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

“… at the making of the Tower of Babel there was Masonry first much esteemed of, and Nimrod was a Mason himself and loved well Masons.”
- John T Lawrence, The Perfect Ashlar

However, says Maria, “one man’s hymns of praise became the other man’s curse”. In other words, the monument praising the greatness of the human spirit was built with the blood and sweat of workers who knew nothing of the Thinker’s grand vision. And, in the film, the same thing is happening all over again. The name of the demi-god Joh Fredersen’s headquarters? Of course … The New Tower of Babel.

Joh Ferdersen’s headquarters named the New Tower of Babel.

Rotwang

Rotwang with his trademark mechanical right hand, which replaces the one he lost during one of his experiments. Is this a symbol signifying that the inventor embraces the “left-handed path”?

Upon learning that the workers are planning an uprising, Joh Federsen seeks the advice of Rotwang, an inventor and mad scientist. Although his work utilizes the latest of technologies, many clues within the movie indicate that he also taps into ancient occult knowledge to create his inventions. He is said to live in “a small house overlooked by the centuries,” symbolically meaning that the scientist’s arcana descended from ancient occult traditions; the basement of his house has a secret trap door leading to 2,000 year-old catacombs, further alluding to the ancient and mysterious sources of Rotwang. Furthermore, the front door of his house bears a pentagram, which refers to the Pythagoreans, occultism and Freemasonry.

A pentagram on Rotwang’s door. Disciples of Pythagoras affixed a pentagram on their door as a secret sign of mutual recognition. The sign and its meaning could remain secret despite that public display because only those initiated into the mysteries of Pythagoras’ geometry were able to draw it correctly and to appreciate its deep significance as a symbol for and gateway to those mysteries.

If we were to do real-life comparisons, Rotwang is to Joh Fredersen what John Dee was to Queen Elizabeth I: an esteemed advisor immersed in the worlds of science, magic, astrology and Hermetic philosophy. If Fredersen represents our world’s rulers, Rotwang is the occult pendant of decision-making, the mystical entity that is hidden from the public but always historically present.
The inventor proudly presents to Fredersen his latest invention, the Machine-Man, which he considers to be the “Man of the Future”. The android has the faculty of taking the form of any person and, says Rotwang, “no one will be able to tell a Machine Man from a mortal!”. The transhumanist dream was already present back in the early 1920s.
Fredersen then tells Rotwang to give the Machine-Man the likeness of Maria in order to use her credibility and charisma to spread corruption among the workers.

Maria laying down while Rotwang gives her likeness to the android. Notice the inverted pentagram right above the Machine-Man’s head. If the upright pentagram represents healing, mathematical perfection and the five elements, the inverted pentagram stands for the corruption of those principles and black magic.

So what do today’s pop stars have in common with this android, programmed by the rulers, with a mix of science and occultism? Well … everything.

Beyonce

Kylie Minogue

Lady Gaga in Paparazzi video

Lady Gaga in Dave Lachapelle photo shoot that is heavily inspired by Metropolis.

Freddie Mercury from Queen with his face instead of Maria’s in Radio Gaga. Lady Gaga’s name was inspired by this song and video, which contains a lot of footage from Metropolis.

Janelle Monae

Metropolis themes are also very prevalent in fashion

Back to the movie. The android completed, Rotwang tells it:

“I want you to visit those in the depths, in order to destroy the work of the woman in whose image you were created!”

Robot-maria responds:

One eye closed with devilish grin. You probably know the importance of the single eye from previous articles and the ridiculous amount of pop artists who flash it.

The Maria android is then sent to Yoshiwara, a man’s club, where she performs erotic dances. In one of her acts, she is portrayed as Babylon, the Great Harlot from the Apocalypse.

Playing the role of the Great Harlot Babylon of the Book of Revelation. “And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, having a golden cup in her hand”. She is held up by the seven deadly sins.

Do this scene remind you of a classic music video?

Madonna – Material Girl. How many realized that she was playing the role of Babylon here?

The programmed Maria performs mesmerizing dances in front of an avid public, causing men to fight, to lust, to be jealous and to commit the rest of the deadly sins. When she’s with her fellow workers,  Maria acts as an “agent-provocateur”, inciting the working men to riot and giving Joh Fredersen reason to use force against them. She is basically acting against the best interest of the public and for the interest of the elite.
With the help of their foreman (because they can’t really think for themselves), the workers ultimately realize that they have been mislead by the android. Believing that she’s a witch, they find robot-Maria and burn her at the stake.
A bunch of things happen after that, but I won’t spoil the ending for you (though can you really be mad at someone for spoiling the ending of a 83-year old movie?). The movie finishes with this caption:

 

This “moral of the story” is basically a message to the elite, a tip to keep the masses in check: in order to keep the oppressed content, you must capture their heart. That is what the media accomplish.

Which is kind of reminiscent of this music video ending:

 

Madonna’s Express Yourself video heavily borrowed its imagery from Metropolis. In turn, Christina Aguilera’s Not Myself Tonight, heavily borrowed from Express Yourself.

The Moral of the Story

The moral of the story of Metropolis is not “let’s abolish all inequities and rebuild a world where everyone is equal” and it is certainly not “let’s be democratic and vote for who we want as a ruler.” It is more “let’s send the workers back to the depths where they belong, but with the addition of a mediator, who will be the link between the workers and the thinkers”. So, when all is said and done, the movie is intrinsically “elitist,” as it still calls for the existence of an elite group of people holding most of the resources and managing a working class. In the end, the workers – and Freder – were duped, believing that their conditions would change. In fact, the status-quo remained and Joh even got his naive son to give the elite a friendly image while reporting everything happening in the depths, resulting in tighter surveillance and control.
Who is the Freder of today’s working class? The media. Media is the mediator. That is its function.

Fredersen, the link between “the hand and the head”, the Workers and the Thinkers. This role is played today by the media.

Mass media manipulate the masses’ thoughts and feelings on a daily basis, tricking them into loving their oppression. Popular culture is the entertainment branch of mass media and pop music is the fun way to communicate the elite’s message to the youth. References to Metropolis in pop music are almost winks to those in the know, the initiates, as if to say “this star is working for us”. So go ahead and be an ignorant, degenerate and materialistic person, like in the videos … that’s what they want you to be.

Analogies Between Metropolis and Today’s Pop Culture

But why Metropolis? Why has it become the code for “Illuminati star”? If you’ve read other articles on this site, you’ve probably realized that the movie touches upon all of the themes of today’s “Illuminati agenda”: transhumanism, mind control, dark occultism, degradation of morals, police state, all-seeing government. Metropolis is basically a blueprint for population control. Like Maria, today’s pop stars are recruited from the working class and literally programmed and reinvented to become the hidden ruler’s spokespersons. Notice how many pop stars have wild alter-egos, with a different name and personality. Part of the stars’ role is to promote the elite’s agenda through music and videos, making it sexy and attractive.

In Conclusion

Metropolis is a definitely a movie “by the elite, for the elite”. It tackles the concerns of those managing the world and presents a solution that does not disturb the status-quo. The movie is also permeated with Masonic symbolism and contains many symbols referring to ancient Mysteries which were meant to be decoded by proper initiates. In other words, the movie was primarily aimed at the ruling class.
So why do singers love it so much? Well they probably don’t love it as much as those behinds the scenes, the directors and image-makers, those who have power in the music business. They decide what the stars do and stand for. And today’s popular culture is elitist, permeated with Illuminati symbolism and promotes moral degradation and the debasement of traditional values. Our pop stars channel Maria, the programmed android, through their acts and accomplish the same functions. Why else would they dress like her? If artists always embodied absolute freedom and creativity, why do singers play the role of a mind-controlled android? Because that’s what they are.
Metropolis is indeed a great movie. So great that it is only becoming relevant 80 years after its release. But if the elite have it their way, it will be even more relevant in the years to come.

Top 10 Most Sinister PSYOPS Mission Patches

http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/top-10-most-sinister-psyops-mission-patches/

Top 10 Most Sinister PSYOPS Mission Patches

June 20th, 2011 |

Mission patches are used by military and space organizations to identify, symbolize and describe a mission’s objectives and its crew. This tradition is also observed in the shady world of PSYOPS where each secret mission of the Pentagon gets its patch. These patches offer a rare glimpse into the Pentagon’s secret operations and the symbolism on them is rather striking: ominous and cryptic phrases, dark occult symbolism, references to secret societies, and sometimes even a rather dark sense of humor. Here’s the top 10 most sinister PSYOPS patches.

In 1965, NASA began using cloth patches to identify each of its missions and to symbolize the missions’ objectives and their crew.  Each rocket launch has therefore a patch designed by crew members and in collaboration with the official design team. The patches are then proudly displayed on equipment and worn by NASA astronauts and other personnel affiliated with a particular manned or unmanned space mission.

Various NASA mission patches

Since then, other organizations involved in space travel and secret operations began using mission patches, including those that specialize in PSYOPS (psychological warfare): the CIA, the Department of Defense and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). What does space travel have to do with psychological warfare? Spy satellites. Since 1960, the NRO (whose existence was only declassified in 1992) has launched dozens of secret spy satellites into space, collecting an incredible amount of information on the United States’ friends, enemies and citizens.

As it is nearly impossible to obtain information regarding these highly classified endeavours, mission patches offer a rare glimpse into the world of PSYOPS. Even if one is not well-versed in symbolism, it is easy to perceive a sinister “vibe” emanating from the patch designs. Laced with strange symbols, ominous creatures, obscure Latin phrases and even dark humor, these patches reflect the mindstate of those wearing the patches.

The trailblazer in this area of research is Trevor Paglen, who, in 2008, published the book “I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon’s Black World”. By the means of hundreds of Freedom of Information requests, he obtained and analyzed forty mission patches. From the book reviews:

“The iconography of the United States military. Not the mainstream military, with its bars and ribbons and medals, but the secret or ‘black projects’ world, which may or may not involve contacting aliens, building undetectable spy aircraft, and experimenting with explosives that could make atomic bombs look like firecrackers. Here, mysterious characters and cryptic symbols hint at intrigue much deeper than rank, company, and unit.”
—UTNE Reader

“Of course, issuing patches for a covert operation sounds like a joke … but truth be told, these days everything is branded. Military symbols are frequently replete with heraldic imagery—some rooted in history, others based on contemporary popular arts that feature comic characters—but these enigmatic dark-op images, in some cases probably designed by the participants themselves, are more personal, and also more disturbing, than most.”
—Steven Heller, The New York Times Book Review

Since the release of this book, new mission patches have been released that are as strange and cryptic as their predecessors. If these patches are meant to symbolize “the values of the crew and the objectives of the mission”,  perhaps we should be a little concerned. Here are the top 10 most sinister mission patches:

#10 – Alien Face

TENCAP is an acronym for “Tactical Exploitation of National Capabilities” and is a collection of programs involving the cutting edge of warfare.

“The purpose of the AF TENCAP program is to exploit the current and future potential of existing national, commercial, and civil space systems and national air-breathing systems, and to provide these capabilities to the warfighter as rapidly as possible.”
- Source

In PSYOPS, “Special” almost invariably means “black” or highly classified. Does the “highly classified part” of the mission have something to do with the fact that the badge bears the face of an alien? The saying at the bottom does not help: The phrase “Oderint Dum Metuant” is usually associated with Caligula, the first-century Roman emperor whose name became synonymous with depravity, madness, and tyranny. It translates as “Let them hate so long as they fear.” Right.

#9 All Your Base Are Belong to Us

A giant angry dragon clutching the planet, bringing destruction from space. That’s a nice way to symbolize space missions. In PSYOPS symbolism, dragons typically represent signals-intelligence satellite launches; the dragons’ wing patterns symbolize the satellites’ massive gold-foil dish antennae meant to collect all types of information from earth. The phrase “Omnis Vestri Substructio Es Servus Ad Nobis” can loosely be translated to “All your base are servant to us”. This phrase does not make much sense, except that it vaguely states that the world is owned by those who made that patch. But this phrase is also reminiscent of a geeky 2002 Internet meme based on a poor translation in an old-school Sega game.

The biggest internet meme of 2002, a badly translated Sega game.

This allusion to popular culture is quite funny yet disturbing … I’m pretty sure they truly believe that all our base are belong to them.

#8 Hymn to Pan

The PAN satellite was launched in September 2009 and is so top-secret that no military or governmental organization claimed to have built it.

“A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket has launched with PAN, a classified satellite which will be operated by the US Government. The launch was on time, at the start of a two hour, nine minute launch window which opened at 21:35 GMT (17:35 local time). Unusually for an American government satellite, the agency responsible for operating the spacecraft has not been disclosed.”
- Nasa Space Flight

According to the patch, PAN stands for “Palladium at Night”, Palladium being a silvery-white metallic element that is probably present in the satellite. The mission is so secret, however, that it is jokingly said that the name PAN actually stands for “Pick a Name” (notice the subtle question mark underneath the rocket on the patch).

PAN is also the name of an ancient horned god important in occultism and that has a strange link with the history of rocket science in the United States.

The ancient god Pan, a nature deity with phallic attributes. Is it me or is the PAN mission patch also rather phallic?

Jack Parsons, a pioneer in American space propulsion who is often credited for having “propelled” the United States into the space age (a crater of the moon is named in his honor), was also a notorious occultist. He was a prominent member of the Ordo Templi Orienti (the O.T.O.), an occult secret society popularized by Aleister Crowley. Seeing no separation between his professional and his occult work, Parsons was known to chant Crowley’s poem entitled Hymn to Pan before each test rocket launch.

“Parsons would dance and chant poetry—most notably Crowley’s “Hymn to Pan”—before rocket tests.”
- Goeffrey Landis, The Three Rocketeers

Is Pan still invoked during rocket launches?

#7 Supra Summus

This is a patch for a NRO spy-satellite launch. Those familiar with this site will probably recognize this Illuminati 101 symbolism: An unfinished pyramid topped by the All-Seeing Eye. This All-Seeing Eye requires help: it needs spy satellites to be even more all-seeing.

“LMA” at the bottom right most likely refers to Lockheed Martin Aerospace, which is the ultimate Big Brother mega-company working with the CIA, NRO, NSA and IRS.

Above the All-Seeing Eye is written “Supra Summus”, which can be translated to “Most Superior and Highest”, which, if nothing else, indicates a healthy level of self-esteem.

Other NRO spy-satellite launches have also used similar designs.

NROL-32 Patch.

#6 Two Faced Shadow Guy

The 23rd Space Operations Squadron (23 SOPS) is a United States Air Force unit located at New Boston Air Force Station in New Hampshire. The patch of this mission features a creepy-looking figure in a creepy hood looking over the earth with creepy eyes, staring creepily at the American continent. However, that is not the creepiest thing in this patch. If you look closely at the contour of the black face, you’ll see another face, with pointy nose and pointy ears, looking left.  Who is this creepier dude within an already creepy dude? And what’s up with all the layers of creepy?

The saying “Semper Vigilans” means “Always Vigilant”. At least I can relate to that. But in the context of this patch, it is definitely creepy.

#5 The Grid

Are you thinking of selling your condo and your Prius in order to leave everything and “go off the grid”? Try it and this knight might slash your head off. It would probably be useless anyhow. Look closely at this patch: there is no “off the grid”. This patch actually depicts the “information grid” those crazy conspiracy theorists keep rambling about, complete with nodes at the intersections.

Defenders of the Domain is a subgroup of the NSA Information Assurance group and is comprised of individuals “who are on the front lines in developing the strategy, the concepts, the planning and the technical implementation in the Information Assurance domain. They are the true leaders in the world of Cybersecurity.” In other words, they monitor the cyberspace using the latest technologies.

The man with the sword is in the distinct dress of a Knight Templar, this ancient group of Crusaders that became an occult secret society. The Knight represents the descendants of the Templars, the modern Illuminatus.

#4 NRO Snakes

This is another mysterious patch of the NRO. The program associated with this patch is totally unknown. All we know is that it is represented by three menacing vipers wrapped around the the earth, making us all warm and fuzzy inside.  The Latin inscription “Nunquam Ante Numquam Iterum” translates to “Never before, never again.” What never happened before and will never happen again? We may never know.

#3 I Could Tell You…

You know that a mission is top-secret when not even an obscure symbol can be used to represent it. This patch was designed as a generic insignia for “black” projects conducted by the Navy’s Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Four. The Latin phrase “Si Ego Certiorem Faciam … Mihi Tu Delendus Eris” is roughly translated to “I could tell you … but then I’d have to kill you”. That is cliché phrase, but considering these are the people who actually created it, they probably don’t think it is corny. In fact, they’re probably dead serious about it.

Furthermore, there is a twist on the phrase. According to Paglen, the Latin phrase is worded in a peculiar way in order to refer to Greek and Roman texts.

“The Latin phrase Si Ego Certiorem Faciam … Mihi Tu Delendus Eris roughly translates into a cliché commonly heard in the vicinity of “black” programs: “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

But the phrasing here is unusual because it is written in the passive voice: a more accurate translation of the Latin would be “I could tell you, but then you would have to be destroyed by me.” By employing the passive voice, the patch’s designer makes two references that would not exist in other phrasings. The first reference is to the Greek god of Chaos, Eris, about whom Homer wrote in Book Four of the Iliad: “[Eris] whose wrath is relentless … is the sister and companion of murderous Ares, she who is only a little thing at the first, but thereafter grows until she strides on the earth with her head striking heaven. She then hurled down bitterness equally between both sides as she walked through the onslaught making men’s pain heavier.”
The passive phrasing of the Latin also echoes the words of the second-century BCE Roman senator Cato the Elder, who roamed the Senate repeating the words Carthago delenda est—”Carthage must be destroyed.” In 149 BCE, Cato got his way and Rome attacked the North African city, located near present-day Tunis. Three years after beginning their assault, the Roman army overran Carthage, tore down its walls, and sold its inhabitants into slavery. After the Roman Senate declared that no one would ever again live where the city had stood, legend holds that Rome salted the earth around the city in order to ensure that Carthage would remain a wasteland.”
- Source

So the badge does not contain a simple death threat: it also alludes to a “wrath from above” of mythological proportions, turning your city into a wasteland for generations to come. Now that’s a threat.

#2 Get Your Kicks on 66

The Minotaur program is composed of top-secret NRO spy-satellite launching missions. Minotaurs are bull-headed creatures from Greek mythology that are always angry, violent and merciless. Minotaurs bear many resemblances to the Middle-Eastern deity Molech, a bull-headed god with the body of a man to whom child sacrifices were made.

Molech

In this patch for NROL-66, the red Minotaur (as if hailing directly from hell) is holding a street sign of the mythical route 66. It is rather difficult not to see an allusion to the devil (who is often portrayed in red) and the number 666.

Furthermore, according to some occult researchers, route 66 was originally laid out to become a sort of “occult pilgrimage”.

“The famous old American highway “Route 66″ was laid out by Freemasons with the apparent intention of sending masses of automobile riders into a self-processing occult “trip.”

Route 66 began at the Buckingham Fountain in Chicago, near the site of the University of Chicago’s collection of Aztec ritual incunabula. It ended in Barstow, California in the Mohave desert, which is for the Freemasons, the cosmic graveyard of the West, the final destiny of Anubis, the celestial jackal, otherwise known as Sirius (see Giorgio de Santillana andHertha Von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill: An Essay on Myth and th Frame of Time, p. 358).

If this version of Route 66 smacks of some medieval pilgrimage made more appropriately on a camel than by car, it is for good reason. Most of Route 66 was based on a road forged in 1857 by Lt. Edward Beale and his caravan of the U.S. Camel Corps.”
- Michael A. Hoffman II, Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare

So who is really getting their kicks on Route 66?

#1 The Devil You Know

This patch for NROL-49  depicts a phoenix rising from the flames with the flag of the United States in the background. The Latin words “Melior Diabolus Quem Scies” roughly translates to mean “The Devil You Know,” as in the phrase “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know”. Cryptic. According to NASA, this saying refers to the return of the use of an old system after attempting to use a new one, which had resulted in failure.

“The mission patch for NRO L-49 shows a phoenix rising out of a fire, with the words “melior diabolus quem scies”, which translate into English as “better the devil you know”, indicating the return to the older system following the failure of the attempt to replace it.”
- Source

It is a rather odd choice of words for a governmental agency, but definitely on-par with this whole sinister, hellish theme going on with PSYOPS patches.

NROL-49 before its launch featuring its mission patch at the top.

Another patch related to NRO-49 depicts the satellite as a winged fiery being (referred to by NASA as a devil named Betty) who is holding a trident and a wrench.

“An image of a devil features on the launch patch. The old tradition of giving rockets personal names also appears to have been revived; Delta 352 seems to have been named “Betty”, and the Atlas V that launched from Vandenberg last year was named ‘Gladys’.”
- Ibid.

The patch shows the moon (or a comet?) partially covering the earth. If you look closely, there are letters in the detail of the grey astral body. What do they refer to? At the bottom of the patch, the Latin phrase is also enigmatic: “Primoris Gravis Ex Occasus”.  Primoris means “First”, Gravis stands for “important, heavy or serious” and Occasus means “setting of the sun, the West, or fall”. In other words, I don’t know what it means. “First heavy setting of the sun”? “The most important thing after the sunset”? “First serious fall”? Regardless of the exact meaning, there seems to be an emphasis on the concept of darkness. Betty is pure darkness wrapped in flames and is partially covering the sun. There is a grey celestial body moving towards the earth … and we’re still talking about a spy-satellite. Okay.

Honorable Mentions

There are many other patches giving a glimpse in the somehow twisted world of PSYOPS:

Wizards controlling the earth through magic is a recurring theme in PSYOPS patches. Is magick still a part of rocket launching like in the times of Jack Parsons and the O.T.O.?

What do the letters at the bottom mean? None of your f***ing business. No, I’m not being rude…that’s what the letters stand for.

Another NRO patch, one that pretty much sums up the meaning of all of the above. The spy-satellite is symbolized by an angry dragon clutching the entire planet with its four claws holding a diamond in its tail. It does not seem to preoccupied with our privacy and other petty things like that.