Headlines transmit information in its rawest form - and the best of headlines crystallize indelible truths. Such was the case this week when the New York Daily News blared this simple but iconic headline: "Cuomo: Minimum Wage Harder to Get Than Gay Marriage."

The story quoted New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), claiming that the effort to raise wages for the poorest of his constituents represents a "broader and deeper" divide than the recent successful fight to legalize same-sex matrimony in the Empire State. Though the piece quickly dissolved into the ether, it should have received more attention because it is an important Rosetta Stone - one that translates this era's inscrutable political rhetoric into a clear admission that money trumps everything else.

Decoding this Rosetta Stone requires just a bit of contextual information from Siena College. According to the school's surveys, only 58 percent of New Yorkers support legalizing gay marriage, while a whopping 78 percent support raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50.

Put Cuomo's declaration next to those numbers, and the revelation emerges: In a political arena dominated by corporate money, the governor is acknowledging that politicians will champion initiatives that don't challenge corporate power, but will avoid promoting those that do. Not only that, Cuomo is admitting this is the case regardless of public opinion.

Events in New York illustrate the larger dynamic at work. As the New York Times reported, despite lukewarm public support, Cuomo was able to get the state legislature to legalize gay marriage after Wall Street financiers dumped cash into the campaign for equal rights. Knowing that marriage doesn't threaten their profits, these moneyed interests opted to help their ally Cuomo notch a strategic win - one that allows the governor to preen as a great liberal champion to the state's left-leaning voters, all while he simultaneously presses an anti-union, economically conservative agenda that moneyed interests support.

Now, of course, the situation is reversed.

With New York's recession-battered voters supporting a minimum wage hike, the greed-is-good crowd is firmly aligned against the initiative. Why? Because unlike gay marriage, which requires no corporate sacrifice, the modest minimum wage boost may slightly reduce corporate profits - and that's something the fat cats in the executive suites never permit without a fight.

Knowing this, a hack like Cuomo - a guy who asks "how high?" when his campaign contributors say "jump" - is using his power to undermine the popular minimum wage initiative. In this case, he is cooking up a self-fulfilling prophecy about the measure being a political non-starter.

Not surprisingly, this sleight of hand is not limited to one locale. In Colorado, Democratic activists have cast Gov. John Hickenlooper as a great liberal for supporting same-sex civil unions, all while he loyally shills for oil and gas corporations. At the federal level, the Obama reelection campaign is doing the same, trumpeting the president as a progressive hero for endorsing gay marriage, all while he slow-walks tougher bank regulations.

Even on Wall Street itself, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has lately portrayed himself as a great humanitarian. As proof, he doesn't cite any willingness to acknowledge financial-sector crimes. Instead, he cites his decision to become the Human Rights Campaign's national spokesman for gay marriage.

Noting all this isn't to disparage the push for same sex marriage (I'm a strong supporter!) - it is merely to spotlight a bait and switch whereby social issues are increasingly used to perpetuate the economic status quo.

I have a confession to make. I am part of a vast international conspiracy that is bent on violently destroying our way of life and, ultimately, threatening our very survival itself. This cabal has as its unstated purpose the erosion of public institutions, theft on a global scale, and the decimation of democratic structures wherever they may be found. It is a relentless enterprise, rife with hatred and vitriol, and it will not rest until it eliminates all competing systems of ideology and belief.

You see, I am a consumerist.

I didn't intend to become one; it just sort of happened. My parents were ones too, so I guess it must have started there. All my teachers were ones, and my role models as well. Looking back, pretty much all of my friends and family, and just about everyone I've ever known, were also consumerists. My recruitment started early on and was reinforced at every turn by those around me -- and likewise by every highway billboard, television commercial, and eye-level point-of-purchase display to which I was exposed.

I remember once when I was younger and more impressionable, a guy came around, a real flashy type who talked a big game and always had all the coolest new gadgets and devices. He exhorted me and my friends to "amp it up," telling us that we needed to learn how to "game the system" or we would just become pawns in it like the "mindless masses." He plied us with expensive gifts and said he was recruiting us to become the next generation of "movers and shakers" who would remake society in our vision rather than go along with the mainstream. "It's good to be the king," he always reminded us.

A few of my friends succumbed to his overtures, skirting the boundaries of ethicality and legality in pursuit of wealth and privilege. They started to pick up the jargon about "low-hanging fruit" being there for the taking, "hostile takeovers" promising "quick and dirty" rewards, having access to "inside information" that would enable them to acquire "strategic targets" with accuracy and almost no risk to themselves. Everything with them began to focus on how to get the most "bang for the buck," and their scorn for the rules of the game and structures of authority was evident at every turn.

I suppose I was lucky that I didn't have the constitution for these sorts of mercenary behaviors. It wasn't so much that I feared the laws or authorities, but more so that I recognized the potential dangers of failing to accept any social responsibility for the welfare of others whatsoever. It wasn't about just "sticking it to the man" or "getting ours while the getting is good," but this cavalier courtship with conspicuous consumption was also about showing disdain for working-class people (like myself, even though I tried to hide it) and using power to coerce others to do one's bidding. I didn't like it.

Still, the influence of these teachings stayed with me, and I could increasingly see them everywhere in society to greater or lesser degrees. I hadn't joined the cabal full-on, but watered-down versions of its "power and profit" conspiracy were everywhere to be found. From the corner-grocery lottery to the gambler's rush of online trading, the essence of "casino capitalism" has imbued a populace eternally in search of megabucks and the accoutrements of opulence that are the hallmarks of the "lifestyles of the rich and famous" that hold so much fascination for so many people. Everywhere, everyday, people are plotting how to climb over others on the ladder of success.

A friend recently showed me their new handheld device and all of its cool apps. "It's the bomb," they said, in that "so fifteen minutes ago" vernacular. Indeed, I thought, it is an incendiary device. How many dead Congolese or Afghans were in that innocuous-looking gadget? How many ecosystems had been destroyed in the process of making it, and how many more would be done in when it wound up in the garbage dump as forced obsolescence set in around six months from now? How many exploited workers in Asian and Mexican factories were required to assemble this consumer item, and how much of their own health and wellbeing will they be compelled to sacrifice in order to produce nonessential creature comforts for our usage?

The supermarket mantra of "paper or plastic" might as well be a reference to explosive devices rather than just what sort of bag one prefers to haul their wares around in. We may try to mask it by calling them "consumer goods," but they are in large measure undeniably bad, for people and the environment alike. The innocent, mundane purchases we make are like faintly ticking time-bombs, spin-offs of the same forces that produce military hardware, embedded with the nonrenewable resources that drive global conflict and climate change, taxing our health into skyrocketing maintenance costs, and in the process rendering us utterly dependent on and essentially complicit with the forces of destruction.

There are words to describe such behaviors: sociopathic, nihilistic, violent, terroristic. Despite this, groups of shoppers go about their business without infiltration or provocation, descending on cities and towns everywhere en masse to wreak havoc without penalty or prejudice. In the standard parlance, these are not the enemies, they are the "good people" going about their business; those who want to hold a mirror up to them or wake them out of their doldrums are coded as the real enemies, the ones who want to destroy "our way of life," and they will accordingly be dealt with as such. In the end, there is really only one high crime in our lockstep world of conformity: Incitement to Alternatives.

I make this nascent confession today so as to alert the appropriate authorities of this ongoing plot to undermine the fabric of society, and to take a mea culpa for my part in all of it over the years. The wanted posters and enforcement bulletins may not yet be warning us to be on the lookout for the "violent consumerist" in our midst, and there aren't really any news articles yet where neighbors are quoted as saying "gee, he seemed like such a nice guy" after someone goes on an unabashed shopping spree. Trust me, folks -- the violent consumerist is hard to spot, and indeed probably looks just like you and me.

Now that the word is getting out, perhaps we can all begin to disavow any participation in violence as a way of getting what we need in this world. Most of us really are in fact "good people" looking to go about our lives without harming anyone or anything else. Unfortunately, we have become unwitting participants in the biggest criminal conspiracy in human history, and in the process have become the greatest purveyors of violence that the world has ever seen. The blood on our hands is like invisible ink, obvious only under ultraviolet scrutiny but displaying no indicia in normal light. It is past time to wash our hands of these inscribed behaviors, reduce the damage being done in our wake, and start to clean up our collective act.
(c) 2012 Randall Amster J.D., Ph.D., teaches peace studies at Prescott College and serves as the executive director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association. Amonsg his most recent books are Anarchism Today (Praeger, 2012) and the co-edited volume "Building Cultures of Peace: Transdisciplinary Voices of Hope and Action" (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).

Quick quiz: What's a good five-letter description of Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, that ends in "y"?

The obvious choice is, of course, "bully." But as a recent debate over the state's budget reveals, "phony" is an equally valid answer. And as Mr. Christie goes, so goes his party.

Until now the attack of the fiscal phonies has been mainly a national rather than a state issue, with Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, as the prime example. As regular readers of this column know, Mr. Ryan has somehow acquired a reputation as a stern fiscal hawk despite offering budget proposals that, far from being focused on deficit reduction, are mainly about cutting taxes for the rich while slashing aid to the poor and unlucky. In fact, once you strip out Mr. Ryan's "magic asterisks" - claims that he will somehow increase revenues and cut spending in ways that he refuses to specify - what you're left with are plans that would increase, not reduce, federal debt.

The same can be said of Mitt Romney, who claims that he will balance the budget but whose actual proposals consist mainly of huge tax cuts (for corporations and the wealthy, of course) plus a promise not to cut defense spending.

Both Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney, then, are fake deficit hawks. And the evidence for their fakery isn't just their bad arithmetic; it's the fact that for all their alleged deep concern over budget gaps, that concern isn't sufficient to induce them to give up anything - anything at all - that they and their financial backers want. They're willing to snatch food from the mouths of babes (literally, via cuts in crucial nutritional aid programs), but that's a positive from their point of view - the social safety net, says Mr. Ryan, should not become "a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency." Maintaining low taxes on profits and capital gains, and indeed cutting those taxes further, are, however, sacrosanct.

Still, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney are playing to a national audience. Are Republican governors, who have to deal with real budget constraints, different? Well, there have been many claims to that effect; Mr. Christie, in particular, has been widely held up, not least by himself, as an example of a politician willing to make tough choices.

But last week we got to see him facing an actual tough choice - and aside from the yelling-at-people thing, he proved himself just another standard fiscal phony.

Here's the story: For some time now Mr. Christie has been touting what he calls the "Jersey comeback." Even before his latest outburst, it was hard to see what he was talking about: yes, there have been some job gains in the McMansion State since Mr. Christie took office, but they have lagged gains both in the nation as a whole and in New York and Connecticut, the obvious points of comparison.

Yet Mr. Christie has been adamant that New Jersey is on the way back, and that this makes room for, you guessed it, tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

Last week reality hit: David Rosen, the state's independent, nonpartisan budget analyst, told legislators that the state faces a $1.3 billion shortfall. How did the governor respond?

First, by attacking the messenger. According to Mr. Christie, Mr. Rosen - a veteran public servant whose office usually makes more accurate budget forecasts than the state's governor - is "the Dr. Kevorkian of the numbers." Civility!

By the way, even Mr. Christie's own officials are predicting a major budget shortfall, just not quite as big. And the two big credit-rating agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, have recently issued warnings about New Jersey's budget situation, which S.& P. called "structurally unbalanced" because of the governor's optimistic revenue assumptions.

New Jersey, then, is still in dire fiscal shape. So is our tough-talking governor willing to reconsider his pet tax cut? Fuhgeddaboudit. Instead, he wants to fill the hole with one-shot budget gimmicks, including reneging on a promise to reduce borrowing for transportation investment and diverting funds from clean-energy programs. So much for fiscal responsibility.

Will Mr. Christie's budget temper tantrum end speculation that he might become Mr. Romney's running mate? I have no idea. But it really doesn't matter: whoever Mr. Romney picks, he or she will cheerfully go along with the budget-busting, reverse Robin Hood policies that you know are coming if the former governor wins.

The US government is the second worst human rights abuser on the planet and the sole enabler of the worst--Israel. But this doesn't hamper Washington from pointing the finger elsewhere.

The US State Department's "human rights report" focuses its ire on Iran and Syria, two countries whose real sin is their independence from Washington, and on the bogyman- in-the-making--China, the country selected for the role of Washington's new Cold War enemy. Hillary Clinton, another in a long line of unqualified Secretaries of State, informed "governments around the world: we are watching, and we are holding you accountable," only we are not holding ourselves accountable or Washington's allies like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the NATO puppets.

Hillary also made it "clear to citizens and activists everywhere: You are not alone. We are standing with you," only not with protesters at the Chicago NATO summit or with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, or anywhere else in the US where there are protests. (ref)

The State Department stands with the protesters funded by the US in the countries whose governments the US wishes to overthrow. Protesters in the US stand alone as do the occupied Palestinians who apparently have no human rights to their homes, lands, olive groves, or lives.

Here are some arrest numbers for a few recent US protests. The New York Daily News reports that as of November 17, 2011, 1,300 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested in New York City alone. Fox News reported (October 2, 2011) that 700 protesters were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. At the NATO summit in Chicago last week, 90 protesters were arrested (Chicago Journal).

In the US some protesters are being officially categorized as "domestic extremists" or "domestic terrorists," a new threat category that Homeland Security announced is now the focus of its attention, displacing Muslim terrorists as the number one threat to the US. In September 2010, federal police raided the homes of peace activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. The FBI is trying to concoct a case against them by claiming that the peace activists donated money to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. As demanded by Israel, the US government has designated the PFLP as a terrorist group.

In Chicago last week, among the many arrested NATO protesters with whom the State Department does not stand are three young white americans arrested for "domestic terrorism" in what Dave Lindorff reports was "a warrantless house invasion reminiscent of what US military forces are doing on a daily [and nightly] basis in Afghanistan." If the US government, which stands with protesters everywhere except in America, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Palestine, can make this into a terrorism case, the three americans can be convicted on the basis of secret evidence or simply be incarcerated for the rest of their lives without a trial.

Meanwhile the three american "domestic terrorists" are being held in solitary confinement. Like many of the NATO protesters, they came from out of town. Brian Church, 20 years old, came from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Jared Chase, 27, came from Keene, New Hampshire. Brent Betterly, 24, came from Oakland Park, Florida. Charged with providing material support for terrorism, the judge set their bail at $1.5 million each.

These three are not charged with actually throwing a Molotov cocktail at a person or thing. They are charged with coming to Chicago with the idea of doing so. Somehow the 16 federal intelligence agencies plus those of our NATO puppets and Israel were unable to discover the 9/11 plot in the making, but the Chicago police knew in advance why two guys from Florida and one from New Hampshire came to Chicago. The domestic terrorism cases turn out to be police concoctions that are foiled before they happen, so we have many terrorists but no actual terrorist acts.

Two other young americans are being framed by their Human Rights Government. Sebastian Senakiewicz, 24, of Chicago is charged with "falsely making a terrorist threat," whatever that means. His bail was set at $750,000. Mark Neiweem, 28, of Chicago is charged with "solicitation for explosives or incendiary devices." His bail is set at $500,000.

This is human rights in america. But the State Department's human rights report never examines the US. It is a political document aimed at Washington's chosen enemies.

Meanwhile, Human Rights america continues to violate the national sovereignty of Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan by sending in drones, bombs, special forces and in Afghanistan 150,000 US soldiers to murder people, usually women, children and village elders. Weddings, funerals, children's soccer games, schools and farmers' houses are also favorite targets for Washington's attacks. On May 25 the Pakistani Daily Times reported that Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Moazzam Ali Khan strongly condemned the drone attacks: "We regard them as a violation of our territorial integrity. They are in contravention of international law. They are illegal, counter productive and totally unacceptable."

The US reportedly funnels money to the Iranian terrorist group, MEK, declared terrorists by no less than the US State Department. But it is OK as long as MEK is terrorizing Iran. Washington stands with MEK's protests delivered via bombs and the assassin's bullet. After all, we have to bring freedom and democracy to Iran, and violence is Washington's preferred way to achieve this goal.

Washington is desperate to overthrow the Syrian government in order to get rid of the Russian naval base. On May 15 the Washington Post reported that Washington is coordinating the flow of arms to Syrian rebels. Washington's justification for interfering in Syria's internal affairs is human rights charges against the Syrian government. However, a UN report finds that the rebels are no more respectful of human rights than the Syrian government. The rebels torture and murder prisoners and kidnap civilians wealthy enough to bring a ransom.

NATO, guided by Washington, went far outside the UN resolution declaring a no-fly zone over Libya. NATO in blatant violation of the UN resolution provided the air attack on the Libyan government that enabled the CIA-supported "rebels" to overthrow Gadhafi, killing many Libyan civilians in the process.

Under the Nuremberg standard (principle VI.a.i), it is a war crime to launch a war of aggression, which is what Washington and its NATO puppets launched against Libya, but, no sweat, Washington brought Libya freedom and democracy.

Assassinating foreign opponents is the West's preferred diplomacy. The British were at ease with it, and Washington picked up the practice. In his book, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, Cambridge University historian Piers Brendon, the Keeper of the Churchill Archives, reports from the documents he has at hand, that in the build up to the "Suez Crisis" in 1956, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden told Foreign Office minister Anthony Nutting, "I want him [Nasser, Egypt's leader] murdered." Brendon goes on to report: "Doubtless at the Prime Minister's behest, the Secret Intelligence Service did hatch plots to assassinate Nasser and to topple his government. Its agents, who proposed to pour nerve gas into Nasser's office through the ventilation system, were by no means discreet." The secret agents talked too much, and the scheme never came to fruition.

Last week in Malaysia a war crimes tribunal found George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes II, Jay Bybee, and John Choon Yoo guilty of war crimes. (ref)

We now know austerity economics is bad for weak economies facing large budget deficits. Much of Europe is in recession because of budget cuts demanded by Germany. And as Europe's economies shrink, their debts become proportionally larger, making a bad situation worse.

The way to avoid this austerity trap is to get growth and jobs back first, and only then tackle budget deficits.

The U.S. hasn't yet fallen into the trap, but it could soon. Last week the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office warned we'll be in recession early next year if the Bush tax cuts end as scheduled on January 1, and if more than $100 billion is automatically cut from federal spending, as required by Congress's failure last August to reach a budget deal.

Predictably, Capitol Hill is deadlocked. Democrats refuse to extend the Bush tax cuts for high earners and Republicans refuse to delay the budget cuts.

If recent history is any guide, a deal will be struck at the last moment - during a lame-duck Congress, some time in late December. And it will only be to remove the January 1 trigger. Keep everything as it is, the Bush tax cuts as well as current spending, and kick the can down the road into 2013 and beyond.

Which means no plan for reducing the budget deficit.

I've got a better idea - a different kind of trigger. Instead of a specific date, make it the rate of growth and employment we should reach before embarking on deficit reduction.

Say 3 percent growth and 5 percent unemployment. At that point the Bush tax cuts automatically expire, the wealthy pay a higher rate, and $2 trillion in spending cuts begin.