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Guest Post: Requiem For America
Submitted by a reader
Requiem for America
America, that grand experiment created to probe the limits of human freedom, liberty and equality, has succumbed to its many injuries and passed away. The exact time of death is uncertain, the causes many.
America was always, until its demise, a work in progress, but that progress stopped. The country lost its way, forgot where it was headed, and fell prey to a host of enemies, all of them coming from within.
The coroner has yet to announce the cause of death, not yet sure if it was murder or suicide. That almost does not matter, however, since dead is dead.
I’ll admit I had a hand in America’s death, but I’m not taking all of the blame, nor even the lion’s share. Like original sin, you, too, share the guilt, if you claim the deceased as your next of kin. For those of you who do not know the pecking order of sin in the Catholic faith, there are degrees of wrongdoing. Most of us are guilty of minor transgressions, the venal sins. Though small in a relative sense, we are not absolved of responsibility for America’s death. We also committed another type of sin, called the sin of omission, which means we failed to do the needful when the survival of our country demanded it.
The greater responsibility, however, rests in the hands of those who committed the mortal sins. They struck the fatal blow, though we stood back and let them do it. In a just and fair Universe their punishment would exceed our own, but such a Universe does not exist.
We all die the same death, no matter the extent of our individual culpability.
The mortal sins, and those who committed them, are well known. The list is too long to relate in totality here, but some of the key players and their acts deserve special attention.
Those who abused the trust of the people and abrogated their responsibility to the state and the citizenry are most guilty. They go by the names of Bernanke and Greenspan, Geithner and Paulson, Rubin and Frank, Bush and Obama, Cheney and Rumsfeld, and many more. They are guilty of a host of crimes and failings. Some lied. Some are corrupt. Some are hypocrites. Some suffer from bloated egos. Some are simply fools and incompetent. Some are all of the above. All abused their power, quite often simply for their own personal gain.
Our elected and appointed leaders are not the only ones guilty of mortal sins. Private individuals---some fools, some psychopaths, and all self-serving and avaricious---had a hand equal to our leaders in America’s death. That list, too, is long, but special mention must be made of one named Dimon and one named Blankfein. One seems to be a psychopath, while the other just a fool blinded by his own greed, though that does not excuse him.
As individual citizens we helped facilitate the wrongdoings of the leadership and the elite. We gave in to the siren song of false gods.
We came to believe, because we wanted to believe, that growth could exceed input, that reward could exceed effort. Indeed, we came to feel that reward should exceed effort, because…well…we deserved it.
We took on debts we could not pay, merely to accumulate things we did not need. We found money where it did not really exist, such as in the delusional value of our homes. We lost patience. We had no discipline. We suspended logic. We rationalized that it was all okay because everyone else was doing it.
We had good teachers, and even better facilitators. Our leaders, beginning with a fool named Reagan, told us debt did not matter and that the appearance of wealth was all that mattered, repayment be damned as that would fall on someone else. Every leader after him tried to tell us that the bills never came due and that sacrifice was just a quaint and outdated concept. One of our leaders started a silly war, with an undetermined goal, with an ever-changing justification steeped in lies and deceits, then told us all to go shopping, as if both the dying and the payment were someone else’
responsibility.
We let them get away with it because we wanted to believe. We spent our days adding to the list of unalienable rights our founders had enumerated for us. Two hundred some odd years ago those men had given us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We came to like the last one best of all, and redefined it as needed. We assumed a right to live beyond our means. We took a dream, the so-called American Dream, and not only determined it was a reality, but that it was a birthright.
We became hypocrites along the way, something illustrated to perfection by a man who long has had an active hand in our demise. We came to believe our own hype, that we were the best, and that we knew best. We forced others to accept our way of life when force was in our own interest, and we lectured when force was not a viable option.
We made no friends either way, leaving destruction most everywhere we tread. We did to others as we would never want nor allow others to do to us.
Regarding that illustration noted above, consider Timothy Geithner, now our Treasury Secretary, but late of both the New York Federal Reserve and the IMF. When East Asia stumbled as a result of its own failings in 1997, Geithner demanded that they face up to their own errors and accept their earned pain. Budgets were to be balanced, interest rates raised, and the weak and incompetent allowed to fail.
Years later, as both Fed Governor and Treasury Secretary, Geithner’s prescription was the exact opposite. The weak, corrupt and incompetent were to be saved at the expense of the innocent, and economic policy should be a continuation of the very things that led to the economy’s collapse.
In partnership with an equally incompetent Fed Chairman named Bernanke, America engaged in the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the world, from the most innocent to the most guilty.
These two men, along with those who appointed or confirmed them, had the audacity---or stupidity---to tell us that the solution is the problem is the solution.
A collapse resulting from excess debt was to be solved…with more debt. A country suffering from excess spending was to…spend more. The people whose actions had been the prime cause of the collapse…were to be made more than whole again with someone else’s money. The existence of institutions whose enormous size afforded them a finger on the financial nuclear trigger…were not only to be allowed to remain too big to fail, but they actually were encouraged to become even larger.
We were told this was a necessary evil and that it was for our greater good. We were intimidated. We were threatened. We were spun in circles so that we’d be too dizzy and confused to see the many ways we were all on the hook for someone else’s crimes. The contempt of our leadership was so great that they dared to say that those who were forced to pay for others' corruption were actually making a profit on our unintended and unwilling generosity.
Many lost faith early on. Some saw all the lies, and that affected them so deeply that all they could see was lies, even when they were told the occasional truth. While I personally take exception to what this complete loss of faith has bred, I understand its genesis.
Without going into detail, I trust the reader knows what I mean.
As of this writing, nothing has changed. We are still being taken for fools. The guilty continue to run free, and for them times have never been better, though even for them it will be temporary. The wealth transfer continues unabated, and the prescription given to the masses is as it has always been: spend more. So isolated is the leadership and the elite, or so callous and cold is their soul, that they act unaware that more spending is not a option.
We’ve just embarked on something called QE2, with the association of its name (a cruise ship on vacation) a cruel joke. QE2 is an academic’s solution to a problem whose only real solution is a realization that real gain only comes from real sacrifice. QE2 is an economist’s answer. Like most every economic theory---economics is a dismal science at best, alchemy and fraud at its worst---it starts with an assumption. In the case of QE2 this is: assume infinite money.
So far the reaction is such that the economists are patting themselves on the back. They not only think they are correct---despite the historical fact that they, from Bernanke to Greenspan to Summers have never been right once in their entire lives---they continue to take the masses for fools.
Maybe we are fools. Certainly we are lazy. We are probably also cowards. We are lazy because we failed to demand real change, not the silly change that spews from a politician’s lips as easily as all of his other lies. We let them do this to us. We let them fool us. We let them put the final stake in the heart of America and guarantee its demise. We are too late. That is our sin.
Talk to your neighbors. Read the press. Watch TV, especially the business shows. Do you see anything different this week that you have not seen before? Do you feel the mood, even among the most optimistic, is different than it was a year, or even two years ago?
It is. It is clear in the faces of even the formerly optimistic.
They know it’s over. They know we’re dead and that QE2---assumed and endless money for real and endless maladies---is the final blow. They see it in the collapse of the once almighty dollar. Yes, they are all partying, but they know the lifeboats are all gone and all they’re doing is emptying the liquor cabinet on the Titanic, maybe hoping to be in a stupor when the cold or the water steals their final breath.
We are cowards because we did not do what our founding fathers did to rid themselves of the oppression and corruption under which they suffered. They put their lives on the line. They took up arms when such action was the only solution. What the current leadership has inflicted upon the citizenry is at least as egregious as anything suffered under King George. All of the debt and none of the glories.
The Founding Fathers never intended to concentrate so much power in the hands of so few people, as now rests in the hands of Ben Bernanke and the Fed. The system supposedly has built in checks and balances, but it is clear there are none, given that a non-elected official in a semi-private entity can determine our collective fate. That his mandate, if what mandate he has is even constitutional, is to defend the integrity of the currency and maintain price stability is being ignored. That he is prohibited from monetizing the government’s debt is also being ignored. Such is our leaderships’ enforcement of the laws. We need to be our own enforcers, since those who ostensibly have the job refuse to do so.
As a country we have used violence to eliminate those who pose a real or perceived threat against our well being. As individuals we have all played the parlor game of asking what we would have done, had we had the opportunity, to eliminate Hitler early in his career. Most of us, despite our abhorrence of violence, would say Hitler should have been eliminated. The world would have been a better place.
Some future citizens will play that same game when they discuss the decline and fall of America. I wonder what they will decide? I wonder if they will blame us for our failure to act before it was too late, when the system did not allow us a workable solution, and when the only thing that would have saved the country was the elimination through any means those who actions were destroying it.
Is this sedition? Were the Founding Fathers seditionists? They would have been if they had failed, but they won. We are too late, however, so the consideration for us is a moot point, to be debated by our grandchildren in some future parlor game.
What right do I have to even suggest such things? None, other than the right to defend myself and my country, since our elected leaders fail to do so. Our democracy---for some reason limited to two virtually identical parties---is but an illusion. More importantly, our leaders have decided that laws do not apply to them and to those who feed their egos. They even have decided that we, the people, have no right to know the machinations behind those who manipulate the value of the currency we are forced to use. We are all supposed to simply shut up and pay so that our betters can prosper at our expense.
Since the law is not applied equally, can it be any surprise that eventually the people will also opt out of obeying the law, too?
Strategic default and squatting are merely the opening shots in the abandonment of all pretense. As frustration builds, other laws will be ignored, until the time comes when those who should have been responsible will be held responsible. When all is lost and everything the country was or should have been is gone, the only satisfaction that remains will be taking a pound of flesh from the ones who brought the country down.
Those pounds will be taken, one by one, and a degree of fairness will be restored to the Universe. That is the law; the law of the jungle, to which we are now returning.
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How can you fight against that?
You pull a trigger, consequences be damned.
They lost thier rights to weapons a while ago.
Which is why we can never allow ours to be lost.
They still have gasoline, wine bottles, rags, and lighters.
They still have their hands, to work or not work, to pound or not pound, to join or not join.
Carefully here. You are all talking some sense ...
At least in the UK it seems that they are trying to balance the budget by decreasing benefits and raising taxes. Here, they're just borrowing trillions. The eventual "reality moment" here will be much worse.
we're #1!
Yup. The Redcoats came and we didn't do squat.
The Nazis were wearing red coats? 'Operation Paperclip'
look a little higher up the food chain please.
http://www.grinningplanet.com/articles/conspiracy/diagram-of-the-powers-...
same thing happened in russia, spain, etc.
what did they have in common? infiltrators.
http://www.muslimamerica.net/cz/14.htm
but the stupidity of the goyim is to blame too...
Karl Marx said that in order to conquer a country you must destroy it’s currency.Don't think QE II is a psychpath's ego at work here.
History will judge modern day America as the most foolish, self-serving, lazy generation/population in history.
People need to consider getting on the right side of history, immediately if not sooner..
I'd remove that junk if I could. Thumbs up.
It wouldn't be bad to be remembered as the generation that actually took some action to change things. Wait, I did that. Back in the 60s. Question is, was the change for the better? History says not so much!
TD --
Please look at what RR just said ^^^ about junking. He's frustrated by a nonsense-junk (of another commenter) and he can't do anything about it.
Anonymous junking on ZH has to go. It's the only bad thing on this site.
When people reply to comments, let them tag their replies as positive or negative. ( but only +1 or -1, please.) Then show total positive votes, and total negative votes on the original comment.
There. All better.
Damn. Tough crowd. Skynet is already self-aware, and the HFT algos are fighting back.
Junkbotz Bitchez
eh, don't worry about it mr,
RR has plenty thick skin, and as an oft-speaker of good-sense, is getting junked all the time. he's fine.
i think the seemingly indiscriminate junking serves as a good reminder that many folks in here are *not* as reasonable as we would want to believe.
i junk the mean ones, whether or not i agree, and i never junk views that simply oppose mine unless written as attacks...
it would be a better world if 'everyone' had a similar approach, but they don't and never will. can't fix 'em.
it's all good as long as we can find a place to get out of asininity's way.
I think most of the junks come from accumulated fans, or from people who are just not articulate enough to formulate a sentence. Too bad because some of the wisest ones here are from the trades and others not financially oriented. I know it took some reading before I posted the first time, but it was not due to being semi-literate.
Note to the silent: Speak up!
well said. The problems we talk about, and their sources, reach well beyond the financial realm
Who gives a shit ? Somebody anonymous junked me, big deal. My idea of a junk is a punch in the nose. Junking dosent mean shit. Junk away...
i use to take being junked personally. now when i am junked i feel complimented cause someone just anyone did in fact read my probably stupid comment.
The lazy little rich kids who are living off daddy's wealth then blow it all on hookers and coke...... only to wake up in middle age and learn that it's time to go to work and get a job cleaning pools.
Corruption and Apathy = Death by a thousand cuts, Its the same in the UK The Damage done over the past decades is so bad I am not in the if camp but bracing for the endgame which looks sooner rather than later.
Looking at commodities the hyperinflation has now started and the latest Feds actions cranks up the pace somewhat, The best thing for the US or the World is for the US Bond Market to blow up Greek style, Then and only the may things change. Its not going to be good.
Amen. Thank you for your words, which are every bit as compelling and true as the original Declaration of Independence.
all systems seek stability from a hurricane to a solar system to an economy.
By the time the masses decide to hold the culprits accountable they will be safely tucked away in another country.
Did CHIPOTLE (CMG) just do a flash melt up?
Hmm yes their new lettuce wrap is the reason....
Uh. Let's say it did. Now what?
well...not sure I would take any action--I don't want to step in front of a freight train, whether its caused by short covering or something else...
Just stay away from the tracks and there will be no problem.
Self-destruction is aspirational and amusing. "Armegeddon romance" is vitruous. Faith and conspiracy replaces pragmatisn and vision? Fuk. We aspire to be something akin to viruses rather than human beings. I am somewhat ashamed that I am committed to adapting my brief life to these rules and winning.
QUANTATIVE EASIN'
(sung to the tune of mamas and papas california dreamin')
all my stocks are up, in my 401(k)
and my random walk, is still lookin' okay
i'm even safe with AMBAC, muni bonds from L.A.
quantative easin', takes all my risk away
stopped into my bank, to pay my loan today
well, the banker takes my fiat, and we pretend i pay
you know that leech he wants my gold, but it's all squirrelled away
quantative easin, boosts my silver play
my real estate is down, and my mood is gray
think i'll just default - it's easy they say
i'll give my house keys back, eighteen months from today
quantative easin', makes my rent free today
quantatative easin', where central bankers play
quantative easin', is surely here to stay
Juliet:
'Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone—
And yet no farther than a wan-ton's bird,
That lets it hop a little from his hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silken thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.
Romeo:
I would I were thy bird.
Juliet:
Sweet, so would I,
Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.
Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
I grew up here ... we must never give up ...
the Tea party is the right way to handle this..
guns are not the way... we must keep the internet open..
TEA PARTY Wall St contributions-
Pat Toomey PA- $1,180,000
Jim DeMint SC- $1.081,970
Marco Rubio FL $1,003,083
Etc, etc,...go get Wall St you anti Wall St warriors!! lol
There are three great "sins" committed by America - surpassing all others. One is inhereited, the other two we did to ourself.
1. Slavery - has lead to progresseive destruction of federalism - 14th amendment which gives the federal government more and more power over our lives
2. Central Banking - maybe the worst of all three - enabled dishonest money, the sina qua non of anonymous, large scale cooperation.
3. Foreign Wars - wasteful - unhelpful, resulting in the exact opposite of what they were designed to prevent
I stopped reading at Reagan. This essay is really silly and self serving. No mention of Jimmy Carter, FDR, LBJ? The writing isn't bad but the content is muddled and not inclusive. Most likely self stroking
ooh, we can't have any Reagan disparagement. Reagan invented deficit spending as a political tool. Lower taxes (for some), yet continue to spend, everyone is happy. That is the opposite of leadership.
If we had listened to Carter when he told us that we must get off the foreign oil tit, we'd be much better off today. Reagan moved into the whitehouse and immediately took the solar panels off of the roof. Great leadership.
I was not defending Reagan. Simply that the analysis was incomplete and named current names and events as if those are the root causes.
Without a doubt slavery was the seed that bloomed from within to the destruction of the nation. Everything else flows from that. The Founders knew it was a problem but lacked the will to deal with it. Now we are paying the price. Of course there are other causes related to human nature but those can never be changed.
My view is strictly non-partisan and pro citizen.
what about a system of private property, based on the theft of (indigenous land) property?
if we talk founding fathers, let's talk founding fathers .... tea anybody?
I'd like to know who wrote that. It is absolutely true! We should revolt and REMAKE america. We could become the Second Founding fathers. America get your fucking balls back.
The founding fathers did not remake anything. They left the problem area and went to a new land where they could build something from scratch. Their fight was simply to defend the new stuff from intruders.
That is a totally different (and easier) fight than staying in the problem system and remaking it. Do we have any historical evidence that this can actually be done successfully for a reasonable length of time? Russia tried, but that didn't work out so well.
so, the founding fathers were not intruders????
Let me rephrase slightly: Their fight was simply to defend the new stuff (new government) from intruders (into their new stuff / goverment - the British). I was referring to intruders into the new form of governance that they had created. They were not fighting from within the old system, to change it. They were defending their new system in land far away from the old system.
I'm with you Preston, I get so pissed off when I think about how bad it will be for my kid's. Already if you want fly somewhere you have to be blasted with radiation,or groped by some TSA pervert. Cameras on every corner etc... Land of the Free...
His style reminds me of Jim Willie CB.
Winston Smith ....I totally agree with you...
Sigh, well since I feel a lil bad leaving folks dry for music selections...
http://fridaymixtape.com/ (EDM with a hip-hop twist, zero connection to ZH)
http://maddecent.com/blog/mdwwr-64-diplo-presents-blow-your-head-mix (a new mixtape from one of the hottest artists out: Diplo)
and don't forget http://radio.cl.zerohedge.com/ for some of Marla's past sets
oh hello steak, i know you don't like me, but am having trouble figuring out how to play these new format playlists you have pasted. one is taking hours to download file. the other only played a most beautiful japanese autumn song and eminem slim shady and stopped. it came up in itunes. i would love to listen to more of these selections. hummmm
the fridaymixtape does take a long time to download
the Diplo mixtape is playable from the page i presented. just below the pic of the girl with fries is a "play" button. you can also download the mixtape from a link immediately to the right of the play button.
there is no eminem in that mixtape (and nothing at all should pop up in itunes) so i really have no idea what you were clicking on / listening to.
and since you brought it up, correct, i don't like you. but i do respect the fact you (and myself and everyone else) are a guest here. it doesn't mean we have to get along. it doesn't even mean we have to refrain from insulting eachother (tho thats not my style with anyone). but it does mean as guests in someone else's house we are obliged to follow what few but reasonable rules they lay out.
thanx steak, please keep em comin
Diplo rocks - thanks, Steak!
As long as bankers have the power to create money they will be able to buy as many politicians as necessary to get what they want. If you take away something from the bankers without taking away the ability to create money, the bankers will simply create enough money to buy it back again.
I think that it was from someone from the Bank of England that stated this. This is the root of all our problems. I can only hope that whatever government arises from the ashes will recognize this most important point. If not, history will repeat once again.
It is all so true and your writing is excellent, yet, nothing will change unless we ...the people ...change! And in such a way that it will make another corruptionist shit his pants just even thinking of it! I see a revolution coming to town, marshal law, hunger, death and destruction, be sure that no one responsible will be held accountable, they will all be long gone, to some place where a private army will watch over them! What a disgrace! MadMax here we come!
"The Founding Fathers never intended to concentrate so much power in the hands of so few people, as now rests in the hands of Ben Bernanke and the Fed."
I have no idea what the author is talking about the First Bank of the United States was formed 1791 when most of the signers still lived.
You lemmings are not in this position because of the Fed or central banks.... it's all you Banks that I call Lemmings that think you can steal from the future at an exponential rate forever, sorry guys.
Semi-official time of death: October 3rd, 2008.
Since then it has all been just defibrilator-dramatics...
I agree with that, since 2008 it has been all about life support in order to get the slavery laws on the books to make it official and 'legal'.
Far as Im concerned, the only reason the plug hasnt been pulled yet is theyre still missing their global cap n tax framework.
Soon as thats done somehow, then its over they pull it.
By "pull it" do you mean everyone leave the building?
While I would agree with much of what the writer has written, there are two main issues I have with this piece: One, the tone is a resignation of defeat, as if, we have no alternative but to lie down. This is exactly what the elite would have you believe- go gently into the good night. Two, that America is the sum of its' leaders.
America is its' people, its' lands, its' hopes and dreams. If this government falls, America has not fallen. If the dollar goes away, will we not still produce goods? Will our neighbors disappear? No, they will join hands and become stronger through partnership.
The spirit of America is no different than the spirit of Argentina, Germany, the Balkins, Russia or China. Countries cast down to their knees, murdered, raped and pillaged. Thes epeople have or are rebuilding. They never lost whom they are.
If anything, our spirit still soars when allowed to take wing. The falling debris that is our government and the FED, this sordid, stinking filth that have stayed long enough to beguile and steal will transit to new, greener pastures.
Our goal must be to sever our connections. To give them their debt and start out anew. To rebuild and exclude the money masters. When they bring their notes- tell them to pound sand- it is their debt, let them profit no more. When they promise embargoes, let us join together and live on our own production, create new products and send them hat in hand.
The loss of tyranny is no loss at all, but an opportunity for liberty. A liberty dreamed of by our founding fathers, but stolen on the back of fiat money. They were defeated in their hopes, but the hopes remain to be fulfilled.
This is not the destruction of America, it is a rebirth. If reborn in the nurture and care of liberty, there is hope that will bloom into the flower of realization.
Take your depression, your bankers, your thieves- we have neither the desire to hear their voices or follow their rules. But, don't tarry, because if resolve is found soon enough- you may find yourselves gutted before you can leave with our treasure.
I see your point. Keep in mind, however, that the process takes place in stages that include some sort of acquiescence.
Where is Cognitive Dissonance when you need him?
You're doing fine. It really takes an animal to know what to do here.
Right now taking a dump sounds good.
ok, THAT was funny (got beer up my nose)...:)
I appreciate your reservations, Sean. It seems to me, though, that a writer who wishes to make a radical point without bringing down the site that publishes the message must walk a very fine line.
Ultimately, the point of a work is in the mind of the reader. For better and for worse.
Writing is inherently subject to this problem. Consider, say, the novel 1984. Was it a prescription, a fateful prediction, or a call to arms?
It always depends upon the reader.
This is not the destruction of America, it is a rebirth.
+1000
Well said!
what makes me nervous is that the folks putting the last straw on the back of the beast are not the ones i want to be fixing it next time around, but they seem to be in the most advantagious position to fill the coming vacuum.
the many gold/PM/store-food folks at ZH give me much room for optomism.
i hope to be sharing rice and beans with them as we figure out how to clean up the coming mess.
i would prefer a more pragmatic group that understands the true nature(s) of humans, not the romanticized version(s).
Indeed!
These are the ones who can see beyond the current move on the chess board.
These are the ones who can plan ahead.
These are the ones who stir from their recliner and take positive action.
These are the ones who are NOT waiting for someone else to solve their problems.
These are the ones who are taking personal responsibility for protecting themselves and their families.
They will be the backbone of a new society. The rest deserve contempt.
You left someone named Sanford I. Weill off the list of "those responsible". I believe he also belongs in the "psychopath" sub-category.
What short memories you all seem to have.
Ha! Yes, we all have a name we could add to the list. Don't lose your perspective over one individual, however.
s. l. weill must of put a chip, in jamie dimon i bet.
Great post!
interesting. thanks.
Pending Home Sales in MA were down yesterday, by alot. Could this be expected on the national scale ? Perhaps this explains the postponement or delay in reporting....See following excerpt from MAR
Pending home sales in the state were down nearly a quarter in October from the same time last year, the Massachusetts Association of Realtors reported yesterday.
The association said the number of single-family homes put under agreement last month - meaning the buyer and seller had agreed on terms but had not yet closed on the sale - dropped 22 percent from last October. Condominiums were down 31 percent over the same period.
The decline may be traced to the expiration of a federal home-buyer tax credit, which motivated more people to buy homes last year, according to some in the real estate field.
The uncertain economy also has frightened potential buyers, who are waiting for signs of more stability before committing to a home purchase.
'The decline may be traced to the expiration of a federal home-buyer tax credit'
As opposed to "an attempt to reach equilibrium once the government stopped intervening."
I'm so sick of this BS. J6P is inundated with this crap everyday. "It MUST be the govt's fault, they didn't do enough." FAIL in critical thinking.
i wonder if there is such a totalitarian law in US as in France, called loi Fabius-Gayssot... but i will give a try since this requiem made me remember this quote :
Taken from a copy of the original from the written records of CHARLES PICKNEY of South Carolina, of the PROCEEDINGS during the drafting of the United States Constitution at the CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION in 1789 re: THE STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN at the CONVENTION CONCERNING JEWISH IMMIGRATION.
“There is a great danger for the United States of America. That great danger is the Jew. Gentlemen, in which ever land the Jews have settled, they have depressed the moral level and lowered the degree of commercial honesty. They have created a State within a State, and when they are opposed, they attempt to strangle the nation financially, as in the case of Portugal and Spain.
” For more than 1700 years they have lamented their sorrowful fate, namely that they were being driven out of the motherland; but gentleman, if the civilized world today should give them back Palestine as their property, they would immediately find pressing reasons for not returning there. Why? Because they are vampires and cannot live on other vampires. They cannot live among themselves. They must live among Christians and others who do not belong to their race.
” If they are not excluded from the United States by the Constitution., within less than a hundred years they will stream into this country in such numbers that they will rule and destroy us, and change our form of government for which Americans have shed their blood and sacrificed life , property, and personal freedom. If the Jews are not excluded, within 200 years our children will be working in the fields to feed the Jews, while they remain in the Counting House rubbing their hands.
“I warn you gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jew forever, your children and your children’s children will curse you in your grave.
“Their ideas are not those of Americans. The leopard cannot change his spots. The Jews are a dnager to this land, and if they are allowed to enter, they will imperil its institutions.
“They should be excluded from the Constitution!”
Much too late for the truth.
i hate to dignify this rabble with *any* sort of response, but perhaps it may serve a purpose.
... and george washington said we should destroy the State of Israel ... oh, wait, Israel didn't exis...
it all sounds so plausible when you throw the word 'gentlemen' in there every few words, add a few dates, and founding-fatherish names...
(to be sure, i'm sure the christians of the day resented their outsiders as much as any dogmatic believers resent outsiders today)
citation please, else methinks, gentlemen, we have an anti-semitic troll in our midst, that verily shall be expunged in the most violent of manners. (junk early, junk often).
funny how bernanke, clinton, kennedy, pelosi, frank, dodd, schumer, biden, boxer and most the libs NEVER make the list of evil doers when writers like this find religion. of course Bush and Cheney are always the top of the list.
guess rumsfeld and cheney were responsbile for AIG and were writing MBS
why are catholics always so lost
Yea right, many see things went bad, but theyve been taught to 'blame Bush'. Hell it goes back over 100 years. That darn Cheney and his Federal Reserve Act and all!
Amazing Grace ?
+1000
"why are catholics always so lost"
Because Catholics ARE lost, as in literally going to hell. Because they follow a false religion which does not come from the Bible but from Babylon. They are also the only ones not finding any blame here even though they are MORE to blame than anyone else for supporting that satanic superstructure of rape, plunder, loot, pillage and molestation headquartered in Rome.
Ever since King James flipped the Pope the bird, to this very day, they have been plotting the downfall of the Protestant west. But you will never hear any of this in the media. And who's using the Mason's to frame the Jews for everything from 911 to the holocaust? You guessed it!
http://www.vaticanassassins.org/
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/index.htm#rc
Somebody just had to ask, right?
lol
as a dogmatic contrarian, i assert that it was really the wicca folk. they did it all.
it says so somewhere.
so it must be tru...
As the Destroy the Dollar and the Country they have everyone cheering because the Stock Market is going up. Which benifits the Wealthy who can go to another Country to spend their Billions if the Country goes belly up.
The increase in the Stock Market is a smoke screen to hide what they are really doing. Which is to Destroy the Country. Yet, with the value of the Dollar going down is anyone really making Money in the Stock Market?
It is like giving you a small piece of candy as they take away your daily bread.
yet another evocative strain emanating from the threnody for a passing era, an empire, a dying nation and its people reminiscent of the muffled drums of the cortege in the capitol more than four decades ago as the country buried its young president along with all its hopes and dreams. it is critical to acknowledge and also understand that JFK paid with his life for the temerity to challenge the hegemony of the financial elites at the Federal Reserve along with their co-conspirators at the Central Intelligence Agency, the same entities which are presently laying a once great nation in its grave. http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20Government/Federal%20Reserve%20Scam/kennedy_killed_by_bankers.htm
Seems you can tell how much history one knows by where they place the beginning of the end. I would push it back to 1694, the founding of the Bank of England. The seeds of destruction were inherent in the founding of the modern banking system.
One of you history buffs want to push it further back?
Crab Cake ???
possibly channeling merehuman (and others?):
4th Century and the "mainstream-ification" of Christianity. The lads had a good thing going: a "unto God's what is God's" movement, which became a "unto us what is Caesar's" movement. From Constantine through Nicea and really with Ambrose and Theodosius (see: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/theodoret-ambrose1.html , "St. Ambrose humiliates Theodosius"), the Church got embroiled with the policitians. So much for that.
Maybe the monks are on to something? The shaolin ones, who will beat back the masses no problem when TSHTF.
First came the dinosaurs.
Oh, and pigmy ponies.
The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Samuel Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, championed the new Constitution in his state precisely because it would not create a democracy. "Democracy never lasts long," he noted. "It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself." He insisted, "There was never a democracy that 'did not commit suicide.'"
I am going thru pure hell in my family over drugs - having to reevaluate what I believe about hard drugs now! I'm not talking about weed
Well see thats a really big issue. I have never seen a series on tv about meth,heroin,coke and things people will do to get some ...
See, I have driven down some back roads myself.
Its always sold as power, woman, money, fun ...
May I ask how this is playing out ? ...
"The exact time of death is uncertain, the causes many.
America was always, until its demise, a work in progress, but that progress stopped. The country lost its way, forgot where it was headed, and fell prey to a host of enemies, all of them coming from within."
It is a bit premature for requiems. The patient has a disease but the team of specialists (last named "Paul") have agreed to manage the case. The patient has actually been afflicted chronically since birth. A bungling quack named "Hamilton" initially infected the patient. The "Jeffersonian" physicians put the infection into remission but "Whig/Lincolnian" quacks reduced the immune system resistance to very low levels and the condition has subsequently deteriorated to the present sorry state, many parasites having caused additional weakening. The patient needs to maintain the will to live. We need to move the wailers out to the lobby and give the doctors some room to work.
And what happens after this nth attempt at re-animation fails? Do we wait for another, and another, as we fall further into the pit? When do we admit that the corpse is dead?
I'm serious about this. What is the line that must be crossed?
perhaps dr.paul can salvage a few organs (e.g. texas, etc.) from the corpse and clone a new entity from the stem-cells...
Calling them "Founding Fathers" and capitalizing the words doesn't elevate the people who were responsible for the foundation of the US, nor the country itself, to some special status. Truth be told, it is likely our economic advantages were responsible for our prominence in the world and not the particulars of how the constitutional republic was formed.
Just felt like it should be said, junk me if you like. This is not an attempt to be inflammatory.
Agree. A contingent facet of history. Not to minimize the many wonderful things that were accomplished -- but still, something can only be invented once.
the exception being a political party, a person and hence, the establishment. That reinvents every few years! Look at the GOP. They are promising exactly the 2 or 3 things that they promised prior to this financial mess. Exactly. No deviation. No one is saying, wait, didn't financial deregulation and tax cuts get us here.
People are stupid.
i think it's a function of not being able (at all) to handle complexity.
people handling complexity is like people breathing water.
i have some otherwise 'smart' peers that don't see any of what's happening. at all. they can't be that blind, i just don't think they have the capcity to see certain 'stuff', the way a color blind person might not see blue.
there really are some seemingly smart idiots out there... i wonder where i stand in that scheme :^/
To the author:
Just jump already.
Jumping ship is already in progress just see how long the queus are at embasies for renoucement of citizenship
Let me guess: You work dispatch for a suicide hotline?
I think it is very premature to call the end of America. There are still alot of great things that America has that no other countries have. Key out of those are a strong positive attitude, monster work ethic, adaptability, innovation and very very smart people. Remember the US is still the number one economy in the world and is still about three times bigger than China. This doomsday talk is overdone. The US isn't going anywhere any time soon.
There may be an equalisation of economic power between the west and the east but I don't believe the US will fade away to the extent that alot of people are predicting.
You are dreaming if you think that people are going to work harder for less, just to hand over their rewards to the kleptocracy both now through confiscation and fraud and later through currency devaluation. There is a point where the injuries are too great and the patient does not recover or the frauds are too egregious and trust is never restored. The effects of these financial crimes (The Great Swindle) will be felt in spending, saving and investment decisions for decades. Who under the age of 50 is going to be stupid enough to store their entire life's savings in US dollar-denominated assets and Federal Reserve Notes?
"America," as the author means it, is over and gone. What remains in a massive operation calling itself "America."
Self-sovereignty is gone - what's left is merely a machine that operates via conditioning and fear.
America's problems and it's strengths are really the same. By having a wonderful economy and system of government it created an immense amount of respect for it's currency and credit. Of course like anything in this world power corrupts and this power to create money and actually get real goods for paper was bound to be abused.
We don't need to work in manufacturing or resource production when we just print money and get what we need! Or so our leaders believe. Ultimately I think historians will conclude that America was a victim of its success. There is no power that will not be abused or misused by those who exercise it,especially if it can be done without any obvious constraints.
America's strengths are having a continent to itself, being founded at the onset of the industrial revolution, having no strong native religion to tie government hands, avoiding costly wars on native soil (excepting the Civil War, which had the virtue of being nearly stone-age) and emerging from the WW1/2 period with the world's largest standing mechanized and modern army.
Not a bad run, actually.
You don't get that kind of luck twice, however.
Game over.
Amen Brother!!
ya know mr banzai,
your writing is fine, but your *real* calling is your mastery of imagery. some messages (e.g. your clown image of my "friend" mr beck) offend me personally, but are powerful, nonetheless.
know your strengths and capitalize. it is a gift you wield with dexterity.
bravo, in general.
Another third worlders wet dream....
Funny that Carlyle is taking assets private with bank cash. Roll em up!
The Lord says, "I will bring disaster on the earth and punish all wicked people for their sins. I will humble everyone who is proud and punish everyone who is arrogant and cruel. 12 Those who survive will be scarcer than gold. -Isaiah, Ch13
Again, gold figures prominently in most endgame scenarios.
Yeah. Some folks say the streets of heaven are paved with it.
http://kingjbible.com/isaiah/2.htm
Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made
Point of contention: "Our leaders, beginning with a fool named Reagan, told us debt did not matter and that the appearance of wealth was all that mattered". Uh, no. It is time put down the revisionist history/economic books, jackass!
This line should read "Our leaders, beginning with a Progressive fool named Woodrow Wilson, told us that the congress should not determine US monetary policy, and our Founders were nothing more than Racist, Deists, and that our Constitution was irrelevent and can thusly be ignored. That is where the cancer began. It is called the Progressive Era and there are two ways to interpret the fact surrounding this time period. The vast majority of Americans have only heard the side where Progressivism is great. Kinda like the way Pravda used to say that Communism is great. Or Goebbels said State Socialism is Great. Try Googling "Goebbels Bernays Wilson Lippman" if you want to know more.
Read, learn, think, then blog.
"We all die the same death, no matter the extent of our individual culpability."
Not necessarily true, just ask Giordano Bruno. All we need to do here is bring back the Inquisition and Burn the Pigmen at the Stake. Their Deaths can be a LOT different. They can be excruciatingly painful.
RE
I saw this movie. Very depressing.
I did like the part where the old man declares "Ass to Ass" and I get to see Jennifer Connelly perform said act.
Now I see it as a parable on our current state of affairs.
whoa....i am getting bullish twinges....will you guys stop already?....must not get bullish...
I agree with everything accept the Catholic references. As an unconfirmed catholic, shades of gray or degrees of right and wrong are figments of a dieased brain. It has always been a black and white issue. The universe has entire galaxies getting ate by black holes or fried by GRB's. They did not deserve it but they got snuffed out anyway. There has never been any gray areas in anything out of creation. America is just following the mandate of heaven like all empires. Corruption=Death
That was a nice post. However this isn't going anywhere.
I don't think you can talk about "liberty" and "money" in the same post. You'll trip over something before long. Either your need for profit will destroy someone's liberty (slavery) or your pursuit of liberty will entice tyrants from out of the shadows (theFed). Sure there is a middle road ... but try and find it. If you find it, try to hold it. If you can hold it, try to live there for very long. There is a middle road where oil and water do mix, but it is very thin and easily lost. While the chemistry there is interesting, it is of no consequence. Everyone knows, they do not mix.
Liberty and money are worth studying, trying to get them to occupy the same space at the same time is futile.
Therefore. Choose.
Totally disagree.
Monopoly money is the tool of tyranny. Honest money (having intrinsic value) is one of the primary tools of liberty.
Fair enough.
Time for a game. We started with honest money (maybe) ended up with phony money (definitely). So was that inevitable? Some would say it was. Regardless, is there anyway out now that doesn't not involve a hard reset?
Liberty was murdered by money, this time around. Perhaps that could not be avoided, it seems like that is the case. I'm saying, keep money out of it and liberty will be fine. I might be wrong of course. But so far it looks like I'm right.
i suppose it could be 'guns don't kill people, peopl...' etc. but your initial point is interesting.
if you look at 'money' as a simple store of a man's labor, much like canned fruit in the basement for winter, it seems pretty simple and innocuous.
when you look at it as an abstract store of power to compel men to kill other men (soldiers for hire, armies, etc.) it takes on a very different flavor.
as i said, interesting perspective to grind on for a lifetime. not just 'what is money', but also what edges are on that sword.
bravo.
You brought to mind the biblical thingie: Money is the root of all evil.
Tis not so, as someone is just itching to point out.
LOVE of money is the root of all evil. It's those mis-quotes that cause problems.
Gold being = barbarous relic. Wrong: The Gold Standard was the correct wording.
Nail hit squarely upon the head.
c h i l l i n g read, but thanks to a reader.
This is a nice piece, and I agree with everything except the conclusion.
The law of the jungle is not the fairness or just. LOOK at the human history, you will find that there is always injustice. the rich and the elites will always rule. Just is a fantasy.
MUST WATCH...
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/246/280/The_Television_Commercial_About_The_National_Debt_That_Is_Being_Banned_By_Major_Networks.html
a great video, but it misses one huge thing: military spending. That's the biggest waste of all.
Q Easing always evoked both the sound and image of a cow making a giant wet patty to me.
Can the CIA, revamp the State Dept., kick out the Fed, bust up the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Judicial-Media complex and America might have a chance; otherwise it's "Aaaway, we go - how sweet it WAS."
Another way of saying -- it must all burn.
I really hope next time we come up with a way to keep corporations on a leash, out of politics, and perhaps limited to a 15 year "life" span. Immortality is corrupting. Nothing nor anyone should be permitted immortality. Nothing.
"I really hope next time..."
i really do hope there are some organs that can be salvaged from the corpse. most of it can rot, as far as i'm concerned.
i also hope we've learned something, and have the power to execute a better future.
Killing of JFK was when the US went off path politically.
Never let a crisis go to waste, and from then on the path was entrenched when the public didn't demand truth from their government.
This does not mean governments haven't lied all along.
Some of you guys continue to play the sucker's game:
It's the GOP!!!
It's the Dems!!!
Our team rules! Your team sucks!
Forget that wasteful crap. Observe: http://ascolibooks.com/truewords/?p=61
They say that Generals are always fighting the last war. Same applies here, seems like.
Words to the wise, if there be any left; we are thinking outside the box now. The next war will have new rules, or no rules at all. Happily, we outnumber the enemy 50:1. Provided we can turn the Army to our side, that is.
You listening, soldier? The thinking is now outside the box.
you're on a roll today.
pass this along to anyone you think 'gets it':
http://oathkeepers.org/oath/2009/03/03/declaration-of-orders-we-will-not...
as you imply above, this is rather critical to the next phase...
Anarchism, properly defined, is a better way than we've had. Problem, is, the masses think it means "lefty, wacko bomb-thrower."
"venial" sin. Though they may also be venal, depending upon just what sort of sin we're talking about.
In the paragraph that begins, "In partnership with an equally incompetent Fed Chairman named Bernanke, America engaged in..." there is a sentance that reads, "These two men, along with those who appointed or confirmed them, had the audacity---or stupidity---to tell us that the solution is the problem is the solution."
I think that should be changed to read, "These two men, along with those who appointed or confirmed them, had the audacity---or stupidity---to tell us that the cause of the problem is the solution."
Please amend and correct. Thank you in advance
Allahu Akbar!
Breaking News:
Keith Olbermann suspended/booted from MSNBCDNC
Evidently the people have spoken as evidenced by the drop off in ratings at the Propaganda channel of the White House and Keith and his smear campaigns of constitutionalists has backfired. Could not have happened to a worse and anti-American individual.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/11/keith_olbermann_suspe...
i use to watch and listen to keith. but not for 5 or 6 months. he lost me when he always talked about his ill father and the hospital he was in and thought he should receive superior medical attention.
Keith is a self-important drama queen who manufactures attention. But - he was the first jack-off on TV to turn against Bush and his expensive foreign expeditions. Anti-American misses the mark by far. in fact, he was probably more anti-establishment than anyone on TV for two years. French kissing Obama didn't help but its not a shock either.
He will not be missed. I watched his "special comments" quite a bit and some of those are nice classics, but the rest was just fluff. I see/saw him as the liberal Hannity. Both are useless shills. But, really, Olbermann makes a political contribution and he's gone? But FOX can make over $2 million in contributions -- kick off the entire network.