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Guest Post: The Shape Of Things To Come
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
The Shape of Things To Come
The Great Reset could take many forms. The only certain thing is that today's profound political disunity and our destabilizing financial Plutocracy will force a crisis.
Yesterday I laid out why the U.S. will inevitably experience The Great Reset. What comes after that systemic devolution/crisis is unknown, but we can speculate on the shape of things to come.
Though we cannot know the outcome, we can certainbly discern the outlines of the crisis itself. These destabilizing conditions will force a crisis at some point and will be resolved one way or another:
1. Profound political disunity. As I noted in Survival+, this was a key feature of the Roman Empire in its final slide to collapse. The shared values and consensus which had held the Empire's core together dissolved, leaving petty fiefdoms to war among themselves for what power and swag remained.
Today we have several types of political disunity. Superficially, the two "political theater" wings of the Demopublicans stage a bitter partisan war over whose vision of the U.S. as a "Plutocracy, but with benefits" holds an increasingly enfeebled political power.
But this is all theater and artifice. Neither wing has any vision or values of substance; each slavshly serves their masters, the corporate cartels and financial Oligarchy, while feeding their vast constituencies in the Savior State great gobs of borrowed treasure to maintain the "Plutocracy, but with benefits."
The real disunity is between a doomed Status Quo and those willing to deal with reality. Right now those willing to deal with reality are few, but they have the distinct advantage of reality on their side, while the Status Quo has only propaganda, artifice, phony political theater and empty promises.
The disunity stems from the public's innate desire to hold onto the empty promises and cling to the hope offered by the Status Quo that these grandiose, impossible promises will be met, despite the abundant factual evidence to the contrary.
Every attempt to lead the public toward the realization that the present is unsustainable will be crushed by a frantic assault of the fiefdoms, cartels and players who will lose power and profits when the Status Quo crumbles under its own weight.
Promises always sound better than reality until a crisis punctures the promises. But the anger generated by this deflation of "too good to be true" promises threatens both rationality and stability.
2. A dearth of leadership. The weakness of what passes for "leadership" today is not just a matter of bad luck but of the corruption of politics to the point that it only attracts sycophants, moral midgets and sociopaths. It's easy to blame those attracted to the game for this, but the real cause is the American people, who reject honesty in favor of artifice and promises. The American public is child-like, self-centered, myopic, ill-informed and ultimately uncaring about anything but getting their share of the swag.
Thus anyone who promises that their share of the swag will remain untouched wins, and anyone who suggests the swag is unsustainable is rejected as "judgmental" or "negative." To the degree a nation gets the leadership it demands, then the U.S. is in trouble. We're now a nation of spoiled teens who get to elect their parents. No surprise, the 'rents who never enforce any rules, never challenge their own bosses (the kleptocrats) and who dole out the most allowance win every time.
Thus we get leaders who refuse to challenge the Financial Power Elites, cartels and fiefdoms because the Status Quo would devote all its stupendous wealth and influence to defeating a challenger, and we get leaders who refuse to be honest with the American people because that honesty is rejected as unwelcome.
Ideally, a leader persuades the public to grow up rather than pander to their basest desires, but such a leader would only have one term of office.
3. The unstable double-bind of rule by Financial Plutocracy. A funny thing happens when a nation allows itself to be ruled by kleptocrats: such rule is intrinsically destabilizing, as there is no longer any center to bind the nation together. The public sees the value system at the top is "I, Me, Mine" greed fed by complicity/corruption, and they follow suit by pursuing whatever petty frauds and corruptions are within reach: tax avoidance, cheating on entrance exams, gaming disability, lying on mortgage and job applications, and so on.
Meanwhile, the diverting of national income into a few power centers is also destabilizing, as Central Planning and Market Manipulation (TM, Federal Reserve, all rights reserved worldwide) are intrinsically unstable as price can no longer be discovered by unfettered markets. As a result, imbalances grow until some seemingly tiny incident or disruption triggers a cascading collapse.
The double-bind is two-fold: the Power Elites can't bear to part with any of their power or wealth, so their resistance guarantees systemic collapse. The political "leadership" cannot challenge the Power Elites' grip on the nation's throat because the entire Status Quo has been co-opted/sold out and is now wedded to the Oligarchy as their guarantor of financial security.
What this leads to is a Status Quo committed to a sinking ship. The very imbalances created by a Financial Elite and the enabling Central State Central Planning doom the system, but since everyone within the Status Quo depends on it for their own slice of wealth and power, then no one dares speak up in favor of reality. Complicity is the order of the day, but complicity can't stop the ship from sinking.
4. The political corruption of religion. Jesus did not say, "Go forth and lobby the Roman Senate, to make laws which impose your interpretations on others." Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” (John 18:36)
Although it is unpopular to say so, some aspects of religion in the U.S. have been corrupted by a desire for wealth and a focus on acquiring it, and by a desire for political power masquerading as morality.
Very few (I know of none) commentators, mainstream or independent, see the potential for a Great Awakening, a spiritual, non-denominational renewal of faith not as some political force in the greasy halls of power but as a motivator of personal responsibility and resolve. I may be alone in this, but American history is replete with examples not only of political upheaval but of broad-based spiritual renewals that reject the earthly excesses in favor of a renewed moral center.
Such movements need not be associated with any one religion or denomination; they tend to be cultural in nature, drawing inspiration from religious faith but extending beyond the confines of the church.
Complicity and dependence erode the soul; political or financial "fixes" alone can't fix the rot. In a fundamentally corrupt, complicit society, rules and laws are routinely evaded, bypassed, undermined or simply ignored. Making more rules fixes nothing if the rules are merely for show, or only for the bottom 99%.
The resolution of these brewing instabilities could be orderly or disorderly. In an orderly scenario, a new Constitutional Convention is convened, and a leadership backed by an enlightened public hammers out a consensus to limit the political and financial dominance of Financial Power Elites and corporate cartels. The new consensus reorients the Central State to its original purpose of limiting predation of the citizenry by Elites and criminals, defending the nation and imposing the rule of law as defined by the Constitution. The Savior State would be dismantled in an orderly process.
In a disorderly resolution, the Status Quo and the public both refuse to deal with reality and instead cling to the Titanic, demanding magical solutions that will keep the doomed ship from sinking. There is no such magic, of course, and so the ship will go down, and disorder will reign.
It might take the shape of a financial crisis such as a devaluation or hyperinflation, or it might take a political crisis such as a "Quiet Coup" by Elites or an outbreak of resistance to the heavy-handed Central State.
At the outer boundaries of such disorder, then the nation could split apart, along the lines of the book The Nine Nations of North America, or into permutations of civil war as invisioned by author/blogger Chris Sullins in his novel series Operation SERF.
The salient feature of instability is its unpredictability. The longer the nation waits to deal with unwelcome realities, the greater the eventual destabilization. What happens as a result of that inevitable destabilization will be up to us.
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Who will fund Israel when the US founders?
Israel will be fine. They will need to make ~3 very effective demonstrations, and they probably have the capability to make ~100.
a revised version of socio-capitalism may allow something to grow. But we may not have the time or isolation provided after the revolution and before 1812. The big world had expended all its capital and had less desire to tussle for a time long enough for us to get established. This time, that big world is pissed off at us and trying to figure out their place in the new scheme of things. When they lose faith and aren't afraid of our military, then what?
"The American public is child-like, self-centered, myopic, ill-informed and ultimately uncaring about anything but getting their share of the swag."
He hit the nail on the head there! That will only change after massive suffering on a scale where lots of people end up dead.
http://business.financialpost.com/2011/07/08/the-disastrous-u-s-june-job...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14081789
"The American public is child-like, self-centered, myopic, ill-informed and ultimately uncaring about anything but getting their share of the swag."
He hit the nail on the head there! That will only change after massive suffering on a scale where lots of people end up dead.
Where is the Humility, the Reduced Desires, the Altruism?
In the Bible, underground, where the boomers buried it and generation X lost the map with the location for it.
Forward,
I disagree, if you did a demographics on which age groups are Bible believers, and regular worshippers, I am sure you would find the Boomers group far outweighs the others.
maybe, but the whole ACTS part has been missing in action for decades.
A sad lot that bunch.
Once out of the false b.s. they loot and steal and corrupt non stop.
They only do it to try to live with their actions , but as the rampant over
the counter LEGAL drug epidemic shows , they can't blot out the
corruption they practice no matter how much they try on SUnday/Monday whenever.
American Protestantism (and to a lesser degree), Catholicism have been co-opted and perversed. Orthodoxy is the branch where the gates of Hell have not prevailed. That area of the world where Orthodoxy is the state religion, contains a population that, for the most part, understand reality.
It has been the young citizens who have changed things. The civil rights movement and the War against the War Viet Nam come to mind.
Both of these movements were fought against heavy handed government with great risk and there was loss.
Now, we have a large, well educated, and unemployed young population who have been duped into goning heavily into dept to obtain an education. That debt can not be escaped, even with bankruptcy. They are within a World of economic Slavery and know it.
He or she or they will come. Freedom will not be given up without a struggle. Look at the rest of the World right now. Freedom will win-------- but at what cost.
Odd, that the same one's that did these things, are NOW the oppressors, and are THE most instrumental in bringing 9-10 items of the Commie manifesto to American life.
large and unemployed, yes... well educated??? seriously? I can print you a degree if that's your definition... maybe scribble it on a napkin...
"a new Constitutional Convention is convened, and a leadership backed by an enlightened public"
Just exactly who is this "enlightened public"? That sounds like pie in the sky talk to me. What we need is a group of benevolent self interested folks like our founding fathers - who incidentally revolted only because they wanted to be rich land owners unbeholden to anyone (the Monarchy). Even Thomas Jefferson died with massive debts, to the tune of $1 million. Not sure what that would be in current devalued fiat paper, but it's probably a 4 figure multiple of the working class of the period.
My point is this; there will be no unity rainbow of average citizens unselfishly coming together to fix this. Having spent 20 minutes in Walmart yesterday, I can tell you there is a large contingent of the populace that isn't interested or currently up to the task. If this is to be fixed it will be by a moneyed group of disenfranchised upper or upper middle class folks that see that diamond just out of reach, just far enough away that if they step on the neck of the status quo they can reach it. This is history. More than likely in current times someone at that level is more likely to be co-opted by the status quo and defused ("how much do you want?") before it gets to that point.
No what I see is a future of slow rot. The elite will extract what they can. Anti government types will forget the history of the rise of the U.S., dissolve and privatize everything that made us great - national education, national labs, national infrastructure. Once there is nothing left the elites will leave or set up their own mini kingdoms like in the third world and the U.S. will resign to being forever a 2nd rate power. Any remaining respect will come though its ownership of nuclear weapons but that will be about where it ends.
I couldn't help but think this morning watching the shuttle make it's last journey to space that the vision and prestige of the America I grew up in was being taken right up into space with it. The last hoorah of a once great nation.
If and when there is a ConCon, it will be because states call it per Article V, and it will be because the federal gov has screwed up in a massive way. Anything coming out of it will almost by definition curtail federal powers back to the states and invoke massive decentralization. In such an event, the flyover states will dominate, not NY, CA, and IL.
This is the reset button (er, lever back then) that our founders wisely put in. It will be used in all likelihood.
MethodMan,
That has been my dream for at least 8-10yrs now, why we have to wait till chaos, and destruction reigns is beyond me.
The Tea Party has been beaten mercilessly for being, having those same ideals.The ultimate goal is getting this thing back in control.
And to do it, the leadership must be reined in.
The Federal .gub, was NEVER menat to have the powers it has usurped, and been given by willing devils in purchased Congressional slots.
Never.
[...like our founding fathers - who incidentally revolted only because they wanted to be rich land owners unbeholden to anyone (the Monarchy). Even Thomas Jefferson died with massive debts, to the tune of $1 million.]---MacGruber
Something wrong with being a rich land owner? Or, just rich?
Countless fortunes of selfless patriots were lost during the Revolutionary war. Incidentally, why set up a constitutional republic with divided and limited government if your only intention is to form a new system of government that would benefit your interest for riches. I can think of a few other forms of government that would have served such a purpose far more efficiently.
As for Jefferson's huge personal debt. Do you know why he was so far in debt? His time as Governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary war hurt his crops. (Agriculture is very hands-on work.) Later, Jefferson was away from his plantations for 8 years during his term as President. Finally, he GAVE much of his money away charitably. One of his last regrets was leaving his debt to his beloved heirs.
Much information in the details, MacGruber.
The elites and their money left long ago...they're invested in the BRIC because why pay $7.25/hour when you can pay $5 a day or even $3 in Haiti. They have no allegence to this country and it's showing. Because money is allowed to go anywhere without restriction they have no reason to worry about the decline of America they are making more money because America is in decline. But their short-sightedness will come home to roost when there is no one to buy their cheap products because our middle class along with Europes will have been decimated leaving only over developed emerging economies stocked with prodcut that no one can afford.
I often ask myself are we really living in time where things are different? After all, each generation has had its contingent of those who believe the end is nigh, or that there is a special set of social/economic/political circumstances that applies.
Ultimately it comes down to energy, and what this nation will do to maintain its control over it. Right now we appear to be offering enough useful things other nations can buy with dollars (food, guns, transportation, etc) and that is the carrot. The stick is of course 11 carrier groups and various occupations. This adds up to a currency seigniorage translating into cheap energy to maintain a standard of living that would otherwise be a whole lot lower.
How this will fall apart will be domestic, in my opinion. We will not be able to go "full empire."
"I often ask myself are we really living in time where things are different?"
I ask myself this question as well. I think we are in uncharted territory with the inevitable collapse of what unregulated financial engineering was allowed to build. There's a great quote from a Chinese economist in Inside Job, goes something like this:
Real engineers build bridges. Financial engineers build dreams....and when those dreams turn into nightmares, somebody else has to pay for it
Not sure. Me thinks US and the West is the glue that holds the pretense of democracy and civility together around the world. Despotism is the historical norm not the exception. If US goes down, despots will fill all the global vacuums left behind.
MB is now forming a their new Islamic caliphate to recreate the 400 year Ottoman empire in MENA. The Ottoman empire fell in 1919 after WWI, the winners in the West drew the artificial current country boundaries which is why the Sunnis and Shia are mixed together in countries like Iraq. Then there's Russia, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, China and all the little Bumfuckistans.
I think the slow motion global scrambles has already begun.
bullshit, there was no freedom of any type before the U.S.
bullshit.
totally.
For our first 100 years we may have been something of a good.
Not since then.
"Although it is unpopular to say so, some aspects of religion in the U.S. have been corrupted by a desire for wealth and a focus on acquiring it, and by a desire for political power masquerading as morality." -- C.H.S.
Of course, the marxist/atheists are not masquerading as moralists to acquire power and confiscate wealth.
The NWO MSM has demonized average Americans who just want the US government to adhere to Constitutional rule of law. Millions of people rose up anyway to demand the debate on excessive central planning control, spending, and corruption.
If it needs to happen, the Tea Party movement is the core of America that will demand restoration to rule of law again. Until there is fear of consequences among the politicians and elites nothing will happen. Examples need to be made.
Tea Party will be discard after the next election.
Book that.
They are not interested in revolution , the "rule of law" is a joke when the
"law" is set by corrupt criminal clowns and enforced with a TSA set of
goons roaming the country.
WHen the Tea Party comes out for the defunding of the Homeland Insecurety
Dept and an ACROSS the board 20-30 cut in Fed gvt spending then they
maybe something, until then PPFFFFFTTTTTTTTT!
karzai,
They will, if they ever gain power.
You cannot speak like that and get the majority of the sheeples votes.
They know that.If they are seen as FAR too radical, then they lose their shot.
Look at Dr.Ron Paul..................he has been relegated to an old man for preaching gospel for decades......only to be called an idiot, and an ass clown looney.(written off by the MSM, as they helped the true agenda be driven).
Disagree: we certainly can know what is to come
if we want.
best $9 you'll ever spend:
http://arielc.org/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=AMC&Category_Code=ebaf
The love of money is the root of all evil.
I was thinking yesterday about how money is probably a form of life. It is a parasite, and humans are its host. We propagate it, move it around, even protect it. Humans don't actually need money, but without us money is dead.
In nature, there are bizare (and quite disgusting) examples of how parasites modify the behavior of their host to ensure their own survival, often eventually killing or maiming the host in the process. Money is doing the exact same thing to humans. We don't notice because money has convinced us that all the things we do for it are our own will, and give us pleasure. But quite the opposite is often the case.
I'm a biologist, in case anyone hadn't noticed. That means is I get to look at things from another angle.
Money. Is. Alive.
Excellent.
Just like Technology!
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/july-15th-aug-15th-month-long...
Money and technology both.
But I think technology came first. Money is perhaps at best a degraded form of technology, and certainly is it's stepchild. But I wouldn't bet any of my own money on it.
Well, digital money sure is a stepspawn of tech.
ORI
nice metaphor cougar. would $ be more parasite or virus? for doesn't a parasite die once the individual host dies, but a virus implants & mutates itself & jumps from host to host? the reason why i'm curious about this b/c there are slightly different methods for eradicating parasites vs. viruses.
also think that Grant Morrison's term "hypersigil" is a nice metaphor for $ as well. and chaos magick gives us all sorts of clues on how to dismantle its power.
"The hypersigil is a sigil extended through the fourth dimension. The hypersigil is an immensely powerful and sometimes dangerous method for actually altering reality in accordance with intent. Results can be remarkable and shocking. The hypersigil is a dynamic miniature model of the magician's universe, a hologram, microcosm, or 'voodoo doll' which can be manipulated in real time to produce changes in the macrocosmic environment of 'real' life"."
http://is.gd/HBR42t
"Money is alive". Actually i think it was interest, or usery that was the root of the evil.
Young people don't need to do anything but wait for those maggots to die (hideously prolonged deaths).
buzz,
You are a hate filled bigot.
You had parents, and grandparents did you not?, you wish/ed that on them?.
Ghoul.
Good piece. The description is similar in many ways to what happens to yellow jackets when the queen leaves the hive.
Devolution!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgtxdN8ngFI
Watch the YouTube video 'RIOTS ARE COMING TO AMERICA !!!'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QypD1z7rcqg
If Americans are like children electing their parents, then how in the same paragraph are their parents' "bosses" the "kleptocrats" - unless the children are themselves the kleptocrats?
Not everyone votes for myopic reasons. Why are you reluctant to mention those who champion personal responsibility and who reject the confiscation of the fruits of our labor. The way most people would interpret your article is that free markets are part of the problem (other than for discovering prices) when in fact we are moving further and further from free markets.
By neglecting to mention what works, you are only reinforcing the myopic majority who think the solution to government - is more government, which can then redistrubte wealth more evenly and thereby "protect" us from the "predations" of the "oligarchs", "kleptocrats", "financial power elites", and "corporate cartels".
A Constitutional Convention would be Pandora's box as offered up by Rip Taylor! God forbid! Yes, there are a lot of changes that could be helpful, but do not ever think that a wholesale overhaul would end as anything but a complete farce, with the resultant document deadly to one and all.
Until states can leave as easily as you would cut up a credit card
then you don't have freedom under this CONjob or any other.
Forget the 200 year old fairy tail bull.
Let's vote on acceptance of the current con job NOW!
Then we will see for better or worse.
You sound like a typical statist fed hack trying to fly under the radar.
How so?................
IF we went back to the Constitution and founding docs?.
The sinking starts slowly and accelerates quickly...
http://www.mypicx.com/07082011/Bernanktic/
When I see Alex Jones arrested for some made up BS, and when I see them planning to take my guns, then I’ll know that it’s SHTF time.
That would be true, but they are more sophisticated than that now. The gradual approach is working beautifully - as long as they don't get impatient. I don't think they could tolerate any real setbacks. For example, suppose they had failed to neutralize the Tea Parties. It could have gotten ugly fast - as you suggest.
Ariana HUFFINGTON's Bolshevik Post:
Obama To Unveil Gun Control Reforms In Near Future
July 7
OBAMA'S RECORD on 2nd Amendment
There is a reason Democrats and the mainstream media always push victim disarmament, they KNOW what the End Game is, sadly, outside of Zero Hedge, few Americans really know the score.
The future?
You have to defend your right to own the means of self defense against all kinds of thugs, that is what the Second Amendment was about, not duck hunting. http://gunowners.org/
The result is likely to be that several large states like America become so weakened by their people's dependence on government that a world government becomes the dominant power, and the American people will be disarmed, and this world government will eventually fall only from within the way every empire does. However, without external enemies, it will last perhaps 1000 years - maybe 10,000 years.
BULLSHIT.
If this were true then how do you explain the EuroZone in flames. You one government idiots need to take your heads out of your asses and take a look at the landscape.
To the collectivist majority, the obvious solution to a Eurozone in flames is a stronger Eurozone government.
A constitutional convention is pointless, the US is already multiple sub nations held together by force and common currency and no agreement would be reached on anything. Better to split into 3 or 4 regions. Not sure I see the south showing up for that anyhow, fair chance they would have their own meeting and flip the bird to the rest.
The real disunity is between a doomed Status Quo and those willing to deal with reality. Right now those willing to deal with reality are few, but they have the distinct advantage of reality on their side, while the Status Quo has only propaganda, artifice, phony political theater and empty promises.
The disunity stems from the public's innate desire to hold onto the empty promises and cling to the hope offered by the Status Quo that these grandiose, impossible promises will be met, despite the abundant factual evidence to the contrary.
Every attempt to lead the public toward the realization that the present is unsustainable will be crushed by a frantic assault of the fiefdoms, cartels and players who will lose power and profits when the Status Quo crumbles under its own weight.
Promises always sound better than reality until a crisis punctures the promises. But the anger generated by this deflation of "too good to be true" promises threatens both rationality and stability.
.................................................................................................................................................
Charles, Charles, you seem a little shrill. Don't you understand the promises of trickle down and lower taxes will create jobs, are promises just as unsustainable as the ones you rail against? Or are you just another Koch brother mouth piece like Shedlock? Welcome to the tea bagger economy. I guess none of them were bright enough to see that if you laid off millions of workers the jobs numbers would look like shit. What a bunch of maroons there are in the world. They'll have lower taxes but no job. Sounds good to me. NOT
He gets funding from the Peterson Institute to write this nonsense!
The only thing that can right the ship is wealth re-distribution. There is NOTHING else they'll fix the system. All attempts to reduce deficit spending on programs such as Social Security, Food Stamps etc (which are the only high velocity money spending), will speed up debt/deflation. It's not the DEBT that kills the system, it's wealth accumulation, that prevents debt from self-liquidation.
Good one Charles. Just bought your book.
Rare to hear about spiritual renewal in this context; I believe it is essential. The root of evil is not money, Liberals, Conservatives or Financiers; it is the deluded human mind. The spiritual renewal is already underway as a non-sectarian, non-religious, culture-neutral recognition of the nature of awareness.
Here in Vermont I think we are fairly well prepared: few Christian or Tea Party fanatics; a culture of mutual respect and acceptance; a tradition of independence and local governance; plenty of small-scale agriculture and renewable energy; politicians who actually care and tell the truth (Leahy, Sanders, Welch, Shumlin); low crime, high education; most of us own and use guns.
Overall however I am not optimistic; I expect global die-off of 90% or more, and doubt we can avoid nuclear or biological Armageddon. However I stay positive: work for the best and prepare for the worst.
The whole experiecne of living in these times is having a terrible effect on a significant proportion of the population, and as the recent riot in Vancouver demonstrates, people are starting to become seriously unhinged.
http://thinkingaboot.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-nihilism-in-chicago.html
I for once, welcome the shape of things to come.
Better now than later!
The shape of things to come:
- more wishful thinking
- more non-action
Can't even erase yesterday's gains, unbelievable. I am not sure a comet wiping out half the planet can bring this thing down. Perpetual stupidity.
I'll second that! It is unbelievable how the markets can remain elevated when nearly every point of data points to an economy slowly grinding into the abyss! Go figure! The only rational explanation would be that the pollyanna Bulltards really believe that The ChairSatan will be bringing endless QE. Unfortunately, I don't see how that could be good for any 'paper' assets, most stocks included.
Hey, what's wrong with the example set by the commies in the USSR? They just closed the door and vanished, and the world is a much better place for that event, including everyone in what was called the USSR itself. More local government was more than sufficient.
The predators known as the USSA should also just shut down and shut up. If they don't do so voluntarily, they'll need to be shut down and shut up by someone else, which will be fun to watch.
There is NO solution that looks like a "reset" of the federal government. Humans are habit machines, and the same predators that took over the reigns of power would immediately create an even more captured and more vicious scam.
END IT.
The experiment in central government and central banks has been an absolute, complete, abysmal failure. Shut them down and never start them again. No more central government, no more central banks, no more fiat, fake, fraud, fiction, fantasy debt-money, no more fractional reserve practices. Flush them all down the toilet of history.
Damn, Terence Mckenna references were the last thing I thought I would see on here today.
Good call. Looks like the pineal gland is popping today.
Spinal Tap!
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/spinal-tap/
ORI
5. Fuck the Police. They dont do enough to tell anyone what to do, deputized as tax enforcement of a failed state the people choose to do a better job.
Damn, Terence Mckenna references were the last thing I thought I would see on here today.
Good call. Looks like the pineal glands are popping.
Disunity? Check out the glories of diversity in this report from NBC WLBT
The future? Personally I think it should be that bright but it won't be.
That's right, any country that holds U.S. bonds or trades significantly with the USA will be devastated as well. That's almost everyone except China and it won't be a picnic for them either but they will come out on top. And don't blame us citizens we didn't know what these politicians and banksters were up too.
This is one of my favorite observations about democracies.
http://didshesaythat.com/?p=515
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327
That didn't go where I wanted. Point is, don't think all the troops are good guys, sometimes people just want to kill.
Any scenario from above choices looks bleak.
Charles:
As always, I enjoy reading your work. Your suggestion of two possible outcomes is logical if your point-of-view is from within a constitutional vacuum per se. You suggest two paths for the USA based on the continuation of the USA as a conceptual form. From a business perspective, this would be the classic case of a turnaround where you offer the staff and the shareholders an opportunity to either clean up the operation or to disruptively break it into separate parts.
This two-path approach is customary and is based on an appeal to honor (in the first part) and fear (in the second part). Your suggestion that people should, could or would do the right thing and return to a moral center is unfortunately highly unlikely outside of the return of Jesus Christ which is a topic for another comment thread. The threat of a breakup with Texas winning, California losing and with Manhattan becoming the next Vatican City or City of London autonomous financial district makes for good movie material and may align smoothly with the White House council of governors/FEMA districts but lacks one huge column of support. Without the U.S. military as the monetary backing of the U.S. dollar, there is no dollar.
Please allow me to suggest a third path that would be consistent with standard operating procedures of the financial class (i.e. greed); the upstreaming of assets to parent corporations from the bankrupt shells of downstream entities. Why go through the impossible remedial transformation to personal and moral accountability? Why debase the currency further through a return to State's rights and a good bank/bad bank version of Old Glory? It's so much easier to simply roll up into a new and fresh occidental currency based on the Bank of England's proposal for "divorce" as the path to unity.
Under the Mervyn King plan which would seem to have the full backing of the U.S.A's intelligence community every country, Greece & Ireland included gets their own sovereign novelty currency to satisfy the first half of the double coincidence of needs. Not only do they get a parade, a flag and a coin with a national hero on it, systemic risk is entirely eliminated from the formula as none of your next months $5,000 in expenses are fractionally leveraged. What could be better?
Then on top of that, we get to roll up all of our savings, pensions and wealth into a newly consolidated IMF/SDR/USD/EUR Occidental Savings Plan that represents the Western half of Mohamed El-Erian's New Normal. Who knows, maybe we can even get Africa in the bargain. You know that South Africa is now one of the BRIC's and dividing up the bricks is what this is all about.
So, why all the doom and gloom? There's a plan for the reset switch. All that's required is the monetization of everyone who has ever died for their country into a novelty minting of fresh coinage. Looking forward, dying for our country will be just as scarce as finding true honor while playing World of Warcraft. We now have drones and smart bombs for that. How convenient! Dying for your country's corporations Fukushima-style and coffins draped with company logos should provide a new social media rallying point as the VFW's and Elk's Lodge continue to fall out of favor.
I can nearly hear you saying... "but that's not constitutional!" Don't worry, some of our greatest constitutional scholars and community organizers believe that the constitution is a living breathing document. It's a person and just like corporations have personhood thanks to Citizens United v. FEC. You know how people are, they can be so easily influenced and according to our President, the founding father's had a "blind spot."
Maybe we can build a virtual prison to house these corporate personhoods when they break the laws. The fines that are being paid by JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are starting to become a drag on earnings. Bart Chilton with the CFTC can be put in charge of monitoring the electronic bracelets while the virtual corporations are sentenced to hard labor down on Farmville.
So as you can see, there's a plan. Think of it as a reconstitution of the constitution. It's like the rebranding of the Blizzard at Warren Buffet's Dairy Queen. It's the same soft serve but once the brand name toppings (think M&M, Heath Bar, Butterfinger) are all mixed in, why would anyone want to go to the trouble to separate them out. Yummm.
All that's needed is a roll up of the Too Big To Fail Banks into the new Occidental accidental pre-planned global financial medium scheduled for the next meltdown and we're good to go.
Here are more details on the blueprints:
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=7173
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=7114
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=6999
Dave Harrison
www.tradewithdave.com
Fuck it im going to the liquor store to celebrate my complacency. Which is only temporary as I own 10 guns and 20k rounds of ammo.
"Very few (I know of none) commentators, mainstream or independent, see the potential for a Great Awakening, a spiritual, non-denominational renewal of faith not as some political force in the greasy halls of power but as a motivator of personal responsibility and resolve. I may be alone in this, but American history is replete with examples not only of political upheaval but of broad-based spiritual renewals that reject the earthly excesses in favor of a renewed moral center."
This is what Glen Beck has been striving for. I think he's been brilliant, and doing a yeaoman's job.