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Guest Post: War, Economics, And The Brilliance Of James Madison
Submitted by Damon Vrabel
War, Economics, and the Brilliance of James Madison
The mass media’s way of communicating war is basically to put fake tough-guy narcissists on your TV screen speaking to the equivalent of a pre-oedipal 2 year old: “there are scary people out there…you need to be terrified…heroic saviors will attack and destroy their bad countries for you so you can maintain your mental fantasy that you’re safe. All you need to do is keep shopping, buying your little toys, while daddy keeps you safe.”
You can already see psychology and spirituality issues in that dialogue. But what about economics? One of the Council on Renewal's (www.csper.org) tenets is that we currently live in a world where economics reigns supreme over every other dimension of life, including spirituality and psychology. This is literally embedded in the fabric of our legal system which says that the interests of private capital holders trump everything else in our system…everything…towns, counties, states, nations, families, individual humans. Given this system where economics reigns, to understand the truth behind almost anything, you simply have to follow the big money to see what’s driving it…
So who makes money from war?
1. Mega banks in the cartel behind the Federal Reserve.
2. Military suppliers (Eisenhower called them the military/industrial complex).
3. Private mercenary contractors.
4. National media cartel.
5. Mega infrastructure and oil/mineral/resource corporations.
That’s pretty much all that needs to be said to understand why we’re in a perpetual war. But there’s a particular psychological element to it as well…
Who gains power from war?
- Royal families and the sick narcissists who pursue political power to rule the populations of the world.
This nexus of monetary gain (economics) and narcissistic power (psychology) explains most of human history, especially war. And what is the impact on individual spirituality, psychology, and economics?
Spirituality: our sense of meaning in life is increasingly tied to whichever war-fighting nation we’re stuck in. Our very identity starts to depend upon the battle, much like diehard sports fans get meaning in life from their team’s victories and their heroes (i.e. look at the angst suffered by so many because 1 random dude Lebron James chose a new employer).
Psychology: the infantilizing nature of war on national populations is profound. War allows the corporate media to keep the masses in perpetual fear, and like a child in an abusive family, such fear results in oppressed psychology. It sets up the daddy/child, strong/weak, savior/sheep mentality, which just fuels the narcissistic structure of society where psychopaths rule and everyone else hopes they keep them safe.
Economics: the population is forced into deeper debt slavery in war. It’s just a big transfer of money from the masses to the political narcissists and corporate/banking psychopaths, as Marine General Smedley Butler said.
So war is a great example of a negative economic system feeding negative cycles in spirituality and psychology as discussed in Lesson 6 part 3 of the Renaissance 2.0 course.
How to stop it? Of course fixing the monetary system is the most important step since the math of debt-money is what fuels the imperial oligarchy. But when it comes to the issue of war specifically, we simply need to remember what founder James Madison said instead of listening to idiots in the media:
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people…. [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and … degeneracy of manners and of morals…. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace
A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.
Pretty simple isn’t it? Permanent standing armies are bad news. The Swiss have understood this for hundreds of years–the people must be ready to defend themselves in community rather than outsourcing their security to a few tough guys. Adult human beings must discard the notion that other people will keep us safe or we are simply infantile, child-like creatures. Free people provide for their own freedom. Otherwise by definition, they are not free.
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This new book out called 'Better Living through Economics' from guess where (Haaavaad) is a real hoot. Here's an example of economists "public good"
- chicks love working at sweatshops because it allows them to get away from their sicko dads
The whole intention of the mass media is to keep all the gullible 'twirps' from pulling out their heads from their __s.
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060423230819/uncyclopedia/images...
C'mon i need a hand,......1.....2......3......pull people,pull.
Waking up....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQfoFzJUsb0&feature=related#
When do you think we will see this video on FOX?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB-J8JtF-lE&feature=player_embedded
Not. Thank God for the internet as long as it lasts.
... and sites like zerohedge which is known for supporting terrorism, distributing child pornography and participating in drug smuggling must be regulated and shut down if these activities do not cease
... eeehhh what? Yes, Saudi Arabia is an important ally of this peace loving country figthing for democracy and the freedom of speach. However says that Saudi Arabia is one of the most repressive regimes in the world will be treated accordingly!
... freedom of choice is an essential part of a free and democratic country. That is why we have a whoping TWO parties to choose from ... that is double as many as the chinese got!
Some good examples of the standard mind control techniques used by elites to control the sheeple. External crisis is always a good one since it divides us against them, whoever them is, ie godless communistists, gooks, muslims etc. Were Americans to disarm in favor of the federal government, our few freedows would disappear.
Bravo! Bravo! Great post.
Very good post.
Interesting SP500 chart ...
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
The answer is very simple and beyond the intentions of Madison, et al. NO government is the best government. All government forms are the enemies of liberty. They are all less efficient than free markets and add unnecessary costs to economic actions.
Every action of government is violence against the citizen. Violence threatens liberty. Liberty is consumed and eliminated.
Get Austrian and get free.
respectfully you need to go back and re-read road to serfdom and the constitution of liberty. Hayek never calls for absence of government, he actually views human social instiutions as vital to ensuring liberty. Governments are vital to a free society, however the english organic / evolutionary system is preferred over the 'french' rationalist / revolutionary system where the government is actively designed.
Please correct me if i'm wrong here, but I think associating Austrian economics with no government is an error and in fact harmful to putting forward the school as a viable alternative to keysnesian and monetarist malarky.
Best,
IWT
And you need to reread Rothbard. Hayek is but one Austrian, although a brilliant one- as the road to serfdom attests.
The problem with government is that it is accumulative. Bureaucracy ALWAYS grows. Therefore, the violence done to liberty continues to grow.
Social institutions are not dependent on government. They are impaired by it. The use of power by an elite is magnified and legitimized by government. Just as the captured MSM
continues to spew their propaganda as truth. Regulation and law are not the providence of government. People can institute law and private property laws (see english common law) without government.
Once we begin to questions all the assumptions that have been programmed into us by the education/propaganda apparatus, we can begin to see the facade of Law and Government for what it is- a lie.
As long as a small minority are placed in control of a larger population, people will use that control to enrich themselves at the expense of others. The recognition of human nature for what it is is essential to protecting the greater society from itself. We want it all and at the least expense possible-even if it means leaving your neighbor dead in the streets. Everyone? Perhaps not, but enough to maintain a real danger to us all.
thanks for the reply, but you give me too much credit - i need to read rothbard first before i re-read him! i've read snippets from mises.org but to go right through his stuff is still on the to do list. everything you said though i identify with and sympathise.
cant' see another asoka coming around anytime soon, and its been 24 centuries...
IWT
Lysander Spooner, bitchez.
This is literally embedded in the fabric of our legal system which says that the interests of private capital holders trump everything else in our system…everything…towns, counties, states, nations, families, individual humans.
Yeah, I can hardly wait for the day when the interests of government capital trump everything else.
Assuming that this perpetual war thesis is correct why has America forsaken the old fashioned mode of war i.e. utterly defeating the target state/population with overwhelming force, stripping them of any valuables and natural resources and then moving onto the next campaign?
What do these five classes of war profiteers have to gain by screwing around with this nation building crap, embedding lawyers in combat battalions and generally making life any more difficult for their conquering (US) troops than they absolutely have to? How long have we been in Iraq - like eight years? Wouldn't the war profiteers be more, you know, profitable if they juiced up Iraqi oil production to even 1979 levels?
But yes by all means lets extract (most of) our standing armies from abroad. Not just from the hopeless clusterfucks of Iraq and Afghanistan but Europe and S. Korea too.
Indeed, our occupation of Europe helped turn them into defenseless pansies, rendering them almost useless(*) as military allies, and less than useless to themselves. When the U.S. cashflow crunch gets real in D.C., those pansies are going to be left naked in front of some bad actors all around the world. Sea lanes and air freight between Europe and its customers and suppliers is protected by the U.S. military today. Europe is so saddled that they can't step in to protect their own interests and dependencies. Have a look what happened along the coast of Somalia the moment NATO became responsible for that little section of water. It turned into Reaver Space overnight.
(*) A Special Mention goes to France which still has a military, but which military has been less than useless for a quite a long time already, thanks to the special thinking caps worn by the French political "leaders". And then there is the "deer hunting with an accordeon" effect when you do get them on your side. It is sad because their individual soldiers and small units can be very effective, minus direction from their hierarchy.
*...and despite all their belly-aching about American military aggression I've noticed they have no qualms about dropping into places like The Ivory Coast and kicking un-holy ass when it suits their purposes.
Yup. Some of their units act decisively, with clarity of purpose, in particular situations. Like when blowing up peacnik's protest boats, for example. Ivory Coast is maybe the best example. You also have to cut out an honorable mention for certain danish, dutch, and eastern european additions to NATO missions. The few good folks they contribute and let do anything can be found kicking butt, even canadians spec ops.
If Madison was so brilliant, why did he die bankrupt?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison (skip to later life)
Learn and understand before judging and making snide remarks.
"pre-oedipal"
I lol'd
“there are scary people out there…you need to be terrified…heroic saviors will attack and destroy their bad countries for you so you can maintain your mental fantasy that you’re safe”
Hmmmmm. That sounds awfully familiar. I would have swore someone was making this very argument just yesterday here on ZH.
http://crooksandliars.com/media/play/wmv/1278/
+ so obvious we can't even see it x 100
.
Excellent post. I couldn't agree more.
A return to a biophysical community that resembles that of our nation's founding would be the ideal deceleration! Unfortunately this seems the less likely scenario.
That was pre- hot showers, dude. Pre shampoo. People stank and carried parasites on them all the time. Doctors bled people back then to cure them. DarkAge indeed.
Maybe before hot showers here in the "new" world...so no warm showers, but hot baths.
Parasites? Sure. But we've traded our coevolved parasitisms for evolutionarily-quickened superbugs. MRSA. C Diff. Same with our mono-culture agriculture, versus our earlier patterns of health by biocultural diversity.
From community well-being, resilience, and preserving one's health and mind by hard work in a field (as described by Wendell Berry) to fiat-currency fueled corporate consumption, based on fear and destroying one's self-worth and self-reliance.
The patterns of the Holocene that underlie life as we recognize it are literally disintegrating. We should hope to be as lucky as to land gently in some novel recombination of US agrarianism, where the family farmer again becomes economic and natural steward of our culture.
Interestingly enough, the fact that we've eliminated most parasitic infections from our modern way of life isn't the panacea it seems. The human immune system evolved over millions of years to deal with parasites. Now that they're gone, it finds other things to do, like cause autoimmune disease (Crohn's, IBD, SLE, MS, Asthma, etc).
There are numerous studies finding that many autoimmune diseases can be treated by actively infecting a person with various parasites. Google if interested.
"Roundworms bitchez!"
There are certainly a lot of details like that to take into consideration.I read and understand the entire article and I really enjoyed it to be honest.
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