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Bread, Circuses, & Bombs - Decline Of The American Empire, Part 2
Submitted by Jim Quinn Via The Burning Platform blog,
In Part One of this article I discussed the similarities between the Roman Empire and the American Empire at a high level. In this article I’ll delve into some specific similarities and rhymes between the fall of the Roman Empire and our modern day empire of debt, decay and decline. I’ll address our expansive level of bread and circuses and how defects in our human nature lead to people willingly sacrificing their liberty for promises of safety and security. All empires decline due to the same human failings and ours is no exception. If anything, ours will be far more spectacular and rapid due to our extreme level of hubris, arrogance, willful ignorance and warlike preference for dealing with foreign powers.
It seems there were a few visionary thinkers in the late 1950s who foresaw the dire course our former Republic was setting. Their writings were a prophecy and a warning. There was still time to change course and avoid the pitfalls that led to the Roman Empire collapse. In Brave New World Revisited, Aldous Huxley warned against allowing a few amoral men using propaganda, scientific advancements, technology, brainwashing, and economics to control and manipulate a willfully ignorant populace into a dystopian dictatorship. The Soviet and Chinese dictatorships of the late 1950s are long gone, but Huxley foresaw how modern propaganda techniques would be used by the state to drown the masses in a sea of triviality, irrelevance, and consumerism.
“In their propaganda today’s dictators rely for the most part on repetition, suppression and rationalization — the repetition of catchwords which they wish to be accepted as true, the suppression of facts which they wish to be ignored, the arousal and rationalization of passions which may be used in the interests of the Party or the State. As the art and science of manipulation come to be better understood, the dictators of the future will doubtless learn to combine these techniques with the non-stop distractions which, in the West, are now threatening to drown in a sea of irrelevance the rational propaganda essential to the maintenance of individual liberty and the survival of democratic institutions.”
Another man of vision was President Dwight D. Eisenhower. As someone who understood the military industrial complex and the world of politics and power, he knew the danger of allowing the arms industry to dictate the foreign policy of the country. Maintaining a military empire bankrupted Rome and it is bankrupting the American empire. Eisenhower’s warning was unheeded.
“We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.”
When I was researching the similarities between the fall of the Roman Empire and our American Empire fall in progress, I stumbled across an essay written in 1956 by Ben Moreell called Of Bread and Circuses.
Toxic Bread, iGadgets, Circuses, & Zoloft
“The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease. The moral decay of the people was not caused by the doles and the games. These merely provided a measure of their degradation. Things that were originally good had become perverted and, as Shakespeare reminds us, ‘Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.'” – Ben Moreell – 1956 – Of Bread and Circuses

There is nothing inherently evil about food, iPhones, professional sports, television, computers, music or medicine. Human beings need food to sustain them, entertainment to provide relaxation and diversion from their daily labors, and medicine to alleviate illness and prolong their lives. Only when the people allow themselves to be lured into servitude by malevolent purveyors of bread and circuses does the perversion of seemingly harmless things begin to fester and overwhelm a nation with the fetid stench of decay and decadence. The moral degeneration of the American populace, like the Roman people before them, happened slowly over time as they sold their liberty, freedom, and self-respect for full bellies, an endless array of modern day distractions, and promises from their highly educated rulers they would be taken care of and protected from all threats to their well-being, whether foreign, domestic, physical, mental, or social.
It did not happen all at once. It happened gradually over time. We allowed the weaker facets of our human nature to succumb to the pleasurable promises of a minority of power seeking manipulative men who always attempt to control and influence the majority because they believe they are wiser and deserving of riches, glory and supremacy. The greediest, most arrogant, ambitious and well educated amongst us tend to rise to the top in all societies. As Ben Franklin stated, only a virtuous people can keep sociopaths from gaining control of our political, economic and financial systems and perverting a republic built upon a foundation of free markets, liberty, and self-sufficiency.
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”- Benjamin Franklin
Historian Tacitus noted, as Rome became more and more corrupt, the number of laws grew rapidly. The Roman aristocracy, through corruption and thievery achieved lofty status in Roman society. Senators and wealthy knights engaged in extensive practices of conspicuous consumption, creating palatial town houses and monumental “art villas” to demonstrate their high rank in society. The peasants sank into poverty, while being satiated with bread and circuses. And it was all done legally, just as it is being done legally today by our beloved aristocracy and their minions.
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” – Tacitus – The Annals of Imperial Rome
Has the proliferation of laws, rules, and regulations over the last century made us freer, safer and less corrupt?

The virtue of the American people has dissipated rapidly over the last century through their willful ignorance, laziness, apathy, vanity, greed and covetousness, while the true ruling power has consciously and intelligently manipulated the masses without them being aware they were being molded, controlled, dominated and influenced by Ivy League educated men of no conscious, empathy, or sense of decency. The paragraph below, written in 1928 by Edward Bernays, reveals the true nature of our “democracy” and our real masters:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays – Propaganda
Bernays and his disciples believed the American citizenry nothing more than a herd of irrational animals that needed to be led by enlightened despots like him and other highly educated wealthy men who knew what was best in a democratic society. The term propaganda developed negative connotations after some Germans used it so effectively during the 1930s, so modern American despots changed the term to public relations. It’s all about the message. As media tools have become more technologically advanced and the study of human psychology perfected, the members of the invisible government have achieved their goal of governing, molding, and pulling the wires that control the public mind in a way that enriches them and their benefactors while satisfying the base needs of the masses and keeping them distracted with trivialities, technological wonders, and a myriad of bogeyman threats. These men have contempt for the common man. They have contempt for the U.S. Constitution. They have contempt for free markets. And they have control of our country.
Needs, Wants & Desires
The concept of bread and circuses ties closely to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory. The ruling class realizes the masses must be kept fed, clothed and housed or revolution would ensue. The human needs documented by Maslow were satisfied or not satisfied by humans prior to the 20th century. Once the ruling class gained control of the monetary system through their jurisdiction over the Federal Reserve and the fiscal system through their manipulation of taxes and spending, they were able to bribe the masses with their own money. The rise of the welfare state has not reduced poverty or boosted the standard of living of the poor. It has enslaved tens of millions at the basic human needs level. Once those in power had successfully bribed the masses with bread (SNAP), shelter (subsidized housing), subsistence (unemployment compensation & welfare), security (Social Security) and safety (Medicare, Medicaid), it was only necessary to keep them distracted with circuses to efficiently teach them to love their servitude.
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.” – Aldous Huxley – Brave New World

The invisible governing authorities don’t want the masses to actually satisfy their psychological and self-fulfillment needs. The last thing they want is an educated, aware, critical thinking, independent, courageous, self-reliant, civic minded populace questioning the motivations of their keepers. This is where the corporate fascists who control the mass media propaganda machine and the sickcare industrial complex have combined forces to create a painless concentration camp of prisoners enjoying their servitude and happy to sacrifice their liberty for perceived safety. An uneducated, obese, sickly, depressed, overly-medicated populace is not a threat to the ruling class. They have been conditioned and pharmacologically sedated to such an extent the governing class feels indestructible, displaying arrogance and hubris in dangerous doses.
“There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it.” – Aldous Huxley
The concept of voluntary servitude has been a constant theme across the ages as most people want to be led, told what to do, and will not question or contest those in authority. Liberty and freedom require effort, sacrifice, honor and a people with a strong moral character. The Roman people succumbed to tyranny by abandoning their liberty to despots for a full belly and grand spectacles. The American people have succumbed to modern day banker, billionaire and politician oligarchs for a belly full of toxic corporate processed food, cable HDTV with 600 stations, iGadgets, a never ending supply of cheap Chinese produced crap at big box retail stores, Facebook, Twitter, 24 hour drive thru Dunkin Donuts joints, and an endless array of professional sporting events, all paid for with an infinite supply of cheap consumer debt from the Wall Street fraud machine. We live in a warfare/welfare surveillance state built on a foundation of debt, consumerism, and delusion, with no tears. We’ve learned to love our servitude.
French philosopher Etienne de La Boetie captured the degradation of the once noble Roman people five centuries ago, and his words ring true today as the American people have foolishly relinquished their liberty to a corporate aristocracy that has bankrupted the nation, debased the currency, pillaged the middle class and set in motion an irreversible decline of the empire.
“Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books. Roman tyrants invented a further refinement. They often provided the city wards with feasts to cajole the rabble, always more readily tempted by the pleasure of eating than by anything else.
The most intelligent and understanding amongst them would not have quit his soup bowl to recover the liberty of the Republic of Plato. Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then everybody would shamelessly cry, ‘Long live the King!’ The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them.” – Etienne de La Boétie – Discourse on Voluntary Servitude – 1548
We are fools to not realize the governing authorities who benevolently distribute bread and entitlements to the masses have already taken the money at gunpoint from the people, while syphoning off their cut, favoring their courtesans and taking away our liberties and freedoms. H.L. Mencken, who could match de La Boetie in contempt for the ignorant masses and corrupt politicians, understood our democracy was destined for the trash heap of history.
“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.” – H.L. Mencken – Notes on Democracy
In Part Three of this article I will address how the creation of the Federal Reserve has led to a century of currency debasement, mindless consumption and endless warfare, while impoverishing the masses and setting in motion the dynamics of empire collapse.

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I always used to think Brave New World would be a lot of fun--even if you were an epsilon, you still got soma. Unfortunately, now we're getting 1984, good and hard.
While we are reading this post and commenting, millions of others are playing the bread and circuses games and others are unconcious. Join the top 10%, take it, or start a revolution.
Industrial civilization is at the brink of collapse. See you on the other side.
http://www.planbeconomics.com/2014/11/guy-mcpherson-collapse-of-industri...
I'd just like to very quickly list the real similarities between the American empire and the Roman empire.
.
Didn't take long, did it...
Did Rome have a Kim Kardashian?
Caligula had a horse
Foreign mercenairies the power behind the Ceasar.
Row row row ur boat,................ .................................. ...........
Shouldn't the title of this post be "Bread, Circuses & Boobs" instead?
Back in ancient time the circus showed boobs, abs, animals, etc and then they all got into the blender (arena).
I know it's not really germane to the article, but this quote (and one's like this) rankle my blood...
"Another man of vision was President Dwight D. Eisenhower."
Eisenhower was nothing less than a cold-blooded murderer. He purposely ordered that millions of surrendered German soldiers be left to die of exposure and starvation immediately following the end of WWII. Similar lethal rations were meted out to women and children of the vanquished nation when food and supplies were plentiful.
His only "vision" worth noting is the present state of all Western nations which he whole-heartedly helped bring about.
ha ha ha ha! Now that is funny!
Calgacus' description of the Romans 2,000 years ago pretty much describes the polices of America since Reagan:
"These plunderers of the world [the Romans], after exhausting the land by their devastations, are rifling the ocean: stimulated by avarice, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor; unsatiated by the East and by the West: the only people who behold wealth and indigence with equal avidity. To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
Since Reagan? You mean since the guy who told us to build up the MIC and run up deficits to pay for it? As the article points out, this shit started before Eisenhower. It's all Roman to me.
Zero Hedge has fell to the same. They think the internet is free to them. Maybe, soon Not.
Fox has more money and will squeeze all who are in Murdoch's way.
Fox and the other five companies. http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-me....
Or is it 4 now? I'll Google it.
Those post-war Union soldiers just had to make the uppity Indians more obedient, too.
I was never a Kennedy family fan at all. I do think JFK heeded Ike's advice and paid for it with his life. He tried to slow the power of MIC and the Central Bank.
He died for his sins.
LTER, Eisenhower's warning was a retread of Senator Glen Taylor's warning of the business military coalition made circa 1948. In 1933, Marine Corps. General Smedley Darlington Butler warned the country about a plan by the business elite to recruit him in a military overthrow of the United States. Circa 1926, U.S. Representative Wright Patman stood up in Congress to accuse then Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon of high crimes and misdemeanors for allowing his business friends to avoid paying federal income taxes. The above stuff is routine behavior by corrupt politicians and top business people (including banksters). The difference with the above and Reagan is that he institutionalized the government's war and drug dealing activities, turning the USA into the fascist state it has now become. LTER, your comment shows you are a boring and unfunny sap.
American armies don't live off the land they conquer. Their pay and supplies come from taxpayers at home. The first of so many differences with the Roman Empire model.
Where's your /sarc tag? Better yet, where's Iraq's National Museum antiquities? Do they have any gold left? Where's Ukraine's? Where's Lybia's? I heard Ghaddafi had a lot. Where's Germany's?
Thanks to the US Marines, Bush the grand daddy of Dubya, could get bananas out of Guatemala. Many examples.
It worse than the Roman model. Today's military is living off debt. When is it going to get paid off? Today's military is living off the children who have no concept of fiat money or the Federal Reserve system.
The sentence is by Tacitus, not Calgacus. He was an important Roman historian, and also a Roman Senator.
Sort of Ron Paul of Roman Empire!
I'm not pissing on you, it's just a warm, gentle rain!
Perhaps it's like "the lady or the tiger'
At some point in the future, you symbolically choose to enter one of two doors.
Either '1984' or 'Brave New World'.
And that's where you spend the rest of your life.
On a lighter note (because we need one sometimes), Fox host calls former Ark governor "F-ck a Huckabee"
http://tinyurl.com/lftoyyv
Bernays was called in to save French cheese companies who were losing out to the Americans. He figured out that Americans think cheese is dead (French apparently see it as alive). So he put it in ziploc bags and French cheese sales soared.
American politicans of both flavors soon followed the lead of the Cheese. Now we're all in ziploc bags.
A recent example of the difficulty of underestimating the intelligence of the great masses
appeared in an article on the most peaceful countries. The list started with Iceland and
Denmark, and number eight is Japan. The brief write-up began with these two sentences:
“ Japan is an awesome country with fascinating people and culture and it’s one of the
most peaceful countries on Earth. The country managed to avoid conflicts even during
the Second World War.” http://womenosophy.com/worlds-most-peaceful-countries/8
The article was posted on October 29, and was still there a few minutes ago.
In 100 years only a few people will know why that is ridiculous, if any. The Romans were building great infrastructure when Western European society was still living by campfires (and in America quite literally), but now Italy is kind of a joke and certainly not a world power. Ask the average American under the age of 30 the role if Italy during WWII. Most will say it fought for NATO.
The Italians in various forms have been around for over 2,000 years. I think they will survive. Hopefully, they will get smart and get out of the EU and euro.
I think they'll say, "what's a WWII?"
Yea but, don't dismiss the importance that sitting by a campfire can induce self actualization.
Rand: Its the FDA that wants American cheese dead, not necessarily the American people. Active cultures are a selling point in other products. Our problem is killing off swaths of government once they come into existence. It's a ratchet effect.
looks like planet Earth was bad choice to be born at..
looks like unteachable system for this sociopaths
is there any way to change it?
by voting seriously?
Voting? If it was that easy it would have been fixed a long time ago.
No, sorry, you want real change, you gotta do it the hard way.
Will I get 14 bucks, too?
It's funny how all of these comments are about how EVERYONE ELSE has degraded,but not THEM!
Voting doesn't matter. Only who counts the votes does. That, and perception management to make opinions look divided enough that many voters will angrily blame the other side for voting all of these idiots in...
note to my self..
at some point in desperate move they will reset this system by debt forgiveness
This 'reset' will be a two step process involving (1) confiscation of most non-paper assets, like the land your home sits on, your home, gold, silver, guns, food; and (2) redistribution of your assets to the highest bidder, likely the Chinese. Then the debts of many shiftless Murricans will be 'forgiven'.
'planet of the vandals'
"The last thing they want is an educated, aware, critical thinking, independent, courageous, self-reliant, civic minded populace questioning the motivations of their keepers."
Somehow I remember this being a heluva lot more entertaining when George Carlin said it.
The "reptilian brain," which Bernays and politicians speak to, is pure instinct. People are hard-wired. They are hard-wired for religion, and Team (tribal) membership. I didn't much care for the movie, but Divergent is actually a simplistic take on this. The people in power recognize that a small percentage of the population see outside the lines. Carlin was one of those guys. They are dangerous to TPTB.
Exactly.
If people weren't hard-wired for survival (at most everything else's expense) man wouldn't have gotten this far.
But for man, the 'how' of surviving has changed, but his old habits die hard.
LTER - look into Jung's 1937 intro to The Tibetan Book of the Dead. He adresses his break with Bernays' cousin Freud over this issue and nicely uses the example of the TBoTD to illustrate higher levels of consciousness.
Don't blame the people for all this. They don't just up and decide one day to lose faith in everything they once held dear. They might take issue with your criticizing them for taking small pleasures where they can instead of 'getting involved'. Whatever the grand plan IS, people still have to eat, travel and live today, and maybe they are less than enthused at the predictions of better times ahead.
The people get like this after they have lost faith in their leadership. When they stop seeing the point of betting on the Home team anymore. I see the apathy and detachment of the people as a kind of unified social "Fuck You!" to the system, and TPTB. It oftens precedes a major blow-up.
Swimming makes you tired. Eventually you say fuck it, and drown.
I see it more like when a mule decides he's had enough, and just stops where he is. Go ahead...try and get him to move...
They lose faith in their leadership when their survival is threatened by it.
Then they instinctively revert to their default setting of the tribe and fall under the spell of another, stronger leader who will take them even further along the path of decivilization.
The public are sheep easily controlled by Z-TV and Zollywood. This media keeps the elites and zoligarchs in control. Until the sheep pull the plug then nothing changes.
A lot of fools think the big win by the Republicans will change anything. They already want to ramp up the Ukriane and Syria mass murdering for the zoligarchs. They are demonizing Russia and Iran even though Russia and Iran are not a threat to Americans as much as Washington DC is a threat.
Until the GOP nukes ObamaCare and stops any amnesty by going to World War 3 against Obama then it is all smoke and mirrors BS.
Agreed! And we still have Boner in the House and McConnnnnnul in the Senate leading the whole shebang. Very inspiring and reassuring.
The more 'diverse' our nation becomes, the more willing our residents are to accept their free shit in exchange for the rights of free men.
Born on planet Earth? Maybe we'll have better karma next time.
Better than Mars, which ain't the kind of place to raise your kids.
not yet, anyway
Good heavens! That's all we need is to export "mankind" to other worlds. Dumb enough to destroy our own planet and ourselves but smart enough for some to seek refuge on aother rock. But at whose expense? Continued disaster.
[x] Slow motion nuclear radiation poisoning.
[x] Evil {socio, psycho}pathic oligarch class holding common man hostage in debt servitude.
[x] Generational reliance on big gubbamins world around.
It can't really get any worse, can it? I mean, eternal pits of fire and getting fiery pitchforks up your ass are only a small material differences away.
I watch TV, eat fast food from time to time, buy groceries that may or may not have GMO ingredients, and I'm just fine. I also smoke Natural Spirits and drink my fair share of gin but that's neither here nor there.
Why are you just fine, Choomwagon, do you ask? Because I was taught from an early age to think for myself, with parents that understood the importance of discipline...you can think for yourself as much as you want, but fuck up and we're bringing down the hammer. They never spanked me, at least since I can rememver, and I doubt they would unless I was really wild. Instead they commanded respect by their actions; they taught me how to be a decent person and I reciprocated by being a decent person in return.
I learned from my dad a work ethic and from my mom the importance of being compassionate and kind to others. You never know what someone else is going through so it's important to keep an open mind, whether waiting in traffic or the workplace.
From what I can tell, the decline of the nuclear household and the rise of shitty single-mother welfare families is the cause of our current woes.
"the decline of the nuclear household and the rise of shitty single-mother welfare families is the cause of our current woes."
Thank God for Fukishima for reversing one of those trends.
It's positively RADical, LTER. Of course, with enough absorbed radiation none of us will be able to have children.
In the last two to three years, I have personally seen or heard about several people getting cancer. It's Fuku effects, manifesting in humans. More and more will be claimed.
Sorry to hear about that Skateboarder, cancer is a nightmare to deal with, regardless of its source.
I blame cheap vegetable oil and regular spikes of sugars from cheap grains and sugars full stop. We are not designed to live on carbs and rafts of.omega6 PUFAs.
The Natural Spirit Cigarettes which he smokes (Lung Cancer) and the Gin which he drinks (Pancreatic, Stomach and Liver Cancer) really do not help.
(BTW...I smoke cigarettes also.)
The risk of Cancer from Radiation from FUKUSHIMA is still far less than that of getting Cancer from personal behaviors. I just find that IRRATIONAL.
Bingo!
Choom, nice tribute to mom and dad, wrong conclusion.
I'm referencing his conclusion that the nuclear family ended because *insert reason*. My assertion is that the 'nuclear family' never really existed and was a false construct promoted by "Father know's best" and other such fairy-tales from the 50's. Long before the family unit was divided we were an extended family with nieces, nephews, cousins uncles aunts and granparents etc etc. The single parent household is just another ongoing division to weaken unity.
It's not the low intelligence of the masses that enslaves then, it's their innate craving for a superman to think and care for them. They crave the remembered security of their childhood and seek a parental replacement in a superman. But their superman's love of them is a just a hustle of a psychopath.
Only in few does the intellect overcome the craving for a superman. Emotion overrides intellect.
Ecclesiasticus 10:18
"God hath made the roots of proud nations to wither"
Jeremiah 18:7-8
"I will suddenly speak against a nation, and against a kingdom, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy it. If that nation against which I have spoken, shall repent of their evil, I also will repent of the evil that I have thought to do to them/"
Don't need to look any further than the faces of the politicians in Washington D.C. to know how this is going to end. Bunch of retards over there. When the Federal Government is made up of a bunch of crooks whatever it has control over will be destroyed by their own doing.
When do we give the NFL players swords, tridents, and shields and make the game really interesting?
The American way is shitty helmets and steroids, endorsements, then pulled endorsements when they do crazy shit, then lawyers and a settlement, then endorsements again, then early death. Same result, longer game. And more people [mostly not the gladiator] making money in the process.
"When do we give the NFL players swords, tridents, and shields and make the game really interesting?"
The team logo for the Tennessee Titans is a 'flaming thumbtack', so I guess that's a start
predators
parasites
producers
That's all you need to know, except who falls in each category. And if you're a producer, you need to know how to defend yourself against the predators and parasites, otherwise you're just consumed by them.
Like your posts. Here you present a problem of definitions. If you attack democrats or republicans... doesn't really define very much.
Where are the parasites? Where are the producers? Maybe producers are broader than US workers if defined as bi employment areas. Yeah, welfare people & dependents are not producers... but they are sometimes better defined as fixed income people or welfare or retired... missing category??
Strong Areas of employment:
All Employees: Financial Activities: Finance and Insurance
2014-10: 5,927.9 Thousands of Persons (down from 6.2 million)
Monthly, Seasonally Adjusted, CES5552000001, Updated: 2014-11-07
June 1979 was our Manufacturing Top. Free Trade, NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO Treaty, Other Treaties giving away our Sovereignty.
Probably corporations used Recessions and layoff times to build factories overseas or locate existing factories.
Of course Automation & Robots were coming in too.
Manufacturing:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MANEMP (12 Million down from 19.5 Million) All Employees: Manufacturing
Construction:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USCONS (6 million down from 7.7 Million) All Employees: Construction
Information Services:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USINFO (2.65 Million down from 3.7 Million) All Employees: Information Services
Professional & Business Services:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USPBS (Up a million people since 2008 crash at 19.1 Million) All Employees: Professional & Business Services
Education & Health Services
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USEHS (21.4 Million rock steady through 2008) All Employees: Education & Health Services
Government:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USGOVT All Employees: Government
Financial Activities:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USFIRE (7.9 Million down from 8.4 Million) All Employees: Financial Activities
Mining, Drilling, Logging
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USMINE (Peak was 1981, now .9 Million down from 1.3 Million) All Employees: Mining and logging
Hospitality & Leisure:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USLAH (14.6 Million, nice trend line) All Employees: Leisure & Hospitality
Goods producing Industries:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USGOOD (19 Million down from 25 Million) All Employees: Goods-Producing Industries
Service Providing Industries:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/SRVPRD (119.5 Million) All Employees: Service-Providing Industries
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/DMANEMP (7.6 Million down from 12.2 Million) All Employees: Durable goods
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/NDMANEMP (4.5 Million down from 7.2 Million) All Employees: Nondurable goods
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CES3133400001 (1 mil down from 1.9 mil) All Employees: Durable Goods: Computer and Electronic Products
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CEU3133200001 (1.45 mil down from 1.75 mil) All Employees: Durable Goods: Fabricated Metal Products
Trade, Transportation & Utilities
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USTPU (Recovered at 26.3 Million) All Employees: Trade, Transportation & Utilities
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USWTRADE (Recovered to 5.86 Million) All Employees: Wholesale Trade
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USTRADE (recovered to 15.3 Million) All Employees: Retail Trade
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CES4422000001 (Were Utilities Privatized starting in 1990, down to .55 Mil from .74 Mil) All Employees: Utilities
Transportation & Warehousing:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CES4300000001 (Recovered to 4.6 Million) All Employees: Transportation and Warehousing
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/CES4348400001 (Recovered to 1.4 Mil) All Employees: Transportation and Warehousing: Truck Transportation
Above seem main producers.
Well, my first rule is, never perform analysis upon "groups", only upon specific individuals, one by one. One human in group A might be a producer, while another might be a parasite, while another might be a predator. Furthermore, note the following inherent and fundamental problem. Every human being is a member of hundreds if not thousands of "groups". This alone demonstrates we cannot decide anything about an individual by means of the "groups" they are associated with.
I suppose you can find some exceptions in cases of extreme behavior. For example, you might say "every murderer is a predator"... where "murderer" is the "group" you associate them with. But overall, it is necessary to perform analysis of each individual.
And I don't doubt there are "marginal and arguable cases". Would you consider someone who collects less social security payments than they were forcably required to pay into SS in their lives (after adjustment for inflation)? Personally I'm not much concerned with cases like these, since so many others are massively egregious and beyond question.
I'm sure that most people who read these messages has worked in a "productive endeavor" (growing food, mining, manufacturing, and so forth), yet known at least a few (if not many) people in their company who were either parasitical or predatory, and rarely if ever productive. And so, just to identify the industry someone works in, doesn't settle the matter.
To fully describe the meaning of "producer" and "parasite" and "predator" would require too much space and time to enumerate here. However, here are a few observations.
A producer is a creator. Specifically, a producer creates goods and/or goodies that would otherwise not have existed. So, for example, someone who accidentally finds an apple tree or blackberry bush on their property (due to wind blowing seeds around and normal rainfall), that person is not a producer (on the account of those goods/goodies). A human producer takes actions with the intent of creating something that would not otherwise exist, and if he follows through with all necessary actions, and isn't unlucky (like drought), he is a producer.
A predator is someone who consumes others or their production (regardless of whether those consumed were predators, parasites or producers themselves).
A parasite is a less active form of predator, who also consumes others or their production, but does so in a less direct and/or active manner. For example, in the animal world a parasite would be an animal that comes and picks the remaining scraps off an animal that a predator killed and mostly ate. The most common way human parasites operate is to vote for politicians who promise "free stuff to those who do not produce". In essence, they let the human predators threaten, attack and steal from producers, and accept a few scraps (freebees) in exchange for their vote and sanction of the predatory-parasitical system they live in (which is the nature of the fiction humans call "government").
One aspect of this issue that people often ask me about is mixed cases. To be sure, some people take a few productive actions now and then, but are mostly parasitic and/or predatory.
But that's not the main confusion. The main confusion is how to characterize someone who performs overtly predatory actions as well as some productive actions. My answer to that is to following the lead of the notion of "murderer". A human being can be a model of honesty, productivity and benevolence for decades, but if they go off the deep end for some reason one Tuesday and gun down a few totally innocent people, we consider them a "murderer"... regardless of all the productive and benevolent behavior that came before.
To first order at least, that is also the appropriate way to classify predators.
I'm willing to entertain more precise descriptions when appropriate. If someone was a benevolent producer for decades, then took some reversible predatory action (like stole something valuable from a neighbor)... then they are a predator. However, if at some point they became scandalized at their own behavior, and took whatever steps were necessary to fully repair the damage he did, and then refrained from further predatory behavior, I would tend to classify him as a "producer", but also (when necessary or appropriate) mention his temporary but reversed lapse into predatory behavior.
That's a short and approximate version of how I apply these terms. Hope that suffices for the moment. Just note that all concepts are "utilitarian", and as a result, sometimes they are appropriate in most contexts, but not all. When those exceptions arise, the only way to be clear is to describe in more detail the exact behaviors over time, and dispense with what may be overly vague terms in those uncommon contexts.
Thanks. I am very glad you responded here.
I feel some difficulty in replying.
What if you are in a productive job, but you are surrounded by people who seemed to have gone through a "war", had intense training you could never attain, had accolades you could never get, seemed to serve in a capacity that was reserved for an elite or corps... but you would never get their training, never see the same experience, never be trusted in the same way, and you would be held as a lower class person, assigned to lower class jobs, be lorded over by people that held the great experience and training, and you would be told you are nothing or know nothing.
I'm sure this must be common in Asia, but I'm not saying you live in Asia or worked in Asia. I just mean this is the human condition in USA as well as other Continents.
- There is a deeper part of the US Work, a Classism
- There an illusion in the USA, it is that you are not valued if you don't hold strong Christian or other Religious Values... or perhaps are a Veteran of US Wars
- Conformity is strong in Asia, also in the USA, these are conservative values that are not easily contested
- Old countries survive longer with conservative values
- Power & Authority about values also lengthens the life of the Empire, power must be exercised, military power must be shown
- There are winners and losers, Hope you never are chosen as a loser in the Corporate or Government Work Force
Here I am scratching the surface of Culture.
Deep down, the powers that be are choosing the people and values that will "win"... and also assigning those in other classes to lose.
----
Well too I am talking about labor force who's job have been moved away.
There are many people that turn to college when there are no jobs. Not sure if Asia is better. Education is cheaper in some Asian countries, but jobs have less potential earnings and less chance for success in terms of earnings.
These are difficult topics. All I can do is tell you how I deal with the various issues and challenges you mention.
First and foremost, never ever judge yourself, or your own value, by what others [claim to] think of you. That's just psychological suicide, and utterly pointless. We are what we are, but also, as we get older, we are what we make of ourselves, including our values. Which means, judge yourself based upon your own values, not values others hold... or pretend to hold.
I was born in Asia, and lived in Asia until my early 20s, when I moved to Hawaii. While there are certainly differences between Asia and the USSA, frankly, I consider myself more different from both those "cultures" than they are from each other. In other words, I just think of myself as me, and any similarities and differences are of no interest or consequence to me.
I absolutely pay no attention to nations, religions, governments... because they're all just fictions. I don't assign importance to non-existents. After all, they don't exist, and so I don't treat them as real.
You are totally correct that most people in Asia and the USSA value conformity. I don't. As far as "authority" goes, I understand there is no such thing... that's just one more fiction for me to utterly and totally ignore, which I do. To be sure, some individuals do have "power" of various types, and they can be dangerous. Which is one reason I got the hell outta dodge about 3 years ago and spent most of my life savings establishing a self-sufficient place to live in the extreme boonies, 125km from the nearest human beings (all 20 of them). Thus I don't have to worry about powerful predatory humans, because I rarely see or deal with any humans at all. About once every month or three I fly my little airplane to a tiny town to fetch supplies (to add variety to my diet, and pick up anything I've ordered from afar).
In my entire life, I've probably worked as an employee a total of less than 1 year. Mostly I've worked for myself, but I have also taken scientific and engineering contracts from the likes of NASA and astronomical observatories. Incidentally, I'm entirely self-taught, and only got offered those contracts based upon previous projects and products I had completed.
The expression, "it's who you know, not what you know" is absolutely true, especially in employment. I saw that from afar, with other people I knew, and only avoided that issue because I worked for myself, developing my own products and then selling my designs based upon working prototypes I created. So personally, I avoided most of what you say. And I would give that advice to anyone who wants to avoid being a pawn of other people, and having to "suck up to power" to get ahead.
Let me provide one very important thought that people need to remember whenever they find themselves despondent at their situation. For 99% of the history of human beings on planet earth, they lived in caves (or trees, or somewhere not safe or comfortable). They had zero technology of any kind beyond sharpened sticks and stones. They were hunted by predators and life was typically brutal and short.
Compared to the previous 99% of human history (including before history was recorded), most humans today have rather easy access to an enormous quantity of information about how to produce goods and goodies. They need not discover everything themselves like in millennia gone by. And so, any human who wishes to study and learn and be diligent in their pursuit of knowledge and skills... can learn to produce a vastly greater quantity and quality and variety of goods and goodies than any human could during 99% of human existence.
That doesn't mean it comes easy. And that doesn't mean humans can just read random information and never become competent or expert in one field. But I can assure you, from my first hand experience in life, without help from others, a human being can achieve an enormous amount, and have a good life. But they must be diligent, rational and perhaps above all, don't listen to anyone else (or at least don't assume anyone is telling the truth or giving good advice). Remember, I am entirely self-taught. I didn't go to college at all. But after inventing some new technologies and devices, people started trying to hire me. And eventually I got a bit of a reputation for solving problems that were supposed to be not solvable, and NASA and their ilk offered me contracts (as "senior research scientist") to solve problems their PhDs couldn't solve. To be clear, their PhDs could run circles around me in any already [well] known math or science. What they couldn't do was my special skill... to find completely new approaches and generally end up finding incredibly simple solutions to problems that nobody else imagined. Probably I developed that skill by learning on my own, and solving problems to develop my own technologies and products.
Perhaps another way to make this point is to say this. The conventional way of doing things is a trap (as far as I'm concerned, and as far as my experience indicates). Getting a job for others is generally a trap. I'm sure exceptions exist (especially if you know "connected" people). But for those of us who don't... well... don't sweat it. Make your own way. Pick a subject you love, or that fascinates you, and focus on that for a few years and become expert. People who put enough effort into almost anything put themselves in a position to be creative or productive, and can make an independent living that way. To me, nobody should ever grow up thinking they're going to "get a job". They should be thinking about what they will create, what they will produce, and then do so... and sell [some/most] of what you produce to get whatever you want but do not produce yourself.
We are all just an individual animal on one tiny planet in a universe of trillions or quadrillions or more star systems. Just look at the universe, figure out how you can tweak reality to create what you need to survive and prosper and/or create what you need to trade for what you need to survive and prosper. Don't let anyone else decide anything for you. Make your own decisions, do your own work, and accept the consequences. If you sucker for being a pawn of others, or depending on others, you will almost surely live an annoying life. You cannot satisfy others, so don't try. Don't depend on others, because that is utterly unreliably. Just live an independent life as best you can figure, and accept the consequences.
I decided at age 4 to "trust no one", because I could see quite clearly that adults didn't know what they were talking about (since different adults gave me wildly different answers to the same question). That was the key decision in my live, because it influenced everything that followed in my life. And now, decades later, I know that was the most important realization and best decision I ever made.
Thanks. We have some things in common.
I may have learned to enjoy pulling data and looking at it. But almost have to go back to childhood to remember how I invented a few toys in my father's workshop. The experience was pleasant learning although the toys were simplistic and crude usually made of wood.
I also find people to be crazy, unthinking, or that they know little. Probably in my case it is more about philosophy, social structures, or logic about the results. I'm afraid I probably don't know much math, science, high finance, local politics and many things. Still I like history & data. Sometimes I like systems.
You sound pretty logical to me. You certainly are right about psychological suicide.
I'm glad for your success. I have a bit of comfort in my life now. I'm not sure about bugging out to the frontier as that sounds very pricey. I think a little about moving to another country maybe to live in an apartment in a small city. Lately think about what it would take to learn to make concert walls, foundations, and a small place to live near water, with year round growing, maybe with some small animals... but the places I considered have many poor people so it is better no to look like you have a lot.
American houses are very complex. We have some good features... but why grass yards? Why build with wood, drywall & Shingles that have to be replaced when concrete and other roofing would last longer?
Anyway I have plenty of time to think of the advantages of Spanish architecture or concrete styles.
Very impressive story of a self made person, Ann.
Thanks for the thread here.
Jim Quinn is a brilliant writer, another excellent piece of work.
Sensetti
Your empire? Who cares about your empire? American Empire? What the fuck are you trying to stage? Never was. Delusion and bullshit.
SOURCES: Low morale at CNN DC office in wake of layoffs...
'Crying all over bureau'...
- The latest round of layoffs and buyouts was meant to cut roughly 300 positions from across CNN’s bureaus, or 8 percent of its total staff. In Washington, roughly 50 employees were let go — 27 through layoffs and roughly two dozen through buyouts.
- Investigative Journalist? maybe not. Whistleblowers maybe not
- People that might talk and spill the beans, maybe, nailgun accident, prolly not, people with insight, maybe
I compare America to the SS Titanic and most do not feel the ship starting to list.
The Fed are the overworked pumps and the elites are already in lifeboats.
Ha. Looks like the WSJ pulled a doomsday article
The fall of Western civilisation will not be broadcast
At least not on the MSM
http://online.wsj.com/articles/for-sale-renovated-luxury-condo-can-survi...
The end of empires:
http://www.rexresearch.com/glubb/glubb-empire.pdf
We are here in the final phase.
This time it's not different.
How central bankers destroyed Capitalism:
The creative destruction of Capitalism has been stopped from working since 1999.
This creative destruction happens mainly in recessions when bad debt and bad companies are wiped out, cleansing the system for new growth and new companies.
With no bad debt being wiped out since 1999, we are drowning in a sea of debt.
We have a financial sector full of the incompetents that caused the crash of 2008.
We have zombie banks and zombie companies kept alive by cheap money from Central Banks with no room for fresh new companies to thrive.
If we cared to remember how Capitalism works, the current situation is entirely predictable.
Central banks have stopped the creative destruction that is Capitalism.
Two excellent essays, however, pearls before swine.
USA bankstered itself and committed 'suicide'.
Lately the NFL has gone batpoo with the military tie-in to their games; not sure it is working too well. Pat Tillman's memory is still out there.
The author is missing the points. All the things listed are just symptoms.
Falling net energy causes a decline in average wealth and this automatically creates an oligarchic system. But this system is unstable and will fall to marauding warlords springing up on the periphery. Already happening in Mexico, Iraq, Nigeria. This will spread.
Like many posts on ZH, you believe it's all about the brainwashing of our schools and media. While both are contributers, the public gets captured through the poisoning agenda of our hidden rulers.
This is how sheeple are created - not through dis-information from schools and media. Healthy unpoisoned people are critical thinkers that seek out truth and reject dis-information.
Few understand there is a conspiracy by our hidden rulers, the Jesuits and their Rothschild banker agents who stole the Vatican’s gold 200 years ago and have secretly acquired nearly half the worlds wealth and 43,000 corporations.
This secret organized crime syndicate is masquerading as a religious order, but they are not religious and in fact have poisoned four Popes who opposed them in 1773, 1939, 1958 and 1978.
They captured America 100 years ago with the Fed Act and have engaged in a conspiracy to poison the public in order to control them. I believe if you follow the big money, the motive is to disable the clear and critical thinking abilities of the public in order to safeguard their Fed banker scams through toxic injury.
This produces states of anxiety, depression, fear and a blind allegiance to the establishment in their desperation to find a perceived safe harbor to heal their toxic injury.
The capture of the public occurs because of the toxic injury - not because they are ill-informed. Just try getting any of this message across to a typical sheeple that make up 95% of America, and you will encounter a blind allegiance to the party line.
These people are'nt interested in the truth - only comfortable information that all is well - because they have been toxically injured which produces anxiety and fear and the truth is just too disturbing to consider.
This toxic injury agenda chemically dumbs down the public and protects the far more lucrative banking scams than say pesticide or the drug profits of their Monopoly Quack Medicine. This suppression campaign is far larger than just industry profits.
To understand the Organized Crime - Jesuits who are behind this massive control scheme, see this video from protestant historian Eric Jon Phelps. Copy & paste into your browser address window if the link doesn't connect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F31TmQ9GwU
To understand the poisoning agenda view this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB3xcN_eoPo