This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Things To Do In 2015 When You’re Not Yet Dead
Submitted by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,
America has managed to construct an entirely one-dimensional political system. There’s no discernible difference left between left and right, other than in spin language pre-cooked for the sole purpose of faking the concept of elections. There’s very right and ultra right. America is living proof that once money is allowed into politics, the accumulation of it, and of the power it can buy, will and eventually must fully control a democratic system, which in the process, of necessity, suffocates and dies a painful death.
What once was a proud American democracy has been turned into a circus that rolls into town every four years, filled with clowns that pretend to fight each other with over the top grotesque contraptions, but sleep in the same bed once the show is over and the audience has gone home.
In Europe that process has not yet been completed, but with the inception of the EU it is well on its way. It is a predictable process, in that the concentration of power, and of money, is irreversible as long as it’s allowed to continue its course, and the system succeeds in making people believe they still have a say in their own lives. As long as that belief is in place, it’s just an ongoing – relatively – slow corrosion that sets in and then takes its time, but never stops.
Control of the media is an obvious key element of this process, and surprisingly easy to obtain; you’d be inclined to think people would fight harder for their access to real life information. They don’t. As I said two days ago in 2014: The Year Propaganda Came Of Age, that’s what the Ukraine situation has taught me. It’s shown me how far ahead we are, not just stateside, but all over Europe as well, in living up to George Orwell’s visions. As far as I’m concerned, if Eric Blair had named his book 2014, he’d have been dead on. 2014 was the year, much more than 1984. But I don’t blame him: how was he supposed to oversee that in 1948?
Ukraine was the epitomy: no questions asked, just neverending tons of innuendo written and spoken, and a case for which to date no proof has been provided has been firmly decided in the public mind. No due process, no innocent until proven guilty, not proper defense. Everybody has the right to a lawyer, but not in international politics. Or, apparently, in the eyes of western media and citizens.
Only today, Angela Merkel once again said something to the extent that Putin must get the Donbass ‘rebels’ to stop the fighting, while she knows full well they can’t and won’t, because they risk being ethnically cleansed if they would. 4500 of them were already killed by what was supposed to be their own government.
But the German people, like all other European peoples, swallow this nonsense whole. The only counterweight comes from German businesses that lose too much money in the sanctions that make no proper sense. And if the pressure from that side gets strong enough she’ll cave in, slowly, provided she can avoid losing face. That might be the biggest risk to US regime change plans in the new year.
And those plans deserve and need to be thwarted. As do the Troika schemes to throw Europe’s Mediterrenean region ever deeper into misery, austerity and ultimately debt slavery. The EU is a one dimensional one way street into a deep dark night, construction of which is overseen by people who work for their own personal interests, not that of their people. A nice idea gone terribly astray. Let’s make sure we finish it off in 2015, and give the Greeks and Italians back their honor and their dignity. And let’s keep our own dignity in the process.
As for the US, I got to tell you, I don’t know. Obama has been a miserable failure, perhaps because he was just trying to save his skin all along, or because he was like this all along, but he sure never brought much change. Or belief. Waiting in the wings we got Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, but they’re the exact same person. They’ll sell their grandmas for cheap if they think it’ll help them along.
America needs people who believe in something other than money or power, but anyone who’d try would be swept off the Christmas table with the other food scraps in no time, and be devoured by the dogs. I got some flack for saying on my Facebook page that the Ron Paul Institute published the propaganda article I mentioned before, but girl, Ron Paul is all you have left, like him or not.
Dr. Paul is the only one I know in America who has raised his voice against the US involvement in Ukraine, the only one in the entire west even, other than those of us in the blogosphere, or the alternative media if you will. And that’s insane. That’s utterly insane. We should not allow for our voices to be silenced the way they are, not just like Ron Paul, but worse than him. We don’t deserve to be marginalized anymore than Dr. Paul does; we’re smarter than the lot of them.
I guess that is what I think those of us who haven’t died yet should set out to do in 2015. Do what we’ve been doing, and do more of it. As Andy Warhol said: the only thing that counts is work. Big dreams or goals go only so far. They mean little if you don’t put in the work. And for this ‘alternative press’ we have going, from Zero Hedge all the way down to the Automatic Earth, with all the great people in between and around it, what matters is the work. No letting up; we have the same responsibility the illegal press had in Amsterdam and Paris in the 1940s – even if we can’t stand in the shadows of their courage -: to make sure people get information that does not stem from the matrix.
An article in the Guardian today said that 2014 was The Year The Internet Came Of Age. I think I’ll stick with my 2014: The Year Propaganda Came Of Age, but the combination of the two leads to interesting questions. Like: what role has the internet played in the rise of the propaganda that led to almost none of our so-called higher-educated people asking any questions about what really happened in Ukraine, or about so many other situations the ever more concentrated powers that rule us are involved in.
First of all, obviously, the financial world. Hardly anybody may understand what that is doing to us, to the world we live in, to the people we love and those who don’t know but we should still be holding out for (those underground press guys in WWII were risking their lives for people they didn’t know). Between us, we do understand a whole lot of what’s happening. We have no choice – or at least I don’t – but to keep going at it every single day and get it out there, and hope that a few more people every day will pick up on it. Not to make money for themselves – that’s the very disease that got us where we are -, but to be more human, and to try and lead a way forward. For now the internet allows us to do that. Let’s make the best of it while we can.
- 16531 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -


America is living proof that once money is allowed into politics, the accumulation of it, and of the power it can buy, will and eventually must fully control a democratic system, which in the process, of necessity, suffocates and dies a painful death.
Money (or its functional equivalent) IS politics and democracy is subject to politics.
The only thing that can be expected from the next US president is more war, more murder, and more oppression of the gullible American people.
People as uninformed and as gullible as Americans have no future. Americans are a dead people that history is about to run over. - Paul Craig Roberts
Stop it, it hurts.
+1
They can't shut Roberts up.......so they'll kill him......watch......hey wtf he probably knows it and prefers it to their tyranny
Naw, banned from corporate media, that's his death sentence.
Um, how can I be sure I'm not dead?
If things start looking better, then you're probably dead. That would of course exclude dreaming but who reads ZH in their dreams?
Yes we do.
I believe in liberty, that all individuals are sovereign over their own lives, and that no one should be forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.
I will not easily be swept off the Christmas table, when I have an invitation to be seated at the banquet, nor be devoured by dogs, when:
I gave five copies of Bastiat's, The Law, for Christmas to five thinking men.
I spent six hours with my son last weekend in the cold and rain at the gun range making food scraps, so that I may not necessarily end up being the food scraps.
Very commendable and exemplary. But...
Unless more people do this and -- this is the Key part --- more people become active and ORGANIZED, they won't make enough of a difference. We know from all societies and from history that Organized Criminals beat disorganized libertarians every time.
Think back of how well and how long your equivalents lasted in the Middle Ages, when the Sheriff or Robber Knights came to town: they simply used more mercenaries than the defenders could handle.
Preparing is NO substitute for Organizing, and staying organized. That's how 2% became the Ruling Class: by Organizing and having a Plan & Process for taking over, not Prepping, hiding and hoping.
I respectfully disagree with your assessment, prediction, and recollection of history.
FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real.
I respectfully disagree with him, as well.
Update on my freedom project for those who are interested:
I'll be looking at 5 secluded acres on Thursday, which I expect to be perfect for our needs. The 40 acres I looked at previously was just too much. This 5-acre property has a capped well and septic already installed and power is accessible 1,000 feet from the property. It's only a 1-hour drive from my house, which makes it a great bugout spot as we get it ready to be our permanent residence.
Thanks to the sage-like advice I've received from Mr and Mrs Cognitive Dissonance, I plan on eventually putting in solar but I'll have the balance and convenience of being plugged into the grid and the ability to unplug when needed/wanted. The property is about a 20-minute drive from a small town for supply needs, but still rural enough to be private and secluded.
We're still quite far from total independence but we're getting closer every day.
My fellow ZH-ers, I implore you...if doing something like this has been on your mind but you think it's too difficult, do something, no matter how small, each day to get you closer to making this dream a reality. You will gain momentum, confidence, motivation, and most importantly - belief - more quickly than you may think.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Amen, brothers. We bugged out late summer and never looked back. Many we know back in the big city can see it coming but are doing nothing beyond resembling "deer in headlights". In other words, they are not willing to sacrifice comfort. Action exists in a blurry "future". Not good enough.
P.S. Meat, don't forget the beans.
Beans...check.
Mr Hammer, well done. A word of caution: have your septic system looked over. I have 5 and although I have a ready supply of shit to throw at the fan, 'my kingdom for a plumber' is oft spoke.
HH, the central point and issue I tried to make, is that eventually people need to do more than be prepared and self-sufficient: They need to organized into larger groups, to withstand the onslaught of organized criminals -- be it from large bands of marauders, or from various levels of despotic and desperate governments.
My use of examples aside, would you mind stating where you stand on this?
A. Solo (i.e. with family, neighbors and few friends), or
B. Solo plus large scale "organized libertarians" (strength in large organized numbers, i.e. 10,000-1,000,000)?
I got the impression that you're in the A group, whereas I'm advocating for the B group.
I am not interested in becoming the ruling class.
Why?
In The Law, Bastiat writes:
Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first."
In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot
Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy.
The B group cannot work without some unifying factor. That kind of factor will be hard to find in current times. It will be easier as things get more difficult. The larger the group the more loosely organised they should be until it becomes absolutely essential to cooperate. Smaller groups will naturally coalesce into larger groups when it becomes necessary. Until then all the roosters would fight to be in charge and those who don't wish to be involved in internal squabbles would leave the group. A large group would also be targeted for infiltration by the gov. and then taken down if the group becomes effective. Prepare yourself and immediate family for trouble ahead. Like minded individuals will find each other and group together without formal orginization. I am not about to defy the government unless forced to do so. I only want to live without interference in peace with my family. There are many others like me and a formal orginization would not benefit us. For HH, I envy you. My gun club was closed down a couple of years ago. That helps me save ammo but I get little practice.
"The Law" is a must read for all thinking sovereign individuals. I have always considered Rothbard's "Anatomy of the State" as the companion volume to that great work.
Good for you HH.
Your lifesyle or getting ready for it is what we should be doing in 2015.
Before we are dead of course.
http://ready4itall.org/the-free-preppers-library/
If the powers that be want to wipe you off the Christmas table, they will wipe you off the Christmas table. You can't possibly believe that shooting pumpkins with a shotgun is somehow proof that you are free and in the clear come what may. Sometimes you come off as a silly self-deluded narcissist.
No. I cannot. Nor do I.
That is pretty pathetic rhetoric.
Red herring, right?
Ad hominem for sure.
As stated, like Bastiat, I do believe:
Do you have a different or competing belief you can share with us?
I didn't understand this statement then, "I will not easily be swept off the Christmas table..." followed by shotgunned pumpkins picture.
Rights are like land, they belong to those who defend them. Everyone alive today was born a slave of the state just like you. A slave can presume that God's will is that he should have a right but that doesn't mean he possesses it.
If you join me at the range someday, and read some scripture, then you may better understand.
I will not easily be swept off the Christmas table, when I have an
invitation to be seated at the banquet, nor be devoured by dogs, when:
By definition, the Christmas table belongs to God who has invited us all, not to any man or the state.
For me, target practice with my son is a way of keeping my mind, body, and equipment ready, willing, and able to defend my person, liberty, and property.
You have every right to spend your day playing video games with your son, and choose to teach him and yourself the many subtleties of being a slave such as the fetal position.
"...the Christmas table belongs to God..."
Are you talking about the Easter table? First time I heard about some holy "Christmas table of God". I was thinking like the American tradition of a Christmas meal.
"For me, target practice with my son is a way of keeping my mind, body, and equipment ready, willing, and able to defend my person, liberty, and property."
This seems very self-deluded as they may be taken away at any moment by the powers that be. I thought you said you didn't think shooting pumpkins meant you could stop them? Or is this practice simply done out of fear of the bogeyman coming to get you?
"You have every right to spend your day playing video games with your son, and choose to teach him and yourself the many subtleties of being a slave such as the fetal position."
Hey, thanks. Good to know that you think you are better than me because you shoot pumpkins. In Step 2, did you list yourself as one of your idols?
In our home all feasts, including Christmas, take place at the communion table, which belongs to God.
That remains to be seen.
I don't think I am better than you. I don't even know you, apart from the fact that you call yourself a slave.
"That remains to be seen."
Do you think the powers that be are pumpkins?
No. I think they are just men, with soft minds surrounded by thick skulls, and rotten. Very much like an old pumpkin, now that I think about it.
So you're Moses and they are Pharaoh?
Tarsubil just doesn't understand where you are coming from HH. I agree with you completely. I was not born a slave and my rights come from God, not from the constitution or the gov.
How can anyone who pays any taxes in FRNs and pays taxes on their property under threat of foreclosure consider themselves free? It is just self delusion.
HH - sometimes you do come off as a bit brag-a-docious, but so what? I think you're just very matter-of-fact, which sometimes comes off as arrogant to some people, especially in a forum such as this where it's difficult-to-impossible to read someone's inflection or tone. Besides, if I had acheived what you have, I might puff my chest out a little bit, too. It probably only rubbed me the wrong way in the past because of my own insecurity in wondering if I could do what you have done.
Keep up the great work, HH. You are an inspiration to me and Mrs. Hammer, for sure.
EDIT: Would you please provide a link to your list of essential SHTF items? I want to make sure I start checking things off of that list.
A clear mind, a fit body, a few people you trust, a quality blade, a rifle you know, and a good mare, everything else is superfluous.
Spoke like a real Frontiersman: Everyone for himself. Which is great if that situation applies.
Is says nothing of most of the planet, which is banded in sizable communities, or how this helps if/when an even more totalitarian regime takes over. Not that examples are needed, but I'm happy to provide some: Romans, Muslims, Mongols, Huns, Vikings, Conquistadores, Turks; or rulers like Nero, Hitler, Stalin...
You must think that the US will never experience this in your lifetime, or that of your children... because your kind of prepping, great as it truly is, is wholey inadequate against the likes of these. All I'm suggesting is that there are some changes that are quite likely on our time horizon, that need way more than Frontier skills or Frontier mentality. Otherwise we are in complete accord.
When a more totalitarian regime takes over. What?
Um, seeds.
Oh look....Grandpa Walton got it all figured out....LOL
Yes, I gave him a straight answer. Do you have something constructive to add?
Most of my questions remain unanswered. I stand by my original statement. A wise man, a humble man, a man of God, would take heed when someone tells him he comes off as trying to play the big shot. Big shot-ism. Ever heard that before?
One definition of the word hero.
I'm afraid those conditions are the default state of humanity. It is more accurate to say that America is reverting to the historical mean. There is no more free or just civilization on the horizon posied to run us over at all.
Nahhh.. It's just fucking entropy...
you are describing democracy, not a representative republic. democracy has always been and always will be the tool individuals use to gain absolute power. the root of all of the problems in the US stem from the fact that the Constitution has been discarded and mob rule has taken place
The problem is government and those who are hard-wired for it.
"The best Democracy that money can buy".
Now only more apparent to those with eyes and brains, who are WILLING to see.
And the sad truth is, as long as EBT and SNAP are on the menu, there will be no mass-Marches, no Change, no color-Revolution. And the Fed (and its owners) controls the issue of Debt-money for said bribes of the poor, as well as political contributions to election candidates.
They own and run the entire Hunger Games Empire, that is seeking to become the Hunger Games Planet, in order to keep it sustainable indefinitely.
The one thing it is NOT, is sustainable. Malthus sketched it out in broad outlines > 200 years ago. The Club of Rome refined the parameters in the 1970s. It will not continue indefinitely, though the timeline is pretty lousy as a forecasting tool for trading purposes. In the long run, we're all dead.
But of course, they are aware of the above mentioned fact. When the centrally-planned goodies run out, it's gonna turn ugly.
Oh, and your chocolate ration has been increased to 20 grams per month.
(and we've switched it to carob; more sustainable, you know)
"Gold and silver, as in most things, make war run smoothly."
-some Latin guy during the Roman Empire
Same shit today as yesterday, expect more of the same.
Its proof of the necessity for a return to original Congressional apportionment (one congresman for every 30,000=10500 congressman today in the house today) and a repeal of the 17th Amendment which stripped the state legislatures from appointing their state's delegates to the Federal Senate on Congress
Indeed, Mercury, the same sentence struck me most, when I read the article above. In the Canadian context, I have spent 30 years working on that problem, including two court cases against the Canadian government over the laws that control the funding of political parties. The situation is orders of magnitude worse in America than in Canada, but the pattern is basically the same: the more you know, the worse it gets!
While a few people learn enough to correctly understand what the problems are, with respect to money being measurement backed by murder, in which the point of maximum leverage in the combined money/murder systems is the funding of the political processes. However, the percentage of people who understand that enough to become realistic about the ways to resolve those problems is too small to be able to reliably estimate.
The overall situation is that the vast majority act like political idiots, who are Zombie Sheeple, being fleeced to exhaustion, while they are being set up to be slaughtered. Most of the few who understand those social facts continue to be Black Sheeple, whose notions for "solutions" are bogus, because the promote various versions of the impossible ideals that everyone should become better Sheeple.
After working on the problem correctly described in the article above for a few decades, I have been forced to come to the conclusion that many other people have also stated in comments posted below, that there are NO good solutions which are practically possible in the foreseeable future. We are committed to having to go through the stages of the crazy collapse into chaos of the established systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, due to their own contradictions. The more socially successful the systems of backing up lies with violence become, the more psychotically insane that society becomes overall, because the degree to which frauds can be enforced drives the consequences of runaway frauds to automatically get worse faster, BUT NEVERTHELESS, those frauds will continue to be enforced as much as possible, as long as possible, despite that constantly driving everything towards the paradoxical final failures from too much success based on being able to back up lies with violence.
In my view, the majority of people do not understand, because they have been conditioned to not want to understand, the degree to which we are living in a Bizarro Mirror World, where everything appears proportionately backwards, because everything is based on thousands of years of social successes based on being able to back up lies with violence. Furthermore, the few who do begin to understand that then continue to propose the same old-fashioned sets of "solutions" based on impossible ideals, which continue to actually make the opposite happen in the real world.
There is practically zero political point to promoting more radical truth, since the percentage of people who appreciate that as a basis for more realistic resolutions is too tiny to enable such sets of solutions to be coherently implemented. However, I will repeat that the only things which actually exist are the dynamic equilibria between different systems of organized lies operating robberies, and the only genuine solutions are changes to the dynamic equilibria of those systems.
So far, we still have the majority of people not perceiving that governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, while there is a minority of controlled opposition groups who promote impossible solutions based on "stopping" that. The overall situation regarding the roles of money in politics are that the mainstream is the established systems of professional liars and immaculate hypocrites promoting the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories about politics and money, while the controlled opposition groups promote bogus "solutions" which continue to operate within the same bullshit frame of reference about money and politics.
Money is measurement backed by murder. The funding of the political processes are the nexus where those meet the most. The only genuinely better realistic resolutions of that situation requires the development of better death controls to back up better debt controls. However, the actual paths we are on are for the runaway debt slavery systems generating numbers which have become debt insanities to provoke death insanities.
There are no realistic ways to prevent those debt insanities from provoking those death insanities. The only remotely possible better outcomes would be based on the degree to which those psychotic breakdowns and crazy collapses into chaos, (caused by the paradoxes by too much successfully enforced frauds continuing too long), would perhaps be to catalyze those transformations, so that they did not get as bad as they otherwise would, and could be recovered from faster than they otherwise would be.
The situation is that all of the fake democracies have been rendered almost completely corrupt and crazy by the vicious feedback loops of the roles of money through politics. Under those political systems, control of the public "money" supply has already been almost totally privatized. Simultaneously, the rule of law in all those countries is deteriorating. America still leads the way in those processes, by orders of magnitude, however, all NATO countries are following the same basic pattern of fake democracies dominated by the banksters.
However, most people do not want to understand that, while the few that do continue to promote impossible ideals as their suggested "solutions." Unless and until enough people faced the basic facts that money is measurement backed by murder, then we will not have any credible basis upon which to base any realistically better resolutions of the problems that the established money/murder systems are now based on the maximum possible frauds and deceits, and therefore, the foundations of our civilization have become completely rotten.
Nothing can be built upon those rotten foundations that would not still collapse into chaos. There are no possible "reforms" to the established systems which could work, given the degree to which the foundations of those systems are thoroughly rotten enforced frauds. However, similarly, there can not be any sufficiently real, radical, revolutionary sets of solutions which do not more realistically resolve the chronic political problems inherent in the nature of human life.
The essential problem is that the history of warfare developed the most successful systems of death controls to be based upon the maximum possible deceits, which then enabled economics to be based upon the maximum possible enforced frauds. The majority of people have been conditioned to not want to understand that. The controlled opposition groups also do not really want to understand that in any deeper ways either. Rather, the controlled opposition groups want to continue to promote bogus "solutions" based upon the kinds of false fundamental dichotomies and impossible ideals which were common throughout the various old-fashioned religions and ideologies, which were co-opted to operate inside the frame of reference of the biggest bullies, promoting the same bullshit as those bullies did, which bullies are currently primarily the banksters and their buddies.
The basics are that money is measurement backed by murder, and must necessarily be. There can not be any genuine solutions to the problems created by that which either deny those facts, or propose that those should not be the facts. The systems that exist now flow through the funding of the political processes as the fractal expression of the principles and methods of organized crime, because those ARE the ways that human systems must necessarily operate, because all human realities are necessarily systems of organized lies operating robberies.
If and only if enough people understood that enough might it be possible to develop better combined money/murder systems, as better dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies. However, obviously, at the present time the established systems are almost totally dominated by deceits and frauds about that, while the controlled opposition groups to those established systems continue to also operate within the frame of reference of fundamental frauds and deceits regarding not only the existence of the combined money/murder systems, but moreover, about how and why those are the systems which actually exist.
Therefore, there is NO doubt that this is a correct observation:
"America is living proof that once money is allowed into politics, the accumulation of it, and of the power it can buy, will and eventually must fully control a democratic system, which in the process, of necessity, suffocates and dies a painful death."
However, the only realistic ways to resolve that are to go through the psychotic breakdowns and crazy collapses into chaos, due to the runaway debt insanities provoking death insanities, with some residual irrational hope that some will survive through that enough to enable some new systems to emerge from the seeds of the old systems. The new systems MUST necessarily still be organized lies operating robberies. However, it is possible that could be done with greater use of information, enabling higher consciousness.
One way or another, sooner or later, America, and the rest of Neolithic Civilization, is going to be forced to go through real, radical revolutions, which ideally should enable intellectual scientific revolutions to emerge out of that crazy collapse into chaos, so that more radical truths about human realities are faced enough, by enough people, that it becomes more practically possible to realistically resolve the dilemmas that arose due to the history of successful warfare based on deceits, supporting successful finance based on frauds. Such intellectual scientific revolutions are paradigm shifts in the ways that we perceive things that the overwhelming vast majority of people currently do not appear to have the slightest clue about, and therefore are completely clueless regarding how clueless they really are!
There is NO doubt that the funding of the political processes is the central core of the ways that the combined money/murder systems are operated. There is also NO doubt that those enforced frauds are headed towards developing into severe social storms, collapses into crazy chaos and psychotic breakdowns. However, there are ENORMOUS DOUBTS regarding whether or not human civilization will be able to survive by transforming enough to cope with those events, in order to adapt to survive its own collective criminal insanities, due to having been based on the social successes of backing up lies with violence, too much, for too long.
I REPEAT: The deeper issues are that there MUST be some death controls, to back up some debt controls, through some combined money/murder systems, while the current systems are based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds about themselves, which includes that almost all the controlled opposition groups continue to operate inside the same frame of reference. The only genuinely possible, superior solutions to those problems are better organized crime, operating better death controls, to back up better debt controls. However, obviously, at present, the overwhelming vast majority of people do not want to perceive that, and so, would not perceive that.
As long as the established systems are able to control their opposition, to the degree to which they do now, then there could not possibly develop any real, radical revolutions, while any other reforms must continue to be too little, too late, and so, too much still built on the same old rotten foundations. The only developments which are in the right order of magnitude ball park are intellectual scientific revolutions, which then could apply to political science, and so to the combined money/murder systems. Nothing less than that is sufficient to address the ways that there are vicious feedback loops operating through the funding of the political processes.
Our problems are due to having developed globalized systems of electronic fiat money frauds, backed by the threat of the force of weapons of mass destruction like atomic bombs. Those problems developed due to the history of profound paradigm shifts in physical sciences, enabling revolutionary technologies, which ended up still being applied through social pyramid systems based on backing up lies with violence. The only sufficiently realistic resolutions to those problems must be based on even more profound paradigm shifts in the philosophy of science, which would then apply to political science, and therefore, to the combined money/murder systems, which would be focused through the issues of the funding of the political processes.
"Ukraine was the epitomy..."
Unless we forget "They hate us for our freedom."
The rising of the press might sound something like:
"Mr. President, that's the stupidest fucking thing you've ever said, against stiff competition. Comment?"
"once money is allowed into politics"
Once? When was politics not about money? Or vice/versa.
Many decades ago it was more behind closed doors.
Now it's in the wide open with it's pants down, spread eagle!
In in our own best interests that the entire system fails ASAP.....otherwise the PTB will continue to drag us under, making the law and the economy whatever they want it to be.
Im not happy to be wishing for the great failure, for it will mean uncountable suffering ....but it has to end and the sooner the better.
Its a big club and you aren't in it!
The only difference between the beltway parties is where they want to waste other peoples money. The Democrats have already purged their side of any free thinkers and the Republicans are in the process of try to get rid of theirs. The perfect congress from their view is Al Queda without the pesky religous overtones.
Free thinking republicans.... now that's funny. Republicrats are just as brain dead as the demicans.
It is currently one-dimensional but is trending towards a zero-dimensional Singularity of Stupid. The event horizon will rapidly expand as the collapse starts.
Any new club we still won't be in it.
In 2014 I accepted the fact that there is absolutely nothing I can do to change anything other than what my behavior patterns are. Stay away from debt and let people believe what they want to believe. If they ask what my thoughts are I will share them, otherwise fuck them, when shit hit's the fan it's their probelm. They didn't care enough to change the course of this country, and I don't give a damn what happens to them when it falls apart,
That's precisely the attitude I've adopted over that past couple years. Amen brother.
and when the days arrives...i will have no conscience for those who chose to deny reality
+100 I agree with you. My Ex and now my girlfriend get glassy eyed when I start in on all these subjects. All the families (Ex's, GF's, Mine) do the same thing. Girfriend has all her 401k and savings in stocks and the bank. She won't listen.
I am locked and loaded plus food stuffs and will protect my 4 kids to the end. F all the rest.
All 4 of you speak truth. I personally think the die-off will be more epic than anyone suspects. I feel obligated by my conscience to help innocents (i.e. kids) but beyond that, frankly no.
All these scenarios, however, could also make neocons even more anxious to impose their lunatic plans to provoke a general conflict with Russia as the only alternative against the dramatic shift of the global geopolitical balance, unless we see a fast creation of a corresponding political power in the US inspired by the European Left. It would be even better if such a power could rise from the movements in the streets (Occupy movement, etc.), like Podemos in Spain.
Fuck this article. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck discussions about Ukraine. Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them.
I so fucking tired of articles about Ukraine written by rabidly pro-Putin fuckheads.
Ukraine means nothing. It's a prion on a virus on a bacteria living in the inner gut of a very small insect digested by a minnow, in turn digested by a bigger fish, and then a bigger fish, ... and then a great white shark, and then a whale, and then by [fill in the blank].
If you didn't know that this article is total shit, you should've realized it when you read this: "Ukraine was the epitomy". No, it fucking wasn't. Ukraine is a diarrhea-spewing ass. Ukraine is an excuse for Russky fuckheads to somehow make parallels between Putin versus frolicking puppies, cavorting little lambies in the spring, and tinkling, twinkling music. Sorry. Putin is a fucking brutal dictator. Russia is a fucking brutal totalitarian state.
You Russian fuckheads, stop trying to draw parallels between what's good in this country and Russia. Unless the Russia people finally overthrow their fuckheads, Russia is nothing, too.
Goddam Right.
What do Russians got that are better than Cheeseburgers n' Chili-fries?
USA IS STILL #1.
so for you greasy/unhealthy/junk food does it for you
I say go and get fat on your own sheep
Nice to know you don't buy into all the propaganda. I agree. Nuland was probably a secret Russian agent sent to overthrow the government and install a more democratic nazi regime. And all those Ukraine citizens killed in the east are ruski sympathizers trying to stop a true democracy. Who are they to want self determination. It's just plain un-american!
you forgot your sarc/ tag...
So other than "fuck this" how about disputing some of the FACTS jack?
Victoria Nuland and the USAID and probably the CIA pumped $5 BILLION into Ukraine to "make it more democratic". Horse shit. Then started a coup to remove a democratically elected president. Ukraine shot down MH370 on purpose or accident. Lies and damn lies and any objective study of the FACTS by you or any of the 400+ CONgressmen that voted for the bill condeming Russia for this shit would reveal the truth. You're a fucking USAA troll...
SmallerGovt2,
Do you dispute the fact that Putin is a fucking brutal dictator, and that Russia is a land absent very basic freedoms? That the UN condemned the Russian annexation of the Crimea? That the world condemned Putin?
Propagandize all you want. Putin wants to reconstruct the USSR. Ukraine is the 1st step.
I dispute that with all my heart and soul, till death do I part.
This comes off as really desperate neocon sponsored trolling. Is it sarcasm?
Look up the definition of trolling. As you misuse the word, you probably abuse reality, too.
Sorry, livefree, but Ukraine does matter because the Globalists (a.k.a. the USA & EU power elite) have made it matter with their meddling in her affairs, and it's not even a NATO country, but they want it to be.
So you have this happening next door to Russia, led by one of the last remaining nationalists, Putin.
This is the type of conflict that leads to wars, and possibly world wars.
You might not be interested in Globalism, but Globalism is interested in you!
Thanks for your relatively rational and cogent comments. Your comment does stand in stark contrast with the usual Russky drivel here.
Re the Middle East and Israel vis-a-vis Palestine, have you ever read the dozens of Web sites each of which prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that their side's claims to the land alternately called Israel or Palestine is the truth, the whole/100% truth, and nothing but the truth? All of them claim the truth beyond a shadow of a doubt.
To me, Ukraine vis-a-vis Russia is Israel vis-a-vis Palestine.
Even if the USA and EU did attempt to attract Ukraine into the West's orbit, so what the fuck? Putin is obviously being bellicose and belligerent. He needs to be kneecapped. His interference in Ukraine, an independent county, needs to be checkmated.
So, we can diddle with all the fucking details of the past few years history re the Ukraine. Fuck that shit. All I need to know is Putin's past and present. The rest is fluff.
Fluff you, fool.
As long as you can deny that the US sold (at bargain prices, no doubt) countless Patriot missiles to the NATO members with which they could pave their borders with Russia, you are nothing more than a sanctimonious, egocentric, jingoistic fool to whom no one but other sanctimonious, egocentric jingoists pay any attention to.
As I said, bid the Soldier, facts are different depending on differing PsOV. It's amazing how that works, but that's the human condition.
you are nothing more than a sanctimonious, egocentric, jingoistic fool
No, buttface nuker. I'm a citizen of the USA who has lived that which is Russia for decades. For 40 or so years, I lived the cold war from about 1958/9 when my political consciousness erupted to 1989, when the sacrilege that was the USSR finally -- and rightfully -- imploded. Pithy summary: The Communist USSR gov't was evil. I concluded it was imperative to oppose the USSR everywhere and everywhen re everything.
That's not being sanctimonious, egocentric, or jingoistic, but objective. The USSR really sucked. It was a force for evil in the world.
Putin's Russia is more of the same. Opposing it with the last fibre of my being is consummate morality.
I don't get it. In 1958 you were 40 years old? Or 55? Or still in kindergarten judging from your argument?
Whatever. The assassinations of Diem and Kennedy didn't phase you. Everybody knows that the CIA was responsible for the former. They were also responsible for the latter but their brilliant cover stories about the Mafia and Castro were gobbled up like smart fellers like you. 10 years after the Korean War, the children of McCarthy and LeMay were anxious for another bout with the commies. And weren't going to let a Democrat President satand in their way
So they lost the Vietnam War and in 1972 Nixon signed the ABM treaty and MAD kept things under control for 30 years. That was about the same time that M King Hubbert demonstrated to he world that 'peak oil' was real and sooner or later would have to be dealt with.
Hubbert's theory was quickly followed by the Yom Kippur War and the Oil Embargo of 1973 -74 which raised the price of Middle Eastern oil, hereby reducing demand for the precious planetary fluid.
Allende was coup d'etated out by Pinochet in 1973. In 1979 the Shah fell and the US, which wasn't upset about Pinochet, was so upset about Iran, it backed Saddam's invasion of Iran in 1980, supplying both poison gas and ariel photos to Iraq.
In 1985 the noble and ethical USA decided on a plan that would have their nation swimming in oil till the end of time. They would back BOTH Iraq and Iran and hope that the two would destroy themselves and the decent Americans of Exxon and Halliburton could move in and plant Old Glory on the oil fields of Iraq and Iran. Not to be. Congress found out about the Reagan crooks funding the Contras.
In 2002 the US quits the ABM treaty in order to ring Russia's western border with Patriot missiles.
And according to your feeble brain, Putin had a lot of nerve to question what the US was doing. You are such a fool that you believe they were put there to defend against ICMB attacks Iran and North Korea.
Starting with Johnson and Nixon and reaching an unprecedented peak during the Reagan and Bush administrations, (mimicked by our last two imbeciles,) the deadly policies of the US make Vladimir Putin look the Bavarian castle builder, Ludwig.
And you, sir, are like those villagers who lived near the Nazi concentration camps and their ovens and who didn't smell a thing.
Yea, I made a math error. 1959 to 1989 is 30 years, not 40. I knew it. Reading too many Russkys has fucked up my math ability.
You know, you might have the makings of a billion-dollar invention there, based upon the random nature of the historical snippets you posted. It's amazing how diverse and disconnected those snippets are. Like, you could use your invention to create history textbooks on, say, Kindles or other such devices, each history textbook guaranteed to be totally unique from every other textbook.
Oh, my God, my God, in 2004, the CIA interrogators threated to cut the fingernails and toenails of at least 3 alleged terrorists! My God! My God! How could they do that?
In the meantime, the much more civilized USSR killed merely somewhere between 30,000,000 and 130,000,000, AND DID NOT CUT THE TOENAILS OR FINGERNAILS OF EVEN ONE PRISONER! "We don't do nails", said V. Putin, head of the KGB. "The soft tissues around the genital region are much more ... productive".
From the Web site Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917 is this neat little graphic:
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.FIG1.1.GIF
If you know anything about Amnesty International, you'd know they're basically radically left. Still, on their Web page about Russia, they said this:
Since Vladimir Putin came to power in 1999 there has been an increased crackdown on freedoms of expression, assembly and association in Russia. Putin’s 2012 landslide victory sparked even an even greater repression of rights following the large protests after his re-election. This interactive timeline visually represents events and human rights violations since 1999 showing a spike in abuses from 2012 to present day.
(Note that I attribute; that is, I cite references along with their URLs. You may need to upgrade your random history generator to include URLs, even if they're bogus.)
The USSR was an evil empire. Putin's Russia still is.
If you were a fruit, lfdf, I think you'd be a grapefruit. Mostly tart, but occasionally sweet and tasty. But not easy to eat.
I don't want to get into a heated discussion with you about the great Russian president, V.V. Putin. His many accomplishments speak for themselves.
Crimea, which was Russian until 1954, with a primarily Russian speaking population is part of Russia again. The tyrannically imperious US and the lickspittle dwarfs that call themselves NATO, wagged a Clintonesque finger at Putin and demanded his withdrawal.
These huge hypocrites of the West approved of Kosovo splitting from Serbia and South Sudan leaving Sudan, but these white, European fascists, led by a black American one, had the hypocritical nerve to object to Crimea -- which had only been an oblast of Ukraine for only 60 years, when it was gifted to Ukraine -- returning to Russia after a referendum of its Russian speaking population voted yes..
Can I give you some helpful and well meaning advice for 2015, my friend.
Shun the Double Standard like the moral poison it is.
Happy New Year and may none of your anti-Putin arguments prevail. :o)
Things to do in 2015:
1. Make sure your passport is not expired
2. Do your best to obtain a second citizenship (preferably non-western country)
3.Keep a lot of cash hidden for emergency exit
4. Merry a Foreign woman , fuck American women (unless you love marketing byproduct and fake stuff)
5. Buy gold and hide it
6. learn to cook
7. stop watching MK Ultra programs oops I mean TV
feel free add to the list
What once was a proud American democracy has been turned into a circus that rolls into town every four years.
What was once a proud Democratic Republic now turned into a Democracy is nothing more than a mob rules system. Is it me or is this farcical dribble so ingrained in the minds of everyone that we will never get it back.
Well said, and I'll add that the problem is not money in politics but rather fiat money in politics. Fiat money flows to the well connected, wall st, the banks, the government, etc. The monetary system is a mechanism for wealth transfer. A fiat monetary system functions through inflation and tax...force and theft. Any system based on force and theft will yeild what we have now.
It was a Republic, which everyone seems to ignore. The founders despised democracies which they repeated many times. Yes a Republic is somewhat of a democracy but instead of the majority group rules supreme as in a democracy, individuals and the natural rule of law are protected in a Republic.
The founders made a VERY BIG mistake when leaving the Articles. IMO the constitution, creating a strong central government, was the first step destroying their Republic,,, as is witnessed today.
Fuck that passport. If I ever leave, I ain't coming back.
Raul is pretty much dead on.... except for Ron Paul. I gave to his first run campaign for president only to watch him take all the shit and do nothing. He appeared to me to not really be interested in winning.
He also killed a lot of energy the younger generations had built up only to be let down by his lack of commitment. I never gave to his second run neither will I ever give to any campaign again. He was the final straw on my back that caused me to stop voting, and probably many others.
Just sayin...
You had me at "dead".
Public Education and Corporate Media have done the work the elite rulers set for them. Try and engage anyone in intelligent conversation about any topic. In most cases they are incapable of that act. In the rare case where you find a person concious enough to speak with some intelligence, they will spout the "party line". The line media liars and whores spew 24/7 without any counter points. And worst of all, they will spout what has been planted in their brains inside the vacant death camps that American public education schools have become!
Skool1 == Skool2 (Prison). Only difference is, you're allowed to go home everyday when in Skool1, to play Grand Theft Auto to receive training in being a thug, for a seamless transition to Skool2.
I'm not leaving this freak show.
+1
Me neither.
I paid for it, I might as well enjoy it.
Maybe I will run for office.
We're in agreement on this one. I actually wondered at one point if I should leave this country, and maybe it would have been the sensible thing to do.
But anywhere else I were to go, I would just be a foriegner who was too chickenshit to stand up for what's mine. I will do what I can to best of my ability.
duplicate.
It really is astonishing how so few even look around and ask basic questions or question their reality. I used to argue with my brother about offical gov numbers like employment, inflation, GDP, etc, and it would always be a wasted effort. He would talk of the recovery and when I would question him and throw out numbers like labor participation rate, how GDP or other indicators have been re-defined and goal-seeked- I remember him replying, "Well, if you're just going to come back and say, 'that number is manipulated', 'that number is bogus' we cannot have a serious argument. We have to have one set of numbers to go by" I would then cite BLS numbers- "100 million working full time, 300MM some odd Americans, how is unemployment 6%?" He would then basically just call me stupid and say "it's more complicated than that".
Recently, he told me the deficits are falling and I laughed at him. He got upset and cited a number of 400 billion as being the deficit. "It was at almost 1.5 trillion, now it is a fraction of that, we are making progress on balancing the budget." I pulled up the .gov website that shows total debt by month and pulled up Nov of 2013 to nov 2014 and it was over a trillion dollars. His reply, "Agstacks, it's not just as cut and dry as that, there are other things that factor into the defiect calculation."
"Oh really, please educate me on those"
"Fuck you dude, this is why your investments are down by 50% and mine are up 100%. You don't get the way the world works."
He will believe in that shit until he lose all and government will tell him - you do not fit into the market
and like in South park "it's gone, next one with money please"
Ive pretty much given up on outside my immediate family. Not dumb, but firmly fixed in the MSM Matrix.
I thankfully have got my kids to open their eyes and judge for themselves what they see right in front of them and then take a look behind the curtain. My daughter was resistant because she had an inflammation of the empathy glands, but I can't take all the credit there, Mr. Obama did most of the work for me.
She's making a rapid recovery and channeling her empathy to the wide and getting wider ranks of the working poor and the reasons for the lost opportunity they will never see.
My son is a ZH lurker. He has a natural curiousity about how things work. He thinks everyone is a dick, but he will give them a chance to prove it.
No worries about him.
@Agstacks, I plussed you. Good post, and I feel your pain. Even when I direct the "blue pill'ers" to Bernays to help them find the root of the propaganda they refuse to look or listen. And these are otherwise intelligent people who just refuse to believe the "big lie" and question all to hell all the little ones or ask for proof on the most mundane of things. The world is circling [clockwise in the northern hemisphere] and still the "good people" spend they're days wondering who Kim k's baby daddy is. Fuck Me! Don't forget to breathe when the anxiety sets in from pointing out the obvious to the unawares.
If you care...really....here is a place to go to and show it.
http://citizenscongress.us/
Sorry bro: money is speech. You will never get money out of politics, because to do so would be to establish one-party rule. And we know how well that works out.
Whoever prints the most money has the most speech... sounds about where we are.
And now the myra. If you like your retirement you can keep your retirement. We have to pass the retirement to find out what's in it. We retired some folks..... etc.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiehopkins/2014/12/16/department-of-treasu...
Website is already up:
https://myra.treasury.gov/
Prediction: Since taxpayers already have to pay to support retirees that didn't properly plan for their (ZIRP) future, there will be a new "Individual Mandate" to contribute 2% of income into the treasury department's MYRA program, or you will incur a drastic tax penalty.
They've done it with health care. The comparison is almost exact.
Forcing you to "save for retirement." Definitely happening in 2016.
It will look something like this. Already brought before committee in 2008 by Teresa Ghilarducci. They will be called, Universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts. We need these becuase, “humans often lack the foresight, discipline, and investing skills required to sustain a savings plan.” (Hows the govs nest egg looking these days?)
Not to worry, the “Democratic Congress will continue to conduct this much-needed oversight on behalf of the American people"
"GRAs would guarantee a fixed 3 percent annual rate of return, although later in her article Ghilarducci explained that participants would not “earn a 3% real return in perpetuity.” In place of tax breaks workers now receive for contributions and thus a lower tax rate, workers would receive $600 annually from the government, inflation-adjusted. For low-income workers whose annual contributions are less than $600, the government would deposit whatever amount it would take to equal the minimum $600 for all participants.
In a radio interview with Kirby Wilbur in Seattle on Oct. 27, 2008, Ghilarducci explained that her proposal doesn’t eliminate the tax breaks, rather, “I’m just rearranging the tax breaks that are available now for 401(k)s and spreading — spreading the wealth.”
All workers would have 5 percent of their annual pay deducted from their paychecks and deposited to the GRA. They would still be paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, as would the employers. The GRA contribution would be shared equally by the worker and the employee. Employers no longer would be able to write off their contributions. Any capital gains would be taxable year-on-year."
I wouldn't worry though, have you seen the latest poll? She says “a third of Americans wanted the government to force them to save more for retirement.”
Who's Eric Blair?
Look 'im up. Eric Arthur Blair is the birth name of George Orwell.
Pretty much all I've got left for comfort is the hope that Earth is some kind of training exercise for discovering who each of us is, individually, and then shunting us to off to live with our own kind after we die. Let the fundies have the fundies; let the atheists have the atheists; and let me have beer, blow, and a boner harming none.
One help: do not support political incumbents.
Different players, same game.
duplicated
"One small step........." and just that. No giant leap, but it's a basic move that needs to be made.
However, when the Air Force bases are announced for closing but one is kept open because the Rep or Senator or both are senior in their district and at the Capitol, all thought of throwing the bastard out goes out the window.
Never happen that incumbents en masse will be thrown out with a National Organization that marshalls voters to act as one and do that job. A camel will sooner pass thru the eye of a needle.
Get laid.
1 - Start the new "knockout a politician" game.
I'll start a PAC for that.
Raul's ok...I can see where his cynicism comes from but am I the only one seeing positive things happen every day? He also doesn't quite get the US system and history...which is telling when he claims Europe is less corrupted than the states. That's silly. Europe centralized power sooner...and still does so more. That's WHY money gets in to politics...because there's something to buy. Bribery will always occur if there's centralized power...to get rid of money's influence in politics you have to remove the benefits politics can provide the highest bidder. Lobbying is a symptom...taxes are the desease. Trillions in tax theft can be bought for a billion here and a billion there...this should be basic logic and since Europe confiscated wealth through taxation sooner and still does to a higher degree, they are further gone. And these Eurpeans he speaks of are largely disarmed...so they are serfs and slaves with no rights, just priveledges "proetected" by their masters in government.
I hope Raul means well...but his misunderstandings projected as "challenging the system" could sure be read as cointelpro too. We are giving power a big headache...every time they thump their chest and use fear to try and control us they show they are more and more desperate, in my opinion. And the internet generations are still young...why would he pronounce conclusions on them yet. I'm in higher ed...teach history...and the boomer profs are dumbfounded at why students "don't know anything"...believe me, I know plentyof young kids, I have real conversations with them, and they know plenty and are fighters, it's just not what the system wants them to regurgitate. Gen X down...in my opinion...are unknowingly winning the war by stalling, retreating, and like our first President George...keeping their army alive to fight more directly when they have the best chance to win once and for all. We aren't anywhere close to the end of humanity...
As much as our minds would like us to think we live in some super special time...don't succumb to end times self fullfilling prophecy because you'll just be doing the elite's job for them. Rethink Raul.
You're tip-toeing around an idea, liberty. Could it be that the students have greater integrity than their teachers? Say it ain't so!
In my experience, academics are almost always hyper-educated idiots.
Please, prove me wrong.
errata: Every TWO years.
errata: Every TWO years.
"Dr. Paul is the only one I know in America who has raised his voice against the US involvement in Ukraine, the only one in the entire west even, other than those of us in the blogosphere, or the alternative media if you will."
Pat Buchanan has been outspoken against US involvement in Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3186636/posts
"America needs people who believe in something other than money or power, but anyone who’d try would be swept off the Christmas table with the other food scraps in no time, and be devoured by the dogs."
This is a good description of what happened to Pat Buchanan after he won the New Hampshire Primary in 1996.
Get a breathalyzer for this keyboard.
Get right with God.
It's been a long year Raul, but let me say that for me, yours is hands-down the best post I've seen in 2014. Thank you!