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Thursday, 31 August, 2006
THE INFORMATION ECONOMY
When President Reagan first advised us that we were entering
into a "new international economic order," Pridger scratched his head
and thought, now that sounds suspiciously like the New World Order he'd been
reading about for well over a decade. When the president went on to say, in glowing
terms, that we were going to transcend from an industrial economy into a
service economy, Pridger scratched his head again.
Mr. Reagan was enthusiastic about the prospect of free trade
and a global free market system. Somehow trade was going to replace production
as the engine of wealth creation, and Americans would no longer have to toil
on farms or in factories in order to prosper and attain the American dream. The
president assured us that America was going to continue to be the most
prosperous nation in the world.
At the time Pridger's old pappy said, "Service economy? I
suppose that's where everybody makes a living by taking in each other's
laundry."
How can a fully developed modern industrial economy – the
greatest, most prosperous, industrial powerhouse the world had ever known –
simply become a service economy? Production is what makes an economy, and
services are merely auxiliary thereto. Without sufficient production,
an economy cannot function – at least not for very long.
Reagan had come into office as the great conservative hope of
the American middle class. The Democrats and liberals had been taxing and
spending long enough, and it was time for some good old conservative leadership
to get things back in some sort of order. But the idea of turning in the nation's very substantial
and spectacularly successful industrial base, in favor of something without any
substance at all, didn't seem like a very conservative idea. What was going on?
Of course, the answer to "What was going on?" had
been answered a long time before by many thinkers and authors in works that were
(and continue to be), regarded as "paranoid conspiracy theory." In
short, the conspirators had won, and that phantom New World Order was indeed finally
at hand – much sooner, much bigger, and much more a "done deal" than most
conspiracy buffs like Pridger thought
possible. Still, though all the dots were there to be seen and connected, the general public, and probably most of Congress, failed to
discern the pattern.
The irony was that it was a conservative president that
ushered it in. But that's they way things get done. The "man of the people"
effectively turns out to be a Judas Goat. Ronald Reagan – the man
and the rhetoric – was probably not the Judas Goat (at least in Pridger's opinion,
though many others may differ). He was merely the wedge and decoy by which
"others of influence" would gain the power to accomplish their major
agenda goals.
It has made little difference who has been in the presidential
chair (whether liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican), the larger
agenda has always been the same and its purposes have consistently been served. Some presidents, of course, have actually been
in on the agenda, but usually they are paid hands providing cover for the real
movers and shakers behind national policy.
In Pridger's opinion, Reagan (like many other conservatives),
was genuinely taken in by free market economics and economists, believing that if free markets
could work such wonders in the United States, why not the world?
And Reagan, like most of his recent predecessors, was fixated
on the Evil Empire, certain that once it was vanquished, a New World of global
freedom and free markets should naturally follow and bring us into the Promised
Land.
So, America has been deindustrializing since the Reagan era,
and literally millions of good paying jobs have disappeared, along with
thousands of factories and scores of whole industries.
So we have increasingly seen what it is to become a service
economy. And while industrial workers were being given pink slips economy wide,
and our major industrial centers were becoming rust belts, a whole new business
climate evolved, along with a new class of entrepreneurs who began to prosper as
never before. The era of the leveraged buyout was upon us, and some businesses
experienced extraordinary expansion. Antitrust laws, and their purposes, were
forgotten, and the big fish went out on corporate feeding frenzies. The stock market
boomed and soared, giving the
impression that the nation was entering into a new era of prosperity.
That prosperity wasn't coming cheap, however. The prosperity
we have had, has been on Wall Street, not Main Street. And any national
prosperity that bypasses Main Street and the common man, is not a real
prosperity at all.
Though balancing
the federal budget and getting a handle on the national debt had been major
planks in Reagan's campaign platform, the deficit and debt spiraled further out
of control. Even before the service economy was fully developed, the chickens of
decreased productivity were beginning to come home to roost.
The Maquiadora program (the precursor to NAFTA), came along on
Reagan's watch, as did the first amnesty for some three million illegal Mexican
aliens from which we are suffering today. And, as the deficit soared and the
national debt curve pointed upward toward an upright spike, we awoke to find
we'd just gone from being the world's largest creditor nation to the world's
largest debtor nation.
This is what might be expected in a service economy. We're
simply not
producing enough real wealth to pay for all those services. Nor are we making
enough wealth to pay for all the products we're buying from abroad. The federal
government, as well as much of the general public have learned to be quite comfortable
living on credit.
Some people have been prospering on credit. Things have become
unreal. But business is supposedly booming. Wal-Mart has thrived. But mom and
pop have all but disappeared (except in the growing ethnic inclaves). Main Street has been largely vacated and boarded
up, if not totally bulldozed and turned into jails and parking lots – yet
massive expansion continues just on the outskirts of town.
But what is sustaining this massive commercial expansion? The
service economy? How? Apparently the unlimited purse of public and private
Credit. In the housing market, really big houses are in. Though few can afford
them, zero down and interest alone until you sell at a profit has people buying
in in spite of themselves – for the real estate "smart money."
"Zero down and payments starting next year" is
common in many businesses. Cars that cost more than a house should are selling
like hot-cakes. Zero or $99 down or a large cash "rebate."
Want to get rid of those growing, high interest rate, credit
card balances, and at the same time gain some "real spending cash"?
Mortgage your home or take out a second mortgage with enough extra to pay off
everything else and buy everything your heart desires. The interest is tax
deductible. What a con! But people are buying it in droves. Easy money.
If the service economy is a phantom wealth producer, what is
an economy based on information technology? When the economy began suffering
from too much service and not enough income to pay the service bills, the
information technology revolution happened along just in the nick of time to
save us. Americans were told their rightful place in the global economy would be
to serve as its knowledge workers, while others elsewhere did all the productive labor for
them.
Unfortunately, most of the knowledge work is being farmed out
or outsourced. Nobody told us that was going to happen. But never mind, we've
never had it so good, and the economy is booming in spite of all the bad luck,
the crumbling of the towers, and wars galore. Credit, and the Bush wars,
continues to preserve the American way of life. And, by God! Osama bin Laden
isn't going to be allowed to come over here and take it away. Never fear, Bush
and the Department of Homeland Security are determined to preserve the
"American way of Life."
SALVATION IS STILL POSSIBLE
It's a little surprising that Osama bin Laden is still at
large considering how smart our weapons and intelligence services are. But Osama
is having troubles of his own. So the story goes, he erred badly with the 9/11
attack and may be the target of Holy Judgment.
As George Bush has himself assured us, Islam is a peaceful
religion. And because of this, no Jihadist is supposed to kill an Infidel before
giving him a fair chance to convert to Islam. Osama failed to do that before
toppling the towers and messing up the Pentagon – killing some 3,000 Infidels.
Apparently not giving them fair warning and a chance to convert to the true
faith has come to weigh upon bin Laden's conscience.
He apparently got in a hurry and didn't want to show his hand
prior to 9/11.
Military necessity required secrecy (this is routine in warfare, you
know). But nonetheless, as a holy man, Osama has been troubled by the spiritual
implications of his actions. What an embarrassment it would be to get to Heaven
and not get his full allotment of comely young virgins!
Anyway, Pridger has heard on the news that bin Laden is now
offering all Americans (or all Christians), a chance to convert to Islam before
the next big blood bath. Having issued such a blanket invitation, along with
fair warning of the consequences of not converting (i.e., death to all
Christians), he can attack at will and remain at peace in his heart – sort of
like our born again, Christian, president in the present Crusade.
If a few Muslims (newly converted or otherwise), happen to
become collateral damage in the next big attack on the Great Satan, no problem. As true believers, they are assured of the
rewards of the after-life, and there is no higher honor than dying for the cause
of Islam. (Pridger isn't so sure this is Islam, but that seems to be the take
many of the Islamic faithful take – not a whole lot different from many Jews and
Christians).
Of course, Osama has extended the olive branch too – more
than once. He'll let us (Americans and the coalition of the willing), off the
hook if we'll just get out of the Middle East and go back to minding our own
business behind our own borders.
Unfortunately, we simply can't do that. As far as our
leadership in Washington is concerned, Globalism and the New World Order are
engraved deeply in stone, and are here to stay no matter how many people have to
lose their jobs or suffer and die. Departing from the Middle East would leave a
lot of Western capital in the lurch, and that globalized western capital is what
brings home the bacon, and the oil, and makes the "American way of
life" livable. And this isn't even to mention Israel.
Pridger, a Jeffersonian Christian (and a member in good
standing of the Church of the Universal Living Truth [C.U.L.T]), is not about to
convert to Islam – unless the Jihad starts threatening a little closer to
Pridger's neck of the woods than it has so far (thanks, of course, to the
Department of Homeland Security).
In addition to being determined to remain a Christian, Pridger
is also an avowed American patriot – a jangling jingo, in fact. As such, he
recommends that we turn tail immediately, if not sooner, and get our fighting
forces out of the Middle East and back to a country worth defending – our own.
Pridger further recommends, and hereby petitions the president and
Congress, to forget about building democracies elsewhere. Let's declare our
independence from the New World Order, and henceforth focus on reestablishing
the United States of America as an independent Constitutional Republic with
liberty and justice for all – right here within our long established borders.
Leave the Middle East to the Arabs and other Islamic peoples
of the region, and chances are we'll be able to live in peace with them without
even converting to Islam. The need for Jihad would be over, and people like
Osama bin Laden could rest assured that we'll get our just reward in the
afterlife as Allah pleases. We can go back to the old hum drum routine of friendly
relations and mutually beneficial trade with all peaceable nations, and
entangling alliances with none. It may be peaceful and boring, but it sure would
beat playing the role of imperial warmonger and Great Satan.
Of course, that still leaves the problem of Israel. It would
not be Christian (pardon the language), to leave those faithful friends and
allies to the wolves. It's impossible to pack the land of Israel up and get it
out of the Middle East, but the Jews might as well consolidate their power in
only one Promised Land, rather than two.
Pridger suggests giving them the southwest quarter of Arizona
or maybe the southern third of California, or both. These because of their
similarity to the Holy Land, only much bigger and better. Arizonans and Mexicans
would probably object, but we've got to be practical (and rights of "native
peoples" would be guaranteed, of course). And the Jews need a homeland.
This would get us out of the Middle East and maybe even avert Armageddon
– at least in the short term.
Don't hold your breath though. The president and Congress
aren't tuned in to these proposals. Besides the Israeli's and global Zionists wouldn't
agree. As secular as the Israeli state and Zionists may be, they fully intend to
hold God to His promise this time, regardless of the consequences – and
Armageddon continues on fast track.
John Q. Pridger
Monday, 28 August, 2006
MONEY – THE SIMPLICITY OF IT
When it comes to conveying the idea of money in the simplest
terms, it is difficult to avoid complexities which tend to negate the purposes
of simple explanations. Part of the problem is that money is different things to
different people and vested interests, and the confusion that flows from this fact is 99% of the
difficulty experienced in conveying what should be somewhat simple and
forthright concepts.
Short and concise definitions, once simply stated, always seem to
require long and complex elaborative verbiage that few people will wade through. And those
who do wade through, are sometimes left perhaps more confused than when they
started.
There are basically two concepts of money, and both serve as a
medium of exchange rather well, facilitating trade and commerce:
- Gold and/or silver as money, called "species" and
- Paper and token coin as money, generally called
"fiat" money.
It's relatively easy to convey the idea of species as money.
Gold and silver coins themselves "possess value" that is self-evident
and recognized by most people.
The issuing government authority says, "This money is
good because it is made of precious metals. The money itself is its own
guarantee of value. This being so, of course it will be accepted in payment for
all debts and purchases public and private. And government will accept it in
payment of taxes." If paper is substituted for convenience, the issuing
authority guarantees to redeem currency notes at face value, no questions asked.
The idea of paper money and base metal coinage given artificial value as
"legal tender for all debts public and private" by "fiat" of
government authority is also fairly simple to convey and understand.
In the case of fiat money, the issuing government authority
makes the promise, "This money is good because the government says it is.
It mandates that this money will be accepted in payment for all debts and
purchases, public and private. It guarantees that it will be accepted anywhere in
the realm. And government will accept it in payment of taxes."
And fiat money works as well as species, provided the
government that issues it is not too inept or corrupt.
But when "credit" is added
to the mix, things become a little more perplexing. And, when it is fully
realized that "all of the above" have been in the mix for centuries (and remain in the
mix), easy explanations become as elusive as the Abominable
Snow Men.
Well, things have been a little simplified with the
abandonment of the gold standard. Literally all money is now fiat money. So
there's little need to even consider species when speaking of money and monetary
reform.
Of course, we all know that fiat money works fine. We all use it all the
time these days (and have for over a generation), and the national and global economies run on it. The only problem
with the kind of fiat money we have is it's exceedingly slippery nature and constantly declining
per unit value – that, and the fact that our present monetary system is a pure
debt system. Not only is inflation inevitable, but it has become a tool of
control, manipulation, and a particularly insidious means of "taxation
without representation."
The dollar we use today no longer represents a unit of wealth,
or even strictly a medium of exchange. It
represents a unit of debt, plus perpetually accruing interest. The Federal
Reserve dollar is an indebtedness note used as currency.
This should not have been allowed to happen. But it was bound
to happen when the power to issue money and manage the monetary system was given
to private bankers. So money now has a dual purpose:
- To serve the public and industry as a medium of exchange,
and
- To enrich the money managers at public expense.
Fiat paper works as money simply because all
"official" money issued by governments or their monetary agents has
always been given its validity and value by government fiat. Just as government
authority today places an artificial value on paper money and token coin, in the past it had always
given gold and silver an artificial value, and then attempted to tie its paper
notes to that artificial price.
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, however, the gold
standard has been doomed. Yet the attempt was made to sustain it by pretending
that money was a paper representative, or equivalent of gold, even as its volume surpassed the
available gold supply by many fold.
The fact that the gold standard has not worked is now part of monetary history.
Just in the last half century of the gold standard alone, gold went from being
officially pegged at $16.00 per ounce to $35.00 an ounce, and then to
"Ouch! We simply can't do this any more! We can't even do silver!"
The simple fact is that commodities such as gold cannot be
prevented from setting their own price in international markets. Like all other
commodities, they are subject to the market
forces of supply and demand. And, because available supplies cannot be
controlled by any government fiat, a workable gold standard, with fixed monetary
ratios in relation to gold, is impossible.
With gold now selling in the $650.00 range, if we went back on
a gold standard today, gold would have to be pegged at about $1,000.00 an ounce,
but in a very few years it would probably have to be pegged at twice that
amount, and there would be absolutely no sense of stability or fixed value in
the dollar. And public confidence in the value of its currency would be
impossible to maintain.
No currency can effectively be based on precious metals in a
modern industrialized society. Attempting to do so, as we did until the 1960s,
was bound to end in failure. So, we were left with one choice – pure fiat money
– and that is the choice we have finally been forced to make.
But, we had another major choice to make – between two
distinct kinds of fiat money – "national" notes, or banker notes. Unfortunately, Congress
had effectively made the
choice long before it fully realized what it was doing. When the Federal
Reserve act was passed in 1913, the nation's monetary system was turned
over to private bankers. So, when the gold standard collapsed, we were stuck
with banker notes by default, in spite of the fact that a perfectly viable
"national" note system already existed in the greenback (or U.S.
Note).
The banking "money power," having been fully
empowered by the Federal Reserve Act, vigorously undermined the "national
note" system while the "banker note" note system was successfully
promoted at the "perfect monetary system."
The "Federal" in Federal Reserve, of course, is an
intentional deception. It is federal only in the sense that the FED was voted in
by Congress and given a "Federal function", "Federal
Status", and "Federal monetary power." But the Federal Reserve
Banks do not belong to the American people. They are all privately owned, and
they are managed without significant Congressional oversight, in spite of the
significant power they wield over the nation. Almost a century
after its creation, the Federal Reserve System, has never been audited.
The Federal Reserve Act had been written by and for bankers
(not the people), and it empowered those bankers and gave them an
exclusive federal license to manage the nation's monetary system. The
choice Congress thus made effectively relinquished one of its most important
powers and sacred trusts – that of giving the people a national, debt free,
currency of their own.
Of course, Congress still has the power to change all this,
but has shown absolutely no inclination to reassume that most sacred of public
trusts. In fact it has become perfectly comfortable with it's most important
remaining roles – spending money and raising the debt ceiling in order to
permit ever-increasing deficits and national indebtedness.
Meanwhile, the appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board
has almost become universally recognized as the most powerful individual in the
world.
At the time the Federal Reserve System was created, we were still in the throes of the "gold imperative,"
or (alternatively) the silver imperative, or a "dual standard." In
other words, Congress, as well as most of the people, believed you could not
have a viable monetary system unless it was backed by either gold or silver.
The supposed control Congress probably thought it was
retaining over the money power was the fact that the currency (of whatever
variety), was backed by gold held in the Treasury. That gold, presumably, did
belong to the American people. "Did," of course, is appropriately pass tense.
Supposedly, we still have a lot of gold in the Treasury, or stashed away in Fort
Knox, but it would be interesting to see a breakdown of who actually holds title
to it.
Even the greenback, which was our great advance in monetary
policy during the Civil War, had become backed by gold (since about 1878). And this fact totally
destroyed the prime utility of the greenback idea. The greenback, as a purely
fiat currency, could have served as the "People's Money," and the
fiscal salvation of the nation – but, as a gold-backed currency, it fell
victim to the historical nemesis of all modern monetary systems, requiring the
government to purchase and keep sufficient gold in the Treasury to back the
greenbacks in circulation.
When we went off the gold standard, of course, greenbacks
became a fiat currency again. But they have since been withdrawn from
circulation as Federal Reserve notes gradually supplanted the currency supply.
The greenback has officially been described as an anachronism, thus no longer
desirable or relevant in the modern world.
The essential difference between the two fiat monetary
systems, i.e., a greenback system and Federal Reserve debt money system are
these.
-
Greenbacks are issued and spent into circulation at almost
zero cost to the public.
-
Federal Reserve money is always loaned and issued into circulation
at interest, resulting in perpetual and growing public debt.
-
Greenbacks are liabilities of the national Treasury and
are assets of the American people.
-
Federal Reserve money, though officially termed a
"liability" of the Federal Reserve System, is in fact an engine of
interest income to it and its member banks, and is a perpetually growing liability on the backs
of the
American people.
-
Greenbacks, as a national currency, would be largely restricted to the
American economy to serve the needs of internal commerce and exchange, and
incapable of being used by other nations or as a global reserve currency.
-
Federal Reserve money: Has in fact become an international
currency and the predominate global reserve currency.
-
A Greenback system would require firm national economic
boundaries, and encourage domestic productivity and national economic
independence.
-
The Federal Reserve System has facilitated globalism and
the New World Order as we know it today, along with national dependence
through unnecessarily expansion of international interdependence, an obscene
trade deficit, and an un-payable national debt, which is increasingly owed
to foreign creditors.
-
Under a Greenback system, mutually beneficial
international trade would be conducted on a combination of barter and some
recognized internationally currency such as gold and silver or something
akin to Special Drawing Rights.
-
Under the Federal Reserve System any level of totally
unnecessary international trade can be conducted on a credit basis which
(with the development of gloablism and free trade), amounts to a massive transfer of wealth from the U.S. as a consumer nation,
to the increasingly productive foreign nations supplying our consumer
markets.
The two systems are similar in that:
-
Both are "Legal Tender for Debts Public and
Private" by government fiat or decree.
-
Both serve the nation as the circulating currency,
satisfying the needs of domestic commerce.
A greenback system could be compared to a publicly owned
theater printing and issuing tickets to the theater owners – each ticket good
for one free showing.
The Federal Reserve System could be compared to a private
theater owner printing and issuing tickets – for a price, and maybe on credit.
Each ticket is good for one "free" showing – but the bill will be
collected by the IRS next April 15th – and your children, grandchildren, and
great grandchildren will still be getting the bill long after you've retired.
John Q. Pridger
Friday, 18 August, 2006
THE TROJAN HORSE ECONOMY
AND THE END OF NATIONAL SECURITY
The July 2006 issue of Marine Log magazine contained a
side bar entitled "Nine million potential TROJAN HORSES?" by Nick
Blenkey. Mr. Blenkey was referring to more than nine million shipping containers
discharged from ships every year in our ports. Any one of those boxes might be
the one that has the weapon of mass destruction we presently fear. Or, there
might be a dozen of them.
But weapons of mass destruction are merely the "worst
case scenario." Drugs and illegal aliens also arrive in shipping containers
on a much more routine basis. But the scariest thing is that our economy's main
blood supply also flows from those containers.
In spite of all of our government's alleged concern for the
safety and security of the American people, our trade policy, and the new
international economic order, have laid us wide open. Not only has it left us
open to terrorists, drug-runners, illegal immigration, and more, it has made us
so dependent on the consumer goods and other necessities being imported, and the
machinery necessary to deliver them (mainly the ships and seamen), that the
terrorist threat is but an additional footnote.
Blenkey says, "Container traffic has been growing by
about 10 percent a year. China is building close to 100 new container-loading
berths over the next few years, each capable of shipping about 250,000
containers a year, most of them to the U.S." He quotes Senator Susan
Collins (R. Maine), as saying about "95 percent of our nation's trade,
worth nearly $1 trillion, enters or leaves through our 361 seaports. Our ports
receive more than 8,500 foreign vessels, which make more than 55,000 calls per
year. These ships carry the bulk of the approximately 800 million tons of goods
that came into our country, including more than nine million containers, and 175
billion gallons of oil and other fuels."
Container building alone has become a major international
industry, and China is getting it's share, (that is – most of it).
Container ships are getting bigger and bigger too. Ships with
2,000 to 5,000 TEU capacity (20 foot container slots) have been routine for a
number of years. Soon 8,000 to 9,500 TEU will be routine, and 13,000 TEU ships
are on the way.
Imagine 13,000 boxes on a single ship – each one a potential
Trojan Horse! Put those boxes on trucks and line them up on the highway and
they'd stretch about 98 miles bumper to bumper. That's from the dock in Los
Angeles practically all the way to Barstow in the Mojave Desert. And that's only one ship's worth! One port call.
Multiply that by tens of
thousands.
At any given time there are hundreds of thousands of
containers moving on the Interstates and riding the rails inland from every
major port – delivering the goods that make the country tick. Have we got a
security nightmare or not?
The American economy has come to depend on this trade. And
national security – real national security – decreases as the trade
increases. And it isn't just the potential for nuclear or biological weapons
hidden in one or more of those boxes that impacts national security. It is the
very "dependence" itself that is the worst threat of all.
Even if there wasn't a single terrorist in the world, and
nobody had ever heard of a weapon of mass destruction, our dependence on
"others elsewhere" to manufacture and deliver the very life-blood of
the American economy is the mother of all Trojan Horses.
For example, what would happen if there was ever a war with
China, or even a war with North Korea? For one thing, most sea borne trade with
the Asia-Pacific region would be interrupted – perhaps for an extended period.
That
scenario would be so devastating to the U.S. economy that not even the
Department of Homeland Security dares think of the possibility, much less
consider it part of its responsibility.
Even if we think a little smaller, and imagine that there is
just one credible WMD scare, we're in serious economic trouble. What if the DHS
received a tip from a credible source that there is a nuclear devise known to be
in a box on an unidentified ship headed toward the United States from anywhere?
What would the DHS do? The only thing it could do – stop all ships
from entering port until the device is either found, or the tip determined to be
a prank terrorist joke. In either case the economy would be seriously hurt, and
Wal-Mart shelves might become a little bare looking.
To get to the real source of the present national security
threat, we need go no further than Washington D.C. and the astute leadership
(and the brain trust that does the thinking for it). It has led us down the primrose path – a path that has totally
compromised even the potential to have any effective national security at all.
The biggest Trojan Horse of all was the "New World
Order" package that same leadership in Washington has allowed to be
delivered to our doorstep. Not only has that leadership reinvented the nation, it changed how the world works. Within that Trojan Horse,
fondly called "globalism," was "international
interdependence" and national "dependence" on the foreign
competition – the veritable end of "national security."
Within that
same Trojan Horse there was national policy that resulted in our "Great
Satan" image and the terrorist problems we currently face – the ones that
have made the U.S.A. Patriot Act and DHS "necessary" in what has
become an impossible quest for national security.
Just as you can't have your cake and eat it too, you can't
have national security while leaving the national barn doors wide open. You
cannot have national security without national independence.
John Q. Pridger
Thurday, 17 August, 2006
"HOME-GROWN" ARAB TERRORISTS
THE CROP IS GETTING RIPE.
When a crop is ripening in the field – a crop that promises
to poison the village – one tends to wonder why such a crop had been sown and
cultivated in the first place.
The "home grown Arab terrorists" recently exposed in
the English countryside are an example of such a crop. And, chances are, they
are merely a few early bloomers.
The alleged terrorist plot (to bring down as many as ten U.S.-bound
commercial airliners, recently thwarted in the United Kingdom), reminds us once
again of the total lack of common sense in the immigration policies of Western governments, and of the many
past lessons from which they insist on not learning anything.
The would-be terrorists seem to be of the "home
grown" variety. That is, they are Arab Muslims, born and raised in the U.K.
Though they have no apparent links to al Qaeda
or any other terrorist group, they became Islamic Jihadists through their own
initiative, as self-motivated terrorists. They were "English
subjects," and speak with an English accent, but when it comes to Jihad,
their loyalties are still Arab and Muslim, their enemies "western Gentiles
and Jews."
Catching the plotters before they accomplished their dastardly
deed may seem pretty cleaver. But what was it that prompted the U.K. to
needlessly acquire such large numbers of aliens from naturally hostile nations and
foreign religious cultures in the first place? Whatever it was, it was not very
cleaver at all.
The U.K., for no good reason at all, has accumulated a large
and growing Muslim and Arab community – a situation that the U.K. has brought
upon itself, by opening its doors to immigrants of every race – mostly from
former colonies, which provides sufficient cultural diversity to potentially
make England a "good example" of a progressive western society.
Pridger has
recently learned that Ireland (of all places!), is only now beginning to do the
same thing – actually inviting in alien workers. These immigrants from alien cultures
will eventually
spell racial troubles for Ireland, if not a quota of its own "home grown" Islamic
terrorists. The Irish have always been able to make enough trouble among
themselves, and with the British. But now they're guaranteed to eventually find out what
internal strife really is.
Ireland, like the formerly racially prideful U.K., should know
better. But in spite of all the warning signs and lessons, third world
immigration is "in" at the moment in all formerly largely homogeneous
Western European nations. It's as if they all think multiculturalism is about
the best thing since sliced bread.
The United States has done the same thing, of course. In fact,
in our multicultural globalized enlightenment, we have played the role of Pied
Piper. One World has essentially "our baby," and we've literally pioneered all the major avenues most certain to lead to
national suicide. And we can expect to be rewarded with the same sort of
problems at some point down the road. We've got our large and growing Arab and
Muslim population, along with a large and growing Asian population, and a much larger
and faster growing Mexican and Latino population. And many, many, others.
But right now, due to a long chain of events that has
culminated in the War on Terror, Arab terrorists are the big concern. In fact, we've already pin-pointed and
arrested a few "home grown" Arab terrorists. And, of course, we
supposedly let the 9/11 terrorists into the country for both flight training and
actual terrorist operations.
Arab (and other Moslem), immigration into western nations
would seem highly undesirable. And why Arabs and Moslems would want to immigrate into the
nations of the Infidel would be quite puzzling but for the historical penchant
they have had for spreading Islam far and wide.
Moslems are not unique in this respect, of course. Literally
all western conquests wore the robes of Christian piety. Bringing Christianity,
Jesus, and the word of God to the pagan was always placed at the head of
commercial purpose.
But the "Western democracies," having officially
overcome all pretense at Christian faith and Christian motives, now concentrate
exclusively on "commercial interests" and the salvation of
"democratic consumerism." But the Arabs and Muslims have not lost
their religion.
There is probably no longer a single major nation in the west
that officially describes itself as a "Christian Nation." On the other
hand, more and more Islamic nations are officially describing themselves as
"Islamic nations."
With Christianity in the west now almost dead (and some of
remnants pretty close to brain-dead), there are large segments of the western
populous ripe for conversion to the "True faith." In the United States, Blacks were the most receptive
initially, and many have embraced Islam.
Naturally, the increasing number of displaced homeless
refugees in the war-torn Arab nations adds significantly to the number of
immigrants seeking entry into the United States and other western nations. Add jobs, and the ongoing Islamic Jihad against the west,
to the motivation of spreading the faith, and the Muslim desire to flood the west isn't
quite so puzzling.
The world now has zero (zilch, nada), national champions of
the Christian faith. There are at least a dozen national champions of the Muslim
faith, and one small national champion of the Jewish faith.
Ironically, the Vatican stands as both the oldest and last
standing official, state-like, champion of the Christian faith. But the Vatican
hardly counts, for it has no tanks, warships, bombs, missiles, or big guns.
In spite of the decline of religious fervor in the West, East
and West have not met or come any closer, and the divide is widening even as the
New World Order engineers fumble awkwardly with global commercial empire. Deeper
lines have been redrawn in the sand, and they are deepening by increased levels
of what is nonetheless "faith based" warfare.
We have a rather peculiar faith base war going on, between
Crusaders with faith in Mammon and military power, and Jihadists with faith in
God and Islam.
It remains to be seen just how much "faith" can do
in a commercialized world – whether Mammon (commercial empire, rampant
materialism, and conspicuous consumption), can overcome religious faith. If
history is any guide, religious faith can do plenty.
The divide between East and West has historically been well
defined. Arabs have never been fond of the Infidel, and the feelings
have usually been mutual. Though most Europeans have forgotten the Crusades and
abandoned nationalist religious motivations, the Arabs and other Muslims of the Middle East have
not forgotten the Crusades and cling to their religion just as strongly now as
during the days of the Crusades.
There are many ticking times bomb in all of this. Some of them
have been going off for some time, 9/11 being but a rather significant sampler
and turning point. President Bush's Freudian slip, describing the War on Terror
as a new Crusade, was a very apt metaphor for what is now going on, and the war
has been like an ongoing string of fire-crackers serving as a fuse leading toward
the mother load.
Just a lot depends on whether the Muslim faith will prove
stronger than the American dollar. If history means anything at all, time seems
to be in the corner of Islam.
Islam has survived for over fifteen hundred years and is
getting stronger. The dollar we spend today is worth about four cents in terms
of the dollar of only a hundred years ago, and it's getting weaker.
Irony of ironies, about the only significant contribution of
organized Evangelical Christians in the United States seems to be to actively
pour more oil on the fires – in hopes the "mother load" will be set
off as soon as possible. They have firmly allied themselves with
"non-Christians" in the hope of facilitating that "End" – firm
in their belief that these non-Christians are the flesh and blood "Chosen
People."
What an explosive mix we have here!
Jews and Arab Muslims (two committed eye for an eye peoples), locked in
a seemingly eternal struggle over the Promised Land. Both Jews and Palestinians
are convinced the promise was to "them" (Israel with nuclear weapons, and
other neighboring states playing catch up). The world's only super-power locked
neck deep in the struggle, defending Israel (right or wrong), while at the same time
coveting the oil of the Arab states. And the only "Christians"
weighing in in a serious manner praying for a cataclysmic battle and Armageddon!
Pridger doesn't think Armageddon at this time is a
particularly good idea. It may be biblical prophecy, but there's no point in
needlessly rushing things. In fact, it occurs to Pridger that, if God IS
in charge (and moving things along according to His own time tables), He may be a little annoyed
by men presuming to "help Him out" in such a presumptuous and arrogant
manner.
If those prayers bear fruit, all those "Christians" expecting to be
Raptured into Heaven will likely have a rude awakening awaiting them when their dreams are
fulfilled. When the roll is called up yonder,
they may not be there. They may still be right down here with the rest of us
finding out what trials and tribulations, and maybe even hunger, really
are.
Too bad we have produced so few religious thinkers of Thomas
Jefferson's caliber. Of his religion he said:
"I am a Christian, in the only
sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in
preference to all others." And "Had the doctrines of Jesus been
preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world
would now have been Christian."
The doctrines of Jesus, in a nutshell? Peace among all men,
brotherly love, compassion, forbearance,
tolerance, forgiveness, humility, and "Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you."
Not so very different from the message conveyed by the
founders of most modern religions, including Mohammed, the founder of Islam.
Again, we can turn to that discredited "Dead White Man," Thomas
Jefferson, for some insight:
"The priests have so disfigured the simple religion
of Jesus that no one who reads the sophistications they have engrafted on
it... would conceive these could have been fathered on the sublime preacher of
the Sermon on the Mount."
The "priests" are not only the "Christian
priesthood" (which includes many of our modern day fundamentalist and
evangelical leaders), but those who have done similar violence to Judaism and Islam. Ironically, only the Eastern Religions, such as that of Buddha
and Confucius, have managed to remain largely religions of peace, seldom used
for the pretexts for, and purposes of, making conquests and war,
"holy" or otherwise.
The predominate problem with western religions of peace, has been
the narrow-mindedness and violent nature of the peoples from which they
miraculously sprang. Organized religions tend to take on the attributes of the followers
rather than the followers taking on the enlightened characteristics and
principles of the founding prophets.
Secularists and humanists don't rate any better in Pridger's
book. Their main contribution has not only been to expose hypocrisy and
discredit false religion, but wipe out the high message of the true prophets,
further obscuring the path to salvation.
Pridger's definition of "salvation" in this context,
would be the universal triumph of Truth and Justice, and peace among men.
The true prophet sows and raises nutritious grains and lovely
flowers. Hypocritical or self-serving followers proceed to sow and grow thorn
bushes that tend to overwhelm those grains and flowers. And
"enlightened" Secular Humanists, despite all good intentions, would
kill the garden entirely and render it permanently sterile.
What is too often overlooked, of course, is the fact that many
fundamentalist Christians, as well as fundamentalists of other religions, do
remain true to the teachings of their prophets, and exert their influence to
those noble ends.
Unfortunately, these are seldom the "true
believers," who become men, or congregations of men, with political
influence – such as those now urging expanded war and Apocalypse in the Middle
East.
One of the keys to successful farming, gardening, and animal
husbandry, is in maintaining the fences necessary to define whose gardens,
fields, and livestock are who's. Drop those fences, and obscure those boundaries
(as in New World Order), and you have a mess.
John Q. Pridger.
THE EAST AND WEST DIVIDE
The British Empire was perhaps less successful in Arab lands
than in any other colonized region, and the colonial legacy has born lastingly
bitter fruit British (and French), colonial history in the Middle East was
relatively short-lived, since it was both the result of victory in World War
One, conducted under League of Nations mandates, and promises of independence of
the Arab lands had been made.
There is a history of British betrayal of the
Arabs following World War One. The promised independence, after the Arabs had
helped the British and allied forces liberate them from the Ottoman Turks,
was too slow in coming. The Arabs didn't take kindly to continued colonial
domination. In fact, the presence of oil in those lands tended to make Great
Britain and France wish no that promises of Arab independence had been made. And, of course, giving
the Zionists a Jewish Homeland in Palestine was the unforgivable sin that has
caused a continuing avalanche of unintended consequences.
As for the United States, our first foreign war was a naval
campaign against Arab pirates on the Barbary Coast of northern Africa. And more
Americans of the Anglo variety (mostly shipwrecked seafarers), have been
captured and sold into slavery by Arabs than by any other people. Yes, some
"free, white, and over twenty-one" Americans have tasted the bitter
fruits of slavery and forced servitude. Some were ransomed, but many more were
simply never seen again.
Infidels have seldom been welcome in Arab lands, and western
explorers often had to impersonate Arab Muslims in order to travel in several
forbidden areas, lest they be discovered and put to death.
So, it would seem rather obvious that allowing
significant numbers of Arabs and
Muslims to immigrate into western countries is not a particularly good idea,
simply because many are naturally hostile to Infidels.
We can live in peace with our Arab brothers, but the best way
to do it is to stay out of each other's face while cultivating peaceful
relations. Peace, friendship, and mutually
beneficial trade with all – entangling alliances with none! (The long
neglected lessons of both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.) America for
the Americans, Japan for the Japanese, Arab countries for the Arabs, etc.
Israel, of course, is the eight hundred pound gorilla the west
effectively placed in the Arabian face. The old saw, "Well, it seemed like
a good idea at the time," does us little good now. And our military bases
and armies on the Arab Peninsula and in Gulf region don't help much either.
It's, "Well it seemed like a good idea at the time," all over again.
Naturally, it can be argued that the overwhelming majority of
Arab and Muslim immigrants are good people. This, of course, is true of all
peoples. But it only takes a few bad apples, combined
with a global Jihad, to cause serious problems – problems it would have been
far better to have avoided in the first place by employing common sense in
immigration policy.
Small minority populations have never hurt any nation. A good
case can be made for the positive influences of such limited "diversity"
within largely homogeneous nations. But large minorities of culturally hostile peoples add an explosive component to
any society.
Our Mexican population didn't present a problem as long as it
was relatively small and concentrated. Naturally immigrants of any race, from
almost any cultural group, that truly assimilate,
do not present a problem. But when large communities arise and spread, and true
assimilation is resisted, trouble is in the offing. This, most especially in
democratic nations where there is no iron fist to keep a lid on things.
It's only when a minority population develops a significant political voice that
serious troubles tend to arise. In such cases previous acceptance, tolerance,
and understanding tend to become threatened by such things as demands (as an
example), for amnesty and legal status for 12 million illegal aliens.
Before the birth of Israel, small Jewish minority communities
existed in all Arab nations – and they had lived peaceably in those countries
for many centuries. The forced imposition of a minority in Palestine, which grew
into an exclusive nation, was the
beginning of the present Middle East problem.
Even the "home grown" British terrorists themselves are probably
good people. But when their adopted country seemed to have become the active
enemy of their fatherlands, culture, and religion – their loyalties
reverted to where their hearts remain.
Arab Muslims are plenty proud of their race, root culture, and
religion. And many of them remain jealously loyal to the nations of their
fathers and grandfathers.
Ah, but nationalism and racial pride has become politically
incorrect in "white" majority nations. And white majorities that
resist immigration for any reason are considered xenophobic, racist, and out of
step with both reality and the times.
Whites are expected to be in the minority in the United States
in less than fifty years, and (hoping to garner minority votes), most of our major politicians seem to speak of the
prospect with a great deal of pride. But when we become a minority in
what was once "our" national homeland, who will champion our cause
when we become a large "troublesome" (and finally persecuted), minority? And what will be our chances for gaining another "Homeland"
of our own?
Chances are, when desperate and angry whites start floundering around in search of a
homeland, there will be none forthcoming. And there will be no
"fatherland" or "mother country" to flee to either. They too
will have been over-run by "others" from "elsewhere."
To the increasing minorities this is simply justice, and if justice rules in the end,
perhaps some alien superpower in the
distant future will give
the Continental United States (and maybe Canada too), back to the Native Americans
– just like the Great Britain once gave Palestine to the Zionists.
The global
consensus may well be in favor of such a development – just as long as
the rights of North American Africans, Latin Americans, Asians, and Arabs are
respected (as was done on behalf of the Palestinians in Palestine). As for the North American Anglos, and other northern European
races, they will get what the world figures they deserve – what they have in
fact actually earned.
And they (meaning us "Anglo-Americans"),
have earned it, in great part, by actively betraying their own racial and
cultural heritage and their own religion. They will have earned it by
failing to preserve their own government institutions (which were of the most
enlightened and workable variety), failing to defend their
own fatherlands, and failing to honor their forefathers and the blood they
sacrificed in order to conquer, occupy, and build a great nation.
Nobody will feel sorry for such a people (who had finally sought
to make a paying proposition of remaking and ruling the world while
betraying their own nations and ancestors). Such people, it may said, don't
deserve to have their own nation, or even survive. They'll just have to do as best they can, and hope
nobody holds enough of a grudge to work up a consensus aimed at total
liquidation.
"White man, you've had your chance – had it big time
– and you blew it! You've had your day, and now it's OUR turn – and our
world! Thank YOU!"
Where will we go in our final hour of need? England won't take us. It's too
small and,
in a hundred more years, the few Englishmen left there won't have much say anyway. Germany won't take us
for the same reasons. France won't take us, because we can't speak French.
Mexico won't take those of us who aren't rich, because its leaders believe in Mexico
for the Mexicans. Same for the rest of Latin America. China won't take us
because we aren't Chinese. Japan won't take us because we aren't Japanese. No
international power will give us the largely vacant land of Patagonia, because the global consensus
will likely be for Patagonia for the Patagonians (or at least the Argentineans).
Perhaps Antarctica. At least we might be preserved in ice as specimens of a lost race that once built great civilizations and empires and finally sought to rule the world
while rotting at the core and self-destructing (like Egypt and Rome before us).
Ah, take heart. It isn't that bad. (Yet!) There's plenty of us, even
if we've blown our chance at having nations of our own, we may have the last laugh
yet. While we still sought to rule the world, we gave to the peoples of all
nations atom and hydrogen bombs, missile delivery systems, plenty of other advanced
weapons of mass destruction, and biological warfare
technologies. We seeded the globe with poisons, introduced new toxic life forms, new food
crops, and new diseases (or at least the ability to manufacture them).
Though
the white man may be gone (or at least totally de-fanged and made homeless), human nature will not have changed. Anything can happen. For example, though we have not
yet been able
to do it, some future group of brilliant scientists may eventually manage to
replicate, or at least demonstrate some reasonable facsimile of, the "Big
Bang."
This might be God's ultimate "justice," as He wipes
one of His little slates clean and prepares for another minor exercise in Universe building.
Meanwhile, back in the present work-a-day world of reality and
fantasy, we look on in wonder at world events, and speculate upon any
increasingly uncertain future.
John Q. Pridger
SPEAKING OF "AMERICA FOR THE NATIVE AMERICANS"
Speaking of giving the good old U.S.A. back to the Indians...
They have a more claim on the continental U.S. than anybody else.
When any of us seek to limit new massive levels of foreign
immigration, immigration advocates are fond of reminding us that, "the United States is a nation
of immigrants."
True enough, but far from being justification to invite or
allow further immigration, it's an admission that none of us (who are not Native
Americans), actually have a right to be here. The original occupant/owners never gave their
informed consent for any of the immigration that resulted in the United States
of America.
As far as Native Americans are concerned, from
the time Christopher Columbus first planted the Spanish cross in the New World,
European conquest and settlement of the Americas has been nothing but a long
unbroken chain of very pushy "illegal immigration."
Discounting all religious rhetoric, Native American claims are much more recent, and arguably much more valid and
compelling, than even the modern Zionist claim to Palestine. After all, the
ancient Israelites were immigrants from Egypt when they first staked their claim
to the Promised Land. And, as far as the original occupants were concerned, they
were illegal immigrants who forced their way into the area.
If, at some future time, the American Indians can enlist the assistance of
some great superpower, maybe they will be able to expel, or otherwise eradicate all the
foreign interlopers, as the Israelites were once expelled from their Promised
Land.
If the "justice" routinely advocated by modern
liberalism should be a guide, and if God is just to boot, it's only a matter of time
before the descendents of the vanquished rise up and reclaim their inheritance.
Might as well get ready. Ferret out a little Indian
blood in your veins if you can, and join a tribe.
It can be done. One of Pridger's oldest friends from school days is about
one-eight Shawnee Indian. Early in life he swapped his Anglo-American identity
for an un-hyphenated Shawnee Indian identity. He became 100% Indian (i.e.,
Native American), in
heart and mind, and took to the warpath, along with the united tribes, against the Anglo
interlopers.
Unlike Pridger, his friend can express any amount of pride in his race
and its culture, and he will receive accolades for it from every quarter. If Pridger were to express a swelling pride in his own
race and its culture, he'd be
considered a racist, and forthwith reminded of all the dastardly conduct his
race is guilty of.
Like most Native Americans, Pridger's friend has shed all former intertribal
hatreds and enmities, permanently buried the hatchet (at least until after the
re-conquest), and joined hands with other Indians to retake the land, once
little piece at a time.
It's a small start, but they're working at it.
Pridger is thinking of helping out. As outlined above, the nation our forefathers
conquered and settled (our Promised Land), is about washed up anyway. It has
already been given away (by our trusty leadership in Washington), to the foreign
competition – in the form of global capital interests. Politically and culturally,
it has been made into a global melting pot dedicated to multiculturalism, racial
amalgamation, rampant materialistic modernity, super-consumerism, cake and circus
interests and occupations, and international interdependence.
Anybody who hasn't successfully made it into the "smart
money" class, doesn't really count. He's just another hopeless census
statistic, useful only to the extent that he can manage to remain a consumer.
In short, the way Pridger sees it, we've come to a point in
our history where
taking the side of the Indians seems a lot more patriotic than supporting those
who have trashed the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, thrown away
every national advantage we once had, and are now seeking, through force of arms, to
bring a similar "democracy" to Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
The New World Order builders in Washington are much greater enemies
to the nation of our forefathers than the combined tribes seemingly hopelessly seeking to "take
their land back." And, in the end, the Indian cause is much more just and
deserving of success than that of the worshipers of Mammon who presently drive the
"wonderful new world."
Why not join a truly just cause? Pridger has a
plan to join up and make a few bucks in the process – maybe even transcend
into the smart money class. He's retired, and if he had a few million
dollars he could make that retirement into the epitome of the modern American
dream (before push finally comes to shove), and live in splendor near some enchanted theme park or maybe even
in a real Asian Paradise.
The tribes are looking to acquire real estate in the Heartland to begin
re-establishing their presence and enlarging their claims. It occurs to
Pridger that his Paradise Ridge plantation would make a wonderful beginning for a tribal
enclave from which to operate. It's in almost pristine eastern woodland Indian habitat,
and there's plenty of room for a sizable Indian village down in Paradise Bottom
next to Eden creek. Up on top of the Paradise Ridge there's a splendid site for at least a modest sized gambling casino with ample
parking.
All Pridger has to do is make a partnership arrangement with
the tribes – his friend being one of the native agents. They, using their 501,
c, 3 non-profit corporations, oiled up with
various government grants and incentives extended to Native Americans, can
purchase a controlling interest in Pridger's land for their proposed
"school" and "cultural center."
Once that is accomplished, of course, the new proprietors will
be approached by slick casino
operators and cigarette venders who are always eager to assist Indians become financially independent.
Pridger, by allying himself with the tribes and carefully preserving a modest piece of the action at every stage,
should be able to further the goal of justice for the Indian people while
putting himself on easy street.
By the time the Pridger's Retreat and the new chicken house
are being bulldozed to the ground
to make room for casino parking, he can be safely re-established in some
retirement community, perhaps near Disney World, or sipping beer in Pattaya, Thailand.
Pattaya may not have a Wal-Mart yet, but it has plenty of
7-Elevens, lots of great beaches and palm trees, plenty of friendly bars, and just about everything else an old man might hanker for during his
declining years.
Well, veto all that. Upon hearing of the plan, the lady of the house
grabbed a hatchet, went on the war path, and set her foot
down. Whiles she's all for becoming filthy rich (preferably by winning the
lottery), she can't see allowing a bunch
of Indians (or anybody else), trampling all over her flower beds! And she
doesn't want them bulldozed either. She doesn't like
places like Disney World, and is highly suspicious of Pridger's motives for
favoring Pattaya as a retirement destination.
John Q. Pridger
Tuesday, 15 August, 2006
GOOD NEWS – BAD NEWS
The good news is that there is a ceasefire in place in the
latest Israeli/Lebanon war. The killing and destruction have stopped, at least
temporarily.
The bad news is that nothing has really been gained by either
party, and much life has been lost and property destroyed. No doubt "hate
capital" on both sides has increased like the proceeds of a Wall Street
bull market on steroids. Relations between Israel and it's resident Palestinians
and Arab neighbors are probably back to about where they were in 1948 (or pick
any subsequent war year), and the prospects for real "solutions" and
lasting peace in the region stands at about zero minus.
It continues to be a sorry, heart-rending, perpetually
impossible, situation, for all parties involved.
Pridger has spent too much time commenting on this subject. To
state the obvious is to offend friends and perhaps unintentionally make enemies.
And, as Pridger's old Pappy used to say, "It's better to have one friend
than ten thousand enemies."
If Israel could have been planted on vacant land, rather than
on somebody else's real estate, the Zionist dream would have been wonderful.
But, unfortunately, "tomorrow Jerusalem" had been the goal of
Christians and Jews since biblical times. The Muslims came on it too, and Arabs have
had a leg up simply by being there all along.
Christians finally lost out to the Muslims in the Crusades,
and learned their lesson – for a while. But then, almost a thousand years down the
road, an Anglo-American alliance, with a powerful Zionist component, effectively
decided to retake Palestine and establish a "friendly presence" in the
Middle East in the form of a Jewish Homeland.
Intentions were good, of course, but the well intended parties
failed to take some important realities into consideration. The costs of this
oversight have been considerable and ongoing, and there is no relief in sight.
The "oversight" was multi-tiered. (1) Palestine was
occupied by Arabs and had been from time immemorial – thus colonial powers had
no right to "give it" to anybody else (defeat of the Ottoman Empire
not withstanding). (2) The Zionists didn't just desire a "Jewish
Homeland" in Palestine (co-existing peaceably with the Palestinian Arabs)
– they envisioned a pure and exclusive "Jewish State," and the
Anglo-American alliance considered such a development in their own best
interests. (3) The colonial system, along with the "right of conquest"
doctrine, that made it possible for the British to grant the Zionists a Jewish
Homeland in Palestine, was already doomed. The League of Nations, under which
the British ruled Palestine, was itself the official beginning of a new
post-colonial era. The British Empire was literally on its deathbed at the time
Israel declared independence in 1948.
Ironically, the United States, in spite of its alliance with
the British Empire, was in the very forefront of bringing the colonial system
down. "Freedom, independence, and self-determination" for all nations
and peoples was an American war cry during World War Two.
It is more than just ironic that the establishment of Israel
(even in its independence), was one of the last, and most costly and
troublesome, creations of the colonial era.
The design on the part of the Anglo-American alliance was to
establish a permanent, friendly, and strategically situated "Western"
beachhead in the Middle East. They succeeded, but that "beachhead" has
proven to be a lot more trouble than it has been worth, especially since part of
the motivation for wanting such a beachhead was to "secure" and
"defend" the increasingly important Middle East oil supplies.
Israel has been a garrison state from its very inception, and
the Israeli people, once so joyful and proud of having their own nation, and
hopeful for a long and peaceful national existence, have been suffering warfare
and strife ever since. And the Palestinian people have suffered considerably
more than the Israelis.
No remedies in sight. The light at the end of the tunnel
has receded again.
Thursday, 10 August, 2006
THE MARCH TO ARMAGEDDON
With the terror scorecard now running over 10 to 1 in Israel's
favor, and the number of Lebanese civilians displaced nearing a million
unfortunate civilians, Israel isn't satisfied. Because the enemy still exists,
resists, and manages to inflict a little pain and suffering on Israelis, Israel
is threatening to escalate the carnage, in hopes of accomplishing its goals
before some sort of a ceasefire is imposed. The goal, of course, is to kill off
Hezbollah completely, if possible, or at the very least totally gut and de-fang it
militarily. And Israel doesn't care how many innocent civilians are caught in the
crossfire.
It is always Israel's policy to maximize carnage, to teach the enemy
and the world a lesson. "You don't mess with Israel!" It believes in
overkill, and that the best defense is a wickedly devastating offense. And we can hardly blame
them given the difficult situation the Israeli state is in. But wicked offenses (even if
they result in victory), can turn into a curse – because, though the battle
may be won, the flames of hatred have been fanned and future conflict assured. The Arabs, like
the Israelis, "never forget," and they are not likely to forgive. And,
ultimately, time is on the side of the Arabs.
It would be funny, if it weren't so confounded tragic, how the
Israelis and their apologists bewail and lament Hezbollah's
"indiscriminate shelling" of northern Israel, when the carnage and
wholesale destruction Israel is inflicting on innocent men, women, and children,
and the whole nation of Lebanon, literally puts it to shame. The Israelis justify
attacking and destroying Hezbollah and "Hezbollah infrastructure,"
(collateral damage being unavoidable), but that infrastructure is, in fact, the Lebanese
infrastructure. Hezbollah just happens to use it like everybody else, because it
is there for all the people.
The truth of the matter is, a guerrilla army such as Hezbollah
needs infrastructure much less than does the general population. So the war
against Hezbollah is necessarily more of a war against the civilian population
than against the guerrilla army. Naturally, Israel claims that Hezbollah is
using the civilian population as a human shield. But Hezbollah is not only a
guerrilla army, but a goodly segment of that civilian population. In any case,
Israel has no qualms about excessive collateral damage.
Unfortunately, that's how modern warfare works – demoralize
the enemy by becoming a mechanized mad dog. This is "good terror"
aimed at the "bad guys," their families, friends, supporters, and
neighbors.
Hezbollah, of course, know that they are actually the
"good guys," fighting the good fight, in their own defense. They
consider the Israelis the real bad guys. And they consider the United States
pretty bad too, for making sure the bad guys have sufficient planes, tanks, and
bombs with which to kill and render homeless the persecuted good people of
Palestine and Lebanon.
President Bush and Secretary Rice have shown their hands from
the very beginning of the crises. "Israel has the right to defend
itself," they said, and (effectively), "We want this terrible carnage
and destruction to end –
but not before Israel has crushed Hezbollah." And, "Hezbollah started
it."
How is it that Israel can "defend" itself by waging
a major destructive war on Lebanon, but Hezbollah and Lebanon don't have the
right to defend themselves? Clearly, in spite of all U.S. media efforts to make
Hezbollah the villain, the carnage and destruction are still so one-sided that
Pridger finds it difficult to sympathize with the overdog.
Israel with its unlimited supply of sophisticated American
warplanes, bombs (both smart and dumb), tanks, and artillery, against a small army of foot-soldiers
with what can only comparatively be called "Mickey Mouse" rockets, can
hardly be seen as the persecuted underdog. While much is being made of the fact that
Hezbollah has Syria and Iran in its corner, and that they may be lending
material support, America, four square in Israel's corner, is "merely
helping God defend His Chosen People."
Americans have had so much pro-Israeli
propaganda pumped into them for so many decades, that most Americans know that
Israel is like a brilliant beacon of democracy in a sea of Arabian darkness. It's like
"a little bit of the USA" precariously planted in the Holy Land, and
naturally must be defended at any cost.
Hezbollah is being cast (at least in the American media), as
the terrorist aggressor, while Israel is being portrayed as the valiant
"defender" of its homeland. Talk about getting things backwards! And
the amazing thing is that so many are buying into the pro-Israeli propaganda,
i.e., "Those poor persecuted Israelis!"
Yes, Pridger's heart bleeds for the Israeli's who are
suffering too – and the fact that they cannot live in peace and security. But
the pain and suffering score card is heavily weighted against the Palestinian
people, and now again the Lebanese.
One cannot but wonder whose purposes are really being served.
Obviously, the United States administration is making it
apparent that Israel must actually be serving
America's purposes. And even with Israel's ability to inflict overwhelming death
and destruction on the enemy, this "war" would be absolutely suicidal
for Israel in the long term, if Israel wasn't confident that Uncle Sam was going
to protect its interests.
Yet, though Hezbollah and the Lebanese people are taking one
hell of a pounding, Hezbollah fighters seems to be winning the hearts and minds of almost
everybody that actually sees what is going on in the larger context. Hezbollah
is seen as the David standing up to the Goliath Israeli-American combine.
Let's take another look at Hezbollah's provocation – the
"terrorist aggression" that provoked Israel to "defend
itself" by launching a major war offensive.
Hezbollah fighters are alleged to have crossed into northern Israel,
killed some Israeli soldiers, and abducted two others in hopes they might buy the
freedom of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Of course, that would have been quite a provocation on the
part of Hezbollah, given Israel's penchant for overreaction.
Yet, given the "standard strife level" in
Israel and Palestine, this provocation would seem a somewhat insignificant event, and certainly not cause
to initiate a catastrophic military assault against Lebanon.
As it turns out, however, apparently early reports in the European press
indicate the Israeli soldiers had been on the Lebanon side of the border when Hezbollah attacked
them, "capturing" two.
If this is true, the initial aggression was that of
Israeli troops rather than Hezbollah, and Hezbollah was within its rights
dealing with the the Israeli soldiers as they did. And if this was indeed the case, yet another war has been started under totally
false pretenses.
Of course, Pridger doesn't claim to know the truth of the matter, but
he does know that the wholesale mayhem, death, and destruction in Lebanon that
Israel has wrought was totally
uncalled for and totally out of proportion to the incident that sparked it.
We can be fairly certain that Israel would not have started a
major war over such a minor thing without the foreknowledge and full approval, if not
active encouragement, of
Washington. The provocative event, however, was probably not the cause, but merely
the excuse for something that was already planned. As usual, there is a lot
more going on than meets the eye.
Of course, the bad and worsening situation in Gaza undoubtedly
played a major role. "Democracy" within the Palestinian Authority, and
the bloody results in Gaza, undoubtedly had a lot to do with both Hezbollah's
"provocation," and the "Israeli-American" response. The
"democratic results" of the Palestinian elections didn't suit us.
SPEAKING OF FRIENDS
AND DEMOCRACIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST...
The Islamic revolution in Iran didn't teach us anything. Iran
was our friend and ally as long as the Shah ruled with an iron fist. When his hand
weakened, and democracy reigned momentarily, a radical, anti-American, Islamic
regime resulted.
When Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, Iraq became our friend. In
fact, Iraq was such a good friend that it was able to attack one of our warships
(the USS Stark), killing a lot of American sailors, hoping to pin the blame on
Iran. Israel, our best friend of all, had done exactly the same thing some
years previously (the USS Liberty, 1967), hoping to pin the blame on Egypt. The
"pin the blame on the enemy" ruse failed in both cases, but because
the attackers were our friends, apologies for the unfortunate
"mistakes" were sufficient.
When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait (after being lulled into
thinking he had a green light from the U.S.), Iraq became the enemy. Saddam was
poised, we said, to move on into Saudi Arabia, dominate the the entire region,
and supposedly keep all the oil for himself. So, since we obviously have more
say in the Middle East than Saddam Hussein, we pounced, and restored compliant
royalty (not democracy), to the kingdom of Kuwait.
Still, we hope to bring democracy (or at least compliant
regimes), to all nations in the
Middle East. The recent Palestinian elections, should have reminded us that
democracy in the Middle East should never be our goal.
HINT: Democracy doesn't spell compliance – it spells
majority rule. Majority rule is definitely NOT what we want in most Middle East
nations if we expect compliance with our global agenda. Why play such a deceptively
crooked game?
In fact, when you get right down to brass tacks, Pridger believes our "goal" ought to
majority rule in our own nation, and "self-improvement." What good is democracy building on the turf of
others if we are forgetting how to deliver the goods at home?
And even in the United States, what good is majority rule when
the majority is deceived, denied the facts, the information, and the education
necessary for enlightened self-governance?
The Arab governments that remain our friends and allies in the
area, remain so only because they "are not" democracies. They can be
our friends only as long as their governments can rule with an iron fist and
thwart the will of the people, who are almost all anti-Israel and anti-American
in their sentiments. You'd think our leaders would realize that by
now.
If we leave Iraq with some facsimile of a democracy, we can be
fairly certain that it will be short lived, and an anti-American Islamic
government will emerge.
Unfortunately, it's beginning to look as though the best we'll
be able to do is leave Iraq in ruins – no matter how good our intentions are,
and how much it costs.
Of course, common sense should have told us that a long time
ago. But common sense obviously doesn't often manifest itself among our ruling
classes and policy wonks in Washington.
Democracy would be the last thing we would want in nations
populated by large mutually hostile religious minorities. Iraq and Afghanistan
are two prime examples. At best, democracy means a hard-shell, anti-American
Islamic regime. At worst, it means unending civil strife and regional
instability.
Saddam Hussein, was about the best sort of leader Iraq might
have had. He was a strong enough dictator to keep
the nation together. He wasn't any more anti-American than any other Arab leader
(at least until our first invasion). And it's going to be hard to find a
suitable replacement. If we leave the nation as democracy, it'll probably fall
apart and a military strongman or popular Islamic cleric will eventually emerge
to take control. Or Iraq may disintegrate into two or more nations.
In the end, we probably won't get the "democracy" we
claim to want in Iraq. But, we may get what Israel has wanted all along – a
broken, weak, fragmented, country, divided against itself, and thus much less of a
threat to Israel.
For some odd reason, the American leadership is uniformly happy with the sort of democracy
Israel has. We often hear that Israel is the only "democracy in the
Middle East."
Israeli democracy does work rather well. Unfortunately,
Israeli democracy wouldn't work
very well if the Arab Palestinian population (resident and exiled, which
comprise the natural majority in Greater Palestine), ever got the
voting franchise. Israel works well because it isn't really a democracy at all.
It's a most peculiar sort of state – perhaps the most peculiar state that has
ever existed. It's a "secular state" which is also (and very
strictly), a "Jewish State." No others need apply for citizenship or
the voting franchise.
Oh yes, there remains an Arab minority in Israel that has
Israeli citizenship. But its status is hardly in the "free, white, and over
twenty-one" category.
LIQUIDATING THE OPPOSITION
Any observer of the history of Israel who has also read the
Old Testament cannot avoid seeing many parallels between "then and
now." One cannot avoid concluding that Israel would very much like to
totally liquidate not only Hezbollah, but the entire Palestinian people. That,
after all, was the original condition God supposedly placed on the Israelites when He "gave" them the Promised Land.
God instructed his Chosen
People to kill every man, woman, child, and beast of the fields, and the
Promised Land would be theirs.
The Children of Israel were not quite heard-hearted enough,
and failed to totally liquidate the Canaanite opposition. Though they ruled Palestine for a while, God
was unhappy and sent them
away into permanent exile for not being a little more thorough in carrying out
His instructions.
The modern state of Israel, and Zionist claims to Palestine,
of course, are founded on the same Old Testament biblical claim of the ancient
Israelites. (This, most peculiarly, in spite of the secular orientation of the
modern Zionists) It remains to
be seen whether God has softened his conditions of ownership – or if He grants
that present day Jews and Zionists are the "legitimate" heirs of the ancient
Israelites.
The only thing that has prevented the modern Israelites from
carrying out the original biblical mandate, is that "genocide" and
"ethnic cleansing" have become
excruciatingly politically incorrect in this day and age.
Ironically, the Jews
themselves are part of the reason genocide and ethnic cleansing have come into such ill repute.
They didn't like it a bit when Hitler attempted to do such a number on them, and
they have very successfully used the that experience, and their own persecution, as very effective propaganda weapons against the practice. In fact, they won't let
any of us forget about the Nazi Holocaust. We're not only reminded of it
continually, we're constantly lectured to "Never forget!"
Not only that! For those who admit to being Christian Gentiles
(or just of Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic lineage), care is taken to inoculate them
with a goodly share of indirect blame for the Holocaust. In fact (just in case),
powerful Jewish organizations are the strongest voices and advocates of the "separation of church and state" in America,
and the total severing
of any and all "Christian identity" from the
American national identity.
In their
self-proclaimed role as "the conscience of the western world," Jewish
organizations in
general are first and foremost in insisting that "genocide is a major no, no." Thus,
in Israel, they find themselves hamstrung by their own hand and rhetorical influence.
They also say that racial and religious "discrimination" are major
"no, nos." Yet, it's okay in Israel, because Israel is after all, first and
foremost, a "Jewish State."
Yet, by their own actions, it is clear that they would solve
their current problems by doing what God allegedly originally told
"them" to do well over two thousand years ago. Even though perhaps the
large majority of Zionists are either agnostic or atheist, they are still very
much "Jewish," are at least as nationalistic and ethnocentric as Hitler ever was, and
they are also very practical. So, in the name of national defense they are coming as close
to genocide as they dare in their dealings with their Palestinian and Hezbollah neighbors.
It's ironic that Israel now considers it feasible to
liquidate Hezbollah by invading southern Lebanon (and dealing wholesale,
indiscriminant, punishment upon the Lebanese people), when Hezbollah came into existence in the
first place as the result of Israel's previous invasion and occupation of
Lebanon.
If Hezbollah was born of Israeli invasion and occupation of
southern Lebanon, and was significantly responsible for the end of that
occupation, what is the logic of Israel invading and occupying southern Lebanon
again, in the face of a much stronger Hezbollah?
It really doesn't make any sense except when viewed in a much
larger regional context – including our war on terror. Since the United States
classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, Israel can consider it fair game for extermination.
Apparently Israel is following Washington's lead by failing
to take history and past experience into account. The United States, in spite of
abundant good intentions, has become famously noted for this crippling failing.
And the regional implications reach far beyond the Hezbollah
of southern Lebanon. The U.S. administration and American news
media are going the extra mile to make it appear that Hezbollah is actually a proxy for
Iran and Syria – two countries the Bush administration would very much like to
"reform" and turn into democracies. If one considers Israel a proxy for the Bush
administration's larger Middle East agenda,
the apparently foolhardy behavior of Israel begins to make a perverse sort of
sense.
The real goal appears to be to manufacture an opening for a
larger regional conflict – one in which the United States would feel justified
in taking a more direct and active role and perform democratic miracles.
Considering the fact that Israel's attempt to liquidate
Hezbollah has been an attack on the entire Lebanese people, one wonders why the Lebanese government has not committed its
army to join Hezbollah in fighting Israeli aggression.
The only answer is that the government of Lebanon is fully
aware of the larger picture and the high stakes involved, and is unwilling to
make Lebanon a larger battleground and death trap than it already is. In short, the
Lebanese government is pretty pragmatic, and is thus pretty effectively
intimidated by the Israel-U.S. combine.
In any case, it is becoming increasingly clear, that if Israel does not decisively
"win" this current battle, the war has only just begun. And,
conversely, if it does
win, the war has still only just begun, because Hezbollah has greatly enhanced
its standing and become the
champion of the entire region. It isn't going to disarm or go away, and is just as likely
to ignore UN resolutions as Israel.
If Hezbollah is destroyed, in time it will likely rise
from the ashes like a Phoenix stronger than before. Thanks to Israel's excesses,
and Hezbollah's heroic stand, and ability to inflict at least some pain and
suffering on Israel, it is perhaps succeeding al Quaeda as the symbol of a
gallant struggle between the Moslem world (both
radical and non-radical), and what Malaysian author Matthias Chang, in his
recent book Future Fastforward, has styled "The Zionist
Anglo-American Empire."
Meanwhile, in addition to Islamic Jihadists, American
Evangelical Christians are doing all within their power to fan the flames of
Middle East conflict, in order to encourage Armageddon
at the earliest possible date. They are exerting their wrong-headed influence to
Israel and the United States military on, in what they perversely see as their
role as "great facilitators" looking to the "second coming."
Now there's even a lot of wild speculation, and oil being
added to the fire, by media pundits and bloggers with regard to Iran's promise
to "respond" to the West's concerns over the Iranian nuclear program
on August 22nd. It seems that date has some special Islamic significance, and the
fires of wild speculation are being fanned in hopes that these interesting times
will become even more interesting, and that biblical prophecy is being properly fulfilled.
Pridger is not optimistic about any of this. The world is
sick, the Middle East is a seething caldron always close to boiling over, and the only superpower capable of effecting anything like a cure has become the preeminent
global witch doctor stirring the witches' brew.
John Q. Pridger
Tuesday, 1 August, 2006
MONEY MATTERS
Money matters, of course. As Pridger has tried to iterate
several times in the past, our present monetary system is at the core of a dangerous
and festering problem. The system is a Ponzi scheme destined
for ultimate collapse, bringing down all that depends on it. It's a Ponzi scheme
that might have worked almost indefinitely – skinning us slowly – had
Congress exercised a modicum of fiscal restraint, but fiscal restraint went out
of style when the welfare state was added to the warfare state, and the
disciplinary constraints of the gold standard were abandoned.
It's pretty
difficult to pin down when and how that collapse will occur, however. The state
of the arts in maturing science of "Voodoo Economics" seems able to pull enumerable rabbits out of an
amazing array of hats.
But there is one thing that is certain. The purchasing power of
the U.S. dollar will continue its steady decline, and that decline will take a
few steep dives as time goes on. That, simply stated, is the nature of the beast – and a means by which labor, and all
holders of U.S. currency, are perpetually being sheared, the fruits of their
labors misappropriated by the "system."
To put the problem in the simplest terms, however, our present monetary
structure is simply a debt pyramid, and this is the underlying structure upon
which the stock market and big business depend and operate. And while pyramids are known to be the most
stable sort of structures, that stability requires that its building blocks be
sound – and that the pyramid have its
base sitting solidly on firm ground.
Not only is our financial pyramid built on shifting sand,
it's upside down, with its broad base glaring at the sky and its point jammed
into the sand. Needless to say, a monumental upside-down pyramid, built on shifting sand, isn't
very stable. Only a carefully maintained equilibrium, combined with the magic of the illusionist, can
facilitate the public confidence required for the system to continue to
function.
What's worse, is the fact that a lot of the
"substance" of the pyramid is smoke and mirrors. The entire edifice is
riddled with huge pockets of phantom wealth, and is infected with such things as
"derivatives," which are the AIDS/HIV of the financial system.
Credit and debt has always been recognized as a fundamental and necessary economic building
block in a modern economy. But even during
the heady early days of the opening of the "wonderful new world" the ratio of debt to
physical assets was recognized as important – and it mattered who was in debt
to whom, and on what terms. As everybody knows, a debtor/creditor relationship can threaten and
destroy old friendships. And nobody wants to be indebted to an enemy.
As the realization of out-of-control national deficits and debt began
to become disturbing, there came a cry of joy from enthusiastic economists, "The
debt is no problem," they said, "since we owe it to ourselves!"
Certainly, that's sounded pretty good – until we realize that perhaps (in our
ignorance0, we had
become our own worst enemy.
But, even that illusion has changed. We no longer owe it to
ourselves by any significant stretch of the imagination. The debt pyramid began
its inversion during the mid-twentieth
century – as the costs of the Cold War and social spending programs, combined
with abandonment of some of the more enlightened economic policies of the war
years – began producing larger and larger budgetary deficits.
The United
States had been in an enviable economic situation in spite of the costs of the
Second World War and the Marshall Plan. But the chickens began coming home to
roost as Congress piled on more and more costly social programs – and war – which taxes
could not satisfy.
The Korean War had added plenty to the problem, but it wasn't until
the Vietnam War that deficit spending started to get totally out of hand. Not
only was the war itself very costly, but the Civil Rights era was on hand and
social spending took on more than just a life of its own. It was during the Vietnam
War era, Pridger understands, when Congress began raiding the Social Security Trust Fund in
a deceptive attempt
to make the fiscal situation appear less critical than it actually was.
Even before Vietnam, foreign governments holding U.S. dollars
had begun getting a
little nervous about our increasing deficits. And since the good old American
dollar was then still "good as gold" (at least as far as foreign governments
were concerned), many (notably France), began cashing their dollars in for gold.
They knew that the the opportunity could not last, so they were getting while
the getting was good.
In response, in preparation for the inevitable, the Treasury
began debasing our coinage, by reducing the silver content, and finally
eliminating it all together. Nixon finally slammed the gold window shut in 1971 or so, and the United
States and world went off of the gold standard.
The dollar was set free to
sink (or plunge), to a more realistic value in light of its inflated global
volume and position.
Most major national currencies, including the dollar, were henceforth allowed to
"float" and find their own value levels in the global financial
markets. Among other things, with the abandonment of fixed exchange rates, the
major currencies
itself became another speculative commodity, and this set off a new major global exchange market.
Global currency exchanges, like the stock market itself,
effectively became a global casino game.
While (when the gold standard was abandoned), the dollar had initially been devalued from $35 an ounce
to about $42 an ounce in terms of gold, this was still an unrealistic ratio, and
since the dollar was no longer convertible to gold anyway, the revaluation had
no basis in reality. Money had been set free from what economists began calling
"that barbarous relic." And that barbaric relic, now considered just
another commodity, demands well over
$650.00 on ounce and is destined to go much higher.
The American debt pyramid inverted sure enough
during the early Reagan years. That's when we woke up to the fact that the
United States had "all of a sudden" gone from being the world's
greatest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation.
That was quite a
wakeup call. But nobody really woke up. The international money men merely
changed all the rules of the game to more snuggly fit their own goals and
purposes. These purposes were,
of course, to sustain the system and assure themselves perpetual profits, no matter how the value of
the dollar (or any other major currency), may gyrate in international markets.
Today economists can no longer say of the debt that "we owe it to
ourselves." We are literally indebted to the world. Now the economists'
role is to reassure us with fables of the wonders of international interdependence, and
that "Debt levels really don't matter any more, as long as international business
continues to expand." And, amazingly, "Never mind – the debt never has to be
repaid. All we have to do it roll it over – and it can be rolled over forever!"
Even many former fiscal conservatives, such as radio
pundit Rush Limbaugh, bought into that line.
But even as this new economic wonder was established,
the interest on the national debt inches ever closer to becoming the largest
single item in the budget. And it is also one of the few totally non-discretionary
items in the budget – meaning that the bankers and holders of Treasury bonds
have to be paid even before Congress and our fighting men can be paid. Eventually it will not only be the largest item in
the budget (surpassing military and social spending combined), it will become the 8 million ton gorilla that breaks the camel's
back.
When the gold standard was abandoned money, in effect, went from being a measure of wealth to
purely a
measure of debt. And all wealth is a factor of debt, upon which interest is
perpetually paid.
This, of course, produced the ultimate Utopia for the money
changers in the Temple, who
collect interest off of every dollar in the global marketplace, no matter how
that money may be employed or fluctuate in value. To them, our monetary system
is one of perpetually assured profits.
Our economic train is now speeding through a long dark tunnel.
"Put more coal on the fire!" the engineer joyfully cries to the
fireman, "I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!"
So we have an inverted economic pyramid that continues to
grow. "Confidence," of course, is the key word – and key to
continued workability of the system. We will have financial
stability as long as public confidence in the money and market system holds.
Confidence is the big
hot-air balloon that continues to keep the overhanging financial pyramid
balanced on its apex. As long as a significant majority of the people never get a
glimpse of how the system works, and how precariously perched that inverted monstrosity
is, confidence can be expected to remain strong and a tenuous equilibrium
maintained. As long as public confidence is maintained, we can believe the light at the end of the
tunnel isn't that of an oncoming fast freight, and all will be well – until we
find out differently.
But reality threatens to set in with every shift of sand
beneath the pointed end of the behemoth, and the closing distance between the
economic train of state and that of the approaching light ahead.
The ongoing challenge for modern economists is to keep people
from seeing things as they actually are. The creative and almost infinitely
flexible science of Voodoo Economic has thus far managed to perform all the
required miracles. But how long it will be able to do it is anybody's guess as
other, often unforeseen, factors continue to weigh in.
The stock market, of course, is the big bellwether. When
confidence caves, so does the market. And when the market goes, billions
(perhaps trillions), of dollars in stock equity simply disappear at a moment's
notice.
In addition to the money men themselves, and the corporations
that represent the values traded in the stock market, the key players at the moment are our national
creditors – the largest of which are foreign nations. They are
at once in an enviable and dangerously vulnerable position. If they don't walk the
tight rope just right, and go along with the program, their dollar denominated assets could take a disastrous
nosedive.
Some of our largest creditors are former, traditional, or potential, enemies who would
love to see the grand edifice buoying Uncle Sam come crashing down. But,
fortunately for us, they
would be caught in the same crash and would fair no better than the United
States.
It might be said that we live in a world gone completely mad
– in more ways than just the fiscal sense.
And the only way to cope with it is to ignore the madness and consider it
normalcy. That's the key to public confidence – ignoring reality. Meanwhile, the key
ingredient to what is
passing as economic
health is more and more poison, prescribed in larger and larger doses – always with the
hope that a bodily collapse won't expose the underlying terminal illness.
FIAT MONEY
According to most economists, history has proven time and time again that fiat money is
poisonous folly. Until the era of Voodoo Economics, economists and bankers would have
been the very first to point this out. Money that had no backing in the form of
gold or silver was considered more dangerous than bored, frustrated, standing
armies with itchy trigger fingers.
A purely fiat money, merely issued and paid into circulation by a
government, depends on the honesty, integrity, and intelligence of that issuing
government. Since no such government has ever survived very long (so the reasoning
goes), it's best to keep money
tethered to something a little more solid and unquestionably honest than
fallible governments. Something such as gold. And the other truism, of course,
is that bankers are much
more trustworthy and able to manage a monetary system than government
bureaucrats.
Of course, all that about the necessity of gold backing has changed now, and
the entire world is on a fiat money basis. The gold window slammed
shut a full decade before the financial pyramid first up-ended onto its pointy
end. At
that time we went to a purely fiat, banker-debt money system.
Since then, with
the stabilizing discipline of a gold standard behind us, Congress (naturally), lost all fiscal
restraint. It's only real fiscal function since then has been to ratchet the debt
ceiling up fast enough to accommodate their own out-of-control spending.
So we now have the worst of all worlds with regard to
national and international monetary systems. But we have come to call it something wonderful – something
liberating, a "wonderful new world" where everything is "different" –
including the immutable laws of mathematics. Everything has changed, we're told, and we have nowhere to go but
up.
President Reagan's trickle-down monetary theory aptly illustrates
how things have been turned upside down. Trickle-down is contingent on the
proposition that all wealth flows from the top of the economic pyramid downward.
The font of wealth is now considered that endless reservoir of credit
administered by the Federal Reserve System.
But common sense once told us (and classic economists almost unanimously
agreed), that "all real wealth comes from the soil" and spreads upward through trade and market channels.
Currency, is merely a ticket system to facilitate fluidity in exchange and
commerce. For example, even gold (as well as all other mineral raw materials), has to be dug up from beneath the
soil – and most of our food is grown in or on the soil. In other words, not a
penny's worth of real wealth was ever created but but by the hand of labor.
Not only is our money purely fiat money, without any precious metal backing,
it's literally "owned" by our Federal Reserve bankers who (along with an array of other
investors/creditors), expect, and receive, interest payments on every dollar in existence, whether
paper, coin, or merely computerized ledger book entries.
The great font of wealth creation is now deemed to be the huge
credit engine presided over by the Federal Reserve and the money men of the
world. This is both the primary cause of the inverted economic pyramid and
the source of the notion that wealth is created at the top rather than the base
of the "physical" (as opposed to the financial) economic pyramid,
where most people live and work (or once worked, at the tasks that produce "real
wealth").
The inversion of the economic pyramid has not only perverted
economic thinking, producing the new science of Voodoo Economics, but has demonstrably resulted in a quickly widening gap
between the rich and the poor – a situation we in the United States had once
came frighteningly close to correcting.
Before the financial pyramid flopped, the American capitalist
system had produced the broadest based affluence the world had ever known.
Prosperity was really becoming an egalitarian affair, and for the first time in
the history of nation states, the "working classes" were actually
prospering. The great American middle class was the result.
Until the second half of the twentieth century, in spite of
the Federal Reserve, we had been getting a lot of things right – at least
after the Great Depression when the Fed obviously messed up badly by not
providing enough currency to drive the economy. But then, after the post WWII
prosperity, the focus
of our politicians finally came into alignment with the global money men, and
the New World Order (long in the making), started taking discernible shape.
What's worse, with victory in that last "great war,"
the Federal Reserve dollar became the international
reserve currency upon which the entire global economy rests. And more and more
countries, under various international financial pressures, are adopting the U.S.
dollar as their own national medium of exchange. We've totally lost control of
our own money.
Oh, of course (admittedly), there is
honesty and integrity in the banker money system, since the system itself was set up
by and for those who own and operate it. But at the same time we have a monetary system
which is the very epitome of the fox
guarding the hen house, and wolves tending the sheep.
If there were such a thing as "government of the people,
by the people, and for the people" (as fiction still has it that we have), the people would own their own money,
and the government would issue and spend it into circulation interest free, whether it be
purely fiat "trading chits" or gold backed hard money.
PYRAMID POWER AND PYRAMID PERFIDY (PP & PP)
The economy can be represented by two pyramids. The real
economic pyramid which, of physical necessity, sets properly upon its broad base,
and the financial pyramid, which has become inverted. Pridger loves to monkey
with symbols, and triangles and pyramids hold a particular fascination for him.
In the above graphic, represented as simple colored equilateral
triangles, we first see three upright pyramids.
The blue "population pyramid" represents the
natural hierarchical structure of society. The rich, famous, and powerful,
occupy the region of the apex, and the rest of society is spread throughout the
great lower mass of the pyramid – the broad base representing the working
classes upon which the entire population depends, i.e., the "unwashed
masses."
The yellow pyramid is a properly oriented "wealth
pyramid" wherein wealth is more or less evenly distributed, illustrating the concept
that wealth is created at the base and flows upward from the soil.
Superimposed over the population pyramid, the blue and
yellow combine to make a single green pyramid (green is "good"), signifying a properly oriented
and correlated pyramid. This represents the "economic pyramid"
in a balanced, egalitarian, system which would be conductive of justice and social and
economic stability.
The three are followed (from lower left), by a population
pyramid overlaid with an inverted wealth pyramid, or "financial
pyramid," showing a great preponderance of wealth at the top and little at
the bottom where most of the working masses are. This is the structure that
reflects the state of the arts under today's economic system (or what we
continue to move toward), with the idea that
wealth is created at the top and trickles down to the masses. This represents an
unjust and unstable system.
The next two figures are merely variations of the same
thing, neither of
which is indicative of a stable structure. Pridger was just playing with the two
triangular symbols.
What would the two triangles look like if they were
centered? Centering the upright
pyramid over the inverted financial pyramid, a Star of David appears. Wow! This, of
course, was mere coincidence, but nonetheless very symbolically interesting in
the context of this particular blog post – for three obvious reasons.
(1) Being the symbol of the State of Israel,
Zionism, and the Jewish people, the Star of David reminds us of the alleged influence Israel,
and influential Jewish Zionists, have in the Western World in general, and the
United States in particular.
(2) Whether one considers Israel the good guys or
the bad guys (or the hapless pawn in the saga of history or the agency of
approaching Armageddon), it unavoidably looms very large in our lives today, and
is very much in the news at the present time. Israel, in fact, commands a very
disproportionate amount of our national attention.
(3) The infamous "International
bankers" who make up the "money power" are, for better or worse,
historically associated with Jewish financial power. Mention the "International Bankers" and you have uttered a "code word"
meaning "Jewish Bankers." And if they weren't referred to with obvious
admiration, you are undoubtedly a rabid, radical, right-wing, anti-Semitic,
rascal, and really ought to be taken out and shot.
Of course there's little, if any, significant correlation
between the State of Israel and the International Bankers and the great
"money power." Everybody knows that Israel depends on American
taxpayers for at least $3 billion dollars of their operating expenses, not to
mention just a whole lot of their military hardware.
So, obviously, Israel is not the font of global wealth
creation. But it is the "Jewish State." And "Jews" (at least
the elite class of them), both
historically and presently, happen to be among the most astute financial wizards
on planet Earth (albeit, a very small and privileged few of them – almost none
of whom live in Israel).
On the other hand, it ought to be fairly clear that a Jewish
State (in Palestine or anywhere else), could not have come into being without
some pretty influential friends in high political and financial circles.
So much for today's fun and games segment.
John Q. Pridger
THE NEED FOR NATIONAL CURRENCIES
One of our great and growing problems today, of course, is the edifice called the New
World Order (financial and corporate globalism), which has brought the entire world under a single
debt-based exchange
system whereby the world can be "properly controlled" by the global money
power (and, of course, the corporations that have grown up around it). But today, as we see an unavoidable weakening of the dollar due to
out-of-control U.S. fiscal policy and trade deficits, other currencies are
threatening the dollar's international hegemony.
They could not be doing this if the U.S. dollar was really a
"U.S. Dollar" largely confined to the domestic economy. As everybody should know, Federal Reserve Currency is
the International reserve currency and the primary medium of global commerce. Thus, it
is not "ours" but everybody's currency.
As international confidence in
the American economy weakens, and America continues to manufacture enemies
around the world, the Euro is beginning to look more and more promising as a
possibly more stable alternative. And the European Union does not have the
tarnished image America has been busily manufacturing for itself recently. The
U.S. dollar is becoming the symbol of "Global Empire" – and there is
a significant portion of humanity that doesn't want to be dominated by an
American global empire.
But the Euro really isn't really much different from Federal
Reserve currency, and ultimately it is another tool of the same global "money
power." It's present strong position is only as strong as the European
Union in relation to America's self-imposed financial weaknesses. And, ultimately, the "United States of Europe" will be no more stable,
nor any better equipped to provide a stable global currency, than the United States of
America – perhaps less so.
The situation the United States is in today with it's own
monetary problems, illustrates that a national economy really cannot be
controlled without some sort of national control of its currency. While the
Federal Reserve is nominally in control, it's focus must necessarily be on the
world, rather than on what is best for an America in which "Americans"
are the beneficiaries of what was once supposed to have been their own nation
and national
monetary system.
One of the perennial problems the nation and world suffered
under monetary systems based on species (gold), was lack of sufficient medium of
exchange. There was never enough gold in the system to back enough paper to
solve the problem. But when the gold standard was dropped, that particular
problem was solved.
One thing that the Federal Reserve system has managed to do
during the last half century is to make plenty of money available. In fact the world is literally swimming in
Federal Reserve currency. Unfortunately, solving the problem of quantity did not
solve the problem of quality, stability, distribution, or long-term viability. We're flooded with debt money, thus are
unavoidably being overwhelmed by debt, with interest due on it in perpetuity.
We need to return to a truly national currency if we are ever
to regain control of our national economy. (This won't happen any time soon, of
course, since global stocks and securities are much more important to our political leadership than
national security and the welfare of the American people).
By "welfare of the American people," Pridger doesn't mean,
"making it possible and profitable for international corporations to
deliver consumer goods to them at the cheapest possible prices global
corporations can deliver."
The best interests and welfare of the American people would be
served by providing the wherewithal for an egalitarian national prosperity
through collective productive endeavor, oiled by a stable, abundant, and
scientifically controlled national currency.
America really doesn't have a national monetary system. It has
been preempted by the global money power, and the dollar is the global
reserve currency. Thus, America has become hostage to a global economy, and
economic and financial independence has been lost.
Those who profit from the system are happy, of course (and
there arm many who are), but the
average man in the street is beginning to feel insecure without having a handle
on what is causing the anxiety.
The New World Order and international
interdependence were supposed to be the panacea for both America and the world,
but it simply won't work in the long haul – and certainly not in the interests
of the American people.
Rather than delivering a broad-based national prosperity, it
has reintroduced a class system. The wealthy class is wealthier and much larger
than it ever was before, but the vast majority of working people are retuning to
a form of slavery, peonage, peasantry, serfdom, but without the security and
stability that once favored those institutions. Yet, the new peasantry has been
fooled into believing "it's all for the best," and "we've never
had it so good." It has been provided an over-abundance of cake and
circuses (and easy credit), to assure it that it is "moving on
up."
After the world went off the gold standard, gold still
continued to have a roll in global finance, but it basically provides a secure
reserve for central banks, and remains carefully salted away in storage vaults. Essentially, all
central banks lucky enough to have significant reserves of gold are now simply
holding onto it as sort of a "background" reserve. For actual
international exchange purposes a system of international "paper
gold," called "Special Drawing Rights," was instituted to provide
a facsimile of an international gold exchange for international trade. But paper
gold is not based on gold:
Special Drawing Rights
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of International Monetary Fund members. It is neither a currency, nor a claim on the IMF.
SDRs are defined in terms of a basket of major currencies used in international trade and finance. At present, the currencies in the basket are the euro, the pound sterling, the Japanese yen and the United States dollar. The amounts of each currency making up one SDR are chosen in accordance with the relative importance of the currency in international trade and finance. The determination of the currencies in the SDR basket and their amounts is made by the IMF Executive Board every five years. The weights of the currencies in the basket in the past were and currently are:
* 1981–1985: USD 42%, DEM 19%, JPY 13%, GBP 13%, FRF 13%
* 1986–1990: USD 42%, DEM 19%, JPY 15%, GBP 12%, FRF 12%
* 1991–1995: USD 40%, DEM 21%, JPY 17%, GBP 11%, FRF 11%
* 1996–2000: USD 39%, DEM 21%, JPY 18%, GBP 11%, FRF 11%
* 2001–2005: USD 45%, EUR 29%, JPY 15%, GBP 11%
* 2006–2010: USD 44%, EUR 34%, JPY 11%, GBP 11%
The value of one SDR in terms of United States dollars is determined daily by the IMF, based on the exchange rates of the currencies making up the basket, as quoted at noon at the London market. (If the London market is closed, New York market rates are used; if both markets are closed, European Central Bank reference rates are used.)
SDRs are used as a unit of account by the IMF and several other international organizations. A few countries peg their currencies against SDRs, and it is also used to denominate some private international financial instruments.
SDRs basically were created to replace gold in large international transactions. Being that under a strict (international) gold standard, the quantity of gold worldwide is relatively fixed, and worldwide the economies of all participating IMF members as an aggregate are growing, a need arose to increase the supply of the basic unit or standard proprotionately. Thus SDRs, or "paper gold" are credits that nations with balance of trade surpluses can 'draw' upon nations with balance of trade deficits.
So-called "paper gold" is little more than an accounting transaction within a ledger of accounts, which eliminates the problem of shipping gold back and forth across borders to settle national accounts..
Investopedia Says: You can think of SDRs as an artificial currency used by the IMF and defined as a "basket of national currencies". The IMF uses SDRs for internal accounting purposes. SDRs are allocated by the IMF to its member countries and are backed by the full faith and credit of the member countries' governments.
Actual Gold holdings of national treasuries undoubtedly continue to play a roll,
serving as at least some of the "substance" behind
what is referred to as "the full faith and credit" of IMF member
countries. And it provides an ace in the hole, and insurance policy, for those
nations should the
global financial house of cards collapse and gold once again emerge as king.
But SDRs are not a currency. And since their value is founded on a
"basket of major currencies" they are merely a globalized amalgamation
of banking debt money. There needs to be an international currency distinct and
separate from all national currencies, just as there needs to be separate,
controllable, national currencies for each nation. That is, if national
independence and "government of the people, by the people, and for the
people" is ever to re-emerge.
Gold, of course, would remain the prime commodity to satisfy
the need
for an international currency, if there was enough of it. However, since gold has proven incapable of being
expanded commensurate with global trade and commercial needs, perhaps SDRs (or
some facsimile thereof), should be founded on a "basket of major global
trade commodities," including gold, silver, oil, and other natural resources,
including major agricultural commodities.
National currencies should be issued based on the actual wealth
creation (reality and potential), in the individual countries – so there would be a continuing, more or
less, "fixed" (or periodically "fixable"), relationship
between actual national wealth creation (economic reality), and currencies
representing that wealth.
PRIDGER ADVOCATES A NEW NATIONAL CURRENCY
Let the world have the Federal Reserve! That's where it
belongs. It's already there, so there should be no problem. Let the Federal
Reserve and its banker notes sink or swim in the global marketplace on its own
merits. It's time for a new, truly national, monetary system and currency for
the United States – or
the revival of an older one that worked but was torpedoed by the banking money
power.
Pridger favors the American "greenback" model,
founded on the wealth of the nation. But such a system cannot work in a
globalized economy. We must first reestablish our financial and economic
borders, and re-engage in "American nation building," and American
economic independence.
Actually, we couldn't give the Federal Reserve to the world.
That would merely collapse the global economy, because without the American
consumer base, the Fed would be nothing but a deflated balloon. The Fed needs to
be nationalized and placed under the control of the representatives of the
people (if we can find some), so the air can be let out of the monster by easy,
carefully controlled, increments while new parallel national and
internationals monetary systems are established using sound economic principles.
ALL MONEY MIGHT BE CALLED "DEBT MONEY"
BUT ALL MONEY IS NOT "DEBT MONEY"
Consider a gold coin, or a silver dollar, disregarding
everything else. Such a coin is not considered "debt money." It's a
thing of real value that stands solely on its own merits. It has intrinsic value
that just about everybody recognizes. How it came to be minted, and by whom or
what, is of relatively little importance – it has value. It can be spent by whomsoever happens to possess
it, regardless of how he might have obtained it. It can be loaned or borrowed.
It can be traded (which is a means of spending it), or it may procure a certain
amount of "favor" or work.
One thing the gold coin cannot do is replicate itself. Nor can
it grow. It can be divided or clipped, but it definitely cannot increase its
mass. So, if you loaned a gold coin out at interest, that interest would have to
be paid in something else – because, when returned by the borrower, that coin is
going to be exactly what it was before it was loaned.
To the possessor, the coin is something of real value, for
which (if he gained it legally), he exchanged something else of real value in order to come into possession
of it. But for
all those who do not possess it, but do possess something they could trade for
it, it represents a liability. That is, it represents a "potential"
liability for all who covet or need it. For anyone who is determined to have
it (assuming he be an honest man), it constitutes a liability. Only by paying up with
goods or services can he get it into his possession.
So, all money is debt money in some context. But money issued into
circulation, debt and interest free, by government is generally not considered
"debt money" – it would be just like gold, without the weight and
mass. It's "intrinsic value" (if it could be said to have it), would
strictly be in it's status as "legal tender for all debts public and
private" – this strictly by government fiat. So, a debt liability is created by the issuing authority
when fiat money is issued, just as when a gold coin is placed into somebody's
hand.
For example, the issue of a one greenback dollar by the
Treasury creates a one dollar liability to the Treasury, and the Treasury will
replace a worn or torn greenback with another one whenever one is tendered.
The usual problem with government issued fiat money is that nobody trusts the
government to be an honest monetary broker – especially now that we can see
what the representatives of the people are capable of doing to the budget and national debt
even with an
expensive debt money system. Think what they might do with cheap money
unburdened with interest?
Bankers are careful
to make us aware of the historical reasons for such distrust. Fiat money has
always been considered "inflation money" – a handle bankers
undoubtedly came up with. Best to let bankers issue money, they tell us, and leave Congress to
spend it – something they are very adept at. While the issuing bankers may get a small cut, at least they'll keep the system honest, since their
assured profit is built into it.
They'll point out, for example, that all government attempts
to issue and control fiat currency have failed due to the government propensity to
inflate monetary issue and bring the ruin of inflation upon the people.
Revolutionary era U.S. Continental currency, and the Lincoln era greenbacks, are
two examples often cited. Yet both were successes to a great degree. Seldom do
we hear that the blame for inflation of the Continental currency should not be placed exclusively in the court of the Continental
Congress. Most of the blame goes to the court of King George of England. In their
effort to undermine the Revolutionary war effort, the English Crown (undoubtedly
aided and abetted by the Bank of England), probably
"issued" more (counterfeited), Continentals than the Congress did.
The Civil War era greenback was much more successful, but it
was scorned and undermined by the banking establishment both at home and
abroad. Nonetheless, it was a great boon to the nation during the Civil War, and
bankers managed to profit handsomely from it in spite of their scorn, ripping off
the government and the people as they did so. And greenbacks remained in
circulation in limited amounts until relatively recently – until the latter half of the
twentieth century. And some are still in circulation today, though they are
being taken out of circulation as quickly as the Treasury can manage it.
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Lincoln Greenback (1860s)
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So-called "Kennedy" Greenback (1963)
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National Banking Currency (1918)
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National Banking Currency (1929)
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The Lincoln Greenback was the nation's first generally circulated
national currency – they were officially termed "United States
Notes." The greenback lasted until about a decade beyond the
Kennedy presidential administration. The 1963 U.S. Note above is an
example of a "modern" greenback.
After the Civil War era National Banking Acts,
"National Bank" currency circulated alongside greenbacks. Both
types of currency (plus later gold and silver certificates), replaced the private banking notes that circulated up
until the 1860s, with National Currency Notes (and gold and silver
certificates), taking the lead over
greenbacks. National Currency Notes were issued by specially chartered "National
Banks." Above are two examples issued in Pridger's neck of
the woods – by the City National Bank and the First National
Bank, both of Harrisburg, Illinois.
Federal Reserve Notes (pure debt money), came in with
the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and (since the 1960s) have gradually
totally supplanted greenbacks, National Currency, and gold and silver
certificates.
Though Greenbacks were "fiat" money for
part of their history, (until 1878), Greenbacks, National Currency, and
gold certificates were all redeemable in gold until the Franklin D. Roosevelt
administration. Of course, silver certificates (as well as other paper
currencies), could be redeemed in silver, since our coinage (except
nickels and pennies), was 90% silver until the 1960s. Foreign central
banks could redeem most U.S. currency in gold until we officially went
off the gold standard in 1971.
Today, our currency is about 100% fiat
"debt" money – in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, which
are printed to look very much like good old greenbacks and other types
of national currencies. |
Fiat money can be compared to a movie ticket. If you have a ticket,
the movie house that issued it owes you a viewing. Thus, all money, even if it
is not "debt money" actually implies a debt awaiting payment.
The actual term "debt money" refers to money that
both represents a debt and begets more debt (interest), simply by being. though we tend to reserve that damning label for the
kind of money we now have in the Federal Reserve or other bank currency.
Debt money has the amazing ability to both grow and replicate
itself. The piece of paper is merely a physical representation of an abstraction
that is both infinitely inflatable and amenable to magnificent
manipulation – credit.
When the idea of money went from gold (or fiat national
"legal tender"), to the abstract expression of debt, a sea change took
place, and only those in the know realized what had happened. With specially sanctified "debt" as "legal tender"
(as in Federal Reserve Notes), money passed from being a representation of a
slice of wealth, to a slice of indebtedness – indebtedness to a huge banking
trust.
The gold standard, of course, favored bankers because bankers
have always had a significant corner on gold. Whether they actually owned it or not, they
had possession of most of it, and (being rich by definition), they had more
access to it than anybody else. But a banker administered debt money system is
literally Utopia for the bankers, especially the bankers of issue.
The merchant makes his profit on the mark-up of merchandise.
The flow of merchandise over his retail counter provides his steady income. The
same is true of bankers, except much more so. The bankers collects his income
from the flow of money. Imagine collecting interest on every dollar that exists!
"Bankers of issue" do just that! No
matter how small the interest may be, it compounds (ad infinitum), and their
financial security is assured.
But it's even better (or worse), than that! Bankers in general, not only
benefit from the compound interest due him on loans, they can, and does,
compound (or create), principle itself. Banks are only constrained by "fractional
reserve" requirements. But those fractional reserve requirements are also a
license to issue money in the form of loans and gain the benefit of a lot more money than he has in
the bank's vaults. So every bank under our system is (in effect), a bank of issue, whether or not
it is a member of the Federal Reserve.
This is possible because "credit has become money,"
and "money has become credit." But money should not be credit or debt.
It should be a pure and neutral medium of exchange of fixed value.
As we all know, debts are usually backed up by some form of
collateral. And this is as true with debt money as it is with regular bank
loans. So what's the collateral backing
all those Federal Reserve Notes flooding the world? Our entire nation has been
mortgaged! And, of course, U.S. taxpayers are liable for paying the nation's
debts – or at least meeting the interest payments.
While credit and money are perhaps both appropriate and
valuable banking businesses, actual currency issue should not be banking
activity. Money should be issued by government authority without interest, as a
fundamental public service, and its value should be fixed and even more stable
than gold (ignoring the transient nature of human civilizations and human
institutions, not to mention the race itself).
Gold is extraordinarily stable, but its value in terms of any
relative monetary or purchasing power benchmark, certainly is not.
The reason Federal Reserve money is "debt money" is
because it is always loaned into existence at interest. Not a penny
of Federal Reserve money can come into existence except through a loan/borrowing
process which results in more than a penny's worth of perpetually
growing debt.
This, in itself, (if common sense is applied), ought to serve
as ample evidence of the unjust
nature of Federal Reserve money issue. Money is created out of nothing, and has
interest due from that instant of creation. Thus there can never be enough money
in existence to retire the debt. And, naturally, it's all cumulative, and must ultimately becomes economically debilitating. It's like the classic Ponzi
scheme, but works in a slow and subtle enough manner that the public never
becomes aware that it is being skinned alive.
A government issued greenback implies a debt too, but in a
totally different and much more just sense. The Treasury, through the Mint,
essentially creates a dollar out of nothing, but it assumes a dollar's worth of
liability as soon as the dollar is circulated. Unlike the Federal
Reserve Note, however, a one dollar greenback represents exactly a dollar's
worth of debt liability.
If you own a dollar bill, somebody (the economic system, or
national marketplace), owes you a dollar's worth of goods and services. And when
you tender your dollar to a merchant or plumber, you have collected the debt
that your dollar represented. The merchant or plumber then has the dollar and
can, in turn, collect the debt from someone else. The dollar circulates forever, or until it wears
out. But it never represents more than a dollar's worth of liability or debt.
If you borrow greenback money from someone at interest,
however, that is another thing entirely. But the person or bank that loans
greenbacks should only be able to loan the amount they actually possess. On that
basis, banking and money loaning would still be profitable, but not an absolute scandal.
Ultimately, the Treasury is the official liable party, but the
greenback need never find its way back to the Treasury for redemption. However, if
the dollar does wear out, and needs to be replaced, the Treasury will make good
on it by replacing it with another dollar.
There could be no better monetary system than the greenback
system. Yet there are two major problems associated with this solution. First is
defeating the bankers and the existing "money power" in order to
initiate such a system. (It's been tried
before, and the attempts have failed.)
The second problem is, how do you keep
the government honest? What's to prevent the government from issuing enough
greenbacks to itself to enable it to send its armies abroad to conquer the rest of the world?
The way to prevent this is to make sure the government can't
simply issue money to itself in lieu of taxation. So, while the need for taxation
to support the
government might be significantly diminished under a greenback system, it cannot safely be totally abolished.
Money belongs to the people, not the
government. So, if the government (being merely the representative of the
people), needs money, it must go to the people to get
it as it does now, and it must be accountable in all things to the people. And
it must not be allowed to borrow money from the people (or others elsewhere),
except under emergency circumstances of an extraordinary nature.
There is another concern. How do you prevent government from
lavishing the people with so many greenbacks through existing government
spending programs that inflation eats at it's value?
The only sure way to prevent rampant issue is to make sure
that money has a real value attached to it. This is why a gold or silver backed
dollar (whereby the Treasury could not issue more greenbacks than actual
physical assets it possesses), has always had such a strong appeal. Precious
metal backing introduces a very strong disciplinary incentive.
But precious metal backing for the currency presents another
significant problem that "hard money" advocates tend to discount. The
problem is the scarcity
of gold and silver. Without perpetually increasing supplies of gold and silver
of sufficient volume,
such a requirement would set an artificial limit
on the economy which would eventually totally cripple it. The other alternative
– periodically devaluing the dollar against gold and silver – would make
gold and silver coinage impossible, and it would give the illusion of a
declining dollar in terms of value, and erode public confidence.
But, there is another solution. This has been termed the
"commodity dollar" concept. Rather than being tied to gold
and silver, the dollar should be tied to more egalitarian and useful objects of
wealth – types of wealth that are perpetually renewable, useful, and necessary,
and part of the human production chain – particularly natural resource
production. In other words, the true fonts of real wealth.
HOW A 100% GOLD BASED GREENBACK WOULD WORK
Assuming that there was enough gold available to back the
volume of currency necessary to serve the needs of commerce, here's how
government would issue currency under a 100% gold backed greenback system. (Note
that this is not the way the greenback actually worked, but merely a simple
illustration of how it would work if such gold backing were possible).
The value of the dollar in terms of gold would be
established by Congress. Say $35 dollars an ounce, as was once the case.
The Treasury prints a volume of greenback currency sufficient
for the immediate needs of commerce. In order
to circulate it (in 100% gold-backed form), it must go to the gold mines to purchase gold, which it
purchases at the
official rate. Or, it may purchase it from any source willing to accept
greenbacks in payment. Since greenbacks (as well as gold coins), would be "legal tender," those with gold
to sell would be bound
to accept them. With the greenbacks received for the gold, the mine owners pay themselves, all the
miners and other hired help, and purchase supplies. The money begins it's
journey "upward" through trade channels.
There would be no debt incurred in this transaction between
the Treasury and those selling gold and silver, merely an even exchange.
Since the backing in gold is 100%, anybody could
exchange paper greenbacks for full value in gold coin at the Treasury
or any bank.
Of course, this "perfect" system is obviously far
from feasible. It would only work if we had enough gold mines
producing enough metal to satisfy the entire economy on an ongoing basis. And,
buying gold would be the only way to circulate new money. Mine owners (if the
mines were not nationalized), would become the de facto kings.
Actually, of course, the gold standard that we had could only
function under a fractional reserve system, wherein the actual gold holdings
were always considerably less than the money circulating – perhaps lower than 10%
of it.
Before we look at a more feasible system, let's do a similar exercise
using a 100% gold backed "banker money system."
THE IMPOSSIBLE SCHEME
Congress may set the value of the dollar at $35.00 per ounce
of gold, but that's about as far as it can go without some help from other's
elsewhere. The Treasury cannot simply print the dollars and go buy some gold as
in the above illustration.
The first requirement would be to get the money with which to
buy the gold. But, since there is no gold in the Treasury, there is also no
money. Big problem.
The answer, of course, is "credit." The government must first borrow some
money with which to buy some gold to back its currency with. This means that
there must necessarily be other currencies ample stores of gold in previous
existence.
There are, of course. Long established foreign nations and
bankers elsewhere.
A large bank will loan the government some gold or foreign
currency, at interest.
So, say the government borrows 1,000,000 ounces of gold, which will allow the
government to issue $35 million in national currency. The government gives the
banker its note or bond, pledging to repay the $35 million, plus interest. Say
$45 million in all.
So, with the government's first breath, it has caused $35
million dollars to come into being, and now has a million ounces of gold in its
Treasury vaults. But it has simultaneously acquired a national
debt of $45 million, which it must eventually pay. The Treasury is $10 short of
ever being able to pay up.
Since gold sells for $35 an ounce, the banker, after
collecting his $45 million, can go either to the mine or the Treasury and purchase
1.29 million ounces of gold, which it can again loan to the government. And this goes on
forever, with the government compounding its debt at each transaction, and the
banker getting richer.
This is akin to the system we now have. Gold has been dropped
from the equation, so everything is done in Federal Reserve money. All the money
has to be borrowed before it can be circulated, and the resultant debt is much
higher than the money borrowed.
And this is the impossible scheme we have. It's much more
complicated of course, that's essentially how thing work. Now consider another rather simple
illustration. What happens when "we owe it to ourselves"?
DO YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY, BUY SAVINGS BONDS!
They used to tell us that the national debt was actually good,
since "we owe it to ourselves."
In fact, some Americans do "own" some of the
national debt. Consider the simple "Savings bond" which is Uncle Sam's
way of borrowing money from ordinary individuals. Just like the big boys, you
can buy government bonds at discount and cash them in later at face value. It
sounds like a good deal.
But what if the bond doesn't mature until 20 years in the
future? A
hundred percent earned on a twenty year investment has returned only an annual
5%. Not such a hot investment after all.
You might have bought a $100.00 bond for $50.00, but chances
are inflation will have already eaten up your gain by the date of maturity. In
fact, $100.00 probably won't buy what the original $50.00 would have bought.
But it's a lot worse than it actually looks. First, you have
loaned the government $50.00 and increased the national debt by twice that
amount. Some patriotic act!
If the government had to borrow $50.00 from you in 2006, it
will have to borrow $100.00 from somebody else in 2026 in order to repay the loan. You can't expect
the government to still have the $50.00 that you loaned it. It didn't save the
$50.00 you loaned it, it needed that loan so it
could spend the money. No telling what the government spent it on. It may have
bought a hammer or a Congressional meal ticket – or it might have bought a
bullet with which to blow the head off an enemy combatant or innocent bystander.
Bond issues are the way government borrows money, always
having to repay much more than was borrowed (naturally). And merely putting
currency into circulation essentially works the same way under a debt money system.
Of course, foreign central banks and institutional investors
that buy U.S. securities wouldn't settle for a losing proposition, so you can be
sure they are making a profit (more than 5% APR), and the American people are being taken to the
cleaners.
There's no way for the "We the People" win under such a system. Only those who work
the system win. Whether through money issue or bond sales, the national debt
has nowhere to go but up, and no way to come down. Under this system the
national debt cannot be paid off, it can only be paid on.
Not even a balanced budget, or surplus, would do the trick.
Congress apparently finally realized this some time ago and simply gave up. The sky is the limit –
provided Congress has the alacrity to keep the debt ceiling jack pumping.
THE SENSIBLE MONETARY SYSTEM
If we could trust government to simply print money and spend
and loan it into circulation scientifically and "responsibly," that
would undoubtedly be the simplest and best system.
If the government carefully "invested" in
infrastructure and vital services, and perhaps paid money into circulation by
paying "old age pensions" and making educational grants to promising
students, and providing free health care, that would be great.
But if the government could do that, chances are it wouldn't
be done responsibly for very long. It might work until some President decided to
remake or conquer the world. All it would have to do to fund the enterprise
would be to print up the money needed to pay the troops and purchase the ships,
planes, bombs, and missiles.
Government must be prevented from doing that. The money
belongs to the people, not the government. But nor can the government be allowed
to simply send everybody a monthly check. If it did that, pretty soon nobody
would bother to get up in the morning and go to work.
Pridger, being retired, is getting a monthly check from the
government now. And, sure enough, he no longer bothers to get up and go to work
– at least not in an effort to earn his keep.
The government has a thousand and one ways to spend money into
circulation these days. Trouble is, not even a tenth of them are constitutionally
legitimate ways for the government to spend money, no matter how it is procured.
Money issue must be constrained by a carefully planned and
controlled system that continues to reward work and productive enterprise.
Perhaps the most sensible system would be to monetize grass-roots wealth
creation. This would entail what is called a commodities based
monetary system, similar to one that was effectively put in force with the
agricultural policies during World War Two.
It would take full recognition of the fact that "wealth
comes from the soil" in the form of industrial and agricultural raw
materials, and it should be predicated upon the notion that labor, in the
broadest context (the labor that produces, transports, processes, and transforms
raw materials into useful products), deserves a reward that goes beyond merely a
"living wage."
We have often been told that a "command economy" is
not a good thing – that this is a characteristic of unworkable socialist systems and
communist governments which are hostile to free markets and the capitalist
system. But while we may not want a "command economy" what we do want
and need is at least a "well planned economy" – one based on a
desirable and sound "national" economic model aimed principally at
full employment at good wages – and, of course, national economic
independence.
Is there anyone who would argue that we don't already have a
"planned economy" today? We most certainly do have a planned economy.
But it is not planned with the welfare of the American people, and the overall
welfare of the American nation, in mind. It's a global plan, and the primary
beneficiaries of the plan are global capital interests and the owners of Wall
Street stocks, with the goal of maximizing corporate profits, inflating Wall
Street and foreign securities markets – all ultimately (an necessarily), at the
expense of labor.
The carrot presently held out to the laboring masses is that
of cheap imports – labor being considered only in its capacity as
"consumer." This is no way to sustain a prosperous middle class, and
in fact is destroying the American middle class, as the divide between rich and
poor increases at an alarming rate.
The purpose of a national government should be governing the
nation, not only by the fully informed consent of the governed, but on behalf of
the whole people. In order to provide the conditions conductive to the
"right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," government
should have a workable "national plan," not a global plan. Each nation
must have its own plan, and those nations that have plans that don't work can
copy the plans of nations that do work.
Providing a stable and sufficiently plentiful circulating
currency is one of the fundamental duties and responsibilities of any government
of the people, by the people, and for the people. Money is the fluid that makes
things work, and there must be a plan to make it work properly, and beneficially
for the whole people.
The best way to do this is to circulate money first to those
producing the nation's primary wealth – the food and fiber that feeds and
clothes literally everybody in the nation, and the other raw materials produced
from the ground that are used in commerce and industry. These are the basis of
the economy and the source of wealth.
If farmers, fishermen, forest workers, and miners, are
prosperous, not only will we be well fed, clothed, and housed, but the rest of
the economy will be prosperous as well, for each dollar that is generated at the
raw materials level, provides the basis for many more as raw materials work their way up the
processing and production chain toward the final consumer.
The farmer and miner earn their living from the soil and their
own labor. Their labor directly results in necessary products with a ready
market. Thus they are funded directly when those products are sold.
Everybody else fits into the economic machinery at progressive steps up the
economic pyramid and commercial exchange chains.
This permits construction workers, factory workers,
transportation workers, food processors, and service industry workers, etc., to
be well paid and prosperous too. And since most value-added processes and
manufactory are
accomplished by business corporations, corporate America would prosper too. And,
naturally, since commercial transactions occur at every stage, from the farm or
mine, through processing and manufacturing plants, to final retail sales, the
whole array of merchants gain the wherewithal for prosperity too.
The "non-laboring" sectors of the economy earn their
living by selling their services to a prosperous working, mercantile, and
commercial classes. Taxation is still necessary to pay the public sector, but if
the tax base is prospering, the public sector should never want for ample
compensation for services rendered.
Today such a national model may seem inconceivable. We are
overwhelmed by propaganda promoting a global economic model, telling us that
everything is working well and getting better all the time.
Pridger begs to differ, and believes we are in store for a
continuing chain of rude awakenings as time goes by.
John Q. Pridger
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