PAYCHECKS, PERCEPTION, PROPAGANDA & POWER

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” – Upton Sinclair

 

I began to write this article in early December. I had just written a piece that attempted to scrutinize how the American public could stand idly by while heavily armed mercenary thugs viciously crushed the Occupy encampments across the country in a Department of Homeland Security coordinated attack at the behest of the ruling oligarchy.  Comfortably Numb made a case that the political and economic systems of the United States have been captured by a few evil men and they use their wealth and power to control the message hammered into the psyches of an apathetic, distracted, vincibly ignorant public. I started to tackle the question of why Americans could stand by as the new Greatest Generation was being abandoned, derided, scorned, beaten, tear gassed, and arrested for having the courage and audacity to stand up to a powerful corrupt unholy alliance between Wall Street psychopaths, corporate fascist barbarians, and Washington DC power hungry jackals. But I became overwhelmed with a feeling of disillusionment and hopelessness and was unable to write anything for about a month. I found myself questioning whether it was worth fighting such a powerful foe after seeing how easily they crushed the opposition put forth by OWS. After a month I decided I am not one to love my servitude.

Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.” Huxley’s Brave New World

I owe it to my three sons to keep fighting the good fight. They deserve a future. Day by day we draw ever closer to a showdown with the traitors who have sold this country into debt slavery. I don’t dream of revolution, but my eyes are wide open and I see it coming. I had been trying to wrap my head around what happened with the Occupy Movement since the Department of Homeland Security coordinated destruction of most of the encampments around the country in November. The corporate mainstream media immediately moved onto more pressing issues like the Kim Kardashian divorce and Jessica Simpson’s weight gain. The American public has been instructed by the media the Occupy story is history, just like the BP oil spill, the Fukushima nuclear meltdown, and the Egyptian revolution. In a society consumed by reality TV Occupy Wall Street was just another show. The credulous American populace dutifully turned their attention to Black Friday and whipping out one of their 15 credit cards to purchase remote control pillows, 3D 72 inch HDTVs, a see through tank top from the Snooki line of slutware, or thousands of other ludicrous Chinese crap churned out by slave labor in factories built to support the “efficiency” efforts of U.S. conglomerates.

Without a constant irritating presence in the heart of NYC and other large cities, the Occupy Movement appears to have lost steam. I’ve been trying to figure out how and why this happened. The issues that motivated the protests have not gone away. The despicable MF Global crime, committed by a hall of shame member of the .01% – Jon Corzine – has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt the Wall Street/Washington DC criminal conspiracy is alive and well. Unless you have been sitting in line at a Wal-Mart for the last two months to get a $3 waffle-maker, you saw young people across the country tear gassed, shot with rubber bullets, maced, bludgeoned, and brutalized by the paid thugs of the ruling oligarchy on a daily basis. The outrage at the continued looting by the psychopathic Wall Street aristocracy and the horrific police brutality against young people exercising their Constitutional right to free speech and assembly should have ignited widespread anger and mass protest. Instead the reaction has been silence, scorn and smug satisfaction with the government response.

Paychecks & Perceptions

There are a plethora of rationales for the apathy and lack of critical thinking overwhelming our society as we plunge into the depths of a looming economic calamity. They include economic self interest, the power of propaganda to condition the masses, fear of opposing authority, and the perception of a reality that allows you to sleep at night. The Upton Sinclair quote above hit home for me a few weeks ago and explains much of the disdain for the Occupy movement. I was in a high level meeting at my University and during the course of the meeting the Occupy Movement was brought up. A senior executive made a derogatory comment about Occupy and then laughed. I smiled and bit my tongue. In retrospect it shouldn’t have surprised me. I work at one of the top business schools in the world. The person who made the comment has spent his entire life educating students who end up with jobs at Wall Street financial institutions and with America’s largest corporations. It is a natural response for someone whose whole life is reliant upon the existing financial system to psychologically overlook the obvious criminality of the Wall Street fat cats and corporate executives who validate his entire existence and life’s work. He chooses to not understand the message of these protestors because to truthfully comprehend their message would nullify his thirty years of academic efforts. My non-response to the comment about the Occupy Movement was also based upon self-interest and reliance on a paycheck to make a living. I had learned my lesson the hard way during a previous career stop.

It appears older generations have a considerably more negative view of young people protesting the capture of our political and economic system than younger generations. This also makes sense because they have the most to lose and cannot visualize a society other than the one they have created. To acknowledge the validity of the Occupy Movement and the justice of their positions would be to admit their own guilt in the creation of a society that has allowed a chosen few to enrich themselves at the expense of the many. The Baby Boom Generation has been living a lie their entire adulthood. It is true that prior generations created the welfare/warfare state we have today, but the Boomers have had the reins of power for the last two decades in Congress and chose to not only ignore the fact the entitlement promises made by previous administrations could not be fulfilled. They even made further promises in the trillions to their fellow Boomers. Instead of making a budgetary choice between guns and butter, the Boomers chose guns, butter, education, universal healthcare, the right to own a home, the right to a 72 inch HDTV, and zero percent financing on their Cadillac Escalade from government motors. The consequences of these choices are a $15.2 trillion National Debt growing at a rate of $3.7 billion per day and unfunded entitlement liabilities totaling in excess of $100 trillion.

I had the pleasure of meeting Neil Howe, co-author of The Fourth Turning and fourteen other books, in early December. His ground breaking work with William Strauss on generational theory has proven to be uncannily accurate, as their 1997 assessment of what dynamics would drive the course of history over the coming decades have materialized exactly as they presumed. We had a fascinating two hour discussion about various topics impacting the world today and I found that we were in agreement on just about everything, except for the Occupy protests. Neil Howe is an expert on interpreting how generations react to events. I expected him to be impressed by the courage and fortitude of the Millenials leading this protest against Wall Street gluttony and audacious criminality. This is the new GI Generation and I anticipated him perceiving these protests as a prelude to greater feats ahead by this generation. Instead he described them as naive adolescents being led down a phony path by anarchist Boomers. As an example he referenced the fact that many of the protestors were wearing Guy Fawkes masks, the most famous anarchist in history. He found this distasteful and dangerous. My interpretation of the Guy Fawkes masks was more in line with the movie V For Vendetta and the theme of a corrupt evil government keeping the public living in perpetual fear.

“Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.” V For Vendetta

Neil Howe’s impression of the movie centered on the terroristic aspects of blowing up Parliament, not on the symbolism of citizens rising up and casting off the yoke of a malevolent oligarchy that has used propaganda, fear and intimidation to manipulate and control the population. Howe is a Baby Boomer and I’m Generation X. We are each viewing the Occupy Movement through the prism of our life experiences and perceptions about the intentions of these protestors. The existing social, economic, and political structure is dominated by Boomers. Neil Howe views the Occupy Movement as a threat to the system he believes in and supports. As a cynical Xer with no allegiance to a corrupt government, a crony capitalist economic system or a greedy self centered society, I see these young revolutionaries as our last great hope.

 

Neil Howe runs a very successful consulting firm whose clients include Fortune 500 corporations, including Wall Street financial firms. His annual income and net worth is dependent upon the existing corporate dynamic. When your living depends upon not understanding the real reason young people are protesting corporate malfeasance, fraud and corruption, your mind can ignore observable facts and visible truths. Anything can be rationalized when putting food on the table requires you to ignore obvious truths and understandable facts.

Propaganda & Power

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” – Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928 

   File:Edward Bernays.jpg

I was shocked when I came across the above quote a few months ago. Bernays had it figured out 84 years ago before mass media, television, or spin doctors. His vision of a society manipulated by a small number of governing elite who believe they know better than the masses has come to fruition. True republican equality as defined by the founders in the Constitution is considered quaint and a belief of the trusting and naïve masses by the wealthy elite. Manipulation of the masses through a relentless never ending barrage of propaganda disguised as news and unremitting false advertising is designed to control and herd the cattle into the slaughterhouse. We are given the illusion of free choice, when in reality the choices are being made for us by a chosen few who think they know what is best. These puppeteers controlling the strings inhabit the financial, government and corporate halls of power. Their purpose is not to benefit society and its citizens but to protect their wealth and influence, using any means at their disposal. Propaganda to control the minds of a willfully uninformed public has been their most potent weapon.

Source: Mike Kreiger

Most people have never heard the name Edward Bernays. That is the way public relations specialists (manipulators of the truth) like it. They operate in the shadows, subtly influencing public opinion through what Bernays arrogantly referred to as the sinister method of “engineering of consent”. The Governing Elite have no time for messy processes like true capitalism or non-manipulated free elections. The objective for Bernays and his ilk has always been to provide corrupt government power brokers, shadowy bankers and corporate media kingpins with potent psychological instruments of social persuasion and mind control. Edward Bernays is considered the “father of public relations”, and he was the nephew of Sigmund Freud. He pioneered media manipulation techniques.

He understood the weaknesses of the human mind and developed methods and processes for taking advantage of that weakness.

“The average citizen is the world’s most efficient censor. His own mind is the greatest barrier between him and the facts. His own ‘logic proof compartments,’ his own absolutism are the obstacles which prevent him from seeing in terms of experience and thought rather than in terms of group reaction.”Bernays, Crystallizing Public Opinion

Bernays got his big break during the administration of Woodrow Wilson, the outset of the American interventionist empire bankrolled by an inflation creating Federal Reserve and a tax and spend Congress.  During WWI, Edward began work for the Committee on Public Information, the immense propaganda machine ordered by Woodrow Wilson to sway the American public towards a war he campaigned to keep us out of. He became so instrumental he was invited to accompany Wilson to the Paris peace conference. His claims to fame afterward included:

  • Creating a false storyline of communists in Guatemala on behalf of his client United Fruit Company, resulting in a CIA led military coup which ushered in a brutal dictatorship resulting in the dislocation, torture and death of thousands.
  • He was responsible for breaking the taboo of women smoking in public while working for American Tobacco Company.

His biggest claim to fame was inspiring the most reviled propagandist in history. Bernays’ techniques were so effective that Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, made copious use of Bernays’ book, “Propaganda” throughout the Holocaust, often crediting Bernays. That was quite a feather in Bernays’ cap. The German people were gradually indoctrinated by their government through propaganda into consenting and supporting the most horrific crimes in history as described by Milton Mayer in his book, They Thought They Were Free – The Germans, 1933-45:

“This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

“To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must someday lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.”

Bernays was a master of using psychological techniques to mask the motives of his clients, as part of a calculated strategy aimed at keeping the public unaware of the forces that were working to mold their psyches. Bernays died in 1995, but his techniques have been taken to a new level as our government, media and financial elite use any means at their disposal to keep the masses sedated and content while they are fleeced and herded towards the slaughterhouse. The Big Lie perpetrated upon the masses is the fallacy of America being a democratic society. The anti-democratic and treacherous corporate public relations Madison Avenue maggots manage and manipulate the opinions of the many in order to make sure a true democratic system doesn’t threaten the privileges and supremacy of the governing elite.

I wonder if it was coincidental the creation of the Federal Reserve, implementation of the personal income tax, and virtually non-stop war coincided with the rise of an industry designed to manipulate and control the thoughts and opinions of an easily influenced and willfully unaware populace. Most people want to be led and told what to believe. Critical thinking and taking personal responsibility for your life and your society requires hard work, sacrifice, honesty, and self restraint. Simply believing storylines supplied by authority figures and media pundits allow the masses to continue living lives of debt delusion and hope, occasionally stirred into a frenzy of fear and loathing towards the foreign bogeyman of the moment, chosen by the governing elite. Bernays and his disciples understood this dynamic and have been able to utilize corporate mass media and the human weakness of trusting in the judgments of authority figures to control and manage the vast swath of America without them knowing it.

“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.” – Edward Bernays

The propaganda techniques employed to manipulate the masses seemed less abhorrent when they centered upon just consumer products. Convincing women they would look like a gorgeous model if they used a company’s cosmetics or convincing a man he’d be admired by his neighbors if he drove a certain car was small potatoes. In the last few decades the misinformation and outright lies fed to the American public by oligarchy of governing elite has become more manifest and repugnant. The list of abuses is virtually endless.

  • The American public has been lured into debt by the incessant unrelenting lifestyle marketing messages spewed from our TVs 24/7. From the introduction of the show Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous in the early 1980s, wealth, materialism, and consumerism became the motivating force in America. Consumption accounted for only 63% of GDP in 1980, with capital investment accounting for 17%. Today, consumption accounts for 71% of GDP and capital investment only 12%. Keeping up with the Kardashians is the mantra of our times.
  • The utter failure of our government controlled educational system in teaching our children how to think critically or question the validity of government created data has allowed the elite to paper over the fact the average American worker has not had any real income gains in at least four decades. The insidious nature of Federal Reserve created inflation (up 600% since 1970) is incomprehensible to a public that finds math boring and not essential in their lives.

 

  • Once the manipulators convinced the masses they needed a 4,000 sq ft McMansion, two brand new stylish cars, four big screen HDTVs, three computers, stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, a Rolex, Armani suits, an in-ground pool, an ATV, and house at the shore, there was only one thing left to do – loan them the money to live the faux American dream. GDP has grown 525% since 1980. Personal consumption expenditures have grown 600% since 1980. Consumer debt outstanding has grown 700% since 1980. And total household debt outstanding has grown 800% since 1980. It seems the purveyors of debt on Wall Street have been the only beneficiaries of the apparition of an American dream sold to a willingly duped American populace.

 

  • The dream of home ownership was used by politicians of both parties to further their agendas, egged on by the Wall Street elite and the National Association of Realtors – two of the largest contributors to politicians. As politicians tried to outdo themselves creating programs to get poor people into homes, Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan urged the masses to use creative new adjustable rate mortgage products. With a wink and nod from Greenspan and no fear of any regulation whatsoever, the Wall Street elite created liar loans, negative amortization loans, subprime loans, Alt-A loans and a myriad of other products to induce fraud in the housing market. Appraisers did their part by overstating the values of homes and Wall Street colluded with the rating agencies to package the toxic mortgages and sell them to clueless dupes around the globe with a AAA rating stamped on them. At the absolute peak in 2005, with prices two standard deviations above the long term average, Ben Bernanke declared the housing market strong and the NAR proclaimed it the best time to buy. As the coup de grace, Wall Street urged home owners to unlock that equity in their homes and borrow $3 trillion to spend on gadgets, home upgrades, automobiles, facelifts, new boobs, and exotic vacations. The greatest mass fraud in history was complete. And not one person has gone to jail.
  • Not only have the governing elite lured the masses into debt slavery, but they’ve convinced them to love their slavery. The governing elite have done a fantastic job of using their media mouthpieces to deflect criticism away from their pillaging and looting of the national wealth. They’ve successfully persuaded the slaves the extreme income inequality is beneficial to the country because the 1% are the job creators and have earned their way to the top through our free market capitalism system. Convincing the middle class to blame the poor for their three decade decline is a tribute to the effectiveness of their propaganda crusade. Jesse gives accolades to the father of propaganda as the moneyed interests have won:

“The moneyed interests have done quite a successful PR job in refocusing the national discussion on priorities involving social issues, and the reform of the support systems for the weak, the unfortunate, and the elderly. Turning one group against another, and objectifying your intended victims through slogans and stereotypes, has always been an effective method of bending the herd to your will. Score one for Edward Bernays.”

 

  • The Social Security System is an example of propaganda and misinformation on a grand scale. A modest (1% tax) insurance program designed to help widows and orphans during the Great Depression, which should have been treated much like term life insurance, morphed into a massive retirement plan at the behest of politicians over the last eight decades. The voters shockingly voted for more benefits. Millions are now totally dependent upon the monthly pittance they receive, as the promise of a Social Security pension deterred them from saving for their old age. Politicians perpetuated lies about the funds being protected in a lockbox. The truth is the politicians raided the lockbox and took every dime to spend on wars of choice, aid to dictators, paying off their corporate masters, and leaving only IOUs. They have promised $17.5 trillion more than they can payout. It could be made viable with a gradual rise in the retirement age and a simple means test that would eliminate payouts to those who do not need it. Instead politicians use it as a means to control their constituents and obscure the simple truths. Americans choose to remain ignorant of the facts based on their perceptions of a false reality.

 

  • Another storyline propagated by politicians of a liberal bent is that Medicare is a successful Federal government program. Only someone from the governing elite would declare a program that is $90 trillion underfunded, racked by fraud and abuse totaling almost $100 billion per year, despised by doctors across the land for its insane bureaucracy, and allows corporate insurance, drug and hospital conglomerates to dictate the costs, a success. The entire government run sickcare industry is a scam designed to enrich the corporations that contribute to the campaigns of the politicians writing the rules and regulations. The pricing mechanism between doctor and patient is broken, with neither having any say in the decisions.
  • With the unleashing of a torrent of inflation during the 1970s the governing elite needed to resort to obfuscation and manipulation of inflation figures to create the illusion of price stability and positive GDP, while screwing seniors citizens out of their Social Security benefits and convincing the middle class their annual 3% wage increases were getting them ahead in life. Inflation has been systematically understated by 5% to 7% annually since 1980.

 

  • The government drones at the BLS do the dirty work for their masters by reporting unemployment of 8.6% when the real level exceeds 20%, Great Depression levels. The corporate media just does the bidding of the corporate fascist state by unflinchingly reporting the bogus figures. Reporting the truth would be detrimental to the political and financial elites, so propaganda is rationalized as being beneficial to the country. The sheep just keep grazing as their shepherds herd them toward the slaughterhouse.

 

  • By conducting focus groups and testing words, master manipulators like Frank Lutz have been able to convince the masses to support repeal of the estate tax even though it does not affect 99.7% of American taxpayers. By renaming it a Death Tax, the public was convinced that this horrible abuse of the tax code should be repealed. The 0.3% with the ability and means to manipulate public opinion, won again.
  • The tax code and the propaganda campaign being waged by the richest .01% to obscure the truth and misinform the masses is the most barefaced attempt of the elite to retain their wealth and power. Their corporate media legions pound home the storyline of 50% of Americans not paying their fair share because they pay no Federal income tax. It sure sounds like these weasels must be doing something dishonest to avoid paying Federal taxes. What is not mentioned by the media mouthpieces is 50% of Americans make less than $25,000 per year. What is also conveniently forgotten is these people pay payroll taxes, local income taxes, state income taxes, real estate taxes, sales taxes, tolls and a multitude of other taxes, fees and charges to their utility, cable, and phone providers. In the real world, the total effective tax rate for someone making $50,000 per year exceeds the total effective tax rates of Mitt Romney, Lloyd Blankfein and Warren Buffett.

 

  •  The IRS tax code did not grow to 75,000 pages because the middle class and the poor used their undue influence to convince politicians in Washington DC to insert credits, loopholes and deductions for mega-corporations and the wealthy elite into the code. Only those with wealth, power and influence are allowed to “sway” legislation in Congress. This is called crony capitalist democracy. The current propaganda coming from the GOP candidates is our poor mega-corporations that outsourced millions of American jobs to Asia are overburdened by the 35% corporate tax rate, despite the fact they actually pay an effective rate of 18% and many multi-billion dollar conglomerates pay nothing. The truth is not important or relevant to those running the show in this country.

  • The most damaging and far reaching use of propaganda, misinformation and outright scare tactics by the financial and political elites was during the financial meltdown during September and October of 2008. The American public was whipped into a frenzy of fear by the protectors of Wall Street – Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke – in order to funnel trillions of taxpayer funds to the Wall Street cartel that created the crisis in the first place. The governing elite declared the economic system would fail unless Wall Street was bailed out. When some courageous Congress members balked at passing TARP, the masters of the universe crashed the stock market with their super computer trading machines. The hysterical pundits on CNBC and the other corporate media outlets shrieked that our way of life would surely die if the banks were not saved. TARP was passed and Wall Street bankers rejoiced by paying themselves billions in bonuses. The truth not revealed to the masses was that the failure of a few reckless ravenously greedy Wall Street banks would not have destroyed our economic system. It would have destroyed the wealth of psychotic bankers like Blankfiein, Dimon, Pandit and a slew of other criminals on Wall Street. Wealthy stockholders and bondholders would have been wiped out. Bank depositors would not have lost a dime. The irresponsible risk junky bankers would have seen their banks liquidated. Bad debts would have been written off. The remaining good assets would have been sold to prudent banks. But instead, the ethically and financially bankrupt were saved by their corporate fascist partners in crime at the expense of the confused and disoriented American citizens. Saving bankers had been successfully marketed to the sheep as being on par with saving the nation. Chalk another one up for Bernays and his brethren.
  • After Bush and his banker cronies successfully fleeced trillions from taxpayers and handed it to bankrupt bankers, Obama and his minions continued the con on the middle class. With the help of Pelosi and Reid he was able to dispense $800 billion of payoffs to various contributors, constituents and special interests while calling it a job creating stimulus plan. When it became clear to even the ignorant masses that no jobs were being created, the governing elite channeled their best Edward Bernays and invented the term “jobs saved”. The beauty of this concept was the impossibility of ever verifying the figures spouted by the paid shills disguised as expert economists. Billions more were funneled to the housing industry and auto industry as paybacks for their contributions in the form of homebuyer tax schemes and Cash for Clunker scams. The bill for these complete failures was passed onto future generations as the National Debt soared from $10.6 trillion to $15.2 trillion in just three years of Obama rule.
  • The latest fraud being perpetrated on the American public is the lie about energy independence touted by GOP candidates for president. Rather than leveling with the people and explaining the facts of peak cheap oil to them honestly, the governing elite prefer slogans, half-truths and fantasy projections. The left touts solar, ethanol and other green energy fantasies, while the right peddles drilling, fracking, and fake estimates of supplies. Both are lying. All the cheap easy to access oil in the world has been found. The oil being discovered and accessed today is harder to reach, more expensive to produce and requires producers to expend almost one barrel of oil to produce a new barrel of oil. The easy to access oil is being depleted at the same rate that new hard to access oil is being brought on line. Meanwhile, demand grows across the globe. Our far flung suburban sprawl society teeters on the edge of an abyss and the governing elite pretend all is well.

The above list of abuses committed by the ruling oligarchy pales in comparison to the totalitarian like measures that have been executed since September 11,2001. With the country cowering in fear, the governing elite passed an Orwellian like 350 page bill that changed this country forever. The USA PATRIOT Act, which changed the relationship between our government and its citizens forever, was supposedly written, introduced, debated and passed in the space of 30 days in October 2001. I wonder which public relations firm came up with the Orwellian acronym?  Uniting (and) Strengthening America (by) Providing Appropriate Tools Required (to) Intercept (and) Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. The purpose of naming this bill was to imply that anyone who was against allowing our government to spy, monitor or place under surveillance anyone our government chooses would make you unpatriotic. The American people chose implied safety and security over true freedom and liberty by their deafening silence. The governing elite used fear and propaganda to achieve their goal of more domination over our lives.

Drunk with their new found power, the political elite decided to change the world by using their spin machine to create visions of mushroom clouds over U.S. cities in the minds of a gullible public to craft a believable storyline for the invasion of Iraq. A willingly pliant press corp. spread the misinformation about weapons of mass destruction and Al Qaeda connections to fashion a convincing plot for pre-emptive war on a sovereign country that did not threaten our country. Who benefitted from war with Iraq? The military industrial complex reaped billions in profits and the Wall Street banks bankrolled the invasion with more debt. It only destroyed the lives of thousands of low income American soldiers, killed 100,000 Iraqi peasants, drove the price of oil from $25 a barrel to $100 a barrel, and will ultimately cost American taxpayers $4 trillion. And the great thing about passage of the Patriot Act and invasion of Iraq was the bipartisan cooperation pushing us ever closer to an authoritarian state.

The erroneous notion that Americans have a choice between two political parties that offer distinct and clear opposing policies addressing the major issues facing our country is still perpetuated by politicians and the corporate media. It is untrue, as we have seen the Obama administration employ the same repressive methods instituted by the Bush administration. Military spending rises. Wars of choice proliferate and grow. Obamacare is virtually identical to a plan created by the leading GOP presidential nominee. Further restrictions, regulations and laws are put forth to keep the masses controlled, sedated and fearful. The governing elite and their propagators of misinformation are again formulating a false storyline to convince the easily fooled ignorant public that a sovereign country 7,500 miles from our shores is actually a threat to their lives. While our government has already committed acts of war against Iran (sanctions, assassinations, cyber warfare, and using drones to spy), the public is being worked into a bloodthirsty frenzy of nationalism. Bipartisanship worked so well with Iraq. How could it possibly go wrong with Iran?                      

In the last six months cracks have begun appearing in the fascist façade masquerading as a democratic republic. The rise of the Occupy Movement, increasing pain and discontent among the middle class, a small but vocal irate minority utilizing the internet to organize, inform and spread knowledge, and the growing support among the liberty minded for Ron Paul’s candidacy are the opening salvos in a coming revolution. The volleys being traded between the forces of the American aristocratic elite and the leading forces of this revolution are only the opening shots on par with Bunker Hill. The oligarchs have won the initial skirmishes with the Occupy Movement through their control of superior mercenary fire power and ability to falsify the message and nature of the protestors. The corporate mass media propaganda machine convinced an apathetic, non critical thinking public the protestors were nothing but dirty, lazy, college students looking for government handouts organized and led by George Soros. Journalist Robert Fisk reveals the true nature of the protests and rage:

“And that is the true parallel in the West. The protest movements are indeed against Big Business – a perfectly justified cause – and against “governments”. What they have really divined, however, albeit a bit late in the day, is that they have for decades bought into a fraudulent democracy: they dutifully vote for political parties – which then hand their democratic mandate and people’s power to the banks and the derivative traders and the rating agencies, all three backed up by the slovenly and dishonest coterie of “experts” from America’s top universities and “think tanks”, who maintain the fiction that this is a crisis of globalization rather than a massive financial con trick foisted on the voters.

The banks and the rating agencies have become the dictators of the West. Like the Mubaraks and Ben Alis, the banks believed – and still believe – they are owners of their countries. The elections which give them power have – through the gutlessness and collusion of governments – become as false as the polls to which the Arabs were forced to troop decade after decade to anoint their own national property owners. Goldman Sachs and the Royal Bank of Scotland became the Mubaraks and Ben Alis of the US and the UK, each gobbling up the people’s wealth in bogus rewards and bonuses for their vicious bosses on a scale infinitely more rapacious than their greedy Arab dictator-brothers could imagine.” – Robert Fisk, Bankers are the Dictators of the West

The mounting desperation of the oligarchs is palpable. They have circled the wagons as one of their leaders – Jon Corzine – was caught stealing $1.2 billion directly from the accounts of his customers after making reckless bets that went wrong and bankrupted his firm. The Department of Homeland Security coordinated brutality unleashed upon peaceful protestors in cities across America opened the eyes of more people to the approach of an increasingly oppressive state. The media lapdogs have come out in force with an organized smear campaign designed to derail the presidential campaign of Ron Paul, the only candidate talking about real change and a real downsizing of the American empire. Ron Paul’s platform of liberty, freedom, non-interventionism, sound money, and a government not controlled by bankers and corporate interests is anathema to the ruling elite of both parties. A vote for one of the hand selected candidates offered by the moneyed interests is simply a vote for the special interest status quo. As our economic system becomes more saturated with debt by the day a tipping point approaches.

Obama’s signing of the NDAA, overwhelmingly supported by politicians of both parties, now gives the ruling class the ability to track down and imprison indefinitely any American citizen they consider a threat to their power, without charges. The only remaining thorn in their side is the internet. The internet has allowed critical thinkers to share information, organize resistance to the oligarchs, create communities of like-minded citizens, and allow individuals the opportunity to turn the tables and perform surveillance on the state. The state does not like an unfettered internet because it allows citizens to find the non-manipulated truth and undermines their mainstream media propaganda machine. Young people are less able to be manipulated. The introduction of abominable legislation like SOPA and PIPA are a blatant attempt by the governing elite to crush dissent by locking down the internet and eliminating sites that question their version of reality.

Humans are a flawed species. Our minds are easily manipulated. We don’t like pain. We prefer instant gratification. We are susceptible to mass delusion. We will often choose hope over critical thought. Those with higher IQs will regularly attempt to take advantage of those with lower IQs. Fear and greed are the two motivations used by the minority in power to control and manipulate the majority. The American people have been led astray by a small group of powerful men. We were herded through a door in the wall of perception that promised an American dream of material goods, entitlements and pleasure with no obligations or responsibility to future generations. There is only one choice that can save this country from ruin. Each individual must make a choice to either to continue supporting the manipulative, corrupt status quo or coming back through the Door in the Wall.

 

“The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend” – Aldous Huxley

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farang
farang

Seems to me that my paycheck, starting in 1982 or 1983, withheld a *tad more* than 1% for Social Security(FICA)…..like @ 20% of my after-tax pay.

Seems to me that I not only paid as employee, but also matched it for my workers, sometimes up to 15 of them.

So I see a bit of obtuseness in this labeling of Social Security as a harmful Entitlement: I thought I was paying for my own retirement and those of my workers….because I could not afford to pay into a pension plan, and still win projects to keep us employed.

That’s the reality, and to blame those that now can’t go back and, evidently to please this author, mount armed insurrection against Reagan and all his successors, is a foolish and misguided tactic.

We need solutions we all can rally around…and although I do not agree with many many of his policies…I will support Ron Paul’s campaign, if he decides to run as Independent after Adelson buys Newt the nomination.

Rallying point…..sorry we all couldn’t join the fray of OWS….some us us aren’t in the US anymore, and some of us had families that like to eat, sleep in their own bed, that sort of mundane stuff.

But I do believe, seriously, that when the Tipping point arrives…you’ll be amazed at how many GOOD people live in America…and we’ll all pull through.

But, it won’t seem that way at the start….Perception Managers will be feverishly working to subvert our coming together. But, America, like the former slaves of the USSR, will wise up to their tactics….and that may be the start of the new beginning.

Hope and Change…..will come…after we unseat the criminals from their thrones.

working man's chest surgeon
working man's chest surgeon

Thinker said (in a post very well regarde by this blog community):

It would be a shame if this turned into a “truther” discussion. No matter if the government planned it or not, what matters is the reaction to the attacks. The country had leadership in place — not just Bush/Cheney, but throughout Congress, the Pentagon and State Dept — that had plans already drawn up for tightening the screws on Americans and for attacking foreign countries. Come on, we all know they have plans sitting on shelves for every eventuality; a terrorist attack on America was certainly one of them, given the number that occurred overseas in the past few decades.

TPTB simply implemented those plans once it occurred. Talk about propaganda — Bush told Americans to “go shopping” in response to the attacks. Normalcy bias if we’ve ever seen it. And most Americans complied, putting little flags on their cars and going about their daily lives like before.

What matters most is what we do moving forward. How do we wake people up, get them to see what’s going on, and actively fight it? Yelling and screaming about how 9/11 was an inside job isn’t going to do that because, frankly, it didn’t impact most people enough for them to care.
……………………………………………………………………………………………

I suppose I am probably the target of this last bit as I was the first to bring a discussion of 9/11 onto this thread.

I felt a discussion of 9/11 is at least tangentially relevant for the following reason — past is prologue. It is truly frustrating that a mere question evoked such a visceral negative reaction. To me, that says volumes about the extent to which we have all been conditioned.

If we cannot come to grips with the basic criminality of what happened on 9/11, there is little hope that we will be able to defend against the criminality yet to come. This is same frustration I feel about the inability of our governing structure to hold Wall Street acountable for their criminal acts.

I really have no interest in relitigating 9/11 other than to point out that we failed as a society to adequately investigate that crime and prevent the response. Ironically, it is precisely because there was not a tranparent accounting of that event that there is a vacuum into which “nutjobs” can contribute their hypotheses.

SO HOW DO ACT GOING FORWARD??

I FIRMLY BELEIVE THE NEXT BATTELGROUND IS OVER CONTROL OF THE INTERNET.

Please take the time to check out this video which concerns the second generation of SOPA/PIPA, namley ACTA.

It is clear that TPTB recognize that the best method of control in the 21st century is no longer control of money as much as it is control over flow of ideas. The ability of citizens who can think critically to join together is enabled by the Internet, principally on sites such as this one. Mr. Quinn’s latest “opus” was linked on Zero Hedge; he aquired a number of new readers (such as myself) after he was featured on Turd’s blog. The Internet power is clearly is ability to synergize efforts and spread “virally”.

It is precisely this type of capability that puts real fear into the hearts of the elites. It exposes their manipulation of our financial system (Ted Butler’s exposition of the silver manipulation); it allows us to galvanize a movement to get SOPA/PIPA scrapped.

They recognize they need to crush that ability.

Please check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmQN93NqqDM&feature=player_embedded#!

Some good articles:

http://www.thedailyaztec.com/2012/01/acta-has-same-dangers-as-pipa-and-sopa/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement

Richard J Mullany
Richard J Mullany

I am so happy that you have begun to write again this year. Excellent article. It is very helpful to think about all these matters after a brilliant writer has spun them into gold. Don’t quit.

Pirate Jo
Pirate Jo

Re Social Security: “Exactly how do you expect this to play out when people had a large percenatge of their wages taken over their entire working life, only to be told, sorry, you must fend for yourself now in your old age, we changed our minds.”

I don’t expect that to happen. It is politically impossible. Instead, we will have runaway currency devaluation. Either way, the old folks will be screwed and will have to fend for themselves in their old age.

Anonymous
Anonymous

The Door in The Wall was a short story by H. G. Wells (e.g. http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/5/). I expect Huxley was riffing on its title.

Seth Fox
Seth Fox

Just a quick thought on 911… We will never know the truth, so there is no sense in bringing it up in every context of everything that is wrong and on every post about any topic. I think everyone on this Board is well aware that our nation took a very fast and steady path to destruction post 911, if it was an inside job or not is irrelevant to the point of where we are today….It happened. Do we want the truth…of course, should we demand truth…of course…will we get truth…probably never. Who shot JFK ? What happens at Area 51 ? What’s in Fort Knox ? How did they build the Pyramids ? The point being is that the problems we face can be fixed, over time, with dilligence regardless as to what “really” happened. I believe this is why Ron Paul stays away from it, it is a Lose-Lose situation.

Now, would I love someday for someone to blow the whistle and give us the “straight dope” hell yes, but there have been numerous documentaries made on the topic, millions of web sites, bloggers et al banging that drum for years now. For every point made an opposite point is made…it is a mad circle of information and dis-information. The only people who know what happened on that day are either dead, or will never talk…Even if they write a “tell all” biography and publish it upon their death, there will be those that believe and those that don’t. (see JFK)

Admin…AMAZING ARTICLE, probably my favorite over the past few years. Would have liked more info regarding your conversation with Howe regarding OWS…that was quite a shocker…did he acknowledge your points or dismiss them ? Am I to believe that Howe is nothing but a corporate patsy now ??

Seth Fox
Seth Fox

Admin: “As I said, we all act in our own self interest and will convince ourselves of things to match that self interest.” Point very well taken 🙂

Thinker

Seth, you can read Admin’s full notes from his discussion with Howe here. Most of us would have killed to have been there.

Novista

farang: “So I see a bit of obtuseness in this labeling of Social Security as a harmful Entitlement: I thought I was paying for my own retirement and those of my workers….”

You thought 1936 style.

THE 1936 ssa pamphlet:
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/ssb36.html

(At the top of the page:
” This is an archival or historical document and may not reflect current policies or procedures” )
How droll.

An overview:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/27/social-securitys-problems-past-present-and-future/

Even one of FDR’s advisers said it was a Ponzi scheme. No matter what they said in 1936, they conveniently did not explicate how the early retirees from 1940 on would be paid “what they saved for themselves” since they had not been in the system long enough — thus the first people paying in were paying for those who came before. Exhibit A:

“The first monthly payment was issued on January 31, 1940 to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont. In 1937, 1938 and 1939 she paid a total of $24.75 into the Social Security System. Her first check was for $22.54. After her second check, Fuller already had received more than she contributed over the three-year period. She lived to be 100 and collected a total of $22,888.92.”

Admin often quotes “widows and orphans” and I don’t see that in the 1936 pamphlet — ,aybe it was part of a different set of lies ‘taught’ later. I, however, have a connection with that year.

Never mind looting the alleged lock box later on.

Flemming v. Nestor (1960) the Supremes declared “entitlement to Social Security benefits is not a contractual right”.

Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Arthur Sherwood Flemming’s brief:

“The contribution exacted under the Social Security plan is a true tax. It is not comparable to a premium promising the payment of an annuity commencing at a designated age.”

Got that? A true tax.

Obviously, Tweedledum wrote the government playbook.

Desiato
Desiato

Awesome article!

And you should know that even though I’m a Baby Boomer, I have always viewe the OWS guys with the Guy Fawkes masks the same way you do – in the tradition of V for Vendetta.

Jiggerjuice
Jiggerjuice

Nice linear progression of articles.

2011: 52 inch tvs
2012: 72 inch 3DTVs!!!

American consumerism knows no bounds. I used to pat myself on the back knowing I had at least cleared the 52 inch hurdle, and now it appears I’m behind for the New Year.

20 inches too short, am I right gentlemen?

At any rate, my Panny plasma has a 100,000 hour half-life. 24/7/365 would take 7 years to get to half brightness. I run the thing at 66% brightness and use it perhaps… 4 hours a day, max? It’s pretty much the last tv I have to buy in my life.

Until all my kid’s friends start making fun of our “150 pounder” vs their 3 mm thick, 2 lb wall-sized screen sheets.

Which is to say, fuck it, pretty soon our contact lenses will have GUIs that blast color right into our retinas, and changing the color of the sky is an app for our contact lens screens.

“Sky: Aurora, Green.”
“Grass: On fire, blue”
“Walls: Melting, wood texture”
“All women: 34DD, size 0”

“APPLY” – boom.

etc.

Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson

Interesting that you work at an educational institution, isn’t it a conflict of interest against your own views?

Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson

“What exactly is in conflict?” –

Specifically, you work in a field that is basically subsidized, at no risk to your institution, by the government. Unless students that attend your school can pay their own way without borrowing a dime, or on scholarship, they have to borrow by means of student loans. Hence, the ever increasing rise in educational costs, which as I’m sure you’re aware, are exponential. Is the education your students receiving that much better? Or, is it the “supply & demand” dynamic at no risk?

Even more so, as you work for a top business school, which is even more ironic, as graduates as you claim go onto Wall Street, which if the end up at an IB firm, is completely destructive and doesn’t create anything. No?

Of course your views are sovereign to you, and free to have them as such. I just find them to have a touch of irony based on a profession that employs you at the expense of some of the things you claim to detest.

Stucky

@Woodrow Wilson

You seem to know an aweful lot about Admin and his motives. Did you take a Mind Reading course at a top university?

Whatever, your scripture mediation for the day is as follows, from the Gospel of Mathhew, chapta 7, verse 5. Amen.

“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye”

Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson

I’ve dealt with arrogant academic bomb throwers like yourself before.

Your as bad as the politicians that you condemn. You believe your credentials are you sword and shield that falsely gives you the comfort that you and your ilk are above reproach, while feeding into your readers psyche and siding with their sense of their reality. While you spew some of your rhetoric, you hope to incite a few, maybe with an end result of some twisted vision of your own utopia, while at the same time, remaining at arms length as to not be blamed.

Your like the rest, just another shit stirrer that can’t or won’t put their money where their mouth is. I’ll read your posts (which I only found through Zero Hedge) and chuckle. Why? Because just like politicians who use rhetorical nonsense, you’re no different, just another ACADEMIC full of shit, and would probably shit themselves should things ever truly go bad.

No? Then like the others of your kind I’ve encountered, put your fucking money where your mouth is you coward fuck and let The People decide how full of shit you really are.

Stucky

It appears to me that Woodrow Wilson is not taking his meditation verse seriously.

worker
worker

Good artical with much truth but I have to say to some degree, ‘fuck you’. I am a ‘boomer’ at 65 years old and have never asked for anything, always looked toward ‘conserviate principals’ and never/ever asked anything from my government other that what was written in the Constitiution.
I did work for some very monied people at one point and saw ‘government in action’ and am disgusted with our current state of affairs. Time for a reset – violent if necessary but time, I believe to clean house. Do not ever ‘lump’ everyone into the same catagory for the sake of breverty – you do youself a diservice.

Colma Rising
Colma Rising

Woodrow Wilson:

You are such a fucking sham… your whole premise is that of a sophomoric mongoloid with the delivery worthy of consideration in kindergarten.

You are lucky I’m inspired by Her Stuchenmeister’s benevolent manner and suggestion to you, lest you receive an internet beat-down you would never forget.

As for you, Worker, I hope you realized that your response is typical… and a fount of comedy. This was an extremely mellow post directed at your shallow generation, but even the smallest of barbs at your guilt-swollen Boomer heart burst it.

Read the book, then re-read the article. If you still take it personally, please don the dunce cap and stand in the Boomer Corner with the thousands of other narcissistic morons who can’t take a sip from the bitter cup of generational assessment on this wonderful blog.

Novista

Woodrow Wilson

‘Your’ is a possessive when you really want You’re, that is to say, You are. Contractions are such a bother, aren’t they?

And, you know, The People have decided, which is why We like it here.

worker … kid … Silents like myself wonder why your lot always take general criticism so personally.

SSS

Admin challenged me, in another thread in a much later article, to comment on Edward Bernays’ so-called engineering of the propaganda which resulted in a CIA-led coup to successfully overthrow the Guatemalan government led by Jacobo Arbenz. To wit, according to Admin in his article, Bernays “created a false storyline of communists in Guatemala on behalf of his client United Fruit Company, resulting in a CIA led military coup which ushered in a brutal dictatorship resulting in the dislocation, torture and death of thousands.”

Well, bull. Bernays didn’t create jackshit which had any leverage in the U.S. administration of Dwight Eisenhower pulling the trigger on Arbenz. Arbenz himself had already created the stage for his demise, starting with a massive land “reform” (read seizure) program which confiscated over a million acres of land from the wealthy to be redistributed to campesinos.

Get yourself out of your 21st Century mindset, Admin. It was 1954, for Christ’s sake. Goddamn, the Soviet Union had already forcibly seized eastern Europe post WWII, created the Iron Curtain and Berlin Airlift in 1948, supported a brutal dictator in North Korea who started the Korean War in 1950, and so on. Oh, had the Soviets already tested a nuclear weapon by 1954. Yes!!!

And now, according to your brilliant analysis of history, a Guatemalan left-wing dictator and admirer of Lenin and Stalin was suddenly demonized by the master of American propaganda, Edward Bernays and his client United Fruit Company. And this led to his overthrow. Total, utter bullshit.

WTF were you thinking, Admin? Here’s some Wiki stuff after Arbenz left Guatemala.

Árbenz initially stayed in Mexico, then he and his family moved to Switzerland. The Swiss government would not allow him to stay unless he gave up his Guatemalan citizenship. Refusing to do so, Árbenz moved to Paris, and then to Prague. Czechoslovak officials were uncomfortable with his stay, unsure if he would demand the government to repay him for the poor quality of former arms from the Second World War that they had sold him in 1954. After only three months, he moved again, this time to Moscow. He tried several times to return to Latin America, and was finally allowed to move to Uruguay in 1957.

In 1960, after the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro asked Árbenz to come to Cuba, a suggestion that Arbenz readily agreed to. In 1965, his eldest and favorite daughter, a fashion model named Arabella, committed suicide, shooting herself in front of her boyfriend, the Matador Jaime Bravo, in Bogotá, Colombia. Árbenz was devastated by her death. He was allowed to return to Mexico to bury his daughter and eventually was allowed to stay. On 27 January 1971, Árbenz died in his bathroom, either from drowning or scalding.

Off to a party. Manana.

Novista

Golly, Arbernz moved around more than Ahasver!

Pablo Neruda has an interesting song from the era.

Colma Rising
Colma Rising

SSS:

Bullshit. Albanz died in a Mexican bathroom suffocating from fumes emanating from a mysterious pair of boots placed therein.

They were in the mortem photos and even entered as evidence by Federales, but disappeared from the locker… another mystery.

Fess up, SSS, those were YOUR boots…. you can’t hide behind wiki pages on this one, Primo.

Off to a party as well….

ssgconway

“Show me where a man gets his cornpone and I’ll show you where he gets his opinions.”
-Mark Twain

That quote is the first one that came to mind as I read this fine and thought-provoking piece. I also recalled a book, “Phillip Dru, Administrator,” that Wilson’s alter ego, Col. House, is supposed to have ghost-written. Bernays had company in fashioning the tools of our bondage. House and other Progressives of the era were right there with him.

While he was somewhat misguided about how to address the problem (a discussion on bimetallism would require a thread of its’ own), William Jennings Bryan sensed what the bankers were doing when he gave his ‘Cross of Gold’ speech in 1896. One speech can launch a movement. His did:

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354

SSS

Where’s that cur Admin? Nothing but the sound of crickets in reply to my response above to his challenge to me. Come out from underneath that rock you crawled under and take your medicine, Admin. I was kind enough not to even mention the McCarthy Hearings in 1954, and the fact that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had just been recently executed for passing atomic secrets to a Soviet spy ring operating in the U.S.

This is an epic beatdown the likes of which Admin has never suffered. I think I know why he hasn’t replied. He can’t!!!! Here’s a recent photo of Admin after the thrashing I just gave him.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS2khKxhcmV3Wko8NYDTljkNjzbwUitH20Z8lhLPRbLamKCe8FOBg

SSS

Come on out and play, Admin. You don’t want your TBP colleagues to think you look like this, do you?

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQBeUaGUWyMuK78ZBqlTHq1nvYNFeoReSfbyMs8PbM_beq-GtcvAg

Admin
Admin

SSS, no need to come out and play. Your copy and paste article is so full of holes even a retarded monkey could poke holes in it. Youe pro-CIA stance is bullshit to the n-th degree. I feel no need to continue to beat your mangy cur ass. I leave it up to the brilliant readers on TBP, and you’re not one of them, to educate your sorry ass.

Stucky

Goddammit. Quit blowing my cover!!! You could never be a spook … traitor. Now I know why you hate the CIA.

MuckAbout

It took me so long to get to the bottom of this thread that I drank two glasses of tea and damn near pissed my britches laughing as well. Be advised, one read of a thread this long is all I can handle so I’ll be elsewhere from now on.

Still a killer of a post, Admin…

MA

michaelj007
michaelj007

Admin- I’m only on the 2nd paragraph of the Paychecks & Perceptions… Goddamn you’re one of my favorite writers! Why do I- a 30 yo male- have such a parallel perception to friggin boomer?!?! I just don’t get it.
BTW- I know what you mean about biting your tongue with senior execs. Back in 09′ I was sitting at a very nice country club in NJ having lunch with a Senior Exec from one of BlackRock’s REIT funds. We were there to evaluate their CRE portfolio backed by my company’s $500M line of credit… We were talking about some of their larger assets that just fucking tanked when he chuckled and said “ha ha! man… we lost so much money on that deal too. ha ha ha.” I was just happy to still have a job and this asshole was chucklin’ about the millions he lost. I got up from the table at the first opportunity and walked it off… I wanted to front kick him in the face, collapse the bridge of his nose with an elbow and say “ha ha! man…. I really broke ur fucking nose. OOPS!”

btw- no comments from Cynical yet?!?!? lemme get his ass on here.

michaelj007
michaelj007

Oops! Xer… that explains it a little better.

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

I can read your minds and i am the shockwave afore you.

I jest. Shirley.

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

Hell is empty. Well, unless you want to go there.

michaelj007
michaelj007

Great piece Admin! However, I disagree with the surface of your perspective dismissing Iran as a threat. Iran has the ability to threaten our leaders and their fuct up interests, and therefore they ARE an indirect threat to you and I of course, because they have the ability to influence and affect the world supply, delivery and price of oil. They 100% ARE a threat b/c unlike the Saudi’s, UAE, or Alaskans, or Mexicans, or Brazilians, the leaders of Iran openly disagree, dislike and antagonize our leaders… and rightfully so to a certain extent. So while a nation like the DPRK has Nukes, a sizeable yet poorly equipped military, and a powerless citizenry that also have rulers who dislike us much much more than the Iranian rulers- the North Koreans ain’t got no mutha fuckin oil therefore they are not a credible threat.
Sorry, but I started reading “Resource Wars”… my God Klare was so fucking on point in his predictions it is scary! Have you read/heard about this book?

TimothyJ
TimothyJ

There is SO MUCH of the current situation (especially on the right-wing republican side of things) that can be explained and predicted by Altmeyer’s work on authoritarianism. He called it years ago, and his predictions keep racking up accuracy points:

http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Right_Wing_Authoritarianism

http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/RWA–rightwing_authoritarianism

The bad news is that it seems to be neurologically or biochemically hard-wired–about 25% of the population exhibits these traits, a number that seems to be constant over time and locale. But it DOES explain the 25% who still believe that Iraq caused 9/11, or that Obama is a Muslim (or the antichrist, or Kenyan…), or that Gingrich is a friggin genius.

michaelj007
michaelj007

@Admin: Resource Wars- From the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the Nile delta, from the shipping lanes of the South China Sea to pipelines of Central Asia, Resource Wars looks at the growing impact of resource scarcity on the military policies of nations. International security expert Michael T. Klare argues that in the early decades of the new millenium, wars will be fought not over ideology, but over dwindling supplies of precious natural commodities. The political divisions of the Cold War, Klare asserts, have given way to a global scramble for oil, natural gas, minerals, and water. And as armies throughout the world define resource security as a primary objective, widespread instability is bound to follow, especially in those areas where competition for essential materials overlaps with long-standing territorial and religious disputes. In this clarifying view, the recent explosive conflict between the United States and Islamic extremists stands revealed as the predictable consequence of consumer nations seeking to protect the vital resources they depend on. A much-needed assessment of a changed world, Resource Wars is a compelling look at warfare in an era of rampant globalization and intense economic competition.

Connor
Connor

We of Gen-X have an important task to complete before we depart this world: we need to save the best of Western Civilization. The Boomer generation politicians have wrecked and screwed up so much, in so many ways, that it’s going to take a long time and some hard work to retain the best of our culture. For this effort, Gen-X and the Millennials need to lead the way.

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