Oligarchs, though they speak of deconstructing the administrative state, actually increase deficits and the size and power of law enforcement and the military to protect their global business interests and ensure domestic social control. The parts of the state that serve the common good wither in the name of deregulation and austerity. The parts that promote the oligarchs’ power expand in the name of national security, economic growth and law and order.
– Chris Hedges, The Deadly Rule of the Oligarchs
If you’ve been checking in with this site in recent days, you may have wondered if I was on vacation. I’m not. Rather, I’ve been suffering from a bit of sluggishness and writers block, and it wasn’t until I took some time to think about why earlier this morning that I was able to determine the cause of my affliction. The best way to describe what I’ve been dealing with in recent days is insanity fatigue.
It’s not as if there’s been a lack of news or things to talk about. There’s plenty. The problem is I’ve once again become exhausted and overwhelmed by the superficial stupidity and narcissism of our national political dialogue. I first expressed this sentiment about a year ago in the piece, Lost in the Political Wilderness, and the feeling came back in spades in recent days.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
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It’s been a year since I wrote that post and not much has changed. The political conversation, if you can call it that, remains largely polarized between two groups primarily focused on whether they support Trump or swear he’s Putin’s devilish puppet. One side insists he’s going to Make America Great Again, while the other thinks everything was perfectly fine before his election, and all will be well as long as we can rid ourselves of his presence. Meanwhile, the oligarch class continues to loot and pillage at will.
It’s actually quite extraordinary that a people so systemically and obviously preyed upon cannot see what’s right in front of them. It’s mind-boggling that tens of millions are so easily divided and conquered into manufactured tribes intent on avoiding at all costs what’s really going on in this country, such as a fraudulent financial system, endless imperial wars and the ever encroaching surveillance state. Long story short, we as a people simply refuse to accept what’s really causing the rot in this country and continue to be mesmerized by bread, circuses and opportunistic pundits leading us straight into oblivion.
I suppose this is always the way it is at the end of a failing and bankrupt empire, it’s just extraordinary to watch it happen in real time. The total insanity of the political debate in the U.S., and a lack of any willingness to admit our real systemic problems — let alone face them — is what convinces me without a doubt that this train is headed straight into a brick wall.
That’s not to say other countries are in fine shape, they aren’t. The whole planet’s become entangled in America’s increasingly corrupt, militaristic and fraudulent imperial financial system. Escape will not be clean or easy for anybody. Nevertheless, the U.S. has the furtherest to fall given it is the world’s dominant power armed with the global reserve currency. An empire with such an overwhelming structural advantage can last a lot longer than it should in the face of monumental incompetence, but the day of reckoning is coming.
Meanwhile, Trump isn’t addressing any of the major structural issues we face like our fraudulent and corrupt financial system, endless and pointless imperial wars or the ever-expanding surveillance panopticon managed and controlled by the unelected “deep state.” Sure, he talks a good game sometimes, but the core elements of the U.S. empire continue to expand in power and hubris with virtually zero resistance. Hillary Clinton would’ve done much the same while deflecting criticism as “sexist.” If the general public refuses to confront our real issues,the politicians and bureaucrats sure as heck aren’t going to. As such, it appears imperial implosion is inevitable at this point.
Chris Hedges recently wrote a piece on oligarchy at TruthDig and the role it plays in imperial collapse. The excerpt below was particularly poignant.
Oligarchs accelerate social, political, cultural and economic collapse. The unchecked plunder leads to systems breakdown. The refusal to protect natural resources, or the economic engines that sustain the state, means that poverty becomes the norm and the natural world becomes a toxic wasteland. Basic institutions no longer work. Infrastructure is no longer reliable. Water, air and soil are poisoned. The population is left uneducated, untrained, impoverished, oppressed by organs of internal security and beset by despair. The state eventually goes bankrupt. Oligarchs respond to this steady deterioration by forcing workers to do more for less and launching self-destructive wars in the vain attempt to restore a lost golden age. They also insist, no matter how bad it gets, on maintaining their opulent and hedonistic lifestyles. They further tax the resources of the state, the ecosystem and the population with suicidal demands. They flee from the looming chaos into their gated compounds, modern versions of Versailles or the Forbidden City. They lose touch with reality. In the end, they are overthrown or destroy the state itself. There is no institution left in America that can be called democratic, and thus there is no internal mechanism to prevent a descent into barbarity.
This is where we stand now. The system is breaking down in a very serious and dangerous manner as a result of decades of unaccountable oligarch plunder. A historic theft aided and abetted by politicians, intelligence agencies and corporate media, which provide the necessary backbone to keep oligarchy entrenched and the public confused and bickering about endless superficialities. If a thoughtful public backlash based on incisive analysis and energy capable of reforming this imperial oligarchy was coming, it would have arrived by now. It’s not coming, thus, imperial collapse is all but guaranteed. My guess is it’ll probably all be over by 2025 at the latest.
Although it may appear that way, my message isn’t one of doom and gloom. After all, it’s clear to me that the U.S. empire isn’t helping the typical American anyway. Rather, our system of predatory imperial oligarchy is more akin to a parasitic albatross around our collective necks, sucking away our spirit, wealth and liberty to enrich and empower a handful of empty and voraciously greedy sociopaths.
I don’t claim that the transition period will be smooth or painless, but I do harbor a great deal of optimism about what the future can and will look like on the other side. Younger generations understand as much as anyone how corrupt, fraudulent and unsustainable this system and its institutions are. Meanwhile, thoughtful and brilliant people globally are working day and night to create the necessary rails for a decentralized future in which we can reduce the need to trust institutions and individuals, hopefully ushering in a new paradigm characterized by greater transparency, ethics, liberty and an opportunity for a vastly improved experience for humankind.
The current paradigm will end, I’m completely confident of that. The real question is what will we build afterwards. On that front, I remain encouraged and excited, but we must all do our part to create the world we wish to see.
It’s imperative we spread love and knowledge. That we demonstrate through our actions and work what it means to be a courageous, ethical, and honorable human being, brimming with infinite spirit and consciousness. If we accept these challenges, we shall not only overcome, but we shall prosper, leaving our children and grandchildren a world they can be proud of. Nothing is more important and meaningful than that.
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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
Well shut mah mouth and call me Cornpone…..even the talking heads are are getting sick of the daily BS. And they get paid!
Frank Zappa forgot to tell us how long we will wait mired in insanity while they change the scenery in the back of the theater.
Its time for a vacation.
I am fatigued by the constant waiting for the shoe to drop, the shit to hit the fan, the rubber to meet the road, out of the frying pan and into the fire and living in the calm before the storm. it may come tonight (CME due to hit earth), or an Earth magnetic pole shift, happening from at the earliest, this week to maybe 600,000 years from now. I will now be deluged by news reports and co workers who will cite every statistic that guns kill people and other news reports and co workers and reports that will prove that people kill people.
Its been suggested that there is a new Q that picked up where the old Q left off on or about Jan 3rd, 2018; a different tone and personality, who may or not be supporting MAGA. The 13,600+ indictments may be processed in the next month , or maybe the next year, because you can’t be too sloppy in crossing your T’s and dotting your i’s. China and Russia are both massing 100’s of thousands of troops on their North Korean border, just as the news media is fawning over the little fat mans sister and the cheerleaders, who seem to move as a hive collective, as they herald the unification of the two Korea’s.
Had enough? I have. We are being hit with a tsunami of news that is almost too much to process.
I plan to decompress over the next few days and, unless I see a mushroom cloud forming on the horizon, will just read the bible and get myself re-centered on the things that are important. Expecting maybe 5-10 inches of snow on Sunday, the perfect excuse to sit by the fire and daydream.
Your welcome to join me.
I get your drift, Not Sure.
You can and should forget about Q as its a silly, bullshit, cyber LARPER hoax that will lull you into wishful thinking.
Your responses tend to be simplistic, indicating you should listen to other opinions to broaden your own understanding, before making your thoughts known.
But yes, the sun seems to be setting on Q’s inside information. But there are many other sources of observers who are diligently following the direction of Mr. Nunes exposing of the alphabet agencies. So to sum up, the loss of Q does not mean progress has stopped. On the contrary, I still see a positive outcome, barring any national crisis false flagged into existence by TPTB.
Oh, that’s right, I’m on vacation, got to run!
“The loss of Q…” LOL!
Krieger:
“I don’t claim that the transition period will be smooth or painless, but I do harbor a great deal of optimism about what the future can and will look like on the other side. Younger generations understand as much as anyone how corrupt, fraudulent and unsustainable this system and its institutions are. Meanwhile, thoughtful and brilliant people globally are working day and night to create the necessary rails for a decentralized future in which we can reduce the need to trust institutions and individuals, hopefully ushering in a new paradigm characterized by greater transparency, ethics, liberty and an opportunity for a vastly improved experience for humankind.”
What are these “brilliant people” working on “day and night” that reduces the “need to trust institutions . . . ?”
I know! Cryptocurrencies! As one system ($) slowly implodes another system (B) rises to take its place without a massive die off in between.
IMO, cryptocurrencies are the least trustable “currencies” around.
Everything from easy tracking and forever available tracking of all transactions made in them to the huge potential for loss by a simple hacker with no insurance to cover the loss of them available.
If someone robs my bank or if it fails I have the FDIC available to insure my losses (or most of them If I were a rich man with lots and lots of money in the bank beyond insurance limits), but if someone hacks my cryptocurrencies I have nothing and no way of recovering them (actually have any of them since I don’t understand or trust them).
Of course, again IMO, both the trackability and deletability of them would/will make them attractive to most governments, so maybe that will change.
Yup. Yup. Yup. It’s for sure this time. Everything is going to crash…or it’s not. The country is going down the tubes fer sure…or maybe not, depending on various factors which may or may not directly, or indirectly, affect the course we are on or some other course we might be on if certain things happen in a timely manner…or maybe not.
Having said that (or something like it), at the end of the day…or week…or month…or year…or possibly never, things are certain to get worse unless unforeseen events which are possibly on the horizon, in fact, occur in a sequence of events which will almost certainly change the possible outcomes we are facing. Unless, of course, a different series of seemingly random events occur which could, conceivably, alter the long term outcome in the short term.
Ok, now that we have established the possible scenarios that may have an impact on the course of either the collapse of the nation or its renaissance, we can definitively predict with a fair degree of reliability that our culture is either on the verge of, or nowhere near, its immanent implosion. Because of the veracity of all the relevant arguments, it would seem prudent, or bat-shit crazy, to prepare for all possible outcomes given the possible paradigm shifts we may or may not be facing.
Personally, I’m going to finish this comment, have a little something to eat, get blind drunk and masturbate furiously. Of this I am certain, unless I decide instead to do something different, because I’m on a Lenten fast, I don’t drink and masturbating is a sin. Of this I am certain.
Have a really grand, or lousy day everyone. I love you all, or you suck.
“It’s actually quite extraordinary that a people so systemically and obviously preyed upon cannot see what’s right in front of them Not really extraordinary at all, decades of conditioning.
People see what they want to see, not what is actually there.
“Younger generations understand as much as anyone how corrupt, fraudulent and unsustainable this system and its institutions are.”
Oh, how I wish that it were true. It is not. They go through life believing that all will continue on as always and they don’t want to hear my protestations of looming problems. Of all my children, my siblings, their spouses, my children’s spouses, nieces and nephews only three seems to understand the depth of the problems facing us and are willing to take on any preparations.
I, too, suffer from doom fatigue. I saw the beginnings after the 2007-8 near collapse and started digging. The more I dug, the worse the situation seemed. I read, wrote and communicated my concerns to all those important to me with mostly non-response or out right scorn. I am at the point that soldiers and warriors must feel before a great battle. You know it is coming, dread with the fear for your life, but wish it would you could just get it over with so that, if we survive, we might see the other side. To get on with a life that might be free from dread.
Wolverine,
That was a good howl…
While I admire the author’s optimism, I can’t bring myself to believe it. Love is running cold in the hearts of men, women, and whatever else they claim to be, and there’s no coming back. Love and respect still have tremendous power–but when someone is blinded by hate and convinced you’re a fascist who wants to kill anyone who isn’t white or male, a loving and peaceful reaction won’t change their minds. They are convinced they are right in their world view–and coming face to face with the realization that everything they thought was right is wrong (and vice versa) is simply too much for many people to handle.
I hope against hope that more people will be willing to take the red pill, and be humble enough to admit they were entirely wrong and misled. But what I’ve seen of human nature leads me to believe that most are incapable of doing so. No one likes being wrong, and no one like copping to it when they are. And let’s face it…look at who we are dealing with. These people have no logic or reasoning skills, no self-resourcefulness or desire to seek the truth for themselves, and no awareness of history, period. They are putty in the hands of those who are playing them, and they are frighteningly easy to stir into a rabid, maddened frenzy that won’t stop until they’ve spilled blood.
Love can go a long ways. But not this time–not even when the turning is complete and the current status quo is demolished. We are too far gone.
What cannot go on won’t. They are now using Information Overload to short you out and try to demoralize you. Uncle Sham is broke whether they admit it or not. The Trump Tax Cuts Ballooned the deficit to a Trillion. The fake cuts aren’t in there.
The happy talk and the fake crisis, are all to hide the Dark Cloud that everyone now sees. These invaders are looting America. They are there to hide the Oligarchs looting and provide cover. They’re not doing it. The Failed State does not even make the PRETENSE of guarding your future. The invaders DO NOT SUPPORT the Failed State. Uncle Shammy is talking about offering citizenship to Invaders for Military Service. That’s my Mobile Infantry Plan, Uncle Sham.
UNCLE SHAMMY IS DONE. When they start recruiting Invaders that HAVE NO LOYALTY TO THEM, ITS OVER. He’s just a broken down old man, picking fights with everyone to “prove his manhood”. Uncle Shammy is as broke as a broke dick dog.
Can you keep it up, Uncle Sham? I don’t think so Old Man.
Dr. Doom,
Hey Bubba,
I am a little uncomfortable defending the Trumpster but when you say “When they start recruiting Invaders that HAVE NO LOYALTY TO THEM, ITS OVER.” is complete bullshit. It was the O’bama appointed judges that tied up his ban on importing the terrorist sand humpers. Trump is a whole lot smarter than you are, as you clearly haven’t a fucking clue about what is going on or why or where it is going.
“Pretend inferiority and encourage [your opponent] his arrogance.” and “If your opponent is of choleric temper, irritate him.” Sun Tzu
Seems like Trump is doing a pretty good job.
Government forecasting is about the same as weather forecasting. Both can be perfectly accurate with the following fill-in-the-blanks statement.
It will be partly ____ to mostly ____ with a chance of ____. Just throw a dart at a dictionary to fill in the blanks.
Now you all know what “A thousand yard stare” is. We’re living it!
President’s Day 2018
‘It’s a mess, aint it Sheriff?
If it aint it’ll do till a mess gets here.’
The doom you announced for so long is finally here. The truth is that whatever you saw ahead of everybody eventually becomes plain for everybody to see. You can continue to stare at Q entrails trying to make sense of the mess all day or you can simply observe what’s going on all around.
How long can you continue to deny that we elected the wrong guy? You were promised Camelot with an older version of JFK and a sexier version of Jackie. We got JFK alright, but it isn’t the commie-fighting Jack, it’s the whore-chasing swordsman. I thought I was being abusive when I spoke of looking back on a president who is influenced by the Russians and subject to bimbo-eruptions. I was out-trolled by Trump.
But why dredge up the past, how Christian is that? So he shtupped a couple of hookers, who hasn’t? He dated them concurrently for months and only did it missionary style. He probably kept his socks on like a good husband out sowing some wild oats. He didn’t wear a condom for fear of offending the ladies, think of what they went through when he offered to pay them; I’m not that kind, they protested. They were willing to pay lip-service to virtue and Mr. T paid them in kind with empty promises of apartments and suites in the city. They had to settle for hush-money from Trump’s publisher beard and his shyster lawyer.
We tittered at Marilyn singing a breathy lullaby to Jack. https://youtu.be/EqolSvoWNck This President’s Day we hear pillow-talk revelations that put JFK to shame. While Jack loved the quickie with many women, Trump romps all night in his tighty-whities with serious lovers. No blue-dress special here, Trump doesn’t do innocent farmer’s daughters or love-sick porky interns. He prefers a professional who’ll stick around for a while. Imagine how much angrier Trump would be if he hadn’t gotten all that therapy from Stormy and Karen?
That reminds me of the movie Pretty Woman; it seems like Mr. T wanted to live that fantasy over and over; a modus operandi on an endless loop.
We see the trysts at the Beverly Hills Hotel, oops, that’s all we see; we don’t see a fancy restaurant meal, we see a steak and potatoes dinner from room service. Instead of wine service for two on a private jet, the strumpets get reimbursed for flying coach alone. Instead of an opera, they get to watch sharks on the telly-telly. Instead of a polo match, we see a golf tournament. Instead of Mr. T on a chariot come to rescue the poor damsels, we see a cad asking them to sign contracts promising not to telly-telly. The Donald’s dream turned into a nightmare for everybody. Like the lady said, it’s ON.
EC
Martin Sheen is still in the west wing. Now that is some acting job.
I take it you are not a fan?
Twitter bots will continue to work on your bad attitude.