Guest Post by Jeff Thomas
Years ago, Doug Casey mentioned in a correspondence to me, “Empires fall from grace with alarming speed.”
Every now and then, you receive a comment that, although it may have been stated casually, has a lasting effect, as it offers uncommon insight. For me, this was one of those and it’s one that I’ve kept handy at my desk since that time, as a reminder.
Continue reading “Falling From Grace”
by Chris MacIntosh
In 1997, geopolitical advisor to David Rockefeller, Zbigniew Brzezinski, wrote a book, called “The Grand Chessboard.” The book is particularly interesting as it shows the thinking of the Rockefeller empire in regards to Eurasia. Consider the following, which provides some insight into their view of Eurasia and how to control it (actually the very idea of controlling it provides insight into their lust for power): Continue reading ““The Grand Chessboard””
In the middle of the 19th century, the British Empire ran into what what would today be termed a “public relations crisis”.
Influential domestic voices were starting to criticise its industrial system and worldwide domination on ethical grounds, not least the art critic John Ruskin.
He wrote that all he had found at the heart of what was supposedly a great civilization was “insane religion, degraded art, merciless war, sullen toil, detestable pleasure, and vain or vile hope”.[1]
Lack of public support for the empire at home from the wave of “Little Englander” sentiment also risked affecting the way Britain’s activities were viewed abroad.
As Carroll Quigley writes, its success was partly due to “its ability to present itself to the world as the defender of the freedoms and rights of small nations and of diverse social and religious groups”.[2]
It was therefore decided, by a powerful group based around Cecil Rhodes and Lord Milner, along with aristocrats such as Lord Esher, Lord Rothschild and Lord Balfour[3], to rethink the form and appearance of Britain’s economic sphere of influence.
Gradually, the Crown’s possessions were encouraged to become supposedly independent nations, though very much remaining under Britain’s wing, and eventually, after the Second World War, The Empire was rebranded “The Commonwealth”, whose current flag features at the top of this page.
Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
The rise of Charlemagne came 309.6 years from the fall of Rome in 476AD. What is never discussed in the history books is the correlation with weather. Both the rise of the Vikings and the Franks coincided with the Medieval Warm Period (800–1300) and ended with the start of the Little Ice Age (about 1250–1850). It was at the end of this Global Warming period that we find the reappearance of gold coinage. The climate directly influenced the rise and fall of the Vikings. Moreover, we now know that they established a settlement for a while in America about 500 years before Columbus.
In 1913, 412 million people lived under the control of the British Empire, 23 percent of the world’s population at that time. As Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, it remains the largest empire in human history and at the peak of its power in 1920, it covered an astonishing 13.71 million square miles – that’s close to a quarter of the world’s land area.
At its height, it was described as “the empire on which the sun never sets” but of course the sun finally did set on it.
“An honest politician is as unthinkable as an honest burglar.”
H. L. Mencken
“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.”
Marcus Aurelius
“Government schooling is the most radical adventure in history. It kills the family by monopolizing the best times of childhood and by teaching disrespect for home and parents.”
John Taylor Gatto
“It’s not as if socialism is a new idea. It was tried in the 20th century. It produced economic stagnation and despair. In its purest form, it extinguished more than one hundred million people.”
Lew Rockwell
Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
Here is a chart of the real data for global cyclical trends in the energy output of the sun and CO2 levels. Look at this chart prior to the Minoan warming. There was a very cold period a bit longer than 8,000 years ago — the Ice Age. You see what I would call a slingshot move when the temperatures swung sharply to a record high over about 300 years, according to the ice core samples. Thereafter, we move into a bear market, oscillating trend to retest the low made 4700 years ago. Then there is the steady rise into what we call the Minoan high. Continue reading “The History of Climate Change — Empires Fall When Warming Turns to Cooling”
There are endless comparisons between Ancient Rome and ‘Murika … especially as in Empires Falling.
Rome had shopping malls, apartment buildings, running water, a stadium with more capacity than the Superdome, and much more. Pretty awesome, eh? Of course, they had no quarter-mile high skyscrapers. But, that’s totally irrelevant. Comparisons ought to be made to technologies available at the time of construction.
Babylon, Carthage, Constantinople, Kaifeng, London in the early 1800s … great cities all. But, Rome was the Greatest of them all.
Yet, they fell. ALL empires of man eventually fall. So, will America … and we may be actual witnesses thereof. We DO live in interesting times.
“We have a world economic system that is not good. A system that in order to survive must make war, as great empires have always done. But since you cannot have a Third World War, you have regional wars. And what does this mean? That arms are made and sold, and in this way the idolatrous economies, the great world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money, obviously keep their balance sheets in the black.”
Jorge Bergoglio, Francis I
