Liberty – Page 6 – The Burning Platform

The Consent Of The Governed And The Right To Form A New Government

Submitted by John Snyder

I did not always feel this way. I started out as a democrat, and voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988 – the first presidential election I was eligible to vote for. My allegiance to the democratic party did not last long, and by the next presidential election cycle I was solidly in the republican camp. In the early 2000s I had my first conversation with someone whose politics – I now understand – can only be described as libertarian. It would be the beginning of my conversion away from establishment republicanism.

I remember unsettling questions generally about why the government needed to have authority over us and why it needed to have a monopoly on this power. I was not able to give a satisfactory answer – I had never thought much about the issue previously. The best I could do was say something along the lines of “its always been this way” or “I cant imagine life any other way” or “how will society function without a central government that has authority over us?” These are not uncommon answers for someone who hasn’t considered basic questions about the moral basis for authority.

My inability to imagine life any other way or to envision how a society might function in the absence of an authority only reflected my own shortcomings – my own lack of imagination and vision. “Because its always been this way” is fatalism – the idea that your future is preordained and you are powerless to do much about it.

These kinds of answers do not even begin to address the original question: why does their need to be an authority? Is it possible that coercive authority – that is, authority that is imposed on you against your will – can be abandoned as a fundamental principle of governance?

After mulling it over for the last 10 or so years, I think that the answer can be stated in one short sentence, one simple idea: You have the right to be free. Its as simple as that. Everything else is details.

You are not born into servitude and obligation as some would have you believe. You might choose to serve your neighbor and this is indeed a good thing. But you cannot be forced to do so and you should not feel guilty for deciding not to do so.

You might choose to live under the authority of a government, but in order for this authority to be morally legitimate, your voluntary consent is required. The Declaration of Independence speaks of government’s ‘just powers’ as being derived from the consent of the governed. We should be clear. This is not the consent of the majority or the consent of a bureaucrat or the consent of elected representatives. It is the consent of the governed, individual by individual. And this consent, even if given, can be rescinded at any time, for any reason or for no reason. Remember, you have the right to be free.

My friends, I write this to advocate for independence. This may seem shocking to some but it should not be. For it is in principle no different than deciding to quit a job that has become intolerable or leave a relationship that has become far more harmful than beneficial.

I do not claim that the problems with our present government cannot be solved with sufficient time and effort. But I do claim that the burdens of our current government have become so oppressive as to make the alternative – independence – the preferred course of action. Unlike the founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence, I see no need for a specific list of grievances. It is sufficient that we merely state our desire to be independent. We are not required to provide reasons, explanations or any justification. Remember, you have the right to be free.

Your liberty is not something you have to ask for, it belongs to you. It was given to you by your creator and cannot rightfully be taken away from you by any man, no matter the circumstances.

Let me be very clear as this is an important point. I am not advocating for revolution, overthrow of the government or any violence of any kind. I envision a political separation that is entirely peaceful and amicable. Indeed, there is historical precedence for this.

The peaceful separation in 1993 of Czechoslovakia into the Czech republic and Slovakia is perhaps the most recent example. Observers have noted that relations between the two peoples are today better than they have ever been, and refer to the separation as the ‘velvet divorce’. There is free movement of people, capital and goods between the two countries and there are no checkpoints at the border of any kind.

Another example is the peaceful dissolution of Sweden and Norway in 1905. The reining king of the two lands at the time, Oscar II, who was a Swede, deserves most of the credit for this. He declared that it would not be in the long term interests of Sweden to wage war on Norway to keep the kingdom together. Before the Swedish parliament on June 21st, 1905 he said: “However vital for the security of the Scandinavian peoples the union [of Sweden and Norway] is, it is not worth the sacrifices that the use of force would bring…..”

And lastly, Scotland will vote this year, 2014, on whether it will remain as part of the United Kingdom or become an independent nation. So even in our own time, peaceful political dissolution can occur and is occurring.

In a similar way I claim that there is no need for violence in our present circumstances. Independence can be achieved by simply ending our political allegiance to the existing powers and creating a new political structure, whatever form that may take.

Many will say that the burdens placed upon us by our government are necessary for the continuance of a civilized society, but I say to you that there is nothing civilized about force and coercion, which, in the absence of our voluntary consent, is the sole basis for our governments rule over us.

Others will say that certain material concerns – food, shelter, clothing, health care, jobs and other basics of life – must necessarily come before individual liberty if we are to survive, that liberty is meaningless when faced with starvation. I claim that physical survival is not the highest and most noble purpose of life. I further claim that the freedom of each and every individual to peacefully pursue happiness in whatever manner he or she sees fit is more important and has a higher priority than any man’s material needs, whatever they may be. To quote the Roman poet Juvenal:

It is to be prayed that the mind be sound in a sound body.

Ask for a brave soul that lacks the fear of death,

which places the length of life last among nature’s blessings,

which is able to bear whatever kind of sufferings,

does not know anger, lusts for nothing and believes

the hardships and savage labors of Hercules better than

the satisfactions, feasts, and feather bed of an eastern king.

Juvenal, Satires number 10:

‘Wrong Desire is the Source of Suffering’

Some will say that the majority has spoken, and desires certain things, and that our elected representatives are therefore morally justified in pursuing these objectives, forcefully if necessary. I say there is nothing sacred about a majority – it’s just an arbitrary number. And it certainly does not provide any moral basis for forceful, coercive governance. Nevertheless it is all well and good for the majority to elect rulers and peacefully pursue all that it desires – so long as everyone else is free to elect their own rulers and peacefully pursue all that they desire.

Such a system – where we can voluntarily choose our political relationships just like we would choose our personal or economic relationships – can work, and work very well, so long as the individual’s right to choose is respected by all parties. If it is not, we, the liberty loving people on this earth, those of us who hold the idea of individual liberty above all else, we have the right and the duty to secure for ourselves and for our descendants the blessings of liberty and to defend against all attempts at encroachment.

I leave you with a quote from a famous American statesman:

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.

Those words were spoken by Abraham Lincoln on the house floor on January 12, 1848, in reference to the secession of Texas from Mexico, and they are as true today as they were then. Remember, you have the right to be free.

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Liberty Movement Rising

Guest Post by Brandon Smith

“Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.” – Thomas Paine

The label of “fringe” is a common one used by statists, bureaucrats and paid shills in order to marginalize those who would stand against government corruption. The primary assertion being sold is that the “majority” joyously supports the establishment; and the majority, of course, is always right.

The liberty movement, which is a collection of numerous freedom organizations and political activists brought together by a shared philosophical bond, has been accused of “fringe” status for quite some time. With corporatist dominance over the mainstream media for decades backing an elitist machine in Washington and a global banking cartel footing the bill with money created from thin air, any such accusation can be made to seem “real” to those who are unaware.

The problem has always been a matter of physical action giving rise to an acknowledgment of numbers.

We have all heard the old story of the debate within the ancient Roman government over the idea of forcing the slave population to wear distinct armbands so that they could be more easily identified among the regular population. The concept was rejected on the realization that if the slaves were given a visual confirmation of their considerable numbers and strength, they would be encouraged to revolt against the Roman tyrants. That is to say, as long as the slaves felt isolated, they would remain apathetic and powerless. Of course, that was not always the case. Sometimes, a small group would stand up despite their supposed isolation, and the rest of the world, wide-eyed and astonished, would take notice.

The liberty movement has just experienced one of its first great moments of realization and empowerment in Clark County, Nev., and millions of past naysayers have been shell-shocked.

I covered my views in detail on the Bundy Ranch saga in Nevada in my article “Real Americans Are Ready To Snap,” amid the usual choir of disinformation agents and nihilists desperate to convince Web audiences that the liberty movement would do nothing to stop the Bureau of Land Management’s militant assault on Cliven Bundy’s cattle farm. This assault included hundreds of Federal agents, helicopters, contractors hired essentially as cattle rustlers and even teams of snipers.

The statists and socialists were certainly out in force to misrepresent the Bundy issue and frighten anyone who might consider taking a stand for the family. The Southern Poverty Law Center, not surprisingly, was hard at work spreading lies and disinformation about the confrontation in Nevada, painting a picture of fractured patriot groups and militiamen with “little training” going to face unstoppable Federal BLM agents and likely “ending up dead.” The SPLC insinuated that the movement was ineffective and in over its head.

The reality was much the opposite. Liberty groups arrived in droves and were staunchly unified — not by a centralized leadership, but in defense of the basic moral principles outlined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. Sources on the ground at the Bundy ranching operation relayed to me that at least 1,000 activists and militia members arrived over the weekend, with many more on the way. This one event proved certain points:

The liberty movement is not afraid to put itself in harm’s way for the right cause — even if this means facing off against highly armed government thugs.
The liberty movement has the ability to field a response team or even an army anywhere in the country at any time within a couple of days.
The liberty movement has the ability to change the course of events, even to the point of removing Federal agents from a region who are acting in an unConstitutional manner.
The Federal government is not invincible, nor is it unfazed by liberty movement opposition. They worry about our strength and ability.

Over the past weekend, we witnessed the true influence of the liberty movement. As thousands of activists and militia arrived in the area, the BLM finally began to understand what it was facing. The government agency that has been terrorized farming communities throughout the West for years, the agency armed with military-grade weaponry and hundreds of agents, ran away, as freedom fighters descended on the region.

Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie, two politicians who were deathly silent during the beginning of the Federal incursion on the Bundy ranch, have now suddenly become vocal in defense of Nevada ranchers against the BLM. It’s amazing how “inspired” politicians can become to do the right thing when they see an army of liberty activists marching against tyranny in their own backyard.

Not only was the BLM forced to remove itself from the area, but it was also forced to relinquish all the cattle it had stolen from Bundy over the course of the past week. Here, liberty groups close in on the cattle holding pens of the BLM and take back Bundy’s property.

Statists are indignant and furious over the surrender of the BLM. The same people who boasted that liberty activists would be slaughtered by Fed agents are now frothing at the mouth because they did not get their massacre. Not only that, but the bureaucracy they worship has shown itself to be impotent in the face of Constitutional champions. All I can say is nothing puts a bigger grin on my face than to see statists cry like babies when their delusions of grandeur are trampled on.

This was a major victory for the liberty movement. But let’s be clear; the fight is just beginning.

I suspect that the Bundy event will be spun by news agencies and the government until it is unrecognizable. They will claim that the BLM left not because they were wrong, but because they were trying to keep people safe. They will claim that liberty movement protesters were the aggressors and the poor BLM agents were just trying to do their jobs. They will play the race card as they always do, much like this pathetically lazy and unprofessional article from Slate, which asserts that if the Bundy’s had been black, the Liberty Movement would have never supported them. They will argue the so-called Federal legality of the raid itself, and paint Bundy as a “freeloader” who refuses to pay taxes and who is living off the American people. They will do everything in their power to destroy the image of the victory and soil the name of the Bundy family.

What they don’t seem to understand, though, is that the liberty movement does not care what the Federal government deems “legal” or “illegal.” Our only interest is what is Constitutional and what is moral. The dispute was never about the “legality” of Bundy’s use of the land, which his family used for grazing without interference for generations — until 1993, when the BLM used the absurd endangered species protection racket to put all of his neighbors out of business and threaten his ranch with invasion. Add to this the recently discovered fact that Senator Harry Reid’s former assistant and friend Neil Kornze is now head of the BLM due to Reid’s influence, and the fact that Harry Reid and his family are reaping financial rewards by driving farmers from all over the region where Cliven Bundy’s ranch sits while arranging land deals with Chinese solar companies, and one has to ask, why should Bundy pay any of his hard earned money to the federal government when they are just going to use it to bulldoze his cattle and make Harry Reid more rich?

Disinformation websites like Snopes contend that Reid’s “projects” are not being established anywhere near the Bundy Ranch, yet, one such project has already been launched only 35 miles south of Bundy, and, the BLM has erased a page from its website specifically mentioning the Bundy Ranch and it’s “interference” with Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone Projects, the same projects Harry Reid and his son are heavily involved in.

What is amazing to me is that in light of this information hardcore socialists are still willing to defend Reid and the BLM. My question is, if the BLM is so innocent, then why are they erasing such data from their website at all? What were they trying to hide?

Harry Reid has not responded to the facts behind his financial involvement in the BLM’s attacks on Nevada farmers, except to say that they are “conspiracy theories”. He added when asked about the status of the confrontation:

“Well, it’s not over. We can’t have an American people that violate the law and then just walk away from it. So it’s not over…”

Yes, Harry, it won’t be over until men like you are thrown behind bars.

Note that he says “an American people”; as if he is separate, as if he is referring to all of us as a subservient organism, or servant class. What Reid is saying is, the elites can’t have “an American people” openly exposing their criminality and defying their tyranny, and then just walking away. I’m sorry to break it to Reid, but that is exactly how all of this is going to end.

Statists and bureaucrats like Reid continually attempt to argue this issue from the standpoint of Federal legality, obviously because the Federal government has the legislative and bureaucratic power to make any despicable action legal (at least on paper) if it wishes. However, the liberty movement has no interest whatsoever in Federal interpretations of legal precedence. We are only concerned with what is right. As the old saying goes, when injustice becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.

The liberty movement also fully understands that the Bundy victory was only one battle at the beginning of a long war.

The BLM may very well be waiting for activists to leave the area before attacking again. And even if that is not the case, tyrannical systems have a way of attempting to make up for signs of weakness by escalating violence during the next siege. That is to say, we should expect the next event involving the BLM or other government agencies to be even more vicious than the Bundy incident. It is simply the natural inclination of totalitarian systems to exaggerate their power when their failings have been exposed.

That said, it should be noted that corrupt leadership often crumbles in the face of steadfast resolve and courage. We have a long way to go before this Nation is once again truly free, but the liberty movement has proven its invaluable worth over the course of the past several days. We arrived at a crossroads, and we are now moving forward in the right direction — without fear and without regret. It is in these moments when history is made — when common men and women thwart the odds, defy the darkness and make good on their beliefs by risking everything in the name of freedom.

You can contact Brandon Smith at: [email protected]

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STEP AWAY FROM THE TOOTHBRUSH

Those fear mongering douchebags at DHS are at it again. They are warning airlines and Olympic officials of an imminent attack by toothpaste wielding terrorists. They’ve issued a Code Crest alert, with risk of a plaque attack.

Unnamed US security officials were quoted as saying there were fears toothpaste tubes could be used to smuggle explosives which could then be used to assemble a bomb either in flight or upon arrival at the Olympics. The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that “out of an abundance of caution” it “regularly shares relevant information with domestic and international partners”. “While we are not aware of a specific threat to the homeland at this time, this routine communication is an important part of our commitment to making sure we meet that priority,” it added.

DHS hasn’t saved us from any fake terrorist attacks initiated by themselves in a few months. They need to keep the ignorant masses fearful and subservient as they protect us from phantom dental terrorists. As usual, DHS has absolutely nothing to back up their fear mongering bullshit. Are airlines supposed to confiscate every tube of toothpaste that is taken on their planes? Can you imagine the rampant levels of bad breath in Sochi? These DHS bozos spend tens of billions per year and have foiled NO real terrorist plots. They were warned about the Boston bombers by the Russians and did nothing. DHS is just a tool to keep the plebs under control and pliant to the demands of the ruling class.

This crap is nothing but further de-sensitizing of the masses to government removing more of your liberties in the name of safety. It’s beyond laughable, but the average dolt will actually believe DHS is protecting them.

I understand this new toothpaste will give you an explosive new smile.

GREED HAS POISONED MEN’S SOULS

EIGHT HUNDRED MILLION F@#KING DOLLARS IN 24 HOURS

I’m flabbergasted on a daily basis by the idiocy that goes on in this country. We have the lowest percentage of people working since 1978. We have 47 million people, or 20% of all households, on food stamps. The real median household income is lower than it was in 1998. Gas prices are near all-time highs. The average family has virtually no retirement or current savings. Despite these facts, millions of broke Americans lined up to buy a freaking video game to the tune of $800 million in the first 24 hours on the market. They just whipped out the credit card and went $60 further into debt. I’m sure some people enjoy video games. Personally, I have never played a video game in my entire life. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on games for my kids, but never played one of them. Of course, I’ve never sent a text message in my life either, so I may not be the ideal judge of technology.

I see this phenomenon as part of the bigger picture of a world ruled by propaganda, distraction, chosen servitude and willful ignorance. The corporate fascist ruling class know they must keep the masses distracted from the true reality of their situation. Video games, sporting events, 24 hour faux news entertainment, reality TV, porn, the stock market, religion, evil dictators, iGadgets, fashion magazines, and most of the internet are just opium for the masses.

Our Controllers have succeeded in implementing every dystopian idea dreamed up by Aldous Huxley and detailed in his classic 1932 novel – Brave New World. Huxley’s fears have been realized to a greater extent than he could have imagined:

“In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or the propaganda might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies – the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.

In the past most people never got a chance of fully satisfying this appetite. They might long for distractions, but the distractions were not provided. Christmas came but once a year, feasts were “solemn and rare,” there were few readers and very little to read, and the nearest approach to a neighborhood movie theater was the parish church, where the performances though frequent, were somewhat monotonous. For conditions even remotely comparable to those now prevailing we must return to imperial Rome, where the populace was kept in good humor by frequent, gratuitous doses of many kinds of entertainment – from poetical dramas to gladiatorial fights, from recitations of Virgil to all-out boxing, from concerts to military reviews and public executions. But even in Rome there was nothing like the non-stop distractions now provided by newspapers and magazines, by radio, television and the cinema.

In “Brave New World” non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature are deliberately used as instruments of policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social and political situation. The other world of religion is different from the other world of entertainment; but they resemble one another in being most decidedly “not of this world.” Both are distractions and, if lived in too continuously, both can become, in Marx’s phrase “the opium of the people” and so a threat to freedom.

Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it.”
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

The ignorant masses that make up the majority in this country have learned to love their servitude. We threw in the towel on vigilance and love of liberty decades ago. While millions sit in front of their boob tubes killing whores and stealing cars with their joy stick in their fantasy worlds, our Controllers are smiling as they manipulate, obfuscate, and increase their wealth, power and control. Welcome to Brave New World USA.

‘Grand Theft Auto’ Sets $800 Million, One-Day Record

Surpassed Record Set by ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops II’ Last November

THOSE WHO DON’T BUILD MUST BURN

Originally posted in September 2010 – RIP Ray Bradbury

“Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries of more. School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?” – Captain Beatty in Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury wrote his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 in 1950. Most kids were required to read this book when they were seventeen years old. Having just re-read the novel at the age of forty-seven makes you realize how little you knew at seventeen. It is 165 pages of keen insights into today’s American society. Bradbury’s hedonistic dark future has come to pass. His worst fears have been realized. The American public has willingly chosen to be distracted and entertained by electronic gadgets 24 hours per day. Today, reading books is for old fogies. Most people think Bradbury’s novel was a warning about censorship. It was not. It was a warning about TV and radio turning the minds of Americans to mush.

It is now sixty years later and his warning went unheeded. A self imposed ignorance by a vast swath of Americans is reflected in these statistics:

33% of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42% of college graduates never read another book after college.
80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57% of new books are not read to completion.
There are over 17,000 radio stations and over 2,000 TV stations in America today.
Each day in the U.S., people spend on average 4.7 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.
The projected average number of hours an individual (12 and older) will spend watching television this year is 1,750.
In a 65-year life, the average person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.
Number of 30-second TV commercials seen in a year by an average child – 20,000
Number of videos rented daily in the U.S. – 6 million
Number of public library items checked out daily – 3 million
Percentage of Americans who can name The Three Stooges – 59%
Percentage who can name at least three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court – 17%

When Ray Bradbury wrote his novel in the basement of the UCLA library on a pay per hour typewriter, television was in its infancy. In 1945 there were only 10,000 television sets in all of America. By 1950, there were 6 million sets. The US population was 150 million living in 43 million households. Only 9% of these households had a TV. There was one TV for every 25 people. Americans read books and newspapers to be aware of their world. Today, there are 335 million television sets in the country. The US population is 310 million living in 115 million households. There is a TV in 99% of these households, with an average of 3 TVs per household. Your reality is whatever the corporate media decides is your reality.

Bradbury envisioned gigantic flat screen wall TVs that interacted with the audience and people wearing seashell earbuds so they could listen to the radio. Anything to keep from reading, thinking, questioning or wondering. Today, anesthetized kids and non-thinking adults sit in front of the boob tube with their Playstation controllers in hand and a microphone attached to their ear, killing zombies while talking to their fellow warriors, sitting in their own living rooms somewhere in the world. Apple has sold 260 million iPods since 2001 that allow people to zone out and live in their own private music world, never needing to interact or associate with their fellow humans. Millions of Blackberry addicts roam the streets of our cities like androids, forcing alert pedestrians to bob and weave to avoid head-on collisions with these connected egomaniacs. They are overwhelmed with their self importance.

For those who have not read the book since high school, or have never read the novel, here is a quick summary of Fahrenheit 451:

Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books in a futuristic American city. In this dystopian world, firemen start fires rather than putting them out. The people in this society do not read books, enjoy nature, spend time by themselves, think independently, or have meaningful conversations. Instead, they drive at extreme speeds, watch excessive amounts of television on wall-size sets, and listen to the radio on “Seashell Radio” sets attached to their ears. Guy meets a girl that makes him rethink his priorities. He starts to question book burning and why people fear books. After not showing up for work, his boss Beatty comes to his house and explains why books are now banned. According to Beatty, special-interest groups and other “minorities” objected to books that offended them. Soon, books all began to look the same, as writers tried to avoid offending anybody. This was not enough, however, and society as a whole decided to simply burn books rather than permit conflicting opinions.

Montag connects with a retired English professor named Faber. He tells him that the value of books lies in the detailed awareness of life that they contain. Faber says that Montag needs not only books but also the leisure to read them and the freedom to act upon their ideas. After Montag’s wife turns him in and he is forced to burn his own house to the ground, he turns his flamethrower on Beatty. He is hunted by a mechanical hound and the chase is broadcast on national TV. He escapes to the forest where he finds a group of renegade intellectuals (“the Book People”), led by a man named Granger, who welcome him. They are a part of a nationwide network of book lovers who have memorized many great works of literature and philosophy. They hope that they may be of some help to mankind in the aftermath of the war that has just been declared. Montag’s role is to memorize the Book of Ecclesiastes. Enemy jets appear in the sky and completely obliterate the city with atomic bombs. Montag and his new friends move on to search for survivors and rebuild civilization.

Knowledge versus Willful Ignorance

“Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.” – Captain Beatty in Fahrenheit 451

In Bradbury’s novel the fireman’s duty is to destroy knowledge and promote ignorance, in order to equalize the population and promote sameness. Any impartial analysis of the current state of affairs must conclude that he was absolutely right. In an interview with the LA Weekly in 2007, Bradbury clarified his views:

“Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” His fear in 1953 that television would kill books has, he says, been partially confirmed by television’s effect on substance in the news. “Useless,” Bradbury says. “They stuff you with so much useless information, you feel full.”

Bradbury wrote his novel shortly after WWII, at the outset of the Korean War, during the early stages of the Cold War and in the midst of McCarthyism. The novel reflects these influences. Orwell’s 1984 used television screens to indoctrinate citizens. Bradbury envisioned television as an opiate, keeping the public sedated. The wall televisions in Fahrenheit 451 allow characters to interact with those watching. Bradbury captured the future of reality TV. Entertainment today is dominated by reality TV. We are blasted by the likes of Jersey Shore, Jerseylicious, American Idol, America’s Got Talent, Survivor, Big Brother, Project Runway, Dancing With the Stars, Amazing Race, Housewives of OC, NJ, NY, DC, and Atlanta, I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant and fifty other mind numbing reality shows. Morons with names like Snookie and The Situation are better known by teenagers than George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. In Bradbury’s world, television was used to broadcast meaningless drivel to divert attention, and thought, away from an impending war. Today, television is used to broadcast meaningless drivel to divert attention, and thought, away from ongoing wars, government corruption, impending financial collapse, and truth.

Bradbury still lives in Los Angeles and observes the alienation aspects of his novel playing out exactly as he envisioned:

“In writing the short novel Fahrenheit 451 I thought I was describing a world that might evolve in four or five decades. But only a few weeks ago, in Beverly Hills one night, a husband and wife passed me, walking their dog. I stood staring after them, absolutely stunned. The woman held in one hand a small cigarette-package-sized radio, its antenna quivering. From this sprang tiny copper wires which ended in a dainty cone plugged into her right ear. There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap-opera cries, sleep-walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction.”

Bradbury directly foretells this incident early in his novel:

“And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talking coming in.” – Fahrenheit 451

Montag spends the entire novel seeking truth. Professor Faber becomes his mentor, leading him toward the truth. It is not a coincidence that Bradbury named the Montag character after a paper company and the Faber character after a pencil company. Faber was the instrument through which Montag was taught. Montag was clearly fighting an uphill battle. The majority had stopped thinking and seeking truth decades ago. The majority always wants things to remain the same.

“But remember that the Captain belongs to the most dangerous enemy of truth and freedom, the solid unmoving cattle of the majority. Oh, God, the terrible tyranny of the majority.” – Professor Faber

Government did not need to ban books. As technology advanced and filled the days with 24 hours of entertainment, infomercials, propaganda, and trivia, the population willfully stopped reading books. Why think, ponder, or question when you can be entertained and directed to believe in whatever the state thinks is best? When entertainment wasn’t enough, the population would drive their cars at speeds exceeding 100 mph with a goal of running animals and people over. Today, the mainstream media is controlled by a few mega-corporations that do the bidding of the state. They are responsible for keeping the population sedated, entertained, confused, and misinformed. The public willfully accepts the reality presented by those in power, rather than thinking, questioning or seeking the truth.

“Remember the firemen are rarely necessary. The public stopped reading of its own accord. You firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty blaze, but its a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep things in line. So few want to be rebels anymore.” – Professor Faber

In America’s pleasure society we drive as fast as we want, heedless of danger. We care only for our own gratification, not for the welfare of others. For enjoyment, we memorize lyrics to Eminem rap songs. Thinking is not pleasurable so we envelop ourselves with flat screen HDTVs that provide nonstop distraction. Reading books is no longer necessary in our world. This is reflected in the fact that 40% of all adults in America can be classified as functionally illiterate. The U.S. public school system has been so dumbed down, with equality of all as the mantra that one wonders whether the state purposefully wants to process non-thinking, non-questioning autobots into society. A thinking, questioning public is dangerous to the state.

“We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.” – Captain Beatty

Political Correctness & Censorship

“It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals. Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Sam’s Cabin. Burn it.” – Captain Beatty

Bradbury imagined a democratic society whose diverse population turns against books. He imagined not just political correctness, but a society so diverse that all groups were “minorities.” It was essential that all thought become like vanilla tapioca. First they condensed the books, stripping out more and more offending passages until ultimately all that remained were footnotes. Only after people stopped reading on their own did the state employ firemen to burn books. Once you sacrifice liberty to the state, the state will not restore it without a fight. Political correctness has been taken to the extreme by those in power in America. The text books used to educate our children have had all “offensive” facts extracted. History has been revised to satisfy the agendas of those in power. The truth is inconsequential when a minority group might be offended. History books used in our public schools have more references about Marilyn Monroe than George Washington. Bradbury was prescient in his ability to see the future denigration of those who sought wisdom.

Our public schools have the power to place students into roles such as runner, football player or swimmer. By being placed in a role, a person is doing what is expected of him and not being an individual. We dread the unfamiliar. To be an individual is to be unfamiliar. Thus, to conform is easier.

“With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word `intellectual,’ of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. People want to be happy, isn’t that right? Haven’t you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren’t they? Don’t we keep them moving, don’t we give them fun? That’s all we live for, isn’t it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these.” – Captain Beatty

The ruling elite and the mainstream media are openly scornful and antagonistic toward those they label intellectuals. Fox News and MSNBC prefer talking points, misinformation, and dogmatic ideology from their anchor entertainers and insipid guests. The numbskulls on these shows are never in doubt and always wrong. There is no true debate between reasonable people. These entertainment shows appeal to the baser emotional instincts of the public, not to their reason or intellect. The American public no longer has the capability to critically analyze what they are told by the mainstream corporate media. They gave up reading books decades ago, leading to a steady decline in critical thinking skills. No need to think when you can go bungee jumping, mountain biking, sky diving, yachting, or paint balling.

In the ultimate irony, Bradbury found out in 2003 that over the years editors from Ballantine had censored 75 separate sections of his novel, fearful that it would contaminate the minds of our young. The idea of today’s censorship is not to burn books, but to remove every controversial word or phrase that could offend anyone. Books are made so generic and bland that no one would want to read them anyway. Bradbury is still full of piss and vinegar, sixty years after writing his masterpiece:

“The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/ Italian/ Octogenarian/ Zen Buddhist, Zionist/ Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/ Republican, Mattachine/ Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.”

Never Ending War

“Someday the load we’re carrying with us may help someone. But even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn’t use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us. We’re going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we’re doing, you can say, We’re remembering. That’s where we’ll win out in the long run. And someday we’ll remember so much that we’ll build the biggest goddamn steam-shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up. Come on now, we’re going to go build a mirror-factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them.” – Granger

Bradbury had known nothing but war from the time he was 18 until he wrote Fahrenheit 451 at the age of 30. He describes the sound of bombers continuously flying over the city. America had started two nuclear wars since 1990. The degenerative effects of mass media in today’s info-bite world can be clearly seen in how they are able to manipulate public opinion to support undeclared wars without question. If Americans were still able to think and interested in exercising their responsibilities as citizens of a Republic, they would have required that Congress exercise its responsibility to declare war rather than allow one man to declare and wage wars all over the globe. It is easy when the state controls the message.

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war.” – Beatty

Montag is stalked by the Mechanical Hound throughout the book. It was programmed to hunt down Montag and lethally inject him with poison. Bradbury didn’t know it, but he had described an early version of a predator drone. Today, a man can sit in front of his computer in the Pentagon and direct an unmanned predator drone to fire missiles at “enemies” without faces, halfway around the world. No danger, no consequences, no responsibility. The American public blindly believes the state is protecting them by murdering “enemies of the state”. They will think differently when predator drones circle the skies above their towns seeking out “domestic terrorists” and non-conformists.

The hunt for Montag was broadcast on national TV. Bradbury’s imagination produced a vision of fake reality TV, fifty years before it became an everyday reality.

“Mechanical Hound never fails. Never since its first use in tracking quarry has this incredible invention made a mistake. Tonight, this network is proud to have the opportunity to follow the Hound by camera helicopter as it starts on its way to the target…- TV announcer

They’re faking. You threw them off at the river. They can’t admit it. They know they can hold their audience only so long. The show’s got to have a snap ending, quick! If they started searching the whole damn river it might take all night. So they’re sniffing for a scape-goat to end things with a bang. Watch. They’ll catch Montag in the next five minutes! – Granger

The search is over, Montag is dead; a crime against society has been avenged. – TV announcer

They didn’t show the man’s face in focus. Did you notice? Even your best friends couldn’t tell if it was you. They scrambled it just enough to let the imagination take over. – Granger

As I read this passage visions of the OJ Simpson slow speed chase along the LA freeways appeared in my mind. It was immediately followed by the fake balloon boy video from a few months ago. Lastly, the streaming video of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico came into focus. When the cameras are turned off, the show is over. Cold blooded murderers are released due to political correctness. A child in danger was just a show. The effects of 200 million gallons of oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico on the environment and the citizens of the Gulf region aren’t apparent when the cameras are turned off. So therefore, there are no effects. The world today is one big TV reality show. The populace wants to be entertained by its news. Sound bites are essential. Dazzling special effects are required. Beautiful people presenting the show are necessary. Facts are optional. The truth is a nuisance. There is only one requirement – THE SHOW MUST GO ON.

There are few builders left, while millions of burners lurk behind every bush. First it will be Korans and Mosques. Then it will be bibles and churches. Then it will be libraries. Eventually it will be your house. America was built by those who cherished liberty, freedom, responsibility, knowledge, and truth. A fog of complacency and malaise settled over America in the last six decades. It is almost as if Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451 were used as instruction manuals rather than warnings by our society. The worst aspects from all three of these dystopian novels have been adopted or implemented in present day America. The citizenry has become dependent upon the state for information, direction, support, and protection. The unquestioning obedience toward the faceless, nameless, hapless state bureaucracy will lead to tyranny. The state will demand your compliance. The state will monitor your thoughts and movements. The state will tell you what to believe. The state will brutally punish anyone who attempts to think or question. The match is lit. The books are piled high.

“There was a silly damn bird called a Phoenix back before Christ: every few hundred years he built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we’re doing the same thing, over and over, but we’ve got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we’ve done for a thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we’ll stop making the Goddamn funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember, every generation.” – Granger

At the end of the novel, the city is destroyed by atomic bombs. The “Book People” begin to move back toward the city in an effort to rebuild their civilization and help it rise up from the ashes. Our society has gone so far off course that a peaceful reversal seems highly unlikely. A revolution that sweeps away the old order and provides an opportunity for America to start anew will occur during the next fifteen years. Just as in the novel, there are surely dark days ahead, with much suffering, pain and death. The majority do not see this revolution coming. Those in power are blinded by their own ignorance. It is up to the minority of thinkers, questioners, skeptics, and truth seekers to insure that America rises up based upon its founding principles of liberty, freedom and personal responsibility. I urge you to look up from your Blackberry. Turn off the TV. Take the iPod earbuds out of your ears. Log off your computer. Read Shakespeare, Twain, Orwell, Bradbury, Huxley, Dickens, Tolstoy, Hemingway, or Faulkner. Don’t believe anything that the mainstream media declares as fact without verifying it yourself. Question everything. Question everyone. Believe no one. The state is not your protector. Government cannot replace reason. Montag was responsible for memorizing the Book of Ecclesiastes in order to pass along that wisdom to future generations. Ask yourself – What are you leaving for future generations?

“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” – Book of Ecclesiastes

“Those who don’t build must burn.” – Professor Faber – Fahrenheit 451

BERNANKE PLEDGES TO SCREW YOUR GRANDMOTHER FOR AT LEAST TWO MORE YEARS

“A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank.” – Ron Paul

I wonder what goes through Ben Bernanke’s mind as he sits in his gold plated boardroom in the majestic Marriner Eccles building in Washington DC and decides to screw grandmothers in order to further enrich Wall Street bankers. He just pledged to keep interest rates at zero percent for two more years. Ben is a supposedly book smart man. Does he have no guilt or shame for what he has wrought? How does he sleep at night knowing he has created bloody revolutions around the globe due to his inflationary zero interest policy? People are dying because he has decided that an elite group of Wall Street bankers who recklessly brought down the worldwide financial system in 2008 deserve to be kept alive and enriched at the expense of the many.

He uses words like transitory to describe inflation. Even as the price of gold reveals his lies he continues to promote policies that will lead to the demise of the USD and our economic system. There is only one way to counter his lies – truth. With a corporate fascist government run by the few for the benefit of the few, telling the truth is treason as stated by Ron Paul:

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”

The storyline being sold to you by Bernanke, his Wall Street masters, and their captured puppets in Washington DC is that deflation is the great bogeyman they must slay. They make these statements from their ivory jewel encrusted towers as the real people in the real world deal with reality. The reality since Ben Bernanke announced his QE2 policy in August 2010 is:

Unleaded gas prices are up 45%.
Heating oil prices are up 46%.
Corn prices are up 71%.
Soybean prices are up 26%.
Rice prices are up 13%.
Pork prices are up 31%.
Beef prices are up 25%.
Coffee prices are up 38%.
Sugar prices are up 48%.
Cotton prices are up 13%.
Gold prices are up 42%.
Silver prices are up 115%.
Copper prices are up 23%.

These are the facts and they fly in the face of the lies being spouted by Bernanke and his Federal Reserve cronies. Words like transitory, quantitative easing, extended period, and liquidity are used by Professor Bernanke to obscure what he is doing to the average American. He lives in a world of theories and models, while the rest of us live in the real world, where theories kill and impoverish millions. There are 40 million Americans over the age of 65 today. You might even know a few of them. There will be 10,000 people per day joining their ranks for the next nineteen years as the Baby Boomers retire en masse. The vast majority of these senior citizens are risk averse. Some disturbing facts reveal the true picture for seniors today:

Most senior citizens do not have a traditional pension plan because they have been going out of style over the past 30 years. In 1980, some 39% of private-sector workers had a pension that guaranteed a steady payout during retirement. Today that number stands closer to 15%, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, D.C.
35% of Americans already over the age of 65 rely almost entirely on Social Security payments alone.
Approximately 3 out of 4 Americans start claiming Social Security benefits the moment they are eligible at age 62. Most are doing this out of necessity. This probably has something to do with the fact that the median retirement savings of households over the age of 65 is less than $45,000.
The median household net worth of all Americans fell from $97,000 in 2005 to $70,000 in 2009. The median household net worth of households over 65 years old fell from $200,000 in 2005 to approximately $150,000 in 2009. Two thirds of seniors’ net worth is the equity in their primary residence, meaning they have $50,000 or less of financial assets (cash, stocks, bonds).
20% of all the households in the United States have zero or negative net worth.

This data sets the scene for the crime of the century committed by Ben Bernanke and his co-conspirators on the Federal Reserve Board. The easiest way to understand how Ben has screwed seniors and savers to pay off his Wall Street and K Street benefactors is to use a real life example.

A seventy five year old widow living in her paid off row home, bought in 1955, gets by on her annual social security income of $17,000 and the income generated from the $125,000 in retirement savings left from her husband’s forty years working as a truck driver. She is a child of the Depression, financially unsophisticated and risk averse. This describes most senior citizens. The widow and her late husband were only comfortable investing their money in CDs and money market funds. In 2007, before the Wall Street created financial collapse, savers and risk averse senior citizens could earn 5% in a money market fund, 5.5% in a 2 year CD and 6% in a 5 year CD. The widow could supplement her meager social security income with an additional $6,000 of interest income. This money was used to pay the ever increasing real estate taxes, medical insurance premiums, upkeep on the old house, and necessities like food, fuel, insurance and heating.

Fast forward four years to 2011. Savers and seniors are getting average interest rates on 6-month CDs this week of 0.58% nationwide, according to Bankrate.com. Rates on one-year CDs fell this week to 0.86%, while 5- year CDs fetched 2.04%. Money market funds are paying a pitiful 0.16% on average. The widow that was able to generate a risk free $6,000 only four years ago has only been able to generate less than $500 per year for the last three years. In addition, the government manipulated CPI, as calculated by the drones at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was used to deny senior citizens an increase in their Social Security payments for the last two years. Meanwhile, the prices of food, fuel, clothing, insurance, medical care, and local taxes have been skyrocketing due to Federal Reserve created inflation. Do you think the number of Americans on food stamps surging from 26.3 million in 2007 to 45.8 million today has anything to do with Bernanke’s zero interest rate, inflationary policies?

This is not a theoretical hypothesis. Ben Bernanke has purposely sacrificed the savers and seniors in this country at the satanic altar of his Wall Street high priests of debt. According to the BEA data on personal income, in the 3^rd quarter of 2008 savers and seniors were able to earn $1.42 trillion of interest income. By the 3^rd quarter of 2010 these same people were only able to earn $984 billion of interest income due to Ben Bernanke’s zero interest rate policy. Make no mistake about it, the $436 billion difference was taken out of the pockets of senior citizens and Americans trying to save for their futures and deposited into the accounts of the mega-Wall Street banks that destroyed our financial system with their reckless greed induced debt toga party. The beneficiaries of zero interest rates, QE1, QE2, and all future QEs are Wall Street bankers and heavily indebted entities – namely our profligate Federal Government, who make drunken sailors, seem fiscally responsible. The victims of zero interest rates and quantitative easing are savers and risk averse senior citizens as their income has plummeted and inflation has ravaged their everyday existence. Meanwhile, the Wall Street fat cats have paid themselves over $70 billion in bonuses since 2008.

The fantasy world of moderate inflation is a myth created by the Federal Reserve in conjunction with the government bureaucrats in Washington DC. These people have tortured the CPI calculation worse than a Muslim being water boarded at Guantanamo Bay. Alan Greenspan, bubble blower extraordinaire, began the process of systematically screwing grandmothers in the 1980s. As a way to hide and obscure the true level of inflation caused by running endless deficits supporting a welfare/warfare empire, Greenspan and Clinton implemented devious adjustments to the CPI in order to screw senior citizens and allow Big Government to get bigger while stealthily impoverishing the middle class. One man has pulled back the curtain on the Wizards of Inflation to reveal the truth. John Williams at www.shadowstats.com publishes the true rate of inflation as measured in 1980, prior to the fraudulent manipulation of the CPI. The reality is that inflation has not dropped below 5% since 1987 and currently exceeds 10%.

John Williams described the Greenspan/Clinton conspiracy to defraud Americans:

“The Greenspan argument was that when steak got too expensive, the consumer would substitute hamburger for the steak, and that the inflation measure should reflect the costs tied to buying hamburger versus steak, instead of steak versus steak. Of course, replacing hamburger for steak in the calculations would reduce the inflation rate, but it represented the rate of inflation in terms of maintaining a declining standard of living. Cost of living was being replaced by the cost of survival. The old system told you how much you had to increase your income in order to keep buying steak. The new system promised you hamburger, and then dog food, perhaps, after that. Over a period of several years, straight arithmetic weighting of the CPI components was shifted to a geometric weighting. The Greenspan benefit of a geometric weighting was that it automatically gave a lower weighting to CPI components that were rising in price, and a higher weighting to those items dropping in price.”

Now we hear the latest bipartisan plan to “save” Social Security is to alter the CPI again and further defraud Americans by pretending inflation does not exist. Why address a problem when you can obfuscate, misinform and lie? Anyone with critical thinking skills can clearly see that since 2007 real inflation for our widow has ranged between 5% and 10%, while her subsistence level income has been slashed by 26% due to Ben Bernanke’s zero interest rate policy. The good news is our widow will have the peace of mind knowing the price of steak and hamburger hasn’t really risen as she decides on whether to dine on dog food or cat food tonight.

“Government spending is always a “tax” burden on the American people and is never equally or fairly distributed. The poor and low-middle income workers always suffer the most from the deceitful tax of inflation and borrowing.” – Ron Paul

The Road to Impoverishment & Authoritarianism

There is a direct connection between Federal Reserve policies and the impoverishment of the middle class and seniors. The average American does not appreciate the disastrous consequences of deficit spending and currency devaluation by the Federal Reserve. Ron Paul has been sounding the warning for over a decade, but no one has been listening:

“The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch– Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference– that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars.”

It is no longer a threat. It is reality. The chart below tells the story.

The Federal Funds rate was 6.5% when George W. Bush assumed the presidency in 2000. The economy was booming, unemployment was 4.2%, the country was running fiscal surpluses, and the National Debt stood at $5.7 trillion. Alan Greenspan was the Federal Reserve Chairman and had been in that position since 1987. The Federal Funds Rate averaged 5.25% from 1990 through 2000 as the country grew strongly and America came the closest to full employment in its history. In 2001 Greenspan set in motion the creation of a tsunami of debt that swept over the entire country in 2008. The short shallow 2001 recession convinced Greenspan to reduce rates to 1% and keep them below 3% until the middle of 2005. He did this with the full support of his right hand man at the Fed – Ben Bernanke.

“The failure of Chairman Greenspan and other FOMC members to address the fiscal and monetary problems of the United States during his almost two decades at the Fed has left the United States on a trajectory for economic stagnation, hyperinflation, and the attendant political and social costs of such policies.” – Chris Whalen – Inflated – How Money & Debt Built the American Dream

Greenspan kept interest rates excessively low three years into an economic recovery, creating the largest bubble in world history. He handed the inflation baton to Bernanke in February 2006 and Ben has been sprinting at top speed for the last five years printing money faster than a Japanese bullet train. With a true rate of inflation running between 5% and 10% during the 2000 through 2011 time frame, market driven interest rates should have been in that same range. But Alan and Ben have kept the Federal Funds rate at an average level of 2.25% over this period. The result has been a consumer debt bubble, housing bubble and now a government debt bubble. Instead of accepting the consequences of excessive liquidity, excessive debt and mal-investment by the Wall Street banks and liquidating the toxic poison from our economic system with the resulting economic depression and losses borne by the stockholders and bondholders of the criminal Wall Street enterprises, Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner chose to sacrifice the American taxpayer, savers, and seniors to keep their Wall Street masters in their NYC penthouses and Hamptons estates.

The shrieking liberal left blames capitalism and demands more social welfare benefits for their entitled constituents. The fact is we have not had true capitalism in this country since 1913.

“Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven’t had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank.” – Ron Paul

The Day the Dollar Died – August 15, 1971

“With the exception only of the period of the gold standard, practically all governments of history have used their exclusive power to issue money to defraud and plunder the people.” – F.A. von Hayak

“The road paved with inflation and debt is also the road to authoritarianism.” – Chris Whalen – Inflated – How Money & Debt Built the American Dream

On August 15, 1971, exactly forty years ago this week, Richard Nixon closed the gold window and removed the last vestiges of restraint on politicians and central bankers. Politicians were free to make promises that couldn’t be kept to buy votes and central bankers were free to print fiat dollars and create inflation to support an ever growing warfare/welfare state. On that date the non-manipulated CPI was 40.8. Today, forty years later, the highly manipulated CPI is 225.7, a 553% increase. In reality, true inflation has risen more than 700% since August 1971. Some other facts put this relentless inflation into perspective:

GDP has ascended from $1.1 trillion to $15.0 trillion today, a 1,364% increase in forty years.
The National Debt has risen from $400 billion to $14.5 trillion, a 3,625% increase in forty years.
Total wage income has grown from $588 billion to $6.627 trillion today, a 1,127% increase in forty years.
Consumer credit outstanding has accumulated from $141 billion to $2.446 trillion today, a 1,735% increase in forty years.
War spending has increased from $95 billion to $966 billion today, a 1,017% increase in forty years. The U.S. was in the midst of the Vietnam War in 1971.
Social welfare transfers from the Federal government for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans, and Unemployment increased from $87 billion to $2.305 trillion today, a 2,649% increase in forty years.

These facts prove how twisted and warped our economic system and society have become. Real wages are lower than they were in 1971 as families were forced to put two parents into the workforce forcing children to be raised by strangers, with the resultant social consequences. The corporate media, financial industrial complex and housing industrial complex convinced Americans they had to keep up with the Joneses with new luxury automobiles, extravagant McMansions, and the expensive accoutrements that went along with these representations of fake wealth. The financial plundering of the country by the peddlers of debt on Wall Street could not have happened without the easy money, no regulation policies of the Federal Reserve for the last decade. The National Debt is increasing at a rate of 10% per year while GDP is increasing at a rate of less than 2% per year. Anyone with even the most basic math skills can see this train is going to go off the tracks. Our spending on social welfare benefits has grown at a rate twice as high as our GDP growth for the last forty years and the establishment in Washington has no resolve to address these un-payable promises. The liberals squealed like stuck pigs over the horrific non-cuts in the recent joke debt ceiling compromise. The neo-cons who control the Republican agenda think $1 trillion per year for their war machine is far too little and endangers our very existence. Consumers refuse to accept the reality of their precarious existence balanced on the edge of their 13 credit cards.

Americans of all parties, ages, races, persuasions, education and beliefs have shirked their civic and moral responsibility to future generations. The rampant greed on Wall Street, corruption in Washington DC, shallowness of the American people and cowardice of all in not accepting responsibility for their actions will lead to the end of this country as we know it. There is no courage among the political class in Washington DC to truly take the steps required to save this country from the most predictable cataclysm in history. The politicians and citizens they represent have decided to delegate their civic responsibility to Ben Bernanke. He has tripled the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet by acquiring the toxic mortgage “assets” of the Wall Street banks and buying $600 billion of U.S. Treasuries. The Federal Funds Rate is .07%. His announcement of zero interest rates for two more years proves he has run out of theories and ammo. Jim Rickards, in 2010, pointed out the danger in Bernanke’s reckless policies:

“Fed Chairman Bernanke wakes up every morning and tries to trash the dollar with quantitative easing, zero interest rates and swap lines with the central banks. But it has not been working. The Fed has never taken it to the next step and asked what happens when quantitative easing does not work.”

The utter failure of QE2, hollow Congressional spending “cuts” that will keep the National Debt on track towards $23 trillion by 2021, S&P downgrade and recent plunge in the stock market are the first cracks in the façade of the great American Empire. We have entered a period of institutional crisis and this fiscal spiral will lead us further into the clutches of a more centralized authoritarian form of government unless the people stand up to the junta of mercantilist oligarchs that control this country. Do we want to relinquish our remaining freedoms and liberties for the cloak of corporate fascist authoritarian central planning disguised as safety and security? The Romans chose security over freedom. The time has come to make a choice about what we will become. Ben Franklin stated the obvious two centuries ago:

Those who would give up Essential Liberty
to purchase a little Temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

– Ben Franklin