US – Page 3 – The Burning Platform

Thinking the Unthinkable

Introduction

I have been putting off writing about this topic for a very long while. In fact, I wrote several articles trying to explain the self-evident truism that the US/NATO/EU does not have a military option in the Ukrainian war. First, in an article entitled Remembering the Important Lessons of the Cold War I tried to explain that the reason the Cold War did not turn into a hot, shooting, war is that both sides understood that they simply could never win and that any escalation in strikes and counter-strikes could very rapidly lead to a intercontinental nuclear war, something which neither side was willing to risk. In a piece entitled Making Sense of Obama’s Billion Dollar Hammer I tried to show that all the money the US will by pouring into “European security” is just a grandiose bribe for some European elites and that it had no real effect on the ground. A few days later I posted an article entitled Why the US-Russian Nuclear Balance is as Solid as Ever in which I tried to dispel the myth prevalent in the West about the putative state of disrepair of the Russian military in general, and of the Russian nuclear forces in particular. Lastly, in a piece entitled Short Reminder about US and Russian Nuclear Weapons I tried to show that in reality it was the US nuclear forces who were in a state of disrepair. And over and over again, in many comments, I tried to lay out the reasons for which I simply did not believe that the US/NATO/EU would dare to attack Russia. In summary, I will say this: the US is not nearly as powerful as the US propaganda claims. Without going into long debates about what “victory” and “defeat” mean, I will just say that in my personal opinion the last time the US military fought well was in Korea, and even there it had to accept a draw. After that, it was all downhill. This is not the fault of the US solider, by the way, but by the fact that big money and politics got so heavily involved in the US military that they corrupted everything. This is most evident in the USAF which still has superb pilots, but who are given a terrible choice: either fly on good but old aircraft or fly on new but terrible ones (I believe that given the choice, most would chose the former). As for the European NATO allies, they are such a joke that they hardly deserve mention. They even look bad on a parade.

As for a military option in the Ukraine, it appears unthinkable to me not only because, frankly, I don’t see a single military in the West capable of taking on the Russian military in full-scale battle, but also because geography powerfully argues against such a crazy idea (the very same geography which would make it impossible for Russia to try to invade western or even central Europe).

And yet, something in all this very logical reasoning felt wrong to me. A few days ago it finally hit me. What bothered me was

The American Duck

Among the many beautiful and witty expressions and neologisms Americans use, I always loved this one: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. This so-called “Duck test” is funny, but it is also a powerful logical method which ended up chewing at me day after day after day. Here I was, all sure and certain that the US/NATO/EU would never consider such a ludicrous notion as the one of an military attack on Russia or on Russian forces. But kept hearing the voice of the American Duck telling me: look at what they are doing, what does that look like to you? Suspend your conclusions and just tell me what are you observing? Tell me, if they had decided to escalate to the point of a military confrontation with Russia, would they be doing things differently? And a few days ago, I threw in the towel (at the duck, of course) and had to accept that while I did not know what they were thinking or what their intentions really were, it sure looked to me like the western plutocrats had decided to escalate the crisis has high as possible.

In truth, I have to admit that when I studied the theory of deterrence in the 1980 my teachers always insisted that this theory of deterrence was predicated on what they called a “rational player”. To put it simply – how do you deter a lunatic? Or a desperate man with nothing to lose? Or a person hell-bent on mutual destruction? The truth is, you cannot. Deterrence assumes a rational actor making a logical decision about unacceptable costs. As far as I know, nobody has ever developed a theory of deterrence applicable to a madman. When I initially wrote my pieces explaining why I believed that a US/NATO/EU attack was impossible a lot readers posted comments saying that while maybe the top US military command was still mainly composed of rational men, the US imperial elites had clearly gone crazy a long time ago and that they were so stuck in their arrogance, their imperial hubris, there delusion of invincibility and their knee-jerk and systematic use of violence that they could no more be considered as rational. At the time I replied that, yeah, sure, maybe, but what is the point of analyzing something crazy. How do you try to make sense of the suicidally insane?

And yet, this is what I propose to do today. I will try as best I can to try to place myself in the mind of these lunatics and see what they could try doing, and what the consequences of that would be. I will go through several possible plans that these crazies might have starting from the most limited one and then going up the insanity slope.

Plan one: a symbolic and limited intervention

This plan is already underway. We know that there are US military advisers in the Ukraine, including at least one general, we know that the Dutch and Australians will be sending in a lightly armed force to “protect” the investigators at the crash site of MH17 (although how a few men armed with assault rifles can protect anybody from Ukie artillery, tank or mortar fire is anybody’s guess). Then there are all the reports of foreign mercenaries, mostly US and Polish, fighting with the Ukie death squads. There is also some good evidence that Poland is sending military equipment, including aircraft and, possibly, crews. Well, all of that is dumb and serves very little useful purpose, but that is what the West is so good at: pretending. If this plans stays at this level I would say that it is not very important. But, alas, there is a nastier possibility here:

Plan two: a tripwire force

This is just an extension of plan one: bring in a few men, and then have them killed. This would trigger the needed “popular outrage” (carefully fanned and reported by the corporate media) to force the Europeans to accept more US sanctions in Europe or even some kind of “EU-mandated” “peacekeeping force”. Of course, if the Russians or the Novorussians do not take the bait and fail to kill the “observers”, US/NATO false flag teams could easily do that. Just imagine what a heavy-mortar strike on a building with these OSCE observers would look like. The junta in Kiev would be more than happy to “invite” such a “peacekeeping” force into Novorussia and since this would be an “invited” force, no UNSC Resolution would be needed. Finally, such a “peacekeeping” force would be regularly reinforced and augmented until it could basically cover the flanks of the Ukies in their attacks against Novorussia. This force would also assume the command and control of Ukie forces, something which the Ukies could greatly benefit from (their current command and control is a mess).

Plan One and Plan Two assume that Russian forces stay on the other side of the border and that the only opposition to such a deployment could come from the Novorussians. But what if the Russians decided to move into Novorussia either to protect the locals or stop his limited US/NATO/EU “peacekeeping force”? Then the US/NATO/EU would have to take a dramatic escalatory step send in a much bigger force, more capable of defending itself.

Plan three: UPROFOR on the Dniepr?

This is the Yugoslav scenario. The West would send in something on the order of 10 battalions which would each be given an area of responsibility for “peacekeeping”. Then police forces would be also sent to “maintain law and order” and EU commissars would be sent in to “help” the local population “express their will” and “organize” a local government. Soon there would be some kind of EU-run election and all the Novorussian forces would be declared “bandits” from which the local population need to be “protected”. Since Strelkov himself fought in Yugoslavia, as did many other Russians, I don’t believe that the Russians or Novorussians would fall for this one. I think that Russia would express its opposition to such a plan and that if she was ignored, she would move in her own forces along the line of contact.

This might be the US/NATO/EU endgoal: to create a Korea like “line of demarcation” which would isolate the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics from the rest of Novorussia and the rest of the Ukraine, this would mean getting plenty of Kosovo-like “Camp Bonsteels” all along the Russian border and it would make it looks like the “Wartime President of the One Indispensable Nation” “stopped the Russian Bear”. Finally, it would create a perfect Cold War like environment in which the western 1%ers could continue to exploit the 99% while constantly scaring them with the “Russian threat”.

Plan four: Operation Storm in Novorussia and Crimea?

I would not put it past the folks in the Pentagon and Mons to try to pull off an “Operation Storm” in Novorussia and even possibly Crimea. That is the scenario Glazev fears: the US/NATO/EU would put enough forces inside the Ukraine to allow it to survive long enough to mobilize a sufficient number of men and equipment for a lightening fast attack in Novorossia and even possibly Crimea. And, in theory, if we assume the Banderstan does not collapse under its own weight and the economic disaster, the Ukraine has the resources to mobilize far more men and equipment that the tiny People’s Republics of Donestk and Lugansk or even Crimea. But that, again, assumes that Russia will let that happen, which she won’t, so now we have to look at the really crazy plans:

Plan five: First “Desert Steppe Shield” then “Desert Steppe Storm”

That is a crazy notion: to do with Russia what the US did with Iraq. First, to place down a “protection force” in the Ukraine, isolate Russia, and then attack in a full-depth and full-scale determined attack. We are definitely talking about a continental war with a fantastic potential to turn into a world war. This plan would have be based on two crucial assumptions:

1) The US/NATO/EU conventional forces would be capable of defeating the Russian military.
2) If facing conventional defeat, Russia would not use nuclear weapons.

I think that both of these assumptions are deeply mistaken. The first one is based on a mix of propaganda, bean counting and ignorance. The propaganda is something which western military are very good. They are not. Most western armies are a pathetic joke, and those who can fight well (the Brits, the Turks) are too little to matter. That leaves the US military which have capabilities far in excess of what its NATO allies can muster. Just as in WWII all the serious fighting had to be done by German units, in case of a WWIII (or IV?) all the serious fighting would have to be done by Americans. The problem is that the Americans would have an extremely hard time bringing in enough forces to really make the difference. In any case, I have the biggest doubt about the current fighting capabilities of the US Army and Marine Corps. Faced with a Russian battalion defending its own soil I think that an equivalent USA/Marine force would get slaughtered.

The “bean counting” is when you compare all the NATO APCs or tanks to the number available to the Russian military. The corporate media loves this kind of charts in which soldiers, APCs, tanks, aircraft and other gear are compared. Professional analysts never use them simply because they are meaningless. What matters is how much of that gear is actually available for battle, the kind of tactics used, the training and morale of the soldiers, the skills of their commanding officers, and stuff which is *never* mentioned: supplies, logistics, petroluem, lubricants, ammunition, lines of supply, medical standards, even food and weather. Bean counters simply never see that. But one could argue that the number of trucks is more important to a military than the number of tanks. Yet trucks are never counted. But yes, on paper NATO looks huge. Even though most NATO gear could not even survive your average Ukrainian road, nevermind the winter.

But let us assume that the Hollywood image of the US military is true: invincible, best trained, best armed, with a fantastic morale, led by the very best of the best officers, it would easily defeat the primitive Russian military, armed with antiquated weapons and commanded by fat drunken generals. Okay, and then what? If is the official Russian nuclear deterrence doctrine that in this case Russia would use nuclear weapons. Since even in Hollywood movies nobody makes the claim that the US anti-missile systems could stop Iskanders, cruise missiles or even gravity bombs, we would have to accept that the invincible US force would be turned into radioactive particulates and, that, in turn, would leave the US President two terrible choices: a) take the loss and stop b) retaliate and the second option would have to include the location from where the strike came from: Russia proper. That, of course, would place the following choices for the Russian President: a) take the loss or b) strike at the continental United States. At this points nuclear mushrooms would start appearing all over the map.

Now please make no mistake: Russia can not only destroy Mons, the Pentagon and Cheyenne Mountain (just a matter of placing enough warheads on the right spot), but also every single major city in the United States. Sure, the USA can retaliate in kind, but what kind of consolation would that be for anybody left?

I cannot believe that the US deep state would truly, deliberately, want to start a planetary nuclear war. For one thing, US leaders are cowards and they will not want to take such a monumental decision. A far more likely version is that being stupid, arrogant and cowards they will stumble upon just that outcome. Here is how:

Plan six: American football’s “Hail Mary”

In American football there is a specific pass which is used only when seconds are left on the clock and your teams is badly losing anyway. Basically it works like this: every single person who is not defending the quarterback rushes to the endzone, as do all the defenders, and the quarterback then just throws the ball straight into that zone with the very slim hope that one of his own players will catch it and score a touchdown. This is called a “Hail Mary” for very good reason as only a miracle makes such a desperate plan work. Most of the time the ball is either fumbled or caught by the other team. But, very rarely, it works (see here).

I can very much imagine a desperate Obama trying to show the American people that he “has hair on his chest” and that he is not going to let “regional power” challenge the “indispensable nation”. So what he and, really, his administration risks doing is the following: to play a game of chicken hoping against all odds that the Russian will yield. This is my worst nightmare and the worst possible assumption to make because Russia cannot yield.

In March of this year I issued a warning which I entitled “Obama just made things much, much worse in the Ukraine – now Russia is ready for war“. What prompted me to issue that warning was the fact that the Council of the Russian Federation has just unanimously passed a resolution allowing Putin to use Russian armed forces in the Ukraine. Since, this resolution has been repealed at Putin’s request and for obvious political motives, but the mood, the determination is still there. In fact, I think that it has grown much stronger.

There has been much useless speculation about Putin, his motives and his strategy. This is way bigger than just Putin. If the US/NATO/EU really push too far, and that includes a genocide in Novorussia, an attack on Crimea or an attack on Russian forces, Russia will go to war, Putin or no Putin. And Putin knows that. His real base of support is not in the Russian elites (who mostly fear him), but in the Russian people (with whom his current rating are higher than ever before). And Putin himself openly spoke about the “threats to Russian sovereignty” though he did add that because of the Russian nuclear forces there was, in his opinion, no immediate threat to the Russian territory.

If the US decides to play a game of chicken with Russia, then it will do the same thing as a car driver playing a game of chicken against an incoming train: regardless of the train’s driver, the train is on tracks and its momentum is too big: it cannot stop or veer away.

The problem is that the USA has a long record of making absolutely irresponsible statements which end up putting them into a corner from which they cannot bulge without losing face. Just look at the MH17 disaster: the Obama administration immediately rushed to blame the Russians for it, but what will it do when the evidence to the contrary comes out? What if Obama also draws a red line somewhere (it does not really matter where) and then forces Russia to cross it?

Sadly, I can imagine the USA declaring that the US/NATO will defend the Ukie airspace. I think that they are dumb enough to try to seize a Russian ship entering or leaving the Black Sea. Remember – these are the folks who hijacked the aircraft of Bolivian President Evo Morales to try to find Snowden on board. These are the folks who regularly kidnap Russian citizens worldwide (the last time the son of a well-know Russian member of Parliament who was kidnapped in the Maldive Islands). And, of course, these are the folks who did 9/11. Their arrogance knows no limits because they are profoundly evil sociopaths. For them the organization of false flag operations is a normal, standard, procedure. They almost triggered a war between the DPRK and South Korea by sinking a South Korean military vessel. They used chemical weapons in Syria not once, but several times. And the last time we had a Democrat in the White House, he was crazy enough to send two US Aircraft Carrier Groups into the Strait of Taiwan to threaten China.

My biggest fears

This is my biggest fear: some kind of desperate “Hail Mary” maneuver in which the US will try to convince Russia that “look, we are crazy enough to start this thing, so you better back off” not realizing that Russia cannot back off. The other thing which really scares me is that during the Cuban Missile Crisis everybody was aware of the stakes and most people were truly terrified. Now, thanks to the propaganda of the corporate media, almost nobody is afraid and hardly anybody is paying attention. Russia and the USA are on a clear collision course and nobody cares! How come?

Because if 9/11 proved anything is that there are things which most people are simply unwilling to contemplate, no matter how close and real they are. It would only make sense that the Empire of Illusion would be populated by a people in total denial. After all, illusion and denial usually go hand in hand.

Most of you, dear readers and friends, seem to be sharing with me a sense of total distrust in the sanity of our leaders. When I asked you whether you believed that the US/NATO were crazy enough to use military forces against Russia, an overwhelming number of you answered that “yes” and a good part of you was even emphatically sure of that. Why? Because we all know how crazy and deluded are Imperial Overlords are. Crazy and deluded enough not to quality as “rational actor”? Crazy and deluded enough to play a game a chicken with a train? Crazy and deluded enough to risk the planet on “Hail Mary? Alas, I think that this is a very real possibility.

But what does Uncle Sam really want?

There is a gradual realization in Russia that for Uncle Sam this is not about the Ukraine. It is about Russia and, specifically, about regime change in Russia. A vast majority of Russian experts seem to believe that the US wants to overthrow Putin and that this entire war in the Ukraine is a means to achieve that. As a very cynical joke going around now says “Obama is willing to fight Putin down to the very last Ukrainian”. I think that this is correct. The US hopes that one of the following will happen:

1) A Russian military intervention in Novorussia which will allow the US to restart a Cold War v2 on steroid and which will also fully re-enslave Europe to the USA. Putin would then be blamed for falling in the US trap

2) The creation of a US-run “Banderastan” in the Ukraine. That would ‘contain’ and destabilize Russia. Again, Putin would be blamed for letting that happen.

3) A “nationalist Maidan” in Russia: this is what is behind the current Putin-bashing campaign in the blogosphere: to paint Putin as a weak and/or corrupt man, who traded Crimea for the Donbass (you know the tune – these folks even comment on this blog). These efforts are supported and, sometimes, even financed by Russian oligarchs who have a great deal of money involved in the EU and who really don’t need the current tensions. Here Putin would be blamed for not doing enough.

In all three cases, Putin would risk a (patriotically) color coded revolution which would, inevitably, bring either crazy rogue ruler or a clueless fossil to power (a la Zhirinovsky or Zuiganov) or, much better, a pro-American “liberal” (a la Medvedev). I think that all of these plans will fail.

Putin will not give Uncle Sam the intervention he wants. Instead, Russia continue to support the Resistance in Novorussia until Banderastan goes “belly up”, i.e. for another 30-60 days or so. As for the “nationalist Maidan”, the Russian people see straight through this “black PR campaign” and their support for Putin is higher than it ever was. It’s not Putin who does not want to intervene overtly in the Donbass, it is the Russian people. The attempts at stirring up anti-Putin by first stirring-up anti-Strelkov feelings have completely failed and, in fact, they have backfired. A lot of these “hurray-patriots” are now overly called “useful idiots” for the CIA or even provocateurs.

Finally, while they are at this point in time only rumors, there seems to be more and more specialists of the opinion that MH17 was a deliberate false flag by the US. If the news that the Ukies did it ever becomes public, then the entire destabilization plan will go down the tubes. At this point, I would not put anything, no matter how crazy, past the US deep-state.

And that is a very scary thought.

The Saker

U.S. VERSION OF MIDDLE EAST PEACE

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The Empires’ Plan for a Nuclear First Strike

Are You Ready For Nuclear War?

By Paul Craig Roberts

PaulCraigRoberts.org

June 5, 2014

Pay close attention to Steven Starr’s guest column, “The Lethality of Nuclear Weapons.”http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/30/lethality-nuclear-weapons/ Washington thinks nuclear war can be won and is planning for a first strike on Russia, and perhaps China, in order to prevent any challenge to Washington’s world hegemony.

The plan is far advanced, and the implementation of the plan is underway. As I have reported previously, US strategic doctrine was changed and the role of nuclear missiles was elevated from a retaliatory role to an offensive first strike role. US anti-ballistic missile (ABM) bases have been established in Poland on Russia’s frontier, and other bases are planned. When completed Russia will be ringed with US missile bases.

Anti-ballistic missiles, known as “star wars,” are weapons designed to intercept and destroy ICBMs. In Washington’s war doctrine, the US hits Russia with a first strike, and whatever retaliatory force Russia might have remaining is prevented from reaching the US by the shield of ABMs.

The reason Washington gave for the change in war doctrine is the possibility that terrorists might obtain a nuclear weapon with which to destroy an American city. This explanation is nonsensical. Terrorists are individuals or a group of individuals, not a country with a threatening military. To use nuclear weapons against terrorists would destroy far more than the terrorists and be pointless as a drone with a conventional missile would suffice.

The reason Washington gave for the ABM base in Poland is to protect Europe from Iranian ICBMs. Washington and every European government knows that Iran has no ICBMs and that Iran has not indicated any intent to attack Europe.

No government believes Washington’s reasons. Every government realizes that Washington’s reasons are feeble attempts to hide the fact that it is creating the capability on the ground to win a nuclear war.

The Russian government understands that the change in US war doctrine and the US ABM bases on its borders are directed at Russia and are indications that Washington plans a first strike with nuclear weapons on Russia.

China has also understood that Washington has similar intentions toward China. As I reported several months ago, in response to Washington’s threat China called the world’s attention to China’s ability to destroy the US should Washington initiate such a conflict.

However, Washington believes that it can win a nuclear war with little or no damage to the US. This belief makes nuclear war likely.

As Steven Starr makes clear, this belief is based in ignorance. Nuclear war has no winner. Even if US cities were saved from retaliation by ABMs, the radiation and nuclear winter effects of the weapons that hit Russia and China would destroy the US as well.

The media, conveniently concentrated into a few hands during the corrupt Clinton regime, is complicit by ignoring the issue. The governments of Washington’s vassal states in Western and Eastern Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan are also complicit, because they accept Washington’s plan and provide the bases for implementing it. The demented Polish government has probably signed the death warrant for humanity. The US Congress is complicit, because no hearings are held about the executive branch’s plans for initiating nuclear war.

Washington has created a dangerous situation. As Russia and China are clearly threatened with a first strike, they might decide to strike first themselves. Why should Russia and China sit and await the inevitable while their adversary creates the ability to protect itself by developing its ABM shield? Once Washington completes the shield, Russia and China are certain to be attacked, unless they surrender in advance.

The 10 minute report below from Russia Today makes it clear that Washington’s secret plan for a first strike on Russia is not secret. The report also makes it clear that Washington is prepared to eliminate any European leaders who do not align with Washington. http://rt.com/shows/the-truthseeker/162864-us-plans-strike-russia/A transcript is provided by Global Research: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-plans-first-strike-attack-on-russia-or-china/5384799

Readers will ask me, “What can we do?” This is what you can do. You can shut down the Ministry of Propaganda by turning off Fox News, CNN, the BBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, by ceasing to read the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times. Simply exit the official media. Do not believe one word that the government says. Do not vote. Realize that evil is concentrated in Washington. In the 21st century Washington has destroyed in whole or part seven countries. Millions of peoples murdered, maimed, displaced, and Washington has shown no remorse whatsoever. Neither have the “christian” churches. The devastation that Washington has inflicted is portrayed as a great success. Washington prevailed.

Washington is determined to prevail, and the evil that Washington represents is leading the world to destruction.

U.S. DECLARES VOTING IS ILLEGAL

The hypocrisy of this teetering empire is breathtaking to behold. We instigate the overthrow of a democratically elected government in the Ukraine because they were leaning toward Russia. We declare Putin to be a new Hitler for taking actions to protect Russian interests and Russian speaking people in the Eastern Ukraine. When the voting booth is used to decide which country the people prefer to align themselves with, we declare the results illegal. Our track record of spreading American style democracy is flawless: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Egypt, and Syria. I bet Iran can’t wait until we democratize them. Our military empire is running out of money. The world knows our game. They aren’t buying it anymore. We spy on our supposed allies and sow discontent with the CIA and paid mercenaries. History will not be kind to America in its death throes.

BREAD, CIRCUSES, DEBASEMENT & DECLINE

We are following the exact path of the Roman Empire and every empire that has existed in human history. Our decline is well under way. The only question is how long before the final collapse. I can guarantee you it won’t be centuries. History moves more rapidly and the weapons at the disposal of war pigs are much more lethal. First there will be financial collapse, then world war. In the meantime, enjoy the bread and circuses while your dollars are debased by the minute.

Rome Didn’t Fall In A Day

[The Following post is by TDV Correspondent, Chris Sullivan]

Back in the ’70s, I used to expect the government to suffer a financial collapse at which time it would have to quit doing most of the things it’s doing because it would run out of money. That isn’t what has happened. Instead of cutting spending it has printed more money and tried to increase taxes on various things.

Like many things historical, there’s a precedent for this. There’s a proverbial saying that “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” but it didn’t collapse in a day either. Probably most of the Romans who lived as the Empire was collapsing didn’t realize that was what was happening, but plenty of them realized they weren’t living in the good old days.

One such person was a man named Salvian, sometimes called Salvian the Presbyter. He wrote a treatise that is called in English The Governance Of God or De gubernatione Dei in Latin*. Its original title was On The Present Judgement and it is well worth reading to see how things played out then and probably always will. His purpose was to show that the then current problems were caused by moral collapse, excessive taxation and a greedy and conniving landed class, not an abandonment of the old pagan religion. Julian the Apostate who had made the opposite argument 70 or so years before, had tried to re-institute paganism and even tried to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, presumably because it wasn’t Christian and he liked practices such as animal sacrifice, but his efforts ended when he was killed in a war with the Persians after a short reign.

In making his case, Salvian left us a first-hand account of how things went to rot. One of the things he mentions over and over is how the peasant class was obliterated by oppressive taxation and how the small land owners indentured themselves to the large land owners who paid their taxes for them, but in return got their land and their labor, eventually leading to feudalism. Even after the small land owners had lost their land and become coloni – those who worked the land but did not own it – they still were liable for the tax, thus permanently indenturing them to the wealthy land owner who paid it for them.

The Romans had a system of permanent tax collectors called curiales. If you were born a curiale, you could not change jobs and were liable to pay any taxes you could not collect. Needless to say, this assured great diligence on the part of the curiales.

One of the many things Salvian mentions that is starting to be more common in the U.S., but was unheard of just a few years ago is people fleeing the Empire and renouncing their citizenship.

“Thus, far and wide, they migrate either to the Goths or to the Bagaudae, or to other barbarians everywhere in power; yet they do not repent of having migrated. They prefer to live as freemen under an outward form of captivity, than as captives under the appearance of liberty. Therefore, the name of Roman citizens, at one time not only greatly valued, but dearly bought, is now repudiated and fled from, and it is almost considered not only base, but even deserving of abhorrence.”(pg.136)

Just as Washington refuses to rein in its excesses, the same was true of Rome around A.D. 450.

“Then, indeed, the authors of base pleasures feasted at will in most places, but all things were filled and stuffed to overflowing. Nobody thought of the State’s expenses, nobody thought of the State’s losses, because the cost was not felt. The State itself sought how it might squander what it was already scarcely able to acquire. The heaping up of wealth which had already exceeded its limit was overflowing even into trifling matters. But what can be said of the present-day situation? That old abundances have gone from us. The resources of former times have gone. We are already poverty-stricken, yet we do not cease to be spendthrift.” (167, 168)

It wasn’t just in fiscal matters that modern times resemble the fall of Rome. Salvian laments the obsession people had with attending (American Idol/NFL/NBA) the games. Rome had degenerated so far that there were 175 holidays per year, each with its state-sponsored amusements. The Roman Army had boy camp-followers instead of, or perhaps in addition to female prostitutes. The shouts of people being killed in defense of the city could not be distinguished from those at the games.

“As I have said, the noise of battle outside the walls and of the games within, the voices of the dying outside and the voices of the reveling within, were mingled. Perhaps there scarcely could be distinguished the cries of the people who fell in battle and the yelling of the people who shouted in the circus.” (174)

Things had declined so far that the public officials whom he classifies as robbers continued to rob the people even after they no longer held office. This has been refined in modern times to the revolving door system of going from elected office to lobbyist or CEO of some big company that conducts business with the government.

Salvian portrays the barbarians as virtuous people – much more so than his fellow countrymen – nothing like the people they are typically represented as being. Even back then, government knew best and imposed price controls which then as always caused black marketeers to provide for people’s wants and needs. One difference between then and now is that the Romans could not print money. They could debase it, but not print it as virtually all modern states do. They also had no efficient way of spying on the populace or freezing assets which is now routine. This enables us to postpone, but not avert the day of collapse. As everybody seems to be fond of saying, it allows us to “kick the can down the road,” but at some point we will find that the road is a dead end.

CRISIS INTENSIFIES

The linear thinkers continue to be knocked for a loop. They do not understand the dynamics of a Fourth Turning. These people think the world continuously progresses. They think things will just settle down in the Middle East, Europe, China and the US. They think there are no consequences to the horrible decisions of our leaders and the pillaging of the common people by bankers, mega-corporations and politicians. They are badly mistaken.

Fourth Turnings ALWAYS sweep away the old order. Fourth Turnings are ALWAYS violent. Greece is just a preview. The intensity is increasing by the moment. And do not think for a moment that the video in the link below is not coming to America. It is inconceivable to the linear thinkers, but not to those with their eyes wide open.

Does this look like a decrease in intensity?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/8203692/Petrol-bombs-and-tear-gas-at-Greek-protest.html

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou offers to resign as austerity protests swell

Violence breaks out in Athens as thousands of Greek workers swarm downtown to protest a package of budget cuts and tax increases for the financially strapped nation.

Protesters try to remove a fence protecting the Greek parliament during a demonstration in Athens. Thousands of demonstrators besieged the Greek parliament on Wednesday in a large anti-austerity protest marred by violence. (Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP/Getty Images / June 15, 2011)

By Henry Chu and Anthee Carassava, Los Angeles TimesJune 16, 2011

Reporting from London and Athens—

Angry protesters pushed the Greek government close to collapse Wednesday, putting Europe on notice that deep budget cuts to tame the region’s debt crisis face heavy public resistance and could crash on the rocks of national politics.

Thousands of people packed downtown Athens in an effort to block lawmakers from debating brutal austerity measures that European finance officials say are essential if near-bankrupt Greece wants their help to pay its bills. The gathering descended into violence — with some protesters hurling water bottles, rocks and firebombs — that took riot police hours to quell and helped spark a dramatic offer by Prime Minister George Papandreou to quit in favor of a unity government.

The volatile situation offered a stark example of the predicament facing the European Union as it tries to contain a debt crisis that has rattled markets for more than a year.

The EU has demanded painful spending cutbacks by Greece, Ireland and Portugal as the price of bailing out their cash-strapped governments. Spain and Italy also have passed major belt-tightening measures to avoid getting sucked into the euro mess.

But public opposition is growing in some of these countries, threatening to topple governments and to torpedo at home the collective solutions approved by EU leaders in Brussels.

In Athens, Papandreou’s Socialist government is seeking parliamentary approval of the austerity plan, including tax hikes, deep cuts in public-sector wages and a fire sale of state assets. Papandreou says the package is crucial if Greece wants additional bailout funds on top of the $146-billion lifeline promised by the EU and the International Monetary Fund last year.

But opposition leaders indicated Wednesday that they expected Papandreou’s resignation and the renegotiation of the bailout package.

After first offering to step down to make way for a government of national unity, Papandreou said on national television Wednesday night that he would reshuffle his Cabinet and seek a vote of confidence in Parliament.

“I have made repeated proposals to political parties for consensus. Today I renewed that attempt…. Despite my stance, the main opposition party handled this attempt like a public-relations drill,” said Papandreou, who is facing his lowest public approval ratings since taking office in 2009. “I will continue on the same path I charted.”

Outraged by previous budget reductions, thousands of Greeks have filled Syntagma Square in the heart of Athens over the last three weeks in protest. On Wednesday, the number ballooned to about 30,000 people, including members of the country’s two largest labor unions, which staged a 24-hour nationwide strike.

After three hours of scuffles, at least 12 protesters were arrested, shop windows around the square were shattered and thick plumes of tear gas hovered over the city, sending tourists scrambling for cover in side streets and alleyways.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” lamented Stella Stamati, 43, a government-employed chemist who joined the protest with three colleagues.

Many of the demonstrators had been inspired by recent peaceful mass protests in Spain, where thousands of young people camped out in a Madrid plaza for days to shake their fists at government austerity policies and to express their frustration over a high level of joblessness that has hit the young the hardest.

Last month, Spain’s ruling Socialists were routed in regional and local elections widely seen as a rebuke of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero‘s plan to slash state spending to bring down the public deficit.

In neighboring Portugal, voters booted the government in a general election last week out of unhappiness with the terms of the country’s bailout from the EU and IMF, which will require difficult structural reforms to the economy. The new government, however, has largely pledged to stick to the conditions.

For their part, Ireland’s new leaders are pushing hard for a renegotiation of the EU-IMF rescue package their predecessors had agreed to, further widening the cracks in the veneer of European unity.

Critics blame Germany, Europe’s paymaster, for having dithered over rescuing Greece last year, when the crisis looked more containable, because of political considerations at home. Many Germans oppose the use of their tax money to bail out their fiscally troubled neighbors.

Markets have reacted to Europe’s infighting and Greece’s woes by pushing borrowing costs for Athens to unheard-of highs. On Wednesday, the cost of insuring $10 million in Greek bonds rose to a record $1.725 million a year, according to data provider Markit. This week, the Standard & Poor’s ratings firm downgraded Greek bonds to the lowest rating of any of the 131 states on its books.