"THE GAS IS ON THE PAVEMENT"
Victoria H. commented "The gas is all over the pavement, now all that is needed is the spark."
I envy her eloquence.
Between the Bloomberg suit (which is being largely ignored by the ms), and the auto industry... AND the brilliant stuff that Peter N. found on tax breaks in the bailout, that was some of the best dialogue and thinking I have ever seen. I will try to offer a response equally as eloquent.
We are so F-CKED!
The tax breaks being given to banks, Wells Fargo being one of the largest, to keep them alive are taking maybe hundreds of billions in tax revenue right off the top next year. There goes our chance for infrastructure change in the face of Peak Oil. The Dems will do everything possible to save Detroit and that's what they have to do. There are no easy choices now and none will change the End Game. It'sanybody's guess as to how much each choice, right or wrong, will delay or accelerate it. The only game being played is "forestall the inevitable": the collapse of industrialized civilization. I really do believe and am sensing that it is starting to sink in, in some very important circles. Those of us who made FTW, Rubicon and this amazing blog have greatly facilitated that.
And in the midst of all this Bush/Cheney are playing their own end game.
Stop calculating the deficit, it's a spinning meter now. Stop calculating the national debt. Fuggedaboudit! There is only one thing to do when a debt becomes so large it can never be repaid: go bankrupt and liquidate. We saw the first signs when rumors surfaced (and were quickly quashed) that Hyundai, I think it was, was looking to buy parts of Chrysler, including the Jeep line. There again, is something we described for years as en route at FTW and in Rubicon...
Hooray! The map is accurate.
Oh shit! The map is accurate.
I wonder how long before rumors surface that Disney and Coke are having trouble. The American brand name is dead.
Look guys, this is it. It can't possibly be long now until j6p and the rest of us get our teeth kicked in. And man is he going to be pissed off. Those of us who prepared to whatever extent will have it much easier than almost everyone we meet. I am so grateful that so many of you have let me know in so many ways, that you got it. You changed your lives because of the work I and the FTW gang did. Now we must realize that we have a blessing and ask how we can use it to best serve the rest. Go watch "Schindler's List", identify, and then understand that we won't be able to help everybody. Forgive yourself and do it now. The tension is surely getting to all of us, as it should be. Don't try to deny it or pretend it isn't there. Embrace it and respect it. It is something that bonds us to our fellows. Give yourself room to act and respond differently and don't judge yourselves too much if you screw up. I know too many in our not-so-little movement and we all share common traits. I acted out recently and really wounded someone who was and remains very special. Amends were made and accepted but our paths parted way too soon. --I'm sorry LB.
We must keep the human part of this process involved in all of this for our own health. I don't think anyone could ask for a better support group than what we have in this blog and beyond.
Now I'm going to go pester my agent about selling a book which really needs to come out soon.
FWIW -- I believe that's in God's hands -- a God who looks after all religions and peoples.
MCR
***********************
JO writes:
From The Writing On The Wall Department
Russia Signals Depreciation of Ruble
The central bank faces the danger that, by signalling a devaluation may be on the cards, it may spark a run on the rouble. Russia's stock market on Tuesday fell more than 10 per cent, and trading was halted briefly.
The Two Faces of Money
Insider Crimes, Funny Money and Options Rackets
They Made a Killing: The Use of Knowledge of Covert Operations in the Stock Market
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
URGENT -- THE CRIME IS COMING UNRAVELLED
The following story is monumental and the days between now and January 20th are going to be non-stop action and, most likely, very bad news. The Treasury is refusing to disclose which institutions are getting taxpayer bailout money. Bloomberg has filed suit to find out. That speaks volumes for Bloomberg. Hank Paulson has completely violated his testimony before Congress when he sought approval of the package. Under oath he begged for the same transparency he himself is now refusing to provide. But bear in mind that most of the Treasury money that is being dispersed is NOT part of the congressional bailout package. There's more than two trillion in Treasury money forked over and the congressional bailout was only $750 billion. This has nothing to do with protecting asset prices or the industry. It has to do with obstructing justice and concealing evidence. If the mainstream media try to brush this over they will lose all credibility with Joe the Plumber and Joe Sixpack. The public will grasp this in a heartbeat. This is a crime being committed in broad daylight, in the middle of Main Street, in perfect weather.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aatlky_cH.tY&refer=worldwide
Now take it one step further and go back to FTW's last economic alert; the one I wrote and published 11 days before our computers were smashed in 2006. In our last-ever alert, I screamed that the collapse was planned, inevitable and imminent because President Bush had just authorized the SEC to exempt certain financial institutions from full and transparent reporting on grounds of national security. Huh?! -- I screamed that the bank vaults had just been opened and the green light given to pump, loot, and pump some more -- based on falsified earnings reports and asset descriptions -- then dump it out and shut the U.S. down, leaving us all broke. Paulson, of course, won't disclose what "assets" were purchased in any bailouts because then it would be discoverable that there are many more paper mortgages than there are actual properties. I would bet just about everything I have that the list of companies exempted from filing complete reports will match --almost perfectly -- the list of firms that are receiving Treasury bailout funds -- our money. The only thing standing between Bush/Cheney and the pokey is their own national-security classification power. That's it. Well there's real good case law about classifying to conceal crimes and the Bloomberg case is a sure-fire winner in the Supreme Court. Not only is the Constitution clear, any other ruling might well start an uprising. Bush/Cheney know this, so their plan -- however far it goes -- must be completed before this case could get to the Supremes.
Here again, is the link to FTW's June 2006 Economic Alert:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/061406_abyss_awaits.shtml.
If I were still doing investigative reporting I'd be down at the courthouse getting a copy of the Bloomberg suit ASAP. The Reuters story even gives the case number at the bottom. It's a public document. There's a revolt already underway when Bloomberg files suit against TPTB and Reuters appears to be supporting the play. This is High Noon -- one of many to come in the next 60 days.
The Bush/Cheney regime still has that time in office and I may be risking my life to print this. But there will never be a better time and we are not alone. The whole world is watching and a great many influential people read us. Those in the mainstream and elected office who have benefited from our work for years have been silent for too long. I predicted all of this in agonizing detail starting years ago and they know it. You who have been so loyal for so long know it. The only thing that will help us all is to point to the crime and the evidence and scream as loudly as we can. The American people can grasp this in an instant. Bush's popularity is lower than for any president in history. The more people who see and understand this story, especially those in elected office and positions of influence, the safer we all are; the more of a chance we, and especially our children, have. Michael Bloomberg needs back up too. He's doing the right thing here. I need to ask all who are willing to start spreading this blog entry around to the most influential places and people you know. The bad guys are getting ready to leave town with our money, in a slow parade that we're going to pay for and give them. They are banking that we're going to be relieved enough to see them go that we'll let them leave in a motorcade and cheerily wave goodbye.
I pray we make it to the inauguration.The bad guys are following a plan that will run right up until the last second. I think the wheels are coming off it because this news won't sit well anywhere in this country and I smell that they have reached too far. It is far less expensive to prevent the money from leaving the bank than it is to get it back there once it's been stolen. This has got to be stopped. We muist know where that money is going (or went) before January 20th.
Does this remind anyone of the NEPDG? --- I wrote a lot about that too.
MCR
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aatlky_cH.tY&refer=worldwide
Now take it one step further and go back to FTW's last economic alert; the one I wrote and published 11 days before our computers were smashed in 2006. In our last-ever alert, I screamed that the collapse was planned, inevitable and imminent because President Bush had just authorized the SEC to exempt certain financial institutions from full and transparent reporting on grounds of national security. Huh?! -- I screamed that the bank vaults had just been opened and the green light given to pump, loot, and pump some more -- based on falsified earnings reports and asset descriptions -- then dump it out and shut the U.S. down, leaving us all broke. Paulson, of course, won't disclose what "assets" were purchased in any bailouts because then it would be discoverable that there are many more paper mortgages than there are actual properties. I would bet just about everything I have that the list of companies exempted from filing complete reports will match --almost perfectly -- the list of firms that are receiving Treasury bailout funds -- our money. The only thing standing between Bush/Cheney and the pokey is their own national-security classification power. That's it. Well there's real good case law about classifying to conceal crimes and the Bloomberg case is a sure-fire winner in the Supreme Court. Not only is the Constitution clear, any other ruling might well start an uprising. Bush/Cheney know this, so their plan -- however far it goes -- must be completed before this case could get to the Supremes.
Here again, is the link to FTW's June 2006 Economic Alert:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/061406_abyss_awaits.shtml.
If I were still doing investigative reporting I'd be down at the courthouse getting a copy of the Bloomberg suit ASAP. The Reuters story even gives the case number at the bottom. It's a public document. There's a revolt already underway when Bloomberg files suit against TPTB and Reuters appears to be supporting the play. This is High Noon -- one of many to come in the next 60 days.
The Bush/Cheney regime still has that time in office and I may be risking my life to print this. But there will never be a better time and we are not alone. The whole world is watching and a great many influential people read us. Those in the mainstream and elected office who have benefited from our work for years have been silent for too long. I predicted all of this in agonizing detail starting years ago and they know it. You who have been so loyal for so long know it. The only thing that will help us all is to point to the crime and the evidence and scream as loudly as we can. The American people can grasp this in an instant. Bush's popularity is lower than for any president in history. The more people who see and understand this story, especially those in elected office and positions of influence, the safer we all are; the more of a chance we, and especially our children, have. Michael Bloomberg needs back up too. He's doing the right thing here. I need to ask all who are willing to start spreading this blog entry around to the most influential places and people you know. The bad guys are getting ready to leave town with our money, in a slow parade that we're going to pay for and give them. They are banking that we're going to be relieved enough to see them go that we'll let them leave in a motorcade and cheerily wave goodbye.
I pray we make it to the inauguration.The bad guys are following a plan that will run right up until the last second. I think the wheels are coming off it because this news won't sit well anywhere in this country and I smell that they have reached too far. It is far less expensive to prevent the money from leaving the bank than it is to get it back there once it's been stolen. This has got to be stopped. We muist know where that money is going (or went) before January 20th.
Does this remind anyone of the NEPDG? --- I wrote a lot about that too.
MCR
Monday, November 10, 2008
HERE'S AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT
This is the kind of pressure we can and should be exerting now. This was a savvy move. We do not know what effect it will have. We don't know how many others will pick up a ball like this and run with it. I wrote about Gorelick in Rubicon and I agree that her appointment as AG would be a very discouraging sign. So... let's test the waters and see if anyone is listening. This is called recon and I am happy to put my signature on this Open Letter as well.
Now, how do we make sure that Mr. Obama sees it?
MCR
From: Kyle Hence kylehence@earthlink.net
Date: November 10, 2008 8:35 AM :
Nov 10 To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: OPEN LETTER to President-elect Obama: No to Jamie Gorelick as AG --
Gorelick Freed Known Terrorist & Protected Bush over Saudi Ties to 9/11
*Open Letter to President-elect Barack Obama Regarding Former 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick*
Dear President-elect:
Congratulations on your inspiring and momentous victory. Now the great burden and opportunity of leadership falls upon you and your team, including the responsibility of choosing someone ideally suited to lead the way to restore the rule of law and the Constitution in these United States.
A profile published today in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/us/politics/08gorelick.html reports that your transition staff may be considering nominating former 9/11 Commission Jamie Gorelick to the post of Attorney-General. I am writing to urge you in the strongest possible terms not to do so. This recommendation from your transition team should they put her name forward must be rejected. She, along with the Commission's Executive Director, Philip Zelikow were the two most highly compromised of the 9/11 Commission members; their conflicts of interest should have disqualified them from being members of the Commission. In fact their records relative to 9/11 should have made them sworn witnesses in the investigation itself. Jamie Gorelick was not the right pick for the 9/11 Commission and she is not the right person to fill the position of Attorney General.
As Deputy AG Jamie Gorelick was instrumental in the extradition to Jordan of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a known terrorist where he was later freed (see below). Later she wrote the infamous "wall memo" which sought to make life difficult for FBI investigators probing past terrorist crimes from counter-intelligence agents seeking to prevent future attacks. Then as Commissioner she presided over an investigation that failed to answer over 70% of the questions posed bythe 9/11 Family Steering Committee http://www.justicefor911.org/Appendix4_FSCQuestionRatings_111904.php . [BTW, This record should also disqualify former 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer who some have said is being considered for Intelligence czar]. Then there is her work with the failed Fannie Mae which "she left just as it was coming under fire for huge accounting failures," as Eric Lightblau wrote this morning for NY Times.
On the basis of her record, as Deputy AG, as 9/11 Commissioner, and with Fannie Mae, Jamie Gorelick must be, in my view excluded from consideration for the position of Attorney General or any other high level position in your administration. No to Jamie Gorelick.
Sincerely,
Kyle F. Hence
http://www.911pressfortruth.com/
******************************************************************************
JO writes:
For more on Jamie Gorelick, see interview with Emmy-award winning author, Peter Lance.
And on her role in erecting a wall between FBI investigators and Al Qaeda operative, Ali Mohammed
Meanwhile, on the "Economy, Stupid," front:
The End of America (film)
No (Short-Term) Pain, No (Long-Term) Gain
Why Are Docs From the Bailout Being Redacted?
Science News, Good, Bad and Ugly but Clear
US Army Delays, Alters Medical Studies Under Little Known Scientific Censorship Program
GEOEye's New Satellite Program Offers Unprecedentedly Sharp Images
This is the kind of pressure we can and should be exerting now. This was a savvy move. We do not know what effect it will have. We don't know how many others will pick up a ball like this and run with it. I wrote about Gorelick in Rubicon and I agree that her appointment as AG would be a very discouraging sign. So... let's test the waters and see if anyone is listening. This is called recon and I am happy to put my signature on this Open Letter as well.
Now, how do we make sure that Mr. Obama sees it?
MCR
From: Kyle Hence kylehence@earthlink.net
Date: November 10, 2008 8:35 AM :
Nov 10 To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: OPEN LETTER to President-elect Obama: No to Jamie Gorelick as AG --
Gorelick Freed Known Terrorist & Protected Bush over Saudi Ties to 9/11
*Open Letter to President-elect Barack Obama Regarding Former 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick*
Dear President-elect:
Congratulations on your inspiring and momentous victory. Now the great burden and opportunity of leadership falls upon you and your team, including the responsibility of choosing someone ideally suited to lead the way to restore the rule of law and the Constitution in these United States.
A profile published today in The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/us/politics/08gorelick.html reports that your transition staff may be considering nominating former 9/11 Commission Jamie Gorelick to the post of Attorney-General. I am writing to urge you in the strongest possible terms not to do so. This recommendation from your transition team should they put her name forward must be rejected. She, along with the Commission's Executive Director, Philip Zelikow were the two most highly compromised of the 9/11 Commission members; their conflicts of interest should have disqualified them from being members of the Commission. In fact their records relative to 9/11 should have made them sworn witnesses in the investigation itself. Jamie Gorelick was not the right pick for the 9/11 Commission and she is not the right person to fill the position of Attorney General.
As Deputy AG Jamie Gorelick was instrumental in the extradition to Jordan of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a known terrorist where he was later freed (see below). Later she wrote the infamous "wall memo" which sought to make life difficult for FBI investigators probing past terrorist crimes from counter-intelligence agents seeking to prevent future attacks. Then as Commissioner she presided over an investigation that failed to answer over 70% of the questions posed bythe 9/11 Family Steering Committee http://www.justicefor911.org/Appendix4_FSCQuestionRatings_111904.php . [BTW, This record should also disqualify former 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer who some have said is being considered for Intelligence czar]. Then there is her work with the failed Fannie Mae which "she left just as it was coming under fire for huge accounting failures," as Eric Lightblau wrote this morning for NY Times.
On the basis of her record, as Deputy AG, as 9/11 Commissioner, and with Fannie Mae, Jamie Gorelick must be, in my view excluded from consideration for the position of Attorney General or any other high level position in your administration. No to Jamie Gorelick.
Sincerely,
Kyle F. Hence
http://www.911pressfortruth.com/
******************************************************************************
JO writes:
For more on Jamie Gorelick, see interview with Emmy-award winning author, Peter Lance.
And on her role in erecting a wall between FBI investigators and Al Qaeda operative, Ali Mohammed
Meanwhile, on the "Economy, Stupid," front:
The End of America (film)
No (Short-Term) Pain, No (Long-Term) Gain
Why Are Docs From the Bailout Being Redacted?
Science News, Good, Bad and Ugly but Clear
US Army Delays, Alters Medical Studies Under Little Known Scientific Censorship Program
GEOEye's New Satellite Program Offers Unprecedentedly Sharp Images
Sunday, November 09, 2008
DEAR PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA:
Sir,
The big-three United States automakers are begging for help. Polls I have seen show that perhaps 70% of all Americans are opposed to another bailout. You, like Solomon, are faced with a difficult choice. I cannot presume -- nor would I want -- to make that choice for you.
But, whatever you decide -- for the sake of the autoworkers, and all downstream -- please do it quickly. Every second of time to plan and prepare you give them can only save lives -- no matter the end game. The world will not wait for your inauguration. You must walk a razor's edge but lives are at stake, sir. And from the extent to which I have seen you age since election night, you will be as white as Moses when you leave your post.
Please listen to us,
MCR
The big-three United States automakers are begging for help. Polls I have seen show that perhaps 70% of all Americans are opposed to another bailout. You, like Solomon, are faced with a difficult choice. I cannot presume -- nor would I want -- to make that choice for you.
But, whatever you decide -- for the sake of the autoworkers, and all downstream -- please do it quickly. Every second of time to plan and prepare you give them can only save lives -- no matter the end game. The world will not wait for your inauguration. You must walk a razor's edge but lives are at stake, sir. And from the extent to which I have seen you age since election night, you will be as white as Moses when you leave your post.
Please listen to us,
MCR
CONTINUING A GREAT DIALOGUE ON AN OBAMA PRESIDENCY
by Michael C. Ruppert--
I am just thrilled by the quality and volume of discourse here. That's a good thing... a very good thing, and it speaks to the heart of what I wrote in INTERREGNUM. In fact, it proves the point I was trying to make that some of you heard so clearly and that others just missed entirely. Unfortunately, the ones who missed the point are some of the real veterans who have been map-building with me for so long. Let me ask this question: Is it possible that all those who have posted here since the election did so because they now felt "freer" to post? Of course it is. Those who missed my point have come to view themselves and us all as permanent outsiders and lepers -- as literally incapable of making any kind of change. They are defending a self-imposed impotence. Subconsciously they have relegated themselves and us all to the role of observers and armchair critics. In a ham and eggs breakfast the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. Some are choosing to entrench and fortify their chickenhood at a time when a few good pigs are needed.
Is it really necessary to remind all of us veteranos that we started to be worried about being locked up as enemy combatants or something like that starting with the passage of the Patriot Act? Do I honestly need to remind people of the self-imposed censorship many placed upon themselves over the last eight years. "Well, I feel that but I can't say it because the FBI or someone might surreptitiously examine my computer, ruin my credit, put me on a no-fly list or lose me my job and I just don't want that kind of spotlight." I submit that what really liberated all of these new comments was a belief that they can be posted now without fear of retribution -- as a result of Barack Obama's election.
The point is, it's true! The volume of postings is not because of my brilliant, impassioned writing - ;-). It's because you feel that the room to do that safely has been created by this election. The Obama campaign sold us an image. If we do not enforce, protect and claim the ground that has been returned to us we don't deserve it. That's exactly what Jefferson would tell us.
The Patriot Act is never going to be repealed. I told you that years ago and I have never changed that position. Nothing that the Necons took by force and intimidation is going to be surrendered. But don't miss the real question here. The real question is how stridently are those powers going to be enforced under Obama as opposed to Bush? Obviously, you guys are less fearful now. Until you change the way money works, you change nothing (my original line) is just as true as it always has been. Some posters here seem to be saying that until a new president has a cabinet and advisory team that is not part of the old paradigm and up to our standards, it will never happen. BS! That is utter nonsense. The United States government is -- to use a simplified analogy -- like the cockpit of a 777. There are dials, switches and knobs everywhere. In order to keep the aircraft flying --and to avoid killing everyone on board, there must be a crew capable of flying it. While the Obama crew is flying it, they have postured themselves as more accessible, less threatening, more open and DIFFERENT. But if you go back to Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, and especially John Adams, you see articulated a fundamental truth: politicians won't do much of anything the People don't make them do. Already, some of the best minds who suffered through eight years of anguish have given up. They have adopted a position that somehow, until someone puts a perfect cabinet in place, and runs on a "perfect" platform, nothing will change. Sorry guys, but that's just plain lazy. It's also very naive. Some of you have become so used to being "Whiners in the Wilderness" that you have forgotten how to be "Lions in the Wilderness". I ask, which noises will most impact TPTB asleep in their beds in the town? Whimpers of frightened monkeys or roars of hungry lions. These powers-that-be have adorned themselves in the rhetoric of their promised responsiveness to us.
Above all the attitude that there is no reason to support anything less than a "perfect" regime shows very little familiarity with one of the things that I do have some experience with; the actual act and art of governance.
I do not for a second believe that if a true outsider were placed in a position of power that we would have a prayer of success. Why? While many of us can almost-perfectly articulate what needs to happen, we have no idea what switches, buttons, dials and levers to operate to actually MAKE it happen... without causing the aircraft to lose its airworthiness. I just finished a book called "A Presidential Energy Policy". (Five publishers are looking at it right now.) OK, so let's say that I became Secretary of Energy in January. I would fail in a heartbeat. Why? Because I know virtually nothing about how DoE functions inside. I don't know which GS16-18s do what or how. I don't know which of a million bureaucratic regulations prevent a million little cogs and gears from working together so that if I gave an order to do something noble, that some town in Louisiana would cease to function the next day. And in that position I become dependent upon the bureaucracy itself. How many comedy movies have we seen where a dilettante comes into a position of power and just starts barking orders. "OK, everybody, change the way money works!" I don't know --as Max Weber or Mario Savio might say -- all the cogs and gears of the machinery. I would not be able to say, OK, let's move or eliminate this department. Let's change this priority without understanding its downstream impacts. A wise person once said, "It's not what I don't know that kills me. It's what I don't know that I don't know that kills me."
The most important fundamental difference between the Obama and Bush camps is this: George W. Bush had a base that never really pretended to include the people and so never really needed to invest or listen there. That arrogance -- personified by Richard Cheney -- was perhaps the most insulting thing of all. The Obama base is ALL (at least superficially and hopefully more so) about the People (that would be you and me) which it advertises and claims as its base. If a base doesn't act like a base then it will wind up not being a base. What's that old line about the squeaky wheel?
All of those who have been lamenting about Obama's transition team and choices, saying that it's the same old people seem to be arguing that there's no need to have people with knowledge of aircraft design or piloting skills to redesign and rebuild an aircraft while in flight. Excuse me, but I won't let people you govern me -- ever. The old paradigm will operate just like the old paradigm because that's what it knows how to do. Still, the old paradigm knows that it's time is passing and I can guarantee that its ears and eyes are open. You see the way money works is going to change with or without us. It is already changing.
All of the people who KNOW how to keep the aircraft of government flying are -- by definition -- from that old paradigm. So what kind of pundit would demand a whole new philosophically-pure ideology up front when there's no one who knows stick, rudder, flaps, trim tabs, and ailerons from a bucket of bolts. We have a perfect historical example of how that works. It was called the Reign of Terror when the only thing a new government in France knew how to say was, "Off with their heads!" And what emerged from the Reign of Terror?... Napoleon. So we have to accept the Rahms and the Paul Volckers and the Bidens etc. just to keep ourselves in the air. But we do not have to roll over and let or expect them to continue in their old ways. I suspect that many of them do see the writing on the wall (very clearly) about energy, economics and collapse. They have positioned themselves to listen to us and risk being exposed for hypocrites if they do not. Now that all Americans have seen a black man elected President; now that newer and less-sophisticated Americans have a sense of empowerment instead of resigned acceptance; whose fault is it if positive change is not demanded and acquired in stages? Whose fault is it if the cockpit frequency which is being advertised as tuned to us, fails to issue course, altitude and speed changes to the aircrew? Whose fault would it be if the cockpit ignored us and we said nothing?
Does anybody remember that power comes from the People? That's a fact. And I'm a bit saddened to see that so many ready-and-willing commentators and critics are digging themselves deeper into their armchairs instead of emerging as leaders and merely whining more loudly.
I haven't compromised anything I believe in. Nb patton understood and heard me perfectly. He read what I wrote and not what he thought I said.
I can't tell you how many really great writers and researchers have caved in subconsciously and their recent writings show it. Over the years I have watched many give up and say (with reason), my life is in danger, or might be. I have watched them say and heard them share,"Look at what Ruppert went through." I don't fault them for what were probably right and appropriate choices at the time. Even I took a hiatus, to wait, heal and regroup. I do not have to explain how personally difficult the last eight years have been for me. I don't need to tell you that a lot was directed at me very personally. So many of you saw me and helped me through that time. If one likens what we do to fighting a war, then one must recognize that a major tool of generalship in war is picking and choosing the time and place of battle. It is about knowing when to rest, replenish and reorganize. Now, at a time when the battlefield is much more open; at a time when the "armies" we face are posturing themselves as being open and our friends; when they are drawing their mandate from us; at a time when we do have more power, I hear people criticizing me because I say, "We have an opening. Now is the time to 'attack'. It's a better shot than we have had in eight years."
One of my favorite movie scenes is from "Moonstruck" where Cher smartly -- I mean with a resounding crack -- slaps Nicholas Gage across the face and yells, "Snap Out of It!"
We have a window here that didn't exist before the election. Time is very short and the collapse is occurring faster than even I had anticipated. We do not have decades for some trickle-up blogeology to penetrate elite consciousness while some of us pundits offer detached, intellectual criticism. Until you change the way money works, you change nothing. Almost everything is on the table now and it's going to be more on the table in the months ahead. If we do not speak out then who have we to blame if it doesn't get discussed? The election of Barack Obama gave us that opportunity. There is a seat at the table waiting for us; created by us. We cannot blame him if we don't take it.
MCR
P.S. -- A word about censorship. -- I have been invited into the corridors of power. I have also been locked out for really stupid reasons. One of the most consistent was that people saw some posting on the FTW Forum, when we had one, that linked to anti-Semitic or racist or other hate sites. People in power slam doors in the faces of people who have something to say over unjustified associations. Any excuse will do. Experience has taught me that anyone who links to a racist or hate-governed source on my sites is an enemy. Experience has taught me that anyone who posts such links on my site is -- more often than not -- the same person who will go to other places and say, "Look at the kind of crap that appears on Ruppert's site." If I am a general then one of my obligations is to protect my own effectiveness and credibility. I will continue to do that with all the diligence I possess. And that decision I do not have to justify to anyone.
I am just thrilled by the quality and volume of discourse here. That's a good thing... a very good thing, and it speaks to the heart of what I wrote in INTERREGNUM. In fact, it proves the point I was trying to make that some of you heard so clearly and that others just missed entirely. Unfortunately, the ones who missed the point are some of the real veterans who have been map-building with me for so long. Let me ask this question: Is it possible that all those who have posted here since the election did so because they now felt "freer" to post? Of course it is. Those who missed my point have come to view themselves and us all as permanent outsiders and lepers -- as literally incapable of making any kind of change. They are defending a self-imposed impotence. Subconsciously they have relegated themselves and us all to the role of observers and armchair critics. In a ham and eggs breakfast the chicken is involved but the pig is committed. Some are choosing to entrench and fortify their chickenhood at a time when a few good pigs are needed.
Is it really necessary to remind all of us veteranos that we started to be worried about being locked up as enemy combatants or something like that starting with the passage of the Patriot Act? Do I honestly need to remind people of the self-imposed censorship many placed upon themselves over the last eight years. "Well, I feel that but I can't say it because the FBI or someone might surreptitiously examine my computer, ruin my credit, put me on a no-fly list or lose me my job and I just don't want that kind of spotlight." I submit that what really liberated all of these new comments was a belief that they can be posted now without fear of retribution -- as a result of Barack Obama's election.
The point is, it's true! The volume of postings is not because of my brilliant, impassioned writing - ;-). It's because you feel that the room to do that safely has been created by this election. The Obama campaign sold us an image. If we do not enforce, protect and claim the ground that has been returned to us we don't deserve it. That's exactly what Jefferson would tell us.
The Patriot Act is never going to be repealed. I told you that years ago and I have never changed that position. Nothing that the Necons took by force and intimidation is going to be surrendered. But don't miss the real question here. The real question is how stridently are those powers going to be enforced under Obama as opposed to Bush? Obviously, you guys are less fearful now. Until you change the way money works, you change nothing (my original line) is just as true as it always has been. Some posters here seem to be saying that until a new president has a cabinet and advisory team that is not part of the old paradigm and up to our standards, it will never happen. BS! That is utter nonsense. The United States government is -- to use a simplified analogy -- like the cockpit of a 777. There are dials, switches and knobs everywhere. In order to keep the aircraft flying --and to avoid killing everyone on board, there must be a crew capable of flying it. While the Obama crew is flying it, they have postured themselves as more accessible, less threatening, more open and DIFFERENT. But if you go back to Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, and especially John Adams, you see articulated a fundamental truth: politicians won't do much of anything the People don't make them do. Already, some of the best minds who suffered through eight years of anguish have given up. They have adopted a position that somehow, until someone puts a perfect cabinet in place, and runs on a "perfect" platform, nothing will change. Sorry guys, but that's just plain lazy. It's also very naive. Some of you have become so used to being "Whiners in the Wilderness" that you have forgotten how to be "Lions in the Wilderness". I ask, which noises will most impact TPTB asleep in their beds in the town? Whimpers of frightened monkeys or roars of hungry lions. These powers-that-be have adorned themselves in the rhetoric of their promised responsiveness to us.
Above all the attitude that there is no reason to support anything less than a "perfect" regime shows very little familiarity with one of the things that I do have some experience with; the actual act and art of governance.
I do not for a second believe that if a true outsider were placed in a position of power that we would have a prayer of success. Why? While many of us can almost-perfectly articulate what needs to happen, we have no idea what switches, buttons, dials and levers to operate to actually MAKE it happen... without causing the aircraft to lose its airworthiness. I just finished a book called "A Presidential Energy Policy". (Five publishers are looking at it right now.) OK, so let's say that I became Secretary of Energy in January. I would fail in a heartbeat. Why? Because I know virtually nothing about how DoE functions inside. I don't know which GS16-18s do what or how. I don't know which of a million bureaucratic regulations prevent a million little cogs and gears from working together so that if I gave an order to do something noble, that some town in Louisiana would cease to function the next day. And in that position I become dependent upon the bureaucracy itself. How many comedy movies have we seen where a dilettante comes into a position of power and just starts barking orders. "OK, everybody, change the way money works!" I don't know --as Max Weber or Mario Savio might say -- all the cogs and gears of the machinery. I would not be able to say, OK, let's move or eliminate this department. Let's change this priority without understanding its downstream impacts. A wise person once said, "It's not what I don't know that kills me. It's what I don't know that I don't know that kills me."
The most important fundamental difference between the Obama and Bush camps is this: George W. Bush had a base that never really pretended to include the people and so never really needed to invest or listen there. That arrogance -- personified by Richard Cheney -- was perhaps the most insulting thing of all. The Obama base is ALL (at least superficially and hopefully more so) about the People (that would be you and me) which it advertises and claims as its base. If a base doesn't act like a base then it will wind up not being a base. What's that old line about the squeaky wheel?
All of those who have been lamenting about Obama's transition team and choices, saying that it's the same old people seem to be arguing that there's no need to have people with knowledge of aircraft design or piloting skills to redesign and rebuild an aircraft while in flight. Excuse me, but I won't let people you govern me -- ever. The old paradigm will operate just like the old paradigm because that's what it knows how to do. Still, the old paradigm knows that it's time is passing and I can guarantee that its ears and eyes are open. You see the way money works is going to change with or without us. It is already changing.
All of the people who KNOW how to keep the aircraft of government flying are -- by definition -- from that old paradigm. So what kind of pundit would demand a whole new philosophically-pure ideology up front when there's no one who knows stick, rudder, flaps, trim tabs, and ailerons from a bucket of bolts. We have a perfect historical example of how that works. It was called the Reign of Terror when the only thing a new government in France knew how to say was, "Off with their heads!" And what emerged from the Reign of Terror?... Napoleon. So we have to accept the Rahms and the Paul Volckers and the Bidens etc. just to keep ourselves in the air. But we do not have to roll over and let or expect them to continue in their old ways. I suspect that many of them do see the writing on the wall (very clearly) about energy, economics and collapse. They have positioned themselves to listen to us and risk being exposed for hypocrites if they do not. Now that all Americans have seen a black man elected President; now that newer and less-sophisticated Americans have a sense of empowerment instead of resigned acceptance; whose fault is it if positive change is not demanded and acquired in stages? Whose fault is it if the cockpit frequency which is being advertised as tuned to us, fails to issue course, altitude and speed changes to the aircrew? Whose fault would it be if the cockpit ignored us and we said nothing?
Does anybody remember that power comes from the People? That's a fact. And I'm a bit saddened to see that so many ready-and-willing commentators and critics are digging themselves deeper into their armchairs instead of emerging as leaders and merely whining more loudly.
I haven't compromised anything I believe in. Nb patton understood and heard me perfectly. He read what I wrote and not what he thought I said.
I can't tell you how many really great writers and researchers have caved in subconsciously and their recent writings show it. Over the years I have watched many give up and say (with reason), my life is in danger, or might be. I have watched them say and heard them share,"Look at what Ruppert went through." I don't fault them for what were probably right and appropriate choices at the time. Even I took a hiatus, to wait, heal and regroup. I do not have to explain how personally difficult the last eight years have been for me. I don't need to tell you that a lot was directed at me very personally. So many of you saw me and helped me through that time. If one likens what we do to fighting a war, then one must recognize that a major tool of generalship in war is picking and choosing the time and place of battle. It is about knowing when to rest, replenish and reorganize. Now, at a time when the battlefield is much more open; at a time when the "armies" we face are posturing themselves as being open and our friends; when they are drawing their mandate from us; at a time when we do have more power, I hear people criticizing me because I say, "We have an opening. Now is the time to 'attack'. It's a better shot than we have had in eight years."
One of my favorite movie scenes is from "Moonstruck" where Cher smartly -- I mean with a resounding crack -- slaps Nicholas Gage across the face and yells, "Snap Out of It!"
We have a window here that didn't exist before the election. Time is very short and the collapse is occurring faster than even I had anticipated. We do not have decades for some trickle-up blogeology to penetrate elite consciousness while some of us pundits offer detached, intellectual criticism. Until you change the way money works, you change nothing. Almost everything is on the table now and it's going to be more on the table in the months ahead. If we do not speak out then who have we to blame if it doesn't get discussed? The election of Barack Obama gave us that opportunity. There is a seat at the table waiting for us; created by us. We cannot blame him if we don't take it.
MCR
P.S. -- A word about censorship. -- I have been invited into the corridors of power. I have also been locked out for really stupid reasons. One of the most consistent was that people saw some posting on the FTW Forum, when we had one, that linked to anti-Semitic or racist or other hate sites. People in power slam doors in the faces of people who have something to say over unjustified associations. Any excuse will do. Experience has taught me that anyone who links to a racist or hate-governed source on my sites is an enemy. Experience has taught me that anyone who posts such links on my site is -- more often than not -- the same person who will go to other places and say, "Look at the kind of crap that appears on Ruppert's site." If I am a general then one of my obligations is to protect my own effectiveness and credibility. I will continue to do that with all the diligence I possess. And that decision I do not have to justify to anyone.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Censorship Or The Better Part of Valor?
Jenna Orkin
Some explanation is in order regarding the editing or 'censorship' that takes place on this blog.
These are shoot-from-the-hip decisions. They stem from core beliefs that have not been fully thought out nor am I about to embark on a deep investigation of the matter or disquisition now. I'll simply try to explain the thought process or reflex process or whatever it is that's at work.
As you can see from the Profile to the right, a space I opted to use to explain how this blog works, when Mike originally asked me to take on this task (at the time, it was going to be a job) he wrote to readers:
"Comment with only one prime directive, 'What can we share here that will save lives by providing people with choices, experience, strength and hope?'
Of course, peripheral issues arise and inevitably, people have thoughts to share which are of interest but which have only the most oblique relationship to saving lives or offering strength and hope etc, etc. Some comments have been ornery or critical and there are a few that are off the wall but harmless.
But there are categories of comments which have been 'edited' or 'censored' or very occasionally, rejected because on balance, they weren't worth the trouble they might cause.
One category is comments that are strewn with obscenities. "Fuck" is acceptable in some situations; in others it's gratuitous. This, it seemed to me, was particularly true of a comment which several times used the word: Buttf*** (sic). You never got to see that one which was too bad because it made some intelligent points. As with any editor, the blog moderator's job is a balancing act.
You will note, of course, that I'm reproducing in this exposition the exact words which got the comment thrown out in the first place. Hypocrisy? Or context?
Another category of comments that have been censored are those that have criticized Mike or others in ways which I haven't considered useful. I know what he's been through, as do most of you. You have the right to your opinions which may even be brilliantly insightful. And I have no particular beef with truth (if, in fact, I thought the comments contained any) but there are times when its presentation is overwhelming.
I also tend to 'censor' comments which quote without attribution. Please just send links. There are legal issues involved in the ever-evolving area of internet copyright law. Again, it's a matter of proportion and purpose.
And then there's the question of guns.
A few comments have alluded to guns and ammunition, as did Mike's article a week or two ago. Some of these comments have made it through the filter. Others have not.
I once had a conversation with Congressman Jerrold Nadler about free speech. He said, "The answer to bad speech is more speech."
That's true. With perhaps one exception.
When it comes to speech that has the potential to incite or even simply induce violence, the criterion for censorship, if I remember correctly from Law School, is whether or not the listener has time to cool off and think before acting. You can't shout, "Let's go get the mother-f*ers!" to a crowd of vigilante wannabes.
What about when a comment does something akin to that on the internet?
So far no comment has done precisely that but a few have come, it has seemed to me, uncomfortably close.
And a few comments related to weapons have been written not in an incited but a rational state. Yet it was plausible that a reader - granted, one who was already predisposed - might get an idea from the comment that his community might live (or not) to regret.
In that case, the comment would be only one of a chain of causes, a proximate if not a particularly strong cause, but I didn't want the blog to be implicated at all.
This is not an exhaustive list; there's the whole issue of links or allusions to blogs of quesetionable judgment. This is just the beginning of what will perhaps be a heated but intriguing discussion. All right; bring 'em on. The floodgates are waiting.
Some explanation is in order regarding the editing or 'censorship' that takes place on this blog.
These are shoot-from-the-hip decisions. They stem from core beliefs that have not been fully thought out nor am I about to embark on a deep investigation of the matter or disquisition now. I'll simply try to explain the thought process or reflex process or whatever it is that's at work.
As you can see from the Profile to the right, a space I opted to use to explain how this blog works, when Mike originally asked me to take on this task (at the time, it was going to be a job) he wrote to readers:
"Comment with only one prime directive, 'What can we share here that will save lives by providing people with choices, experience, strength and hope?'
Of course, peripheral issues arise and inevitably, people have thoughts to share which are of interest but which have only the most oblique relationship to saving lives or offering strength and hope etc, etc. Some comments have been ornery or critical and there are a few that are off the wall but harmless.
But there are categories of comments which have been 'edited' or 'censored' or very occasionally, rejected because on balance, they weren't worth the trouble they might cause.
One category is comments that are strewn with obscenities. "Fuck" is acceptable in some situations; in others it's gratuitous. This, it seemed to me, was particularly true of a comment which several times used the word: Buttf*** (sic). You never got to see that one which was too bad because it made some intelligent points. As with any editor, the blog moderator's job is a balancing act.
You will note, of course, that I'm reproducing in this exposition the exact words which got the comment thrown out in the first place. Hypocrisy? Or context?
Another category of comments that have been censored are those that have criticized Mike or others in ways which I haven't considered useful. I know what he's been through, as do most of you. You have the right to your opinions which may even be brilliantly insightful. And I have no particular beef with truth (if, in fact, I thought the comments contained any) but there are times when its presentation is overwhelming.
I also tend to 'censor' comments which quote without attribution. Please just send links. There are legal issues involved in the ever-evolving area of internet copyright law. Again, it's a matter of proportion and purpose.
And then there's the question of guns.
A few comments have alluded to guns and ammunition, as did Mike's article a week or two ago. Some of these comments have made it through the filter. Others have not.
I once had a conversation with Congressman Jerrold Nadler about free speech. He said, "The answer to bad speech is more speech."
That's true. With perhaps one exception.
When it comes to speech that has the potential to incite or even simply induce violence, the criterion for censorship, if I remember correctly from Law School, is whether or not the listener has time to cool off and think before acting. You can't shout, "Let's go get the mother-f*ers!" to a crowd of vigilante wannabes.
What about when a comment does something akin to that on the internet?
So far no comment has done precisely that but a few have come, it has seemed to me, uncomfortably close.
And a few comments related to weapons have been written not in an incited but a rational state. Yet it was plausible that a reader - granted, one who was already predisposed - might get an idea from the comment that his community might live (or not) to regret.
In that case, the comment would be only one of a chain of causes, a proximate if not a particularly strong cause, but I didn't want the blog to be implicated at all.
This is not an exhaustive list; there's the whole issue of links or allusions to blogs of quesetionable judgment. This is just the beginning of what will perhaps be a heated but intriguing discussion. All right; bring 'em on. The floodgates are waiting.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
The comments since the night before the election have transcended even the usual level of intelligence we strive for on this blog. They've been impassioned on both sides.
The very notion of sides, however, may be illusory. Was anyone unmoved by the euphoria that exploded around the globe Tuesday night, even as we harbored some skepticism about how long it would last and what the hangover would feel like? (Pessimists, by the way, outperform other groups on reality tests.) Everyone knows about the fifty per cent divorce rate but we still cry at weddings.
I'm taking the unusual step of posting the following comment here because it is a fully fledged article in itself.
JO
REFLECTIONS ON REFLECTIONS
Andy Edwards
Mike, sir I've stuck it out with you for close to five years and I'm not backtracking now...but-
I think we might be getting a little off track here. “
Until we change the way money works…” Sir, we have not accomplished this and so must we not assume that Obama’s campaign money (largely bank and establishment money) was injected precisely to deliver this result of a leader who can bring people together?
And if so, for what purpose, because the last time the elites did anything for the good of the masses was….well when was that?
Isn’t it convenient that Obama represents, merely by his Democratic alliance, a bigger and more controlling government and yet he is hailed as our savior from the infringements on personal liberty by the state? What a perfect time facing multiple emergencies to bring in the face man. Is not the Patriot Act the most aggressively anti-freedom piece of legislation to come to pass?
Now, I am of the belief that a new world order is less a collected conspiracy than it is the direct result of the psychology of the perennial, imperial state mindset. A position in line with Ron Paul, Austrian economists and the libertarian message, but that sure as shootin’ doesn’t mean I’m against ANYBODY who can come in and make fundamental change. Black, white, space alien, democrat, green party-- you name it and as long as it embodies the truth I’ll get behind it.
I believe you probably understand state corruption and its roots in greed and power as well as anyone and I am guessing that by setting forth the idea that there is a ‘new dawn’ via an Obama presidency you are stepping beyond the rubble that’s falling right now, accounting for various obstacles, and ultimately seeing the moneyed interests pressed from the picture by way of the financial meltdown so as to allow (though not necessarily by orchestration) Obama to actually, truly make choices to tear away the controlling state apparatus which seeks at this moment to extract the residue of our civil liberties. Tell me this is true.
Or tell me that Obama will simply listen to the people. Tell me Congress will listen to him. Tell me anything so I can understand how another moderate liberal will not continue his empire’s path toward totalitarianism.
Tell me that what you foresee is the elite taking to the hills with their loot, peak oil stepping fully to the stage and Obama leading us in some kind of controlled capitulation/reconciliation to reality---the reality of depleted resources; a thing which simply does not allow business to continue as usual.
Because this requires me to believe that the elite is content with their aquifers and extradition treaties and their underground bunkers.
Please tell me you see Obama immediately coming to a number of realizations about our global situation and he, having been imbued with a truly humanitarian spirit and superior intellect will thus choose, against all odds, to steer the nation in manner as libertarian, constitutional and compassionate as possible. Even if that means defying the controllers of the Fed, Zbig, Zbig’s sons, the Trilaterals and whoever else.
Because this requires me to believe that these people who move smoothly between academia, politics and business and who have spent more money on luxuries than I’ll ever see in my life, are now resigned to give up the controls on the machine.
I hope this is what you’re looking ahead to because it cannot be that you’ve missed the facts of Obama’s campaign being managed for several years, funded by the global elite and suspiciously anti-Bush just when that’s exactly what we needed. What the left needed to get back on the boat, so to speak.
This requires me to accept that the same brand of men who manufactured the Fed and bombed millions of human beings in the name of empire and progress are now okay with turning things over to the “barbarian hordes” who they so loathed for so long such that they risked everything in their silent coups.
Now, I’ll return here to my disclosure: I like Obama as a man, I believe he is the most respectable, intelligent dude to step to the fore in many election cycles. More importantly, I shed my tears on Tuesday night because I saw, even if it was an illusion, the hem of the America we were intended to be. I saw people vindicated, shed of their guilt and honestly moved from the idiocy of the Bush years. I am human. I am American.
However, I will return promptly and properly to my skepticism while allowing for Barack Obama to actually be the man of heart and strength that we wish him to be and ask: how in the name of all that is holy will Mr. Obama come to grips with the near almighty power of the impersonal state seeking through money and momentum to push him where it wants him, and further how will he self manage his own complicity in that state as he has knowingly or unknowingly given a face and made personal this machine--this machine that has been dangerous to liberty since its inception—how? And why?
Because I wonder frankly how a president who owes so much to the Wall St. banking institutions with their CIA affiliations can actually operate within the beast---and I wonder this because I know that this is what we are actually wishing him to be.
We need to face the facts that we are asking of Obama that he become no less than JFK/Thomas Jefferson/Ghandi with better Secret Service protection.
Please tell me you see globalization crippled by peak oil ASAP and Obama using his mandate to promote actual production of actual goods here in America so that we might free ourselves of the illusion of the consumer based economy. Please tell me that when our President sees this real crisis, among others, that he will enact a Manhattan Project-like drive to rebuild our rail system.
Because I wonder frankly if he’ll even bring the troops home. And I wonder this because I know that George Bush didn’t get us there. The men behind the curtain did and we can’t know for sure what happens back there and if they have retreated. Why would they now?
Or is it rather that the best we can hope is that he’ll simply and quickly tell us the truth about our situation. Tell us that we can no longer live with the arrangements which make us a superpower consumer and global empire. Will he just step up and deliver the bad news like the doctor who diagnoses and prescribes and does not sell the latest bullshit big pharmaceutical placebo?
Because I’m thinking that the most important step in dealing with reality, is knowing what reality is. Lost in the woods, we must not wait for them to build a grocery store. Lost in the woods, we must survive. Will Obama be a voice in the wilderness or will he rather continue to spin the yarn until it is too late?
Mike, sir, please tell me that Mr. Obama will concede to China and Russia and step off the path to ceaseless resource wars.
Sir, I don’t believe that this is going to happen in four or even eight years.
I kind of doubt we’ve got even another one year of business as usual.
Sir, tell me that Obama is a bad enough mutha to open media outlets again or that he is merely inspirational enough that Chris Matthews will report the whole truth for once.
This letter is of course, unfair. No one knows what will happen. We predict.
And is there really any solid reason to predict that anything will be any different?
I’d be happy with Patriot Act repealed.
That alone would allow me to vote for Obama when next he fights.
But I predict not even that most glaringly tyrannous little document will change one bit.
Please prove me wrong Mr.Obama. Seriously, please.
The very notion of sides, however, may be illusory. Was anyone unmoved by the euphoria that exploded around the globe Tuesday night, even as we harbored some skepticism about how long it would last and what the hangover would feel like? (Pessimists, by the way, outperform other groups on reality tests.) Everyone knows about the fifty per cent divorce rate but we still cry at weddings.
I'm taking the unusual step of posting the following comment here because it is a fully fledged article in itself.
JO
REFLECTIONS ON REFLECTIONS
Andy Edwards
Mike, sir I've stuck it out with you for close to five years and I'm not backtracking now...but-
I think we might be getting a little off track here. “
Until we change the way money works…” Sir, we have not accomplished this and so must we not assume that Obama’s campaign money (largely bank and establishment money) was injected precisely to deliver this result of a leader who can bring people together?
And if so, for what purpose, because the last time the elites did anything for the good of the masses was….well when was that?
Isn’t it convenient that Obama represents, merely by his Democratic alliance, a bigger and more controlling government and yet he is hailed as our savior from the infringements on personal liberty by the state? What a perfect time facing multiple emergencies to bring in the face man. Is not the Patriot Act the most aggressively anti-freedom piece of legislation to come to pass?
Now, I am of the belief that a new world order is less a collected conspiracy than it is the direct result of the psychology of the perennial, imperial state mindset. A position in line with Ron Paul, Austrian economists and the libertarian message, but that sure as shootin’ doesn’t mean I’m against ANYBODY who can come in and make fundamental change. Black, white, space alien, democrat, green party-- you name it and as long as it embodies the truth I’ll get behind it.
I believe you probably understand state corruption and its roots in greed and power as well as anyone and I am guessing that by setting forth the idea that there is a ‘new dawn’ via an Obama presidency you are stepping beyond the rubble that’s falling right now, accounting for various obstacles, and ultimately seeing the moneyed interests pressed from the picture by way of the financial meltdown so as to allow (though not necessarily by orchestration) Obama to actually, truly make choices to tear away the controlling state apparatus which seeks at this moment to extract the residue of our civil liberties. Tell me this is true.
Or tell me that Obama will simply listen to the people. Tell me Congress will listen to him. Tell me anything so I can understand how another moderate liberal will not continue his empire’s path toward totalitarianism.
Tell me that what you foresee is the elite taking to the hills with their loot, peak oil stepping fully to the stage and Obama leading us in some kind of controlled capitulation/reconciliation to reality---the reality of depleted resources; a thing which simply does not allow business to continue as usual.
Because this requires me to believe that the elite is content with their aquifers and extradition treaties and their underground bunkers.
Please tell me you see Obama immediately coming to a number of realizations about our global situation and he, having been imbued with a truly humanitarian spirit and superior intellect will thus choose, against all odds, to steer the nation in manner as libertarian, constitutional and compassionate as possible. Even if that means defying the controllers of the Fed, Zbig, Zbig’s sons, the Trilaterals and whoever else.
Because this requires me to believe that these people who move smoothly between academia, politics and business and who have spent more money on luxuries than I’ll ever see in my life, are now resigned to give up the controls on the machine.
I hope this is what you’re looking ahead to because it cannot be that you’ve missed the facts of Obama’s campaign being managed for several years, funded by the global elite and suspiciously anti-Bush just when that’s exactly what we needed. What the left needed to get back on the boat, so to speak.
This requires me to accept that the same brand of men who manufactured the Fed and bombed millions of human beings in the name of empire and progress are now okay with turning things over to the “barbarian hordes” who they so loathed for so long such that they risked everything in their silent coups.
Now, I’ll return here to my disclosure: I like Obama as a man, I believe he is the most respectable, intelligent dude to step to the fore in many election cycles. More importantly, I shed my tears on Tuesday night because I saw, even if it was an illusion, the hem of the America we were intended to be. I saw people vindicated, shed of their guilt and honestly moved from the idiocy of the Bush years. I am human. I am American.
However, I will return promptly and properly to my skepticism while allowing for Barack Obama to actually be the man of heart and strength that we wish him to be and ask: how in the name of all that is holy will Mr. Obama come to grips with the near almighty power of the impersonal state seeking through money and momentum to push him where it wants him, and further how will he self manage his own complicity in that state as he has knowingly or unknowingly given a face and made personal this machine--this machine that has been dangerous to liberty since its inception—how? And why?
Because I wonder frankly how a president who owes so much to the Wall St. banking institutions with their CIA affiliations can actually operate within the beast---and I wonder this because I know that this is what we are actually wishing him to be.
We need to face the facts that we are asking of Obama that he become no less than JFK/Thomas Jefferson/Ghandi with better Secret Service protection.
Please tell me you see globalization crippled by peak oil ASAP and Obama using his mandate to promote actual production of actual goods here in America so that we might free ourselves of the illusion of the consumer based economy. Please tell me that when our President sees this real crisis, among others, that he will enact a Manhattan Project-like drive to rebuild our rail system.
Because I wonder frankly if he’ll even bring the troops home. And I wonder this because I know that George Bush didn’t get us there. The men behind the curtain did and we can’t know for sure what happens back there and if they have retreated. Why would they now?
Or is it rather that the best we can hope is that he’ll simply and quickly tell us the truth about our situation. Tell us that we can no longer live with the arrangements which make us a superpower consumer and global empire. Will he just step up and deliver the bad news like the doctor who diagnoses and prescribes and does not sell the latest bullshit big pharmaceutical placebo?
Because I’m thinking that the most important step in dealing with reality, is knowing what reality is. Lost in the woods, we must not wait for them to build a grocery store. Lost in the woods, we must survive. Will Obama be a voice in the wilderness or will he rather continue to spin the yarn until it is too late?
Mike, sir, please tell me that Mr. Obama will concede to China and Russia and step off the path to ceaseless resource wars.
Sir, I don’t believe that this is going to happen in four or even eight years.
I kind of doubt we’ve got even another one year of business as usual.
Sir, tell me that Obama is a bad enough mutha to open media outlets again or that he is merely inspirational enough that Chris Matthews will report the whole truth for once.
This letter is of course, unfair. No one knows what will happen. We predict.
And is there really any solid reason to predict that anything will be any different?
I’d be happy with Patriot Act repealed.
That alone would allow me to vote for Obama when next he fights.
But I predict not even that most glaringly tyrannous little document will change one bit.
Please prove me wrong Mr.Obama. Seriously, please.
INTERREGNUM
Reflections on an Obama Landslide and the Path Ahead
by Michael C. Ruppert
((c) Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. Michael C. Ruppert - Please distribute widely.)
Nov. 5, 2008 (Los Angeles) – The American People were freed last night. Not only were they liberated; they were united again. For the first time in many years we, and the nation we live in, were on the same piece of sheet music and in the same key. And for the first time in eight horror-filled years (maybe longer) it sounded like the Star Spangled Banner.
It was the enormity of the landslide that spoke loudest and broke the clouds. All of a sudden the paradigm shift underway on many levels became visible, palpable, and real. Everything crystallized as I watched – gasping through mucous-laden tears – John McCain concede defeat. What did I see as CNN's camera focused on the loyalists at his headquarters? I saw nothing but wealthy, "blingy" whites; well-dressed, some holding wine glasses, getting the notice that the slaves had just revolted during their formal ball. What did I see in Chicago? I saw every race and religion imaginable, standing side-by-side, arm-in-arm, grinning, cheering, crying, hugging. I saw their unmistakable tears well with unbearable gratitude through tired eyes; liberated from souls that had just witnessed a miracle. I saw hope.
I saw Americans all in Chicago, and nothing but Americans. I saw not a trace of ethnic-self consciousness anywhere in that crowd. This is what America is now and we are strong because of that diversity. We proved it. I am a white male. But if I were to walk down the street in Brooklyn Heights tomorrow I could see maybe 20 nationalities in one block. Today, and from here on out, every one of them will feel and know that they are as good as any other American, as any white man. There will be a contagious light in their eyes. Their spirits will be lifted and the price that they paid to get here and become citizens or green card holders will look cheap. Because we know that we are equals now we need no longer even subtly fear each other. We can count on each other; the barriers between us dissolved.
In Arizona I saw a dying class, naked before the world. I saw a Republican Party stripped down to its soul and revealed for what is atits core: rich, reactionary, Southern white people. The Republican Party is dead. It cannot and will not reform, regroup, redefine and re-emerge. The Republican Party is the party of business, and class, and privilege. We still don't know whether Ted Stevens won in Alaska, but if the old fool tries to take his seat he will be forcibly expelled from the Senate just as soon as he is led away in handcuffs to serve his prison sentence. This country and the overwhelmingly Democratic Senate will be disinclined to show him mercy and that will be the final ignominy for the Republicans.
That was only one of many reasons to cheer. The Christian right has been demolished as a political base, perhaps forever. They way they performed for their candidate makes an endorsement from them now a political kiss of death. Latino Americans showed true class and honor– not to mention self interest – by deserting the Republicans en masse.
There will be no economic recovery. There is a part of me that believes that Bush and the Neocons know this and have for at least a decade. But at least we have claimed a sense of unity, of a shared fate. The Neocons have worked so hard to leave Barack Obama with a mortally-wounded corpse. I shudder at what they might destroy in the next seventy days. Just a day after Barack Obama's victory Russia announced that it was moving missiles near the Polish border and sharply attacked the U.S. That message was clear; "Hey America, before you go and spruce up your image around the world, you deal with Russia first and what you have done to us since the mid-1990s. Soon we will be co-equal (former) superpowers but we will still be the biggest kids on the block. We will both still have almost all the nuclear weapons there are."
On a day when one might expect a Dow rally in celebration of regime change it dropped almost 500 points. As I explained to my agent and friend Ken Levine, "If Obama's election would have been good for a 300-point rally, then what happened today was really an 800-point drop."
Peak Oil is here and -- in case no one noticed -- a day before the election "The Financial Times" – reading from a leaked copy of a new International Energy Agency report, disclosed that the global decline rate for oil production has been recalculated at 9.1% per year, up from 5.8% less than a year ago. Put simply that means that if we produced 85 million barrels per day in 2008 then, no matter what, we be able to produce – under the best of conditions – no more than 77.5 million barrels per day in 2009.
Since the worst of the economic collapse has yet to arrive, there will be no possibility of any kind of economic recovery. There is a 96% correlation between greenhouse gas emission (i.e. burning more oil) and GDP growth. Already, projects to drill-for and produce the more expensive offshore, remote and small-pocket oil are shutting down. Too expensive with oil prices falling. Investment in renewable energy is also shutting down. That collapse is now locked-in is one of the safest predictions I have ever made. It's just simple math now. There is no coming back.
Now I have not lost my mind or my basic understanding of the world. Barack Obama is not a Messiah and I have not become Pollyanna. What was set free that makes all the difference, however, was us -- and we are the ones who most needed liberation to meet what lies ahead. Now we can meet it as a nation. While those in Chicago felt their souls expand in true liberty, the Republican reactionaries had to stand in front of the camera and swallow hard to realize that they are just Americans too, like the rest of us. "OK you privileged, wealthy, reactionary, criminal, white Southerners, it's your Constitution too, now obey it and shut up. In the last eight years you raped that Constitution. You took away parts of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments. But you could not kill its heart."
And that is why the landslide was so important. Any attempt to take that election away, that moment in the sun, would have provoked an instant and bloody revolution. That is why I am also certain that President-elect Obama will be inaugurated in January.
We all have to honor the Constitution; that magnificent document framed so long ago by some real God-inspired men. The government of, by, and for the People was returned to them last night. And even if that is not completely true -- even in the Neolibs try to proceed in furtherance of an overarching agenda as co-conspiratorial protectors of a dead paradigm – what matters is that the People have regained a sense of their own God-given power. They have seen that they can do something. Nothing will be more important as we continue into the darkness and tests of collapse. We the People will respond together. And while the Neocon architects who planned and executed the last eight years may chuckle at the thought of leaving a black man as their janitor, they have completely overlooked the Power of the People whom they have held in such bitter contempt for so long.
All of that was vouched safe last night.
In 1998, I was asked to speak at a rally at Santa Monica City College for the Crack the CIA Coalition. Comedian Dick Gregory was the lead speaker and moderator. He made me sit on stage beside him for the whole event. He was that proud of my confrontation with CIA Director John Deutch. When he called me up to speak I said something that turned out to be prophetic. I said that if African Americans were to truly save themselves from injustice, they would have to save all of us white folk in the process or they would never get what they wanted. Is that not exactly what happened last night? Dick Gregory and I became good friends. A few months later he called me his "white son"on Joe Maddison's radio show on WOLB in Baltimore.
I think almost all of America cried last night. I have heard many on TV describe it the same way that I experienced it. At that moment in time when CNN, or CBS, or ABC all said, "It's over. It's done. Barack Obama has won the presidency of the United States," the trap-door opened and a sense of relief more profound than I could have imagined exploded out of me. I am still not the same twenty-four hours later.
After learning that Bush had called Obama to congratulate him and listening to an amazing speech from our President-elect, I crawled to the bed and collapsed in sleep, taking only my shoes off. The Bush-Cheney years have been particularly and personally hard for me. I awoke this morning not knowing who I really was.
Know this: as it was with a young JFK who was quickly surrounded by advisers who later betrayed him, this time there will be those who remember those tricks and will work to thwart them. Know that for the first time in decades I am truly proud to be an American because of what I saw last night. Know that in the days and years ahead, last night liberated and energized the best qualities in us and that is the one renewable resource that we have most needed to set free. We are one nation of many peoples. We are a nation where all men and women are endowed equally with unalienable rights. Know that we can now find a way to harness and use that particular power that is so uniquely American.
Our struggle now is to save human civilization. As it was when this nation was founded, under that magnificent, self-correcting document, it is my prayer that -- as it was in 1776 -- the hopes and dreams of mankind will all look to this amazing place to see what mankind can do with a freedom that is real; with a freedom that we will fight to protect.
Yes we can.
Yes we can.
************************************************************************************
MCR wrote:
I am more convinced than ever that the opening barrage of the collapse in September was mild compared to what's coming -- and soon. The automakers are crumbling and the slowdown is paralyzing everything. Meantime the derivatives bubble has only deflated by about 5%. At Reuters, MarketWatch, Bloomberg and elsewhere the heavyweights are all saying the same thing: "The worst is yet to come." Wait for Citigroup.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/02/AR2008110202150.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR
JO wrote:
Quote of the Day:
"The Dow is a dead banana republic dictator in full military uniform propped up in the castle window with a mechanical lever moving the cadaver’s arm, waving to the Wall Street crowd.”
– Michael Bolser, Le Metropole Cafe
From the "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not following you" department
Federal Court Allows Bush Administration to Withhold Records Detailing Torture and Abuse of Guantanamo Prisoners
Buffett's MidAmerican has Constellation Anti-Trust OK
Paulson's Swindle Revealed
Effectiveness of AIG's $143 Billion Rescue Questioned
John Olagues:
View from the equally grim other side of the coin; hyperdeflation instead of hyperinflation, for instance
Peak Cops
The Solar Energy Equivalent of Soylent Oil
National Security Sprawl
End of California
“Changing The Globe” Presents:
“The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and The Collapse of The American Dream”
Monday, December 1st, 12:30-2:00pm
In Student Services Lobby, Campus Center East
At Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga Campus
Includes brief introduction and Q & A session after the film
by Michael C. Ruppert
((c) Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. Michael C. Ruppert - Please distribute widely.)
Nov. 5, 2008 (Los Angeles) – The American People were freed last night. Not only were they liberated; they were united again. For the first time in many years we, and the nation we live in, were on the same piece of sheet music and in the same key. And for the first time in eight horror-filled years (maybe longer) it sounded like the Star Spangled Banner.
It was the enormity of the landslide that spoke loudest and broke the clouds. All of a sudden the paradigm shift underway on many levels became visible, palpable, and real. Everything crystallized as I watched – gasping through mucous-laden tears – John McCain concede defeat. What did I see as CNN's camera focused on the loyalists at his headquarters? I saw nothing but wealthy, "blingy" whites; well-dressed, some holding wine glasses, getting the notice that the slaves had just revolted during their formal ball. What did I see in Chicago? I saw every race and religion imaginable, standing side-by-side, arm-in-arm, grinning, cheering, crying, hugging. I saw their unmistakable tears well with unbearable gratitude through tired eyes; liberated from souls that had just witnessed a miracle. I saw hope.
I saw Americans all in Chicago, and nothing but Americans. I saw not a trace of ethnic-self consciousness anywhere in that crowd. This is what America is now and we are strong because of that diversity. We proved it. I am a white male. But if I were to walk down the street in Brooklyn Heights tomorrow I could see maybe 20 nationalities in one block. Today, and from here on out, every one of them will feel and know that they are as good as any other American, as any white man. There will be a contagious light in their eyes. Their spirits will be lifted and the price that they paid to get here and become citizens or green card holders will look cheap. Because we know that we are equals now we need no longer even subtly fear each other. We can count on each other; the barriers between us dissolved.
In Arizona I saw a dying class, naked before the world. I saw a Republican Party stripped down to its soul and revealed for what is atits core: rich, reactionary, Southern white people. The Republican Party is dead. It cannot and will not reform, regroup, redefine and re-emerge. The Republican Party is the party of business, and class, and privilege. We still don't know whether Ted Stevens won in Alaska, but if the old fool tries to take his seat he will be forcibly expelled from the Senate just as soon as he is led away in handcuffs to serve his prison sentence. This country and the overwhelmingly Democratic Senate will be disinclined to show him mercy and that will be the final ignominy for the Republicans.
That was only one of many reasons to cheer. The Christian right has been demolished as a political base, perhaps forever. They way they performed for their candidate makes an endorsement from them now a political kiss of death. Latino Americans showed true class and honor– not to mention self interest – by deserting the Republicans en masse.
There will be no economic recovery. There is a part of me that believes that Bush and the Neocons know this and have for at least a decade. But at least we have claimed a sense of unity, of a shared fate. The Neocons have worked so hard to leave Barack Obama with a mortally-wounded corpse. I shudder at what they might destroy in the next seventy days. Just a day after Barack Obama's victory Russia announced that it was moving missiles near the Polish border and sharply attacked the U.S. That message was clear; "Hey America, before you go and spruce up your image around the world, you deal with Russia first and what you have done to us since the mid-1990s. Soon we will be co-equal (former) superpowers but we will still be the biggest kids on the block. We will both still have almost all the nuclear weapons there are."
On a day when one might expect a Dow rally in celebration of regime change it dropped almost 500 points. As I explained to my agent and friend Ken Levine, "If Obama's election would have been good for a 300-point rally, then what happened today was really an 800-point drop."
Peak Oil is here and -- in case no one noticed -- a day before the election "The Financial Times" – reading from a leaked copy of a new International Energy Agency report, disclosed that the global decline rate for oil production has been recalculated at 9.1% per year, up from 5.8% less than a year ago. Put simply that means that if we produced 85 million barrels per day in 2008 then, no matter what, we be able to produce – under the best of conditions – no more than 77.5 million barrels per day in 2009.
Since the worst of the economic collapse has yet to arrive, there will be no possibility of any kind of economic recovery. There is a 96% correlation between greenhouse gas emission (i.e. burning more oil) and GDP growth. Already, projects to drill-for and produce the more expensive offshore, remote and small-pocket oil are shutting down. Too expensive with oil prices falling. Investment in renewable energy is also shutting down. That collapse is now locked-in is one of the safest predictions I have ever made. It's just simple math now. There is no coming back.
Now I have not lost my mind or my basic understanding of the world. Barack Obama is not a Messiah and I have not become Pollyanna. What was set free that makes all the difference, however, was us -- and we are the ones who most needed liberation to meet what lies ahead. Now we can meet it as a nation. While those in Chicago felt their souls expand in true liberty, the Republican reactionaries had to stand in front of the camera and swallow hard to realize that they are just Americans too, like the rest of us. "OK you privileged, wealthy, reactionary, criminal, white Southerners, it's your Constitution too, now obey it and shut up. In the last eight years you raped that Constitution. You took away parts of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments. But you could not kill its heart."
And that is why the landslide was so important. Any attempt to take that election away, that moment in the sun, would have provoked an instant and bloody revolution. That is why I am also certain that President-elect Obama will be inaugurated in January.
We all have to honor the Constitution; that magnificent document framed so long ago by some real God-inspired men. The government of, by, and for the People was returned to them last night. And even if that is not completely true -- even in the Neolibs try to proceed in furtherance of an overarching agenda as co-conspiratorial protectors of a dead paradigm – what matters is that the People have regained a sense of their own God-given power. They have seen that they can do something. Nothing will be more important as we continue into the darkness and tests of collapse. We the People will respond together. And while the Neocon architects who planned and executed the last eight years may chuckle at the thought of leaving a black man as their janitor, they have completely overlooked the Power of the People whom they have held in such bitter contempt for so long.
All of that was vouched safe last night.
In 1998, I was asked to speak at a rally at Santa Monica City College for the Crack the CIA Coalition. Comedian Dick Gregory was the lead speaker and moderator. He made me sit on stage beside him for the whole event. He was that proud of my confrontation with CIA Director John Deutch. When he called me up to speak I said something that turned out to be prophetic. I said that if African Americans were to truly save themselves from injustice, they would have to save all of us white folk in the process or they would never get what they wanted. Is that not exactly what happened last night? Dick Gregory and I became good friends. A few months later he called me his "white son"on Joe Maddison's radio show on WOLB in Baltimore.
I think almost all of America cried last night. I have heard many on TV describe it the same way that I experienced it. At that moment in time when CNN, or CBS, or ABC all said, "It's over. It's done. Barack Obama has won the presidency of the United States," the trap-door opened and a sense of relief more profound than I could have imagined exploded out of me. I am still not the same twenty-four hours later.
After learning that Bush had called Obama to congratulate him and listening to an amazing speech from our President-elect, I crawled to the bed and collapsed in sleep, taking only my shoes off. The Bush-Cheney years have been particularly and personally hard for me. I awoke this morning not knowing who I really was.
Know this: as it was with a young JFK who was quickly surrounded by advisers who later betrayed him, this time there will be those who remember those tricks and will work to thwart them. Know that for the first time in decades I am truly proud to be an American because of what I saw last night. Know that in the days and years ahead, last night liberated and energized the best qualities in us and that is the one renewable resource that we have most needed to set free. We are one nation of many peoples. We are a nation where all men and women are endowed equally with unalienable rights. Know that we can now find a way to harness and use that particular power that is so uniquely American.
Our struggle now is to save human civilization. As it was when this nation was founded, under that magnificent, self-correcting document, it is my prayer that -- as it was in 1776 -- the hopes and dreams of mankind will all look to this amazing place to see what mankind can do with a freedom that is real; with a freedom that we will fight to protect.
Yes we can.
Yes we can.
************************************************************************************
MCR wrote:
I am more convinced than ever that the opening barrage of the collapse in September was mild compared to what's coming -- and soon. The automakers are crumbling and the slowdown is paralyzing everything. Meantime the derivatives bubble has only deflated by about 5%. At Reuters, MarketWatch, Bloomberg and elsewhere the heavyweights are all saying the same thing: "The worst is yet to come." Wait for Citigroup.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/02/AR2008110202150.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR
JO wrote:
Quote of the Day:
"The Dow is a dead banana republic dictator in full military uniform propped up in the castle window with a mechanical lever moving the cadaver’s arm, waving to the Wall Street crowd.”
– Michael Bolser, Le Metropole Cafe
From the "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not following you" department
Federal Court Allows Bush Administration to Withhold Records Detailing Torture and Abuse of Guantanamo Prisoners
Buffett's MidAmerican has Constellation Anti-Trust OK
Paulson's Swindle Revealed
Effectiveness of AIG's $143 Billion Rescue Questioned
John Olagues:
View from the equally grim other side of the coin; hyperdeflation instead of hyperinflation, for instance
Peak Cops
The Solar Energy Equivalent of Soylent Oil
National Security Sprawl
End of California
“Changing The Globe” Presents:
“The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and The Collapse of The American Dream”
Monday, December 1st, 12:30-2:00pm
In Student Services Lobby, Campus Center East
At Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga Campus
Includes brief introduction and Q & A session after the film
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
CAN ANYONE DO THIS FOR ME?
In January of 2001, I wrote an essay entitled EMPIRE. In it, after analyzing Bush's first cabinet, I concluded that it was a war cabinet. I also predicted what the Bush administrative would be like and I think I nailed it pretty close. Seven and a half years later, I would love to see that again.
Unfortunately, it may be lost to us. So much was destroyed in Oregon. EMPIRE may exist now only in the original hardcopy newsletter and I have no idea who might have saved them. But -- as I recall -- it was some of my best predictive work ever. Today, on an election day that so far looks stable and secure, I thought it would be great to se what I thought might happen and how it would turn out. That was written eight months before 9-11.
Is there a slim chance that anyone still has the hard copies?
I would be eternally grateful if someone did.
MCR
In January of 2001, I wrote an essay entitled EMPIRE. In it, after analyzing Bush's first cabinet, I concluded that it was a war cabinet. I also predicted what the Bush administrative would be like and I think I nailed it pretty close. Seven and a half years later, I would love to see that again.
Unfortunately, it may be lost to us. So much was destroyed in Oregon. EMPIRE may exist now only in the original hardcopy newsletter and I have no idea who might have saved them. But -- as I recall -- it was some of my best predictive work ever. Today, on an election day that so far looks stable and secure, I thought it would be great to se what I thought might happen and how it would turn out. That was written eight months before 9-11.
Is there a slim chance that anyone still has the hard copies?
I would be eternally grateful if someone did.
MCR
Monday, November 03, 2008
ARGUING MANKIND'S CASE BEFORE GOD
Michael C. Ruppert
I don't know about anybody else on this election eve, but I am on pins and needles. So much will be revealed by tomorrow; and the hopes and dreams of most of the planet are wagered in one way or another. All eyes will watch. I don't need to explain why the likelihood of Bush/Cheney leaving office means so much to me. In a ham and eggs breakfast, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed... Oink. Oink.
So... I'm bouncing around today -- doing a little research -- and not in a good place. The energy, economic and politcal "dots" that come in are not good. There's no need to post it. I start a dialogue in my head becasue that's how I think, feel, and untuit my way through things. I finally distill it down to this: The worst case happens and we stumblefuck our way into oblivion. It's just about time to go extinct for any of a half dozen reasons, and we have one last chance to argue before God -- for the one miracle that will save us. We must convince God that we deserve it. What are the best things about homo sapiens? I don't want to lead here. I want to follow. I want to listen to you.Any takers?
WHY MANKIND SHOULD BE PULLED BACK FROM THE BRINK: LET US COUNT THE REASONS
Jenna Orkin
Not an argument to present to God, who is quite capable of making up His own mind, but a distraction to while away the hours on the eve of Change of one sort or another.
Somewhere there's a law of human behavior, corresponding to Newtonian physics, which says that for every selfish, destructive action there's an altruistic, creative one. Well, maybe the proportions aren't exactly equal, and certainly the first kind dominates in the world but we're definitely not all bad. Think Anne Frank. Even cooped up in that attic for two years she saw redeeming features in her enemies. Of course we never learned what she thought once she got to Bergen-Belsen. But that's beside the point. She herself was the argument for salvation.
For every m-f- there's a victim, likely more than one, bearing the unbearable and managing to dig themselves towards the light, however clumsily. Even the m-f- is not all bad, or else there would be no possibility of redemption and no argument against the death penalty.
I have a friend who was raised by schizophrenics; another, by a sadist; others who were raped. All have managed to carve out decent, even wonderful lives for themselves. You will never read of them, (apart from the previous two sentences) and their stories, while unique, are also far more common than one can imagine.
What else? Beethoven, Obidos (a town in Portugal,) Cirque du Soleil, Dog Show (a Christopher Guest movie) cappuccino...
And then there are the simple things. F- ups that we are, what do most of us really want? To be loved by a few, appreciated by a few more and left alone by everyone else.
This gets back to the argument of whom to blame for the current mess.
When Eve listens to the snake, whom should we blame - the woman or the snake? Isn't knowledge useful? Isn't challenging authority sometimes honorable? Isn't blind obedience sometimes dangerous?
When Pinocchio follows the fox who offers him candy and Disneyland and the other good things in life, whom should we blame - the fox or the wooden boy?
When ads, carefully crafted from millions of dollarsworth of market research, beckon with promises of wealth, fun and beautiful women, whom should we blame? Advertiser or buyer?
You of all people know that the question to ask is, "Who benefits?"
Both, but to vastly different degrees.
Morals are mores; ethics, in the ether. The resonance of the words is no accident; the former in each pair derives from the latter. Few have a moral or intellectual compass that is independent of their surroundings, the equivalent of perfect pitch. But it can be learned. And that is the evolution that will be necessary to keep us from perishing.
Michael C. Ruppert
I don't know about anybody else on this election eve, but I am on pins and needles. So much will be revealed by tomorrow; and the hopes and dreams of most of the planet are wagered in one way or another. All eyes will watch. I don't need to explain why the likelihood of Bush/Cheney leaving office means so much to me. In a ham and eggs breakfast, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed... Oink. Oink.
So... I'm bouncing around today -- doing a little research -- and not in a good place. The energy, economic and politcal "dots" that come in are not good. There's no need to post it. I start a dialogue in my head becasue that's how I think, feel, and untuit my way through things. I finally distill it down to this: The worst case happens and we stumblefuck our way into oblivion. It's just about time to go extinct for any of a half dozen reasons, and we have one last chance to argue before God -- for the one miracle that will save us. We must convince God that we deserve it. What are the best things about homo sapiens? I don't want to lead here. I want to follow. I want to listen to you.Any takers?
WHY MANKIND SHOULD BE PULLED BACK FROM THE BRINK: LET US COUNT THE REASONS
Jenna Orkin
Not an argument to present to God, who is quite capable of making up His own mind, but a distraction to while away the hours on the eve of Change of one sort or another.
Somewhere there's a law of human behavior, corresponding to Newtonian physics, which says that for every selfish, destructive action there's an altruistic, creative one. Well, maybe the proportions aren't exactly equal, and certainly the first kind dominates in the world but we're definitely not all bad. Think Anne Frank. Even cooped up in that attic for two years she saw redeeming features in her enemies. Of course we never learned what she thought once she got to Bergen-Belsen. But that's beside the point. She herself was the argument for salvation.
For every m-f- there's a victim, likely more than one, bearing the unbearable and managing to dig themselves towards the light, however clumsily. Even the m-f- is not all bad, or else there would be no possibility of redemption and no argument against the death penalty.
I have a friend who was raised by schizophrenics; another, by a sadist; others who were raped. All have managed to carve out decent, even wonderful lives for themselves. You will never read of them, (apart from the previous two sentences) and their stories, while unique, are also far more common than one can imagine.
What else? Beethoven, Obidos (a town in Portugal,) Cirque du Soleil, Dog Show (a Christopher Guest movie) cappuccino...
And then there are the simple things. F- ups that we are, what do most of us really want? To be loved by a few, appreciated by a few more and left alone by everyone else.
This gets back to the argument of whom to blame for the current mess.
When Eve listens to the snake, whom should we blame - the woman or the snake? Isn't knowledge useful? Isn't challenging authority sometimes honorable? Isn't blind obedience sometimes dangerous?
When Pinocchio follows the fox who offers him candy and Disneyland and the other good things in life, whom should we blame - the fox or the wooden boy?
When ads, carefully crafted from millions of dollarsworth of market research, beckon with promises of wealth, fun and beautiful women, whom should we blame? Advertiser or buyer?
You of all people know that the question to ask is, "Who benefits?"
Both, but to vastly different degrees.
Morals are mores; ethics, in the ether. The resonance of the words is no accident; the former in each pair derives from the latter. Few have a moral or intellectual compass that is independent of their surroundings, the equivalent of perfect pitch. But it can be learned. And that is the evolution that will be necessary to keep us from perishing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
