Washington has turned into the thing that it freed itself from 241 years ago – a bloated and corrupt imperial power, desperate for taxes, constantly hunting down resources overseas…sustained by military might and control of the global monetary system.
Arrogant beyond belief, oblivious to its own hypocrisy, and dismissive of the need to maintain the respect of other nations – the US government is a reflection of everything it was created to overthrow.
“Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, prosperity and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honour, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men” – John Adams, 2nd President of the United States.
When Adams wrote those words, America was an idea, a declaration of principle: government is the servant, people are the sovereign. This was a reversal of America’s colonial past, and was spelled out in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”
The Bill of Rights was subsequently created to ensure that this idea of America was underpinned in law – which is why it was written in the negative – to restrict the actions of government rather than to prescribe the rights of the citizen. Its purpose was clear – to protect the people from the government, NOT the other way round.
The same idea is echoed at every ball game, and every time an American sings the Star Spangled Banner, particularly in the crescendo: ‘The land of the free and the home of the brave‘.
But like any statement of principle, this must be renewed through action, and not just recital. There is a deep contradiction between the values that America espouses and the reality of how its government behaves, both internationally and at home.
Not one of the Americans that I communicate with, from the ‘left’ or the ‘right’…believe those words describe what the US has become. President Trump can make as much noise as he likes about ball players taking a knee during the anthem…but you cannot mandate belief, nor faith, nor confidence in government, however much the stock market goes up on a sea of credit. In 2017 the words ‘land of the free’ are hollow – a mockery of what the Founders intended, a mockery that is compounded by every foreign war, by each infringement of civil liberties, and in every instance a bank receives a ‘fine’ for egregious behaviour that would land you or I in jail. This is not difficult to grasp:
“The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power, and make deliberative and concerted use of it to set in motion evils, which leave no home in the world untouched” – Justice Robert Jackson, Nuremberg address.
Washington has turned into the thing that it freed itself from 241 years ago – a bloated and corrupt imperial power, desperate for taxes, constantly hunting down resources overseas…sustained by military might and control of the global monetary system. Arrogant beyond belief, oblivious to its own hypocrisy, and dismissive of the need to maintain the respect of other nations – the US government is a reflection of everything it was created to overthrow.
Like Britain before it, America has become ‘The Empire on which the sun never sets‘…and like Britain did in the second decade of the 20th century, it has arrived at the beginning of the end game – the stage when the majority of other nations and peoples would prefer Washington to take its imperialism and shove it somewhere the sun doesn’t shine.
Denizens of the imperial city would scoff at such an idea of course – John McCain talks about other nations having a ‘thirst for American leadership‘. McCain may be utterly deluded, but he has a lot of ‘colleagues’ who know exactly what they are up to, and for whom they are working (hint – it’s not you):
War is big business in the US, and is not confined to Washington. Each day at 5pm the Department of Defence website announces ‘Contracts valued at $7 million dollars or more’. For example, on 31st October 2017, Longbow LLC of Orlando, Florida, got $183 million for radar electronic units with the stipulation that the work will be performed in Orlando, Florida.
You can find more on this in JP Sottile’s excellent article ‘America’s Military-Industrial Addiction‘.
This situation I am describing here is aptly summed up by former NATO military analyst ‘The Saker’, writing in the The Unz Review:
“There is a widening chasm between the so-called ‘American values’ taught in schools and the reality of power. While officially the USA are supposed to stand for democracy, freedom and all the other good things advocated by the Founding Fathers, the disgusting reality is that the USA are in bed with Wahhabis, Nazis and Zionists. The all-prevailing hypocrisy of it all now threatens to bring down the entire US political system just as the no less prevailing hypocrisy of the Soviet system brought down the USSR. The simple truth is that no regime can survive for too long when it proactively supports the exact opposite of what it officially is supposed to stand for”.
Let’s examine this ‘exact opposite’ in greater detail:
a) Here is George W Bush during his first election campaign in 2000:
“I’m not sure the role of the United States is to go round the world saying this is the way it’s got to be…we stand alone in terms of power, so if we’re an arrogant nation they’ll view us that way, and if we’re a humble nation they’ll respect us…I don’t think our troops should be used for ‘nation building’…I’m concerned that we’re over-deployed around the world…I don’t want to be the world’s policeman, I want to be the world’s peace-maker…“
b) Here is Barack Obama during his first campaign in 2007:
“I will promise you this…that if we have not gotten our troops out (of Afghanistan) by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do, I will get our troops home, we will bring an end to this war…you can take that to the bank.“
c) And here is Donald Trump in April 2016:
“We should work with any nation in the region that’s threatened by the rise of radical Islamic terrorism…we’re getting out of the nation-building business and instead focusing on creating stability in the world. Our moments of greatest strength came when politics ended at the water’s edge.”
Having promised the electorate that they would withdraw from the foreign intervention business, these administrations have delivered the following….so far:
The net effect of Washington’s duplicity has been hundreds of billions of dollars, the loss of countless lives, and of course huge profits for the banks and the corporations that ALWAYS make money out of state sponsored slaughter.
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning” – Henry Ford.
The government, the Fed, the banks and the overwhelming majority of ‘economists’ propagate the belief that banks are financial intermediaries – i.e that they take in deposits from savers in exchange for interest, which are then lent out to borrowers at a higher rate of interest – the difference between the two is the banks’ profit, which they earn for providing the service and taking the risk of borrower default.
This is a myth. What actually occurs is that banks create credit out of ‘thin air’, more accurately by computer keystroke, which is then lent to borrowers at compound interest, effectively providing the banks with a constant return on the productivity of the entire system…in exchange for…bookkeeping entries.
Under such a system, wealth trickles up not down.
Whenever you hear a public figure talking about ‘trickle down’ or the ‘wealth effect’ please know this: you are being lied to – that is not how the system works.
In short – the banking system is a scam.
It is outside the scope of this piece to describe the technicalities of the system. For that please refer to the work of Professor Richard Werner here.
If you are wondering why our highly qualified ‘economists’ don’t talk about this…if you are puzzled at how they could study economics for decades without understanding how money works…please be reassured that these folks are not unfeasibly stupid…it’s worse than that I’m afraid…they are liars.
Here is a short clip of economist Bernard Lietaer describing a conversation he had with a peer: Nobel Prize Winner, author of ‘The Conscience of a Liberal‘, Professor Paul Krugman of Princeton. It’s a short clip of 43 seconds and is totally self-explanatory. Having watched it, please keep a lookout for Professor Krugman’s liberal conscience, and be sure to email it back to him if you find it.
The bottom line is that the government, and through them, the taxpayer, are effectively ‘interest slaves’ to the banks. If you add up all the interest that the US federal government paid over the years 1870-2009, it comes to a total of $7.8 trillion. In 2009 the total public debt of the US stood at $12 trillion. In other words 65% of the debt was accumulated interest. Total debt was £38,850 per man, woman and child in the US and interest represented 26% of the federal outlays.
These figures do not include Social Security, Medicare or any of the other entitlements that are ‘hidden’ off-balance sheet. The debt has expanded to $20 trillion in the 7 years since 2009, and according to the Office of Budget and Management (OBM) the curve for interest is expected to go almost vertical between now and 2020.
This money will never be paid back, and it is not supposed to be.
It is supposed to provide the banks with a constant source of income and an ever-increasing proportion of the wealth of the nation.
This is rent on your existence – how do you like them apples?
On the majority of issues that make the greatest impact on the lives of ‘normal’ human beings, Americans and ‘foreigners’ alike, the Democrats and the Republicans are so similar as to make very little difference:
Given all of that:
The answer to each question is simple: They wouldn’t. Nobody in their right mind would.
The obsession with left vs right is a distraction from the vested interests that are the real enemy – the takers – those who manipulate each end of the spectrum, and in many cases fund both sides in a sick game of ‘Heads I win, tails you lose’. Politicians are bought, economists are screened, the media is groomed…the public is brainwashed. Personally I am not interested in blaming brainwashed people. I’m interested in exposing the parasites running the game.
If America wants the world to respect its ‘values’, then behaving in a way that makes a mockery of them is a very bad idea. So is showing a total disregard towards other people’s way of life.
The threat to the idea of America is not coming from overseas – it is coming from Washington.
The threat is not ‘left’ vs ‘right’; the threat is Government vs. The People.
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country…corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed” – Abraham Lincoln, November 1864.
There's nothing like the idea of a unionised worker to make the predatory capitalist convulse.
Why is the ability to call a home your own becoming the privilege of the few as opposed to the right of the many?
What if the racism and inequality that America faces today are not accidental but actually happened by design?
