http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/abracadabra/
Abracadabra
And so, as they say in the horror movies, it begins…! The unwinding of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet. Such an esoteric concept! Is there one in ten thousand of the millions of people who sit at desks all day long from sea to shining sea who have a clue how this works? Or what its relationship is to the real world?
I confess, my understanding of it is incomplete and schematic at best — in the way that my understanding of a Las Vegas magic act might be. All the flash and dazzle conceals the magician’s misdirection. The magician is either a scary supernatural being or a magnificent fraud. Anyway, the audience ‘out there’ for the Federal Reserve’s magic act — x-million people preoccupied by their futures slipping away, their cars falling apart, their kid’s $53,000 college loan burden, or the $6,000 bill they just received for going to the emergency room with a cut finger — wouldn’t give a good goddamn even if they knew the Fed’s magic show was going on.
So, the Fed has this thing called a balance sheet, which is actually a computer file, filled with entries that denote securities that it holds. These securities, mostly US government bonds of various categories and bundles of mortgages wrangled together by the mysterious government-sponsored entity called Freddie Mac, represent about $4.5 trillion in debt. They’re IOUs that supposedly pay interest for a set number of years. When that term of years expires, the Fed gets back the money it loaned, which is called the principal. Ahhhh, here’s the cute part!
You see, the money that the Fed loaned to the US government (in exchange for a bond) was never there in the first place. The Fed prestidigitated it out of an alternate universe. They gave this money to a “primary dealer” bank in exchange for the bond, which the bank abracadabraed up for the US Treasury. Well, not really. In fact, the Fed just made a notation on the bank’s “reserve” account that the money from the alternate universe appeared there. Somehow that money was sent via a virtual pneumatic tube to the US Treasury, where it was used to pay for drones to blow up Yemeni wedding parties, and for the Secret Service to visit pole dancing bars when the president traveled to foreign lands.
Here’s the fun part. The Fed announces that it is going to shed this nasty debt, at about $10 billion worth a month starting this past October. Their stated goal is to reach an ultimate wind-down velocity of $50 billion a month (cue laugh track). If they ever get there (cue laugh track) it would take 20 years to complete the wind-down. The chance of that happening is about the same as the chance that Janet Yellen will come down your chimney on December 24 with a sack-full of chocolate Bitcoins. But never mind the long view for the moment.
One way they plan to accomplish this feat is to “roll off” the bonds. That is, when the bonds mature — i.e. come to the end of their term — they will cease to exist. Poof! Wait a minute! When a bond matures, the issuer has to send the principal back to the lender. After all, the Fed lent the US Treasury X-billion dollars, the US Treasury paid interest on the loan for X-years, and now it has to fork over the full value of the loan (hopefully in dollars that have magically inflated over the years and are now worth less than when they were borrowed — another magic trick!). But that doesn’t happen.
Instead, when the theoretical principal is returned to the Fed, the Fed disappears the money, like the girl in a bikini onstage who enters the magician’s sacred box and vanishes. Now you see her, now you don’t. The explanation, of course, might be that the money was never really there in the first place, so it makes sense to fire it back to the alternative universe it came from. Well, uh, I guess….
The catch is: for a while it was here on earth and folks were doing stuff with it, such as the aforementioned drone strikes and pole dancers. Not only that, but the “primary dealer” banks were allowed to loan out ten times the reserve minimum denoted on their Fed accounts for participating in the scheme. Who did they lend all that money to? Apparently, a lot of it went to corporations who borrowed it at ultra-low interest rates in order to buy back their own stock, which paid dividends way higher than the interest rate they borrowed at to buy the stuff, and which also pumped up the share value of the stocks, which also happened to make the executives of the corporations way richer in terms of their stock options and bonuses (awarded for boosting the share value of the stock!).
And so, shazzam: I give you the one-percent! And a bankrupt United States of America.
And don’t even ask about all those bundles of janky Freddie Mac mortgages fobbed off on the Fed. The reason they did that in the first place was because those mortgages weren’t being paid off, and the banks and insurance companies that held them were choking to death on them. So they parked them in a crawl space under the Fed’s Eccles Building in Washington, hoping they would just turn to compost And guess what: they’re no more valuable now then they were then. File that one under Necrophilia.
Monday, December 11, 2017
Friday, December 8, 2017
SC155-8
https://www.globalresearch.ca/warnings-of-financial-crash-as-stock-markets-continue-to-surge/5621696
Warnings of Financial Crash as Stock Markets Continue to Surge
As stock markets continue to rise—Wall Street’s Dow Jones index hit a new record high yesterday following the US Senate’s passage of a massive tax cut bill—there are growing warnings that a new financial crisis is in the making.
In its quarterly review of financial conditions, issued on Sunday, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), sometimes known as the central bankers’ bank, said the situation bore similarities to that which prevailed in the lead-up to the 2008 crash.
Increases in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England had failed to choke off risky investments, and financial bubbles were growing, it warned. Financial investors were basking in the “light and warmth” of improving global economic growth, subdued inflation and soaring stock markets, while underlying risks were increasing.
Introducing the BIS review, Claudio Borio, the head of its monetary and economic department, said:
“The vulnerabilities that have built around the world during the long period of unusually low interest rates have not gone away. High debt levels, in both domestic and foreign currency, are still there. And so are frothy valuations.
“What’s more, the longer the risk-taking continues, the higher the underlying balance sheet exposure may become. Short-term calm comes at the expense of possible long-run turbulence.”
Last Friday, Neil Woodford, described as one of Britain’s most high-profile investment fund managers, issued a warning even sharper than that of the BIS. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said stock markets around the world were in a “bubble” that, when it burst, could be “bigger and more dangerous” than some of the worst market crashes in history.
This situation is the outcome of the policies adopted by the Federal Reserve and other major central banks of ultra-low interest rates and the pumping of trillions of dollars into the financial system, under the policy of quantitative easing introduced after 2008.
“Ten years on from the global financial crisis, we are witnessing the product of the biggest monetary policy experiment in history,” Woodford said. “Investors have forgotten about risk and this is playing out in inflated asset prices and inflated valuations.
“Whether it’s bitcoin through $10,000, European junk bonds now yielding less than US treasuries, historic low levels of volatility or triple-leveraged exchange traded funds attracting gigantic inflows—there are so many lights flashing red that I am losing count.”
Woodford commented that in a challenging global economic environment the few stocks capable of delivering dependable growth had become popular. However, that had manifested itself in “extreme and unsustainable valuations,” which meant the bubble had “grown even bigger and more dangerous.”
In his remarks on the quarterly review, BIS official Borio pointed to another reason for the soaring market valuations—the guarantee by the central banks that they stand ready to intervene to prop up the financial markets.
In the lead-up to the crash of 2008, he noted, the Federal Reserve had assured markets that any tightening of interest rates would be at a “measured pace.” Monetary policy in the present conditions had been, “if anything, even more telegraphed.”
“If gradualism comforts market participants that tighter policy will not derail the economy or upset asset markets, predictability compresses risk premia,” Borio said. “This can foster higher leverage and risk-taking. By the same token, any sense that central banks will not remain on the sidelines should market tensions arise simply reinforces those incentives.”
In other words, whereas in past periods, the mantra was that the role of the central banks was to take the punchbowl away as the party was getting under way, now it is to pour in more alcohol to keep it going.
Besides the monetary policies of the US Fed, the other major factor in boosting markets this year has been the promise of the financial bonanza resulting from the massive tax cuts for corporations and financial elites under the Trump administration.
The S&P 500 index has enjoyed its longest sustained run of consecutive record-breaking closing highs. It has risen by 18.6 percent for the year. The Dow is up by almost 24 percent and the Nasdaq index has risen by 26.7 percent.
When the Reagan administration introduced tax cuts 30 years ago, they were accompanied by the claim they would be paid for by the growth in the economy, fuelled by increased investment—the “snake oil” of “supply-side economics.”
While the Trump administration continues to proclaim that its measures will produce jobs and investment, it is an open secret that the major corporate beneficiaries will not use the financial jackpot for investment in the real economy. Rather they will use the money for yet more speculation, including takeovers, mergers and share buybacks to further boost stock prices.
The additional $1.5 trillion in the US federal deficit will be paid for by massive cuts in Medicare, the health program for the elderly, and the slashing of other social services, including what Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida described as “structural changes to Social Security and Medicare for the future.”
As the WSWS Perspective yesterday noted:
“Talk of ‘structural changes’ is political jargon for the privatization of these bedrock programs upon which hundreds of millions of people depend and their destruction as guaranteed entitlements.”
There is an underlying causal connection rooted in the very structure and functioning of the capitalist economy, and this is given voice by the political establishment.
The fabulous monetary gains in financial markets are the result of the operations of fictitious capital. That is, they are not the result of production of real wealth, achieved through expanded investment and production, but in the final analysis represent claims upon the surplus value extracted from the working population.
To the extent that the demands of fictitious capital increase, through the escalation of asset and financial valuations, they have to be met by increasing the mass of surplus value on which ultimately they are a claim.
Thus the rise of rise of financial markets is being accompanied by an escalating drive to force down wages and scrap social provisions, while at the same time creating the conditions for a collapse in the financial house of cards, with immense economic and social consequences.
Warnings of Financial Crash as Stock Markets Continue to Surge
As stock markets continue to rise—Wall Street’s Dow Jones index hit a new record high yesterday following the US Senate’s passage of a massive tax cut bill—there are growing warnings that a new financial crisis is in the making.
In its quarterly review of financial conditions, issued on Sunday, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), sometimes known as the central bankers’ bank, said the situation bore similarities to that which prevailed in the lead-up to the 2008 crash.
Increases in interest rates by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England had failed to choke off risky investments, and financial bubbles were growing, it warned. Financial investors were basking in the “light and warmth” of improving global economic growth, subdued inflation and soaring stock markets, while underlying risks were increasing.
Introducing the BIS review, Claudio Borio, the head of its monetary and economic department, said:
“The vulnerabilities that have built around the world during the long period of unusually low interest rates have not gone away. High debt levels, in both domestic and foreign currency, are still there. And so are frothy valuations.
“What’s more, the longer the risk-taking continues, the higher the underlying balance sheet exposure may become. Short-term calm comes at the expense of possible long-run turbulence.”
Last Friday, Neil Woodford, described as one of Britain’s most high-profile investment fund managers, issued a warning even sharper than that of the BIS. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said stock markets around the world were in a “bubble” that, when it burst, could be “bigger and more dangerous” than some of the worst market crashes in history.
This situation is the outcome of the policies adopted by the Federal Reserve and other major central banks of ultra-low interest rates and the pumping of trillions of dollars into the financial system, under the policy of quantitative easing introduced after 2008.
“Ten years on from the global financial crisis, we are witnessing the product of the biggest monetary policy experiment in history,” Woodford said. “Investors have forgotten about risk and this is playing out in inflated asset prices and inflated valuations.
“Whether it’s bitcoin through $10,000, European junk bonds now yielding less than US treasuries, historic low levels of volatility or triple-leveraged exchange traded funds attracting gigantic inflows—there are so many lights flashing red that I am losing count.”
Woodford commented that in a challenging global economic environment the few stocks capable of delivering dependable growth had become popular. However, that had manifested itself in “extreme and unsustainable valuations,” which meant the bubble had “grown even bigger and more dangerous.”
In his remarks on the quarterly review, BIS official Borio pointed to another reason for the soaring market valuations—the guarantee by the central banks that they stand ready to intervene to prop up the financial markets.
In the lead-up to the crash of 2008, he noted, the Federal Reserve had assured markets that any tightening of interest rates would be at a “measured pace.” Monetary policy in the present conditions had been, “if anything, even more telegraphed.”
“If gradualism comforts market participants that tighter policy will not derail the economy or upset asset markets, predictability compresses risk premia,” Borio said. “This can foster higher leverage and risk-taking. By the same token, any sense that central banks will not remain on the sidelines should market tensions arise simply reinforces those incentives.”
In other words, whereas in past periods, the mantra was that the role of the central banks was to take the punchbowl away as the party was getting under way, now it is to pour in more alcohol to keep it going.
Besides the monetary policies of the US Fed, the other major factor in boosting markets this year has been the promise of the financial bonanza resulting from the massive tax cuts for corporations and financial elites under the Trump administration.
The S&P 500 index has enjoyed its longest sustained run of consecutive record-breaking closing highs. It has risen by 18.6 percent for the year. The Dow is up by almost 24 percent and the Nasdaq index has risen by 26.7 percent.
When the Reagan administration introduced tax cuts 30 years ago, they were accompanied by the claim they would be paid for by the growth in the economy, fuelled by increased investment—the “snake oil” of “supply-side economics.”
While the Trump administration continues to proclaim that its measures will produce jobs and investment, it is an open secret that the major corporate beneficiaries will not use the financial jackpot for investment in the real economy. Rather they will use the money for yet more speculation, including takeovers, mergers and share buybacks to further boost stock prices.
The additional $1.5 trillion in the US federal deficit will be paid for by massive cuts in Medicare, the health program for the elderly, and the slashing of other social services, including what Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida described as “structural changes to Social Security and Medicare for the future.”
As the WSWS Perspective yesterday noted:
“Talk of ‘structural changes’ is political jargon for the privatization of these bedrock programs upon which hundreds of millions of people depend and their destruction as guaranteed entitlements.”
There is an underlying causal connection rooted in the very structure and functioning of the capitalist economy, and this is given voice by the political establishment.
The fabulous monetary gains in financial markets are the result of the operations of fictitious capital. That is, they are not the result of production of real wealth, achieved through expanded investment and production, but in the final analysis represent claims upon the surplus value extracted from the working population.
To the extent that the demands of fictitious capital increase, through the escalation of asset and financial valuations, they have to be met by increasing the mass of surplus value on which ultimately they are a claim.
Thus the rise of rise of financial markets is being accompanied by an escalating drive to force down wages and scrap social provisions, while at the same time creating the conditions for a collapse in the financial house of cards, with immense economic and social consequences.
SC155-7
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/stranger-things/
Stranger Things
The hidden agenda in the so-called tax reform bill is to act as stop-gap quantitative easing to plug the “liquidity” hole that is opening up as the Federal Reserve (America’s central bank) makes a few gestures to winding down its balance sheet and “normalizing” interest rates. Thus, the aim of the tax bill is to prop up capital markets, and the apprehension of this lately is what keeps stocks making daily record highs. Okay, sorry, a lot to unpack there.
Primer: quantitative easing (QE) is a the Federal Reserve’s weasel phrase for its practice of just creating “money” out of thin air, which it uses to buy US Treasury bonds (and other stuff). The Fed buys this stuff through intermediary Too Big To Fail banks which allows them to cream off a cut and, theoretically, pump the “money” into the economy. This “money” is the “liquidity.” As it happens, most of that money ends up in the capital markets. Stocks go up and up and bond yields stay ultra low with bond prices ultra high. What remains on the balance sheets are a shit-load of IOUs.
The third round of QE was officially halted in 2014 in the USA. However, the world’s other main central banks acted in rotation — passing the baton of QE, like in a relay race — so that when the US slacked off, Japan, Britain, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of China, took over money-printing duties. And because money flies easily around the world via digital banking, a lot of that foreign money ended up in “sure-thing” US capital markets (as well as their own ). Mega-tons of “money” were created out of thin air around the world since the near-collapse of the system in 2008.
And magically, with no negative consequences! Yet. Now, Europe and Japan are making noises about dropping their batons. China’s banking system is so opaque and perverse — because it is unaccountable except to the ruling party with its own agenda — that it’s quite impossible to tell what they are really doing, though the signs of mal-investment are obvious and startling. And the UK’s finances are tied up in its messy divorce proceedings with the EU (with the British standard of living dropping markedly meanwhile). In short, the torrent of global “liquidity” looks to be slowing to a trickle.
The expectation is that this would make stock markets go down and bond interest rates to go up (fewer buyers), perhaps a lot. The dirty open secret here is that these central bank interventions are the only means for keeping the capital markets up, and that the markets are just a Potemkin false front for Western economies that are drying up and blowing away. That is certainly the experience here in the USA, where banking hocus-pocus now accounts for about 30 percent of GDP, and most of that activity is either out-and-out fraud or swindling, or collecting rents and dividends on past frauds and swindles.
Dem/Prog America in its Silicon Valley gourmet employee bistros and Hamptons lawn parties thinks that the flyover Trumpist Red State world of meth, joblessness, and anomie is some kind of a Netflix hallucination. But no, it’s for real. The center of the ole US of A is hollowed out. The bad news is that it probably has enough juice left in its disaffected youth, and certainly enough weaponry, to start a very serious insurrection if it continues to get dissed.
Enter the joker in the deck: Bitcoin. Though it pulled back a couple of thou overnight, this strange investment vehicle blasted through $18,000-per-Bitcoin in the past 24 hours, roughly tripling from $6000 in one month. It even endured the hacking of one of its exchanges, NiceHash, where $70 million was looted without so much as a stutter in the upward thrust of the chart. Whatever else Bitcoin is — and I would suggest a “Ponzie,” a “mania,” a “con” — this thing is a message. The message is that financial circulatory system of the global economy is in some kind of distress. Another take-away is that the rush into Bitcoin represents a loss of faith in matrix of rackets that world banking has become, and a flight to perceived safety in a putative financial instrument beyond the clutches and the lying propaganda of nervous, self-interested governments.
For the moment, Bitcoin is doing the job that gold used to do: indexing the loss of value in paper currencies and the things that affect to represent them. Except that Bitcoin has no material reality. It is a figment of mathematics. The vaunted blockchain “technology” is just a formula for packaging information and assigning it to live in various places. It appears to have some worth as a ledger system, for keeping track of accumulated value in an allegedly transparent and honest mode. But the thing it is toting up and sending chits around the world for — Bitcoin — has no value in and of itself.
If “money” can be said to represent a future claim on work, or energy, or things that they produce, then Bitcoin is not money at all because it only represents energy burned in the computer exertions necessary to “mine” the Bitcoins. In other words, it costs a lot of energy to create Bitcoins, and there’s no claim on future energy, or work — it’s already gone. That energy use is catching the world’s attention and is beginning to look pretty profligate. Like, if Bitcoin happened to shoot up over $100,000-per-unit, it would hog an unseemly portion of the worlds electric power.
Anyway, that’s only one interpretation of the Bitcoin rush. In the end, I believe it’s simply telling us that the global financial system is headed for some serious trouble. It is vectoring right smack into the same lane as the gathering political crisis in the US government, as a fight to death between Donald Trump and his adversaries comes darkly into view.
Stranger Things
The hidden agenda in the so-called tax reform bill is to act as stop-gap quantitative easing to plug the “liquidity” hole that is opening up as the Federal Reserve (America’s central bank) makes a few gestures to winding down its balance sheet and “normalizing” interest rates. Thus, the aim of the tax bill is to prop up capital markets, and the apprehension of this lately is what keeps stocks making daily record highs. Okay, sorry, a lot to unpack there.
Primer: quantitative easing (QE) is a the Federal Reserve’s weasel phrase for its practice of just creating “money” out of thin air, which it uses to buy US Treasury bonds (and other stuff). The Fed buys this stuff through intermediary Too Big To Fail banks which allows them to cream off a cut and, theoretically, pump the “money” into the economy. This “money” is the “liquidity.” As it happens, most of that money ends up in the capital markets. Stocks go up and up and bond yields stay ultra low with bond prices ultra high. What remains on the balance sheets are a shit-load of IOUs.
The third round of QE was officially halted in 2014 in the USA. However, the world’s other main central banks acted in rotation — passing the baton of QE, like in a relay race — so that when the US slacked off, Japan, Britain, the European Central Bank, and the Bank of China, took over money-printing duties. And because money flies easily around the world via digital banking, a lot of that foreign money ended up in “sure-thing” US capital markets (as well as their own ). Mega-tons of “money” were created out of thin air around the world since the near-collapse of the system in 2008.
And magically, with no negative consequences! Yet. Now, Europe and Japan are making noises about dropping their batons. China’s banking system is so opaque and perverse — because it is unaccountable except to the ruling party with its own agenda — that it’s quite impossible to tell what they are really doing, though the signs of mal-investment are obvious and startling. And the UK’s finances are tied up in its messy divorce proceedings with the EU (with the British standard of living dropping markedly meanwhile). In short, the torrent of global “liquidity” looks to be slowing to a trickle.
The expectation is that this would make stock markets go down and bond interest rates to go up (fewer buyers), perhaps a lot. The dirty open secret here is that these central bank interventions are the only means for keeping the capital markets up, and that the markets are just a Potemkin false front for Western economies that are drying up and blowing away. That is certainly the experience here in the USA, where banking hocus-pocus now accounts for about 30 percent of GDP, and most of that activity is either out-and-out fraud or swindling, or collecting rents and dividends on past frauds and swindles.
Dem/Prog America in its Silicon Valley gourmet employee bistros and Hamptons lawn parties thinks that the flyover Trumpist Red State world of meth, joblessness, and anomie is some kind of a Netflix hallucination. But no, it’s for real. The center of the ole US of A is hollowed out. The bad news is that it probably has enough juice left in its disaffected youth, and certainly enough weaponry, to start a very serious insurrection if it continues to get dissed.
Enter the joker in the deck: Bitcoin. Though it pulled back a couple of thou overnight, this strange investment vehicle blasted through $18,000-per-Bitcoin in the past 24 hours, roughly tripling from $6000 in one month. It even endured the hacking of one of its exchanges, NiceHash, where $70 million was looted without so much as a stutter in the upward thrust of the chart. Whatever else Bitcoin is — and I would suggest a “Ponzie,” a “mania,” a “con” — this thing is a message. The message is that financial circulatory system of the global economy is in some kind of distress. Another take-away is that the rush into Bitcoin represents a loss of faith in matrix of rackets that world banking has become, and a flight to perceived safety in a putative financial instrument beyond the clutches and the lying propaganda of nervous, self-interested governments.
For the moment, Bitcoin is doing the job that gold used to do: indexing the loss of value in paper currencies and the things that affect to represent them. Except that Bitcoin has no material reality. It is a figment of mathematics. The vaunted blockchain “technology” is just a formula for packaging information and assigning it to live in various places. It appears to have some worth as a ledger system, for keeping track of accumulated value in an allegedly transparent and honest mode. But the thing it is toting up and sending chits around the world for — Bitcoin — has no value in and of itself.
If “money” can be said to represent a future claim on work, or energy, or things that they produce, then Bitcoin is not money at all because it only represents energy burned in the computer exertions necessary to “mine” the Bitcoins. In other words, it costs a lot of energy to create Bitcoins, and there’s no claim on future energy, or work — it’s already gone. That energy use is catching the world’s attention and is beginning to look pretty profligate. Like, if Bitcoin happened to shoot up over $100,000-per-unit, it would hog an unseemly portion of the worlds electric power.
Anyway, that’s only one interpretation of the Bitcoin rush. In the end, I believe it’s simply telling us that the global financial system is headed for some serious trouble. It is vectoring right smack into the same lane as the gathering political crisis in the US government, as a fight to death between Donald Trump and his adversaries comes darkly into view.
Thursday, December 7, 2017
SC155-6
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48373.htm
Democrats Are Feigning Outrage At Islamophobia They Helped Create
Days after America’s reality TV president sparked outrage by sharing three violent and misleading anti-Muslim videos by the far-right ultranationalist group Britain First, the US Supreme Court has lifted two injunctions that had been placed by lower courts on the president’s controversial immigration ban. And boy howdy are Democrats pretending to be upset about it.
This is going to be another one of those times where I focus on attacking Democrats for something the Republicans do at least as much, and I make no apologies for that. When you come home to find the babysitter and the baby passed out drunk, you don’t get equally mad at both of them. Democrats present themselves as the party on the American left, which means they’re supposed to be the grownups in the room when it comes to things like peace and social justice, but they’ve been anything but. The GOP has been a party of racist warmongers for a long time and we all know that already — it’s the Democrats who have hijacked and corrupted the space that is supposed to be meant for putting up a robust resistance to those things.
Democrats, in general, do not care about the Muslim community. They care about feeling good about themselves, and they care about opposing Republicans, but if they actually cared about Muslim Americans they wouldn’t continually support politicians whose agendas necessitate the war propaganda which has created the frenzied Islamophobia that America is now steeped in.
I will keep saying this and saying this until I am blue in the face: people do not take seriously enough the influence of propaganda upon their lives. Americans are saturated in war propaganda in far more ways than they realize, from the news media they consume to the Pentagon-funded national anthem ceremonies at football games. The consent-manufacturing machine is so entrenched and brazen that earlier this year CNN’s Alisyn Camerota staged a fake, scripted interview with a seven year-old girl to promote US military interventionism. It’s got all the subtlety of a Ben Garrison cartoon.
These things have an effect. To deny that they have an effect is to deny that advertising, a half-trillion dollar industry, has an effect. And the lion’s share of what these relentless war propagandists have been advertising since the turn of the century is military interventionism in Muslim majority countries.
Is it any wonder then that America is Islamophobic? America hates Muslims because it needs to. If the propaganda machine didn’t make Americans fear them, it wouldn’t make sense to be constantly killing them.
Think about it: how can you sell 323 million people on the idea that the US military needs to have its rapey fingers sunk deep in the Middle East at all times or else Muslim terrorists will come and kill them without promoting an irrational fear of Islam? If they let the idea occur to the American public that occasional acts of Islamic terrorism happen because America is invading their land and slaughtering their loved ones, there would be immediate widespread demand to get the hell out of there. This would be difficult for the Pentagon and intelligence agencies that really run America to deal with.
In order to manufacture support for the military presence it uses to secure resources and important strategic locations, the US power establishment must necessarily convince the citizenry that if they weren’t over there invading and bombing, the terrorists would fly or swim all the way over to America to attack them in their homes, because “they hate us for our freedom” or some nonsense. This notion is so thoroughly propagandized into American consciousness that I routinely encounter people who argue that Muslims would definitely keep attacking the west even if the west left them the fuck alone. There is no fact-based reason to believe this whatsoever, but because America is saturated in these propaganda narratives, they believe it. And they fear Islam as a result.
Democrats put very little inertia on the two full-scale ground invasions that George W Bush inflicted upon two Muslim-majority countries in his first term, and once they had one of their own in office they forgot about war altogether. They said nothing as Obama continued and expanded all of Bush’s wars, decimating Libya, burning Syria and raping Yemen along the way all in the name of fighting terrorism. Hundreds of thousands of charred, shredded corpses to keep the world safe from terror, yee-haw!
And Democrats supported it. They support it even now by ignoring Trump’s continuation and expansion of the warmongering policies of his predecessors to focus on fairy tales about Russia and secret Nazism instead. All the policies which necessitate their nation marinating in Islamophobic war propaganda, they supported. The bigotry they condemn is their own creation.
It is impossible to have a country whose economy depends on fossil fuels and keeping the entire Middle East at gunpoint without normalizing Islamophobia. It is impossible to have a country whose foreign policy is built around dominating resources and creating instability overseas to prevent potential future rivals from attaining superpower status. When your entire system of rule depends on marinating your home country in Islamophobia, you get a nation which quickly forgets that its president just retweeted deceitful anti-Muslim videos from Britain First.
If you don’t want this anymore, you’ll have to stop supporting the system which creates it. Both Democrats and Republicans play right along with the warmongering agendas of America’s unelected government, so if you want to live in a nation that isn’t steeped in blood and fear it’s time to stop playing along with those parties and force them to either evolve or die. Until then, we’ll all know your outrage song and dance is pure show.
Democrats Are Feigning Outrage At Islamophobia They Helped Create
Days after America’s reality TV president sparked outrage by sharing three violent and misleading anti-Muslim videos by the far-right ultranationalist group Britain First, the US Supreme Court has lifted two injunctions that had been placed by lower courts on the president’s controversial immigration ban. And boy howdy are Democrats pretending to be upset about it.
This is going to be another one of those times where I focus on attacking Democrats for something the Republicans do at least as much, and I make no apologies for that. When you come home to find the babysitter and the baby passed out drunk, you don’t get equally mad at both of them. Democrats present themselves as the party on the American left, which means they’re supposed to be the grownups in the room when it comes to things like peace and social justice, but they’ve been anything but. The GOP has been a party of racist warmongers for a long time and we all know that already — it’s the Democrats who have hijacked and corrupted the space that is supposed to be meant for putting up a robust resistance to those things.
Democrats, in general, do not care about the Muslim community. They care about feeling good about themselves, and they care about opposing Republicans, but if they actually cared about Muslim Americans they wouldn’t continually support politicians whose agendas necessitate the war propaganda which has created the frenzied Islamophobia that America is now steeped in.
I will keep saying this and saying this until I am blue in the face: people do not take seriously enough the influence of propaganda upon their lives. Americans are saturated in war propaganda in far more ways than they realize, from the news media they consume to the Pentagon-funded national anthem ceremonies at football games. The consent-manufacturing machine is so entrenched and brazen that earlier this year CNN’s Alisyn Camerota staged a fake, scripted interview with a seven year-old girl to promote US military interventionism. It’s got all the subtlety of a Ben Garrison cartoon.
These things have an effect. To deny that they have an effect is to deny that advertising, a half-trillion dollar industry, has an effect. And the lion’s share of what these relentless war propagandists have been advertising since the turn of the century is military interventionism in Muslim majority countries.
Is it any wonder then that America is Islamophobic? America hates Muslims because it needs to. If the propaganda machine didn’t make Americans fear them, it wouldn’t make sense to be constantly killing them.
Think about it: how can you sell 323 million people on the idea that the US military needs to have its rapey fingers sunk deep in the Middle East at all times or else Muslim terrorists will come and kill them without promoting an irrational fear of Islam? If they let the idea occur to the American public that occasional acts of Islamic terrorism happen because America is invading their land and slaughtering their loved ones, there would be immediate widespread demand to get the hell out of there. This would be difficult for the Pentagon and intelligence agencies that really run America to deal with.
In order to manufacture support for the military presence it uses to secure resources and important strategic locations, the US power establishment must necessarily convince the citizenry that if they weren’t over there invading and bombing, the terrorists would fly or swim all the way over to America to attack them in their homes, because “they hate us for our freedom” or some nonsense. This notion is so thoroughly propagandized into American consciousness that I routinely encounter people who argue that Muslims would definitely keep attacking the west even if the west left them the fuck alone. There is no fact-based reason to believe this whatsoever, but because America is saturated in these propaganda narratives, they believe it. And they fear Islam as a result.
Democrats put very little inertia on the two full-scale ground invasions that George W Bush inflicted upon two Muslim-majority countries in his first term, and once they had one of their own in office they forgot about war altogether. They said nothing as Obama continued and expanded all of Bush’s wars, decimating Libya, burning Syria and raping Yemen along the way all in the name of fighting terrorism. Hundreds of thousands of charred, shredded corpses to keep the world safe from terror, yee-haw!
And Democrats supported it. They support it even now by ignoring Trump’s continuation and expansion of the warmongering policies of his predecessors to focus on fairy tales about Russia and secret Nazism instead. All the policies which necessitate their nation marinating in Islamophobic war propaganda, they supported. The bigotry they condemn is their own creation.
It is impossible to have a country whose economy depends on fossil fuels and keeping the entire Middle East at gunpoint without normalizing Islamophobia. It is impossible to have a country whose foreign policy is built around dominating resources and creating instability overseas to prevent potential future rivals from attaining superpower status. When your entire system of rule depends on marinating your home country in Islamophobia, you get a nation which quickly forgets that its president just retweeted deceitful anti-Muslim videos from Britain First.
If you don’t want this anymore, you’ll have to stop supporting the system which creates it. Both Democrats and Republicans play right along with the warmongering agendas of America’s unelected government, so if you want to live in a nation that isn’t steeped in blood and fear it’s time to stop playing along with those parties and force them to either evolve or die. Until then, we’ll all know your outrage song and dance is pure show.
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https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2017/12/07/expect-desperate-and-insane-behavior-from-government-in-2018-part-3-war/
Expect Desperate and Insane Behavior From Government in 2018 – Part 3 (War)
In the first two installments of this series, I discussed the potential for the U.S. federal government to make some spectacularly foolish moves against its own people in the realms of cannabis and Bitcoin. My basic assumption is that government tends to despise freedom, and that “leaders” of an empire in decline like the U.S. are particularly vulnerable to very bad decisions.
Government propagandists constantly instruct the public that they need to be fearful of their neighbors or some guy in a cave overseas (who they probably funded in the first place), when they themselves tend to be the most unethical, corrupt thieves of all. It’s a very clever scam.
With that in mind, today’s post will zero in on what I consider to be the greatest threat to world peace going into 2018. While I remain unsure as to what the U.S. government may attempt when it comes to cannabis and Bitcoin, I’m far more concerned about the prospects of Donald Trump entangling this nation in an escalating and increasingly disastrous conflict in the Middle East. The signs are everywhere, and it’s all becoming very obvious. In fact, I’ve probably written more articles on this topic than any other in 2017.
Rather than rehash everything I’ve already said, below are links to my October series on the matter:
Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 1
Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 2
Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 3
Confrontation with Iran has been the holy grail of neocons for decades, but it’s become increasingly likely under Trump, as I detailed above. Since I wrote those articles, the situation has only escalated and Trump has decided to attach himself even more clearly to the hip of crazed Saudi princeling Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) and Israel. It’s become obvious that Trump sees both Israel and Saudi Arabia as direct extensions of the U.S., and is quite willing to sacrifice his own country to protect their position. In prior posts, I spent most of my time focused on why I thought Trump would go in such a non-MAGA direction. Today’s post will focus on why I think it’ll be such a historical failure.
Conventional wisdom says that a dedicated alliance of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia is an unstoppable force in the Middle East. Trump’s bought into this view hook, line and sinker, which is why he’s willing to go all in on such a foolish showdown with Iran. I’m going to take the complete other side of that view, and assert than a more aggressive posture against Iran in the Middle East will lead to another huge fail, sparking a more serious collapse in the U.S. empire and ultimately Iranian domination of the region. Crazy, you say? I also heard Brexit had no shot and that Trump couldn’t win. When it comes to conventional wisdom at this point in the historical cycle, I want to be short.
Why do I think this? First of all, the U.S. simply doesn’t have the position it thinks it has in the world any longer. The moral authority, irrespective of whether it was ever deserved in the first place, is gone. Disastrous and bloody wars based on lies and media propaganda have been exposed for the world to see, and many allies won’t be willing to go along with an unnecessary Saudi/Israel/USA mission against Iran. Empires always make increasingly stupid decisions toward the end driven by hubris and a lack of self-awareness. The U.S. is no different.
Second, the U.S. would be getting in bed with a complete and total lunatic when it comes to de facto Saudi leader MBS. Pretty much everything this guy touches turns to shite, with his campaign in Yemen and attempt to isolate Qatar being prime examples. Now with his mass arrests of Saudi princes and other powerful people/family members in a quest to firm his position, he’s lost even more credibility in the region and created a slew of dangerous enemies, who will never forget what he did to them.
MBS is far, far weaker both internally and externally than he realizes. He thinks he’s this grand figure who’s destined to bring glory to himself and Saudi Arabia in the region, but he’ll end up accomplishing the exact opposite. In addition to all the the dangerous mistakes I’ve already mentioned, he recently made the biggest mistake of all by bringing the Saudi-Israeli alliance public for the world to see.
Here’s a little snippet from an NBC News article published last month to give you a little sense of what’s going on:
For Israel, Saudi Arabia’s growing willingness to confront Iranian influence in the Middle East presents an opening for an awkward alliance. As the kingdom’s dynamic new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, tries to rally an anti-Iran coalition, Israel — with the blessing of the Trump administration — is presenting itself as a willing and able partner.
The appetite for cooperation between two of America’s closest allies in the Middle East has grown in recent years as their security interests have dovetailed. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia view Iran’s growing influence in the region as an existential threat and want to squash militant Islamist groups like ISIS and Iran’s main proxy, Hezbollah.
A U.S. official who witnessed a Saudi and Israeli official hold a closed-door meeting together recently said such informal meetings have been taking place for “at least five years.”
Remember, MBS has an undeservedly huge head and thinks of himself as some brilliant strategician. He thinks by publicly cozying up to Israel he’ll gain the total support and blessing of the Trump administration for whatever insane crusade his twisted mind can envision. In that sense, he’s correct, but I’m of the opinion he loses a lot more than he gains by going down this route.
Everything this princeling does is shortsighted and driven by impulsive arrogance. He just gave the biggest gift possible to Iran by becoming close to Israel, because the average person on the street in the region will see this as a massive betrayal. The Iranian leadership gets this. As Reuters reported:
(Reuters) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged Muslims on Tuesday to disrupt what he called a plot by unnamed countries in the region to build ties with Israel.
He gave no more details on the states. But an Israeli cabinet minister said last month that his government had covert contacts with Saudi Arabia linked to their common concerns over Tehran.
“Some regional Islamic countries have shamelessly revealed their closeness to the Zionist regime (Israel),” Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live by state TV.
“I am sure that the Muslims around the world will not let this sinister plot bear fruit.”
This entire thing is setting up to be the graveyard of the U.S. empire. Recall what I wrote in my October post:
It’s sad to say it, but over the course of the 21st century the U.S. government has exposed itself as a corrupt bully, not just to the outside world, but also to its own people. Moreover, those in positions of power and influence in America either don’t recognize this reality or don’t care. It’s this sort of disconnected hubris combined with rampant internal corruption that is the true graveyard of empires. I think both allies and enemies abroad have had enough, and given the right opportunity, will let the U.S. sink.
With that in mind, read the following from Reuters:
France rejected the “unilateral” decision while appealing for calm in the region. Britain said the move would not help peace efforts and Jerusalem should ultimately be shared by Israel and a future Palestinian state. Germany said Jerusalem’s status could only be resolved on the basis of a two-state solution.
Trump upended decades of U.S. policy in defiance of warnings from around the world that the gesture risks aggravating conflict in the tinderbox Middle East.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a pre-recorded speech, said Jerusalem was the “eternal capital of the State of Palestine” and that Trump’s move was “tantamount to the United States abdicating its role as a peace mediator.”
Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Trump’s Jerusalem decision was dangerous and threatened the credibility of the United States as a broker of Middle East peace. He said the move would put back the peace process by decades and threatened regional stability and perhaps global stability.
Qatar’s foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, said Trump’s undertaking was a “death sentence for all who seek peace” and called it “a dangerous escalation”.
Turkey said Trump’s move was “irresponsible”.
Iran “seriously condemns” Trump’s move as it violates U.N. resolutions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, state media reported. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said earlier in the day that the United States was trying to destabilize the region and start a war to protect Israel’s security.
If the decision on Jerusalem ends up inflaming the region in aa major way, the entire world will see Trump and the U.S. as directly responsible. This will further the perception amongst allies that the U.S. is a global problem, and raise the likelihood that any military adventure in the region instigated by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel will fail spectacularly. This trio will increasingly look like an alliance of rogue states to most of humanity.
While I’m already sufficiently concerned about the likelihood of another stupid escalation in the Middle East by Trump, there are milestones I’m looking out for to let me know it’s about to get really bad. At the core of any major disaster will be Senator Tom Cotton, a rabid neocon who I unequivocally believe is the most dangerous, anti-freedom person in the U.S. Congress. He reminds me of an American Mohamed bin Salman, and his elevated prominence around Trump earlier this year is what got me increasingly concerned in the first place.
If Cotton takes on a more senior role in the Trump administration, such as a rumored position as CIA director, you can bet the farm that U.S. foreign policy is about to take the most dangerous turn since George W. Bush. Tom Cotton is a neocon on steroids, and seems to genuinely love conflict and authoritarianism. To get a better sense of what sort of person he is, take a look at him taking Twitter legal counsel to task. He believes U.S. companies act as an active arm of state intelligence.
If that doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, I don’t know what will.
Tom Cotton policy on anything represents a guaranteed nightmare for America and its people. If Trump promotes him in any way, prepare for almost unimaginable foreign policy disaster.
Expect Desperate and Insane Behavior From Government in 2018 – Part 3 (War)
In the first two installments of this series, I discussed the potential for the U.S. federal government to make some spectacularly foolish moves against its own people in the realms of cannabis and Bitcoin. My basic assumption is that government tends to despise freedom, and that “leaders” of an empire in decline like the U.S. are particularly vulnerable to very bad decisions.
Government propagandists constantly instruct the public that they need to be fearful of their neighbors or some guy in a cave overseas (who they probably funded in the first place), when they themselves tend to be the most unethical, corrupt thieves of all. It’s a very clever scam.
With that in mind, today’s post will zero in on what I consider to be the greatest threat to world peace going into 2018. While I remain unsure as to what the U.S. government may attempt when it comes to cannabis and Bitcoin, I’m far more concerned about the prospects of Donald Trump entangling this nation in an escalating and increasingly disastrous conflict in the Middle East. The signs are everywhere, and it’s all becoming very obvious. In fact, I’ve probably written more articles on this topic than any other in 2017.
Rather than rehash everything I’ve already said, below are links to my October series on the matter:
Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 1
Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 2
Empire Destroying Wars Are Coming to America Under Trump – Part 3
Confrontation with Iran has been the holy grail of neocons for decades, but it’s become increasingly likely under Trump, as I detailed above. Since I wrote those articles, the situation has only escalated and Trump has decided to attach himself even more clearly to the hip of crazed Saudi princeling Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) and Israel. It’s become obvious that Trump sees both Israel and Saudi Arabia as direct extensions of the U.S., and is quite willing to sacrifice his own country to protect their position. In prior posts, I spent most of my time focused on why I thought Trump would go in such a non-MAGA direction. Today’s post will focus on why I think it’ll be such a historical failure.
Conventional wisdom says that a dedicated alliance of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia is an unstoppable force in the Middle East. Trump’s bought into this view hook, line and sinker, which is why he’s willing to go all in on such a foolish showdown with Iran. I’m going to take the complete other side of that view, and assert than a more aggressive posture against Iran in the Middle East will lead to another huge fail, sparking a more serious collapse in the U.S. empire and ultimately Iranian domination of the region. Crazy, you say? I also heard Brexit had no shot and that Trump couldn’t win. When it comes to conventional wisdom at this point in the historical cycle, I want to be short.
Why do I think this? First of all, the U.S. simply doesn’t have the position it thinks it has in the world any longer. The moral authority, irrespective of whether it was ever deserved in the first place, is gone. Disastrous and bloody wars based on lies and media propaganda have been exposed for the world to see, and many allies won’t be willing to go along with an unnecessary Saudi/Israel/USA mission against Iran. Empires always make increasingly stupid decisions toward the end driven by hubris and a lack of self-awareness. The U.S. is no different.
Second, the U.S. would be getting in bed with a complete and total lunatic when it comes to de facto Saudi leader MBS. Pretty much everything this guy touches turns to shite, with his campaign in Yemen and attempt to isolate Qatar being prime examples. Now with his mass arrests of Saudi princes and other powerful people/family members in a quest to firm his position, he’s lost even more credibility in the region and created a slew of dangerous enemies, who will never forget what he did to them.
MBS is far, far weaker both internally and externally than he realizes. He thinks he’s this grand figure who’s destined to bring glory to himself and Saudi Arabia in the region, but he’ll end up accomplishing the exact opposite. In addition to all the the dangerous mistakes I’ve already mentioned, he recently made the biggest mistake of all by bringing the Saudi-Israeli alliance public for the world to see.
Here’s a little snippet from an NBC News article published last month to give you a little sense of what’s going on:
For Israel, Saudi Arabia’s growing willingness to confront Iranian influence in the Middle East presents an opening for an awkward alliance. As the kingdom’s dynamic new crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, tries to rally an anti-Iran coalition, Israel — with the blessing of the Trump administration — is presenting itself as a willing and able partner.
The appetite for cooperation between two of America’s closest allies in the Middle East has grown in recent years as their security interests have dovetailed. Both Israel and Saudi Arabia view Iran’s growing influence in the region as an existential threat and want to squash militant Islamist groups like ISIS and Iran’s main proxy, Hezbollah.
A U.S. official who witnessed a Saudi and Israeli official hold a closed-door meeting together recently said such informal meetings have been taking place for “at least five years.”
Remember, MBS has an undeservedly huge head and thinks of himself as some brilliant strategician. He thinks by publicly cozying up to Israel he’ll gain the total support and blessing of the Trump administration for whatever insane crusade his twisted mind can envision. In that sense, he’s correct, but I’m of the opinion he loses a lot more than he gains by going down this route.
Everything this princeling does is shortsighted and driven by impulsive arrogance. He just gave the biggest gift possible to Iran by becoming close to Israel, because the average person on the street in the region will see this as a massive betrayal. The Iranian leadership gets this. As Reuters reported:
(Reuters) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani urged Muslims on Tuesday to disrupt what he called a plot by unnamed countries in the region to build ties with Israel.
He gave no more details on the states. But an Israeli cabinet minister said last month that his government had covert contacts with Saudi Arabia linked to their common concerns over Tehran.
“Some regional Islamic countries have shamelessly revealed their closeness to the Zionist regime (Israel),” Rouhani said in a speech broadcast live by state TV.
“I am sure that the Muslims around the world will not let this sinister plot bear fruit.”
This entire thing is setting up to be the graveyard of the U.S. empire. Recall what I wrote in my October post:
It’s sad to say it, but over the course of the 21st century the U.S. government has exposed itself as a corrupt bully, not just to the outside world, but also to its own people. Moreover, those in positions of power and influence in America either don’t recognize this reality or don’t care. It’s this sort of disconnected hubris combined with rampant internal corruption that is the true graveyard of empires. I think both allies and enemies abroad have had enough, and given the right opportunity, will let the U.S. sink.
With that in mind, read the following from Reuters:
France rejected the “unilateral” decision while appealing for calm in the region. Britain said the move would not help peace efforts and Jerusalem should ultimately be shared by Israel and a future Palestinian state. Germany said Jerusalem’s status could only be resolved on the basis of a two-state solution.
Trump upended decades of U.S. policy in defiance of warnings from around the world that the gesture risks aggravating conflict in the tinderbox Middle East.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a pre-recorded speech, said Jerusalem was the “eternal capital of the State of Palestine” and that Trump’s move was “tantamount to the United States abdicating its role as a peace mediator.”
Lebanese President Michel Aoun said Trump’s Jerusalem decision was dangerous and threatened the credibility of the United States as a broker of Middle East peace. He said the move would put back the peace process by decades and threatened regional stability and perhaps global stability.
Qatar’s foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, said Trump’s undertaking was a “death sentence for all who seek peace” and called it “a dangerous escalation”.
Turkey said Trump’s move was “irresponsible”.
Iran “seriously condemns” Trump’s move as it violates U.N. resolutions on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, state media reported. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said earlier in the day that the United States was trying to destabilize the region and start a war to protect Israel’s security.
If the decision on Jerusalem ends up inflaming the region in aa major way, the entire world will see Trump and the U.S. as directly responsible. This will further the perception amongst allies that the U.S. is a global problem, and raise the likelihood that any military adventure in the region instigated by the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Israel will fail spectacularly. This trio will increasingly look like an alliance of rogue states to most of humanity.
While I’m already sufficiently concerned about the likelihood of another stupid escalation in the Middle East by Trump, there are milestones I’m looking out for to let me know it’s about to get really bad. At the core of any major disaster will be Senator Tom Cotton, a rabid neocon who I unequivocally believe is the most dangerous, anti-freedom person in the U.S. Congress. He reminds me of an American Mohamed bin Salman, and his elevated prominence around Trump earlier this year is what got me increasingly concerned in the first place.
If Cotton takes on a more senior role in the Trump administration, such as a rumored position as CIA director, you can bet the farm that U.S. foreign policy is about to take the most dangerous turn since George W. Bush. Tom Cotton is a neocon on steroids, and seems to genuinely love conflict and authoritarianism. To get a better sense of what sort of person he is, take a look at him taking Twitter legal counsel to task. He believes U.S. companies act as an active arm of state intelligence.
If that doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, I don’t know what will.
Tom Cotton policy on anything represents a guaranteed nightmare for America and its people. If Trump promotes him in any way, prepare for almost unimaginable foreign policy disaster.
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https://www.truthdig.com/articles/zero-hour-palestine/
Zero Hour in Palestine
Wednesday’s announcement by President Trump, who finds a soul mate in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that he will move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem solidifies our status, along with Israel, as a rogue state and an international pariah. The United States long ago lost credibility as an honest broker in any Mideast peace agreement. We have provided $38 billion in military aid to Israel over the last decade despite Israel’s flagrant disregard for international law and its well-documented war crimes. We do nothing to halt the expropriation of Palestinian land. We give unequivocal support to Israeli attacks on Palestinians, including the bombardment of largely defenseless civilians in Gaza, that have left thousands of dead and destroyed whole neighborhoods.
The Trump decision sends a message to those who demand justice for the Palestinian people: Our only hope is to strengthen the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement to isolate and cripple Israel. This would involve a robust boycott of Israeli cultural and academic institutions. It demands divestment from companies with financial interests in Israel. And it seeks to impose international sanctions on the Jewish state. The goal of the BDS movement is to end the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, achieve equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel and ensure the right of return for all Palestinian refugees in the diaspora. If we fail to act we must accept our complicity in the slow-motion genocide of the Palestinian people.
“The current xenophobic, racist U.S. administration is smashing international law as fast as it is smashing its own mask of respect for human rights and with it whatever credibility it still has around the world,” said Omar Barghouti, the Palestinian human rights activist and co-founder of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. He commented after I reached him by email.
“By trying to bestow legitimacy on Israel’s patently illegitimate annexation of occupied Jerusalem, the U.S. administration, whose own legitimacy is contested by millions of Americans, is throwing a flame onto a haystack in a midsummer day,” he said. “If we turn this deliberate act of mega-arson into an opportunity to further build the BDS movement to isolate Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid, we can advance the struggle for freedom, justice and equality.”
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The United States is the only nation, with the exception of Israel, to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Trump’s decision will enrage Muslims throughout the world. Palestinians in Gaza City, Bethlehem and Rafah have already marched through the streets chanting “Death to America,” “Death to Israel” and “Down with Trump.” They burned American and Israeli flags and photos of Trump. The Palestinian Islamic group Hamas is calling for “a day of rage.”
“Trump’s extensive reference to Israel’s far-right policies of ethnic profiling, militarized walls and extreme racial violence as a model for his own fanatic policies in the U.S. and around the world confirms Israel’s status today as a senior member of the xenophobic—mostly anti-Semitic—far-right club that is growing in the U.S., Europe, India and elsewhere,” Barghouti said.
The Trump move, along with Israel’s naked theft of East Jerusalem, will give rise to spontaneous acts of resistance such as that which took place last July when Israel tried to restrict Palestinian access to the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, in Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated at the site until Israel removed barriers, metal detectors and security cameras introduced after three Israeli Arabs killed two Israeli police officers at an entrance to the compound July 14.
Wednesday’s announcement is one more indignity visited on a people who have known nothing but abuse, humiliation and violence since the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. It says to all of the dispossessed of the earth that their rights and aspirations are meaningless. It is a public declaration of contempt for the oppressed. And the oppressed, filled with rage, unable to use the industrial weapons that rain death and destruction on Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans and Yemenis, will employ cruder instruments of death to fight back. The state terrorists in Israel and Washington will use those attacks to justify an escalation of violence in a never-ending cycle of hate that we, the oppressors, initiated.
“Jerusalem lies at the heart of Palestinian identity and is a unique spiritual, cultural and symbolic center for Palestinian life,” Barghouti said. “It is also sacred for monotheistic religions, including about 1.5 billion Muslims. No state in the world [had recognized] Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. So, by recognizing it as Israel’s capital, the Trump administration is not only isolating itself and trashing decades of U.S. policy and international law. It is deliberately inciting a global wave of protest against Israel’s illegal control over the city and against the exceptionally reckless U.S. policy. I cannot see how this can serve U.S. interests, even if defined as the interests of the ‘1 percent.’ It therefore indicates the administration’s adoption of an Israel-first agenda that appeals to a small yet very influential part of its constituency—fanatic Christian fundamentalists and the Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian far-right Jewish establishment. As the prominent South African jurist and former U.N. special rapporteur John Dugard once said, Palestine today has become the litmus test for the West’s respect for human rights—just as South Africa once was. If the West fails to end its fatal collusion with Israel’s regime of apartheid and colonialism it will lose all credibility around the world, especially in the Global South.”
This is zero hour for the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia, which has built a de facto alliance with Israel in its effort to launch a war against Iran, has signaled its willingness to sacrifice the Palestinians by proposing a “peace agreement” that Israel will embrace. The agreement, proposed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, traps Palestinians within Israeli-controlled borders, transfers East Jerusalem, where the Palestinian population in the city resides, to Israel, permits Jewish settlements to remain on Palestinian land, slices up sections of the West Bank to prevent contiguous Palestinian control and sovereignty, and prevents from returning to their homes the Palestinians who were “ethnically cleansed” from land Israel controls. The Saudi plan mirrors the agreement offered in 2000 to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat by President Bill Clinton, an agreement no Palestinian could accept and Arafat rightly rejected. The Muslim world has long paid lip service to Palestinian rights while quietly backing the Israeli occupation. Egypt, for example, seals the southern border of Gaza to assist Israel in maintaining the world’s largest open-air prison. But now the Saudi regime is public in its effort to sell out the Palestinians. This gives to the BDS movement—and a separate BDS movement should be launched against Saudi Arabia—a new urgency.
The Palestinian Authority, a puppet regime put in place by Israel and the United States that has little support among Palestinians, will be further discredited and reviled as the U.S. Embassy is moved. Its loss of authority will weaken the last vestiges of Palestinian civil institutions. Trump’s decision is also likely to accelerate Israel’s destruction of Palestinian homes, evictions, expropriations, revocation of residency permits and colonization of the city by Jewish settlers. It will tighten the barrier set up by Israel to prevent Palestinians in the West Bank from traveling to East Jerusalem. It will continue to see the steady reduction of the Palestinian population as East Jerusalem, piece by piece, is handed over to Israeli Jews.
U.N. Resolution 476, adopted in 1980, declared Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem “null and void,” called it “a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War” and said it “constituted a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.” But this resolution and others have routinely been ignored and defied by Israel and the United States. Israel since occupying East Jerusalem after the 1967 war has stripped more than 14,000 Palestinians of their right to live in the city. It routinely denies Palestinians new building permits, demolishes Palestinian homes and olive groves and builds huge, fortress-like housing complexes for Jewish settlers that surround the dwindling Palestinian neighborhoods. Israeli police patrol the streets of East Jerusalem, engaging in acts of open brutality and violence, including the killing of unarmed demonstrators. Basic municipal services, including education, have been degraded.
“Moshe Dayan [the onetime Israeli defense minister] once said that Israel must act like a mad dog so no one in the international community will bother it,” Barghouti said. “His prophecy has come true like never before with the current extremely racist and dangerous Israeli government. With its influence in the White House finally matching its influence in Congress, Israel is drunk with power and, as a result, recklessly undermining the very legitimacy of its decades-long regime of oppression against the Palestinians. This is a key factor behind the impressive growth of the BDS movement for Palestinian rights worldwide.”
“People of conscience worldwide are now called upon to stop the ‘mad dog’ before its unconstrained madness spills over to the rest of the world,” Barghouti went on. “The most effective way of doing that is by supporting BDS campaigns to continue building this peaceful justice movement until serious sanctions are imposed on Israel’s regime. In the U.S., the strong connection between U.S. support for Israel’s wars of aggression and policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing on the one hand and severe cuts in social, health and educational services in the U.S. on the other must be exposed and acted upon. Exploring the intersectionality of our struggle for liberation with struggles for racial, economic, social, gender and climate justice in the U.S. and beyond is crucial in this respect.”
Israel and the United States have amply demonstrated their intentions. Israel uses intimidation, fear and violence to subdue and crush the Palestinian people. We must build an international movement to pit power against power. We must press on until all economic trade, military aid and cooperation with Israel are ended. If we succeed, Israel will be faced with the prospect of losing its own viability. This is the only way left to achieve justice and the rule of law.
“No one should dismiss Palestinians yet,” Barghouti concluded. “At the darkest moments of Palestinian dejection and despair and at the height of Israel’s delusional triumphalism over us, our people has always risen like a phoenix to tell the world that we shall overcome, we shall never accept slavery as fate, and we shall persistently resist and insist on a life that is worth living, as [poet] Mahmoud Darwish says, and that is a life of justice, peace and dignity.”
Zero Hour in Palestine
Wednesday’s announcement by President Trump, who finds a soul mate in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that he will move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem solidifies our status, along with Israel, as a rogue state and an international pariah. The United States long ago lost credibility as an honest broker in any Mideast peace agreement. We have provided $38 billion in military aid to Israel over the last decade despite Israel’s flagrant disregard for international law and its well-documented war crimes. We do nothing to halt the expropriation of Palestinian land. We give unequivocal support to Israeli attacks on Palestinians, including the bombardment of largely defenseless civilians in Gaza, that have left thousands of dead and destroyed whole neighborhoods.
The Trump decision sends a message to those who demand justice for the Palestinian people: Our only hope is to strengthen the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement to isolate and cripple Israel. This would involve a robust boycott of Israeli cultural and academic institutions. It demands divestment from companies with financial interests in Israel. And it seeks to impose international sanctions on the Jewish state. The goal of the BDS movement is to end the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, achieve equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel and ensure the right of return for all Palestinian refugees in the diaspora. If we fail to act we must accept our complicity in the slow-motion genocide of the Palestinian people.
“The current xenophobic, racist U.S. administration is smashing international law as fast as it is smashing its own mask of respect for human rights and with it whatever credibility it still has around the world,” said Omar Barghouti, the Palestinian human rights activist and co-founder of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. He commented after I reached him by email.
“By trying to bestow legitimacy on Israel’s patently illegitimate annexation of occupied Jerusalem, the U.S. administration, whose own legitimacy is contested by millions of Americans, is throwing a flame onto a haystack in a midsummer day,” he said. “If we turn this deliberate act of mega-arson into an opportunity to further build the BDS movement to isolate Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid, we can advance the struggle for freedom, justice and equality.”
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The United States is the only nation, with the exception of Israel, to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Trump’s decision will enrage Muslims throughout the world. Palestinians in Gaza City, Bethlehem and Rafah have already marched through the streets chanting “Death to America,” “Death to Israel” and “Down with Trump.” They burned American and Israeli flags and photos of Trump. The Palestinian Islamic group Hamas is calling for “a day of rage.”
“Trump’s extensive reference to Israel’s far-right policies of ethnic profiling, militarized walls and extreme racial violence as a model for his own fanatic policies in the U.S. and around the world confirms Israel’s status today as a senior member of the xenophobic—mostly anti-Semitic—far-right club that is growing in the U.S., Europe, India and elsewhere,” Barghouti said.
The Trump move, along with Israel’s naked theft of East Jerusalem, will give rise to spontaneous acts of resistance such as that which took place last July when Israel tried to restrict Palestinian access to the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, in Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated at the site until Israel removed barriers, metal detectors and security cameras introduced after three Israeli Arabs killed two Israeli police officers at an entrance to the compound July 14.
Wednesday’s announcement is one more indignity visited on a people who have known nothing but abuse, humiliation and violence since the creation of the Israeli state in 1948. It says to all of the dispossessed of the earth that their rights and aspirations are meaningless. It is a public declaration of contempt for the oppressed. And the oppressed, filled with rage, unable to use the industrial weapons that rain death and destruction on Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans and Yemenis, will employ cruder instruments of death to fight back. The state terrorists in Israel and Washington will use those attacks to justify an escalation of violence in a never-ending cycle of hate that we, the oppressors, initiated.
“Jerusalem lies at the heart of Palestinian identity and is a unique spiritual, cultural and symbolic center for Palestinian life,” Barghouti said. “It is also sacred for monotheistic religions, including about 1.5 billion Muslims. No state in the world [had recognized] Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem. So, by recognizing it as Israel’s capital, the Trump administration is not only isolating itself and trashing decades of U.S. policy and international law. It is deliberately inciting a global wave of protest against Israel’s illegal control over the city and against the exceptionally reckless U.S. policy. I cannot see how this can serve U.S. interests, even if defined as the interests of the ‘1 percent.’ It therefore indicates the administration’s adoption of an Israel-first agenda that appeals to a small yet very influential part of its constituency—fanatic Christian fundamentalists and the Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian far-right Jewish establishment. As the prominent South African jurist and former U.N. special rapporteur John Dugard once said, Palestine today has become the litmus test for the West’s respect for human rights—just as South Africa once was. If the West fails to end its fatal collusion with Israel’s regime of apartheid and colonialism it will lose all credibility around the world, especially in the Global South.”
This is zero hour for the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia, which has built a de facto alliance with Israel in its effort to launch a war against Iran, has signaled its willingness to sacrifice the Palestinians by proposing a “peace agreement” that Israel will embrace. The agreement, proposed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, traps Palestinians within Israeli-controlled borders, transfers East Jerusalem, where the Palestinian population in the city resides, to Israel, permits Jewish settlements to remain on Palestinian land, slices up sections of the West Bank to prevent contiguous Palestinian control and sovereignty, and prevents from returning to their homes the Palestinians who were “ethnically cleansed” from land Israel controls. The Saudi plan mirrors the agreement offered in 2000 to Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat by President Bill Clinton, an agreement no Palestinian could accept and Arafat rightly rejected. The Muslim world has long paid lip service to Palestinian rights while quietly backing the Israeli occupation. Egypt, for example, seals the southern border of Gaza to assist Israel in maintaining the world’s largest open-air prison. But now the Saudi regime is public in its effort to sell out the Palestinians. This gives to the BDS movement—and a separate BDS movement should be launched against Saudi Arabia—a new urgency.
The Palestinian Authority, a puppet regime put in place by Israel and the United States that has little support among Palestinians, will be further discredited and reviled as the U.S. Embassy is moved. Its loss of authority will weaken the last vestiges of Palestinian civil institutions. Trump’s decision is also likely to accelerate Israel’s destruction of Palestinian homes, evictions, expropriations, revocation of residency permits and colonization of the city by Jewish settlers. It will tighten the barrier set up by Israel to prevent Palestinians in the West Bank from traveling to East Jerusalem. It will continue to see the steady reduction of the Palestinian population as East Jerusalem, piece by piece, is handed over to Israeli Jews.
U.N. Resolution 476, adopted in 1980, declared Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem “null and void,” called it “a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War” and said it “constituted a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.” But this resolution and others have routinely been ignored and defied by Israel and the United States. Israel since occupying East Jerusalem after the 1967 war has stripped more than 14,000 Palestinians of their right to live in the city. It routinely denies Palestinians new building permits, demolishes Palestinian homes and olive groves and builds huge, fortress-like housing complexes for Jewish settlers that surround the dwindling Palestinian neighborhoods. Israeli police patrol the streets of East Jerusalem, engaging in acts of open brutality and violence, including the killing of unarmed demonstrators. Basic municipal services, including education, have been degraded.
“Moshe Dayan [the onetime Israeli defense minister] once said that Israel must act like a mad dog so no one in the international community will bother it,” Barghouti said. “His prophecy has come true like never before with the current extremely racist and dangerous Israeli government. With its influence in the White House finally matching its influence in Congress, Israel is drunk with power and, as a result, recklessly undermining the very legitimacy of its decades-long regime of oppression against the Palestinians. This is a key factor behind the impressive growth of the BDS movement for Palestinian rights worldwide.”
“People of conscience worldwide are now called upon to stop the ‘mad dog’ before its unconstrained madness spills over to the rest of the world,” Barghouti went on. “The most effective way of doing that is by supporting BDS campaigns to continue building this peaceful justice movement until serious sanctions are imposed on Israel’s regime. In the U.S., the strong connection between U.S. support for Israel’s wars of aggression and policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing on the one hand and severe cuts in social, health and educational services in the U.S. on the other must be exposed and acted upon. Exploring the intersectionality of our struggle for liberation with struggles for racial, economic, social, gender and climate justice in the U.S. and beyond is crucial in this respect.”
Israel and the United States have amply demonstrated their intentions. Israel uses intimidation, fear and violence to subdue and crush the Palestinian people. We must build an international movement to pit power against power. We must press on until all economic trade, military aid and cooperation with Israel are ended. If we succeed, Israel will be faced with the prospect of losing its own viability. This is the only way left to achieve justice and the rule of law.
“No one should dismiss Palestinians yet,” Barghouti concluded. “At the darkest moments of Palestinian dejection and despair and at the height of Israel’s delusional triumphalism over us, our people has always risen like a phoenix to tell the world that we shall overcome, we shall never accept slavery as fate, and we shall persistently resist and insist on a life that is worth living, as [poet] Mahmoud Darwish says, and that is a life of justice, peace and dignity.”
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
SC155-3
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Why_The_Globalists_Need_A_War%2C_And_Soon/61989/0/38/38/Y/M.html
Why The Globalists Need A War, And Soon
It is difficult to gauge and understand geopolitical and economic events without first comprehending the fact that much of what happens in the world is engineered to happen and with a specific encompassing goal in mind. If you subscribe to the theory that all is random “chaos” and outcomes are circumstantial or coincidental, then you will be lost in the dark on most things. If you think a globalist “conspiracy” would require “too much control” or foresight, I would point out that organized conspiracy by people in power is a matter of history, not of theory. If such cabals were prevalent in the past, it is rather foolish to dismiss the reality that they are prevalent today.
In my articles “The Economic End Game Explained” and “The Economic End Game Continues,” I outline considerable evidence supporting the following conclusion: International financiers and political puppets in Western AND Eastern countries share a deep rooted ideology called “globalism” or the “new world order.” This ideology demands total centralization of economy and government resulting in a single global fiscal authority, a single global monetary system and a one world ruling structure. Obviously, such a pursuit would take extensive time and planning. It is a long-term project, with moments of accelerated change.
The globalists refer to the process of their intended change as the “global economic reset.” A reset of the world’s economic processes is not so far fetched as skeptics like to argue. When an organized group of ideologues maintains control over the currency production and interest rates of most nations on the planet, it would hardly be difficult to manipulate politicians, manipulate legislation or even scientifically conjure financial bubbles and collapses. By extension, it would also be simple to trigger international conflicts if needed.
But why would war be a necessary ingredient to globalization?
War is the ultimate distraction, the ultimate divider and, perhaps ironically, the ultimate consolidator. In the past century, war always seems to follow or coincide with economic crisis events that are later exposed as products of the banking elites and their aggressive monetary policies. And, in the aftermath of these wars, supranational institutions are often founded (like the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund) as “solutions” to preventing mass tragedies from ever happening again. War is a social steroid promoting mutation, usually in an unhealthy way.
In recent years the concept of “world war” has given way to a more insidious trend of constant and sporadic regional wars. In most cases these regional wars have helped to contribute to the steady downfall of the U.S. through accumulating national debts as well as international distrust or hatred. In fact, one might conclude that if we were to look at the macro-picture of the vast array of regional wars being perpetrated by the globalists we would see that all of them combined are amounting to a kind of world war in a different form.
That said, the globalists will need a new and far larger catalyst for their reset, and soon. Why? Because a sizable distraction is essential to the next phase of the ongoing collapse. A pervasive scapegoat is needed; one that can be blamed for almost any negative scenario. This draws public attention away from the globalists themselves as the culprits behind fiscal crisis, maybe so much so that it will take decades before the mainstream ever questions what actually happened, if they ever question anything at all.
The fear generated through an uncertain war also acts as a form of psychological alchemy, transmuting the collective public mindset to accept centralization they never would have accepted otherwise.
Here is the issue at hand — central banks are seeking a monetary reset more than anything else. A monetary reset demands massive debt, followed by massive stimulus, followed by fiscal tightening, then massive inflation, followed by currency implosion that opens the door to a replacement structure (most likely in the form of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency). The credit crisis of 2008 conveniently provided at least two of these elements so far, vast debt and stimulus measures. Today, we are beginning to witness the fiscal tightening phase of this process.
As I have been warning since before the Fed taper of QE, the central bank trend will lead to a removal of stimulus support, facilitating a crushing blow to bonds and equities markets. Now, interestingly enough, the Bank for International Settlements is warning of the same thing as 2017 comes to a close. It should be noted that this is not the first time the BIS warned of an impending crash; they also predicted with keen timing the derivatives and credit crash back in 2007. This was, of course, too little too late for the masses to react in any positive way, though.
Their latest warning arrives on the heels of the December Federal Reserve meeting at which it is widely expected that the central bank will raise interest rates yet again while taking the next step towards reducing their balance sheet. Many mainstream and alternative economists doubted the taper of QE and doubted the hiking of interest rates. They were wrong. Just as the doubts over the Fed balance sheet reductions are wrong. The pullback in these measures will invariably strike bonds and equities in a negative way. Time is running out.
But, the banking elites have taken steps. For example, they have in place a perfect distraction in the form of the Trump Administration. With Trump loudly and proudly taking credit for the stock market bull run over the course of the past year, who do you think the public will blame when those same markets go south as the central bank pulls the rug out? Probably not the Fed or the establishment banks.
Trump has also in an odd way created the perfect rationale for the Fed as they increase interest rates and end the cheap money that has been feeding stocks for so long. With the passage of Trump’s tax “reform” plan, the fed can now argue that interest rates MUST be raised in order to create incentives for treasury investment and to pay for Trump’s intended public works programs and military expansion goals. Meaning, the fed can claim it is not culpable for any negative effects from removing cheap capital from the table because Trump’s actions demanded it.
I would also point out that in most cases in history the Fed has lowered interest rates immediately following tax cuts and reforms. They did this after Reagan’s tax reforms in 1981 and in 1986, as well as after George W. Bush’s tax reforms in 2001. Juxtapose that with 2018, as the Fed intends to continue RAISING interest rates in the wake of Trump’s tax reforms. Meaning, they are taking the opposite action from what they have often done in the past. Something to think about…
Trump’s tax plan itself is primarily a distraction from the real problem. First, when comparing tax brackets from this past year to the intended tax brackets for next year under the Trump reforms, there is almost no change whatsoever for the average American. The only major reductions in taxes are, no surprise, in the form of corporate tax cuts; reducing the corporate tax ceiling from 35 percent to 20 percent. This is trickle-down economics at best, and not a solution to a single problem facing the public and the country in terms of the flailing economy.
Second, why are we talking about income tax “reform” when we should be talking about abolishing the income tax and the Federal Reserve altogether? Whatever happened to that dialogue? It has disappeared down the memory hole.
Trump’s tax plan will do nothing to slow or undo the current economic crisis because the crisis stems directly from central banking monetary policies and interest rate manipulations. Tax reform is far too little far too late, and stands as nothing more than meager bone thrown to conservatives to keep them quiet for a while. This is what Trump’s tax reform does do very well, though — it rallies conservatives around Trump, regardless of whether it actually helps them or not. Much like Obama’s universal health care bill, which has proven to be a continued disaster in practice, but was rather successful at the time of its passage in rallying the liberal base. Trump is certainly going to need a base of public support if he is going to initiate a major war campaign.
North Korea continues to be the most likely powder keg for the next distraction event. Two months of quiet led people with short attention spans to dismiss the notion, and perhaps some of them will double down and continue their denials, but it is growing more difficult to ignore by the day. I would argue that North Korea is the most viable option simply because almost no one expects a war with the isolated nation to happen. The level of complacency despite all the signals to the contrary is palpable.
The U.S. has staged three aircraft carrier groups in the region for the first time in a decade. Major combat exercises are underway, designated Vigilant Ace 18, specifically designed to simulate an invasion of North Korea with over 230 aircraft and 12,000 American troops participating. North Korea has warned of “nuclear war” as a consequence.
North Korea may have the ability to follow through, at least on a limited scale, as they have recently test launched what appears to be a huge leap in missile technology — an ICBM capable of carrying multiple warheads and striking the eastern seaboard of the U.S. How the North Koreans came to possess this technology so quickly is a question everyone should be asking.
In response, the war rhetoric has been amplified. White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has stated that North Korea is the greatest immediate threat to the U.S., saying that the potential for war “is increasing every day.” Warmonger and enemy of the Constitution, Lindsey Graham, has stated that the families of U.S. military personnel should be moved out of South Korea for their own safety, and that “We’re getting close to military conflict.”
So how close is close? I maintain that war with North Korea is likely by the second quarter of 2018. I also maintain the globalists will continue the strategy of multiple regional conflicts and global economic warfare rather than a one-off global nuclear mess that would wipe out trillions of dollars and decades of effort put into infrastructure and surveillance grids.
This would be advantageous to the globalists if they plan to continue interest rate hikes and stimulus removal by central banks around the world. It would help hide the effects of balance sheet reductions on stocks and it could expedite the fall of the dollar as the world reserve as Eastern and European nations apply alternatives like the IMF’s SDR basket system in response to the massive debt brought on by a military quagmire for the U.S. In other words, catastrophic fiscal developments that were already going to happen anyway due to central bank sabotage will be entirely blamed on geopolitical crisis rather than the true culprits.
Finally, will the East step in militarily to prevent a conflict in North Korea? No. China has already stated that if North Korea attacks first, then they will not obstruct regime change by the U.S.
This flies in the face of those that believe in the false East/West paradigm. China has left the door wide open to potential conflict. If the globalists want a war in North Korea, they will create a war in North Korea, and the Chinese have openly admitted they will step out of the way to let it happen. A false flag is probable. More provocations leading to a violent response by North Korea would also be rather easy to produce. So far, North Korea remains the best existing shock and awe event to hide a globally disintegrating economic situation. Would the globalists pass up an opportunity like this? There is no reason for them to do so.
Why The Globalists Need A War, And Soon
It is difficult to gauge and understand geopolitical and economic events without first comprehending the fact that much of what happens in the world is engineered to happen and with a specific encompassing goal in mind. If you subscribe to the theory that all is random “chaos” and outcomes are circumstantial or coincidental, then you will be lost in the dark on most things. If you think a globalist “conspiracy” would require “too much control” or foresight, I would point out that organized conspiracy by people in power is a matter of history, not of theory. If such cabals were prevalent in the past, it is rather foolish to dismiss the reality that they are prevalent today.
In my articles “The Economic End Game Explained” and “The Economic End Game Continues,” I outline considerable evidence supporting the following conclusion: International financiers and political puppets in Western AND Eastern countries share a deep rooted ideology called “globalism” or the “new world order.” This ideology demands total centralization of economy and government resulting in a single global fiscal authority, a single global monetary system and a one world ruling structure. Obviously, such a pursuit would take extensive time and planning. It is a long-term project, with moments of accelerated change.
The globalists refer to the process of their intended change as the “global economic reset.” A reset of the world’s economic processes is not so far fetched as skeptics like to argue. When an organized group of ideologues maintains control over the currency production and interest rates of most nations on the planet, it would hardly be difficult to manipulate politicians, manipulate legislation or even scientifically conjure financial bubbles and collapses. By extension, it would also be simple to trigger international conflicts if needed.
But why would war be a necessary ingredient to globalization?
War is the ultimate distraction, the ultimate divider and, perhaps ironically, the ultimate consolidator. In the past century, war always seems to follow or coincide with economic crisis events that are later exposed as products of the banking elites and their aggressive monetary policies. And, in the aftermath of these wars, supranational institutions are often founded (like the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund) as “solutions” to preventing mass tragedies from ever happening again. War is a social steroid promoting mutation, usually in an unhealthy way.
In recent years the concept of “world war” has given way to a more insidious trend of constant and sporadic regional wars. In most cases these regional wars have helped to contribute to the steady downfall of the U.S. through accumulating national debts as well as international distrust or hatred. In fact, one might conclude that if we were to look at the macro-picture of the vast array of regional wars being perpetrated by the globalists we would see that all of them combined are amounting to a kind of world war in a different form.
That said, the globalists will need a new and far larger catalyst for their reset, and soon. Why? Because a sizable distraction is essential to the next phase of the ongoing collapse. A pervasive scapegoat is needed; one that can be blamed for almost any negative scenario. This draws public attention away from the globalists themselves as the culprits behind fiscal crisis, maybe so much so that it will take decades before the mainstream ever questions what actually happened, if they ever question anything at all.
The fear generated through an uncertain war also acts as a form of psychological alchemy, transmuting the collective public mindset to accept centralization they never would have accepted otherwise.
Here is the issue at hand — central banks are seeking a monetary reset more than anything else. A monetary reset demands massive debt, followed by massive stimulus, followed by fiscal tightening, then massive inflation, followed by currency implosion that opens the door to a replacement structure (most likely in the form of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency). The credit crisis of 2008 conveniently provided at least two of these elements so far, vast debt and stimulus measures. Today, we are beginning to witness the fiscal tightening phase of this process.
As I have been warning since before the Fed taper of QE, the central bank trend will lead to a removal of stimulus support, facilitating a crushing blow to bonds and equities markets. Now, interestingly enough, the Bank for International Settlements is warning of the same thing as 2017 comes to a close. It should be noted that this is not the first time the BIS warned of an impending crash; they also predicted with keen timing the derivatives and credit crash back in 2007. This was, of course, too little too late for the masses to react in any positive way, though.
Their latest warning arrives on the heels of the December Federal Reserve meeting at which it is widely expected that the central bank will raise interest rates yet again while taking the next step towards reducing their balance sheet. Many mainstream and alternative economists doubted the taper of QE and doubted the hiking of interest rates. They were wrong. Just as the doubts over the Fed balance sheet reductions are wrong. The pullback in these measures will invariably strike bonds and equities in a negative way. Time is running out.
But, the banking elites have taken steps. For example, they have in place a perfect distraction in the form of the Trump Administration. With Trump loudly and proudly taking credit for the stock market bull run over the course of the past year, who do you think the public will blame when those same markets go south as the central bank pulls the rug out? Probably not the Fed or the establishment banks.
Trump has also in an odd way created the perfect rationale for the Fed as they increase interest rates and end the cheap money that has been feeding stocks for so long. With the passage of Trump’s tax “reform” plan, the fed can now argue that interest rates MUST be raised in order to create incentives for treasury investment and to pay for Trump’s intended public works programs and military expansion goals. Meaning, the fed can claim it is not culpable for any negative effects from removing cheap capital from the table because Trump’s actions demanded it.
I would also point out that in most cases in history the Fed has lowered interest rates immediately following tax cuts and reforms. They did this after Reagan’s tax reforms in 1981 and in 1986, as well as after George W. Bush’s tax reforms in 2001. Juxtapose that with 2018, as the Fed intends to continue RAISING interest rates in the wake of Trump’s tax reforms. Meaning, they are taking the opposite action from what they have often done in the past. Something to think about…
Trump’s tax plan itself is primarily a distraction from the real problem. First, when comparing tax brackets from this past year to the intended tax brackets for next year under the Trump reforms, there is almost no change whatsoever for the average American. The only major reductions in taxes are, no surprise, in the form of corporate tax cuts; reducing the corporate tax ceiling from 35 percent to 20 percent. This is trickle-down economics at best, and not a solution to a single problem facing the public and the country in terms of the flailing economy.
Second, why are we talking about income tax “reform” when we should be talking about abolishing the income tax and the Federal Reserve altogether? Whatever happened to that dialogue? It has disappeared down the memory hole.
Trump’s tax plan will do nothing to slow or undo the current economic crisis because the crisis stems directly from central banking monetary policies and interest rate manipulations. Tax reform is far too little far too late, and stands as nothing more than meager bone thrown to conservatives to keep them quiet for a while. This is what Trump’s tax reform does do very well, though — it rallies conservatives around Trump, regardless of whether it actually helps them or not. Much like Obama’s universal health care bill, which has proven to be a continued disaster in practice, but was rather successful at the time of its passage in rallying the liberal base. Trump is certainly going to need a base of public support if he is going to initiate a major war campaign.
North Korea continues to be the most likely powder keg for the next distraction event. Two months of quiet led people with short attention spans to dismiss the notion, and perhaps some of them will double down and continue their denials, but it is growing more difficult to ignore by the day. I would argue that North Korea is the most viable option simply because almost no one expects a war with the isolated nation to happen. The level of complacency despite all the signals to the contrary is palpable.
The U.S. has staged three aircraft carrier groups in the region for the first time in a decade. Major combat exercises are underway, designated Vigilant Ace 18, specifically designed to simulate an invasion of North Korea with over 230 aircraft and 12,000 American troops participating. North Korea has warned of “nuclear war” as a consequence.
North Korea may have the ability to follow through, at least on a limited scale, as they have recently test launched what appears to be a huge leap in missile technology — an ICBM capable of carrying multiple warheads and striking the eastern seaboard of the U.S. How the North Koreans came to possess this technology so quickly is a question everyone should be asking.
In response, the war rhetoric has been amplified. White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has stated that North Korea is the greatest immediate threat to the U.S., saying that the potential for war “is increasing every day.” Warmonger and enemy of the Constitution, Lindsey Graham, has stated that the families of U.S. military personnel should be moved out of South Korea for their own safety, and that “We’re getting close to military conflict.”
So how close is close? I maintain that war with North Korea is likely by the second quarter of 2018. I also maintain the globalists will continue the strategy of multiple regional conflicts and global economic warfare rather than a one-off global nuclear mess that would wipe out trillions of dollars and decades of effort put into infrastructure and surveillance grids.
This would be advantageous to the globalists if they plan to continue interest rate hikes and stimulus removal by central banks around the world. It would help hide the effects of balance sheet reductions on stocks and it could expedite the fall of the dollar as the world reserve as Eastern and European nations apply alternatives like the IMF’s SDR basket system in response to the massive debt brought on by a military quagmire for the U.S. In other words, catastrophic fiscal developments that were already going to happen anyway due to central bank sabotage will be entirely blamed on geopolitical crisis rather than the true culprits.
Finally, will the East step in militarily to prevent a conflict in North Korea? No. China has already stated that if North Korea attacks first, then they will not obstruct regime change by the U.S.
This flies in the face of those that believe in the false East/West paradigm. China has left the door wide open to potential conflict. If the globalists want a war in North Korea, they will create a war in North Korea, and the Chinese have openly admitted they will step out of the way to let it happen. A false flag is probable. More provocations leading to a violent response by North Korea would also be rather easy to produce. So far, North Korea remains the best existing shock and awe event to hide a globally disintegrating economic situation. Would the globalists pass up an opportunity like this? There is no reason for them to do so.
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