Andrew Jackson & The Bank War
American Christians standing up and fighting the Rothschild's
Central Bankers and the International Banking Cartel that
makes up the "Synagogue of Satan".
By B.l. Cozad Jr.
7 Timer
July 15, 2014
Over the objections of Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton
helped create the nation's first centralized bank in 1791, the
Bank of the United States.
By 1822, the rechartered second Bank of the United States was
run by Nicholas Biddle, who boasted of having more personal
power than the President, as he set interest rates and reserve
requirements.
Biddle bought influence, paid to elect politicians and owned
newspapers which he used to sway voters during elections.
On JULY 10, 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed the renewal of
the charter of Nicholas Biddle's Bank of the United States, stating:
"Some of powers and privileges possessed by the existing Bank are
unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive to the rights of the
States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people... It is easy to
conceive that great evils to our country and its institutions might
flow from such a concentration of power in the hands of a few men
irresponsible to the people...Their power would be great whenever
they might choose to exert it...to influence elections or control the
affairs of the nation. But if any private citizen or public functionary
should interpose to curtail its powers or prevent a renewal of its
privileges, it cannot be doubted that he would be made to feel its
influence..."
Andrew Jackson continued:
"Controlling our currency, receiving our more formidable and
dangerous than the naval and military power of the enemy."
On September 18, 1833, President Andrew Jackson decided to
remove all Federal money out of Nicholas Biddle's Bank of the
United States:
"The Bank is thus converted into a vast electioneering engine, with
means to embroil the country in deadly feuds, and...extend its
corruption through all the ramifications of society...
The President would feel that he was...an accomplice in a
conspiracy against that Government... if he did not take every step
within his constitutional and legal power...to...putting an end to
these enormities...
Was it expected when the moneys of the United States were
directed to be placed in that Bank that they would be put under the
control of one man...?
This corporation now holds in its hands the happiness and prosperity
of the American people, it is high time to take the alarm.
If the despotism be already upon us and our only safety is in the
mercy of the despot...how necessary it is to shake it off...
One of the most serious objections to the Bank of the United States
is the power which it concentrates."
On December 3, 1833, in his 5th Annual Message, President
Andrew Jackson stated:
"This great and powerful institution had been actively engaged
in attempting to influence the elections of the public officers
by means of its money...
It being thus established by unquestionable proof that the Bank of
the United States was converted into a permanent electioneering
engine...
The efforts of the Bank to control public opinion, through
the distresses of some and the fears of others...
Through presses known to have been sustained by its money
it attempts by unfounded alarms to create a panic in all."
President Andrew Jackson, whose wife died right before he took
office, stated in a Protest message to the Senate, April 15, 1834:
"The Bank of the United States, a great moneyed monopoly, had
attempted to obtain a renewal of its charter by controlling the
elections of the people...to control public opinion and force the
Government to yield to its demands...
The only ambition I can feel is to acquit myself to Him to whom
I must soon render an account of my stewardship...to persuade
my countrymen, so far as I may, that it is not in a...government
supported by powerful monopolies...that they will find
happiness...but in a plain system, void of pomp, protecting all
and granting favors to none, dispensing its blessings, like the
dews of Heaven."
On December 1, 1834, in his 6th Annual Message, President
Andrew Jackson stated:
"Events have satisfied my mind, and I think the minds of the
American people, that the mischief and dangers which flow
from a national Bank far overbalance all its advantages.
The bold effort the present Bank has made to control the
Government, the distresses it has wantonly produced, the violence
of which it has been the occasion in one of our cities famed for its
observance of law and order, are but premonitions of the fate
which awaits the American people should they be deluded into a
perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like
it."
On January 30, 1835, in the midst of the "Bank War," President
Andrew Jackson survived an assassination attempt when a bearded
man, Richard Lawrence, fired two pistols at him at point blank
range.
For some reason the guns misfired. Davy Crockett, who was with
the President, wrestled the assailant down and disarmed him.
When King William IV of England heard of the incident, he wrote
expressing his concern. President Jackson wrote back:
"A kind of Providence had been pleased to shield me against the
recent attempt upon my life, and irresistibly carried many minds
to the belief in a superintending Providence."
On December 7, 1835, in his 7th Annual Message, President
Andrew Jackson stated:
"We have felt but one class of these dangers exhibited in
the contest waged by the Bank of the United States...
The Bank is, in fact, but one of the fruits of a system at war with
the genius of all our institutions,...whose great ultimate object and
inevitable result...is the consolidation of all power in our system in
one central government.
Lavish public disbursements and corporations with exclusive
privileges would be its substitutes for the original...checks and
balances of the Constitution...
Wherever this spirit has effected an alliance with political power,
tyranny and despotism have been the fruit...It has to be incessantly
watched, or it corrupts...
All history tells us that a free people should be watchful of
delegated power, and should never acquiesce in a practice
which will diminish their control over it."
On December 5, 1836, in his 8th Annual Message, President
Andrew Jackson stated:
"It was in view of these evils, together with the dangerous power
wielded by the Bank of the United States and its repugnance to our
Constitution, that I was induced to exert the power conferred upon
me by the American people to prevent the continuance of that
institution...
The lessons taught by the Bank of the United States cannot well
be lost upon the American people. They will take care never again
to place so tremendous a power in irresponsible hands."
On March 4, 1837, in his Farewell Address, President Jackson
stated:
"The distress and alarm which pervaded and agitated the whole
country when the Bank of the United States waged war upon the
people in order to compel them to submit to its demands cannot
yet be forgotten...
The Government would have passed from the hands of the many to
the hands of the few, and this organized money power from its
secret conclave would have dictated the choice of your highest
officers and compelled you to make peace or war, as best suited
their own wishes.
The forms of your Government might for a time have remained,
but its living spirit would have departed from it."
Jackson continued:
"The distress... inflicted on the people by the Bank are some of
the fruits of that system of policy which is continually striving
to enlarge the authority of the Federal Government beyond the
limits fixed by the Constitution...
The power which moneyed interest can exercise, when
concentrated under a single head and with our present system of
currency, was sufficiently demonstrated in the struggle made by
the Bank of the United States...
The paper-money system and its natural associations - monopoly
and exclusive privileges - have already struck their root too deep
in the soil, and it will require all your efforts to check its further
growth and to eradicate the evil."
Andrew Jackson continued:
"The men who profit by the abuses and desire to perpetuate
them will continue to besiege the halls of legislation in the
General Government...and will seek by every artifice to mislead
and deceive the public servants...
You have no longer any cause to fear danger from abroad;
your strength and power are well known throughout the
civilized world...
It is from within, among yourselves - from cupidity, from
corruption...and inordinate thirst for power - that factions
will be formed and liberty endangered.
It is against such designs, whatever disguise the actors may
assume, that you have especially to guard yourselves...
Providence has showered on this favored land blessings without
number, and has chosen you as the guardians of freedom, to
preserve it for the benefit of the human race.
May He who holds in His hands the destinies of nations, make you
worthy of the favors He has bestowed, and enable you, with pure
hearts and hands and sleepless vigilance, to guard and defend to
the end of time, the great charge He has committed to your keeping."
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Speaking In Metaphors
Speaking In Metaphors
By Larken Rose
July 8, 2014
Honey bees, if provoked enough, will commit suicide by
stinging something that is perceived as a threat to their
hive.
For the individual bee, this seems like a really bad idea.
"I'm going to die to slightly annoy whatever this giant thing
is, in the hopes that it might help persuade it to go away!"
But for the colony as a whole, the approach is very helpful.
Some human beings do something equally weird.
Throughout history, there have been individuals who threw
themselves in harm's way and stood up against injustice in
the hopes of improving society as a whole, even though it
often meant they would personally be robbed, assaulted,
caged, tortured or killed.
From a purely selfish perspective, such action seems downright
stupid.
In contrast, a whole lot of people have the attitude of "lay low,
don't make waves, look out for yourself and avoid trouble."
In the short term, that obviously benefits the obedient, quiet individual.
However, somewhat paradoxically, when ALL the individuals do
that, ALL of the individuals can end up suffering a lot worse than
if they had been trouble-makers and rabble-rousers.
For example, the 40,000,000+ Chinese who died in Mao's collectivist
authoritarian "Great Leap Forward" (gack) would have been better
off if on day ONE they all told Mao to go have intercourse with himself.
From the short-term perspective of EACH individual, it wasn't
worth standing up to the big, bad machine.
But from the long-term perspective of all of them (especially in
retrospect), it was insanely stupid for them NOT to disobey and
resist from the beginning.
And the same could be said of the many millions of people who
have quietly cooperated with other tyrannical, murderous regimes.
So, while I'm all in favor of self-preservation, to all those people
who think that laying low and keeping quiet actually makes you
safe, try reading a history book.
Yes, to be among the first to stand in front of the monster can
be really damn hazardous.
About the only thing worse is to live in a society where NO ONE
dares to stand against the monster.
So, whatever choice you make, at least be totally honest with
yourself:
1) "I'm going to be a complacent chicken-shit and hope that OTHER
people will win freedom and prosperity for me at some point;" or
2) "I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees!"
Those who deserve the ultimate contempt are the cowards who
not only do nothing to improve the world, but who GLOAT over
the suffering of those who DO try to improve things.
"Ha ha, you didn't do what the cops told you, and look what
happened to you!"
How twisted does someone have to be to take pride in being
an obedient coward, and delight in seeing people with actual
integrity and principles being harmed?
If you take pride in your chains, expect to wear them forever.
By Larken Rose
July 8, 2014
Honey bees, if provoked enough, will commit suicide by
stinging something that is perceived as a threat to their
hive.
For the individual bee, this seems like a really bad idea.
"I'm going to die to slightly annoy whatever this giant thing
is, in the hopes that it might help persuade it to go away!"
But for the colony as a whole, the approach is very helpful.
Some human beings do something equally weird.
Throughout history, there have been individuals who threw
themselves in harm's way and stood up against injustice in
the hopes of improving society as a whole, even though it
often meant they would personally be robbed, assaulted,
caged, tortured or killed.
From a purely selfish perspective, such action seems downright
stupid.
In contrast, a whole lot of people have the attitude of "lay low,
don't make waves, look out for yourself and avoid trouble."
In the short term, that obviously benefits the obedient, quiet individual.
However, somewhat paradoxically, when ALL the individuals do
that, ALL of the individuals can end up suffering a lot worse than
if they had been trouble-makers and rabble-rousers.
For example, the 40,000,000+ Chinese who died in Mao's collectivist
authoritarian "Great Leap Forward" (gack) would have been better
off if on day ONE they all told Mao to go have intercourse with himself.
From the short-term perspective of EACH individual, it wasn't
worth standing up to the big, bad machine.
But from the long-term perspective of all of them (especially in
retrospect), it was insanely stupid for them NOT to disobey and
resist from the beginning.
And the same could be said of the many millions of people who
have quietly cooperated with other tyrannical, murderous regimes.
So, while I'm all in favor of self-preservation, to all those people
who think that laying low and keeping quiet actually makes you
safe, try reading a history book.
Yes, to be among the first to stand in front of the monster can
be really damn hazardous.
About the only thing worse is to live in a society where NO ONE
dares to stand against the monster.
So, whatever choice you make, at least be totally honest with
yourself:
1) "I'm going to be a complacent chicken-shit and hope that OTHER
people will win freedom and prosperity for me at some point;" or
2) "I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees!"
Those who deserve the ultimate contempt are the cowards who
not only do nothing to improve the world, but who GLOAT over
the suffering of those who DO try to improve things.
"Ha ha, you didn't do what the cops told you, and look what
happened to you!"
How twisted does someone have to be to take pride in being
an obedient coward, and delight in seeing people with actual
integrity and principles being harmed?
If you take pride in your chains, expect to wear them forever.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Independence Day, 2014
Independence Day, 2014
By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano,
AntiWar.com
July 03, 2014
After a brief holiday last week, I returned to some heavy reading
courtesy of the federal government.
Some of the materials that I read were gratifying, and one was
terrifying.
In one week, the Supreme Court told the police that if they want to
examine the contents of our cellphones, whether at traffic stops or
serious crime scenes, they need to get a warrant.
The court told small-business owners that they needn’t pay for
government-mandated insurance policies that provide for abortions
for their employees, because the government is without authority
to command them to do so.
It told the president that he cannot wait until Saturday morning,
when the Senate is not in session, to appoint high-level officials
whose jobs require Senate confirmation, and then claim that they
do not require Senate confirmation because the Senate was in
recess.
And it told selfless parents who stay home to care for their disabled
children that the government may not force them to join health-
care labor unions and pay union dues against their will.
Buried in these opinions was a legal memorandum sent to the
president on July 16, 2010, nearly four years ago, and released
last week, after two years of litigation aimed at obtaining it.
The Obama administration had successfully resisted the efforts of
The New York Times and others to induce a judge to order the
release of the memo by claiming that it contained state secrets.
The judge who reviewed the memo concluded that it was merely a
legal opinion, and yet she referred to herself as being in “Alice in
Wonderland”:
The laws are public, and the judicial opinions interpreting them
are public, so how could a legal opinion be secret?
Notwithstanding her dilemma, she accepted the government’s
absurd claims, and the Times appealed.
Then the government shot itself in the foot when it surreptitiously
released a portion of its secret memo to NBC News.
This infuriated the panel of federal appellate judges hearing the
Times’ appeal, and they ordered the entire memo released.
Either it is secret or it is not, the court thundered, and the
government, which is bound by the transparency commanded by
the First Amendment, cannot pick and choose which parts of its
work to reveal to its favorite reporters and which to conceal from
the rest of us.
Last week, the administration released the memo.
It consists of 40 highly blacked-out pages, the conclusion of which
is that the president can order the CIA to kill Americans who are
present in foreign countries and who, in the opinion of high-level
government officials, pose a threat to Americans and may be
difficult to arrest.
The memorandum acknowledges that it is unprecedented in its
scope and novel in its conclusion, and requires predicting what
courts will do if they review it. Lawyers often predict for their
clients what courts will do, and thus from their predictions,
extrapolate advice for their clients.
But history has recorded no memo before this one that has advised
a president in writing that he is free to kill an American who is not
engaging in violence.
The logic of the memorandum states that Americans overseas who
join organizations that promote acts of terror are the equivalent of
enemy soldiers in uniform in wartime.
It follows, the memo argues, that because Congress has authorized
the president to kill foreign terrorists when they are in foreign
lands, he can kill Americans there, as well.
Conveniently, the memorandum never mentions the Fifth
Amendment to the Constitution, which famously commands that if
the government wants the life, liberty or property of any person, it
can only do so via due process.
Due process requires a jury trial with its attendant constitutional
protections.
The only recognized exceptions to this requirement are the
individual and collective right to immediate self-defense.
Since natural rights trump all positive law, a cop can kill a bank
robber who is shooting at him, and soldiers can kill enemy soldiers
who are about to shoot at them.
At the root of the recognized exceptions to the requirement of
due process is the active violence of the perpetrator, such that
due process is impossible and such that the threat to life is clear,
present and immediate.
The persons killed pursuant to this secret memo were all
Americans.
One, Anwar al-Awlaki, the stated target of the memo, was not
engaged in combat or armed or on a battlefield when he was
killed; he did not wear the uniform of an enemy army, and he
was not engaged in active violence at the time of his murder.
He was in a car in the desert in Yemen driving to meet
his 16 year old American son.
He had been under continuous surveillance by 12 American and
four Yemeni intelligence agents for the 48 hours preceding his
murder by a CIA drone.
The drone that killed him was soon followed by drones
that killed his son and two other Americans.
This week marks the anniversary of America’s birth as a free
nation, when we fought a war against a tyrant and seceded
from his kingdom.
We thought we had banished tyranny from our shores.
We thought we had ratified a Constitution that would compel
the government to respect our natural rights.
We thought we had established a society based upon the rule
of law.
We were wrong.
We have gone from an inherited tyrant to an elected one.
I have never heard President Obama say this, but it seems logical
that if he thinks he can lawfully kill Americans abroad, he also
thinks he can kill us here.
Happy Fourth of July.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of
New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel.
Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution.
http://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2014/07/02/
independence-day-2014
By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano,
AntiWar.com
July 03, 2014
After a brief holiday last week, I returned to some heavy reading
courtesy of the federal government.
Some of the materials that I read were gratifying, and one was
terrifying.
In one week, the Supreme Court told the police that if they want to
examine the contents of our cellphones, whether at traffic stops or
serious crime scenes, they need to get a warrant.
The court told small-business owners that they needn’t pay for
government-mandated insurance policies that provide for abortions
for their employees, because the government is without authority
to command them to do so.
It told the president that he cannot wait until Saturday morning,
when the Senate is not in session, to appoint high-level officials
whose jobs require Senate confirmation, and then claim that they
do not require Senate confirmation because the Senate was in
recess.
And it told selfless parents who stay home to care for their disabled
children that the government may not force them to join health-
care labor unions and pay union dues against their will.
Buried in these opinions was a legal memorandum sent to the
president on July 16, 2010, nearly four years ago, and released
last week, after two years of litigation aimed at obtaining it.
The Obama administration had successfully resisted the efforts of
The New York Times and others to induce a judge to order the
release of the memo by claiming that it contained state secrets.
The judge who reviewed the memo concluded that it was merely a
legal opinion, and yet she referred to herself as being in “Alice in
Wonderland”:
The laws are public, and the judicial opinions interpreting them
are public, so how could a legal opinion be secret?
Notwithstanding her dilemma, she accepted the government’s
absurd claims, and the Times appealed.
Then the government shot itself in the foot when it surreptitiously
released a portion of its secret memo to NBC News.
This infuriated the panel of federal appellate judges hearing the
Times’ appeal, and they ordered the entire memo released.
Either it is secret or it is not, the court thundered, and the
government, which is bound by the transparency commanded by
the First Amendment, cannot pick and choose which parts of its
work to reveal to its favorite reporters and which to conceal from
the rest of us.
Last week, the administration released the memo.
It consists of 40 highly blacked-out pages, the conclusion of which
is that the president can order the CIA to kill Americans who are
present in foreign countries and who, in the opinion of high-level
government officials, pose a threat to Americans and may be
difficult to arrest.
The memorandum acknowledges that it is unprecedented in its
scope and novel in its conclusion, and requires predicting what
courts will do if they review it. Lawyers often predict for their
clients what courts will do, and thus from their predictions,
extrapolate advice for their clients.
But history has recorded no memo before this one that has advised
a president in writing that he is free to kill an American who is not
engaging in violence.
The logic of the memorandum states that Americans overseas who
join organizations that promote acts of terror are the equivalent of
enemy soldiers in uniform in wartime.
It follows, the memo argues, that because Congress has authorized
the president to kill foreign terrorists when they are in foreign
lands, he can kill Americans there, as well.
Conveniently, the memorandum never mentions the Fifth
Amendment to the Constitution, which famously commands that if
the government wants the life, liberty or property of any person, it
can only do so via due process.
Due process requires a jury trial with its attendant constitutional
protections.
The only recognized exceptions to this requirement are the
individual and collective right to immediate self-defense.
Since natural rights trump all positive law, a cop can kill a bank
robber who is shooting at him, and soldiers can kill enemy soldiers
who are about to shoot at them.
At the root of the recognized exceptions to the requirement of
due process is the active violence of the perpetrator, such that
due process is impossible and such that the threat to life is clear,
present and immediate.
The persons killed pursuant to this secret memo were all
Americans.
One, Anwar al-Awlaki, the stated target of the memo, was not
engaged in combat or armed or on a battlefield when he was
killed; he did not wear the uniform of an enemy army, and he
was not engaged in active violence at the time of his murder.
He was in a car in the desert in Yemen driving to meet
his 16 year old American son.
He had been under continuous surveillance by 12 American and
four Yemeni intelligence agents for the 48 hours preceding his
murder by a CIA drone.
The drone that killed him was soon followed by drones
that killed his son and two other Americans.
This week marks the anniversary of America’s birth as a free
nation, when we fought a war against a tyrant and seceded
from his kingdom.
We thought we had banished tyranny from our shores.
We thought we had ratified a Constitution that would compel
the government to respect our natural rights.
We thought we had established a society based upon the rule
of law.
We were wrong.
We have gone from an inherited tyrant to an elected one.
I have never heard President Obama say this, but it seems logical
that if he thinks he can lawfully kill Americans abroad, he also
thinks he can kill us here.
Happy Fourth of July.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of
New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel.
Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution.
http://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2014/07/02/
independence-day-2014
Monday, June 30, 2014
Smedley Butler And The Racket That Is War
Smedley Butler And The Racket That Is War
By Sheldon Richman
Information Clearing House
Monday, June 30, 2014
From 1898 to 1931, Smedley Darlington Butler was a member of
the U.S. Marine Corps.
By the time he retired he had achieved what was then the corps’s
highest rank, major general, and by the time he died in 1940, at 58,
he had more decorations, including two medals of honor, than any
other Marine.
During his years in the corps he was sent to the Philippines (at the
time of the uprising against the American occupation), China,
France (during World War I), Mexico, Central America, and Haiti.
In light of this record Butler presumably shocked a good many
people when in 1935 — as a second world war was looming — he
wrote in the magazine Common Sense:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and
during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle
man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short,
I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism [corporatism]. I
helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil
interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for
the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the
raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of
Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking
House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the
Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I
helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in
1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went
on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given
Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his
racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
That same year he published a short book with the now-famous title
War Is a Racket, for which he is best known today. Butler opened
the book with these words:
War is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most
vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one
in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
He followed this by noting:
“For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war
was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.
Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they
are today, I must face it and speak out.”
Butler went on to describe who bears the costs of war — the men
who die or return home with wrecked lives, and the taxpayers —
and who profits — the companies that sell goods and services to
the military.
The term military-industrial complex would not gain prominence
until 1961, when Dwight Eisenhower used it in his presidential
farewell address.
Writing in the mid-1930s, Butler foresaw a U.S. war with Japan to
protect trade with China and investments in the Philippines, and
declared that it would make no sense to the average American:
We would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war, a war
that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of
thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of
thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.
Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit,
fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be
piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders.
Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.…
But what does it profit the men who are killed?
What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and
their sweethearts?
What does it profit their children?
What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war
means huge profits?
Noting that “until 1898 [and the Spanish-American War] we didn’t
own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America,” he
observed that after becoming an expansionist world power, the
U.S. government’s debt swelled 25 times and “we forgot George
Washington’s warning about ‘entangling alliances.’ We went to
war. We acquired outside territory.”
It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average
American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements.
For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld
rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always
transferred to the people, who do not profit.
Butler detailed the huge profits of companies that sold goods to
the government during past wars and interventions and the banks
that made money handling the government’s bonds.
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are
six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent.
But war-time profits, ah!
That is another matter, twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred,
and even eighteen hundred per cent, the sky is the limit.
All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let’s get it.
Of course, it isn’t put that crudely in war time.
It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and
‘we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,’ but the profits jump
and leap and skyrocket, and are safely pocketed.
And who provides these returns?
“We all pay them, in taxation.… But the soldier pays the biggest
part of the bill.”
His description of conditions at veterans’ hospitals reminded me of
what we’re hearing today about the dilapidated veterans’ health
care system.
Butler expressed his outrage at how members of the armed forces
are essentially tricked into going to war, at a pitiful wage.
Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to
die.
This was the “war to end all wars.” This was the “war to make the
world safe for democracy.”
No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going
and their dying would mean huge war profits.
No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down
by bullets made by their own brothers here.
No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross
might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents.
They were just told it was to be a “glorious adventure.”
Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided
to make them help pay for the war, too.
So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.
Butler proposed ways to make war less likely.
Unlike others, he had little faith in disarmament conferences and
the like.
Rather, he suggested three measures:
(1) take the profit out of war by conscripting “capital and industry
and labor” at $30 a month before soldiers are conscripted;
(2) submit the question of entry into a proposed war to a vote only
of “those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying”;
(3) “make certain that our military forces are truly forces for
defense only.”
It’s unlikely that these measures would ever be adopted by
Congress or signed by a president, and of course conscription is
morally objectionable, even if the idea of drafting war profiteers
has a certain appeal.
But Butler’s heart was in the right place. He was aware that
his program would not succeed:
“I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past.”
Yet in 1936 he formalized his opposition to war in his proposed
constitutional “Amendment for Peace.” It contained three
provisions:
The removal of the members of the land armed forces from within
the continental limits of the United States and the Panama Canal
Zone for any cause whatsoever is prohibited.
The vessels of the United States Navy, or of the other branches of
the armed service, are hereby prohibited from steaming, for any
reason whatsoever except on an errand of mercy, more than five
hundred miles from our coast.
Aircraft of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps is hereby prohibited
from flying, for any reason whatsoever, more than seven hundred
and fifty miles beyond the coast of the United States.
He elaborated on the amendment and his philosophy of defense
in an article in Woman’s Home Companion, September 1936.
It’s a cliche of course to say, “The more things change, the more
they stay the same,” but on reading Butler today, who can resist
thinking it?
As we watch Barack Obama unilaterally and illegally reinsert the
U.S. military into the Iraqi disaster it helped cause and sink deeper
into the violence in Syria, we might all join in the declaration with
which Butler closes his book:
TO HELL WITH WAR!
Sheldon Richman is vice president of The Future of Freedom
Foundation and editor of FFF's monthly journal, Future of
Freedom. For 15 years he was editor of The Freeman, published
by the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38951.htm
By Sheldon Richman
Information Clearing House
Monday, June 30, 2014
From 1898 to 1931, Smedley Darlington Butler was a member of
the U.S. Marine Corps.
By the time he retired he had achieved what was then the corps’s
highest rank, major general, and by the time he died in 1940, at 58,
he had more decorations, including two medals of honor, than any
other Marine.
During his years in the corps he was sent to the Philippines (at the
time of the uprising against the American occupation), China,
France (during World War I), Mexico, Central America, and Haiti.
In light of this record Butler presumably shocked a good many
people when in 1935 — as a second world war was looming — he
wrote in the magazine Common Sense:
I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and
during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle
man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short,
I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism [corporatism]. I
helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil
interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for
the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the
raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of
Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking
House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the
Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I
helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in
1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went
on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given
Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his
racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
That same year he published a short book with the now-famous title
War Is a Racket, for which he is best known today. Butler opened
the book with these words:
War is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most
vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one
in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
He followed this by noting:
“For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war
was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.
Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they
are today, I must face it and speak out.”
Butler went on to describe who bears the costs of war — the men
who die or return home with wrecked lives, and the taxpayers —
and who profits — the companies that sell goods and services to
the military.
The term military-industrial complex would not gain prominence
until 1961, when Dwight Eisenhower used it in his presidential
farewell address.
Writing in the mid-1930s, Butler foresaw a U.S. war with Japan to
protect trade with China and investments in the Philippines, and
declared that it would make no sense to the average American:
We would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war, a war
that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of
thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of
thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.
Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit,
fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be
piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders.
Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.…
But what does it profit the men who are killed?
What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and
their sweethearts?
What does it profit their children?
What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war
means huge profits?
Noting that “until 1898 [and the Spanish-American War] we didn’t
own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America,” he
observed that after becoming an expansionist world power, the
U.S. government’s debt swelled 25 times and “we forgot George
Washington’s warning about ‘entangling alliances.’ We went to
war. We acquired outside territory.”
It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average
American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements.
For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld
rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always
transferred to the people, who do not profit.
Butler detailed the huge profits of companies that sold goods to
the government during past wars and interventions and the banks
that made money handling the government’s bonds.
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are
six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent.
But war-time profits, ah!
That is another matter, twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred,
and even eighteen hundred per cent, the sky is the limit.
All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let’s get it.
Of course, it isn’t put that crudely in war time.
It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and
‘we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,’ but the profits jump
and leap and skyrocket, and are safely pocketed.
And who provides these returns?
“We all pay them, in taxation.… But the soldier pays the biggest
part of the bill.”
His description of conditions at veterans’ hospitals reminded me of
what we’re hearing today about the dilapidated veterans’ health
care system.
Butler expressed his outrage at how members of the armed forces
are essentially tricked into going to war, at a pitiful wage.
Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to
die.
This was the “war to end all wars.” This was the “war to make the
world safe for democracy.”
No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their going
and their dying would mean huge war profits.
No one told these American soldiers that they might be shot down
by bullets made by their own brothers here.
No one told them that the ships on which they were going to cross
might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents.
They were just told it was to be a “glorious adventure.”
Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided
to make them help pay for the war, too.
So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.
Butler proposed ways to make war less likely.
Unlike others, he had little faith in disarmament conferences and
the like.
Rather, he suggested three measures:
(1) take the profit out of war by conscripting “capital and industry
and labor” at $30 a month before soldiers are conscripted;
(2) submit the question of entry into a proposed war to a vote only
of “those who would be called upon to do the fighting and dying”;
(3) “make certain that our military forces are truly forces for
defense only.”
It’s unlikely that these measures would ever be adopted by
Congress or signed by a president, and of course conscription is
morally objectionable, even if the idea of drafting war profiteers
has a certain appeal.
But Butler’s heart was in the right place. He was aware that
his program would not succeed:
“I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past.”
Yet in 1936 he formalized his opposition to war in his proposed
constitutional “Amendment for Peace.” It contained three
provisions:
The removal of the members of the land armed forces from within
the continental limits of the United States and the Panama Canal
Zone for any cause whatsoever is prohibited.
The vessels of the United States Navy, or of the other branches of
the armed service, are hereby prohibited from steaming, for any
reason whatsoever except on an errand of mercy, more than five
hundred miles from our coast.
Aircraft of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps is hereby prohibited
from flying, for any reason whatsoever, more than seven hundred
and fifty miles beyond the coast of the United States.
He elaborated on the amendment and his philosophy of defense
in an article in Woman’s Home Companion, September 1936.
It’s a cliche of course to say, “The more things change, the more
they stay the same,” but on reading Butler today, who can resist
thinking it?
As we watch Barack Obama unilaterally and illegally reinsert the
U.S. military into the Iraqi disaster it helped cause and sink deeper
into the violence in Syria, we might all join in the declaration with
which Butler closes his book:
TO HELL WITH WAR!
Sheldon Richman is vice president of The Future of Freedom
Foundation and editor of FFF's monthly journal, Future of
Freedom. For 15 years he was editor of The Freeman, published
by the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38951.htm
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Horror and Hope*
Horror and Hope*
By Andrea Brower
Common Dreams
June 28, 2014
It has been a particularly depressing week on the news. From the
violence of war to that of poverty, we lack no evidence that things
are bad, perhaps getting worse.
During commercials we are advised to seek-out prozac, isolated
and pathologized for our sorrow.
We must not numb to the horror of the world, or turn a blind eye
and pretend that “it’s all good.”
It’s not.
But at the same time we cannot end with the tale of despair and
futility, taking the horror as evidence that we are incapable of
something better.
We must cultivate active hope, and turn it into a deeply political
and subversive act.
Our global society is structured around competitive hoarding,
manufactured scarcity and deprivation, hierarchy and distinction
between the deserving and the undeserving.
It’s tempting to blame the world’s troubles on “bad people” greedy
banksters, religious fundamentalists, corrupt politicians, choose
your demon.
But the greatest of horrors, including accelerating ecological
catastrophe, are inherent to the racist and patriarchal imperialist-
capitalist system that we create and re-create each day.
Increasingly, we have come (or been led) to believe that this is as
good as it gets, the best we can do as a hopelessly sinful species.
Capitalism is a system that demands the worst of our human
capabilities.
We are rewarded for greed, shamed for failure to accumulate
and consume fashionably.
We are taught to honor and strive to emulate those who have
too much, deride those without enough.
We bestow lavish wealth to those who steal what should belong to
us all, and imprison those who are made desperate by destitution.
We are directed to see our own worth as the ability to outdo
others, to claim our strength in another’s weakness.
We are trained in a logic and morality of numbers rather than
people, to consider human sacrifice for an abstract market rational.
And perhaps most counter-intuitive, we are forced into apathy
or fear of the “Other.”
We turn to all sorts of justifications to normalize a world in which
165 million children are so malnourished that they are physically
and cognitively stunted, and people are shot for crossing imagined
boundaries in search of a livelihood.
By perverted logic or emotional defense, we find ways to accept
the extreme suffering that is always in our face, and it becomes
simply routine to step-over the shelter-less body bundled on cold
cement.
All while we are instructed to “be good people.”
Yet despite the savagery that our system demands, we still do not
abandon our most innate drives for mutual-aid, compassion and
solidarity.
In fact, what is most evident all around us, all the time, is our
incredible generosity, sensitivity to fairness and the well-being
of others.
In the greater part of what we do, we truly are the “good people”
that we yearn to be.
The real brilliance of the human spirit is that we reflect such a
depth of selfless care and kindness in how we live together, even
though we are conditioned to view ourselves as possessed above
all by our self-interested “nature.”
In just observing our primary interactions, we might be reminded
that we are completely capable of living in a society where
cooperation, egalitarianism and democracy actually structure our
work, daily lives, and local and global societies, where the best of
our human attributes are cultivated, honored, and incentivized.
We are not short on the qualities necessary to organize systems
that equitably meet human needs, including for joy, creative self-
expression, leisure, voice and participation.
As anthropologist David Graeber has suggested, the very foundation
of all human sociability is a giving according to abilities and
receiving according to needs.
Liberatory visions might grow from recognizing our cooperative
dependencies and their boundless potentials.
There is no need for naiveté in this task, contradiction and duality
are built into the very essence of existence, and we will always
have to strive against the worst in the human spirit.
Nor is it helpful (or realistic) to passively hope for more enlightened
selves in an abstract utopian future.
Instead, we must actively make systems that motivate and inspire
the most beautiful of our capabilities, and abandon those that bring
out the most wretched in us.
While the question of pragmatically organizing alternatives
is a somewhat different topic, it should not strike us as so
overwhelming given our creative problem solving capacities,
the types of social organization that have worked in the past,
and currently existing (though systematically limited)
possibilities.
And there is no question that decisions being made right now will
either deepen the most pernicious of corporate imperialist-
capitalism, or move more towards, and open greater possibilities
for, ecological-sanity, actual democracy, egalitarianism and
demilitarization.
Horizons of possibility can expand rapidly and dramatically, and
what appears as socially and politically possible today should not
limit our imaginations of what could be possible tomorrow.
It is also true that our systems are deeply entrenched, and there
are people at the top of our pyramids who will not simply hand
over their power.
We will only challenge the cruel modern structures of privilege and
poverty if we overcome our collective dis-empowerment, that
strange but pervasive sense that while we might be able to do
anything as individuals (through neuroscience, or prayer, or good
old hard-work, or whatever), together we are just a violent, greedy
and generally lousy bunch.
Hope, the belief in better possibilities, lies within one another
and collective struggle.
Let’s allow our hearts to be broken by the horror we witness
everyday, but let us also remember that the depth of our pain
is the depth of our love.
That love, in ourselves and reflected in others, should be all the
evidence we need that the fight for a better world is never futile.
Andrea Brower is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology
at the University of Auckland.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/28-4
By Andrea Brower
Common Dreams
June 28, 2014
It has been a particularly depressing week on the news. From the
violence of war to that of poverty, we lack no evidence that things
are bad, perhaps getting worse.
During commercials we are advised to seek-out prozac, isolated
and pathologized for our sorrow.
We must not numb to the horror of the world, or turn a blind eye
and pretend that “it’s all good.”
It’s not.
But at the same time we cannot end with the tale of despair and
futility, taking the horror as evidence that we are incapable of
something better.
We must cultivate active hope, and turn it into a deeply political
and subversive act.
Our global society is structured around competitive hoarding,
manufactured scarcity and deprivation, hierarchy and distinction
between the deserving and the undeserving.
It’s tempting to blame the world’s troubles on “bad people” greedy
banksters, religious fundamentalists, corrupt politicians, choose
your demon.
But the greatest of horrors, including accelerating ecological
catastrophe, are inherent to the racist and patriarchal imperialist-
capitalist system that we create and re-create each day.
Increasingly, we have come (or been led) to believe that this is as
good as it gets, the best we can do as a hopelessly sinful species.
Capitalism is a system that demands the worst of our human
capabilities.
We are rewarded for greed, shamed for failure to accumulate
and consume fashionably.
We are taught to honor and strive to emulate those who have
too much, deride those without enough.
We bestow lavish wealth to those who steal what should belong to
us all, and imprison those who are made desperate by destitution.
We are directed to see our own worth as the ability to outdo
others, to claim our strength in another’s weakness.
We are trained in a logic and morality of numbers rather than
people, to consider human sacrifice for an abstract market rational.
And perhaps most counter-intuitive, we are forced into apathy
or fear of the “Other.”
We turn to all sorts of justifications to normalize a world in which
165 million children are so malnourished that they are physically
and cognitively stunted, and people are shot for crossing imagined
boundaries in search of a livelihood.
By perverted logic or emotional defense, we find ways to accept
the extreme suffering that is always in our face, and it becomes
simply routine to step-over the shelter-less body bundled on cold
cement.
All while we are instructed to “be good people.”
Yet despite the savagery that our system demands, we still do not
abandon our most innate drives for mutual-aid, compassion and
solidarity.
In fact, what is most evident all around us, all the time, is our
incredible generosity, sensitivity to fairness and the well-being
of others.
In the greater part of what we do, we truly are the “good people”
that we yearn to be.
The real brilliance of the human spirit is that we reflect such a
depth of selfless care and kindness in how we live together, even
though we are conditioned to view ourselves as possessed above
all by our self-interested “nature.”
In just observing our primary interactions, we might be reminded
that we are completely capable of living in a society where
cooperation, egalitarianism and democracy actually structure our
work, daily lives, and local and global societies, where the best of
our human attributes are cultivated, honored, and incentivized.
We are not short on the qualities necessary to organize systems
that equitably meet human needs, including for joy, creative self-
expression, leisure, voice and participation.
As anthropologist David Graeber has suggested, the very foundation
of all human sociability is a giving according to abilities and
receiving according to needs.
Liberatory visions might grow from recognizing our cooperative
dependencies and their boundless potentials.
There is no need for naiveté in this task, contradiction and duality
are built into the very essence of existence, and we will always
have to strive against the worst in the human spirit.
Nor is it helpful (or realistic) to passively hope for more enlightened
selves in an abstract utopian future.
Instead, we must actively make systems that motivate and inspire
the most beautiful of our capabilities, and abandon those that bring
out the most wretched in us.
While the question of pragmatically organizing alternatives
is a somewhat different topic, it should not strike us as so
overwhelming given our creative problem solving capacities,
the types of social organization that have worked in the past,
and currently existing (though systematically limited)
possibilities.
And there is no question that decisions being made right now will
either deepen the most pernicious of corporate imperialist-
capitalism, or move more towards, and open greater possibilities
for, ecological-sanity, actual democracy, egalitarianism and
demilitarization.
Horizons of possibility can expand rapidly and dramatically, and
what appears as socially and politically possible today should not
limit our imaginations of what could be possible tomorrow.
It is also true that our systems are deeply entrenched, and there
are people at the top of our pyramids who will not simply hand
over their power.
We will only challenge the cruel modern structures of privilege and
poverty if we overcome our collective dis-empowerment, that
strange but pervasive sense that while we might be able to do
anything as individuals (through neuroscience, or prayer, or good
old hard-work, or whatever), together we are just a violent, greedy
and generally lousy bunch.
Hope, the belief in better possibilities, lies within one another
and collective struggle.
Let’s allow our hearts to be broken by the horror we witness
everyday, but let us also remember that the depth of our pain
is the depth of our love.
That love, in ourselves and reflected in others, should be all the
evidence we need that the fight for a better world is never futile.
Andrea Brower is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology
at the University of Auckland.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/28-4
Thursday, June 26, 2014
One Day In 1913
One Day In 1913
By Jon Rappoport
Activist Post
June 26, 2014
President Woodrow Wilson was one of those men who saw a horrible
danger to his country looked it in the eye, and decided that instead
of trying to decentralize and dismantle that overarching power, he
would hope against hope that greater cooperation among leaders of
nations would bring sanity and peace and freedom of the individual.
Of course, he was wrong.
Wilson knew he was entangled with those very powers that were
destroying the best of what American stood for.
Nevertheless, no modern President has made more revealing
comments on the existence and nature of the shadow government,
the real rulers of America.
This was his 1913 thought:
“…the control of credit…has become dangerously centralized…
The great monopoly in this country is the monopoly of big credits.
So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual
energy of development are out of the question."
“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our
system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the
nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few
men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public
interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings
in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very
reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine
economic freedom."
“This is the greatest question of all, and to this statesmen must
address themselves with an earnest determination to serve the
long future and the true liberties of men. This money trust, or,
as it should be more properly called, this credit trust, of which
Congress has begun an investigation, is no myth; it is no imaginary
thing."
“It is not an ordinary trust like another. It doesn’t do business
every day. It does business only when there is occasion to do
business. You can sometimes do something large when it isn’t
watching, but when it is watching, you can’t do much. And I
have seen men squeezed by it; I have seen men who, as they
themselves expressed it, were put ‘out of business by Wall
Street,’ because Wall Street found them inconvenient and didn’t
want their competition.”
(From “The New Freedom—A call for the emancipation of
the generous energies of a people,” Chapter 8, “Monopoly
or Opportunity,” 1913)
Actually, six years earlier, Wilson had another compelling thought:
“Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer
insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation
must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed
must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must
be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of
unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be
obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world
may be overlooked or left unused.”
(unpublished paper, 1907, quoted in “The Rising American Empire,”
by Richard Warner Van Alstyne, 1960)
In a speech delivered on September 5, 1919, about the Peace
Treaty ending WW1, Wilson stated:
“The real reason that the war that we have just finished took place
was that Germany was afraid her commercial rivals were going to
get the better of her, and the reason why some nations went into
the war against Germany was that they thought Germany would get
the commercial advantage of them. The seed of the jealousy, the
seed of the deep-seated hatred was hot, successful commercial and
industrial rivalry.”
And from “The New Freedom,” 1913, we have this blockbuster:
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided
to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in
the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody,
are afraid of something. They know that there is a power
somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked,
so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above
their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. They know
that America is not a place of which it can be said, as it used to
be, that a man may choose his own calling and pursue it just as
far as his abilities enable him to pursue it; because to-day, if he
enters certain fields, there are organizations which will use means
against him that will prevent his building up a business which they
do not want to have built up; organizations that will see to it that
the ground is cut from under him and the markets shut against him.
For if he begins to sell to certain retail dealers, to any retail
dealers, the monopoly will refuse to sell to those dealers, and
those dealers, afraid, will not buy the new man’s wares.”
And again, from “The New Freedom”:
"American industry is not free, as once it was free; American
enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital is finding it
harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete
with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not
prevent the strong from crushing the weak. That is the reason, and
because the strong have crushed the weak the strong dominate the
industry and the economic life of this country. No man can deny
that the lines of endeavor have more and more narrowed and
stiffened; no man who knows anything about the development of
industry in this country can have failed to observe that the larger
kinds of credit are more and more difficult to obtain, unless you
obtain them upon the terms of uniting your efforts with those who
already control the industries of the country; and nobody can fail
to observe that any man who tries to set himself up in competition
with any process of manufacture which has been taken under the
control of large combinations of capital will presently find himself
either squeezed out or obliged to sell and allow himself to be
absorbed.”
In case there is any question about whom Wilson is referring to,
when he suggests that people of talent are being edged out of the
marketplace, here is a follow-up quote, from The New Freedom:
“The treasury of America lies in those ambitions, those energies,
that cannot be restricted to a special favored class. It depends
upon the inventions of unknown men, upon the originations of
unknown men, upon the ambitions of unknown men. Every country
is renewed out of the ranks of the unknown, not out of the ranks
of those already famous and powerful and in control.”
And finally:
“The dominating danger in this land is not the existence of great
individual combinations, — that is dangerous enough in all
conscience, — but the combination of the combinations, — of the
railways, the manufacturing enterprises, the great mining projects,
the great enterprises for the development of the natural water-
powers of the country, threaded together in the personnel of a
series of boards of directors into a ‘community of interest’ more
formidable than any conceivable single combination that dare
appear in the open.”
The suppression of Tesla, Royal Rife, Dr. William Frederick Koch,
Dr. Joseph Gold, the FDA’s war against natural health, the
sidelining of many energy solutions, such as tidal projects for the
production of electricity, the alignment of universities and giant
corporations with the National Security State, the trashing of the
public education system, the federal backing of pseudo-scientific
and destructive medicine, the centralized control of major media…
these and many more developments are covered by Wilson’s
statements.
The shadow power Wilson refers to are the “framers of reality”
for the masses.
Jon Rappoport is the author of two explosive collections, "The
Matrix Revealed" and "Exit From the Matrix" Jon was a candidate
for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California.
Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative
reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and
health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern,
and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe.
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/06/one-day-in-1913-woodrow-
wilson-had.html#more
By Jon Rappoport
Activist Post
June 26, 2014
President Woodrow Wilson was one of those men who saw a horrible
danger to his country looked it in the eye, and decided that instead
of trying to decentralize and dismantle that overarching power, he
would hope against hope that greater cooperation among leaders of
nations would bring sanity and peace and freedom of the individual.
Of course, he was wrong.
Wilson knew he was entangled with those very powers that were
destroying the best of what American stood for.
Nevertheless, no modern President has made more revealing
comments on the existence and nature of the shadow government,
the real rulers of America.
This was his 1913 thought:
“…the control of credit…has become dangerously centralized…
The great monopoly in this country is the monopoly of big credits.
So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual
energy of development are out of the question."
“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our
system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the
nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few
men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public
interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings
in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very
reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine
economic freedom."
“This is the greatest question of all, and to this statesmen must
address themselves with an earnest determination to serve the
long future and the true liberties of men. This money trust, or,
as it should be more properly called, this credit trust, of which
Congress has begun an investigation, is no myth; it is no imaginary
thing."
“It is not an ordinary trust like another. It doesn’t do business
every day. It does business only when there is occasion to do
business. You can sometimes do something large when it isn’t
watching, but when it is watching, you can’t do much. And I
have seen men squeezed by it; I have seen men who, as they
themselves expressed it, were put ‘out of business by Wall
Street,’ because Wall Street found them inconvenient and didn’t
want their competition.”
(From “The New Freedom—A call for the emancipation of
the generous energies of a people,” Chapter 8, “Monopoly
or Opportunity,” 1913)
Actually, six years earlier, Wilson had another compelling thought:
“Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer
insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation
must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed
must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must
be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of
unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be
obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world
may be overlooked or left unused.”
(unpublished paper, 1907, quoted in “The Rising American Empire,”
by Richard Warner Van Alstyne, 1960)
In a speech delivered on September 5, 1919, about the Peace
Treaty ending WW1, Wilson stated:
“The real reason that the war that we have just finished took place
was that Germany was afraid her commercial rivals were going to
get the better of her, and the reason why some nations went into
the war against Germany was that they thought Germany would get
the commercial advantage of them. The seed of the jealousy, the
seed of the deep-seated hatred was hot, successful commercial and
industrial rivalry.”
And from “The New Freedom,” 1913, we have this blockbuster:
“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided
to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in
the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody,
are afraid of something. They know that there is a power
somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked,
so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above
their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. They know
that America is not a place of which it can be said, as it used to
be, that a man may choose his own calling and pursue it just as
far as his abilities enable him to pursue it; because to-day, if he
enters certain fields, there are organizations which will use means
against him that will prevent his building up a business which they
do not want to have built up; organizations that will see to it that
the ground is cut from under him and the markets shut against him.
For if he begins to sell to certain retail dealers, to any retail
dealers, the monopoly will refuse to sell to those dealers, and
those dealers, afraid, will not buy the new man’s wares.”
And again, from “The New Freedom”:
"American industry is not free, as once it was free; American
enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital is finding it
harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete
with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not
prevent the strong from crushing the weak. That is the reason, and
because the strong have crushed the weak the strong dominate the
industry and the economic life of this country. No man can deny
that the lines of endeavor have more and more narrowed and
stiffened; no man who knows anything about the development of
industry in this country can have failed to observe that the larger
kinds of credit are more and more difficult to obtain, unless you
obtain them upon the terms of uniting your efforts with those who
already control the industries of the country; and nobody can fail
to observe that any man who tries to set himself up in competition
with any process of manufacture which has been taken under the
control of large combinations of capital will presently find himself
either squeezed out or obliged to sell and allow himself to be
absorbed.”
In case there is any question about whom Wilson is referring to,
when he suggests that people of talent are being edged out of the
marketplace, here is a follow-up quote, from The New Freedom:
“The treasury of America lies in those ambitions, those energies,
that cannot be restricted to a special favored class. It depends
upon the inventions of unknown men, upon the originations of
unknown men, upon the ambitions of unknown men. Every country
is renewed out of the ranks of the unknown, not out of the ranks
of those already famous and powerful and in control.”
And finally:
“The dominating danger in this land is not the existence of great
individual combinations, — that is dangerous enough in all
conscience, — but the combination of the combinations, — of the
railways, the manufacturing enterprises, the great mining projects,
the great enterprises for the development of the natural water-
powers of the country, threaded together in the personnel of a
series of boards of directors into a ‘community of interest’ more
formidable than any conceivable single combination that dare
appear in the open.”
The suppression of Tesla, Royal Rife, Dr. William Frederick Koch,
Dr. Joseph Gold, the FDA’s war against natural health, the
sidelining of many energy solutions, such as tidal projects for the
production of electricity, the alignment of universities and giant
corporations with the National Security State, the trashing of the
public education system, the federal backing of pseudo-scientific
and destructive medicine, the centralized control of major media…
these and many more developments are covered by Wilson’s
statements.
The shadow power Wilson refers to are the “framers of reality”
for the masses.
Jon Rappoport is the author of two explosive collections, "The
Matrix Revealed" and "Exit From the Matrix" Jon was a candidate
for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California.
Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative
reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and
health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern,
and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe.
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/06/one-day-in-1913-woodrow-
wilson-had.html#more
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
There Are No “Sheeple”
There Are No “Sheeple”
By Marcel Votluck
Disinfomation.com
June 24, 2014
There’s an alarming tendency among radical intellectuals to dismiss
those who don’t “get it” as mere lambs being led to slaughter,
meek “sheeple”.
But how does this reflect on us, our values, and our mentality vis a
vis those sustaining the State?
It’s easy to understand the widespread frustration in anti-
authoritarian circles over people who seemingly have failed
to seek enlightenment about the hegemonic hubris we face.
Watch people’s reactions when you question one tenet of the
Statist religion; they’ll become angry, defensive, and try to shut
down the discussion.
They’ll often poison the dialogue by questioning your intelligence,
doubting your sanity and besmirching your personal character,
assuming they even let you talk in the first place!
We’re “crazy” or “naïve” or “unrealistic” for expressing our
unyielding dissatisfaction with the status quo, for upholding
the same moral standards to Presidents and Congressmen
that we apply to everyone else.
Well, if we are “crazy extremists” then the Statist horde must be
a pack of naïve “sheep”, ha!
Hence there are many who heap scorn on those perky activists
who implore us to “Rock the Vote!”, the “moderates” who are
afraid of conviction, the advocates of “good government”, and
the troops whose blood feeds the Machine.
It’s easy and fun to hang out on forums and websites ripping on
the ignorant Joe and Jane Sixpacks who put up with it all:
“These people only want bread and circuses and HBO! We could
have something better but people are too stupid and weak! Oh
forget them, we’re all screwed anyway!”
Just remember that you were likely a “sheep” once too.
Alas, this sort of insular arrogance is not only more prevalent
than we’d like to admit, it’s our own worst enemy.
The idea of stupid, hopeless “sheeple” evokes the contempt
that a hardcore Statist has for human ability, reason, freedom,
and, for lack of a better word, spirit.
I often argue that there exists a terribly negative psychology
belying the State and related institutions.
It’s a subtle, malevolent, cynical view of life and human nature
and existence; a view of the world as something to be feared,
a dark, scary place filled with decadent people, unpredictable
catastrophes, and endless problems that, naturally, only the
State can address.
Every law, every program, every crusade, every war, every act of
social engineering on their part implies that people are only fit to
be herded like disobedient livestock.
And people buy it.
It’s this psychology at work when someone goes into near-hysterics
upon hearing the most timid of anti-State arguments.
It’s what makes people mumble, “Neither anarchy nor limited
government can work, because people are not perfect.”
Look at how people throw up their hands and put up with Statist
excesses:
“What do I know? Who am I to challenge this system? Even if I
don’t like it, it’s the lesser of two evils.”
It’s what makes people turn to strong leaders and dictators in
times of crises.
Perhaps this is a deep-seated lack of self-esteem and an
internalized need for authority figures in an intimidating
world?
At any rate, we don’t need hired goons to maintain this hegemony
because we tear our own selves down; we convince ourselves of the
lack of alternatives.
Thus the State depends on (and encourages) psychological
repression just as much as any overt act of oppression.
When people contemptuously dismiss others as “sheep” it feeds
into and reinforces this cynical mentality, not in the minds of the
so-called “sheep” but rather the ones who are supposed to be
proposing a radical alternative!
The more one dismisses those who don’t “get it” (or even snubs
his allies who don’t fall lock-step with him on every issue), the
less likely he is to see any hope of victory, and the less he bothers
to strive for it.
Finally, he rationalizes his failures by labeling everyone else as somehow unworthy or inadequate.
Look at how the various national governments tear people down
and lull us out of conceiving saner alternatives: they get in the way
of peaceful, enterprising entrepreneurs; they murder foreigners
with bombs; they convince us to fear phantom terrorists or even
our own neighbors; they use welfare checks, feel-good racial hiring
quotas, and moral crusades “for the children” as bribery for votes;
they pressure us to give our lives for a comfortable sense of “God
and Country”; they use the media and schools to endear us to the
State as not a criminal gang but rather a benefactor…the list goes
on.
And just as people believe that they need all this hubris in order to
have a functioning, sane society, so do haughty intellectuals believe
that people are weak and stupid enough to deserve it.
In a perverse and subtle way, our cynicism and silence in the face
of all this hubris serves as a tacit stamp of approval and a grand act
of capitulation equal to that of the most loyal Federal employee.
Another way this attitude hurts the cause has to do with our lack
of solidarity.
Libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, syndicalists, agorists, mutualists,
eco-anarchists…our diversity is a good thing but a certain “us versus
them” mentality has arisen that often gets taken too far.
It matters little whether we’re talking about various inter-factional
feuds or “us” (the enlightened radicals) versus “them” (the
unenlightened general public) because the effect is the same.
These attitudes reinforce our image and status as outsiders, drive
away potential allies among the public we wish to radicalize, and
alienate us from our goal of revolution.
Most poignantly, they evoke the same kind of divisions on which
the modern social-democratic State is based.
After all, if the State is a monopoly on legal violence, then politics
is the means by which one channels that violence in order to get
what he wants.
It’s a harried rat-race for power and influence, a zero-sum game
in which one party must win and the other must lose, thus all are
pitted against each other in order to advance their own interests
and are eventually alienated from each other.
“Red States” versus “Blue States” is just the tip of the iceberg.
With this thinking we fall into the same psychological trap that
keeps the State so strong.
“Divide and conquer” indeed.
A critic of mine once chided me, “Your problem is that you give
people too much credit!” to which I responded, “Maybe your
problem is that you don’t give them enough.”
People do have minds of their own; the fact that they’ve not
been able to “get it” suggests that their finite energies are
being channeled into things that don’t favor liberty and self-
empowerment.
The intelligentsia, activists, busybodies, corporate thugs,
politicians, and people who make their living by controlling
others and re-shaping society in their image using the coercive
force of the State, quite naturally have an intense fear of self-
empowered people who can resist their hubris.
They’d much rather have malleable converts for their purposes.
You’d expect anti-Statist radicals to unanimously hold the
alternative view that people are not like, "Play-Doh" to be
molded and twisted into one’s personal orthodoxy, yet we can
see among certain parties an insular, arrogant dismissal of
people who aren’t their devoted followers.
Observations of any number of anarchist book fairs, websites, and
activist functions suggest that we have a surprising number of such
“followers” indeed.
In one corner we have the folks sporting their Ché t-shirts and their
black flags, parroting Bakunin and Kropotkin, and bowing before the
altar of Chomsky.
In the other corner we have the folks who hang on to Ludwig von
Mises’ every word like Gospel, place unquestioning faith in the free
market economy’s ability to solve all our earthly worries, and who
think Somalia (which lacks a strong central government) is a beacon
of hope lighting the way for a future “Ancapistan”.
Ah, but everybody else is supposed to be a lamb being led to the
Statist slaughterhouse…right?
A lot of this boils down to a frustrated desire for victory.
Just as Statists wish to change the world, so do we; we just lack
the critical mass to get the revolution going, our allies are few
and far between, and we have few victories to celebrate.
It seems Statism is winning and folks want someone to scapegoat as
they dive deeper into their own intellectual and strategic lethargy.
Hence they lash out at the “sheeple” as a psychological projection
of their own feelings of desperation and despair.
I’m tempted to just dismiss this as something like sour grapes,
but ultimately this sort of thinking in radical circles evokes the
desire for malleable converts on the part of hardcore Statist con
artists eager to do some social engineering at everyone’s expense.
What kind of “anarchism” is this?
Sheep are for shepherds, not free people!
What kind of values serve as the antidote to this hubris?
An alternative view of humanity as having no right to be anything
other than great, a view of people not as peons who deserve their
oppression but rather the kind of hardy, pensive, compassionate,
courageous people who desire to “live free or die”, who don’t need
rulers.
Self-empowerment gives one the inner strength, strategic
mentality, integrity and courage to stand up to the amoral
State.
If we can send a man to the Moon and back, surely teaching him to
flip the bird at the military-industrial-welfare complex shouldn’t be
all that big a deal?
To summarize, the very concept of “sheeple” is perilous because it
evokes the kind of arrogance, contempt and deep-rooted fear the
State has for free, motivated and empowered people.
It brings radicals dangerously close to thinking along the same lines
as hard-core Statists even as we attempt to offer an alternative
way.
Not only does this sort of defeatist hypocrisy sap the strength one
needs to stand firm against equally defeatist Statist psychology, it
alienates us from those we strive to radicalize and it demoralizes
us in the end as our integrity rots like a corpse.
It assumes, also, that there are some who are elite; superior;
“above the herd”; fit to rule over the weak herd, which is the
cause of so many of our problems with illegitimate authority in
the first place!
But most of all, it fails to present us as who we are, visionaries far
ahead of our time, with a profoundly positive and liberating vision
for a seemingly insane world.
http://disinfo.com/2014/06/sheeple
By Marcel Votluck
Disinfomation.com
June 24, 2014
There’s an alarming tendency among radical intellectuals to dismiss
those who don’t “get it” as mere lambs being led to slaughter,
meek “sheeple”.
But how does this reflect on us, our values, and our mentality vis a
vis those sustaining the State?
It’s easy to understand the widespread frustration in anti-
authoritarian circles over people who seemingly have failed
to seek enlightenment about the hegemonic hubris we face.
Watch people’s reactions when you question one tenet of the
Statist religion; they’ll become angry, defensive, and try to shut
down the discussion.
They’ll often poison the dialogue by questioning your intelligence,
doubting your sanity and besmirching your personal character,
assuming they even let you talk in the first place!
We’re “crazy” or “naïve” or “unrealistic” for expressing our
unyielding dissatisfaction with the status quo, for upholding
the same moral standards to Presidents and Congressmen
that we apply to everyone else.
Well, if we are “crazy extremists” then the Statist horde must be
a pack of naïve “sheep”, ha!
Hence there are many who heap scorn on those perky activists
who implore us to “Rock the Vote!”, the “moderates” who are
afraid of conviction, the advocates of “good government”, and
the troops whose blood feeds the Machine.
It’s easy and fun to hang out on forums and websites ripping on
the ignorant Joe and Jane Sixpacks who put up with it all:
“These people only want bread and circuses and HBO! We could
have something better but people are too stupid and weak! Oh
forget them, we’re all screwed anyway!”
Just remember that you were likely a “sheep” once too.
Alas, this sort of insular arrogance is not only more prevalent
than we’d like to admit, it’s our own worst enemy.
The idea of stupid, hopeless “sheeple” evokes the contempt
that a hardcore Statist has for human ability, reason, freedom,
and, for lack of a better word, spirit.
I often argue that there exists a terribly negative psychology
belying the State and related institutions.
It’s a subtle, malevolent, cynical view of life and human nature
and existence; a view of the world as something to be feared,
a dark, scary place filled with decadent people, unpredictable
catastrophes, and endless problems that, naturally, only the
State can address.
Every law, every program, every crusade, every war, every act of
social engineering on their part implies that people are only fit to
be herded like disobedient livestock.
And people buy it.
It’s this psychology at work when someone goes into near-hysterics
upon hearing the most timid of anti-State arguments.
It’s what makes people mumble, “Neither anarchy nor limited
government can work, because people are not perfect.”
Look at how people throw up their hands and put up with Statist
excesses:
“What do I know? Who am I to challenge this system? Even if I
don’t like it, it’s the lesser of two evils.”
It’s what makes people turn to strong leaders and dictators in
times of crises.
Perhaps this is a deep-seated lack of self-esteem and an
internalized need for authority figures in an intimidating
world?
At any rate, we don’t need hired goons to maintain this hegemony
because we tear our own selves down; we convince ourselves of the
lack of alternatives.
Thus the State depends on (and encourages) psychological
repression just as much as any overt act of oppression.
When people contemptuously dismiss others as “sheep” it feeds
into and reinforces this cynical mentality, not in the minds of the
so-called “sheep” but rather the ones who are supposed to be
proposing a radical alternative!
The more one dismisses those who don’t “get it” (or even snubs
his allies who don’t fall lock-step with him on every issue), the
less likely he is to see any hope of victory, and the less he bothers
to strive for it.
Finally, he rationalizes his failures by labeling everyone else as somehow unworthy or inadequate.
Look at how the various national governments tear people down
and lull us out of conceiving saner alternatives: they get in the way
of peaceful, enterprising entrepreneurs; they murder foreigners
with bombs; they convince us to fear phantom terrorists or even
our own neighbors; they use welfare checks, feel-good racial hiring
quotas, and moral crusades “for the children” as bribery for votes;
they pressure us to give our lives for a comfortable sense of “God
and Country”; they use the media and schools to endear us to the
State as not a criminal gang but rather a benefactor…the list goes
on.
And just as people believe that they need all this hubris in order to
have a functioning, sane society, so do haughty intellectuals believe
that people are weak and stupid enough to deserve it.
In a perverse and subtle way, our cynicism and silence in the face
of all this hubris serves as a tacit stamp of approval and a grand act
of capitulation equal to that of the most loyal Federal employee.
Another way this attitude hurts the cause has to do with our lack
of solidarity.
Libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, syndicalists, agorists, mutualists,
eco-anarchists…our diversity is a good thing but a certain “us versus
them” mentality has arisen that often gets taken too far.
It matters little whether we’re talking about various inter-factional
feuds or “us” (the enlightened radicals) versus “them” (the
unenlightened general public) because the effect is the same.
These attitudes reinforce our image and status as outsiders, drive
away potential allies among the public we wish to radicalize, and
alienate us from our goal of revolution.
Most poignantly, they evoke the same kind of divisions on which
the modern social-democratic State is based.
After all, if the State is a monopoly on legal violence, then politics
is the means by which one channels that violence in order to get
what he wants.
It’s a harried rat-race for power and influence, a zero-sum game
in which one party must win and the other must lose, thus all are
pitted against each other in order to advance their own interests
and are eventually alienated from each other.
“Red States” versus “Blue States” is just the tip of the iceberg.
With this thinking we fall into the same psychological trap that
keeps the State so strong.
“Divide and conquer” indeed.
A critic of mine once chided me, “Your problem is that you give
people too much credit!” to which I responded, “Maybe your
problem is that you don’t give them enough.”
People do have minds of their own; the fact that they’ve not
been able to “get it” suggests that their finite energies are
being channeled into things that don’t favor liberty and self-
empowerment.
The intelligentsia, activists, busybodies, corporate thugs,
politicians, and people who make their living by controlling
others and re-shaping society in their image using the coercive
force of the State, quite naturally have an intense fear of self-
empowered people who can resist their hubris.
They’d much rather have malleable converts for their purposes.
You’d expect anti-Statist radicals to unanimously hold the
alternative view that people are not like, "Play-Doh" to be
molded and twisted into one’s personal orthodoxy, yet we can
see among certain parties an insular, arrogant dismissal of
people who aren’t their devoted followers.
Observations of any number of anarchist book fairs, websites, and
activist functions suggest that we have a surprising number of such
“followers” indeed.
In one corner we have the folks sporting their Ché t-shirts and their
black flags, parroting Bakunin and Kropotkin, and bowing before the
altar of Chomsky.
In the other corner we have the folks who hang on to Ludwig von
Mises’ every word like Gospel, place unquestioning faith in the free
market economy’s ability to solve all our earthly worries, and who
think Somalia (which lacks a strong central government) is a beacon
of hope lighting the way for a future “Ancapistan”.
Ah, but everybody else is supposed to be a lamb being led to the
Statist slaughterhouse…right?
A lot of this boils down to a frustrated desire for victory.
Just as Statists wish to change the world, so do we; we just lack
the critical mass to get the revolution going, our allies are few
and far between, and we have few victories to celebrate.
It seems Statism is winning and folks want someone to scapegoat as
they dive deeper into their own intellectual and strategic lethargy.
Hence they lash out at the “sheeple” as a psychological projection
of their own feelings of desperation and despair.
I’m tempted to just dismiss this as something like sour grapes,
but ultimately this sort of thinking in radical circles evokes the
desire for malleable converts on the part of hardcore Statist con
artists eager to do some social engineering at everyone’s expense.
What kind of “anarchism” is this?
Sheep are for shepherds, not free people!
What kind of values serve as the antidote to this hubris?
An alternative view of humanity as having no right to be anything
other than great, a view of people not as peons who deserve their
oppression but rather the kind of hardy, pensive, compassionate,
courageous people who desire to “live free or die”, who don’t need
rulers.
Self-empowerment gives one the inner strength, strategic
mentality, integrity and courage to stand up to the amoral
State.
If we can send a man to the Moon and back, surely teaching him to
flip the bird at the military-industrial-welfare complex shouldn’t be
all that big a deal?
To summarize, the very concept of “sheeple” is perilous because it
evokes the kind of arrogance, contempt and deep-rooted fear the
State has for free, motivated and empowered people.
It brings radicals dangerously close to thinking along the same lines
as hard-core Statists even as we attempt to offer an alternative
way.
Not only does this sort of defeatist hypocrisy sap the strength one
needs to stand firm against equally defeatist Statist psychology, it
alienates us from those we strive to radicalize and it demoralizes
us in the end as our integrity rots like a corpse.
It assumes, also, that there are some who are elite; superior;
“above the herd”; fit to rule over the weak herd, which is the
cause of so many of our problems with illegitimate authority in
the first place!
But most of all, it fails to present us as who we are, visionaries far
ahead of our time, with a profoundly positive and liberating vision
for a seemingly insane world.
http://disinfo.com/2014/06/sheeple
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