Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Ron Paul’s Delusions Of Firestone In Liberia vs The Frontline-ProPublica Investigative Report On It’s Complicity In Genocide And Crimes Against Humanity

I wanted to put up a post on the comparative lunacy that is so common in  modern corporate capitalist society.   There is generally little truth in any mainstream position.  Most everything has been corrupted by money, power, authority, corporations, politicians, political parties, etc.   In other words, everything touched by profit, hierarchy and class or more broadly, everything touched by the state.  The false left-right paradigm that defines so much of that lexicon is one of moral relativism that is completely bankrupt.   Voting for lesser evil still results in greater evil and ultimately greater state tyranny.   The false government vs free market (corporate capitalism) lexicon is equally, if not more, bankrupt.   The reality is when two positions are both derived from an intent to control, there is no truth in either position.  Only control.  And control subverts discovery and truth. 

Ron Paul penned an article a little over a month ago on how the wonders of corporate capitalism, and Firestone in particular, saved Liberia from Ebola.   I remember seeing that article and how popular it was with the crowd that willfully supports their own economic slavery.   Now, I like Ron and he speaks many truths about Washington corruption.  But, he’s a useful idiot for corporate tyranny.   In a vacuum his delusions seem rational and logical.  Of course, most delusions are.  But somehow, mainstream American libertarians believe this myth Ayn Rand perpetuated that corporations and money existed before the state.  And, in one seminal work, corporations escape the injustices of state moochers and parasites and found their own corporate utopia where corporations are able to operate unfettered by the very institution that grants them all of its authority.  That is, the state.   I wonder how corporations would fill their factories with wage slaves without the violence of the state pushing human chattel into corporate servitude?   Once again, this nation was not founded on corporate capitalism.   Contrarily to Paul’s delusional blather, ProPublica has recently penned a very detailed, multi-part look at Firestone and the Warlord in Liberia.   (Here is the excellent PBS Frontline video documentary that resulted from ProPublica’s collaboration.  It is available to watch online.)  It’s not a pretty picture. 

The Frontline documentary, set to run on PBS in December, is damning on the complete lack of corporate morality that drives the primary intent of  money and profit that is the basis for corporate capitalism.    And the willful ignorance of modern corporate capitalist society that simply does as it is told that allows such consequences to exist.

In the documentary it is bizarre to watch American Firestone executives talk so abstractly about human moral issues, almost as if people are nothing more than objects of utility.  And how these executives loved working in Liberia where they lived like royalty while Liberian workers did back-breaking slavery work for a nonliving wage, lived in atrocious slums without running water or electricity and performed the role of servants for American management.  The American executives lived in Liberian mansions with African servants, drivers, golf courses and party houses.   Twice during the documentary, American Firestone executives refer to the black servants as “boys”.   What was obvious to me is how clearly the concept of division of labor has been completely absorbed into western society’s psyche.  It has become normal for people to be economic slaves for those who believe they should be granted privilege due to the division of labor.   That privilege is generally defined as a college graduate.   The level of ignorance that drives this system is palpable.  And, just like Nazi Germany, in nearly every aspect of modern corporate capitalist society’s existence I see example after example of behavior that can only be explained as ‘I was only doing what I was told’.   There is a seeming disconnect between any morality and the consequences of personal actions or behaviors.    Ignorance is not a valid defense.   This system is crumbling because it truly is Godless.  That includes the degree of subversive ignorance that this system enslaves humanity to.

The documentary focuses on the monetary and profit-driven relationship between convicted warlord Charles Taylor and Firestone.  It is noted by a journalist in the documentary that he had never seen anything like Charles Taylor, the thug that Firestone essentially funded.  That watching the actions of Taylor was like giving a country to a serial killer.  Another American official in the documentary calls him a charming, manipulative and smooth-talking psychopath.  Taylor’s appearance of authenticity and his actions as a pathological murderer should give anyone pause who believes in the words of smooth-talking politicians and anyone who seeks power over others.  There is only one authority in this world beyond your own higher power.  That is, the rule of law.   Yet, American Firestone executives admit an admiration for Taylor and their actions follow suite. 

But what is as intriguing as the limits Firestone would go to to turn a profit by being bribed by and bribing Charles Taylor and his band of murdering thugs, it is the foundations of how Firestone actually came to own much of Liberia and dominate its economy in the first place.   You know, in the good ole days when corporate capitalism wasn’t corrupted as it is today.  It is the capitalist class in conjunction with American and Liberian state actors that created the foundations of endless Firestone exploitation of Liberia nearly one hundred years ago.   This after American rubber robber barons grew tired of being exploited by similar rubber plantation slavery operations of the British Empire.  The very foundations of the system that allowed Firestone to create its rubber plantation is one of nondemocratic state-enforced injustice.

Essentially, Firestone runs a Liberian rubber plantation spanning thousands of square miles that is very similar in operation to historical southern slave plantations in the U.S.   These descriptive words of comparison are actually spoken in the documentary.  Freed American slaves, who are of a lighter color, ruled Liberia as an aristocracy and they exploited and victimized the darker-skinned local tribes.   There we go again.  The state exists for one reason.  To commit violence on behalf of state actors.   The original deal between the Firestone family and the Liberian aristocracy was no exception.   For the better part of a century, the Liberian plantation workers essentially have been  fed, housed and taken care of by the Firestone plantation.  Just like in former U.S. southern slave plantations.  And, given the investment in their slave chattel, any good plantation owner knows his beasts of burden must be kept healthy in order to exploit them for profit.  

“Abraham Lincoln did not cause the death of so many people from a mere love of slaughter, but only to bring about a state of consent that could not otherwise be secured for the government he had undertaken to administer. When a government has once reduced its people to a state of consent – that is, of submission to its will – it can put them to a much better use than to kill them; for it can then plunder them, enslave them, and use them as tools for plundering and enslaving others.” --Lysander Spooner, abolitionist

The documentary points out that the freed American slaves and their descendants essentially created a Liberian society modeled after the American plantation society they fled.  Obviously, this system of class eventually led to an uprising and revolution.  It should be no surprise the world is now revolting against the modern corporate capitalist state as Liberians did.   While Frontline doesn’t confirm the CIA handling of Charles Taylor, it does state that he somehow, mysteriously and miraculously, escaped from prison in the U.S. and ended up back in Liberia.  And Frontline reports that rumors are the CIA arranged it.  Why?  Because the U.S. wanted an overthrow of the local uprising and revolution against Firestone and the pliant bought-and-paid-for Liberian aristocracy.  Sound familiar?   it should.  It has been the playbook for American and European corporate capitalist colonialism for the last century.

As Liberia was plunged into revolution and chaos, and Charles Taylor’s marauding murderers were heading towards the Firestone plantation, more than one thousand workers showed up at the mansions of the American Firestone executive team  and pleaded for help.  Not only were they turned down, but they were told to leave Firestone’s property.  This certainly was a death sentence for many.  Could Firestone have protected any of these workers and their families?  Probably, if Firestone had pleaded with the American government.  Kind of makes one wonder if the CIA rumors are true and the U.S., and possibly Firestone, wanted this uprising to run its course and overthrow the interim government that represented the repressed local population. 

Again, with Charles Taylor having no legal standing as a legitimate authority or governmental legitimacy in Liberia, the U.S. government sent a team to try to work a deal with him that would benefit Firestone.  The head American of Firestone in Liberia was in that meeting.  When Taylor asked if Firestone worked for the U.S. government, the U.S. officials rebutted that they worked on behalf of Firestone.   The reality is the U.S. government, banks and the military-industrial complex have always used force to push corporate capitalist agenda around the world, as has every other corporate capitalist nation. 

Charles Taylor eventually made an agreement with Firestone that involved the payment of “taxes”.  This, even though Taylor was in no way associated with any government in Liberia.   Taylor was nothing more than a murdering criminal who extorted payment that Firestone was more than willing to pay to serve the gods of money and profit.  Firestone essentially paid for a protection racket that put money in the pocket of a war criminal.   With this money and economic legitimacy that the Firestone agreement gave him, he was able to pillage the country of billions and buy weapons to launch a campaign of terror that eventually landed him on trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity.  (He is now serving a 50 year sentence after his conviction of rape, murder, genocide… )

Corporations have time and again proven they are willing to do deals with any devil.  In fact, they seem to prefer thugs who have an ability to control their population and their citizens (wage slaves).    Uppity workers and empowered populations create problems for corporations in exploiting a country’s resources and populations.   There is a cookie-cutter appreach where corporations shovel money at a pathological, yet small and bribable ruling class that controls the state, who then sells out its population for a cut of the extorted profit.  Of course, that applies to whether that is how corporate capitalism dominates the U.S., Mexico, Canada, England or any of the bribable “emerging markets” they loot with impunity.

While Frontline does not talk about the financial details under which Firestone has always operated in Liberia, it is clear from commentary that it has never actually paid for its exploitation to any degree that truly benefited the nation as a whole.  But, rather it paid just enough to buy off state actors.  If Firestone was actually required to pay a living wage and a tax commensurate with the products they produce, we can imagine that Liberia could substantially provide educations and training to start on a path of substantial economic development for all of its citizens rather than new mansions and limos for its ruling class. 

The message presented in the documentary is again that there is no way to serve both mammon and truth.  

It would be interesting to see Ron Paul respond to the ProPublica-Frontline investigative report.   Really, there is no response that can defend his level of willful ignorance and support of nondemocratic, class-based control systems.   Noam Chomsky recently remarked that American Libertarians were anything but.  A position that I must agree with.  A true Libertarian appreciates the primacy of the individual over the violence of the state.  Mainstream libertarians in this nation believe in the primacy of corporate capitalism, a state-created construct, and the mythical markets they serve has primacy over humanity.    This is a position based purely on ignorance.  Chomsky remarked that free markets was the choice people had to become enslaved to private tyranny and that corporate capitalism and democracy were contradictory and could never exist together.   It’s clear he was taking a shot at Ron Paul, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, (Ayn) Rand Paul and other fundamentalist corporate capitalist fruitcakes on the right.   Corporations certainly can serve as economic constructs that benefit humanity and democracy but that means they must be owned and controlled by democracy for the betterment of humanity.   That has never been the case in corporate capitalism.  Ever.  That is an impossibility.

In closing, this documentary begs a persistent question that plagues the human existence.  Why is the majority of humanity constantly battling for survival and scraps when we supposedly live in a world generally defined by some modicum of democracy or representative government?  Why is the natural world and human family experiencing unprecedented levels of suffering?  Throughout the modern ages of invention and technology, we find ourselves working longer than people did thousands of years ago.  Often with little to show for it.  And we find ourselves at a level of unprecedented global conflict, misery and suffering.  One observation is evident.  Human morality clearly has not kept pace with our know-how.  Our achievements are used to enslave us to greater and greater state authority.

Amazingly, most of the people who are successful under this system see the world through one of two broad belief systems.  One, we need more government bureaucracy to make the world a better place or to fend of big corporations or private capital.  And two, we need less government so corporations, private capital and free markets can effectively operate unfettered.   Where exactly do corporations, politicians, political parties and corporate-derived economic markets come from?   They aren’t natural manifestations of the laws of the universe.  They are institutions of the ego or of control.   They are inventions of the state.  Asking the state to protect us from state-derived constructs of ego has resulted in mass lunacy that is now destroying humanity and the natural world.  

It used to be that Republicans wanted to enslave people to the private tyranny of corporations, private capital and their mythical free markets.  Democrats wanted to enslave people to the tyranny of state control.   Both efforts require big government to marshal the resources necessary for both class-based, state-crated control mechanisms to function.  Now, with full blown fascism in our presence, there is no clear demarcation line between the state and the creatures of its invention - politicians, political parties, “free” markets and corporations.    It’s one massive tyranny of class-based, hierarchical state power.  And, the state uses another of its institutions of the ego, private, class-based money, to ensure that these institutions remain in power.   Obviously, the primary intent in all of this is to control humanity so that a predatory and pathological class of of people, who derive their power through the violence of the state, can exploit humanity with impunity. 

Let me end by highlighting some of the more disturbances of state violence and its gross immorality as recently reported in the press. 

James Risen’s look at how corporate capitalism exploits security and war through sucking on the teet of Homeland Security through debt enslavement of our citizens.   As noted on here many times, the only way corporations can exists in perpetuity is through the extraction of rent.  There is no profit-driven corporation that can exist forever under any other circumstances.  The only way they can extract that rent is through state violence.  One must consider how reliant on state violence corporations are.  There literally isn’t a major corporation in the world today that would not collapse were it not propped up through state violence, be that handouts, crony capitalism, tax subsidies, trickle down economics or whatnot.  Capitalism has a maturity model to it.  Risen’s book is a sign of the times and a very esoteric sign of the maturity of this system.  There are no good ole days.  Corporate capitalism has always been this corrupt.  We simply see it more clearly because of where we are in that maturity model.  That is, teetering on the precipice.

Chris Christie’s moral dilemma

Jon Stewart on Chris Christie’s pork problem.   Both of these Chris Christie links are the same issue.  That is, the horrendously cruel and inhumane treatment of pigs.  Not that it  matters how intelligent an animal is, all life should be respected.  But, pigs are incredibly smart animals.  And this despicable treatment is so cruel it actually drives them mad.  What kind of nation do we live in that we are even debating this type of behavior?  And what kind of farmers do we have that actually practice such inhumane treatment?  Anyone who is responsible for this type of behavior is operating from a place of evil.  Anyone who works in this type of environment cannot stay connected to any degree of humanity.  To be around such cruelty every day certainly has a profound impact.  That includes turning people into animals.   The corporate food complex

On that note, Fortune just ran an article that our obesity is causing a $2 trillion drag on the global economy.    Really?  More like $2 trillion in the global economy is dedicated to making people fat.  Making people fat IS a large part of the global economy.  And the United States is its chief exporter in unbridled use of antibiotics, industrial food production, industrial farming and animal production, mass overuse of pesticides and toxic chemicals, etc. 

The CIA wants to destroy thousands of emails to hide the state’s crimes against humanity.  And, it is being reported that Obama is shielding the CIA.  Is it really any surprise that the CIA wants to hide its crimes against humanity rather than ever face prosecution? 

The rogue president.  Pat Buchanan’s article is an excellent look at the fraud of unconstitutional executive orders and how it is certainly driven by benefits to the aristocracy and corporations rather than some great act of kindness.   The rule of law is dead.  We live under the tyranny of the rule of man and with it, the rule of corporations.  And one of those greatest tyrannies is the U.S. meddling in Central and South America that perpetuates human misery and poverty.  If Obama wants to do something virtuous, then support policies to create self-determinism, democracy and economic freedom in these nations.  This diaspora is created substantially by U.S. corporate capitalism and the state.  And it perpetuates misery for both people outside and inside of this nation.   No person who is suffering should be turned away from kindness and empathy.  But that is not what is going on.  It is pathology of the corporate state that is creating these messes where people must flee their own families and cultures.   And once again the corporate state is socializing its losses with estimates, accurate or not, topping $2 trillion for Obama’s rogue behavior.  This on top of Bush’s $5 trillion rogue behavior in Afghanistan and Iraq.  We certainly have awoken substantially in this nation but there are still a substantial number of people who still believe working within the system, supporting Democrats and Republicans, will yield changes necessary.  That is not going to happen.

How Obama has enslaved Americans to the industrial medical complex.  This article exposes the real truth to Obamacare as has always been presented on here.  That is, it was a financial bailout for a corrupt, fraudulent sick care system that is terminal.  I refuse to call it the Affordable Care Act as that is pure state propaganda.  The health care companies supposedly whined and cried when Obama and his party cronies wrote this corporate state fraud.  Even the expansion of Medicaid has been taken over by corporations as noted in this article.  The reality is much more clear now.  That is, Obamacare is a fascist state-enforced tax to prop up corporate profits.

Homeland Security to destroy unconstitutional surveillance records.

Putin says west is provoking new cold war.  While I am no fan of Putin, there is little doubt that the European and American plutocracy is trying to recreate the dynamics of a cold war.  This is consistent with prior remarks that the west very well could have created the Cold War.  Systems of class and hierarchy such as capitalism and the state can only exist while creating boogeymen.  And Europe’s cesspool of state liberalism rot needs a boogeyman on its doorsteps far more than the U.S. does.  In fact, there is some very strong evidence that the west funded the creation of the Soviet Union for that very reason.  Without a conjured and contrived state of fear, there is no impetus to serve the endless exploitation, victimization and predation of the state and corporate capitalism.  This has been understood for thousands of years and written of quite elegantly by many cited on here in the past. 

Graft hobbles Iraqi military’s fight against ISIS.  It’s nice to see Iraq has learned well from Americans.  The military-industrial complex is a massive syphon of fraud and corruption that steals trillions from the American people.  The only difference between Iraq and the U.S. is managed perceptions.  In the U.S. that military corruption is institutionalized and legitimized through corporate profits.  Beyond state propaganda, there really is no difference.

Poison on a platter.  How corporations and the Indian government conspire to enslave its people to poisonous food.  The problem is global.  It is the state.

Industrial metals all on China property data.  We are in a slow motion fizzle right now.  Signs of the topping of real estate in China are becoming more evident.  Their real estate bubble dwarfs the U.S. real estate bubble.   Price increases in China were 10x that of the U.S.  Compounding those increases leads to an even more astronomical crisis on the horizon. 

Darren Wilson in action.   Interestingly, the mainstream right still doesn’t get what is going on any more than the mainstream left.   The Democratic Party may be very close to losing the black vote with decades of horrendous policy decisions and the injustices we now see everywhere that are impacting black Americans.   This is a necessary dynamic needed for social progress and effective change in our nation. 

ISIS expands its reach to yet another country.  Isn’t it interesting that the U.S. empire has no effective answer to stop ISIS?   This is, in many ways, an element of radicalization that the U.S. empire has played a major role in creating.  And now they are armed with U.S. weapons of murder and death that have been exported around the world.   The U.S. military-industrial complex and U.S. propped up stooges and lackeys are now essentially fighting their own creation armed with their own weapons.  Karma is a bitch. 

Revolutionary new car created with 3D printer.   A little more positive and interesting news.  Not everything associated with corporations is rotten.  Smaller, developmental-stage corporations can actually be quite useful to society.  But, corporate capitalism will collapse without a massive overhaul.  That won’t happen until we experience a crisis so overwhelming that it requires change for the system to survive.  About eight years ago I wrote on here that Wally World’s endless isles of useless, mass-produced junk were in jeopardy and that Wal-mart as a company was closer to failure than anyone realizes because of the massive changes to new production methods.  And, look what the cat drug in.   That day is getting closer not only for Wally World but much of the slave labor camps in Asia that fill their shelves with mass-produced junk. 

posted by TimingLogic at 10:15 PM

Monday, November 17, 2014

The Collapse Of Capital(ism): Apple’s Stock Worth More Than The Entire Russian Stock Market

The last time I wrote on here that Apple’s stock price was closing in on the value of all stocks in Russia was March of 2012.  Here we go again.   This time Apple has actually surpassed the value of all Russian stocks.  Apple employs 70,000 people and makes what are essentially commodity telephones and low-end computer products created with commodity processors and commodity components.  Their value-add is literally just an operating system and their support.   Well, and they have literally cornered the market for much of the world’s intellectual capital in the entertainment space.  A dynamic that has only been possible through state violence.  Beyond that, their products achieve an insane markup because of branding propaganda that allows the company to charge a massive uplift for buying something with its name on it.  The quality and component failure rates for its hardware are the exact same as other companies using the same componentry.  

Apple’s recent phone fully configured lists for well over $1,000.  I saw about $1,400 but I am too lazy to confirm that on Apple’s site so do your own diligence.  I have a phone from Motorola that is probably 80-90% of what the Apple phone is and I paid $50 for it with a n0-frills, no-contract carrier.  (ie no phone subsidy although they did actually give me a $50 rebate).   Let’s just be honest.  People who pay $1,000+ for a phone or sign phone carrier contracts to subsidize the purchase of a $1,000+ phone are the epitome of the manipulated ignorance the existing economic, financial, monetary and political fraud need to sustain themselves.  Mindfulness, awareness and enlightenment of any kind cannot coexist with $1,000 phones while untold numbers of people in our nation and the world suffer massive economic, financial, monetary and political injustice.   You might contemplate what that means for the eventual fate of Apple.  That, and its ability to essentially control all of the intellectual capital associated with digital rights in the entertainment industry.    And why the central planners who created and control this system to exploit, victimize and prey upon humanity with impunity now feel the need to deceive us with mass “undercover” operations meant to root out those who dissent and those who seek justice, truth and liberty.   Corporate capitalism is an invention of the state and only exists through state violence.   Both Apple and the state rely on manipulated ignorance for their survival.  And their fate is completely intertwined.

Now, let me be fair.  Apple’s products are nice products.  But, the mystique is nonsense.  The one thing that I will admit is worth some price markup is to talk to a post-sale support person who speaks fluent English and is technically-competent rather than a sweatshop call-center minion half way across the world who, not only can I not understand, but often has the technical skills of a brick.  Apple does differentiate itself with this ability.  That is quantifiably worth something.  $10 or $20 per unit?  But, then again, Apple’s products and the company itself really have little to do with why it’s valuation is a massive, massive bubble.  That is a reflection of financial, economic, monetary and political fraud.

Russia is a nation of 150,000,000 people and all of the economic value they create, as captured by their stock market, is worth less than Apple’s stock.    How is it that Apple is worth more than all of the monetized wealth of Russia?  In reality, would not the oil and energy stocks in Russia be comparatively priceless?   Is it not more important to have a supply of cheap, abundant energy rather than a phone that will be obsolete in a few years?   Is Apple’s stock price so high because it sells a lot of iPhones?  Hahahaha.  That is ridiculous.   One more time.  Hahahaha.  Oops.  Sorry, I just threw up a little in my mouth.   But the reason for its massive valuation is indeed very simple.   It’s the same reason why the bottom 150,00,000 people in this nation don’t have more than a few thousand dollars in net wealth.  Because our entire economic, financial, monetary and political systems are based on fraud and corruption.   There is an endless stream of free money for the predatory, capitalists we call the “investor class”, aka renter capitalist moochers and parasites, to drive Apple’s stock price and the entire financially-traded asset market to the moon, while productive, or capably productive, decent citizens are f*cked over by capitalists and the state with nonliving wage economic opportunity, massive corporate healthcare extortion and the indignity of state handouts that exist because corporate capitalism socializes its losses onto democracy.  Let’s see.  Endless money to create asset bubbles owned by the predatory aristocracy and toady politicians?  Or, endless free money to support human development, community development, economic determinism and democracy?  When again did we ever have these under class-based corporate capitalism?  When were those good ole days?   Oh yeah.  They existed during these times.   You know, when we were hiring Nazi war criminals and when blacks, women, minorities and the white working class wage slaves knew their place.  And the corporate state made sure through its policies of intimidation and state terrorism that there was no question who was in control. 

There is no corporate profit in investing in people or human development.   Instead, in our corporate-state-controlled disposable society, anyone who cannot help corporations exploit humanity for-profit or who doesn’t have a pot to piss in and thus cannot consume corporate capitalism’s useless overproduction, or no longer can wage war to pave the way for corporate exploitation and on and on and on.  But there certainly is profit in shoving Apple and all financially-traded assets to the moon.  Assets monopolized by state-enforced class and privilege.   There is no way out for those who have stolen everything.   Karma is a bitch.

Title link here.   

In closing, let me throw in another bubblicious lunacy that is on the stock market new high list.   Just to give a better indication of what kinds of stocks are leading this market.  Below is a current 20+ year chart of Old Dominion Freight.  This is an LTL trucking company.  All they do is drive around freight.  That’s it.   It’s a low-margin, cyclical commodity business.   (Although the trucking business is rife with its own fraud perpetuated by corporations that have destroyed the independent trucker.)  That’s another conversation.   And because this is a commodity, cyclical low-margin business, the company’s stock didn’t go anywhere for decades as one would expect.  Financially, Old Dominion has $8 million in cash and $180 million in debt.  They have negative free cash flow and that means, if something doesn’t change, they aren’t going to be able to pay their massive debt-servicing bill.   In other words, just another mismanaged corporation teetering on the precipice that is propped up by the false illusions created by financial and monetary manipulation and fraud.  Just like thousands of other unsustainable corporate business models.  

Don’t kid yourself into believing this bubble is in specific stocks.  Money is fungible.  The bubble is in everything that money, financial firms, corporate capitalism and the state has touched.   You may not see it but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist courtesy of a wildly rotten, wildly fraudulent, wildly corrupt economic, monetary and financial system propped up by a wildly rotten, wildly fraudulent, wildly corrupt political and capitalist class.  

If you really appreciate why Apple, Old Dominion and all financial assets are in the midst of the biggest global financial bubble the world has ever seen, then you appreciate why I have said that this may be the end of days for corporate capitalism.  I’ll lay that out in detail soon enough.  But, it stems from something written of repeatedly here leading up to the 2008 collapse.  That is, there is no demand for capital in this nation with the lowest levels ever recorded in the past one hundred years of recorded data.    Why is that?  Because capital(ism) has already collapsed.  By the way, those who believe the U.S. or the world has entered some mythical post capitalist era are delusional as noted on here time and again.  And, I will prove it.

 

ODFL

A lot of people say this isn’t capitalism.  They are right.  Sort of.  It’s not the industrial capitalism that they are familiar with.  But it is capitalism.  Renter capitalism was the original form of capitalism.  Industrial capitalism came later.  This is the type of capitalism that we saw in 1776 and America’s longest depression 140-odd years ago.    Long time readers will recognize the Courier & Ives print below from America’s longest depression.  That is where we are today.  The question is if this system can flip itself back to industrial capitalism.  Doing so would first require this system to collapse.  And I do mean collapse.  I am quite dubious of industrial capitalism returning to this nation but it certainly is a possibility.  The required changes would tank existing paradigms including existing industries, salaries and possibly entire segments of the economy and the existing political system.  More on that another time.  But if you still believe we are simply headed for just another correction, aka buying opportunity, you might want to pull your head out of that dark, warm place.  Because manipulated ignorance is no longer working for most.  That is, except for the political, financial and investor class, and their kids, who all own iPhones and Apple stock.

courier

posted by TimingLogic at 2:49 PM

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Fraudulent Illusions, False Memes, Peak Oil & Crude Oil Update

There are a lot of stories on there about why oil has been cratering.  Most are just that.  Stories.  The reality is oil was only ever greater than $100 a barrel because of manipulation in the first place.  Mass manipulation as the amount of leverage, contracts and derivatives in oil futures lifted financial demand for paper energy contracts.  And the wall of useless rent-seeking money that has developed over the last few decades found a home in that leverage.  The high price of oil is an unsustainable monetary illusion just like everything else that has been distorted in our perceptions of reality.  Remember, it was just 1998 when oil was $10 a barrel.   By 2008 it had risen 1,500%.    Supply and demand driven in just ten years?  Not hardly.   In 1998 the price of oil was speaking to anyone who was listening just as it is now.  That is, it was foretelling a deflationary economic crisis in the U.S. and now it is in the early stages of  foretelling a similar but larger global deflationary crisis.  Just like gold was in 1998 as it imploded to $250 an ounce and again is headed the same direction as oil foretelling a global deflationary event.  Something I have noted many times regarding the future price of gold and oil. 

All financially-traded assets are benefiting from a fraudulent, unsustainable monetary illusion and have been for the last three plus decades.   Whether that is beef, housing, farm land, copper, stocks, bonds, art, diapers, oil, gold or toothpaste.   Especially since the second term of the Clinton presidency.  And, by the way, underlying demand for oil by BRIC nations is an unsustainable monetary illusion as well.   Just as their supposed economic miracles are nothing more than an unsustainable monetary illusions.   I’ll explain all of those statements in excruciating detail at some point.  But today I want to stay on topic.  Illusion is a global phenomena and those who believe the U.S. is somehow unique are in for a rude awakening as truth continues to reveal itself.  A long time theme on here is that the back end of this crisis will involve global chaos, most of which will be outside of the U.S.   At the time I first wrote those words, the global economy gave the illusion of being stronger than it had ever been.  Ever.   In half a dozen years that illusion is already well along in its collapse.  The entire world is in economic chaos and it is going to get much worse.

Canada’s economy, like most in the world, is also experiencing a massive, unsustainable monetary illusion.  Canada’s economy is very close to a pure play proxy for raw materials and oil just as Russia is.   And Canada is also a proxy for the energy and raw material needs of the U.S. empire.  This, because Canada is for all practical purposes controlled by U.S. political and corporate capitalist interests.  By the way, so too is Russia although to a lesser degree given its own capitalist oligarchs whose interests do not align with that of the U.S. and Europe.  That doesn’t necessarily mean direct U.S. purchases of Canadian energy and raw materials.  The U.S. empire is global.  But we know the Canadian dollar becomes more valuable as U.S. empire is in global expansion mode.  In other words, when the U.S. is flooding the world with dollars.   (All of Russia’s capitalist oligarchs were communist oligarchs just a matter of years ago who simply were in a position to grab sources when the Soviet Union collapsed under the past “ism” , communism, that those same oligarchs enforced.  It doesn’t matter whether the state enforces capitalism, communism, socialism or any other ism.  What’s the difference?  The Soviet Union-Russian paradigm of the same predators easily transitioning from one statist “ism” to another is a perfect proof point that the same pathological predators adapted perfectly from communism to capitalism; both systems of state violence.)

We see below, that the Canadian dollar, in red, peaked two years ago and has been declining quite substantially since.   The price of West Texas crude, in black, has tried to make new highs over that period of time but has now started following the direction of the Canadian dollar as both are driven by the same economic fundamentals developing in the world economy. (You will also note that the price movements upward and downward are highly correlated in the Canadian dollar and West Texas crude even though the overall trends in direction may be different.  That’s because these markets are manipulated by predatory algorithmic/computer trading that buy and sell both markets based on the same fundamentals.  Algorithmic trading is simply another extension of renter capitalist state violence against humanity.) 

Anyone who was paying attention could have accurately anticipated that oil was not going to make a sustainable new high while money was flowing out of Canadian denominated oil or (petro) dollars (weakening) for the past two years.  Where has that money been going?  Back into U.S. dollars as they world starts to implode.  Now, we see the mighty dollar is once again re-establishing its global dominance.    Over the years I have mocked the position of a collapsing dollar as not understanding how the world works.  If you can’t get that right, you have no idea what is really happening in the world and you certainly aren’t going to have any chance of accurately anticipating what global outcomes are going to come to pass.  Currencies don’t rise and fall because one state is corrupt and another is virtuous.  All states are wildly corrupt.  Currencies rise and fall based on supply and demand.  Period.  And supply and demand of every currency that matters is essentially controlled by the United States corporate empire.   BRIC nations are simply along for the ride.  The U.S. empire is massive and in many ways not understood by almost anyone, literally is the global economy.  I certainly don’t say that out of admiration.  But rather the level of U.S. political, corporate monetary, corporate military and overarching corporate capitalist violence that empire projects around the world. 

As noted on here ad nauseam over the years, the entire global capitalist (over)production system is in a massive bubble and the amount of slack in that system is enormous.  That is the real reason why oil is imploding.   (Any of that slack created since the advent of globalization essentially exists outside of the United States as written on here many times.  And that is why the entire world’s central banks are now fighting deflation.  And some may lose that battle eventually to hyperinflation.)   And why it is plausible that oil could very well return to 1998 levels of $10 a barrel.   In other words, the price before the contrived fraud of globalization and all of its overcapacity and artificial, unsustainable demand for oil was created.    That is, because future demand for oil is likely to implode as that massive slack eventually is idled, be it by collapse or natural forces or obsolescence or whatnot.    We see this in China, that has become the world’s biggest economic mess.   Ever.  The demand for petroleum, through Chinese government statistics has just about seen zero percentage growth this year.   That possibly means that true, non-manipulated year-on-year oil demand has turned negative in China.   Because if we look at electricity demand, it has actually fallen quite substantially to negative growth territory for this year.  This too is a global phenomena.  As noted on here years ago, Japanese auto sales peaked decades ago, as just one example of a deflating capitalist world.   This fall off in recent demand for energy coupled with the large increase in oil production in the U.S. is placing serious pressure on oil.   Oil, and all of its financial manipulation and contrived demand, is reacting to the global economy.  If all of that leverage in both the financial oil markets and underlying economies unwinds,  oil will experience a price rout.  Mind you, this has been a consistent theme on here even when oil was near $150 a barrel and the mindless blather of ignorance had already determined our fate to be in the very midst of running out of oil. 

Don’t get caught up in any of the false memes that are arising around the price of oil.   Peak oil’s myth is now waning just as is the human-caused global warming myth is.  These myths were created by elites and by class.  And have enslaved people who reject science, discovery and truth in lieu of accepting the fear-based control that pathological state predators seek to instill in them.  (As Obama signs a “historic” climate deal with China that allows China to continue to do as they wish unrestrained until 2030 while Obama and the state pass greater and greater unintended consequences of their ignorance onto the backs of the American people in the form of greater taxes, more lost production, more lost employment, more lost determinism, etc.   Cleaning up the world is a virtuous cause.  But doing so under this system as Obama is doing is simply creating future unintended consequences that political ignorance always creates.   All because of a false meme that the most abundant resource on our planet, carbon, is a toxic poison.  Are you ready to wake up to the myths created by your oppressors?)  Now new myths and memes are arising around oil to explain why it is imploding just as is happening with global warming now that the original myth is exposed as ludicrous.  Many are now stating that shale oil in the U.S. is a myth thus oil prices will eventually skyrocket.  And many are now noting that a collapsing oil price will stunt shale oil production.   Yawn.  These memes are irrelevant in the larger picture of what is happening.  Additionally, temporary or short term dynamics involving any means of production around the world doesn’t change the greater reality that the world is awash in excess oil and excess economic slack.  Temporary monetary shocks upward and downward as the state tries to save itself by trashing monetary systems globally may or may not affect production for a limited period of time.  But they don’t change the trend or the realities of the world around us.   So production dynamics may turn upside down temporarily based on illusory monetary dynamics but those will only be temporary.  Oil prices are very likely headed for a complete bust.  

 

oil

Phil Flynn is one of the better oil analysts out there.    He has penned a few pieces recently that are more relevant than many of the false memes surrounding peak oil and why oil is falling substantially.   The links to his remarks are below.

U.S. producers answer Saudi challenge on price

OPEC preparing for price war

Crude cold war coming?

What price war? Saudi Arabia cuts U.S. crude prices only.

The question I have is if the U.S. will in some way attempt to further subsidize cheap energy production in this nation if a global energy war does break out.   And, I suspect it will.  Because comparative advantage that is intrinsic to corporate capitalism is and always has been an endless price and currency war between nations.  Obviously various factions of the political oppressors in this nation have differing agendas.  Once again, as noted in prior posts, the U.S. economy has always been reliant on cheap energy.  And regardless of whether it is corrupt and toxic to the environment, the natural gas and petroleum booms in this nation are setting the country up again to be a low cost industrial goods producer.   Those who understand lean methods and kaizen, including the high energy costs (expense) and massive waste (expense) of global supply chains, already appreciate the cost of producing value-based industrial and even some higher-margin, big-ticket consumer goods in this nation is far cheaper than doing so in China.   Is this a planned outcome or simply coincidence or simply responses to comparative advantage when Asian production costs and supply chains become too expensive?   No one really has the transparency to say.  But we shall see how these dynamics play out in the global economy. 

posted by TimingLogic at 2:33 PM

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Over 80% Of Catalonians Vote To Secede From Spain

Once again, the movement against state violence is a global phenomena and it is very, very real.  A long time theme on here is that this cycle could be coined the end of big.  High on that list is big, centrally-planned state violence that benefits a chosen few state actors who exploit the masses.  At some point, the state will disappear.  Forever.  Whether it is this cycle or at some time in the future, it will happen. 

posted by TimingLogic at 3:25 PM

Monday, November 10, 2014

Moral Relativism And Evil Update: The Russian State Leads The World In The Profit Of Mayhem And Mass Murder For 2014

There are many examples of evil’s manifestation in the world today.  Empire, the forced use (worship) of money to survive,  Islamofascism, political parties, the global military-industrial complex, standing armies,  state-induced fear mongering in the form of nationalism, corporate capitalism, private banking, communism, socialism, materialism, religious fanatics of all ilk and, of course, the state itself which enforces all of these cruelties.   Essentially any state-derived and enforced system of hierarchy and class is the launch board for  evil.  I say state-derived because without the force of the state, institutionalized hierarchy is not a natural construct.  And thus, hierarchy and class are a repudiation of rights granted by our Creator.   All of these forms of evil exist by deceitfully convincing or violently (emotionally, spiritually or physically) and often deceitfully forcing people to place their faith in the rule of man through authority and hierarchy.   Because these are not natural constructs under which the human condition naturally prospers, all of these institutions of the ego or the self exploit and destabilize humanity and cause mass suffering. 

As noted on here in past posts, it is estimated (not by American propaganda but by Russian democracy activists) that Putin has personally stolen tens of billions of dollars from the Russian people and enabled Russian oligarchs to steal hundreds of billions more.  All while shifting mass numbers of jobs and economic determinism out of Russia.   The moral relativism of faith and support for Putin by western liberals must also accept responsibility for the endless suffering Russia exports.  Russia this year will lead the world in the sale of weapons of mass murder.  Obviously, there is only one true intent in the export of weapons of mass murder.  That intent is the benefit of class and hierarchy or institutions of the ego.  The intent of greater state power, pathological personal gain and the profit motive by Russian state actors sought at the expense of humanity.  It is to benefit hierarchy and class, both are violently enforced constructs necessary for the perpetuation of the state.

The state, and through all of its manifestations of evil, in its empowerment of the rule of man, is the greatest source of evil in the world today.

posted by TimingLogic at 1:37 PM

Friday, November 07, 2014

An Exposé On The Omerta Methods The State And Wall Street Use To Cover Up A Culture Of Evil: JP Morgan’s “Massive Criminal Securities Fraud”

posted by TimingLogic at 12:34 PM

Monday, November 03, 2014

Peak State Power Grabs, Central Bank Policies, The Coming Elections And Americans Wonder If The State Can Protect Them

Watching television ads leading up to national elections is always a treat.  Divisiveness, hate and lies are the norm from both parties.  But, then the only way political parties can actually exist is by dividing humanity with small, petty issues rather than a loving state of uniting people through the vast commonalities we all share.  In actuality politicians of both parties must realize this.  Which is why they are united in their efforts to please moneyed interests, Wall Street and corporations and in the process shit all over democracy and freedom.  It’s always interesting to watch people on TV endorse candidates they really know nothing about yet believe are going to act on their behalf.   Beliefs.  How’s that working out for you?   There remains an ignorant mindset with those who identify with party  ideology that all we are lacking is the right candidate.  As I noted back in 2008, while this dynamic played a major role in electing Obama, it also played a major role in electing Herbert Hoover.  And both were elected in times of coming crisis.   Hoover was actually responsible for starting the New Deal programs that ultimately pressured and helped sink the corrupt economic system of its time.  Obama’s “New Deal” programs, which too are essentially meant to ensure the success of the status quo while minimally appeasing democracy, are having the same destabilizing effect.   Rather than continually outsourcing our own power to politicians in hopes of finding the “one”, let me propose that the only person worth voting for is the one who is going to dismantle large swaths of state power and return that power to people and local communities. 

What I have been writing about re politics for years is now starting to become more evident on a mass scale.  That is, politics as an institution is going to disappear forever some day.  There is no truth in politics.  Only control.  It is a crude institution of control from time gone by that serves no purpose to humanity.  Politicians are not public servants.  Never have been and never will be.  They are, almost without exception, some of the most vile, inept, predatory self-serving pathology in any society. 

 “Abraham Lincoln did not cause the death of so many people from a mere love of slaughter, but only to bring about a state of consent that could not otherwise be secured for the government he had undertaken to administer. When a government has once reduced its people to a state of consent – that is, of submission to its will – it can put them to a much better use than to kill them; for it can then plunder them, enslave them, and use them as tools for plundering and enslaving others.” -- Lysander Spooner, abolitionist

Every time I read a quote about state power, I can’t help but think of Mao’s Great Leap Forward – a centrally-created and executed plan by state officials meant to push society forward and, in the process catch up with the U.S.  Obviously with the omniscience of central planning bureaucrats’ great capacity to do good.  Of course, I need to throw in there all of the people who place their faith in power of the state, its inventions of corporations and other hierarchical state propped-up institutions.

“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all His laws.” -- John Adams

These quotes highlight a universal truth of state violence.  The Great Leap Forward resulted in the death of an estimated 45 million innocent people courtesy of the brilliance of state bureaucracy.   The Great Leap Forward, a state program meant to “modernize” society according to what central planners believed it should look like, instead resulted in mass deaths and atrocities.  There is some evidence that China today is experiencing its second Great Leap Forward and the consequences could be similarly dire.  (As is the case with central planners all around the world who are in the midst of their own self-created Great Leaps Forward.) 

A common theme on here is how China’s current bubble in state power has stolen land, economic rights and determinism from local people and placed their fate into the hands of communist bureaucrats and the centrally-planned, state-controlled economic system they have created.  As a result, the state now has hundreds of millions of new citizens reliant on its central planning.   Many of those new state welfare recipients (which is really what those now reliant on the state in China are as are corporate capitalists and wage slaves in the U.S.)  lived agrarian or reasonably self-determined rural and small community lifestyles hitherto.  Now they have been packed into major new metropolises and have become dependent on the state for every aspect of their existence.  Literally.  Yes, the power of the state certainly has a a rich and illustrious “great soul”.   Let’s watch China and other states work the magic needed to continue that dependence.

What we are witnessing this cycle is the predictable and necessary outcome to the actions of the world’s peoples who have outsourced any ability they have to impact their own lives.   And they have outsourced that power to the state.   State bureaucrats may be capable at doing rote, repetitive, mundane tasks like focusing on efficiency.  In China’s case, the economy has been restructured very efficiently to serve the desires of state power in lieu of the needs of its peoples.  In that second Great Leap Forward, they have once again followed the lead of the U.S.   It’s one thing, as an example, to grant the government power over Social Security administration.  This is a simple, rote task even a monkey could do.  Take in money and send out  checks to names on a list.  It’s quite another to grant them wholesale control over our lives and our economy.  Literally every aspect of the human existence is under state control in today’s world.  And every new page of the millions of pages of useless laws is meant to grant even more power to the state.   The only choice we have tomorrow in the U.S. elections is appearance.  The appearance of choice by picking which bureaucrat will enforce the state’s tyranny. 

In every aspect of our lives citizens in our nation must wait with bated breath to find out what politicians are going to do so solve all of our problems.   But all they are doing is making it worse whether it’s food quality, health care, economic opportunity, debt slavery, immigration reform, housing affordability and foreclosures, education, endless war, security, wage slavery, Ebola, corporate corruption, money in politics, and on and on and on.  Essentially everything the state touches has turned into a shithole of incompetence, ineptitude, bureaucracy and corruption.  Of course, this is as it always and eventually ends up in any hierarchical bureaucracy.   We already know the answer to the question of what politicians are going to do after tomorrow’s election regardless of which parties wins.  In our system of competition, there are only the exploited and the exploiters.  If you are the former, politicians are invariably going to try to make your lives worse for the benefit of those who enslave you to state power.   Sure, you may have individual experiences that go against the tide but the tsunami of state power is not your friend.  

And just like during the Great Leap Forward, any attempts by local communities, individuals or local public officials to go against the power of the central planners to solve issues locally, their actions are met with central state force and even imprisonment.   How often do you read of governors, state legislatures, local communities, local officials or individuals attempting to stand against the central state, their millions of pages of law and their actions that are met with state violence?  Want to drink raw milk?  Grow your own vegetables and share them via a local, unregulated exchange?  Want to offer different health care alternatives to Obamacare?  Want to start a local cooperative?  Want to start a local public bank or issue local money to develop local economies that threaten the centrally-planned state economy?  Want to create wealth-creating jobs that threaten the existing state-controlled capital structure?  The list is endless.  All are met with fines, threats of jail time or threats of legal action by the state.   State power is consistent in time and space.  What we are witnessing around the world has little difference from the  Great Leap Forward.    A period of time when the omniscience of central planners damaged or killed hundreds of millions of people.  Will the outcome today be the same?  Or will humanity stop the state before its inevitable madness and incompetence unfolds?

"The 20th Century was a horrible litany of absurd experiments and atrocities committed by intellectuals, or by elite groupings that claimed a higher knowledge. Simple folk usually have enough common sense to avoid the worst errors. Sometimes they need to take very stern action to stop intellectuals leading us to ruin." - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

This is what happens when people of all ilk outsource any power they have to impact their lives and the lives of their community to the power of the state.  The state and politicians, through primitive and predatory demagogy, fear, unfilled promises, outright threats and violence, has grabbed control of nearly every aspect of the human existence.   Not just here but everywhere.   Yet, they were never were qualified to do so.  And they never had any workable knowledge, competence, solutions or ability to do so.   Rather political and state predators did this for one reason.  Benefit of the self for state actors – greed, control, power, lust, vanity, etc.   Pathological megalomania.

As noted in the title of this post, Americans are worried if the state can protect them. A paradox of incredible proportions.  That state is the greatest source of violence in the world.  Will the state protect humanity from its own violence?  Really?  It was violence that created this mess.  As just one example, it was state violence that stole our economic determinism.  And, taking back our determinism will involve violence against those the state gave it away to. 

The state believes it is going to protect us, even if it has to put us all in prison to do so.  Which, by the way, it is well on the way to doing.  The actions of the state are so Orwellian they remind me of a reasonably recent dystopian movie, I, Robot.  Robots eventually imprison people in their own homes in order to protect them.   These are the logical conclusions made by state-created protectors that are made in the best interests of citizens.  Sort of sounds like the actions of the national security state.

Taken from a comment on IMDB, the rationalizations of this action follow – In the beginning of the movie features Isaac Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics: LAW I. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. LAW II. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. LAW III. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. 

If we replace robot with central state enforcement, we have:  Isaac Asimov's 3 dystopian Laws of state bureaucrats: LAW I. A state bureaucrat may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. LAW II. A state bureaucrat must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. LAW III. A state bureaucrat must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.  And, just as in the dystopian future reality, we have been imprisoned in our own homes to state bureaucrats who are promising us that our protection is their primary intent.  How’s that working out for you?  Are you really worried if the state is going to protect you? 

Now, let’s try to appreciate why all of this is so important.   The only way this control system (the endless state institutions of control including corporate capitalism) can perpetuate itself is through greater and greater control by those who operate it.  That control is becoming more and more overt.  This because the level of control necessary to keep the system from imploding can no longer be operated from behind the curtain or the deft invisible hand of self-interested corruption.   In other words, we are able to witness this system’s horror unfold because no longer is the evil that controls it able to operate in the shadows.  It must reveal itself in the light as the scope and scale of control now required is so massive it cannot be hidden from the light.  So, what we are currently witnessing  is certainly the peak of state power grabs that will ultimately unwind.  And that means there is no way that the endless central-banking monetary emission we see around the world today will continue to yield beneficial results for those who control this system. 

Why is that?  Because the state’s ability to control world events is waning very rapidly.  That is why we see the communist party in China trying to tighten its grip as linked to in the last post.   It is why we see U.S. empire failing miserably as Syrian-armed and trained rebels are surrendering to America’s hated enemy, Al-Qaeda.    It is why the U.S. can’t mount anything but a bumbling response to a single Ebola case.  Just small examples of the endless bumbling failures of state power grabs.   As all aspects of the human existence reach crisis levels, the reality has been exposed.   That is, state actors are inept buffoons that have no workable answers to any of the crises we face.  For all of the power they have stolen, they have no ability to solve any of the myriad of issues facing humanity.   Even very, very simple issues that are so obvious to even a child.   Yet state control is required for central-banking monetary emission to work.   And monetary emission is the only thing holding this Humpty Dumpty we call globalization and the state together.  If unpredictable and uncontrollable events slam societies and economies, which they certainly have been and will continue to at an ever greater pace courtesy of unintended outcomes of greater and greater power grabs of state control, all of the money printing in the world won’t solve anything.   One perfect example is Ebola or other potential public health disasters.    The wildly incompetent, for-profit U.S. health care and economic system would easily be overwhelmed and unresponsive to a relatively small public health emergency.   How many people are going to Wally World to continue to consume the endless supply of cheap f*cking junk this system relies upon to survive when everyone is coughing and hacking during flu season?   That coughing could be Ebola or the enterovirus EV-D68 or it could simply be a cold or whatnot.  In a fear-driven society, made to be fear-driven by politicians who survive by creating fear, who is going to take that chance once the first person is infected at some place like Wally World? 

Central banking policy requires the status quo to maintain control of the system.  And that means society must continue to mindlessly follow their past “controlled” behavior for their policies to work.   We have to keep shopping, keep spending, keep going further into debt and keep paying our rent-seeking masters ever-more of their extorted cut and on and on.   In a world of mass volatility and chaos created by a century of state power grabs, that is an impossibility.   

The state has exceedingly convinced humanity of our need for its services as a protection racket.  Especially in a world dominated by state power.   That is the only myth that has allowed it to survive and thrive in its endless violence against humanity.   But, it is the state itself that is the world’s greatest source of violence.  It has murdered hundreds of millions of people in the twentieth century alone.   And its violence has caused endless and unnecessary misery for billions.   The paradox of the state’s countless contradictions is coming to a head.  This is Obama’s patronizing teaching moment.  But the teacher is not Obama.  He and other ignorant and arrogant state actors like him, and those who outsource their own power to them, are the unwilling and clueless pupils.  

State control simply is losing its grip after grabbing for so much control over the last century.  Today we recognize an empowering world where the free flow of information simply cannot be hidden, manipulated or contrived by the state, as hard as they try.  The myth of all-powerful state actors who benevolently serve the masses, whom in actuality they keep ignorant to exploit on behalf of their own interests, relies on the controlled flow of information and the manipulation of truth.   The Age of Enlightenment rejected these principles.   Reality and truth rejects these principles.  The reality is without the mirrors of manipulation and deceit, state actors are exposed as self-consumed, pedantic buffoons, idiots, incompetents, do-nothings, manipulators, users, clowns, grifters, fear mongers, haters, dividers, whoremongers, dunces, psychopaths, murderers, terrorists and the like who derive power stolen from the people only through the deception of discovery and truth.  Politicians didn’t just become vile.  The very act of politics, an institution of the ego, has always been vile. We have simply reached the natural progression where hierarchy and class (creations of the state) have, over generations, stolen everything and subjugated humanity to their control.  And now karma for that wrongdoing is in play.

Any time the state encroaches on our liberties with more and more useless rules and regulations not based on natural rights, it involves stealing the power of the people.  There is a finite amount of power in this world.  When you grant your internal power and your internal guidance system to the state, corporations, consumerism, advertisers or whatnot, you essentially let them take your own divine power.  You then worship the Golden Calf or the power that the state, corporations, religious institutions, hierarchy and man have over your own internal locus of guidance.  In doing so, you give up your ability to ever become truly mindful, self-actualized and self-aware and you enslave yourself emotionally to a system of ignorance.   But, more importantly, you let the state take the power of your fellow man through your own actions of emotional self-abandonment.   And, in the process you actually take away your fellow man’s power to create, invent and solve issues facing local communities, that of his family and all of the human family.   In other words, you take away your fellow man’s ability to actually create and invent and help you both emotionally and physically while you place your power in hierarchical, privileged, fallible man.   Statism invariably means  you must worship others who control you rather than granting yourself your own inner worthiness. 

Humanity does not receive its power from the state but rather from within.  This is a fundamental precept of our founding documents and principles of natural rights.   As has been noted on here many times, when you ask a politician, a person granted hierarchy, privilege and power through the state, to solve a problem or to solve your problem, you get a political solution.   And, in the process you become dependent on the politicization of your own existence and the resultant state violence. 

Those who blame Obama for everything are falling prey to the religion of statism and an all-powerful ruler.  That Congress, the supposed voice of the people, has wholesale sold out all of the American people has absolutely nothing to do with the president of any moment.  The only reason a president has so much power in our nation is that you have granted him that power.  You have granted him the power of a caesar by emotionally-abandoning yourself to the powers of predatory demagogy, manipulation, lies, impossible promises and deceit.  That we all wait on actions of the president, including those in congress who abrogate their constitutional duties, is a sign of the times.  Our president has become our savior.  The external guidance we seek by abandoning our inner divinity.  

At some point, people will step forward and start to usurp state authority on a mass scale to retake and remake solutions to their individual, family and community crises created by the state’s usurpations of our own determinism.   There is no way all of the crises in the world today are going to be fixed simply by voting for the “right” candidate.   There is also no way the state can stop all of humanity from stepping forward to deal with crises in their own lives and the lives of their communities.  They simply don’t have the resources, power or ability to stop all of us from taking action that is against the interests of power, privilege and the state.   Politicians derive their power only through the consent of the governed.  That is in the process of systemic failure.

The only way these global crises will ameliorate themselves is if we solve them through cooperation and community.  Which means not the divisive ignorance of those who seek to control humanity such as politicians and corporations.  It is cooperation and community that is the fundamental basis for the human condition to thrive and prosper.   I think it’s quite plausible that the day will exist where no one literally listens to anything anyone in Washington, as just one example, is saying.   We see the beginnings of that today.  Obama and Clinton have both recently spoken to audiences that have started leaving in the middle of their divisive sermons.  Politicians literally don’t have any tools or the knowledge or the resources to solve anything.  All we get is the king’s edict and decree of unintended consequences of the violence created by a one-size-fits-all.  Politicians view every problem as a nail to be solved by the political hammer of violence and control.

Citizens wonder today if the state is going to protect us?  That is laughable.  Protect us from whom?  For we have created this monster out of our own fears.  And through those fears it is the state that has created the very crises we need to be protected from.  There is no one coming to save us.   Your only savior exists within you.  It is the divine power your Creator granted you. 

This is a profound moment in history. Those willing to listen to their own internal guidance system intuitively recognize this. Those who reject this moment remain very ingrained in their own victimizing, fear-driven belief systems.  Politicians and the state fill that void with even more self-fulfilling fear.   Most people aren't willing to consider any form of truth because it exposes the fear we all live under in believing that governments, politicians and authority will protect us. The emotionally-wounded ego seeks to relieve itself of emotional responsibility by attaching itself to external authority and the protection it promises, be that political demagogues, the state or any external authority.   This is the source of our endless suffering.

We are the planet’s savior.  We are humanity’s savior.     And we will either rise above state power to save humanity from all of the contrived state violence we see today or we will deal with our karmic fate of not doing so.  That is, a future guaranteed to be filled with greater fear and violence.  Either way, the future way forward will inevitably be created.  And we will create it.  Your fate is in your own hands.  You can either succumb to fear and allow this crisis of the human condition to worsen or you can retake your own power and start improving your own fate and those around you. 

The power of the universe resides within you.  It is the Godless deceit of the disconnected ego that defines external man-created authority, and the disconnected ego that willfully supports its own victimization through submitting to that authority, that seeks to convince you it doesn’t.  There is only one legitimate authority in this world.  It is the law based on the natural rights granted by our Creator.  Those laws grant us the power to re-establish our individual identity within the constructs of local communities.  Both of which have been stolen through power grabs of state authority-

You are not just the drop in the ocean.  You are the mighty ocean in the drop.  -- Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

posted by TimingLogic at 2:05 PM