$400 TRILLION HOLE? Actual US debt may be 2,000% of GDP, says Wall Street report

Source

http://www.rt.com

Published time: 12 Sep, 2019

File photo © Reuters / Carlo Allegri

A new report suggests that the real US debt level may be $400 trillion, or 20 times higher than the country’s gross domestic product. The calculation includes government, state, local, financial and so-called entitlement debt.

AB Bernstein, a global asset management firm based on Wall Street, came up with these figures by including in its analysis not only traditional levels of public debt, such as bonds, but also financial debt as well as future obligations for entitlement programs. These include social security, Medicare and public pensions.

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In its report, AB Bernstein took debt from a number of sources and compared it to GDP. Using this methodology, federal, state and local government debt combined amounted to 100 percent of GDP. Households and firms accounted for 150 percent, while debt held by financial firms came to 450 percent. Another 27 percent came from trusts for social insurance programs, 484 percent from promises under current social insurance programs, and 633 percent from obligations for social programs. The total debt therefore amounted to 1,832 percent.

“US debt is large. And it’s growing. But if we want to think about debt problems (in any sector – sovereign, households, firms or financials), the conditions rather than the levels are more significant,” Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, chief US economist at AB Bernstein, said in the report.

It suggests that, although the figures seem depressingly large, it is important to understand that not all of the debt obligations are concrete, and there may be leeway. This is especially true for the government programs, which form the biggest potential debt but can be changed by legislation or accounting.

While the picture is dire, such numbers don’t prove we are doomed or that a debt crisis is inevitable.

“Debt problems could, arguably would have, already happened at lower levels of debt if the macro conditions forced it,” Carlsson-Szlezak noted. He also explained that crisis measures work both ways. An apparently smaller level of debt can cause major problems at a time when the economy is at its weakest, for instance in a financial crisis. At the same time, larger levels of debt can be harmless if other conditions, for example leverage levels, or debt to capital, are sustainable.

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The total federal outstanding US debt has recently jumped to $22.5 trillion, or about 106 percent of GDP, CNBC reported. Without the intergovernmental obligations, debt held by the public amounts to $16.7 trillion, or 78 percent of GDP.

Carlsson-Szlezak noted in the report, however, that different debt carries different risks and its impact on individual parts of the economy would vary.

“A default on US treasury bonds would be catastrophic to the global economy – whereas changes in policy (while painful for those whose future benefits were diminished) would barely register on the economic horizon,” he stated.

From Iran to Mass Shootings on the Mainland, the U.S. Empire Is in a State of Decay

AMERICA’S COLLAPSE

Source

ahtribune.com

BY DANNY HAIPHONG  

AUGUST 07 ,2019

Iran has been subject to crippling U.S. sanctions and military provocations in recent weeks. The most recent U.S. escalation began in mid-July when the U.K., through its territory of Gibraltar, seized an Iranian oil tanker accused of violating E.U.-imposed sanctions against Syria. Iran has since taken three “foreign” tankers into custody and placed seventeen Iranians accused of spying for the CIA under arrest. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the 2020 election buzz has been temporarily drowned out by the deaths of over thirty people in three mass shootings. From Iran to Ohio, the U.S. empire is in a state of decay.

Iran is responding to U.S. imperial decay by defending itself on behalf of the former colonial world, much of which is still under the thumb of neocolonial and imperialist exploitation. The Islamic Republic has been under a state of siege by the imperialist world for over half of a century. Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh was overthrown in 1953 with the help of the CIA. This placed Iran under the autocratic puppet rule of the Shah. The Shah used a secret police force, the SAVAK, to murder, kidnap, and torture of tens of thousands of Iranians. All of this occurred under the supervision of the U.S. and U.K.

The Iranian people overthrew the Shah and re-nationalized the nation’s vast oil reserves in 1979. Washington never forgave Iran for refusing to bow down to its imperial dictates. Iran maintains sovereignty on several fronts. On the domestic front, Iran has developed an advanced military infrastructure capable of defending the country from foreign invasion. On the international front, the Islamic Republic has developed firm ties with Russia, China, Syria, and a litany of nations which has allowed it to modernize its economy. U.S. sanctions have kept Iran’s people without key medical and other resources necessary for survival, but this hasn’t stopped them from defending the self-determination of Iran and allied nations.

When Iran stands up to the U.S. and its imperial allies, it isn’t merely defending itself. Iran is defending the rest of the world’s peoples. Iran has given critical aid to the Syrian government in its righteous fight against foreign-sponsored “jihadist” mercenaries. Iran has also been a key ally of Venezuela; which, like Iran, has suffered gravely because of U.S. sanctions. Iran’s seizure of foreign oil tankers and CIA agents shows that it is not afraid of the U.S. or its allies. U.S. imperialism is in decay and cannot assert hegemony in the old way. There are no CIA-backed coups in the cards and a full-scale attack on Iran would be political suicide not just for Trump, but for the entire U.S. and E.U. political establishment which has rapidly seen its political legitimacy dwindle over the last several decades.

Just as the U.S. is unable to operate in the same way around the world, mass shootings in the U.S. represent a domestic example of a militarized, racist Empire in decay. White America has historically acted as the foot soldiers in the Empire’s system of racialized social control dating back to the original sin of slavery. Slave patrols, lynch mobs, and their modern manifestations in the American police and prison state are historical byproducts of a ruthless system of profit rooted in the white supremacist dehumanization of Africans in America. For several centuries, most white Americans relished in the benefits conferred to them by a system that placed Black and anyone else deemed a sub-human race to the bottom of the class structure. Only in the last forty to fifty years since Black Americans forced concessions upon the state has it been distasteful to publicly rejoice in the fruits of white supremacy.

Mass shootings demonstrate the U.S.’ descent into barbarism. In 2017, in response to the mass shooting in Las Vegas, Democratic Party presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg remarked on Twitter that “I did not carry assault weapons around a foreign country so I could come home and see them used to massacre my countrymen.” Democratic Party representative Steve Cohen deleted a similar tweet not long after the most recent string of mass shootings in California, Ohio, and El Paso “You want to shoot an assault weapon? Go to Afghanistan or Iraq. Enlist!” Such responses to white violence in the U.S. reveal the double standard inherent in the logic of white superiority and imperial violence. Mass shootings that disrupt the mythical tranquility of white society represent a crisis worthy of response while institutionalized mass murder in the form of military intervention is characterized as a necessary and heroic act.

A social system predicated on white supremacy, empire, and a declining capitalist economy inevitably brings about conditions of depravity like those seen in the recent mass shootings. Fascism festers when capitalism forces those who have become comfortable with certain conditions, such as the presence of (white) jobs, into a state of precarity. That’s why the El Paso shooter’s manifesto can simultaneously condemn both U.S. political parties and automation while taking out murderous rage on undocumented immigrants. Economic and political violence is supposed to be reserved for subhuman “savages” such as indigenous peoples, undocumented migrants, and Black Americans. The chickens have come home to roost in White America and it should come as no surprise in an alienated, heavily surveilled society that one of the responses is violence at the barrel of the gun.

Much of the world, including large sections of the U.S. population, is no stranger to U.S. imperial violence. Black Americans and indigenous peoples native to what is now the U.S. mainland are murdered by law enforcement nearly every day in the United States. Iraq lost over one million people during the U.S. invasion beginning in 2003. Iran lost one million itself in the war two decades prior when the U.S. supplied Iraq with chemical weapons to invade the Islamic Republic post-revolution. An empire in decay only becomes more violent and ruthless in its attempt to maintain hegemony. The U.S. has killed over 40,000 Venezuelans in one year’s worth of sanctions. And with China and Russia labeled the greatest threat to U.S. “national security,” the threat of a global war of nuclear proportions looms over humanity like a storm cloud.

The U.S. has long been on the path to barbarism. Iran’s resistance to U.S. imperialism provides an international example of heroism and is a continuation of the anti-colonial struggle of the 20th century. Mass shootings and global provocations are a sign of an empire that is even more dangerous because it is dying. Only by joining in this struggle can exploited and oppressed sections of the U.S. population achieve true peace and justice in our lifetime. Without mass resistance to white supremacy and war, the U.S. empire threatens to devour itself alive and will no doubt attempt to take the rest of us with it.

WRITER

DANNY HAIPHONG

Danny Haiphong is the co-author of the book American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News-From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror.

Is China Hoarding Food, Gold And Other Commodities In Anticipation Of A Global Collapse?

Source

endoftheamericandream.com

by Michael Snyder

Aug 8, 2019

Does China believe that we are on the verge of a major global crisis?  The communist Chinese government has always been very big into planning, and it appears that they have decided that now is the time to hoard food, gold, and other commodities.  Of course, in recent days the fact that China is completely cutting off U.S. agricultural imports has made headlines all over the globe, but at the same time, China is dramatically increasing the amount of food that it is importing from the rest of the world.  The end result is actually a substantial surge in Chinese imports, and this is starting to show up in the official numbers.  For example, we just learned that Chinese soybean imports in July were actually up 8 percent compared to last year…

China’s soybean imports in July rose 8% from a year earlier, to their highest level in almost a year, customs data showed on Thursday, as importers increased their purchases of Brazilian beans on higher crush margins.

As I discussed the other day, China had already been drastically reducing soybean imports from the United States even before this recent announcement that U.S. agricultural imports were being cut off completely.  So American farmers were definitely not benefiting from this Chinese import boom, and now that China has decided not to buy any of our crops it is going to be a  “devastating blow” for our farmers…

With China officially pulling out of buying U.S. agricultural products, American farmers are losing one of their biggest customers. It could be a devastating blow in an already tough year for crops and commodity prices. It may also dent U.S. gross domestic product and hurt companies like Deere, whose business is directly tied to farming in the Heartland.

“Sales have already been lower this crop year because of the existing tariffs. If we went all the way to no China exports whatsoever, that would of course result in even larger market and price impacts,” said Pat Westhoff, director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri. “Cutting China completely out of the market would be a very big deal.”

Needless to say, China has had to turn to other sources to supply their needs, and last month we learned that China had decided to substantially increase wheat and soybean imports from Russia…

China has approved wheat imports from the Russian region of Kurgan, the Chinese customs office said on Friday, bringing Russia a step closer to its goal of dramatically increasing grain exports.

It also approved soybean imports from all parts of Russia, the General Administration of Customs said in a separate statement on its website, having all but halted U.S. soy imports as the trade dispute between Beijing and Washington deepened.

This is yet another sign that Russia and China are drawing closer, and this is something that we have been anticipating.

Meanwhile, China is also hoarding gold.  In fact, July was the eighth month in a row in which the Chinese increased their reserves…

China bought nearly 10 tons of gold in July, marking the eighth consecutive month the country increased its reserves, Bloomberg reported Wednesday morning.

The purchase is another signal from China that it’s gearing up for a prolonged trade conflict with the US. Gold serves as a historic safe-haven investment, and its price typically rises when markets and other currencies see increased volatility or prolonged weakness.

In addition, Bloomberg is reporting that Chinese commodity purchases of all types were very, very strong in July…

Commodity purchases by China rebounded strongly in July. Imports of soy to coal and crude oil gained, signaling demand in the world’s biggest buyer remains solid even as a trade spat with the U.S. escalates.

So why are the Chinese suddenly stocking up on everything?

Well, the truth is that the answer to that question is quite obvious.  The trade war between the United States and China is rapidly escalating, war in the Middle East could erupt at any time, the global economy has been steadily slowing down, crops are failing all over the planet, and everywhere we look we seem to see rising political instability.

In fact, we even see it in China’s own backyard.  After weeks of unprecedented political protests in Hong Kong, it looks like we could be right on the verge of a brutal crackdown.  The following comes from the New York Post…

After eight weeks of huge Hong Kong street protests against Beijing’s rule, the People’s Republic is massing police and soldiers just across the border. Message: If the protesters don’t quit, a bloodbath is coming.

Beijing has also started denouncing the protests as the work of American provocateurs. That’s so the regime can paint its Tiananmen Square-style crackdown as a battle against “foreign influence,” not a smashing of Chinese people who decided all on their own that they’d rather be free.

The relative stability that we have been enjoying for the past several years is ending, and it appears that the months ahead could potentially be quite chaotic.

Normally I would never suggest that anyone should emulate the Chinese government, but in this case they appear to be doing the wise thing.  Now is the time to get prepared for what is coming, because the road ahead promises to be quite tumultuous.

Most people don’t realize it, but U.S. relations with China have already passed the point of no return.  Things are going to become increasingly tense between our two nations, and that is going to have very serious implications for all of us.

 

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Catherine Austin Fitts – Financial Calamity an Ongoing Process (36 min)

Greg Hunter

Published on 3 Aug 2019

Investment advisor and Former Assistant Secretary of Housing Catherine Austin Fitts says forget about the notion of a coming economic meltdown, we are already living in an unfolding financial calamity, now. Fitts explains, “The likely financial calamity is an acceleration of the ‘slow burn.’ It’s not that the stock or bond market comes apart. It is that the stock and bond market continue to be subsidized by liquidating all sorts of people, animals and living resources. In other words, we are liquidating all of life. To engineer central control, we are levering up the debt, and we are liquidating people and countries and things to basically keep that game going while somebody is walking off with tremendous amounts of money that they used to engineer central control. So, we have had an ongoing calamity since the mid 1990’s–serious financial calamity. If you are the people of Libya, you have already had your financial calamity. Calamity is not a big bang that we all experience together. We almost got ours in 2008 and 2009. Calamity is an ongoing process. Some are composed so others can live.”

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Catherine Austin Fitts, publisher of “The Solari Report,” in Part #1 of this must see interview.

Click here for Part #1 https://usawatchdog.com/radical-econo…

 

The Splendiferous Serpent Is Awakening

Source

eventhorizonchronicle.blogspot.com

Richard Sauder

Aug 1, 2019

Paul Craig Roberts has wrapped his head around part of what is coming:America’s Collapse: What Is Left Will Be A Ruin
Source

That’s right, Golden America, the Shining City on the Hill, is on the verge of utter, complete ruin. Put it this way: “Making a Garbage Heap Great Again” is nothing but a fool’s errand. Lamentably, there do seem to be a lot of fools running around who have not yet come to grips with that starkly brutal fact.

I have been blogging for years about precisely this salient reality, the rapidly unfolding Event Horizon that will change everything and everyone in a comparatively short period of time. In fact, the changes will be so dramatically severe that a whole series of mass mortality events of all kinds are all but baked in the cake at this point. To be blunt, large hordes of people will most likely be going bye-bye. Whether there will be a resident human population on this planet in 2050, or even in 2035, remains to be seen. What comes next will be vertiginously fast, kaleidoscopic pandemonium.

The causes of the upheaval(s), which have already begun, are and will be myriad: abrupt climate change and associated massive crop failures due to unseasonable cold, heat waves, drought or alternatively flooding/too much rain; rampant deforestation of the large tropical and boreal forests; death of the global ocean, i.e., poisoning of and industrial overfishing of the world’s seas and oceans; ongoing radioactive contamination of the environment from Chernobyl, Fukushima and 400 other nuclear power plants around the world, all of which have grave problems; plagues of dangerous pathogenic organisms, whether naturally occurring or bio-engineered; the already begun, chaotic collapse of the global economic order; profoundly-unfriendly-to-humans-and-other-living-things 5G communications technology and related A.I. and robotic technologies, including on a swarming micro- and nano-scale; major warfare employing various weapons of mass destruction, both novel and non-novel; ongoing accumulation of plastics and hundreds of other toxic substances in the global ecology; the continuing, run-away global extinction event that not one person in one hundred has yet fully grokked — but they will! they will! – though only when it is already far too late to do anything about it but weep in desperation, and the concomitant collapse of the global food chain; the already underway, confused failure of national governments all over the world; powerful geological, volcanic and seismic events, some of them impressively large; and very much more.

It goes almost without saying that ordinary politics, as we have known political affairs, are about to be completely swamped by a great tidal wave of turbulent, unpredictable change that will have much greater momentum. Think about it: the present cohort of stupid, ignorant, sleazy, lying, thieving, corrupt politicians who think they run the world, can scarcely manage the greatly degraded, declining, poorly functioning societies and political, monetary, industrial, agricultural, diplomatic and military affairs that currently fall under their purview. Imagine how that corrupt, mobbed-up, marginally competent, global political class will perform when the system(s) that they ostensibly oversee catastrophically fail.

It is not a pleasant prospect, and yet, that is precisely what is on the way, as surely as night follows day.

đεŧ

I have repeatedly been shown this word or symbol inwardly, in dreaming and visionary states. The way I have rendered it is a close approximation of the way it appears, the nearest I could find in my word processing program’s special character list.

I have always seen it written or tattooed on the back of a serpent that closely resembles the copperhead pit vipers native to the eastern region of the mainland USSA.

In recent days, I have again seen this symbol or word, as well as the serpent on which it invariably appears. It is clearly written on its back, right behind the head. My subconscious deems this viper and the message that it bears to be important, because it keeps showing it to me. The serpent itself was a bit lethargic and groggy. I sensed that it was warming up, gathering itself. I had the distinct impression that it was awakening from a long period of hibernation, and was soon to be released into the wild.

đεŧAs I looked at it and wondered about the meaning of it all I was shown this:

Is. : a) venomous b) additive, cumulativeI had the certain knowing that it would be pronounced very similarly to the English word, “debt”; though it is not a mere word, but rather a living entity, an energetic archetype, if you will, of an awakening, fundamentally cold-blooded, reptilian reality, whence its serpent-like manifestation in my subconscious.

For me, the clear purport of the vision is that the heavily leveraged, debt-based, vastly criminally corrupt, global financial and economic systems are about to catastrophically unwind with deadly effect, not unlike the way a coiled pit viper unwinds when it bares its fangs and suddenly strikes its prey.

đεŧ

Debt. Death. Dead.

I don’t doubt for one second that Paul Craig Roberts is correct about the future of “America” — what is left will be a ruin.

America’s Collapse: #2 in a series

America’s Collapse: #2 in a series

America’s Collapse: #2 in a series

“Essentially, capitalism is a plunder mechanism that generates short-run profits by externalizing long-run costs.  It exhausts natural resources, including air, land, and water, for temporary profits while imposing most of its costs, such as pollution, on the environment. “

With permission from

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org

Paul Craig Roberts

Aug 1, 2019

An Economy Based on Plunder

 

Capitalists have claimed responsibility for America’s past economic success.  Let’s begin by setting the record straight. American success had little to do with capitalism. This is not to say that the US would have had more success with something like Soviet central planning.

Prior to 1900 when the frontier was closed, America’s success was a multi-century long success based on the plunder of a pristine environment and abundant natural resources. Individuals and companies were capitalized simply by occupying the land and using the resources present.

As the population grew and resources were depleted, the per capita resource endowment declined.

America got a second wind from World War I, which devastated European powers and permitted the emergence of the US as a budding world power.  World War II finished off Europe and put economic and financial supremacy in Washington’s hands.  The US dollar seized the world reserve currency role from the British pound, enabling the US to pay its bills by printing money.  The world currency role of the dollar, more than nuclear weapons, has been the source of American power. Russia has equal or greater nuclear weapons power, but it is the dollar not the ruble that is the currency in which international payments are settled. 

The world currency role made the US the financial hegemon.  This power together with the IMF and  World Bank enabled the US to plunder foreign resources the way vanishing American resources had been plundered.  

We can conclude that plunder of natural resources and the ability to externalize much of the cost have been major contributors right through the present day to the success of American capitalism.  Michael Hudson has described the plunder process in his many books and articles (for example, http://www.unz.com/mhudson/u-s-economic-warfare-and-likely-foreign-defenses/ ), as has John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Essentially, capitalism is a plunder mechanism that generates short-run profits by externalizing long-run costs.  It exhausts natural resources, including air, land, and water, for temporary profits while imposing most of its costs, such as pollution, on the environment.  An example is the destruction of the Amazon rain forest by loggers.  The world loses a massive carbon sink that stabilizes the global climate, and loggers gain short-run profits that are a tiny percentage of the long-run costs.

This destructive process is amplified by the inherently short-run time perspective of capitalist activity which seldom extends beyond the next quarter.  

US economic success was also a result of a strong consumer demand fed by rising real wages as technological advances in manufacturing raised the productivity of labor and consumer purchasing power. The middle class became dominant. When I was an economics student, Paul Samuelson taught us that American prosperity was based entirely on the large American consumer market and had nothing to do with foreign trade.  Indeed, foreign trade was a minor factor in American GDP.  America had such a large domestic consumer market that the US did not need foreign trade to enjoy economics of scale.

All of this changed with the rise of free-market ideology and the collapse of the Soviet Union. When I was a student we were taught that boards of directors and corporate executives had responsibilities to their employees, their customers, their communities, and to their shareholders.  These responsibilities were all equally valid and needed to be kept in balance.

In response to liberals, who tried to impose more and more “social responsibilities” on corporations, free-market economists responded with the argument that, in fact, corporations only have responsibilities to their owners. Rightly or wrongly, this reactive argument is blamed on Milton Friedman.  Conservative foundations set about teaching jurists and legislators that companies were only responsible to owners.  

Judges were taught that ownership is specific and cannot be abridged by government imposing obligations on the investments of owners for responsibilities that do not benefit the owners. This argument was used to terminate all responsibilities except to shareholders and left profit maximization as the corporate goal.

Thus, when the Soviet Union collapsed and China and India opened their economies to foreign capital, US corporations were free to desert their work forces and home towns and use cheaper labor abroad to produce the goods and services sold to Americans. This increased their profits and, thereby, executive bonuses and shareholder capital gains at the expense of the livelihoods of their former domestic work force and tax base of their local communities and states.  The external costs of the larger profits were born by their former employees and the impaired financial condition of states and localities. These costs greatly exceed the higher profits.

Generally speaking, economists assume away external costs.  Their mantra is that progress fixes everything.  But their measures of progress are deceptive.  Ecological economists, such as Herman Daly, have raised the issue whether, considering the neglect of external costs and the inaccurate way in which GDP is measured, announced increases in GDP exceed in value the cost of producing them.  It is entirely possible that GDP growth is simply an artifact of not counting all of the costs of production.  

As we approach the end of the second decade of the 21st century, the long history of American capitalism fed by plunder seems to be coming to an end simultaneously with the ability of the US central bank to protect existing financial wealth by creating ever more money with which to support stock, bond, and real estate prices.  The US has a long history of overthrowing reformist governments in Latin America that threatened American control over their resources.  Washington’s coups against democracy and self-determination succeeded until Venezuela.  Washington’s coup against Chavez was overturned by the Venezuelan people and military, and so far Washington’s attempt to overthrow Chavez’s successor, Maduro, has failed.

Washington’s attempt to overthrow the Syrian government was prevented by Russia, and most likely Russia and China will prevent Washington from overthrowing the government of Iran.  In Africa, the Chinese are proving to be better business partners than the exploitative American corporations.  To continue feeding the empire with its heavy costs is becoming more difficult.

Washington’s policy of sanctions is making it even more difficult. To avoid the arbitrary and illegal sanctions, other countries are starting to abandon the US dollar as the currency of international transactions and arranging to settle their international accounts in their domestic currencies. China’s Silk Road encompasses Russia with much of Asia in a trade bloc independent of the Western financial system.  Other countries hoping to escape US control are turning to Russia and China to achieve sovereignty from Washington.  These developments will reduce the demand for dollars and impair US financial hegemony.  Alternatives to the World Bank will remove areas of the world from the reach of US plunder.

As plunderable resources diminish, American capitalism, which is heavily dependent on plunder, will have one foundation of its success removed.  As aggregate consumer demand collapses from the absence of growth in real income, absence of middle-class jobs, and the extreme polarization of income and wealth in the US, another pillar of American capitalism disintegrates.  As business investment has also collapsed, as indicated by the use of corporate profits and borrowing to repurchase the corporations’ equity, thus decapitalizing the companies, total aggregate demand itself collapses. 

The absence of growth in aggregate demand will make the gap between high stock prices and dismal prospects for corporate profits too great to be bridged by the Federal Reserve flooding money into financial assets.  Without the ability to prop up financial asset prices with money creation, flight from dollar-denominated assets could bring down the US dollar.

What is left will be a ruin.

Monsters With Human Faces

Monsters With Human Faces

“All of the imperial powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which they might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Donald Trump.”

http://www.counterpunch.org

by JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

JULY 31, 2019

“But these weren’t the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around—they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.”

― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Enough already.

Enough with the distractions. Enough with the partisan jousting.

Enough with the sniping and name-calling and mud-slinging that do nothing to make this country safer or freer or more just.

We have let the government’s evil-doing, its abuses, power grabs, brutality, meanness, inhumanity, immorality, greed, corruption, debauchery and tyranny go on for too long.

We are approaching a reckoning.

This is the point, as the poet W. B. Yeats warned, when things fall apart and anarchy is loosed upon the world.

We have seen this convergence before in Hitler’s Germany, in Stalin’s Russia, in Mussolini’s Italy, and in Mao’s China: the rise of strongmen and demagogues, the ascendency of profit-driven politics over deep-seated principles, the warring nationalism that seeks to divide and conquer, the callous disregard for basic human rights and dignity, and the silence of people who should know better.

Yet no matter how many times the world has been down this road before, we can’t seem to avoid repeating the deadly mistakes of the past. This is not just playing out on a national and international scale. It is wreaking havoc at the most immediate level, as well, creating rifts and polarities within families and friends, neighborhoods and communities that keep the populace warring among themselves and incapable of presenting a united front in the face of the government’s goose-stepping despotism.

We are definitely in desperate need of a populace that can stand united against the government’s authoritarian tendencies.

Surely we can manage to find some common ground in the midst of the destructive, disrupting, diverting, discordant babble being beamed down at us by the powers-that-be? After all, there are certain self-evident truths—about the source of our freedoms, about the purpose of government, about how we expect to be treated by those we appoint to serve us in government offices, about what to do when the government abuses our rights and our trust, etc.—that we should be able to agree on, no matter how we might differ politically.

Disagree all you want about healthcare, abortion, and immigration—hot-button issues that are guaranteed to stir up the masses, secure campaign contributions and turn political discourse into a circus free-for-all—but never forget that our power as a citizenry comes from our ability to agree and stand united on certain principles that should be non-negotiable.

For instance, for the first time in the nation’s history, it is expected that the federal deficit will surpass $1 trillion this year, not to mention the national debt which is approaching $23 trillion. There’s also $21 trillion in government spending that cannot be accounted foror explained. For those in need of a quick reminder: “A budget deficit is the difference between what the federal government spends and what it takes in. The national debt is the result of the federal government borrowing money to cover years and years of budget deficits.” Right now, the U.S. government is operating in the negative on every front: it’s spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American taxpayers) and it is borrowing heavily (from foreign governments and Social Security) to keep the government operating and keep funding its endless wars abroad. Meanwhile, the nation’s sorely neglected infrastructure—railroads, water pipelines, ports, dams, bridges, airports and roads—is rapidly deteriorating.

Yet no matter how we might differ about how the government allocates its spending, surely we can agree that the government’s irresponsible spending, which has saddled us with insurmountable debt, is pushing the country to the edge of financial and physical ruin.

That’s just one example of many that shows the extent to which the agents of the American police state are shredding the constitutional fabric of the nation, eclipsing the rights of the American people, and perverting basic standards of decency.

Let me give you a few more.

Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour)—and that’s just what the government spends on foreign wars. The U.S. military empire’s determination to police the rest of the world has resulted in more than 1.3 million U.S. troops being stationed at roughly 1000 military bases in over 150 countries around the world. That doesn’t include the number of private contractors pulling in hefty salaries at taxpayer expense. In Afghanistan, for example, private contractors outnumber U.S. troops three to one.

No matter how we might differ about the role of the U.S. military in foreign affairs, surely we can agree that America’s war spending and commitment to policing the rest of the world are bankrupting the nation and spreading our troops dangerously thin.

All of the imperial powers amassed by Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which they might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to operate a shadow government, and to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Donald Trump. These presidential powers—acquired through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements and which can be activated by any sitting president—enable past, president and future presidents to operate above the law and beyond the reach of the Constitution.

Yet no matter how we might differ about how success or failure of past or present presidential administrations, surely we can agree that the president should not be empowered to act as an imperial dictator with permanent powers.

Increasingly, at home, we’re facing an unbelievable show of force by government agents. For example, with alarming regularity, unarmed men, women, children and even pets are being gunned down by twitchy, hyper-sensitive, easily-spooked police officers who shoot first and ask questions later, and all the government does is shrug and promise to do better. Just recently, in fact, the 11^th Circuit Court of Appeals cleared a cop who aimed for a family’s dog (who showed no signs of aggression), missed, and instead shot a 10-year-old lying on the ground. Indeed, there are countless incidents that happen every day in which Americans are shot, stripped, searched, choked, beaten and tasered by police for little more than daring to frown, smile, question, or challenge an order. Growing numbers of unarmed people are being shot and killed for just standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.

No matter how we might differ about where to draw that blue line of allegiance to the police state, surely we can agree that police shouldn’t go around terrorizing and shooting innocent, unarmed children and adults or be absolved of wrongdoing for doing so.

Nor can we turn a blind eye to the transformation of America’s penal system from one aimed at protecting society from dangerous criminals to a profit-driven system that dehumanizes and strips prisoners of every vestige of their humanity. For example, in Illinois, as part of a “training exercise” for incoming cadets, prison guards armed with batons and shields rounded up 200 handcuffed female inmates, marched them to the gymnasium, then forced them to strip naked (including removing their tampons and pads), “bend over and spread open their vaginal and anal cavities,” while male prison guards promenaded past or stood staring. The 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the entire dehumanizing, demoralizing mass body cavity strip search—orchestrated not for security purposes but as an exercise in humiliation—was legal. Be warned, however: this treatment will not be limited to those behind bars. In our present carceral state, there is no difference between the treatment meted out to a law-abiding citizen and a convicted felon: both are equally suspect and treated as criminals, without any of the special rights and privileges reserved for the governing elite. In a carceral state, there are only two kinds of people: the prisoners and the prison guards.

No matter how we might differ about where to draw the line when it comes to prisoners’ rights, surely we can agree that no one—woman, man or child—should be subjected to such degrading treatment in the name of law and order.

In Washington, DC, in contravention of longstanding laws that restrict the government’s ability to deploy the military on American soil, the Pentagon has embarked on a secret mission of “undetermined duration” that involves flying Black Hawk helicopters over the nation’s capital, backed by active-duty and reserve soldiers. In addition to the increasing militarization of the police—a de facto standing army—this military exercise further acclimates the nation to the sight and sounds of military personnel on American soil and the imposition of martial law.

No matter how we might differ about the deference due to those in uniform, whether military or law enforcement, surely we can agree that America’s Founders had good reason to warn against the menace of a national police force—a.k.a. a standing army—vested with the power to completely disregard the Constitution.

We labor today under the weight of countless tyrannies, large and small, disguised as “the better good,” marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and carried out by an elite class of government officials who are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions. For example, in Pennsylvania, a school district is threatening to place children in foster care if parents don’t pay their overdue school lunch bills. In Florida, a resident was fined $100,000 for a dirty swimming pool and overgrown grass at a house she no longer owned. In Kentucky, government bureaucrats sent a cease-and-desist letter to a church ministry, warning that the group is breaking the law by handing out free used eyeglasses to the homeless. These petty tyrannies inflicted on an overtaxed, overregulated, and underrepresented populace are what happens when bureaucrats run the show, and the rule of law becomes little more than a cattle prod for forcing the citizenry to march in lockstep with the government.

No matter how we might differ about the extent to which the government has the final say in how it flexes it power and exerts its authority, surely we can agree that the tyranny of the Nanny State—disguised as “the better good,” marketed as benevolence, enforced with armed police, and inflicted on all those who do not belong to the elite ruling class that gets to call the shots— should not be allowed to pave over the Constitution.

At its core, this is not a debate about politics, or constitutionalism, or even tyranny disguised as law-and-order. This is a condemnation of the monsters with human faces that have infiltrated our government.

For too long now, the American people have rationalized turning a blind eye to all manner of government wrongdoing—asset forfeiture schemes, corruption, surveillance, endless wars, SWAT team raids, militarized police, profit-driven private prisons, and so on—because they were the so-called lesser of two evils.

Yet the unavoidable truth is that the government has become almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting, whether that evil takes the form of terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity.

No matter how you rationalize it, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

So how do you fight back?

How do you fight injustice? How do you push back against tyranny? How do you vanquish evil?

You don’t fight it by hiding your head in the sand.

We have ignored the warning signs all around us for too long.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the government has ripped the Constitution to shreds and left us powerless in the face of its power grabs, greed and brutality.

What we are grappling with today is a government that is cutting great roads through the very foundations of freedom in order to get after its modern devils. Yet the government can only go as far as “we the people” allow.

Therein lies the problem.

The consequences of this failure to do our due diligence in asking the right questions, demanding satisfactory answers, and holding our government officials accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the rule of law has pushed us to the brink of a nearly intolerable state of affairs.

Intolerable, at least, to those who remember what it was like to live in a place where freedom, due process and representative government actually meant something. Having allowed the government to expand and exceed our reach, we now find ourselves on the losing end of a tug-of-war over control of our country and our lives.

The hour grows late in terms of restoring the balance of power and reclaiming our freedoms, but it may not be too late. The time to act is now, using all methods of nonviolent resistance available to us.

“Don’t sit around waiting for the two corrupted established parties to restore the Constitution or the Republic,” Naomi Wolf once warned. Waiting and watching will get us nowhere fast.

If you’re watching, you’re not doing.

Easily mesmerized by the government’s political theater—the endless congressional hearings and investigations that go nowhere, the president’s reality show antics, the warring factions, the electoral drama—we have become a society of watchers rather than activists who are distracted by even the clumsiest government attempts at sleight-of-hand.

It’s time for good men and women to do something. And soon.

Wake up and take a good, hard look around you. Start by recognizing evil and injustice and tyranny for what they are. Stop being apathetic. Stop being neutral. Stop being accomplices. Stop being distracted by the political theater staged by the Deep State: they want you watching the show while they manipulate things behind the scenes. Refuse to play politics with your principles. Don’t settle for the lesser of two evils.

As British statesman Edmund Burke warned, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men [and women] to do nothing.”

More articles by:JOHN W. WHITEHEAD

John W. Whitehead is the president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People.