Politics

The Seduction of the Knowledge-Based Society

The most promising trend in geopolitics is the transition from hydrocarbon-based economies to knowledge-based societies. Leadership for that change is emerging from Arab nations.

The appeal of the Knowledge Society is apparent. Who could object to nations preparing their citizens for the 21^st century? Yet unless knowledge is changed, the result could worsen an already dangerous situation.

The sharing of values and knowledge has long been the best way to bridge cultures and promote peace. That strategy is now essential to counter the success of those promoting The Clash of Civilizations.

Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are breaking new ground with education models that build on state-of-the-art information and communication technologies.

This is the inevitable path for the Middle East and North Africa. Yet despite the best of intentions, if knowledge itself is not changed, the impact on Arab societies could aggravate trends that undermine progress.

Just consider the costs when knowledge is corrupted….

How Zionists Corrupt Knowledge

Those who induced the U.S. to war in the Middle East deployed knowledge like a weapon. With lengthy pre-staging, a narrative emerged that made it appear plausible—even desirable—to invade Iraq in response to the provocation of 911.

In retrospect, we now know that the knowledge on which the U.S. relied was false. All of it.

Iraqi WMD. Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda. Iraqi meetings in Prague with Al Qaeda. Iraqi yellowcake uranium from Niger. Iraqi mobile biological laboratories. All false, all traceable to pro-Israelis and all portrayed as true by media outlets dominated by pro-Israelis.

The Knowledge Society holds great potential to connect the Arab world globally. And to build with the West cross-border understanding and empathy. That is the Knowledge Society at its best. At its worse, knowledge can be exploited to manipulate behavior.

The ongoing manipulation of thought and emotion in the U.S. typifies the danger. When Arab nations grasp the common source of the false knowledge that brought war to the region, both the perils and the promise of the Knowledge Society will become apparent.

Yet even the risk of being seduced to war understates the threat. In the modern era, psychological operations (“psy-ops”) are routinely deployed to create consensus opinions and generally accepted truths—akin to the truth of Iraqi WMD.

Mindset Manipulation

The modern-day battlefield is the shared field of consciousness. Where else could consensus opinions reside? Or generally accepted truths. There too are found “field-based” phenomena such as credibility and celebrity that are also deployed to exploit thought and emotion.

When waging field-based warfare, the power of association ranks near the top as effective weaponry. For example, with global public opinion the target, Zionists arranged for U.N. testimony in February 2003 by Secretary of State Colin Powell who vouched for intelligence showing that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories.

When the U.N. Security Council and a global television audience watched the testimony of this former four-star general, what they saw was his reputation for honesty. By the power of association, his credibility “bled over” to grant legitimacy to phony intelligence.

General Powell was only a celebrity prop in an elaborately staged play meant to enhance the plausibility of a global war on terrorism. That war began six weeks later.

Where other than in plain sight could such duplicity succeed? You can be watching field-based warfare and still not see it.

Even now, Powell may not yet grasp how two field-based properties (credibility and celebrity) were key to the psy-ops that seduced the U.S. to war for an Israeli agenda.

Freedom from Deceit

Mental and emotional exploitation lie at the heart of how knowledge is corrupted to catalyze conflicts, manipulate behavior and influence affairs from afar.

With a solid grasp of the methodology of deceit, the Knowledge Society can expose and, by design, displace those complicit in this cunning form of combat.

In preparing for the 21^st Century, Arab nations have an opportunity to free their citizens from the exploitation of those who for centuries have abused knowledge for their selfish ends.

Much of that abuse now proceeds through the unfettered freedom allowed finance. Educated over decades in a “consensus” mindset, lawmakers worldwide now believe in financial freedom as a proxy for personal freedom—regardless of the real-world results.

For the Knowledge Society to realize its potential, modern-day information and communication technologies must make these various forms of duplicity apparent and the perpetrators transparent.

Only with widespread knowledge of how facts can be displaced with false beliefs can the Knowledge Society be protected from such treachery.

Commonsense Money

Since 1913, debt has been the only way that we in the U.S. have known to create money. Choking on debt yet short on money, Americans are reeling from too much monetary theory and too little commonsense.

Those who sold us the theory also ensured recurring recessions. Each debt-induced cycle features rich-get-richer booms followed by debilitating busts. We designed our way into this mess. We can design our way out.

As yet, there’s no sign that policy-makers know a way out. Nor do their advisers. Over the past century, every economist has been educated the same. They are unable to see the real problem because the theory they were taught is the source of the problem.

The U.S. Federal Reserve model of central banking was one of America’s key exports. Every nation now “monetizes” pretty much the same way—with debt.

Good news is on the horizon from major exporting nations. Many of them are Islamic and flush with money. Much of that money originated as debt in industrialized nations.

Those nations are staggering under immense debt. Much of that debt is owed to nations where they must buy oil and gas to fuel their economies and generate funds to…repay debt.

Yet the creditors too are in a bind. Where can they prudently invest their vast pools of debt-backed money? Do they buy more U.S. government debt? Euro bonds? Do they hold their reserves in dollars, euros or pounds sterling—all debt-based?

Invest instead in commodities and they just bid up the price. That may be good news for speculators but it is not a sensible risk management strategy. So what to do? When all else fails, commonsense may yet find its way into this debate.

Tomorrow’s Commodity Today

The safest commodity is one you can control. Look at China’s control over rare earth metals. However control of that sort is a beggar-thy-neighbor approach, akin to investing in precious metals like gold or silver. Such investments miss the point—and the opportunity.

The commodity hedge for the foreseeable future is clean energy, particularly solar power due to its abundance and ease of collection. Clean energy is also what must be monetized—not debt but electrons captured by solar panels and converted to useable energy.

Monetization comes with an implied promise. To maintain value, currencies must be backed by productivity—the capacity to generate real goods and services. Productivity is what makes a financial security truly secure.

Those who designed America’s central banking system assured us that debt-based “monetization” would be backed by real productivity. That thin tether to reality was severed in 1971 when backing for the U.S. dollar shifted from precious metals to a candid slogan now stamped on U.S. currency: “In God We Trust.”

Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan not only trusted Wall Street’s “financial creativity,” he also enabled it with cheap credit. Layer upon layer of cross-collateralized debt produced little more than more money for financial sophisticates. Meanwhile real people living in real communities witnessed the dismantling of the U.S. economy.

Ask around. Would those with commonsense prefer their money secured with debt or with clean energy? Which is more secure?

Those who propose we reform central banking miss the point. Why reform it when, by design, it can gradually be displaced?

Instead of relying solely on debt-backed money, why not also issue asset-backed currencies? Why not complement centralized money with decentralized monies? Instead of one-size-fits-all money, why not tailor currencies to the diverse needs of communities?

Rather than trust in God, why not put your faith in money secured by clean energy?

Commonsense Money

Total assets in sovereign wealth funds now exceed $8.1 trillion. China has reserves approaching $2.4 trillion. Oil exporters have considerably more including $1 trillion held by the United Arab Emirates and $510 billion by Norway.

As an energy exporter with large currency reserves, Russia is revisiting the wisdom of investing in other countries those funds generated by the sale of its natural resources.

With increasing frequency, political leaders are looking at the global financial crisis as an opportunity to reconsider what they monetize—and for whom. That suggests commonsense may yet find a way.

An alternative is known, available and viable with energy-backed “complementary currencies” designed to operate parallel with national currencies.

Do not expect leadership from the U.S. Those who sold us the current system retain too much control—for now.  Their interest lies in more money secured by more debt. Or backed by nothing at all.

Look for this overdue innovation to emerge from cultures long wary of those who collect fixed interest regardless of the debtor’s condition. The Qur’an forbids it as “riba.” The Bible forbids it as “the pound of flesh.”

The source of this common malady is now coming sharply into focus—as is the cure.

Why Is Israeli Spy Jonathan Pollard Back in the News?

Over the past two months, Benjamin Netanyahu has mentioned the fate of jailed Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard six times in meetings with President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Israel lobby also mounted a letter-writing campaign on Pollard’s behalf.

When Pollard was arrested for espionage in the 1980s, Tel Aviv swore he was part of a “rogue” operation. Only 12 years later did Israel concede he was their spy the entire time. That insider espionage by a purported ally damaged U.S. national security more than any incident in U.S. history.

During an earlier term as Prime Minister, Netanyahu secured a verbal agreement from Bill Clinton in 1998 to release Pollard. Clinton then faced a rebellion among U.S. intelligence agencies aware of the damage done. Clinton backed down and Netanyahu backed off.

Pollard took more than one million documents for copying by his Israeli handler. When transferred to the Soviets, reportedly in exchange for the emigration of Russian Jews, that stolen intelligence shifted the underlying dynamics of the Cold War.

What has its entangled alliance with Israel cost the U.S.? The U.S. committed $20 trillion to Cold War defense from 1948-1989 (in 2010 dollars). Pollard negated much of that outlay yet even now Israel pretends to be an ally. Few believe it; many realize the U.S. has been played for a fool.

Why Now?

The timing could be a Christmas season plea for clemency after 25 years of imprisonment. Former Assistant Secretary of State Lawrence Kolb now claims the sentence was excessive due to a personal distaste for Israel by then Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger.

At trial, Pollard claimed he wasn’t stealing from the U.S.; he was stealing secrets for Israel—with whom the U.S. has a “special relationship.” Aware of the harm done by Pollard during the Reagan-era defense buildup, Weinberger pressed for a longer sentence than the prosecution.

From 1981-1985, this U.S. Navy intelligence analyst provided Israel with 360 cubic feet of classified military documents on Soviet arms shipments, Pakistani nuclear weapons, Libyan air defense systems and other intelligence sought by Tel Aviv to advance its geopolitical agenda.

Even while in prison, Pollard’s iconic status among pro-Israelis may have played a strategic role. Or was it just coincidence that Tel Aviv announced a $1 million grant to their master spy ten days before 911? Is that how Israel signals its operatives in the U.S.?

Could that explain the timing of Israel’s latest announcement? Could this news flurry be a signal to pro-Israeli volunteers (sayanim in Hebrew) that another operation is underway?

Timing is Everything

Tel Aviv routinely schedules its operations during political “downtime” in the U.S. The Suez crisis was scheduled for the last week of President Eisenhower’s 1956 reelection campaign. Fast forward to 2008 and Israeli troops invaded Gaza just after Christmas, killing 1,400 Palestinians before exiting just prior to the Obama inaugural.

That well-timed provocation generated more outrage at the U.S. as Israel’s reliable enabler. The carnage also catalyzed reactions worldwide that undermined peace talks

This latest news about Pollard coincides with another political downtime. The U.S. Congress has adjourned and the White House has shut down for the holidays. Plus WikiLeaks successfully removed peace talks from the news and restored talk of war with Iran.

If there is another “incident” in the U.S. or the E.U., will the evidence point to Tehran? Islamabad? Damascus? If the U.S. cannot be persuaded to invade Iran, can it be provoked to do so? Stay tuned.

What Next?

Tel Aviv may be growing desperate and for good reason. Israel and pro-Israelis were the source of the fixed intelligence that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq in response to the provocation of 911. Those facts are well known to intelligence agencies worldwide.

As with Pollard, Tel Aviv denies it.

With Pollard back in the news, anything is possible. Recall how long it took for a confession that he was an Israeli spy. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Tel Aviv to concede its role in provoking its primary ally to pursue a Zionist agenda in the Middle East.

Absent the mass murder of 911, would the U.S. now find itself at war in the Middle East? Absent another provocation, Americans are not inclined to expand these wars. At least not yet.

“I know what America is,” Benjamin Netanyahu assured a group of Israelis in 2001, apparently not knowing his words were being recorded. “America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.”

Pollard has long been a rallying point for Jewish nationalists, Zionist extremists and ultra-orthodox ideologues. Only time will tell why he is back in the news. And whether this news is a means for moving the U.S. in the right direction.

WikiLeaks – Whose Agenda?

Those tracking the agenda now advancing behind the WikiLeaks façade should check for the undisclosed bias among editors at the four newspapers chosen to select what was leaked. And when it was leaked.

The pro-Israeli bias of The New York Times needs no citations. In London, WikiLeaks releases are overseen by Deputy Editor Ian Katz at The Guardian. What about Le Monde in Paris and Der Spiegel in Berlin?

The tipping point for German media dates to 2003 when Haim Saban purchased ProSiebenSat1, Germany’s second largest media conglomerate. Why this particular acquisition? Because “Germany is critical to Israel” conceded Steve Rattner, Saban’s investment banker—now under indictment in New York for fraud.

Saban’s support was key to putting Angela Merkel in office in 2005. Thus Netanyahu’s comment on November 29^th about Germany becoming Israel’s new ‘partner for peace’ in the Middle East—while Tel Aviv collapsed U.S.-sponsored peace talks.

On December 10^th, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution in Washington to announce the end of this latest charade of talks.

Saban has long been close to the Clintons. Ex-President Bill Clinton helped him sell advertising. Though Saban paid for the building now housing the Democratic National Committee, he is doubtless thrilled that Republican Congressman Eric Cantor, a Jewish-Zionist, will take the reins in January as House Majority Leader.

Both political parties are critical to Israel.

Entropy — Again

The collapse of peace talks marked the success of yet another Israeli entropy strategy. When negotiating with Zionists, the relevant question is always: What’s Next From Israel: Entropy or Outrage? Take your pick: perpetual delay or another well-timed provocation. Or both.

In 2007, Saban, a self-described Zionist, acquired control of Univision, the most popular U.S. media outlet for Latinos. As America’s fastest-growing voting bloc, their support is also critical to Israel. This latest acquisition confirms the systematic imbedding of pro-Israeli influence in opinion-shaping domains, including media, think tanks and politics.

Israel is waging war on the U.S. by way of deception. That strategy can only succeed if this war is waged in plain sight by its adept game theory war planners.

Tel Aviv’s agenda requires a critical mass of control over key “in between” domains — between “the mark” (that’s us) and the facts that We The People require for a system of governance reliant on our informed consent.

The modus operandi on display at every turn: displacement of facts with false beliefs.

Thus the role of media, think tanks and pro-Israeli policy-makers in selling Americans on consensus beliefs around Iraqi WMD, Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, Iraqi meetings with Al Qaeda in Prague, Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories and Iraqi uranium from Niger. All were false yet all were widely believed.

The entirety of the phony intelligence that induced the U.S. to invade Iraq is traceable to Israeli or pro-Israeli sources. The invasion was marketed to a trusting American public by a mainstream media dominated by those sharing the same undisclosed bias.

In the Information Age, if that’s not treason, what is?

With Friends Like This….

When in human history were fabricated beliefs first deployed to deceive? At the heart of this ancient craft one finds proponents of the oldest of the three “religions of the book” promoting a “Clash” between its two derivatives: Christianity and Islam.

Displacement is the key to this mental and emotional manipulation. Within hours of WikiLeak’s November release of diplomatic cables, peace talks were displaced by renewed talk of war with Iran. WikiLeaks concedes it had those cables since May.

Barack Obama has no better grasp of this long-running treachery than George Bush, Bill Clinton, G.H.W. Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, Coolidge, Harding or Wilson.

Only with clarity on the common source of this duplicity can a long-deceived global public ensure accountability for the many conflicts engineered by those  skilled at pitting two sides against the middle while profiting off the misery of both.

By wielding their influence in key in-between domains, those complicit prey on the good faith of others. We Americans will remain unwitting players in a fabricated drama (The Clash of Civilizations) so long as we believe a narrative sustained in plain sight by those skilled at deception.

To betray, one must first befriend; to deceive, one must first create a relationship of trust. No one can persuade Americans to forfeit their freedom. We must be induced to freely embrace the forces that, step-by-step, displace our freedom. That’s called Zionism.

To restore the true self to self-governance requires that Americans recover enough self-confidence to follow facts wherever they may lead. And trust in themselves enough to act consistent with those facts — despite what those complicit would deceive them to believe.

Our freedom now depends on it.

Deflation, Inflation – Take Your Pick

U.S. stock markets rallied to recent highs on news that the U.S. Federal Reserve planned to pump up to $900 billion more cash into the economy. Financial markets reflect today’s appraisal of tomorrow’s cash flows. More cash means more flows.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke conceded early on in 2008 that the Fed was “printing money.” With a computer entry, $1.2 trillion in toxic mortgage-backed securities were taken off the books of the banks by crediting their reserve accounts at the Fed. That candor proved unsettling. This latest cash infusion is “quantitative easing” or “QE2.”

“QE1” stabilized financial firms that cross-collateralized massive layers of debt and derivatives in a creative scheme that was destined to collapse without…more cash flow. Washington’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) authorized $700 billion for that purpose.

Insurance giant AIG booked profits by selling more than $440 billion in credit default swaps, a form of insurance, without setting aside reserves. That’s when the Fed stepped in with QE1.

Voicing his admiration for “financial creativity,” former Fed chair Alan Greenspan enabled this pyramiding of debt-on-debt with low interest rates and lax oversight during his 19-year tenure.

Greenspan concedes his high regard for Russian philosopher Ayn Rand (né Alisa Rosenbaum) who famously wore an oversized dollar mark as a broach. Her philosophy: grant money the freedom to work its will worldwide and everything will work out just fine.

Reflecting on the debt-induced financial carnage he helped create, Greenspan recently marveled that financial markets were not, as he and Rand believed, “self correcting.” How could this True Believer have been so mistaken? Why does his successor not yet see the problem?

Answer: both men share a mindset from which the problem cannot be seen because that mindset is the filter through which they do their seeing.

This money-myopic perspective, imbedded in American education over decades, first appeared in the U.S. as the “Chicago model.” The late University of Chicago Professor Milton Friedman, a Noble laureate economist, remains the patron saint of this “monetarist” perspective.

As this dollar-centric ideology was taken to global scale, it became the “Washington consensus.” Generally accepted truths are seldom revisited even when, as now, a reappraisal is long overdue.

Dollar Infatuation = Deflation or Inflation

The Fed is rightly worried that the economy is slipping into a debt-induced deflation akin to Japan’s “lost decade.” As the U.S. deleverages, it could face a similar fate. QE2 is meant to counter deflation yet it could trigger expectations of inflation. That’s the risk when banks start printing money. History offers reasons to worry.

WWII was triggered by an onerous reparations burden imposed on Germany at the Treaty of Versailles ending WWI. British economist John Maynard Keynes left those negotiations to publish a warning in 1919 titled The Economic Consequences of the Peace.

The resulting indignities of widespread poverty and hyperinflation fueled a hyper-nationalism from which emerged the fascist forces that ravaged Europe. The U.S. emerged with an industrial base that ensured its bonds would become the world’s preferred gilt-edged security.

Keynes resurfaced in the 1930s to advocate the debt-financed stimulation of demand. The 1980s saw a debt-financed “supply-side” successor—to stimulate investment. Both deployed public debt to boost private-sector cash flows.

With lower tax rates and faster depreciation, the supply-side program was projected to reduce government revenues by $872 billion over five years. With this stimulus, the Reagan era catalyzed a three-decade debt binge further enabled by the easy credit era of Alan Greenspan.

When Reagan was elected in 1980, securitized U.S. debt totaled $900 billion. The total is now on track to top $15.4 trillion. By 2020, annual interest payments alone could top $1 trillion.

Monetization of What for Whom?

Will this cash infusion fuel inflation?  QE2 differs from QE1. With the mid-term elections signaling political gridlock, Fed-induced liquidity relieves pressure on the federal budget with, in effect, an interest-free loan.

In the interim, are we seeing another skimming of financial value from yet another Fed-lifted equity market?

By fixating solely on how debt-backed dollars can revive a deflating economy, those who induced the U.S. to embrace this monetarist mindset may yet induce a crippling inflation. The year 2013 is the 100^th anniversary of the Fed. The way out may well be found in a willingness to view “monetization” anew.

Who decreed debt as the only way to catalyze demand? Who says monetization must be limited to one-size-fits-all Federal Reserve notes? Why not encourage complementary currencies attuned to the needs of regions and communities?

Are Americans expected to shop their way to sustainable prosperity with debt-backed dollars? Rather than debt, why not monetize the physical capital required for a clean energy economy?

Americans are witnessing record-breaking disparities in wealth and income. Why continue on the same path that enabled this fracturing of U.S. society where the top 1% possess more net worth than the bottom 90%? Why not monetize a sustainable future with means that ensure a shared prosperity?

To solve this problem, first we must acknowledge how the U.S. was induced to embrace a mindset that requires more debt to create more purchasing power.

This problem can only be solved “upstream” commencing with a candid reappraisal of its origins in a shared mindset.

Class Warfare or Financial Narcissism?

Is America the target of class warfare? That claim, though widely made, misses the point. The problem is more serious and the long-term effects far more troubling. Though the facts are compelling, that conclusion is misleading.

In 2007, 1% of U.S. households claimed 24% of the national income. Those figures were compiled well before a debt-induced recession cost the jobs of millions of Americans. And well before the payment this year of a $144 billion bonus to Wall Street’s elite.

The topmost 1% now owns 34% of all private net worth; the bottom 90% owns 29%. Is that evidence of class warfare or is there something else at work?

The facts suggest that these record-breaking disparities were foreseeable by those sophisticated in trade and finance—but not until Americans could be persuaded to put their faith in a shared mindset now known as the “Washington” consensus.

With its U.S. origins traceable to academia, this mindset insists that we grant not deference but outright dominance to those values denominated in money. That worldview worked its way from intellectuals into legislation to become the law of the land.

Instead of the civil rights refrain, “Let my people go,” this widely shared belief insists on “Let my money go.” So we enacted laws to ensure that money can flow wherever money wants to go in pursuit of the highest returns – as measured in money.

Money, after all, is what really matters.

Over decades, the respect granted financial markets became akin to reverence. In the creation of that shared faith lies how we were induced to displace commonsense with a ‘generally accepted truth’ that unleashed the unbridled forces of finance.

Exaggerated Authority

The origins of this mindset recede into the mists of time. Yet its lineage traces to those who honed the skill sets used to excel in global trade and finance.

Fast-forward to modernity and this mindset was imbedded in the curriculum of business and law schools worldwide. Akin to an operating system running silently in the background, this narrow perspective now forms the unstated foundation on which entire economies are built.

Yet those metrics measurable by money fail to reflect either the costs imposed on communities or the values required for healthy and sustainable communities. This glaring mismatch is widely understood with an intuitive certainty that cannot be denied.

Induced to grant lawful dominance to money, people find themselves living unfulfilled lives in unhealthy communities and distressed environments. Educated to behave inconsistent with their inner knowing, people begin to mistrust themselves, societal impotence grows and self-governance recedes.

A simmering resentment colors all as disillusionment morphs into indifference in a disabling cycle that leaves this systemic flaw intact. Rather than challenge the mindset, people adapt and comply.

With compliance come the symptoms of class warfare. But the malady is far more fundamental and its source thoroughly internalized.

Financial Narcissism.

The roots of this mindset trace to a form of narcissism made to appear natural and even rational. Money pursuing more money is a pernicious form of self-adoration enabled by our faith in this flawed mindset.

Clinically, narcissism describes a devastatingly vulnerable person who compensates for an inadequacy with a desperate need for admiration and a grandiose self-image.

Within the consensus mindset, this grandiosity takes form as the legally enforced deference granted financial markets to ensure that money can seek more of itself—regardless of the non-monetary results.

By exaggerating the authority that money is allowed in our lives, a mistrust of our intuitive knowledge grows alongside a sense of civic impotence and widening disenchantment.

This mindset is not itself class warfare. Its symptoms are similar but the malady is more debilitating. Financial narcissism not only fractures societies, it also deeply imprints a sense of personal inadequacy and undermines the confidence required for self-governance.

The Seduction of Zion

By inducing America to embrace this mindset, proponents of this narrow worldview evoked a social environment granting dominance to those values calculable in money. No financial return is too much; nor can any return be paid too quickly.

By living with the effects of a shared mindset ill-adapted to people, place and pace, our lives become inconsistent with our intuition and authenticity is displaced with an ill-fitting faith.

Many of our best minds were educated to excel within this narrow range of values while ignoring its incapacitating effects as this perilous self-absorption expanded to global scale under the guise of the U.S.-discrediting Washington consensus.

The seduction is now complete. Major nations, including the U.S., find their principles displaced, their policies dismissed, their economies devastated and their environments depleted.

As the source of this narcissism is identified, this mindset can be replaced with a consensus that reflects the diversity of values required for sustainable communities and truly human societies.

Dissolving the Union

For those who think the U.S. is broke, think again. It’s far more serious than that.

To renew Bush-era tax cuts for our most well-to-do 2% would reduce U.S. government revenues by $700 billion over the decade. That shortfall will need to be borrowed.

Or we could provide college scholarships to 14 million U.S. high school students. Or tuition, room and board for about half of today’s college students.

$700 billion is also the interest expense on the $3 trillion that the U.S. is projected to borrow to fund the long-term costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of that interest paid to individuals, care to guess what portion finds its way to the topmost 2%?

$700 billion is also the amount authorized in October 2008 to stabilize the financial sector as part of the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

To boost liquidity, the Federal Reserve just announced $600 billion in “quantitative easing” over the next six months. That sum could be increased by another $300 billion.

A December 1^st report brought news that, from March 2008 to May 2009, the Fed extended nearly $9 trillion in short-term loans to 18 financial institutions.

That’s our full faith and credit at work making the world safe for financial markets. And for the elite of Wall Street. To show their gratitude to the American public, the financial sector just paid themselves $144 billion in year-end bonuses.

Meanwhile long-term unemployment is the worst since the Great Depression and fiscal disorder is now commonplace at the federal, state and local level.

States and municipalities have around $2.8 trillion of outstanding bonds. That debt is dwarfed by debts that are off the books, including as much as $3.5 trillion in pension shortfalls.  The situation resembles the run-up to the subprime mortgage meltdown

Meanwhile, the first of 78 million Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1964 reach age 65 in 2011. This demographic bubble ensures fiscal strains unlike anything the U.S. has ever experienced.

Breaking the Habit

The topmost few have fared well over the past three decades. Then there’s everyone else.

In 1981, a $872 billion tax cut and investment stimulus helped expand national net worth by $5 trillion from 1983 to 1989. 54% was claimed by the half million families who make up the top one-half of one percent of the U.S. population.

That works out to an average $5.4 million gain per already-wealthy household. That’s a $65,000 increase in wealth per month or $90 per hour, 24 hours a day.

As with our wars, that surge in personal wealth was financed with debt. While the public got the debt, the well-to-do got ownership of the assets financed with that debt, along with the bulk of the interest.

That boost to personal wealth dates to when the stock market was a fraction of what it is today. Now the top 1% have a combined net worth greater than the bottom 90 percent.

The top 1% own 34% of all private net worth; the bottom 90% own 29%.

From 2002-2006, the topmost one percent received two-thirds of the gains in national income. That trend has remained steady over three decades.

During the 1977-1989 period, the top 1% claimed 70% of the increase in household income. The U.S. is now witnessing its widest ever disparities in wealth and income.

Reagan-era “supply-side” economics was marketed with campaign rhetoric remarkably similar to what we hear again today.

Reagan policies doubled the national debt in just one year.

Financial Reality

Over the past several decades, financial freedom has emerged as a proxy for personal freedom and the pursuit of financial returns as a proxy for the pursuit of happiness.

The economic environment changed such that those values not calculable in money are, by design, displaced. While that may not be what we want, that’s what we were schooled to do.

The trends confirm steadily increasing disparities in both wealth and income. Much as concentrated wealth undermines democracies, concentrated income undermines markets.

Americans do not yet grasp how this money-myopic mindset worked its way into education and imbedded itself in law. Yet our shared embrace of a “consensus” mindset induces us to freely embrace the very forces that now jeopardize our freedom.

There are no winners in this model, only creditors and debtors. The trends are not even good for the financially well-to-do. Lawmakers are right to worry that civil disorder is emerging as a possibility in reaction to growing social discontent.

Lacking the political will to address this steady dissolution of civil society, the U.S. faces increasing instability. How Americans respond will define what America becomes.

Should the union dissolve, the seeds of its destruction will be traceable to this shared mindset.

WikiLeaks and The Sound of Silence

The scope and scale of WikiLeaks is a marvel to behold. Some praise it as the ultimate form of democracy. Others as the epitome of the most sacred of liberty’s principles: the right to know.

Yet the real story here is not what’s revealed but what’s withheld. The marvel is not what we now know but what is already known that is left unsaid. And what’s given an interpretive spin by those newspapers granted priority access.

The facts suggest that WikiLeaks is less about the right to know than the right to deceive.

Take for example the release of diplomatic cables on the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia and the interpretative gloss given by The New York Times.

Ashkenazi General David Kezerashvili returned to Georgia from Tel Aviv to lead an assault on separatists in South Ossetia with the support of Israeli arms and Israeli training. That crisis reignited Cold War tensions between the U.S. and Russia.

Then as now, it appeared there was a possibility of resolving Israel’s six-decade occupation of Palestine. At that time, The Quartet was coordinating the peace-making efforts of Russia and the U.S. along with the European Union and the United Nations.

Tel Aviv was not pleased.

Then as now, efforts to broker a peace were thwarted by creating a crisis within a coalition of those willing to invest their geopolitical capital to end a conflict that has long served its Zionist purpose as a source of other conflicts.

The resulting rift between the U.S. and Russia ensured some well-timed entropy and reduced the possibility of ending a decades-long occupation. Then as now, that occupation must end to bring peace to the region.

The Sound of Silence

Without that broader context, it’s not possible to isolate the motivation for that well-timed war. Yet the cables released by WikiLeaks say nothing about that. Nor does The New York Times.

Nor do the cables mention Tel Aviv’s interest in a pipeline across Georgia meant to move Caspian oil through Turkey and on to Eurasia, using Israel as a fee-collecting intermediary.

As with so much that is left “un-leaked,” the silence is telling.

What is leaked is accurately reported: “Official Georgian versions of events were passed to Washington largely unchallenged.” Yet The Times says nothing about the undisclosed bias motivating that behavior. That silence is deceptive.

Instead Times reporter C.J. Chivers notes only that the bombardments by Georgia of South Ossetia “plunged Georgia into war, pitting the West against Russia in a standoff over both Russian military actions and the behavior of a small nation that the United States had helped arm and train.”

Now as then, there’s no mention in the paper of record of the role played by an Ashkenazi general, the Israeli training of Georgian troops or the arms and equipment that Israel provided.

Tel Aviv must be pleased.

The Greatest Threat to Peace

The Times notes “the reliance on one-sided information” as Georgian President Saakashvili told the U.S. Ambassador “the Russians are out to take over Georgia and install a new regime.”

After the Russian Army dealt the Israeli-trained Georgians a quick defeat, President George W. Bush, as the U.S. economy was sliding into a recession, announced a $1 billion aid package to help Georgia rebuild. Rest assured those funds were borrowed.

In the netherworld where Colonial Zionists excel in catalyzing well-timed crises and generating interest-bearing debt, WikiLeaks has already achieved iconic status. Much as The Quartet faded into memory, the peace talks that showed promise just last week have been displaced by talk of yet another crisis—with Iran.

For those skilled at gaining traction for a storyline and then advancing a narrative, WikiLeaks is akin to a script doctor. With The Clash of Civilizations losing traction, this latest crisis helped put it back on track.

Only time will tell if this traction suffices to take the “coalition of the willing” from Iraq and Afghanistan into Iran. Occasionally those played for the fool turn their attention to the deceiver. An October 2003 poll of 7,500 respondents in the European Union found that Israel was considered the greatest threat to world peace.

The U.S. military is not without considerable knowledge confirming the common source of the fixed intelligence that induced America to invade Iraq.

With the Israel lobby seeking to induce the U.S. into Iran, events may take an unprecedented turn. A coalition of the willing might well be persuaded to secure Palestine along its 1967 borders with troops deployed to protect Jerusalem as a site of significance to three major faith traditions.

Should the U.S. Commander-in-Chief decide to earn his Nobel peace prize, he may order U.S. troops to secure the only known nuclear arsenal in the Middle East.

Tel Aviv will not be pleased.

WikiLeaks–The Tel Aviv Connection

What is Tel Aviv to do now that it’s known that Israelis and pro-Israelis ‘fixed’ the intelligence that induced the U.S. to war in Iraq?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Con me consistently for six decades and the relationship is over, as is Israel’s credibility as a legitimate nation state.

Tel Aviv knows this. But what can the Zionist state do about it? Answer: Wikileaks.

Why now? Misdirection. Shine the spotlight on Washington to take it off Tel Aviv. That’s good old-fashioned psy-ops.  And challenge the credibility of the U.S. That’s Wikileaks.

Any credible forensics would start by asking: to whose benefit? Then look to means, motive and opportunity plus the presence of stable nation-state intelligence inside the U.S.

Other than Israel, who else is a credible candidate? Notice how quickly Israel’s role in the peace process vanished from the news. Now it’s Iran, Iran and more Iran. To whose benefit?

Tel Aviv knows that the phony intelligence on Iraq leads to those skilled at waging war “by way of deception”—the motto of the Israeli Mossad. Wikileaks are noteworthy for what’s missing: the absence of any material damaging to Israeli goals.

But still Tel Aviv faces an unprecedented peril: transparency. Americans know they were duped. And Israel rightly fears that Americans will soon realize by whom.

Tepid Support will not Suffice

Obama has behaved as anticipated by those who produced his presidency. Anyone surprised at the lack of change in U.S. policy in the Middle East fails to grasp the power of the Israel lobby.

Did he hesitate to support their latest Israeli strategy for scuttling peace negotiations? Absent peace, the U.S. will continue to be the target of those outraged at America’s unflinching support for Israel’s thuggish behavior in pursuit of its expansionist goals.

Confirming the lobby’s influence, Netanyahu announced he would not agree to halt settlements on Palestinian land until Obama reduced to writing a $3 billion bribe.

In return for a proposed 90-day freeze, what form of bribe will America provide? Twenty F-35 jets at $150 million each plus parts, maintenance, training and armaments.

That’s $231 million per week or $1,373,626 per hour. What will the U.S. receive in return? A temporary partial freeze on settlements. How many more times can this ruse work?

Israel has evaded a peace agreement since it drove Palestinians from their land in 1948 and seized more land in 1967 to shape today’s geopolitics.

Should Israel reach an agreement with the Palestinians, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposes a “comprehensive security agreement.” At what cost no one knows. The U.S. Congress has already budgeted $30 billion for Israel over 10 years. This latest $3 billion is on top of that.

That doesn’t include the cost to American credibility posed by an offer to veto U.N. recognition of Palestine as a state. And a pledge Never Again to pressure Israel on settlements. Plus the freeze omits East Jerusalem where Tel Aviv insists on moving ahead with new housing starts.

Timing Is Everything

By scheduling its latest incursion into Gaza between Christmas 2008 and the January 2009 Obama inaugural, Tel Aviv ensured only muted opposition during political down time in the U.S. Thus it came as no surprise to see an agent provocateur operation on Thanksgiving Day 2010 as Israel demolished a West Bank Mosque and a Palestinian village.

After seven hours of nonstop talks, Hillary Clinton praised Netanyahu as a “peacemaker.” In return, he agreed only to “continue the process.” Meanwhile, U.S. elections marked a major victory for Israel when incoming Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Jewish Zionist, announced that the new majority would “serve as a check on the Obama administration.”

The Israel lobby has good reason to gloat. Confirming ongoing duplicity, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman proclaimed: “a permanent agreement is impossible.”

Wikileaks’ release of confidential diplomatic cables provides Israel an opportunity to undermine U.S. relations worldwide while also inflicting lasting damage on U.S. interests in the Middle East. After this, what nation would trust the U.S. to maintain a confidence?

In October, Turkey asked that the U.S. not share intelligence with Israel. Now who dares share intelligence with the U.S.?

This may signal the beginning of the end for the Obama presidency as his domestic policy failures are eclipsed by his failures in foreign policy.

This may also signal pre-staging for the 2012 presidential primary with a weakened Obama forced to name Clinton as his running mate or stepping aside so she can lead the ballot.

Her 2008 presidential campaign promised recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” and promised an “undivided Jerusalem as the capital.” Tel Aviv was elated. A second Clinton presidency would ensure another victory for Israel—and no peace.

Israeli psy-ops typically serve multiple purposes. Wikileaks is no exception.

Bibi Back at the White House — The Consistency of Israeli Duplicity Comes Ever More Clearly into Focus

With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the White House July 6^th, it’s time to recall how Tel Aviv deceived Washington throughout the entirety of the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

U.S. military leaders will be watching this meeting very closely, as will the veterans community.

For me, confirmation of Israel’s strategic duplicity came in a meeting with Harry McPherson who served as counsel and speechwriter for Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ entered the Senate in 1948 with Louisiana Senator Russell Long for whom I served as counsel and speechwriter.

At his law offices in Washington, Harry described his arrival in Tel Aviv the night that the 1967 War began. That war typifies the consistency of this ongoing deceit.

He flew in the night before from Vietnam through Hong Kong. He knew on arrival that something was amiss because the airport lights were off. He checked into his hotel and was awakened early on June 5th by Wally Barbour, the U.S. ambassador to Israel.

A pear-shaped diplomat with a penchant for yellowing Palm Beach suits, Barbour called to tell Harry that the war had just broken out—to which he replied, “But I just come from the war.”

Barbour picked him up at the hotel and they hurried to the foreign ministry for a brief meeting before conferring with the Israeli chief of military intelligence. In response to their repeated question, “Did the Egyptians attack?” McPherson and Barbour received only evasive answers. As air raid sirens wailed, McPherson recalls in A Political Education:

Barbour suggested that we might continue the discussion in the underground bunker. The general studied his watch. “No, that won’t be necessary. We can stay here.” Barbour and I looked at each other. If it wasn’t necessary, the Egyptian air force had been destroyed. That could only have happened so quickly if it had been surprised on the ground. We did not need to ask for confirmation, but left at once to cable the news to Washington.

Israel was neither under attack nor under threat of attack as its leadership has since conceded. Air raid sirens were just props in the stagecraft of waging war by way of deception.

The Israel-as-victim storyline was stage-managed by Zionist extremists to make both Israeli citizens and foreign observers believe that the Jewish state was endangered. As with the phony intelligence that induced the U.S. to war in Iraq in March 2003, the facts in June 1967 differed dramatically from the geopolitical narrative.

Under cover of that false attack, Tel Aviv occupied land belonging to its neighbors. The bulk of that property is still held by force 43 years later with the support of the U.S. as its oft-duped ally.

Servicing the Commander-in-Chief

In the lead-up to Israel’s Six-Day Land Grab, Johnson was lobbied by U.N. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg. LBJ had moved Goldberg from the Supreme Court to the U.N. so he could be replaced with Abe Fortas, Johnson’s personal lawyer. Fortas was a senior operative in a network of Zionists who helped produce the Johnson presidency and shaped its policies.

When Goldberg used heart-rending rhetoric to weave for Johnson a storyline about Israeli vulnerability and the pending victimization of hapless Jews at the hostile hands of an Arab “ring of steel,” LBJ waved a Central Intelligence Agency report predicting that Israel could win any war in the region in two weeks.

When Goldberg persisted, Johnson ordered the CIA to revisit their analysis. The agency returned with a revised report concluding that Israel could win any war in the region in one week.

On June 4^th, at a Fortas-hosted dinner for Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and New York investment banker John Loeb, Fortas cautioned Johnson that war might soon erupt in the Middle East.

When the president turned to McNamara for his opinion, the Pentagon chief agreed with Johnson that there would be no war. Johnson then confirmed that U.S. intelligence agencies agreed with McNamara’s assessment. Johnson left for the White House at 10:58 p.m.

Less than six hours later, at 4:30 a.m. on June 5^th, National Security Adviser Walt Rostow called LBJ to announce that Israel had attacked Egypt. Mathilde Krim, a former Irgun operative, was Johnson’s guest at the White House that night. Before informing anyone else, LBJ stopped by the blonde beauty’s bedroom to tell her, “The war has started.”

Not until 7:45 a.m. did Johnson speak with Soviet Premier Aleksi Kosygin who expressed his hope and expectation that the U.S., as Israel’s closest ally, would restrain Tel Aviv.

Mathilde Krim was the wife of Arthur Krim, chairman of the Finance Committee for the Democratic Party and president of United Artists. While Johnson was in the Senate, Krim bought land near the LBJ Ranch in Texas where he built “Mathilde’s House.” When Arthur was away on business, Johnson routinely took Marine One, the presidential helicopter, to visit Mathilde.

An Inside Job

In the war’s first few hours, the “victimized” Israelis destroyed the Egyptian Air Force while its aircraft were still on the ground. Walt Rostow sent Johnson a memo describing the success of Tel Aviv’s “vulnerable” military as “the first day’s turkey shoot.” By evening, the Jordanian air force was also largely destroyed.

Johnson also received a memo from Arthur Krim that read, “Many arms shipments are packed and ready to go to Israel, but are being held up. It would be helpful if these could be released.” Johnson ordered them released.

By evening of the second day, two-thirds of the Syrian air force had been destroyed. The glee in the State Department Operations Room was palpable, leading Under Secretary of State Eugene Rostow to caution, “Gentlemen, gentlemen, do not forget that we are neutral in word, thought and deed.”

At the State Department’s mid-day press briefing, spokesman Robert McCloskey repeated Rostow’s official “neutrality” lie. Zionist advisers surrounded Johnson in the decision-making that lent U.S. support to the 1967 war. “Everyone around me, without exception was pro-Israel,” recalls Johnson speechwriter Grace Halsell. She identified more than a dozen close advisers to Johnson, including Walt Rostow, his brother Eugene and Arthur Goldberg.

White House counsels Leo White and Jake Jacobsen were likewise pro-Israel as were two key speechwriters: Richard Goodwin, husband of biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Ben Wattenberg whose parents moved to the U.S. from Palestine. Likewise domestic affairs adviser Larry Levinson and John Roche, an avid Zionist and Johnson’s intellectual-in-residence.

The Non-Separation of Powers

In the lead-up to this Israeli aggression, Fortas served as an enabling back channel between the Israeli embassy and the White House. Fortas had known Israeli Ambassador Avraham Harman since the ambassador’s arrival in Washington in 1959. During the March 1960 visit to Washngton of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, Fortas sponsored a breakfast at his home attended by Harman and Johnson who was then Senate Majority Leader.

Fortas’ biographer conceded: “For several weeks before the crisis erupted into war, the Israeli ambassador was ‘in very frequent contact’ with Fortas and regularly visited the justice at his chambers or his house.” An outspoken Zionist, Fortas also attended a critical White House strategy meeting on the Middle East on May 26^th, ten days before the land grab began.

When it came to Israel, Fortas was never neutral. “When they get back from Egypt,” a law clerk in his Supreme Court chambers overheard Justice Fortas say, “I’m going to decorate my office with Arab foreskins.”

Throughout the six days of carnage that Israel inflicted on its neighbors, Near East experts met daily with Johnson in the Cabinet Room. Fortas attended each meeting. Reflecting on comments by Fortas to Johnson at their June 4^th dinner party, John Loeb wrote to Fortas on June 6^th: “You were prophetic about the Middle East. Thank the Lord the President has you as a friend and counselor.”

In 1968, Johnson failed in his attempt to elevate Fortas to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Fortas resigned in May 1969 in the wake of a series of scandals. In the summer of 1970, The New York Times reported his registration as a lobbyist for Kuhn, Loeb & Company.

Fortas cemented his relationship with Johnson in 1948 when, in LBJ’s first Senate race in Texas, the Washington lawyer finessed the extensive vote fraud apparent in the Democratic primary in which Johnson claimed an 87-vote victory, including 200 votes tallied in alphabetical order.

A Fortas-devised legal strategy led to Johnson’s name appearing on the November ballot as the Democratic Party nominee. In a strongly Democratic state, that primary victory assured the ambitious Texan a victory in the general election and a seat in the U.S. Senate. Decades later, those familiar with this political history continued to refer to him as “Landslide Lyndon.”

A Strategic Provocation

The Six-Day Slaughter of 1967 pre-staged the geopolitical dynamics for all that has followed—not only in the Middle East but also in the U.S. as Israel’s violent taking of land outraged everyone in the region and set American foreign policy on today’s ruinous course.

The periodic carnage visited on Palestinians ensures that this strategic provocation remains fresh in the minds of Muslims worldwide. Reactions to these serial provocations, in turn, fuel the plausibility of the latest storyline, The Clash of Civilizations and its corrosive counterpart: the Global War on Terrorism with “Islamo fascism” the essential Evil Doer branding.

Israel has performed with reliable consistency every act required to provoke and sustain extremism in the Muslim world. Only by duplicity has the Zionist state sustained a U.S. alliance whose main effect has been to make America appear guilty by association.

On August 9, 2000 in a White House ceremony, President Bill Clinton presented Johnson paramour Mathilde Krim with the Medal of Freedom. By then this former Irgun terrorist had been rebranded as a high-profile medical researcher and AIDS activist adored and promoted to political prominence by her pro-Israeli supporters in Hollywood.

It’s not expected that Israeli-American Rahm Israel Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff to Barack Obama, will urge that Monica Lewinsky receive the nation’s highest civilian honor. It’s not yet known what role Emanuel and White House political strategist David Axelrod have played in sustaining our costly “special relationship” with the Jewish state.

As yet another Israeli Prime Minister arrives in Washington with yet another rationalization for continuing this entangled alliance, a nomination is pending for the appointment to our highest court of a third Jewish Zionist for a court with just nine jurists. In time, historians will identify the role played by the Israel lobby (and Emanuel/Axelrod) in the nomination of Elena Kagan.

Based on the consistency of “Bibi” Netanyahu’s duplicitous conduct over decades, Barack Obama needs to know when an Israeli Prime Minister is once again deceiving a U.S. president. History suggests a reliable test: are his lips moving?

The End of History

Though the U.S. has been deceived with stunning consistency for more than six decades, a mid-course correction remains possible. If this latest president can concede to himself that his political career is a product of those complicit at this deceit, he may yet emerge as the transformative leader that his supporters once hoped he could be.

If Barack Obama can be honest with himself, he will speak candidly to the American people and explain why this long-running deceit must be brought to a speedy close. If on July 6^th he announces support for a one state solution, that will start to unwind this perilous alliance.

Senior military leaders have confirmed the common source undermining U.S. national security. Should the current commander-in-chief fail to act consistent with the known facts, this latest political product of the Chicago Outfit may risk their continued allegiance.

To advance peace, he needs only declare U.S. support for the designation of Jerusalem as an international cultural site under the protection of U.N. troops. To end the multi-decade cycle of provocation/reaction, he needs only reassign 30,000 U.S. troops to Palestine to rebuild a destroyed society, resettle its ousted people on occupied land and secure Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

The Zionist experiment was a failure before it began. An overdue end to this apartheid regime can begin July 6^th. Or this perilous alliance can continue—at untold cost in blood and treasure.

July 6^th could be a defining moment for a president in need of such a moment. That date could also mark the restoration of American values to U.S. foreign policy and grant solace to those moderate and secular Jews long appalled at the conduct of Zionists who in 1948 deceived a U.S. president to recognize as a legitimate state their extremist enclave in the Middle East.

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