Category: History

QUO VADIS?

Posted on by Ray Joseph Cormier

Growth Is the Problem

congress

Capitalism isn't workingImage by celesteh via Flickr

The ceaseless expansion of economic exploitation, the engine of global capitalism, has come to an end. The futile and myopic effort to resurrect this expansion—a fallacy embraced by most economists—means that we respond to illusion rather than reality. We invest our efforts into bringing back what is gone forever. This strange twilight moment, in which our experts and systems managers squander resources in attempting to re-create an expanding economic system that is moribund, will inevitably lead to systems collapse. The steady depletion of natural resources, especially fossil fuels, along with the accelerated pace of climate change, will combine with crippling levels of personal and national debt to thrust us into a global depression that will dwarf any in the history of capitalism. And very few of us are prepared.

“Our solution is our problem,” Richard Heinberg, the author of “The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality,” told me when I reached him by phone in California. “Its name is growth. But growth has become uneconomic. We are worse off because of growth. To achieve growth now means mounting debt, more pollution, an accelerated loss of biodiversity and the continued destabilization of the climate. But we are addicted to growth. If there is no growth there are insufficient tax revenues and jobs. If there is no growth existing debt levels become unsustainable. The elites see the current economic crisis as a temporary impediment. They are desperately trying to fix it. But this crisis signals an irreversible change for civilization itself. We cannot prevent it. We can only decide whether we will adapt to it or not.”

Heinberg, a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, argues that we cannot grasp the real state of the global economy by the usual metrics—GDP, unemployment, housing, durable goods, national deficits, personal income and consumer spending—although even these measures point to severe and chronic problems. Rather, he says, we have to examine the structural flaws that sit like time bombs embedded within the economic edifice. U.S. household debt enabled the expansion of consumer spending during the boom years, he says, but consumer debt cannot continue to grow as house prices decline to realistic levels. Toxic assets litter the portfolios of the major banks, presaging another global financial meltdown. The Earth’s natural resources are being exhausted. And climate change, with its extreme weather conditions, is beginning to exact a heavy economic toll on countries, including the United States, through the destruction brought about by droughts, floods, wildfires and loss of crop yields.

Heinberg also highlights what he calls “the highly dysfunctional U.S. political system,” which is paralyzed and hostage to corporate power. It is unable to respond rationally to the crisis or solve “even the most trivial of problems.”

“The government at this point exacerbates nearly every crisis the nation faces,” he said. “Policy decisions do not emerge from deliberations between the public and elected leaders. They arise from unaccountable government agencies and private interest groups. The Republican Party has taken leave of reality. It exists in a hermetically sealed ideasphere where climate change is a hoax and economic problems can be solved by cutting spending and taxes. The Democrats, meanwhile, offer no realistic strategy for coping with the economic unraveling or climate change.”

The collision course is set. It is now only a matter of time and our personal response.

“It could implode in a few weeks, in a few months or maybe in a few years,” Heinberg said, “but unless radical steps are taken to restructure the economy, it will implode. And when it does the financial system will seize up far more dramatically than in 2008. You will go to the bank or the ATM and there will be no money. Food will be scarce and expensive. Unemployment will be rampant. And government services will break down. Living standards will plummet. ‘Austerity’ programs will become more draconian. Economic inequality will widen to create massive gaps between a tiny, oligarchic global elite and the masses. The collapse will also inevitably trigger the kind of instability and unrest, including riots, that we have seen in countries such as Greece. The elites, who understand and deeply fear the possibility of an unraveling, have been pillaging state resources to save their corrupt, insolvent banks, militarize their police forces and rewrite legal codes to criminalize dissent.”

If nations were able to respond rationally to the crisis they could forestall social collapse by reconfiguring their economies away from ceaseless growth and exploitation. It remains possible, at least in the industrialized world, to provide to most citizens the basics—food, water, housing, medical care, employment, education and public safety. This, however, as Heinberg points out, would require a radical reversal of the structures of power. It would necessitate a massive cancellation of debt, along with the slashing of bloated militaries, heavy regulation and restraints placed on the financial sector and high taxes imposed on oligarchic elites and corporations in order to reduce unsustainable levels of inequality. While this economic reconfiguration would not mitigate the effects of climate change and the depletion of natural resources it would create the social stability needed to cope with a new post-growth regime. But Heinberg says he doubts a rational policy is forthcoming. He fears that as deterioration accelerates there will be a greater resolve on the part of the power elite to “cannibalize the resources of society in order to prop up megabanks and military establishments.”

Survival will be determined by localities. Communities will have to create collectives to grow their own food and provide for their security, education, financial systems and self-governance, efforts that Heinberg suspects will “be discouraged and perhaps criminalized by those in authority.” This process of decentralization will, he said, become “the signal economic and social trend of the 21st century.” It will be, in effect, a repudiation of classic economic models such as free enterprise versus the planned economy or Keynesian stimulus versus austerity. The reconfiguration will arise not through ideologies, but through the necessities of survival forced on the poor and former members of the working and middle class who have joined the poor. This will inevitably create conflicts as decentralization weakens the power of the elites and the corporate state.

Joseph Tainter, an archeologist, in his book “The Collapse of Complex Societies” provides a useful blueprint for how such societies unravel. All of history’s major 24 civilizations have collapsed and the patterns are strikingly similar, he writes. The difference this time around is that we will unravel as a planet. Tainter notes that as societies become more complex they inevitably invest greater and greater amounts of diminishing resources in expanding systems of complexity. This proves to be fatal.

“More complex societies are costlier to maintain than simpler ones and require higher support levels per capita,” Tainter writes. The investments required to maintain an overly complex system become too costly, and these investments yield declining returns. The elites, in a desperate effort to maintain their own levels of consumption and preserve the system that empowers them, through repression and austerity measures squeeze the masses harder and harder until the edifice collapses. This collapse leaves behind decentralized, autonomous pockets of human communities.

Heinberg says this is our fate. The quality of our lives will depend on the quality of our communities. If communal structures are strong we will be able to endure. If they are weak we will succumb to the bleakness. It is important that these structures be set in place before the onset of the crisis, he says. This means starting to “know your neighbors.” It means setting up food banks and farmers’ markets. It means establishing a local currency, carpooling, creating clothing exchanges, establishing cooperative housing, growing gardens, raising chickens and buying local. It is the matrix of neighbors, family and friends, Heinberg says, that will provide “our refuge and our opportunity to build anew.”

“The inevitable decline in resources to support societal complexity will generate a centrifugal force,” Heinberg said. “It will break up existing economic and governmental power structures. It will unleash a battle for diminishing resources. This battle will see conflicts erupt between nations and within nations. Localism will soon be our fate. It will also be our strategy for survival. Learning practical skills, becoming more self-sufficient, forming bonds of trust with our neighbors will determine the quality of our lives and the lives of our children.”

Chris Hedges spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. His latest books are Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, Death of the Liberal Class, and The World as It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.

When people have to run faster and faster to hold on to where they were, it is time to consider some unorthodox solutions.

How about revisiting the Lord’s prayer?  Forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted to us.

There would be a huge transformation, redeeming Time and Opportunity, if the people decided they would be better off standing up and affirming their own self-interest by implementing this good, old, common sense advice as the Global Biblical Babylonian economic, military, political system has arrived at it’s end as the Bible said it would:

And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plow shares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

THE TOWER OF BABEL & THE BEGINNING OF NATIONS

Posted on by Ray Joseph Cormier

And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

Go to, let us (plural) go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
So the LORD (singular) scattered them abroad from then upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from then did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Genesis 11

Human life was precarious 4300 years ago when the Babel story was recorded. The people did not have any central authority or government other than the family unit. There were no police to protect them from marauding bandits. There would have been no organized religions. With no clocks other than sunrise and sunset, life was a matter of survival from day to day.  I suppose many people worshiped the sun, the moon and the stars, and the Earth that produced sustenance from the dirt to support human life.
These days we treat the Earth and people like dirt, polluting the rivers, lakes and streams and even the oceans, all in the name of money, business, progress and jobs.

This Living Earth may be ready to cut off it´s life sustaining power and regurgitate us for destroying it.

And the nations were angry, and your wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that you should give reward to your servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear your name, small and great; and should destroy them which destroy the earth.

Revelation 11:18

In my view, this 4300 year old Bible story speaks to both our history and our common future. Humanity has evolved.  Every Nation has its high towers as symbols of it´s economic prowess. We have reached the Heavens. Mankind has landed on the moon and sent satellites into deep space. We have come a long way.

On Earth, we are still divided by language, even within the same language, with competing interests and beggar thy neighbour attitudes, rather than having a common purpose for the Common Good of Mankind. If we continue to remain blind to all the signs of the times shouting Change!!! then as a species, we may not be worthy to continue much longer.

To this very Day the people babble on and babble on and not much is resolved!

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
For ALL NATIONS have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.
For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.

And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

Revelation 18

THE NUCLEAR QUESTION? IRAN – DIFFERENT FROM THE REST?

Posted on by Ray Joseph Cormier

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In 1984, Prime Minister David Lange barred nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from using New Zealand ports or entering New Zealand waters. Under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987,[1][2] territorial sea, land and airspace of New Zealand became nuclear-free zones. This has since become a sacrosanct touchstone of New Zealand foreign policy.[3]

The US was very upset and angry with this upstart Prime Minister David Lange taking a stand on Principle, and unilaterally declaring New Zealand a nuclear free zone. This was a bold challenge to US nuclear policy, like a rebellion in the ranks, taking an Independent position within the US dominated Western Alliance.

Although New Zealand was exercising it’s Democratic Sovereignty, the US downgraded New Zealand from ally to friend and imposed economic sanctions on a friendly Democratic Country for daring to deviate from US dictates. This was a modern Day variation of the old David vs Goliath story as David in little New Zealand stood up to the American Goliath.

David Lange

In 1985 The Ottawa Citizen published a little 3 x 3 notice David Lange was going to debate America’s most prominent religious leader at the Time, the Rev. Jerry Falwell at the Oxford Debating Union on the question of the morality of nuclear weapons. It didn’t say who was for or against, but I knew the American religious leader made in the image of the Americanized Jesus would argue for nuclear weapons.

I wrote a letter to Prime Minister Lange including many of my writings and Bible verses I felt would support his position and be useful in debating a religious leader.

I enclosed all the information in a large brown manila envelope using mail as it was before the arrival of the Internet. I was very pleased when he wrote back using such precise language.

In 1984, as an individual, tossed my hat into the ring, paid the fee, registered and ran for the Seat of Ottawa-Centre as an Independent Candidate for The Parliament of CanaDa. Having no money, organization or supporters, I knew I didn’t stand a chance of winning unless it was a miracle and that didn’t happen.

That experience opened my eyes to see the only choices presented to the Canadian people in any election are the Party Leaders for the 308 seats in Parliament. They get massive free publicity every day of the election and all the local party candidates benefit from all that free publicity.

Even though I paid the same registration fee as any party candidate as a serious contender, the local TV would not allow me to participate in the only local TV debate, and many “All Candidates” debates excluded Independents who paid the same registration fee as party members to be heard by the voters. Our electoral system and the system itself is subtly and overtly stacked against any challenger of the Status Quo.

What moved me to run for the 1st Time in 1984 on impulse, was being mindful of George Orwell’s ‘1984’, and did it for the Spiritual, symbolic reasons as it is now in the Public Record.

ELECTIONS

We are way beyond George Orwell’s ‘1984’ and it appears in Today’s world of power, to Israel, the US & the West, War is Peace when it comes to Iran.

Western news media never report Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Religious Leader, said this on February 12, 2012,

“The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that the decision makers in the countries opposing us know well that Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.”

He has been consistent saying the same thing in 2010,

“We have said repeatedly that our religious beliefs and principles prohibit such weapons as they are the symbol of destruction of generations. And for this reason we do not believe in weapons and atomic bombs and do not seek them.”

and in 2009,

“They (Western countries) falsely accuse the Islamic republic’s establishment of producing nuclear weapons. We fundamentally reject nuclear weapons and prohibit the use and production of nuclear weapons. This is because of our ideology, not because of politics or fear of arrogant powers or an onslaught of international propaganda. We stand firm for our ideology.”

Could this be because most people on this earth might agree with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and more pressure would be placed on the other nuclear nations having 13,890 nuclear bombs between them to make a more serious genuine effort to negotiate the elimination of all nuclear weapons as called for under the terms of the NPT and inspire by example rather than by Dictatorial edicts pronounced on Iran?

Taking the Supreme Religious Leader of Iran at his word, I can see the basic idea and Spirit of his words are rooted in these ancient words and ideas behind them in the Bible:

But when you shall see the abomination of desolation, (A-bom-i-Nation of desolation) spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that reads understand,) then let them that be in Judea flee to the mountains:

Mark 13:14

Believing the God of Abraham lives Today, it is the Spirit of God that gives Spiritual meaning to the literal word. If one is to be realistic, the ancient Biblical word “abominations,” in the Spirit of Today’s world, means A-bomb-i-nations and the desolation that would be if they are ever used. (let him that reads understand,)

U.S. and allies agree: Iran does not have a nuclear bomb, may not want one and is far from building one

Anyone remember John Aristotle Phillips the A-Bomb kid? In 1976, while attending Princeton University as a junior undergraduate, he designed a nuclear weapon using publicly-available books and papers. Any terrorist group determined enough to build one can without Iran.

The information is out there and the Genie cannot be put back in the bottle. Iran has been under attack by the US and the West since the peaceful, non-violent people’s revolution and break from the past and the American installed proxy Dictator the Shah. Democracy was not for the Iranian people when the US had the dominant influence, but only for American domestic consumption.

The world has quickly forgot the US, British, Saudi Arabia and the lessor kingdoms in the Middle East financed Saddam when he was useful to them to start the brutal 8 year war against Iran in 1980 to nip the ’79 Iranian Revolution in the bud.

I could see Iran sees itself facing an “existential threat” equally as much and as justifiable as Israel sees itself facing an “existential threat.” If those fears are mirrored and magnified, the whole world is in grave danger.

I know the Holy One of Israel has Declared: Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the Children of God. This transcends all notions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam & Atheism. Those Children of God are needed to be seen NOW more than ever before.

The last thing the International Arms Merchants want to see is peaceful non-violent revolutions happening in this world as it happened in Iran in ’79. That would put them out of business. The US is the biggest arms merchant the world has ever produced. The more violent the revolution the better for business.

THE DECLARATION

The Spirit of the Iranian People’s revolution of ’79 was rekindled with the Arab Spring that morphed into the Global Occupy movement in 2011.

Why single out only Iran when Israel has nukes outside of the NPT and it is not questioned at all or held accountable? Why single out Iran for violation of UN resolutions while Israel violates many UN resolutions with impunity and leads the charge against Iran for violating UN Resolutions? I applaud Iran for standing up against Western hypocrisy and double standards.

The NPT allows all nations, including Iran, to develop nuclear power, including enriching uranium. There is absolutely no evidence Iran is producing a bomb and it is only fear, paranoia and suspicion, standard essential parts used in peaceful nuclear power have dual use capability in producing bombs.

The latest round of US sanctions in addition to UN sanctions is tantamount to a Declaration of Economic Warfare on the people and Nation of Iran with the intention of destroying the Iranian economy. There are no more economic sanctions left to apply. The only step left is War and the world is on the path to the slippery slope of Armageddon. The people of Iran are being punished unjustly even though Iran is legally operating within the terms of the NPT.

Although Iran and Israel are bitter enemies, few know that Iran is home to the largest number of Jews anywhere in the Middle East outside Israel.

About 25,000 Jews live in Iran and most are determined to remain no matter what the pressures – as proud of their Iranian culture as of their Jewish roots.

It is dawn in the Yusufabad synagogue in Tehran and Iranian Jews bring out the Torah and read the ancient text before making their way to work.

It is not a sight you would expect in a revolutionary Islamic state, but there are synagogues dotted all over Iran where Jews discreetly practise their religion.

“Because of our long history here we are tolerated,” says Jewish community leader Unees Hammami, who organised the prayers.

He says the father of Iran’s revolution, Imam Khomeini, recognised Jews as a religious minority that should be protected.

As a result Jews have one representative in the Iranian parliament.

“Imam Khomeini made a distinction between Jews and Zionists and he supported us,” says Mr Hammami.

The temporal Zionists in Israel, and not all Israeli Jews are Zionists, have only one belief from the Bible adhering to it with the most rigid ideology. The words in that old Bible say God gave the land to the Jews, and the Jews exclusively, and to hell with what the Palestinians and the world thinks. Temporal Zionists treat the Palestinians in Israel and in the conquered territories as an inferior people, and continue to encroach on the very land that is the purpose for Peace negotiations, contrary to all the UN resolutions condemning temporal Zionism.

Iran’s proud but discreet Jews

September 13, 1976, The Kansas City Times records the Vision God opened my eyes to see way back then when the Middle East was not on the mind of the people like it is Today.

The newspaper records in these express, explicit words, “there are 30 months before the Fate of the world will be sealed with either Universal Brotherhood or Destruction.” The September 13, 1976 article records expressly this figure is based on “a Treaty between Israel and Egypt.”

Not 29 or 31, but exactly 30 months later, on March 26, 1979, a Treaty between Israel and Egypt was formally signed, The Camp David Accord. This Treaty confirmed and symbolized the possibility of the Universal Brotherhood part of the September 13, 1976 prophecy.

Personally, at the Time I was surprised The Kansas City Times printed and published these words:

“He came to town for the Republican National Convention and will stay until the election in November to do God’s bidding: To tell the world, from Kansas City, that this country has been found wanting and it’s days are numbered.”

For those who don’t know or grasp the significance, temporal Israel is a recreation from the Bible in this real, non-religious world. The words above are the 1st two parts of the 3 part Writing on the Wall story in Daniel 5.

The 3rd part describes the decline of the world’s superpower and the rise of Persia-Iran which also happened in 1979 in tandem with the hope of Universal Brotherhood implicit with the signing of The Camp David Accord, the alternative being War and Destruction.

As for the Writing on the Wall, the whole world saw it for the 1st Time at the same Time with the Global Financial Meltdown-Economic Pearl Harbour/Tsunami in September 2008. Global government deficit financing maintained the illusion of business as usual, but that illusion is quickly dissipating with hard core austerity on the way and everybody knows it, whether one believes in God or not.

The Destruction part in the September 13, 1976 prophecy is evidenced, confirmed and signified in the 2nd article The Kansas City Times published on ALL SOULS DAY, November 2, 1976. It’s taken all these years but it’s finally upon us if Israel attacks Iran.

What amazes me, when I post this link so anyone can see the proof and evidence for themselves, the stats tell me it is a very rare person with the courage or mental curiosity to expand on the original 1976 Kansas City Times Markers of Time to read and see for themselves in this link. There’s nothing I can do about that, but the historical facts are not changed one iota. Many are called, but few are chosen.

I speculate that’s because of the implications, people would rather delude themselves into thinking ‘what I don’t know won’t hurt me’ or change their fixed ideas.

Israel starting a war with Iran concurrent with the Witch’s brew developing in Syria, people delude themselves thinking it will not affect their lives here as that happens over there.

From the Revolutionary Spirit of ’76 to the Revolutionary Spirit of ’11

The Revelation is when you can see it happening in Today’s world. It appears to me from the two choices presented in 1976, the world is opting for the Destruction part of the prophecy these Days and I don’t know which of the EITHER/OR is sealed yet. That depends on you.

Jesus admitted He doesn’t know the Day and said the Angels of God don’t know the Day. Only God knows the Day.

I don’t think it’s too late to opt for Universal Brotherhood even as the world appears to be heading on the Path of Destruction in the Middle East and because of oil, the world with it.

The Signs of the Times are clear for those who have eyes to see.

Why not get the Law and Politics Right in Iran?

by Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus Princeton University and International Law Scholar.

Western News media do not cover anyone deviating from the line the West must go to war against Iran.

Anyone following what’s happening in this World 12 years after this article was posted, if you understand why US and Western Media always preface what’s unfolding in the Middle East with “Iran backed proxies” the Israeli Massacre in Gaza represents the opening salvos of ARMAGEDDON, a physical place in Israeli OCCUPIED Palestine.