Sam Gerrans is an English writer, translator, support
counselor and activist. He also has professional backgrounds in media,
strategic communications and technology. He is driven by commitment to
ultimate meaning, and focused on authentic approaches to revelation and
realpolitik. He is the founder of Quranite.com – where the Qur’an is
explored on the basis of reason rather than tradition – and offers both
individual language training and personal support and counseling online
at SkypeTalking.com.
Last week I compared the US – and by extension all economies
based on the same model – to Semtex. My exploration of this analogy both
ruffled feathers and raised questions. This week, I want to address
five of the most common criticisms the article generated.
Semtex seems stable. You can throw it, burn it, jump on it. But when you put the right detonator in it, everything blows up.
I think this is a fair analogy for the US at this time. Not everyone agreed.
In this follow-up to last week’s article, I want to address just five of the criticisms this assertion received.
The problem is that the Republic that America was created to be has been usurped by something else called Democracy.
In a Republic there are laws set in stone. There exist immovable principles, no matter how many fools can be drummed up to vote against their own interests.
In Democracy there are no principles other than how many fools you can drum up.
Yes, it’s true. I don’t believe in Democracy. To me, Democracy is a form of corporatized, Satanic hypocrisy the object of which – at least currently – is to mask a Cultural Marxist agenda designed to destroy you not only in this life, but also in the life to come.
But a Republic? Sure, I can get behind that. My problem with America is that it has ceased to be one.
Just because there is a plebiscite every few years where the people put an ‘x’ on a ballot sheet, this does not mean anything under a system where the ruling elite’s current placeman can rule by dictate known as Executive Orders.
So I’m not against America. I’m for America. I’m just saying that what we now have isn’t America.
America has gone and no one would like to see its return more than I.
Things in the US – and all the other countries built on the same model – do seem stable. But you can only keep throwing straw on the donkey’s back so long.
Sooner or later it breaks.
My argument is that when it does break, unlike in previous collapses, the economic, the moral, and the social resilience to withstand such a rupture is no longer sufficient to the needs of the body politic.
I have personally lived through an economic collapse. It wasn’t pretty. The shops were cleared out in a couple of days. I had literally to race across the city to the airline’s central office with our last remaining money to buy tickets out of the country, all the time knowing that the currency could lunge down yet again before I could get to the office and make them take my money.
When things go, they go quickly.
American exceptionalism is a popular belief. But no amount of belief in it will protect the US against the hard laws of reality, as the ruins of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome will attest.
The Soviet Union was a great empire. Where is that now?
But – preppers aside – the US is in a worse condition to the Soviet Union prior to its collapse.
The population of the USSR had no illusions about the intentions of its government – given the millions killed by that government in the course of the 20th century – and most were used to improvising and collaborating to survive.
Added to that, most families had access to a dacha with some land where they could grow the basics.
Americans by comparison are weak, unprepared and isolated and have no conception of how to live frugally or improvise.
I also agree that America was founded on principles of real capitalism, industry and initiative. The successful were allowed to flourish and the unsuccessful were allowed to fail. If these are measures of greatness, then America certainly was great.
But that was then.
As of Q4 2012, Forbes rated the United States as the country with the highest debt of any country in absolute terms, an estimated $14.6 trillion in general government net debt, double the debt of second-placed Japan.
And US debt has grown $10 trillion in the last decade.
The so-called Fed has created trillions of dollars in fiat currency, and no one really knows what the final numbers are because this privately run bank, which controls the US is not audited.
This fact was lamented by Alex J. Pollock, president and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago (1991-2004) in the Wall Street Journal – hardly a hotbed of wild-eyed conspiracy theories.
Add to this the fact that the so-called Fed is gearing up for QE4 (i.e. a fourth round of creating interest-bearing fiat currency as debt since it began bailing out the criminals and psychopaths who were behind the mortgage collapse).
Iceland on the other hand simply let its banks fail and prosecuted the criminals and psychopaths.
As Bloomberg reports, this happy isle is finding crisis-management decisions made half a decade ago, have put it on a trajectory that have turned 2 percent unemployment into a realistic goal.
So from where I’m standing, if American values are the arbiter of greatness, Iceland is the greatest nation on earth right now.
I have seen Russia from the inside – the good, the bad and the ugly. I know Russia in ways few foreigners are likely to. Believe me: there is plenty wrong with Russia.
But there is plenty right with it – and it does not make me a propagandist to say so.
And it is Russia and not America, which has the moral high ground on the world stage right now – a fact which many in America acknowledge.
For example, Putin has operated within international law regarding Syria, and has moved decisively to put paid to Islamic State – a move which almost everyone but the US and Israel applauded.
And it is Russia and not America which has stood up to defend at least some normative aspects of decency to protect minors from the onslaught of indoctrination into what – at least by any scriptural measure – is rank immorality, no matter how packaged and presented as tolerance and virtue.
But it was America – not Russia – which in recent years has been the cause of crisis across the world, destroying country after country as per the PNAC plan, a plan which anticipated – in fact bemoaned the lack of – an event such as a new Pearl Harbour.
One year later they got just such an event: 9/11.
How lucky can you be?
So something is very rotten in the US. It has over-extended itself militarily. It is belligerent, arrogant, and hypocritical beyond words. It is corrupt, bankrupt and sick.
What I am saying is that since its underlying health is so eviscerated, when what comes to all, comes to the US – and the right detonator is triggered – its end will be explosive.
I think this is a fair analogy for the US at this time. Not everyone agreed.
In this follow-up to last week’s article, I want to address just five of the criticisms this assertion received.
1. I am anti-American
I’m not quite sure what that means, but if we are to take the founding documents of the country of America as indicative of what the US stands for – the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – then I am all for them.The problem is that the Republic that America was created to be has been usurped by something else called Democracy.
In a Republic there are laws set in stone. There exist immovable principles, no matter how many fools can be drummed up to vote against their own interests.
In Democracy there are no principles other than how many fools you can drum up.
Yes, it’s true. I don’t believe in Democracy. To me, Democracy is a form of corporatized, Satanic hypocrisy the object of which – at least currently – is to mask a Cultural Marxist agenda designed to destroy you not only in this life, but also in the life to come.
But a Republic? Sure, I can get behind that. My problem with America is that it has ceased to be one.
Just because there is a plebiscite every few years where the people put an ‘x’ on a ballot sheet, this does not mean anything under a system where the ruling elite’s current placeman can rule by dictate known as Executive Orders.
So I’m not against America. I’m for America. I’m just saying that what we now have isn’t America.
America has gone and no one would like to see its return more than I.
2. Everything in America is stable, so what are you talking about?
This was in part, my point.Things in the US – and all the other countries built on the same model – do seem stable. But you can only keep throwing straw on the donkey’s back so long.
Sooner or later it breaks.
My argument is that when it does break, unlike in previous collapses, the economic, the moral, and the social resilience to withstand such a rupture is no longer sufficient to the needs of the body politic.
I have personally lived through an economic collapse. It wasn’t pretty. The shops were cleared out in a couple of days. I had literally to race across the city to the airline’s central office with our last remaining money to buy tickets out of the country, all the time knowing that the currency could lunge down yet again before I could get to the office and make them take my money.
When things go, they go quickly.
3. America is different
If you think this can never happen in the US, think again.American exceptionalism is a popular belief. But no amount of belief in it will protect the US against the hard laws of reality, as the ruins of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome will attest.
The Soviet Union was a great empire. Where is that now?
But – preppers aside – the US is in a worse condition to the Soviet Union prior to its collapse.
The population of the USSR had no illusions about the intentions of its government – given the millions killed by that government in the course of the 20th century – and most were used to improvising and collaborating to survive.
Added to that, most families had access to a dacha with some land where they could grow the basics.
Americans by comparison are weak, unprepared and isolated and have no conception of how to live frugally or improvise.
4. America is the greatest nation on earth
I agree that it was, at least prior to the institution of the Federal Reserve in 1913 – which is the point also at which point America began talking about ‘Democracy’.I also agree that America was founded on principles of real capitalism, industry and initiative. The successful were allowed to flourish and the unsuccessful were allowed to fail. If these are measures of greatness, then America certainly was great.
But that was then.
As of Q4 2012, Forbes rated the United States as the country with the highest debt of any country in absolute terms, an estimated $14.6 trillion in general government net debt, double the debt of second-placed Japan.
And US debt has grown $10 trillion in the last decade.
The so-called Fed has created trillions of dollars in fiat currency, and no one really knows what the final numbers are because this privately run bank, which controls the US is not audited.
This fact was lamented by Alex J. Pollock, president and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago (1991-2004) in the Wall Street Journal – hardly a hotbed of wild-eyed conspiracy theories.
Add to this the fact that the so-called Fed is gearing up for QE4 (i.e. a fourth round of creating interest-bearing fiat currency as debt since it began bailing out the criminals and psychopaths who were behind the mortgage collapse).
Iceland on the other hand simply let its banks fail and prosecuted the criminals and psychopaths.
As Bloomberg reports, this happy isle is finding crisis-management decisions made half a decade ago, have put it on a trajectory that have turned 2 percent unemployment into a realistic goal.
So from where I’m standing, if American values are the arbiter of greatness, Iceland is the greatest nation on earth right now.
5. I am a ‘pro-Russia’ propagandist
I don’t accept this. And I know whereof I speak. I lived in Russia for over 15 years. I learnt Russian in my twenties and speak it fluently.I have seen Russia from the inside – the good, the bad and the ugly. I know Russia in ways few foreigners are likely to. Believe me: there is plenty wrong with Russia.
But there is plenty right with it – and it does not make me a propagandist to say so.
And it is Russia and not America, which has the moral high ground on the world stage right now – a fact which many in America acknowledge.
For example, Putin has operated within international law regarding Syria, and has moved decisively to put paid to Islamic State – a move which almost everyone but the US and Israel applauded.
And it is Russia and not America which has stood up to defend at least some normative aspects of decency to protect minors from the onslaught of indoctrination into what – at least by any scriptural measure – is rank immorality, no matter how packaged and presented as tolerance and virtue.
But it was America – not Russia – which in recent years has been the cause of crisis across the world, destroying country after country as per the PNAC plan, a plan which anticipated – in fact bemoaned the lack of – an event such as a new Pearl Harbour.
One year later they got just such an event: 9/11.
How lucky can you be?
So something is very rotten in the US. It has over-extended itself militarily. It is belligerent, arrogant, and hypocritical beyond words. It is corrupt, bankrupt and sick.
What I am saying is that since its underlying health is so eviscerated, when what comes to all, comes to the US – and the right detonator is triggered – its end will be explosive.
The statements,
views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
