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Buchanan - What Happens in Iran and Syria is None of Our Business

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:10:39 -0500

Buchanan - What Happens in Iran and Syria is None of Our Business

Pat Buchanan 300 Nukes In Israel Yet Iran A Threat

http://www.infowars.com/buchanan-what-ha...r-business

Solution oriented wiki & google group

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:06:41 -0500

https://sites.google.com/site/wikiofsolutions/

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgro...individual

please join the group and contribute to the discussion...

I am releasing a Torrent right now and its showing 0 seeders. why?

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:26:09 -0500

http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-details.php?id=27899

Should it not show that i am seeding?

Andrew Lansley bankrolled by private healthcare provider

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:41:08 -0500

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopi...vider.html

Quote:Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, is being bankrolled by the head of one of the biggest private health providers to the NHS, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

yes im posting the telegraph. never thought i ever would. this is from 2 years ago....

Quote:John Nash, the chairman of Care UK, gave £21,000 to fund Andrew Lansley’s personal office in November.

Mr Nash, a private equity tycoon, also manages several other businesses providing services to the NHS and stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Conservative policies to increase the use of private health providers.

Andy Burnham, the Heath Secretary, is planning to write to David Cameron, the party leader, asking for him to guarantee that Conservative health policy is not dictated by private health care companies.

A senior Labour source said: "This raises serious questions about Andrew Lansley's judgement and it is difficult to see how he can continue on in his role as shadow health secretary when it would appear that a private health care company is helping to fund the development of Tory health policy.

"David Cameron claims that the Tories are now the party of the NHS - it makes his claim look more absurd than ever.
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"How can the public trust Cameron on the NHS when his health secretary is hand in glove with a big beneficiary of Tory health policy?

"There is an apparent contradiction at the heart of Tory health policy and we urgently need to hear a detailed read out of what this money was donated in exchange for or the money should be refunded."

It is the first private donation registered with the Electoral Commission by Mr Lansley since 2001 and it is not clear why he accepted the money just months before a general election. Although he will not profit from the donation, it will help bolster his political profile.

Care UK provided services for 500,000 people last year, working with all ten Strategic Health Authorities and one in three Primary Care Trusts. It runs hospitals, NHS Walk-in Centres, GPs’ practices and care homes. It currently runs 59 residential care facilities with 3,400 beds.

In a recent interview, a senior director of the firm said that 96 per cent of Care UK’s business, which amounted to more than £400 million last year, came from the NHS.

Earlier this month, the Conservatives pledged to increase the use of private providers if elected.

In the draft manifesto published by the Conservatives, the party promised to “open up the NHS to include new independent and voluntary sector providers.”

In official company documents, Mr Nash, who is also a major shareholder in Care UK, praised reforms proposed by the Conservative party.

“We welcome recent policy statements by the opposition Conservative Party in the UK which have substantially strengthened their commitment to more open market reform to allow new providers of NHS services and for greater freedom for patients to choose their GP and hospital provider,” he said.

Mr Nash, 60, also founded the private equity fund Sovereign Capital in 1988, which owns several healthcare companies, as well as the independent schools group Alpha Plus.

Along with his wife, Caroline, Mr Nash sponsors a city academy in Pimlico, London through their charity Future.

Mr Nash previously worked at Advent, the private equity firm, and Lazard, the investment bank. He has been the chairman of the British Venture Capital Association.

Mrs Nash gave the Conservative party £60,000 last September and Mr Nash gave £6,000 to held fund David Davis’ unsuccessful leadership campaign against David Cameron in 2006.

The donation comes amid growing scrutiny of Conservative backers in the run-up to the election. Unlike most Labour ministers, senior Conservatives routinely accept money to help run their private offices from wealthy individuals or companies. Some Labour MPs receive such assistance from trade unions.

However, there have previously been concerns over potential conflicts of interest from the Conservatives’ funding arrangements.

Alan Duncan, the then Energy spokesman, was heavily criticised after it emerged that his private office was being funded by Ian Taylor, the chairman of Vitol, a firm of oil traders.

The private office of George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, is funded by the hedge-fund bosses Michael Hintze of CQS and Hugh Sloane of Sloane Robinson.

A spokesman for the Conservative party said: “We have been completely transparent about this donation. It has been properly registered with the parliamentary register as well as with the Electoral Commission and is therefore fully within the rules.

“John Nash and his wife have a wide range of interests, of which CARE UK is just one. This donation to support Mr Lansley’s office was made through CCHQ. Mr Lansley did not solicit this donation. Donations from private individuals in no way influence policy making decisions.”

Now, let's concentrate for five minutes and send one good thought to the whole world

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 08:29:02 -0500

THE INNER WORK OF THE DISCIPLE

It was a calm, clear spring evening. We were seated comfortably around our dear Master under the trees in the yard. The stars were visible through the branches. Cricket sounds were audible. There are times which the World of Supreme Intelligence prepares from afar There are times when the sounds of the world appear to be in perfect polyphonic harmony. We sang a few songs. And then in the silence that fell, somebody brought up the question about the inner work of the disciple.

The Master said:
"Prayer is the most powerful act in the human life. It brings into a singular focus man's thoughts, feelings and will. Such a prayer is powerful. It works miracles. Prayer is the most beautiful work! It is a conversation with God. There is no more important moment than this: for man to view God's face! How beautiful it is, upon rising in the morning, to talk with the Immortal One!

"He who is not interested in God gradually loses his energy and falls behind. While thinking about the Angels, man is in the Angelic World. When you think about God, you are in the Divine World. We live in whatever world we are thinking about.

"One environment tolerates you for a certain period of time, but after that you move onto another one. Fish were in the water. After a while, the most advanced of them went into a less dense environment. Because of the great constraint in which they had found themselves, the idea entered their minds that another more favorable life existed in a less dense environment - above the water. And in such a way, they became birds.
"Man, as well, when he finds himself under restricted conditions, strives towards God. You strive today, again tomorrow, and finally you enter a more supreme Life. The idea creates the form.

"The Law is: if you think about a good man, light will come into your mind and warmth into your heart. If you think about a maleficent man, darkness will appear in your mind and cold in your heart.

"This Law is about our relationship to God. When you connect with God, light will enter your consciousness, and profound peace your soul. If you connect with the Angels, again you will be filled with bright thoughts and noble feelings. When you think about the plants and animals, they also influence you. The Law states: You connect with whatever you are thinking about.

"Through prayer, man communicates with God and with the Advanced Beings. Then God tells man about Love and about the Intelligent Beings. When you get up in the morning, direct your consciousness to the Higher Reality. After that, independent of what you are doing, studying or hoeing, address the Invisible World for help. Instead, you immediately start to labor in the morning; you forget about the great Reality, about the Intelligent Forces in Nature. There is a Law which States: when man directs his consciousness to the Higher Reality, it abides within him. And when he directs his consciousness to the shadows, he lives in the shadows.

"Prayer and contemplation are the efforts of the soul to ascend to a higher place. In this way an influx of mental energy will come, and so the work of the conscious human life will become easier. To pray and to contemplate - this means to send forth your report to that Supreme Center from which you have descended. What will you report about? About the work you have accomplished. In response to your report, a correct exchange between your thoughts and feelings and those of the Evolved Beings of the Supreme World will occur. If somebody thinks that prayer, contemplation and meditation are not necessary, he is on the wrong path.

"When you pray, you determine your own status. When you pray, you are in a continuous connection with the whole Genesis of Creation. When you know this, do not obstruct that natural process within you.

"From prayer, man acquires energy from the Divine World. The Law of prayer is the same as the Law of Nourishment. When deprived of food, a man will feel some lack. When the soul is deprived of prayer, a need is also felt. Prayer is the inner necessity of the soul.
"Prayer is a reality, not a shadow. That which at a given moment gives strength to the mind, heart, soul and spirit is something real.

"Prayer is the conscious work of the human soul. When one prays, the soul steps beyond the ordinary consciousness. We can describe this process as an emergence from the narrow confines in which man lives.

"Prayer resembles the extending of the ameba's pseudopodia to catch its food. This is an unceasing process. For the new to come into man, he needs to direct his mind to the Supreme Center of the Universe every morning.

"Prayer is a law of watering. Through it all good influences are attracted. When a man is praying, everything around him grows and develops. When a man understands the great Law of prayer, he will become a true man; he will become one of the great initiates.
"Have you seen how an Angel prays?

"Prayer is the first method through which we begin to learn the Divine Language. If you do not pray, you will never learn it. Through prayer, we study God's Language. We still do not know God's Language.

"True prayer implies concentration, seclusion. Nobody should see you when you are praying. When the merchant is praying, he should forget about his business, all his dealings."

On another occasion the Master said:
"Prayer is one of the means through which one comes to know God as Love. It leads to Love, to the good and sublime elevated state you attain - to help, to forgive your fellow man, to uplift the fallen one. This is due to the time you have spent in your secret chamber.

"Man must pray so that God does not turn His face away from him. It is frightful when God hides His face from man! Then such darkness, cold and solitude will come which he has never had experienced in his life.

"A saint receives his knowledge through prayer, contemplation, meditation and observation. He prays for a long time, until he receives inspiration and obtains new thoughts.

"Wherever you are, in whatever situation you may be, take a half-hour or an hour to think about God. In such a way, your consciousness expands. To think about the Great Intelligent Cause, about the Supreme Center of Creation, is worth more than all the material wealth on earth. The thought of God also renews and rejuvenates the physical body because the energy reaches it as well.

"If somebody says that he does not need to think about God, he becomes like an orphaned child without a father and mother and goes around in torn clothes, homeless and friendless. Then the parasites start to attack him, and he loses his bearing in life. I am speaking figuratively. I will translate: when a man stops thinking about God, he begins to be vulnerable, and dark inferior beings attack him.

"Man cannot attain anything, if he does not pray. Pray so that more light may come into your consciousness.

"There are no beings more highly developed than the Angels. The next phase which humankind will enter is the angelic phase. Then our unrefined earthly bodies will be changed into energetic ones. They will be composed of more refined matter. How will these be created? Through prayer, contemplation, meditation. In other words, prayer is a method of organizing the spiritual body, the new body in which man will live.

"I ask modern scientists and philosophers how many times a day they think about God. The cause for the misfortune of modern man lies in the fact that they do not remember God. Prayer is a method for solving the most difficult tasks. Doubt, suspicion, skepticism and many other negative thoughts and sentiments are the cause of most of the diseases in mankind. Through prayer, man may overcome these negative conditions. There is a miraculous power in prayer.

"For a man to recite a verse from the Scripture with the will to understand is sufficient for Christ to come and help him. He will bring light into his mind and will improve his affairs.
"Prayer increases the vibration of the human aura. In this way, man becomes immune to the inferior influences surrounding him. Through prayer, man can insulate himself from the anxieties and fears of the world. They cannot penetrate him.

"When man is praying for one of his good desires to be fulfilled, the Invisible World always helps. You are ill. Pray to God, and very soon you will recover. There is nothing in the whole world which man desires that God did not accomplish. The world represents the desires of these small beings. God has granted all their desires.

"If everyone would address God with the supplication: 'God, we have used all means to put order into the world. Give us a way of doing this.' And if they prayed from the heart, the course of action would come. This method is very simple, but when applied, God will come into the world and will help people.

"There is no living being in the world, small or large, whose appeal God has not answered. There is no case in which God has not answered your disordered mail. Put your mail in order. The mail from the Invisible World leaves on time, but when it reaches the earth, the letters get lost somewhere and are delayed for months.

"How beautiful it is for man to realize that he occupies a place in the Mind of God. When he has this awareness and addresses God with a plea for something, his prayer is received.

"Ask God to abide in you and to reveal Himself through you. The only One who transforms people is God.

"All people are searching for the meaning of Life. The meaning of Life is in communication with God.

"The most favorable hours for prayer are the early hours after midnight, for example 3: 00 a. m. and 5: 00 a. m. The psalmist says, 'God I summoned Thee at early dawn.' This means that in the morning before sunrise, I will occupy myself with the most sublime work - communion with the Supreme Center of Creation - to gain the energy necessary to accomplish my work throughout the day. Wherever man goes, whatever work he starts, he needs energy. If he lets the world influence him, the mundane affairs will put him off the track of his life. In the morning when you rise, you need to have one essential thought - to open as a flower. Christ spent the whole night in prayer. Why? Because during those hours, He replenished Himself with the energy He had spent during the day.

"Man must pray. He must work on himself to be ready for the new which is coming into the world. How long should you pray? Incessantly. Prayer does not imply that you need to stop and pray the whole day. You can be in motion and pray at the same time. Work does not exclude prayer. You can pray constantly. Only the one who lives in the Law of Love, and he alone, has the disposition to pray. Whatever he is doing, he is always in prayer. In other words, in the life of a loving man, everything is prayer. A mother says that she has no time left for prayers because of her children. He who cuts trees says that he has no time left to pray because of his job. He who writes says the same. Everybody says that they have no time for prayer, contemplation and meditation. In reality, the prayer comes first, and then all other things follow. First you breathe, and then you work. Otherwise you cannot finish your work. Those who do not pray are not good students. The laziest, the dullest and the least talented students are those who do not pray. Give a theme to a dull student, and he will say, 'Where did this subject come from?' You need to pray when you are in good spirits as well as when you are in conflicting conditions or when there is darkness in your consciousness.

"Man can create seclusion even when among people. Seclusion is not only an external process.

"I will give you one rule: for every man, there is a Divine Wave which lifts him up. When you rise in the morning, do not hurry to immediately go work in the field. Stop, work inwardly, so that this Divine Wave may come, and then you may go and start your work. You could be the most ordinary man, but when the Divine Spirit visits you, you will achieve something beyond yourself.

"If thought, emotion and will do not take part in prayer, it is not a true prayer. To go into your secret chamber means to enter into your virgin soul. Then you will understand the deep meaning of all things and why you are living. The higher the consciousness is, the more discernable is the prayer. A prayer is more clear when the consciousness is elevated.

"When somebody is in difficulty, I say: pray in order to connect with the Intelligent Beings who can help you. Someone says that he is praying but has received no answer. The reason is that his consciousness is not awakened. The human consciousness is similar to a radio which is emitting and receiving sonic waves from the universe. Scientists say that above the earth there is a belt which deflects the waves and obstructs them from rising. This fact could be used to explain why the prayers of some people cannot go high enough. The more awakened and the more evolved a man's consciousness is, the greater the possibility is for his prayer to be received.

"What is required of man in order for him to connect with the Invisible World? He needs to have his own radio. He has it. When you address your devotional thoughts upwards, you must protect yourself from hostile waves: doubt, disbelief and the lack of Love are waves of unfavorable character which are formed in the astral world. They reflect unfavorably upon the human spirit. The difficulties in the human life result from attacks by these hostile waves. They influence man's prayers and prevent them from ascending. They also stand in the way of good desires.

"Man prays better when he is persecuted. When you are put to great suffering, trials and persecutions, then you pray as you should.

"Until the furnace of the heart is heated, prayer cannot reach God. Man cannot pray in an impure place. You must go to a pure place. Prayers must be transmitted from a pure place. When man is praying, he must be specific in respect to the Invisible World.
Otherwise, a prayer is like an application form which does not state what is being asked for. Naturally, in such a case, it is without consequence.

"If I were to pray now, I would ask God for Strength, Knowledge, Wisdom, Love, Truth and Freedom.

"When a man prays, he should ask for the smallest, but at the same time, the most essential thing. A prayer is received when God's Will is taken into consideration. Do the following experiment: concentrate on that which is deep within yourself and say, 'My Lord, I am ready right now to fulfill Thy Will which motivates every living being in the world.' Or say, 'If I have found Blessing in Thee, make me feel Thy Joy in the name of Thy Love, Wisdom and Truth.' Do you know what you will feel? You will feel an excitement such as you have never before experienced. You will feel reborn.

"In a moment, man can transform his face. Turn to God and say, 'My Lord, place me in the Fire of Thy Love.' Or say, 'My Lord, what dost Thou want me to do in order for Thy Kingdom to triumph over the earth and to sanctify Thy Name among mankind?'
"One very important Law states: when you pray for somebody, your prayer gains miraculous power only when it is accompanied by love for him.

"Now, let's concentrate for five minutes and send one good thought to the whole world. The Law states: if you send this thought properly, the work which you will accomplish will be equal to all of the work you have done in your entire life."

Peter Deunov (Beinsa Douno)

CHRIST

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 08:02:29 -0500

CHRIST

Today people divide Christ into aspects such as "historical," "cosmic," "mystical" and so on. But Christ in his essence is one and indivisible.

There is only one Christ - the living Christ who is the manifestation of God, the manifestation of Love.
Christ is God revealing Himself to the world.

As a manifestation of God, Christ cannot be separated from Him, cannot be considered apart from Him.

And when I speak of Christ, I do not mean an abstract principle, but rather an actual incarnation of Love. Love is the greatest reality and not an abstraction. It has form, content and meaning.

Christ - whatever conception people have of him as "historical," as "cosmic," as "mystical," - gave to the earth the fullest expression of Love.

This is because as an historic personality, as a cosmic essence, and as a mystical experience, Christ is and remains the most perfect expression of Love.

Indeed, no other man on earth before Christ had greater love than His.

There is neither in the cosmos without, nor in the mystic depths of the soul within, a fuller expression of Love than that which we personify in Christ.

Therefore, how are the words "historical," "cosmic," and "mystical" to be understood?
Manifested on the earth at a certain historical moment as the ideal man, as an example of the real man, Christ is "historical." And the times in which he lived record an bear witness to Him: "Behold, the man! Behold, the true man in whom Love, Wisdom, and Truth live, and who applies them."

When he is experienced in the inward depths, he is "mystical," and when he is comprehended and known as God manifested in the world, he is "cosmic."

The physical side of Christ is all of humanity united in one body. All human souls in which Christ lives, united into one - this is the physical aspect of Christ.

All angels, gathered into the heart of Christ, represent his spiritual aspect.

And all divine beings, united in the mind of Christ, are his divine aspect.

This is the "cosmic" Christ, God manifested in the world.

That is why the mystic sees Christ everywhere - as the great Brother of humanity, the archetype of man, the First-Born in the world, the beginning of the human race, the beginning of human evolution. The First-Born who developed and manifested all divine virtues, who applied all divine laws.

The mystic sees Christ as the First-Born who passed every trial and sacrificed all for his brothers.
Mountains, fields, springs, rivers, and seas, with all the natural wealth hidden therein - all this is an expression of this Great Brother.

But this is a great mystery, for the understanding of which thousands of years of unremitting work are necessary.

Thus does one need to conceive of Christ in his comprehensiveness.

He is One, although people consider him sometimes as "historical," sometimes as "cosmic," or as "mystical."

All these words must come to life in the true understanding of Christ as the manifested and revealed Love of God; they must not remain dry concepts, prisons for human thought.

Indeed, is not the "historical" Christ, who came to earth two thousand years ago, a prison for the minds of many Christians? Where in the Scripture did Christ two thousand years ago speak of himself as of an historical personality? He speaks of himself as Spirit, as one who will remain on earth "to the end of the ages," that is until the epoch of violence and evil, now in its last days, comes to an end.

"Go and preach," he says to his disciples, "and I shall be with you to the end of the ages."

One of the worst delusions is to think that Christ is in heaven, that he sits and waits for the Last Judgment, when he will begin to judge the living and the dead.

The truth is that Christ has never left the earth. Remember his words: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth."

Christ is he Who has inspired, is inspiring, and will inspire the "historical," "cosmic," and "mystical" life of the earth and humanity.

Without Christ, there could be no history.

Without Christ, there could be no "cosmos," no organized and established world.

Without Christ, there could be no "mystical" life.

He is the great inspirer of all revelations in all times. He is the unseen moving force behind the whole spiritual life of humanity.

The Scripture, in which Christ is the central figure, is a witness to this.

Christ himself hints at this with the words: "Moses and the prophets wrote about me."

Moses, in a general sense, comprises all the spiritual leaders of humanity, all scientists, philosophers, writers, poets, artists and musicians who prepare the minds of men for the understanding of Christ, the divine Truth.

However transitory their works seem, however changeable their theories, they are not arbitrary; they are created under the influence of a universal law of the Spirit, working in mankind in a special way.
All those men, therefore, worked for the manifold upliftment of humanity; they prepared the way for the coming of Christ.

It is not easy for a great Spirit such as Christ to come among men. Men had to work hard in the course of several thousand years in order that Christ might appear among them. It is not easy to come to the earth.

But with his descent to the earth, Christ opened a new epoch in the evolution of humanity. He indicated the only way by which the human soul can ascend to God.

This is why he said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

The Way: in the broadest sense of the word, this is the movement of the Spirit towards an intelligent application of the laws of Nature.

The Life: this is the harmonious organization of the elements and the development of the forces in the Divine soul.

The Truth: this is the manifestation of the One God, who creates the conditions for the development of all living beings.

Coming from the Divine world of Truth and descending to the material world, Christ connects human souls to the world of Truth, where the great aims of every life are hidden.

There must necessarily be a link to unite human souls sunken in matter, with God. Only Christ can form that link - only Christ can unite men with God.

He came down from the Divine world, bringing life from the world of Truth, and ascended back to it, and in this way he indicated the path leading from temporal life to the eternal.

"And this is life eternal," says Christ, "that they should know Thee the only true God, and him who Thou didst send Jesus Christ."

To know God is to know the seeds of the Spirit - the conditions, the powers, and the laws which sustain it, and according to which this wonderful order of things is built.

And Christ is the intelligent beginning who comes from the One God, bringing life to all beings, guiding them and sustaining them, and linking them to the initial center of all that is.

Christ is the way of this intelligent movement of souls which leads them to life eternal in Truth.
And when Christ is asked why he came to earth, he replies, "To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the Truth."

These words, however, are a mathematical formula. The question of the coming of Christ is one of the deepest questions in human life. Many people think that it is very easy to reply to this question. They say that Christ came to the earth in order to suffer and to save humanity.

The coming of Christ to the earth is not a matter of suffering. The suffering was a secondary occurrence in the life of Christ - it is far from determining this very important moment in the history of humanity.

Salvation, in the way in which it is usually understood, is also a partial conception of this great event.

But today, all the preachers say that Christ came to the earth to save humanity. If Christ had saved the world in such a mechanical way as people believe, and if they were truly saved, then they would not live in a way so contrary to the spirit of Christ's teaching.

Clearly, the idea of salvation has an entirely different meaning. It is not where people look for it, nor does it come mechanically as they think.

Christ brought to the earth the science of the soul. He pointed out the path by which human souls can know God and obtain eternal life.

The gate of that path is Love. He who passes through this gate will find himself on that royal road where great deeds await him.

Many great souls came to the earth before Christ, but they were unable to cope with the difficult task of uplifting humanity. Christ had to come to earth in order to solve this essential and very important problem, and to show to men a proven way by which they, too, might solve it.

Before Christ, God sent into his field his servants - the prophets and the saints - but they were not able to accomplish the task in the way in which it should have been done.

When Christ, "the Son of God," came to the earth, the workers of all of heaven united in his name in order to complete the work which had been begun.

It is written in the Gospel that "God so loved the world that he gave his only- begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but should have eternal life."

The Son is the Word, the Rational, the Divine, the only one who could restore harmony to the world and the connection of the human soul with God.

Christ could restore that connection, he could influence humanity as a whole, because he himself was connected with the great, mighty One.

When the Gospel speaks of the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus, it refers to the union of Jesus with the collective Spirit of the world of reason, whereby the realization of a Divine idea became possible on the earth.

This is a law on the earth - in order to accomplish the work of God, a man on the earth must unite with a being in heaven. In this case, the being was the collective divine Spirit.

From this point of view, Christ is a collective spirit. He exists as a unit and at the same time he is a collective spirit. He is the sum total of all Sons of God whose hearts and souls are fountains of life and love.

All Sons of God, united in one, all intelligent souls who live in Divine communion - all this is Christ.
The descent of Christ to the earth is the most important event in the history of humanity. It is a unique event in its content and meaning. The fundamental idea of human life is connected with it - the idea of immortality, the idea of eternal life. And the efforts of all human existence have as their ultimate goal the attaining of immortality and entering into eternal life.

"And this is life eternal," says Christ, "that they should know Thee, the only true God, and him whom Thou didst send, Jesus Christ."

Know God, and know Christ.

Did people know Christ when he appeared two thousand years ago? Do they know him today? When truth comes into the world, it is not clothed in royal garments, but rather in modest apparel.

Thus Christ appeared two thousand years ago in a simple form, in which men could not recognize him. But such are the laws of this world.

In this modest apparel, seemingly a man like all other men, even his disciples did not know Him completely. Only three of them at the transfiguration saw Christ's "face," His inner self. In this inner light they saw Him and recognized Him as he was among the angels.

For the Jews, Christ was "the son of Joseph, the son of the carpenter." For the scribes and the Pharisees, He was a blasphemer, a self-styled messiah who called himself "Son of God." He did not come from among them, He was not taught by them.

Where, in fact, did Christ study? Everything that he did testified to his wide learning. Yet, even today there are people who think that Christ was a common, uneducated person. This is not true. Christ himself, addressing his listeners, said, "If I told you earthly things and you believe not, how shall you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" When He spoke of "heavenly things," Christ referred to the great mysteries of the sun. However, He understood "earthly things" as well - He knew the Cabal, and the philosophies of the Eastern nations and of the Greeks, as well as the sciences of the time.

Indeed, Christ had no need to study in human schools. His entire earthly life was in itself objective learning for Him.

His life was a source of new experience, a field for the application of those sublime principles and great laws, whose functions He had known in the invisible world. Due to his awakened consciousness and his connection with the invisible world, Christ was always able to obtain knowledge directly therefrom.

And when He prayed, prayer was a conversation with the world of reason.

Through prayer, Christ communicated with the invisible world, with all the hierarchies there and with God. Through prayer the invisible world revealed to Christ that great lesson which He had to learn on earth, and disclosed to him the problem He had to solve in the environment of earthly life.

After having solved his difficult problem, Christ understood through experience that the only way to save humanity is through Love. Only then did He fully comprehend the profound meaning of all of his suffering.

However, to men, regardless of what they say, the sufferings of Christ, his crucifixion and his disgraceful death, still remain one of the deepest mysteries.

Why did Christ, the greatest soul that ever came to the earth, the greatest character ever manifested, why did this good, intelligent, and strong man have to undergo such a tragic death?
The Scripture says that it was thus "written" - and nothing more.

Others maintain that it was necessary for this to happen so that the world might be saved.
But Christ himself says that He came into the world to bear witness to the Truth.

One thing can be said with certainty - Christ was crucified because Love did not outwardly participate in his life. And where Love does not participate, the most severe sufferings and the greatest tragedies occur. Love does not cause them, but the competition for love creates them. Love in itself always and everywhere brings light, peace and joy.

In any case, we see that Christ's crucifixion was permitted.

On the cross Christ underwent what might be called ideological-mystical suffering, the deepest and the most intense suffering which a human soul can undergo.

He had to drink from the cup of suffering to the last drop - that cup into which were gathered all the bitter dregs of the past.

But during this profound and intensified suffering, all of the secrets of the past were disclosed to him. And conscious of the great importance of the moment, after the inner struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, Christ said, "It was for this hour that I came."

Through the great alchemy of Love, Christ converted the poisons gathered in that cup, and thus destroyed violence forever.

And indeed could not Christ - a strong man of genius who knew his high origin, who foresaw everything, who knew what was about to happen - have averted the sufferings which awaited Him?

He had the choice either to call forth the "legions of angels" and with their help to annihilate both the Jewish nation and the Roman Empire - that is, to use the method of the past, Moses and Elijah's method of violence and the sword, which was the method of the old magi and adepts - or to accept the cup and the cross and to overcome them through the power of Love.

Christ chose the second, a unique experiment on earth.

And indeed, if Christ had feared the suffering, if He had eared the cross on which later He was crucified, or the nails with which He was nailed to it, or the spear with which He was pierced, He would not have provided a new and essential solution to the difficult task of uplifting the human soul.

He dissolved the insults, and the lashes of the whip, and the cross, and the nails, and the spear, with the fire of Love - the only fire that can melt the weapons of violence. The experiment proved successful.

Thus Christ solved a problem upon which the future of all of humanity depended. Thus He opened the path of salvation to those suffering souls for whom He came.

For those simple but noble souls who had the courage to put their faith in Him, and not for the learned, the powerful and the religious people of His age, did Christ lay down His life so that they might live in the Love which He gave them.

Something very great is hidden in the sufferings of Christ. They constitute the hidden side of Christ's life, of which men know nothing.

And when I speak of the sufferings of Christ, two great virtues of Christ come to mind - His unprecedented patience, and His humility. Through these, He endured all the abuses, insults and offenses which men inflicted upon Him. Christ endured all of these and remained silent, calm and unmoved, as though nothing were happening. Not a tear fell from His eyes.

This is great patience, this is self-mastery, this is Love.

This is a rock which nothing can shatter.

Christ's crucifixion was a tragedy, but this tragedy had its solution in the resurrection.

Christ rose from the dead, and through his resurrection He conquered death. And as in his sufferings the secrets of the past were revealed to Him so in the resurrection He received the revelation of the future.

Christ is truly a strong man, a mighty spirit, a hero. He overcame everything - tortures, the cross and the grave.

Christ did not carry the wooden cross to the end. He carried it only to a certain place and then He laid it on the ground. People think that He laid it down because He was exhausted beneath its weight.

Christ was not a weakling. He could have carried the cross, but He laid it down in order to point out to humanity what was in store for them. He implied, "I can carry the cross of the sufferings of living men, but I do not wish to carry a wooden cross."

But present-day Christians still carry and kiss the wooden cross, disdained by Christ himself.
Having cast the wooden cross upon the ground, Christ stood up, and upright he made his way to Golgotha. They nailed him to the cross. But He did not remain there long. He alone unnailed himself. How? He left his body and went to Joseph of Arimathea.

Christ was buried and His tomb was sealed. But He also left the tomb. He did not want to leave his body in the tomb, because it was alive. He himself resurrected it.

The angel that caused his death took his soul to hell, but Christ did not remain there long. His entrance into hell caused a revolution - He activated all of hell's inhabitants and set them free. Do not think that after his resurrection Christ was alone - in hell He was the leader of a host of angels who emptied hell of all of its prisoners.

Thus Christ proved that the strong man cannot remain nailed to a cross, nor can he be sealed in a grave. The strong man never dies - he is resurrected and he gives life to others.

Christ was the heart of God, and that is why He resurrected. God's heart cannot die. It returned whence it came. But throughout all of this tragedy enacted on Golgotha, new blood was infused into the exhausted veins of humanity, and a new impulse was brought to the divine circulation of life.

When He came to the earth two thousand years ago, Christ revealed to us only one side of his nature.

We see Christ then in humiliation and grief, in sufferings and trials. We see him as a hero of redemption.

People do not yet know Christ in his glory, in his divine might and power.

Christ is strong and mighty now!

In the past, the hands of Christ were nailed. Today no one can nail these hands - the nails would be melted at once! In the past they crucified Christ, but today there is not a tree large enough on which He could be crucified.

Christ cannot be crucified a second time.

This Christ is coming now to visit the minds and hearts of men. He will demolish all prisons; He will obliterate all false teachings - everything that destroys man's mind and heart, that brings confusion and anarchy, that paralyzes human life. He is the living Christ who brings life, light and freedom to all souls, who uplifts and awakens in them love toward all.

When I say that Christ is coming now, some might think that He will come outwardly. Christ will not come outwardly, He will come neither in the form of a man, nor in any other form.

When the rays of the sun enter into your homes, does that mean that the sun itself has visited you?
Remember, Christ is e manifestation of divine Love. And He will come as an inner light in the minds and hearts of men. This light will draw all toward Christ as around a great center.

The opening of men's minds and hearts, and the inner acceptance of Christ - this will be the second coming of Christ to the earth.

If they do not accept Him in this way, people will continue to live without love, in suffering and misery, in outer beliefs, superstitions, and delusions.

Captives of those outer beliefs, many religious people today err when they say, "Christ brought good tidings two thousand years ago. He said all that He had to say, and now He has gone to heaven, where He will remain until the Day of Judgment, when He will come again to judge the living and the dead."

But I say to you: Christ did not preach the good tidings in time and space!

We do not consider Christ and His teaching as something that is past.

We do not consider Christ and His teaching as something that will come in the future.

For us, Christ and His teaching are an everlasting present!

Therefore, it was not only during his three years of reaching that Christ spoke to us; He has not ceased speaking during all of these two thousand years. And if it were possible to restore all that He said in those three years to the people of that time, and if it were possible also to restore what He said in the course of these two thousand years, men would have very valuable knowledge.

But only very little of what Christ said during those three years of preaching has come down to us - only fragments. Many of the Epistles of Paul, as well as of the other apostles, remain hidden from the world. But some day they will come to light. Even now they are being disclosed, but only to advanced pupils.

On the other hand, do you think that Christ divulged all of his teaching? In comparison with what He possessed, Christ gave very little to his contemporaries. The men of that time were not ready for science. Therefore, He spoke to them in parables. Christ did not want to put his weapon in the hands of the ignorant, so that they might turn it against Him.

Do you think that if Christ came now He would speak as He spoke two thousand years ago? Christ will speak today in an entirely different manner.

First of all, He will preach about the great science of Love, and the methods of its application. He will preach about the path of pupilage, brotherhood and service. The law of evolution requires it today.

And now the Great Master addresses himself to all awakened souls, proclaiming to them the fundamentals of the new gospel:

That all be diligent pupils,
good brothers, true and loyal servers!

Only those who are diligent pupils, good brothers, and true servers can create the new culture in which Christ will live in every man and among all people.

Today, Christ has no need of ordinary believers, religious people who fight one another, nor of rulers and priests, but rather of real men, creators of the new - pupils, brothers, and servers. Today Christ does not want men who constantly crucify Him within themselves, but men who will welcome Him to live within them and among them, who will be one with Him.

Today, Christ proclaims a culture without crucifixions, the culture of resurrection!

We nave seen well the results of the present culture created by those who crucified Christ.

It is time for the foundations of a new culture to be laid, a culture built not by people who worship the crucified Christ, but by men-brothers in whom lives the resurrected Christ, the living Christ of Love.
The foundation of this culture will be Love.

Love is the only power that can make of men diligent pupils, good brothers, true and loyal servers, builders of the new life.

This is the "new" which Christ brings to humanity today.

This is the Word of the Great White Brotherhood; this is what the Master speaks.

And will not many believers, then, who call themselves Christians, be enticed by His word? And will they recognize Him?

They will continue to argue about the "crucified," the "historical" and the "cosmic" Christ; about the Christ as He is considered by the various churches, and the spirit of his Living Word will remain strange to them.

Therefore, I say to you: Leave aside these definitions and differentiations of Christ! Know that there is only one Christ, the Christ of great Love, who at present is active in the world and in the souls of men.

I speak to you of that Christ, and not of the "historical" or the "crucified" Christ. Men know Him well as an historical personage, but they do not know Him as Living Love.

I speak to you of the living Christ, of that Christ who has life within himself, who brings the living knowledge and light, who brings the truth and freedom; of that Christ who teaches all methods for the building of rational life.

He is the great Christ, who is called the Head of the Great Universal Brotherhood.
All great souls know Him, and they never argue about who and what He is, what He was, where He is now, what place He holds in the "hierarchy of masters," and so on.

They never argue because they know very well what place Christ has in the Whole, just as they know the place of the other great men who have appeared and are appearing in the world.

This is the Christ that men must come to know today! They must see Him - see and know Him! Many men wish to convince us that we may be true Christians without seeing and knowing Christ inwardly. But I maintain that if a man does not see Christ, nothing will come of him.

In order to see Christ, one must have a mind, a heart, a soul, and a spirit like His. All those to whom Christ appeared before they reached that stage, fell down with faces toward the ground. And what can a fallen man see?

Man must drink from the source itself and not from the river, which is muddy because many other additives entered into it.

Follow the path that leads to this source - the path is difficult and long, but you will drink living water from the spring itself, and it will refresh your mind and heart forever.

Spacious views, unseen until then, will be opened to your sight.

On that mountain where the living water flows forth, you will hear the voice of God.

Do not ask to remain there, but come down to your brothers. Come down and put into practice, like a pupil, like a brother, and like a server, the Living Word of your Heavenly Father who draws you to Him by the threads of His Love.

These threads are in the hands of Christ, the manifested God of Love.

Peter Deunov (Beinsa Douno)

This is how good finally triumphs

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:16:09 -0500

"Cosmic Intelligence has not given equal powers to good and evil. But how can we convince human beings of this, when most of them claim to see only the triumph of evil everywhere they turn? The fact is that they have not observed carefully. Consider someone whose life is characterised by dishonesty, spite and violence. Perhaps, at first, he succeeds: he asserts his independence and he achieves his ambitions. But then what happens? He will find more and more obstacles in his path; complications will arise in all areas of his life; and he will lose his peace of mind and even his health. Someone else decides to dedicate himself to the service of good: to begin with, of course, he encounters difficulties, but in spite of them he senses the support of the powers of light. As time goes on, the obstacles will disappear. People around him will begin to understand and appreciate him, and give him their support. This is how good finally triumphs."

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Why is it so important to form spiritual communities?

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:10:29 -0500

"Why is it so important to form spiritual communities? I will give you an image: engineers build immense power stations capable of supplying energy to entire regions. Well, a spiritual group can be compared to a power station: it is able to provide the energy needed to project light far into space. For human minds are veritable batteries. They simply need to be united and put in contact with a divine idea; the currents they project will be received by vast numbers of other minds in the world, and these people will also decide to work for a divine idea.

You pray, meditate and sing together, but you are not yet aware of the immense possibilities these activities offer for the good of all humanity. It is time to become conscious of it and do this work, so that the light of the kingdom of God can be received by the greatest possible number of minds on earth."

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Why does the invisible world not warn us beforehand of the trials?

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 05:55:14 -0500

"Why does the invisible world not warn us beforehand of the trials we will have to go through? The answer is that when we have to confront an unforeseen situation, we are forced to go deeper into ourselves and to make greater efforts.

During the initiations in ancient times, those who had to pass through fire, for example, actually jumped over an artificial blaze, but they didn’t realize and thought it was real. If they were afraid and shrank back, it meant they were not worthy of the initiation, and they were sent away. But those who were bold, daring, full of faith, passed through the fire and then discovered it was merely an illusion. In a way you could say that many of life’s tests are more imaginary than real. At the time, when we have to go through them, we think, ‘This is ghastly; I’m going to suffer horribly.’ But if we are able to experience them in the right way, we are made to recognize that it wasn’t so bad."

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Economic blockade of Iran is an act of war

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:01:01 -0500

Economic blockade of Iran is an act of war

http://rt.com/news/iran-us-sanctions-war-677
http://www.answercoalition.org/national/...-2012.html

Tension around Iran has spiralled. Tehran is carefully avoiding being provoked so as not to vie the US and Israel an excuse for military action. Though activists believe the extra sanctions and economic blockade of Tehran is already an ‘act of war’.
RT has talked to Brian Becker, the national coordinator of the A.N.S.W.E.R. anti-war coalition on the reasons behind the instability in the region.

He believes the US government has manufactured an artificial crisis in the area.

“Iran is complying with the IAEA. Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, Iran is not threatening its neighbors, Iran has not started a war with any of its neighbors,” says Becker.

He also points out that Israel, on the other hand, has “hundreds of nuclear weapons” and, unlike Iran, refuses to sign a nuclear cooperation treaty and does not allow IAEA inspectors into its country.

“So there’s not really a nuclear menace or a nuclear danger from Iran. So what’s the cause of the artificial crisis?” he questions.

“The real goal is that the US government has embarked on a course of extreme economic aggression against Iran with the whole debate creating economic suffering, economic isolation, economic misery,” he explains. “So a part of the population will rise up or become displeased with the government. So that the US can – as it has in history – carry out regime change”.

The US government however denies it is after regime change in Iran. But Becker warns we have to take such denials with a very big pinch of salt.

“Since 1979 the US refuses to have relations with the Islamic republic of Iran. Why?” he questions. “Is it because Iran is a dictatorship? Well, it is actually a democratic government. It has democratic features far beyond some of America’s foremost allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia, for instance.”

Becker explains that since 1979 Iran became an independent government. Before that, between 1953 and 1979 when the Shah was there, the Shah acted basically as a proxy or a puppet or a client of American power. And even though the US refuses to admit they are carrying out regime change, in fact everyone who is watching knows US policy is to create pressure on Iran, carry out covert operations and economic sanctions, he says.

“These new sanctions are not really even like the old sanctions. They are saying to the rest of the world: “If you dare do business with Iran’s Central Bank, if you buy Iranian oil – which constitutes half of Iran’s GNP – if you have any business with Iran whatsoever, you will not have access to American banks, corporations, or markets.”

Becker says that this is a de facto economic blockade of Iran, and adds that by international law an economic blockade is an ‘act of war’.

He believes Iran has been very prudent even though they said they would consider closing the Strait of Hormuz. And even though the Western media has made much fuss about that, Iran has not done anything to give the US a pretext, an excuse, a provocation that would trigger the US or Israel into military action.

Becker is sure the Israelis are trying to pretend that Iran constitutes an existing threat to Israel. He does not think that is the case, however, even with Iran’s military capability to do great damage to Israel in the event of war – as “Israel is a nuclear power.”

“I think the Israeli government has a pattern and a practice of invasion and bombing of its neighbors in the Middle East,” he explains. “It carried out the bombing of Iraq’s nuclear facility in 1981 even though it was permitted by international law and subject to IAEA inspections. In other words, a nuclear program for civilian energy purposes, Israel came and bombed it. They did the same to Syria in the last few years. And they would like to carry out a military strike against the Iranian government.”

But Becker is convinced the Americans don’t want that right now, even though they are happy to have Iran in a state of tension. They don’t really want Israel to become the main protagonist with the Iranian government by carrying out an unprovoked military strike.

“Because that would then present the crisis as a struggle between the Islamic republic of Iran on one side and the Israeli Zionist regime on the other,” he explains. “And in that case Iran would be able to mobilize mass support throughout the Middle East for it. The US has a different tag. They want to keep Israel sort of in the background, looming, dangerously threatening Iran in one way, keeping Iran in a state of tension, perhaps militarily but have the economic sanctions do the bulk of the work by carrying out economic and financial isolation against the Iranian government. They think in the long term is it the easier way, the better way, the more effective way to carry out the regime change.”

But he says anti-war activists are starting to concentrate their efforts in exposing that the US government is carrying out through a different set of tactics the same thing they did in Iraq.

“They carried out the regime change in Iraq,” he says “Not to make Iraq more democratic, more human rights oriented but to dominate Iraq. And I think they want to do that in Iran as well. And we need to have people outside of Iran stand up and say “Iran should not be alone in this”.

But he adds that Iran has certain allies. Iran has Russia, and it has China. Increasingly it has Venezuela and Cuba. In other words, those governments in the world, in addition of course to Syria, which has its own problems right now, who don’t want the entire world to be dominated by one power – the US.

They recognize Iran needs to remain an independent government, he says. If the US were to be successful in carrying the regime change in Iran, it may embolden them to carry out further destabilizing efforts against other powers, including Russia and China.

Iran capable of defending regional security despite threats

Posted here
http://rt.com/news/iran-sanctions-defending-threats-029

Words cannot realize, only if they are filled with love and light

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:16:53 -0500

"A magus is a creator who first and foremost has a specific science. But this science must also be supported and vivified by love. Then all the words he speaks are truly magical words, because they are filled with the light and love that make them so powerful they are able to control matter. Words cannot realize, only if they are filled with love and light can they act on matter and shape it. And it is given to each of God's creations – of which you are one – to possess these magical words one day. If you too work with light and with love, your words will affect all of creation, in the visible world and in the invisible world, and they will not only motivate people, but also the spirits of the four elements, the angels, the archangels, and the divinities."

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Joseph P. Farrell - Secrets Of The Unified Field

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:49:43 -0500

Secrets Of The Unified Field Playlist (11 Videos):
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC...ature=plcp

Investigator of alternative technologies, Joseph P. Farrell discussed his research into secret military projects such as 'the Bell' made by the Third Reich, and the Philadelphia Experiment conducted in the United States. Both projects may have incorporated Einstein's Unified Field Theory, and made use of rotating magnetic fields and torsion physics, working with spirals of space itself, he explained. Such technology could be at use in a secret space program, that runs parallel to NASA, he added.

He cited the Philadelphia Experiment research of Howard Strom and Debra Cunningham (who appeared on C2C on 9/15/03), and suggested that some of what happened in 1943 may have been an unexpected result of a goal to achieve radar stealth. Farrell also spoke about the work of Morris Jessup, the letters of Carlos Allende, and the curiously annotated 'Varo' edition (PDF link) of Jessup's book. The Varo edition suggested that the technology which made the USS Eldridge invisible in the Philadelphia Experiment was also involved in ancient cosmic wars.

According to ancient texts, such wars might have played out 3.2 million years ago when a planet was exploded in our solar system, said Farrell. He further hypothesized that the pyramid at Giza could have been used as a kind of hyperdimensional weapon to blow up a planet-sized object. Richard C. Hoagland appeared for a segment in the last hour to comment on Farrell's theories.

The United States Is Already Dead, and Just Doesn’t Know It

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 14:25:46 -0500

The Late Great United States: The Decline and Fall of the United States of America

By Joseph George Caldwell

Max: You know, one thing I can’t figure out is whether these girls are real smart or just real, real lucky. Hal: You know, Max, brains will only get you so far, and luck always runs out.
-- Thelma and Louise (A Ridley Scott film, 1991, MGM United Artists)

The United States Is Already Dead, and Just Doesn’t Know It

In the 1990s, I wrote the book, Can America Survive?, in which I analyzed the current situation of the United States and the world. I started writing the book in 1994, revised it a couple of times, completed it in late 1998 and posted it on the Foundation website in 1999. My brief answer to the question posed in the title was, “No, – not in its current form for very long, and perhaps not in any form at all for very long.”

In the years since I wrote this book, nothing has changed to modify my prognosis. The problems that I described and analyzed have not been resolved, and not even addressed. They have, in fact, gotten much worse.

It is my opinion that the United States, as a society, is in the final stages of disintegration. The country has allowed the invasion of 12-20 million illegal aliens. The financial system is bankrupt, and the government is now in the process of “selling the furniture” (i.e., selling its infrastructure, corporations and land to foreign interests). The country’s culture is fragmented. The government has alienated the citizens – it now serves the wealthy, not the middle class. The nation has lost its sovereignty to “globalization.” All that lies between its current status and total collapse is the “tipping point” – the proverbial “last straw” that breaks the camel’s back.

When I was a boy, we were taught that dinosaurs were so stupid that even though they were mortally wounded, they would thrash around for minutes before their small brains finally realized that they were dead, and they collapsed. I believe that this perception of dinosaurs is no longer held, but the analogy is an apt one to describe the present state of the United States. Its economic “engine” is so large and powerful that it has a large amount of “inertia” or “momentum,” that carries it along even though its vital essence, its spirit, has died. It is like an airplane that is about to crash into a mountain.

Everything seems fine at the moment, but disaster is imminent and there is absolutely nothing that can be done to avert it.

Am I predicting a date for the collapse of the United States? No. In my view, the real collapse has already occurred – there is nothing of significance to predict. As Ariel Durant once remarked, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” The United States has destroyed what made it great. It has abandoned the concepts and principles on which the Founders established the Republic. It has lost its vitality, its life force, its direction, its purpose. The government has turned against the middle class, and, without the support of the people, the country is in the final stages of dissolution. It may continue operation for a while, but it is no longer a vibrant entity in control of its destiny. The car is running out of gas, and the joy ride is almost over.

Reasons Why the US Will Collapse Soon

There is not just a single symptom or sign of the United States’ moribund condition. (By the way, in medical parlance a “symptom” is a subjective indicator, and difficult to measure quantitatively, such as a feeling of nausea or anxiety, or a headache; a “sign” is a measurable indicator, such as a temperature or blood pressure or red blood cell count.) There are many. In Appendix A are listed a large number of specific indicators that suggest why the US is in trouble and will soon collapse. The major sections of this book were determined simply by arranging that long list into groups, or categories, containing related indicators. The following is a list of these categories. In the remainder of the book, I will present a brief chapter discussing each category. The categories are listed in order of my assessment of their importance.

Destruction of the Biosphere. Global industrialization is destroying the planet’s biosphere (global warming, deforestation, mass species extinction). All countries will soon perish. (Note on “global warming”: I am not going to get into the argument concerning whether global warming is happening, or what causes it. With the imminent breakup of ice at the North Pole for the first time in human history, it seems pretty clear that something is happening (although some people point to volcanoes as the cause). It doesn’t really matter very much whether global warming is happening or not, when large human numbers and global industrialization are causing the extinction of an estimated 30,000 species per year – that is a real threat to our existence, quite independent of global warming.)
The passage of Peak Oil. Global production of oil is peaking, and will start to decline. Our society is oil-based, we are running out of oil, and there is not a comparable substitute. All countries will fail as the petroleum age comes to an end and the era of global industrialization with it.
Overpopulation. The world and US populations are far higher than the current-solar-energy carrying capacity. When global oil production starts to decline, a global die-off will begin, concurrent with massive political upheavals.
Fractionated Culture. Because of mass immigration and little assimilation, the country’s culture has become highly fractionated. It is held together only by extreme wealth, rather than by race, religion, language, culture and ethnicity. As soon as global oil production starts to decline, the wealth (glue) holding US society together will dissolve, and the society will disintegrate.
Decline in US Culture. To an increasing degree, US culture has become soft, undisciplined, greedy, selfish, egocentric, hedonistic and materialistic. Through mass immigration from third-world countries, many of which are corrupt and inimical to traditional US culture, US culture is being overwhelmed by those cultures and reflecting them more and more.
Loss of Spirituality and “Manifest Destiny.” Many of the US middle class see no future, no hope.
Globalization. Globalization is destroying the hegemony of the US relative to other major world powers and the nation’s sovereignty.
Low Security: With open borders and massive international free trade, the US is very vulnerable, both on the national and individual levels.
The Politics of Envy. Both within the US and outside of it. (The “politics of greed” is the motivation for people to use political power to accumulate wealth for themselves; the “politics of envy” is the motivation for poor people to destroy those who have wealth.)
Oppression. The US government has adopted systems, programs and policies that have made economic slaves of the US middle class. Debt is a major tool of the government in this system.
Decline in Freedom. Each year, Americans have reduced freedom. Increased crowding from mass immigration and the “War on Terror” are the two principal causal factors.
Alienation of the US People from the US Government. The US government is no longer for the people. The government is waging war on the middle class. Its policies to vastly increase the riches of the wealthy elite have the direct effect of reducing the quality of life and discretionary income of the middle class, and subjugating it. The US government has become the enemy of the people. It is doing to the middle class exactly the same thing that the developed nations, through the international lending agencies, are doing to the third-world countries – miring them so deep in debt (through compound interest and debt-based money) so that they can never escape, are under total control, and are paying all of their discretionary income as interest.
Quality of Life Is Declining for the US Middle Class. It is now necessary for both parents to work in the competitive (paid, formal) labor market to support a family, whereas one person could support a family 50 years ago. Children are in “industrial” day care. Most young people today cannot hope to own their own home. Long commutes; high housing costs; high energy costs; diminished access to natural land; high medical costs; epidemics of disease and obesity caused by the system, stress, and poisoned food. Lower expectations for children. The current system is designed to enrich the wealthy, not protect the middle class. The goal and function of the present US political and economic system of US government is to “privatize the costs and socialize the benefits,” transferring much wealth from the middle class to the wealthy (e.g., via use of “eminent domain” and tax credits for the wealthy for major economic development projects; payment of interest on the national debt using income taxes, most of which come from the middle class; and “bailouts” of the wealthy when their financial schemes fail, also using income taxes).
Increasing Income Gap. Tremendously increasing income gap between top management and average workers, conspicuous consumption and flaunting of wealth. Increasing media attention to conspicuous consumption and flaunting of income. Instant billionaires. The ratio of the pay of top management has skyrocketed from about 40 to 1 a half-century ago to over 500 to 1 today. Heightened sense of economic class (wealthy versus poor). Increased dissatisfaction, politics of envy. Government policies and systems (income tax, the health care system and massive debt based on compound interest) transfer much wealth from the middle class to the wealthy.
Technical Reasons. (Factors involved in the collapse of complex societies, carrying capacity, economics.)
Political Incompetence. Just as King George III, US political leaders have failed to follow the dictums of Machiavelli, Sun Tsu, Liddell-Hart and others, and have lost the country.

This book is a summary. It is simply an annotated taxonomy of the items listed in Appendix A. It states my views and highlights my reasons for holding them, and presents a brief discussion of each reason why I believe that the US is finished. Most of the points that I make have been made many times before by others, in much greater detail than I present here. In a number of sections, when discussing very important concepts, I will include quotations from works of others, simply to show that I am not the only one making these points.

As part of the discussion, I cite references that provide additional detail. For convenience, the references are also categorized, but the categories used for the references are not at all the categories used to summarize the categories of reasons for my view, since people write books on general topics and those topics are not the categories of reasons for my view. The reference categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, a book on the history of warfare might be placed in “war” or “history.” A book on religion and ecology could be placed in either “religion” or “environment.”

Within each category of reference, I have sorted the items (mainly books) in approximate order of my assessment of their importance relative to the category. Just because a reference is included does not necessarily mean that I recommend it or endorse it. A number of references are included to illustrate views that I consider wrong, or to illustrate examples of bad predictions or poor methodologies. (The references on predictions and prophecies are included simply for interest. None of the information contained in any of those works has any bearing on the views presented in this work – in fact, a review of almost any of the older ones will quickly reveal how wrong and useless most of them are. In general, I am loath to make predictions, and certainly any involving dates – this book is a discourse on the current state of the US, not a prediction of a specific year in which it falters or collapses. Everything in the physical universe eventually dies – in the long run, there is nothing to predict.)

All of the references cited are books or other documents in my personal library. For this reason, they should not be considered to be a bibliography – they are just a list of selected references and sources. I have acquired these books over the years, in a casual way. My views on the fall of the United States are my own, but they have certainly been tempered by what I have read.

One of the principal tools of intelligence analysis is “content analysis,” which is the scanning of documents, such as newspapers or periodicals, in the attempt to identify and understand significant situations or trends. In a sense, this book may be viewed as a “content analysis” of the books in my library, with respect to the status and direction of the US. If the list of references were a bibliography, it would include many “seminal” works, such as Malthus’ essay on population.

Except for a few examples of technical works, all of the references are non-technical, and many of them are “trade” publications (low-cost, popular editions of mass-produced works, such as paperbacks and soft-cover editions). Most of the sources are from the past two decades, since most of the works dealing with topics relevant to the subject of this book were written during this time period.

Almost all of the references cited are “hardcopy” documents (books and pamphlets). With the explosion of the Internet, there are many websites containing information relevant to the thesis of this book. There are two reasons why I refer mainly to hardcopy sources: (1) most of the world does not have access to the Internet; and (2) relatively few books relevant to this work are available from the Internet in their entirety.

The major sections of this book refer to major readily identifiable indicators – symptoms and signs – of the US’ moribund condition. These symptoms and signs are not root causes. In addition to discussing these indicators and the current problems facing America (and the world) attention is focused on the reasons underlying these problems (such as growth-based economics, debt-based money, interest, and globalization) and their causes and nature.

To a degree, each section has been written essentially independently of others. Since there is some overlap of the content of the sections, this means that there is occasional redundancy among the sections.
Destruction of the Biosphere

The main reason why the United States will collapse soon is that the entire system of large human numbers and global industrialization will soon collapse. In the wake of the global collapse, all of the world’s individual nations will collapse. The current system of human society is completely unsustainable, the principal reason being that it is destroying the biosphere on which we depend for our existence. Global industrialization is generating massive amounts of waste that are not readily decomposed by geological or biological processes. It is causing the extinction of an estimated 30,000 species per year. It is causing severe pollution of the land, seas and atmosphere. The pollution of the atmosphere is believed by many to be causing global warming to occur, which is likely to accelerate the mass human-caused species extinction now underway.

Throughout the planet’s existence there have been a number of mass extinctions. This is the first one that is human-caused. The first major book on this extinction is The Sixth Extinction, by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin (1995). Mankind’s destruction of the biosphere has been going on for quite some time (since the dawn of the industrial revolution), but began to increase exponentially with the advent of the industrial revolution and the tapping of fossil fuels. The “wake-up” book on mankind’s destruction of the biosphere was Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962). The publication of her book opened the floodgates to publication of books on mankind’s destruction of the planet, such as Gordon Rattray Taylor’s The Doomsday Book (1970), Barry Commoner’s Making Peace with the Planet (1975) and J. E. Lovelock’s Gaia (1979). Other well-received books on this topic include Bill McKibben’s The End of Nature (1989), Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s Healing the Planet (1991), Gerard Piel’s Only One World (1992), Garrett Hardin’s Living within Limits (1993) and Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance (1992). Recent books on the subject include and Lester Brown’s Plan B 2.0 (2006) and Plan B 3.0 (2008). A good compilation of articles on carrying capacity is The Carrying Capacity Briefing Book (volumes I and II, 1996) by the Carrying Capacity Network. The Social Contract journal is a powerful voice on this subject.

The really interesting thing about the current destruction of the planet’s biosphere is that absolutely nothing of any significance is being done to stop it. Countless books have been written on the subject for half a century, and the process is well recognized and understood. Mankind, however, appears powerless to do anything about it – and this is a lack of will, not of know-how.

The only noticeable actions in response to the planetary crisis are anguish, wringing of hands, and the writing of more books on the subject. Politicians routinely suggest measures that will reduce pollution or energy consumption by ten percent, while the human population increases by ten percent every few years, so that the net result is zero. They continually reiterate that if only economic growth continues, then all countries will experience a “demographic transition,” the global population will level off and decline, and the planet’s environmental problem will be solved. But this has never happened. It has not happened in fifty years of trying. Each year, global human population increases by about 70-80 million people. Each year, planetary deforestation continues and another estimated 30,000 species is made extinct. Continuing with their program will cause no decline in human numbers in the foreseeable future, and will result in the extinction of millions of species. During the past half-century under this program, human population has doubled and the levels of pollution have more than doubled. It is very clear that mankind will do nothing proactive to stop the problem, and that the process of global industrialization will continue to run its course until it collapses by itself.

The planet’s leaders tell endless lies about their actions in response to the crisis. Recently, demonstrators climbed onto the roof of the Houses of Parliament in London to protest the construction of a third runway at Heathrow Airport. Jet airplanes are known to be a major contributor to global pollution and global warming from greenhouse gasses. Politicians claim to be doing something about this problem, but this is not true. They speak out of both sides of their mouths. They lie. If they were planning to reduce atmospheric pollution, they would be speaking of closing down a runway at Heathrow, not of building another one. Sheer hypocrisy! This one incident is typical of society’s response to the current planetary crisis. The planet’s political leaders have no intention of slowing global industrialization. They are all calling for increased economic activity and industrialization, not less. They are all calling for improved standards of living, which uses more energy and generates more pollution, not less. With the announced intention of Communist China and India to industrialize and raise the standards of living of their peoples, the destructive process of global industrialization will accelerate.

The major reason why the US will collapse soon is that the system of large human numbers and global industrialization is destroying the biosphere and cannot continue, this process has been on-going for decades, and nothing is being done about it. The situation is a classic example of Catton’s “overshoot and collapse.”

The Passage of Peak Oil

In 1956 the petrogeologist Dr. Marion King Hubbert published a paper in which he predicted that US oil production would peak in about 1969. His prediction was rejected by almost everyone until 1970, when his prediction was seen to be correct. Dr. Hubbert used his technical knowledge of geology and the statistical characteristics of the rate and size of oil deposit discoveries to make his prediction. If you plot a curve showing national oil production by year (a “time series”), the plot (smoothed to remove minor fluctuations) resembles a “bell-shaped” curve that is low in the early 20th century, rises to a maximum about 1969, and declines thereafter. This curve has come to be known as “Hubbert’s Curve,” and the point at which the oil production is a maximum is called “Hubbert’s Peak.”

Upon seeing the impressive success of Hubbert’s methodology in predicting the decline of US oil production, others applied his methods to predict the peaking of global oil production. Their analysis indicates that global oil production will likely peak this decade. From approximately now on, if global industrialization continues, global oil production will start to decline, and most of the planet’s commercially recoverable oil will be gone by 2050. The peaking of global oil production is referred to as “Peak Oil.” (The average production life of an oil field is about thirty years. For a large area (many oil fields), the production curve is similar in shape to the discovery curve, lagging by about thirty years. Global discoveries peaked in about 1974, and global production is expected to peak about now.)

Many books have been written on the subject of Peak Oil. One of the best is Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage, by Kenneth S. Deffeyes (2001). Others on the same topic include Paul Roberts’ The End of Oil (2004) and Matthew R. Simmons’ Twilight in the Desert (2005). A comprehensive history of oil is Daniel Yergin’s The Prize (1991) (also a PBS television documentary). An excellent documentary about the passing of oil is A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (2006) produced and directed by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack (available on DVD; excerpts may be viewed on YouTube).

Some people have a difficult time understanding or accepting the concept of Hubbert’s Curve. They point to the fact that new oil deposits are continually being found as evidence that this will continue forever. An example might make the concept easier to understand. Suppose that someone has a container filled with coins – quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies – and that he throws handfuls of the coins across a cornfield (maize field) and plows the field. The field represents the surface of the Earth, and the coins represent oil deposits – the coins of different values represent oil deposits of different sizes. Wherever a handful of coins was thrown there is a large “oil field.” Elsewhere there is no oil at all. Now, each year that the field is plowed for a new crop, look for coins and pick them up. The first year, you will find quite a few. The next year, you will find less. Each year you will find fewer and fewer coins, because there are just a finite number of them and you are removing them – they are not being replaced (unless you subscribe to the Russian’s abiogenic theory of oil creation). After a number of years, you would be able to estimate the relative proportions of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. You could draw a curve showing how many coins were found each year, and extrapolate it to estimate how many coins (of each size) will be found each year in the future. From this you could estimate the total number of coins in the field (of each size) and the total value remaining. To do this you do not need to know anything about the number or mix of coins that were distributed in the field. This is exactly how Hubbert’s Curve is constructed.

Since the major source of energy for the industrial world is oil, and since the high levels of food production have been enabled by oil, the decline in global oil production will usher in an era of massive economic and social disintegration. Good books on this topic include Thom Hartmann’s The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (1998) and Richard Heinberg’s The Party’s Over (2003) and Power Down (2004). An excellent website for source material on this topic is Jay Hanson’s Die Off website at http://www.dieoff.com .

The reason why Peak Oil is expected to result in massive economic and social upheaval is that the major source of energy for the industrial world is oil, and it is not easily replaced. Oil can be used for many things, such as plastics, fertilizers and other chemicals, not just as a source of energy. Also, it is easily transported, i.e., can be stored on cars, trucks, ships and airplanes. The production of synthetic oil (e.g., from coal) requires much energy (e.g., from the coal). Moreover, this is but a stop-gap measure – all coal will be gone within a few hundred years (or much sooner, if much of the coal is converted to oil, since much energy is required to synthesize oil from coal). Electricity can be used for land transport, but only for a stable population (e.g., trolley cars, electric trains, subways). Solar energy (e.g., hydroelectric, biomass, wind, solar thermal, solar cell) can replace only a small fraction of the energy now obtained from oil, and it is not as high grade or as transportable. Believing that solar energy will be a replacement for oil is laughable. If it were, we would see plenty of solar-energy-powered factories producing more solar factories, and there would be no “energy crisis.” (People are finally beginning to write about the folly of turning to biomass as a replacement for oil. See, for example, Walter Williams’ column, “Ethanol’s a scam, not a solution” (Creators Syndicate, 16 March 2008) and the cover feature of the 7 April 2008 issue of Time magazine, “The Clean Energy Scam,” by Michael Grunwald, which discusses, among other things, the effect of using biomass on the destruction of forests in Brazil.) Uranium can provide energy for a long time, but only if used in fast-breeder reactors, which produce plutonium. The idea of having thousands of plutonium-producing “factories” around the globe in this era of terrorism is rather absurd. Nuclear energy produces radioactive waste that lasts for tens of thousands of years.

The world population has soared from one billion to 6.7 billion because of oil, and it will decline back to low levels as global oil production falls.

It is worth noting that not everyone subscribes to the inevitability of Hubbert’s Peak. An implicit assumption in the application of Hubbert’s methodology is that the oil deposits were created many eons ago (by biological processes), and are hence of essentially fixed size. An alternative theory is that oil is also geological in origin (“abiogenic petroleum origin”). The Russians subscribe to this theory, and they are finding much oil. It is also worth noting that the methodology for constructing Hubbert’s Curve does not depend on an assumption about the origin of oil – it is based only on empirical statistics (on oil deposit sizes and discoveries), but it does assume that the amounts are essentially fixed.

Many people view the passing of Peak Oil as a disaster. It is in fact a chance for salvation – a chance to save what remains of the biosphere’s species, before further damage occurs. It is oil that has fueled large human numbers and global industrialization, with the resultant environmental destruction and mass species extinction. The sooner the fossil-fuel-energy age is over, the sooner the mass species extinction may come to an end. Switching to other fossil fuels or carbon-based fuels (e.g., coal, gas, oil shale) as global oil production declines simply continues the biospheric destruction. Continuing to use fossil fuel in any form simply allows global industrialization to continue, causing the mass species extinction to continue for a longer time. There are two points here: (1) fossil fuels will exhaust soon, and there is no comparable energy replacement for them; and (2) because large human numbers and industrial activity are causing mass species extinction, finding an alternative energy source, even if it were possible, would simply continue the biospheric destruction and species extinction. Like a drug addict or alcoholic, we may want more energy, but we don’t need it – and it would destroy us if we were to find it.

Economists have been saying for decades that if the price of oil gets high enough, then substitutes for oil will be found. The price has risen from $10 a barrel to over $100 a barrel in recent years, and no comparable replacement has been found. And no matter how high the price goes, it will never buy back the species that have been made extinct. Striving to keep human energy use at high levels is tantamount to striving to continue global warming and species loss.

Overpopulation

It is an historic certitude that human populations (and most others) expand to the limit of the food supply. It is also a fact that if the food supply collapses, the population also collapses. The major book on this subject is William R. Catton, Jr.’s Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (1980). A more recent work on the subject is Jared Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005). See also Jay Hansen’s Die Off website (http://www.dieoff.org ). Population collapse may occur for a number of reasons, such as climate change, deforestation, soil fertility changes, overfishing, overhunting and pests. The large size of today’s human population has been enabled by oil. As oil production declines, global food production will decline, and a massive human die-off will occur (from starvation or war).

As the petroleum age draws to a close, human society will return to a solar-energy-based civilization. To be sure, there are some other significant energy sources on the planet in addition to oil. One is nuclear energy. It is not a viable long-term solution because it generates large and intractable amounts of waste. For uranium supplies to last for a long time, they must be used in fast-breeder reactors, which produce plutonium. In this age of terrorism, the presence of a large number of plutonium-producing plants scattered around the planet is not a stable situation. Another source of energy is coal. The planet is estimated to contain sufficient coal to fuel industrial society for several hundred years, but the problem of burning the coal without releasing the carbon into the atmosphere (and causing a lethal greenhouse gas effect) has not been solved. Also, the conversion of coal to oil (e.g., via Fischer-Tropsch liquefaction) requires much energy – if this is done, the coal supply will not last nearly as long as it would if used directly. (A couple of years ago there was much talk about using America’s vast coal reserves to produce oil and more electricity, but those plans have collapsed – the “energy” cost of making oil from coal or pollution-free electricity from coal is very high.) The feasibility of using nuclear fusion to generate electricity has been demonstrated in the laboratory, but despite a half-century of trying, the practicality of this energy source remains elusive. The evidence seems overwhelming that as oil depletes, human society will return to existing on recurrent solar energy.

(The concept of “carbon sequestration” to place the carbon dioxide formed from the burning of fossil fuel is laughable. The carbon is already sequestered – why not simply leave it where it is? Some day, all coal will be gone, and so burning of coal is not a long-term solution to society’s energy requirements. Absent a good use for the energy (e.g., using it to transit to a different system of planetary management, one that is long-term sustainable for the biosphere and the human species), there is no point to using the coal at all – by prolonging the industrial age it simply causes the extinction of countless more species.)

The “awkwardness” of the present situation is that solar energy can support only a small fraction of the world’s current population. At a low level of living, solar energy can support about 500 million people. At a high level of living, it can support on the order of about 5-10 million people. As global energy supplies exhaust, human population will fall back to these numbers (i.e., will die off). The only significant issue is, as Joel Cohen and others have put it, “how many people, at what level of living.” The recurrent-solar-energy budget is fixed. All that may be decided is whether to use it to support a high level of living for a few people or a low level of living for a larger number. In any event, the size of a long-term-sustainable solar-energy-based human population is far smaller than the current human population. (For discussion of human carrying capacity, see, for example, David and Marcia Pimentel’s Food, Energy, and Society (1979, 1996), and Joel Cohen’s How Many People Can the Earth Support? (1995).)

The US has made no efforts to prepare for life in a recurrent-solar-energy-based world. At a low level of living, recurrent solar energy can support (long term) about 63 million people in the US; at a high level of living, recurrent solar energy can support about one-tenth this number, or 630 thousand. The current (2008) population of the United States is 304 million, and it is increasing by about three million per year (from immigration). That is about five to fifty times as many as can be supported by recurrent solar energy, and the situation is getting worse every year. It is interesting to compare the situation for the US to that for Russia. Although Russia has a larger total land area than the US, it has less arable land. At a low level of living, solar energy can support about 44 million people in Russia, and at a high level of living it can support about 440 thousand people. The current population of Russia is 142 million people, and it is declining by about one-half million per year. This is about three to thirty times what solar energy can support, but at least Russia is headed in the right direction (i.e., its population is declining to a recurrent-solar-energy-based level). (The statistics on populations supportable by solar energy are taken from Can America Survive? and related documents at http://www.foundationwebsite.org/canam4x.htm , http://www.foundationwebsite.org/PopAnal...ntries.txt and http://www.foundationwebsite.org/PopProf...ntries.txt .)

When populations change size for the usual demographic reasons (changes in birth rates, death rates, and migration rates under peaceful conditions), they change rather slowly. Even if the US started today to bring its population into line with solar energy limits by stopping all immigration and adopting a one-child-per family policy (as in Communist China), its population would not start to decline for some time (due to “momentum” of the “population pyramid,” as the current children reach child-bearing age), and would then decline slowly. Unfortunately for those who would like to continue US and world populations at a high level, the decline in global oil production is upon us, and they will soon be declining rapidly. The amount of energy available to support the human population is about to begin to fall rapidly, and there is little that can be done about it (oil can be pumped out of the ground just so fast). When the global oil production decline is in full fall, global population will fall by about one hundred and fifty million per year. Considering that the global population is currently increasing by about 70-80 million per year, this means that an average of about 220-230 million deaths a year will occur from starvation or war over the next four decades.

The US imports more than half of its oil (about sixty percent, according to The Oil Drum (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3233)). For some time, it will be able to continue oil imports by paying a lot for them, and let people in other countries starve to death (or reduce demand by wholesale extermination of the population of other countries). Eventually, however, there will simply not be oil for anyone at any price, and, despite what cornucopians such as Julian Simon may claim, there is no comparable substitute that heightened demand will create. At that point, all nations still in existence will revert to solar-based agriculture.

(There is a famous wager that was made once offered by Julian Simon to Paul Ehrlich (author of The Population Bomb (1968)), in which Simon bet that the price of commodities, including grain and fossil fuels, would not rise in price in future years. Here is a quote from Simon’s book, The Ultimate Resource 2 (1996): “The first edition of this book contained this statement: This is a public offer to stake $10,000, in separate transactions of $1,000 or $100 each, on my belief that mineral resources (or food or other commodities) will not rise in price in future years, adjusted for inflation. You choose any mineral or other raw material (including grain and fossil fuels) that is not government controlled, and the date of the settlement. Offering to wager is the last resource of the frustrated. When you are convinced that you have hold of an important idea, and you can’t get the other side to listen, offering to bet is all that is left. If the other side refuses to bet, they implicitly acknowledge that they are less sure than they claim to be.” For many years, Simon bragged that he would have won the bet, had it been made. All it took, however, for the price of commodities to start to rise was for the world to reach Hubbert’s Peak. Now, the price of oil is about $100 per barrel, and the price of grains is also rising (adjusted for inflation). And, of course, no amount of demand increase can bring back the species that have been lost from large human numbers and industrial activity. In the long run, Ehrlich was right. In the long run, Malthus will be proven right.)

Some people do not like to use the word “overpopulated,” asserting that there is no such thing, that there can never be a “surplus” of people. This is a foolish denial of the way things are. The large current US population has been made possible and is sustained by the availability of large amounts of oil. When the oil is gone, the population will fall. That condition is overpopulation.

Fractionated Culture

Massive Immigration without Assimilation Has Fractionated the United States’ Culture and Society

After the invasion of North America by the Europeans and the die-off of the Indians (from disease, starvation, dispossession of their lands and extermination of the buffalo (bison)), North America was a patchwork of different cultures – the Spanish in (what is now) Florida and the US Southwest, the French in eastern Canada and the Louisiana Territory (the middle third of the US) and the British in the eastern US. After the US was founded, it received waves of immigrants from Europe, such as from Germany, Ireland and Scandinavia. Gradually, as English became the country’s principal language and immigration continued mainly from Europe, the US coalesced into a strong nation. It had a single language and was largely white and Protestant. The native American Indians had been decimated. The largest single minority was African slaves (Indians do not make good slaves). As the Industrial Revolution progressed, the country freed the slaves and eventually accommodated the Africans and integrated them into the mainstream American culture.

This process is now being reversed, by mass immigration over a short period of time by alien cultures from around the world. The largest single block of immigrants is from Mexico, and there has been little attempt to require them or even encourage them to speak English. Mass immigration is the result of the Immigration Act of 1965 (The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 or the Hart-Celler Act, which amended the Immigration Act of 1924). Prior to passage of this Act, immigration was restricted to small numbers of people from the same European countries and cultures that had settled the country and made it strong and great. After passage of the Act, immigration swelled to massive numbers, and most were from alien (nonEuropean) cultures. As legal immigration from alien cultures increased, with little assimilation there were now present in the population many people who were obviously foreign, and it became very easy for illegal immigrants to “blend in.” Strong legislation was passed to prevent discrimination against legal immigrants, and it soon became impossible (in today’s politically correct society) to discriminate against illegal ones. Illegal immigration increased to extremely high levels – presently about two million per year – far eclipsing legal immigration. Over time, the US became very fractionated, with respect to all components of culture (“peoplehood”) – race, language, religion, ethnicity and politics.

This process of fractionation has been evident for a long time. The first major book on the subject was Joel Garreau’s The Nine Nations of North America (1981). As the process of fractionation became more extensive and obvious, many more books were written on this subject, including Arthur Schlesinger’s The Disuniting of America (1991), Lawrence Auster’s The Path to National Suicide (1990), Rosalie Pedalino Porter’s Forked Tongue (1990), Brent Nelson’s America Balkanized (1994), Georgie Anne Geyer’s Americans No More (1996), Patrick Buchanan’s The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization (2002) and State of Emergency (2006). There are many books on immigration, including Peter Brimelow’s Alien Nation (1995) and Jean Raspail’s prophetic novel, The Camp of the Saints (1973). A very comprehensive source on immigration is The Immigration Briefing Book, by the Carrying Capacity Network (1994).

In his book, Day of Reckoning (2007), Patrick Buchanan observes, “Is diversity a strength? In the ideology of modernity, yes. But history teaches otherwise. For how can racial diversity be strength when racial diversity was behind the bloodiest war in U.S. history and has been the most polarizing issue among us ever since?” Buchanan quotes findings of Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone on the subject of diversity in America: “His research shows that the more diverse a community is the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from the next-door neighbor to the mayor…. Prof. Putnam found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, ‘the most diverse human habitation in human history….’

“…By 1960, 88.6 percent of our nation was of European stock and 95 percent Christian. America had never been a more united nation. African Americans had been assimilated into the Christian faith and national culture if not fully into society. While Jews, perhaps 4 percent of the population, were non-Christians, their parents or grandparents had come from European Christian nations.

“Since the cultural revolution of the 1960s and the Immigration Act of 1965, however, the ethnocultural core has begun to dissolve. Secularism has displaced Christianity as the faith of the elites. The nation has entered a post-Christian era. There is no longer a unifying culture. Rather, we are fighting a culture war. And the European ethnic core is shrinking. From near 90 percent in 1960, it is down to 67 percent today, and will be less than 50 percent by 2040.

“Here we come to the heart of the matter.

“Quo Vadis, America? Where are you going?

“If we have no common faith and are divided by morality and culture, and are separated by ethnicity and race, what holds us together? Especially in light of Putnam’s report that ‘diversity’ dilutes ‘social capital,’ erodes communities, and engenders mutual mistrust.”

Buchanan makes a number of other comments on diversity and related topics. Excerpts are presented in the Appendices.

Near the end of his book, Buchanan quotes Euripides: “There is no greater sorrow on earth, than the loss of one’s native land.” The truth of this statement is profound. It has been said that we do not own the land, that it owns us. We are rooted in our land, as much as in our culture. When we lose our native land, we have lost the physical link to our culture and our heritage. We have lost something as significant as our parents and our family. Economic development is destroying the lands that I knew as a boy in Canada and the United States. The wooded areas in which I used to hike are now all destroyed, consumed by highways, housing developments, schools and shopping centers. When I was a boy in Spartanburg, the city water supply was a pleasant little lake called Rainbow Lake. We used to go swimming there on weekends. Family reunions were held in the Rainbow Lake Pavilion. The population of Spartanburg back then was about 50,000 people. Most people could walk to school – certainly to elementary school, and in many cases to high school. Now, with a population of several hundred thousand, Rainbow Lake has been destroyed, replaced by a much larger Lake Bowen (Bill Bowen, who planned the lake, was an uncle of mine by marriage). The amazing thing about this is that we now have water shortages! All that matters to the controllers of the US is wealth, and creation of scarcity is one of the best ways of increasing the value of things. Unfortunately, economic growth destroys nature. It is destroying our native land.

Some Background on the Passage of the Immigration Act of 1965

The drive for the Immigration Act of 1965 came from interests that strove to weaken the traditional, mainstream, dominant US culture, which was white Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP, European, Northern European, Nordic, Teutonic). The two principal actors in passage of the Act were Senator Edward Kennedy and the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) (the Act was sponsored by Senators Emmanuel Celler and Philip Hart). Both parties sought to weaken the dominance of Teutonic culture in the United States. The ADL was founded in 1913 after the lynching of Leo Frank in Atlanta. A description of the ADL’s work in promoting mass immigration to the US from alien cultures is presented in Kevin MacDonald’s The Culture of Critique (1998). A discussion of Senator Kennedy’s role in passage of the Act is presented in Lawrence Auster’s The Path to National Suicide (1990).

(In this section and a later one, there is a fair amount of discussion of Jewish groups and Jewish culture. I have no particular interest in Jews or Judaism, and my discussion of them in this work arises simply from my observations of the significance of their role in affecting US culture and security, in observing the remarkable success of their efforts in statecraft and nation-building, and in comparing the success of their efforts to those of the United States.)

In working together for passage of the Act, Senator Kennedy and the ADL had different motives. Although Senator Kennedy was (and is) a Catholic, his sponsorship of the Act had little to do with his Catholic religion. The passage of time has shown that the Catholics as a group have little interest in “taking over” the US government, culture, or country. (During the era of the Papal States, the Roman Catholic Church was very interested and involved in acquisition and use of political power. While the Roman Catholic Church is still quite concerned with material wealth and still operates a small country (the Holy See, Vatican City), it is not at present involved in major political operations.) Although far fewer in numbers than Protestants, they view themselves (as Christians) very much as an integral part of the traditional US culture, not as an alien people attempting to take it over or assume control of it.

The motives of the ADL were quite different. The ADL is a socio-political instrument of the Jewish political movement, and its motivation and role in passage of the Act were to further their political ambitions in support of the movement to establish the Jewish state of Israel (Zionism). As a Jewish organization, the ADL was in no position to sponsor the Act, and they sought a gentile to “front” for it. Senator Kennedy was mindful of Jewish political power. As a young senator early in his career, he sought to enhance his power by aligning with the wealthy ADL and the “Jewish lobby.” He was quite willing to accommodate this group by serving as a Christian “front man” for the Act. It was Kennedy’s religion as a Christian (not as a Catholic) that served the ADL’s interests. The Act could have been sponsored by either a Protestant or a Catholic, and achieved passage. The fact that Kennedy was Catholic and not Protestant was in fact a weakness, but the popularity of the Kennedy family name compensated for this. Although Kennedy, as a named sponsor of the Act, bears some responsibility for its passage and for the resultant destruction of US culture that it caused, this was not his primary objective. Kennedy’s role in passage of the Act was that of a pawn serving as a gentile front-man for the ADL. With his connection to the Kennedy family, he served the ADL very well in achieving their objective of passage of the Act. His primary motive, however, was advancement of his own personal political power, not of the political power of the Catholic Church (or of the Zionist movement). The fact that mainstream US culture would be destroyed was not a concern to him – in fact, he adamantly insisted that this would not happen.

In serving as a sponsor for the Act, Kennedy was in fact a shill for the ADL. More than any other single event, the Immigration Act of 1965 signaled the demise of traditional American culture. The ADL’s role in passage of the Act was long-standing and with purpose (i.e., the nurturing of the modern state of Israel); Kennedy’s was not – it was opportunistic. He was simply the Judas who betrayed his country for a few pieces of silver. While Senator Kennedy, as a named sponsor of the Act, may claim responsibility for it, and while his name will forever be linked to this signal event in America’s demise, he was in fact not the prime mover, but simply a Quisling, a Benedict Arnold, who betrayed his country and culture for his own personal gain. (The only essential difference between Benedict Arnold and Edward Kennedy is that, whereas Arnold’s cause failed and his treachery was therefore in vain, the goal of Kennedy’s treachery was achieved – he has lived to see the dissolution of the culture of the United States, primarily because of his Immigration Act of 1965.) Senator Kennedy was recently (May 2008) diagnosed with brain cancer. Had he died before sponsoring the Act would have made little difference, for two reasons: (1) the ADL would have found some other gentile to front for it; and (2) as Ariel Durant observed, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.” By even considering the Act, it is evident that US culture was well down its path to destruction, and positioning for its demise. From this perspective, even the participation of the ADL per se is of little consequence: had the ADL not been the agent primarily responsible for passage of the Act, some other group or event would have served as pivotal agents in the US’ demise. (This is admittedly a rather philosophical perspective – few of us can control our lives to a great degree, but achieve our life’s purpose or significance simply by responding to the larger environments and situations into which we are born or find ourselves.)

One might reasonably ask why and how Americans could have allowed mass immigration to overwhelm and displace / destroy their culture. The story is a little long, but it is very interesting and illustrates well the importance of culture in determining the destiny of a nation, and so I will digress a little by discussing it in some detail. It also points out some features of Israeli society that contrast significantly with present US culture, with respect to national survival. Prior to the 1965 Act, US immigration had been limited to a few tens of thousands of people, mainly from Europe, for many decades. The ADL and Senator Edward Kennedy convinced Americans that restricting immigration to Northern European cultures was morally wrong. President John Kennedy had recently been assassinated, and many Americans mourned his loss. He had written a book, Nation of Immigrants (1958), in which he praised immigration, and he had attempted to pass an immigration bill of his own, but failed. Robert F. Kennedy, who had been Attorney General under President Kennedy, also pressed for passage of the new bill. President Kennedy’s book was revised and enlarged in a 1964 edition – it is significant to note that the 1964 edition was copyrighted by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Some people, such as North Carolina Senator Sam Irvin, asserted that the new bill would flood the country with immigrants from alien cultures and change the ethnic composition of the country. Senator Kennedy countered that this would not happen, and implied that the opponents of the bill were racist bigots. The bill passed, and the country began its passage to oblivion.

One of the key features of the new Act was the fact that it promoted “family reunification.” This meant that foreigners having close relatives in the US were likely to be granted immigration visas. Since Asians and Latinos have high birth rates, this feature resulted in a phenomenon called “chain migration,” in which large extended families were granted entry. Birthright citizenship was granted to any child born in the US. Relatives of such children, such as a mother or father, were also granted immigrant visas – such babies were called “anchor babies.” (The January 3, 1999, issue of the St. Petersburg Times Parade Sunday Supplement contains a feature (cover) article entitled, “An American Experience: A Report for the Millennium,” by Ted Szulc. It documents the story of how one Mexican crossed the border thirty-two years previously, concealed in the trunk of a car. He evaded police for several years until his wife had two children, who were automatically granted birthright citizenship. With US-citizen children, he and his wife then qualified for a Green Card (a work-permit visa), followed by US citizenship. They went on to have ten children – all US citizens. All stemming from one criminal invader of our country. To further its program of selling of America to generate more wealth for the wealthy elite, the US government has rewarded this criminal alien invader with citizenship for himself and ten of his relatives. The US Constitution requires the government to protect the country from invasion. The government imprisons one percent of its adult male population, while rewarding alien invaders with citizenship. The US government is guilty of high treason, and should be held accountable. It rewards illegal aliens with birthright citizenship for their children, while it imprisons its own citizens at the highest rate in the world. It no longer deserves the support of the governed.)

The Effects of Mass Immigration on US Society

Over the years, many Americans became alarmed at the flood of illegal aliens, and complained. They complained mainly on the basis that the illegal aliens were depressing their wages and taking their jobs. Few people complained that the masses of illegal immigrants were changing US culture, since this argument was immediately labeled as “racist” and “bigoted.” Instead, the argument asserted by the government in favor of mass immigration was invariably that it was good for the economy, and it did not depress wages or employment for citizens. The fact was and is that immigration was good for the economy. It did depress wages and employment to some extent (mainly for lower-wage earners), but the overall effect of immigration is to increase gross domestic product – the country with 300 million people living in it produces much more goods and services than the country with only 200 million people, and the country’s wealthy elite are much better off. Mass immigration was very good for business, and so the government, which now served the wealthy elite, was not about to put the brakes on it. The fact that mass immigration was destroying the culture, the environment, and the quality of life for many US citizens was downplayed, suppressed, ignored, and contradicted by the US government and its economists.

As an example of “Hume’s Paradox” (that the masses have the power to overthrow their governments, but rarely do), US citizens were too timid to stand up for their culture. They let the US government convince them, quite falsely it is now patently obvious, that it was in their economic interest to allow mass immigration. They were dissuaded from standing up for their culture because (1) they were accused of bigotry in doing so and (2) they were promised an increased standard of living. In the end, seduced by the false promise of continued material well-being, they lost both their culture and their standard of living.

Once there were massive numbers of legal aliens from different cultures in the US, it became very difficult to distinguish them from illegal aliens, and illegal immigration mushroomed. It got so bad that in 1986 the US government passed the Immigration Reform Act granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. The government claimed that this would not be done again. It lied – granting of a path to citizenship to the 12-20 illegal aliens currently in the country has been promoted by the Bush administration and is being promoted by all three presidential contenders (John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama).

Machiavelli asserted that there are three main ways to administer a conquered people: (1) annihilate them (as the Romans did to the Carthaginians); (2) overwhelm them with large numbers of your own people (as the Communist Chinese are now doing in Tibet, the Israelis have been doing in Palestine, and the Europeans did to the native American Indians in North America); or (3) back local oligarchs (powerful families) and control the country through these surrogates. None of these approaches was feasible for minorities to overcome the United States, since it had not been conquered and its mainstream culture was too strong. The way that was adopted to conquer it, and, after four decades has proved to be highly successful, was to flood the country with immigrants from alien cultures. This could not have been done, of course, had the country’s mainstream culture not already started to decline and was ripe for takeover. As Ariel Durant once observed, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”

In his book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006), Daniel Dennett relates the interesting story of an ant that laboriously climbs to the top of a blade of grass, falls off, and climbs back over and over again. It turns out that this strange behavior is caused by a parasite, the lancet fluke (Dicrocelium dendriticum), that is striving, as Dennett relates, “to get itself into the stomach of a sheep or cow in order to complete its reproductive cycle. This little brain worm is driving the ant into position to benefit its progeny, not the ant’s. This is not an isolated phenomenon. Similarly manipulative parasites infect fish, and mice, among other species. These hitchhikers cause their hosts to behave in unlikely – even suicidal – ways, all for the benefit of the guest, not the host.” Another parasite that causes similar behavior is the parasitic protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, which can cause rats and mice to be drawn to the scent of cats, rather than to be fearful of it. The recent flooding of the US with immigrants is analogous to the phenomenon of these behavior-controlling parasites. In similar fashion, Jewish culture has taken control of US culture, and America is now a client state of Israel. Jewish interest groups (ADL, Zionists, the “Jewish Lobby,” the “Israeli Lobby”) have played the role of the lancet fluke to induce America to do its bidding. Their primary tool was the Immigration Act of 1965 – which was passed by American lawmakers! With a little help from a cultural parasite, America destroyed itself.

The founders and early leaders of the United States knew what was required to establish and maintain a country. They restricted the vote to landowners and representation in favor of the white race. When revolution was initiated by the secession of South Carolina in 1861, Abraham Lincoln crushed the effort with a bloody civil war – the bloodiest war in the history of the US (close to one million deaths). In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the US government embarked on a genocidal war of extermination of the native American Indians. It exterminated the buffalo, which was essential to the food and culture of the plains Indians. It relocated Indians from their homelands to small, inhospitable reservations, some of which resembled moonscapes. It sent smallpox-infested blankets to the cold, starving survivors. When World War II broke out, they immediately placed all Japanese living in the US in concentration camps.

Jewish Capabilities in Statecraft

While America’s founders and early leaders knew what to do to create and maintain a nation, our current leaders have abandoned their principles, and the nation is disintegrating. It is not that they do not know what is required, but that they are implementing the will of the planet’s controllers (wealthy elite). The same is true for South Africa. The founders and present-day leaders of the modern state of Israel, however, know exactly what to do to found a nation and maintain it, and they have the will, intelligence, and skills to do it. This section describes some of the history and characteristics of Israeli statecraft, which is similar to that of America’s founders but stands in stark contrast to the policies and actions of US leaders of the past half-century and today.

The historical background of the eventual takeover of America by the ADL is fascinating. The Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews who founded the modern state of Israel knew what was required and were prepared to do it, to establish their own country. Prior to the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948, the country was Palestine. The founders of modern-day Israel had no racial or ancestral links to the Biblical Jews. They were Khazars, or Ashkenazim, from Eastern Europe (Germany). Following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, they saw an opportunity to obtain a country of their own, by taking over Palestine. The Arabs were in total disarray, and allowed this to happen. Although the Ashkenazim / Khazars had no historical or racial or ancestral links to Palestine (the Holy Land), they asserted that they had religious ties to the Biblical Jews, and on this basis deserved a homeland in the area then occupied by Palestine. They were in fact not “returning” to the Holy Land, since their ancestors were never from it. The Biblical Jews are not the ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews. The Ashkenazim had no moral or ancestral claim to the land of the Biblical Jews. They had no more legitimate, moral or hereditary claim to Palestine than Sammy Davis, Jr.

The Ashkenazim sought and obtained the backing of British Foreign Secretary Balfour for their cause. In 1917 Lord Balfour sent a letter to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild in support of this idea – this letter is now referred to as the “Balfour Declaration.” The letter did not suggest the taking over of Palestinian territory, but simply the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people within Palestine. Once the Ashkenazim got a foothold in Palestine, however, they quickly took over.

The movement of the Ashkenazim to take over Palestine is called Zionism. It is a political movement, disguised as a religious one. Religion is the handmaiden of government, and history has shown how it can be a very effective tool in accomplishing political goals. The Ashkenazi Jews had no ancestral link to the Biblical Jews, but they made very effective use of religion to imply that they had a rightful political claim to the Holy Land. In fact, there was no basis to their claim – moral, ancestral, historica

Humans are doomed to pay a very high price for their cruelty to animals

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:47:07 -0500

"How do most people view animals and behave towards them? The way they exploit certain species is really disgusting. They will not shrink from any kind of cruelty to obtain their flesh, their fur, their hide, their horns or any other part of their body.

But humans are doomed to pay a very high price for their cruelty to animals. The causes of wars may appear to be only political, economic and so on, but in fact they are also the consequence of all the slaughtering of animals that humans are guilty of. The law of justice, which is implacable, forces them to pay with their own blood for the blood they have shed through killing animals. How many millions of gallons of blood shed on earth cry out for vengeance from heaven! And as this blood turns to vapour it attracts a multitude of larvae and lower entities from the astral world, poisoning the earth's atmosphere and perpetuating conflicts. Humans want peace, or so they say, but so long as they continue to slaughter animals they will have war. This is a truth that is not known and may not be accepted. But not accepting it will not change anything: humans will be treated the way they treat animals. "

Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov

Happy Birthday To A Member & Former Admin

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 08:01:29 -0500

Happy birthday dear wokensheep
wherever you may be I hope you have a good one.

Beware The False Signs Of Spring In America

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 04:27:36 -0500

Beware The False Signs Of Spring In America

As the manic huckster Barack Obama travels the country raising almost 30 million a month for his re-election while campaigning on an old and badly tattered theme of hope and change that is just over the hill ~ millions of economically distressed Americans are saying “Are you kidding me“ and are rightfully refusing to be Obamanized:

by Allen L Roland

President Obama is in full campaign mode and his annoying high pitched daily entreaties to voters that recovery is just around the corner ( if you’ll just spend and re-inflate the debt bubble that burst four years ago) are falling on millions of deaf ears ~ except his true base, Wall Street and the global corporate elite. Here’s a great example in the form of a five minute video from just a normal American guy, who is part owner of a small business ~ commenting on the clowns, including the president, who are running this political circus and are messing this country up.

Continue to read and watch the video:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/02/19/...n-america/

How Iran Changed The World

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:44:13 -0500

How Iran Changed The World

By Sharmine Narwani
Feb 19, 2012 - 2:28:01 AM

Imagine this scenario: A developing nation decides to selectively share its precious natural resource, selling only to "friendly" countries and not "hostile" ones. Now imagine this is oil we're talking about and the nation in question is the Islamic Republic of Iran...

Early news reports on Wednesday claimed that Iran pre-empted European Union sanctions by turning off the oil spigot to six member-states: the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Greece and Portugal.

The reports were premature. According to a highly-placed source in the country, Iran will only stop its oil supply to these nations if they fail to adopt new trading conditions: 1) signing 3 to 5-year contracts to import Iranian oil, with all agreements concluded prior to March 21, and 2) payment for the oil will no longer be accepted within 60-day cycles, as in the past, and must instead be honored immediately.

Negotiations are currently underway with all six nations. Iran, says the source, expects to cut oil supplies to at least two nations based on their current positions. These are likely to be Holland and France.

Meanwhile, the other four EU member-states are in dire financial straits. They are knee-deep in the kind of fiscal crisis that has no hope of resolution unless they exit the union and go back to banana republic basics. Yet, they found the time to sanction Iran over some convoluted American-Israeli theory that the Islamic Republic may one day decide to build a nuclear weapon. I am sure arm-twisting was involved – the kind that involves dollars for votes.

But I digress. This blog is really about ideas. And not just ideas, but really ridiculous ideas.

New World Order Jump-Started by Iran?

Alternative sources of oil will be found in a jiffy for these beleaguered EU economies. But this isn’t so much about a few barrels of the stuff that fuels the world’s engines.

This is about the idea that a singular action taken amidst the political and economic re-set about to take place globally, can propel us in a whole new direction overnight.

The past few years have shown that there is no global financial leadership capable of pulling us back from the abyss. The US national debt hovers around the $15.3 Trillion mark. Its GDP in 2011 was just under $15 Trillion. You do the math – there is no fixing that one. The only next-big-thing coming out of that dead end will be the complete transformation of the current global economic order.

But how will that take place without leadership and clear direction? I'm betting hard that It will not come from the top, nor will it be directed. The new global economic order will be organic, regional and quite sudden.

What do I mean? Imagine: Iran stops selling oil to the EU; China tells the US to take a hike on currency values; India starts trading in large quantities of rupees; Russia’s central bank becomes a depot for holding dollars that don’t need to pass through New York; the creation of a global payment messaging system competing with SWIFT. Now imagine that a combination of actions - triggered only by an attempt to circumvent some really very silly sanctions - can suddenly unleash some unexpected possibilities that were beyond the realm of imagination a mere few years ago.

Imagine the emergence, say, of regional economic hubs, powered by the currencies of the local hegemonic powers, where bartering natural resources, goods and services becomes as commonplace as transactions involving currency transfers. Because of the frailty inherent in dealing with these new local currencies and a bartering system, nations tend to trade most with those closest to them in geography and culture. Shocking? Maybe not. Sometimes it just takes a need for change...and a handy tipping point.

“This is not the time to fan the flames,” someone should have told the United States. “You and your pals are sitting in a jalopy tottering on the cliff’s edge – why risk making moves now?” they should have warned. “Be a little less arrogant,” would have been sage advice.

But Washington is absolutely, irrevocably, dangerously fixated on showing Iran who’s boss, and spends a good part of every day trying to tighten the screws around the Islamic Republic. For the most part, the US’s pursuit of this dubious objective has instead stripped it of the vital political tools it once wielded. No more UN Security Council resolutions, no more unscrutinized military adventures. The only thing left is the nefarious tentacles of the United States Department of Treasury and its financial weapons. “The new tools of imperialism,” as once US-friendly central banker in the Mideast bluntly put it to me.

I only hear shrill desperation when politicos now parrot the “sanctions are biting” line. Here’s a juicy tidbit for those rolling their eyes right now: Goldman Sachs – America’s premier investment bank and Wall-Street God – has identified the Islamic Republic as one of the “Next 11” growth drivers of the global economy after the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) nations. BRIC was a term coined by Goldman Sachs, if you recall, and boy, were they right about that one.

Thirty years of “biting” sanctions and sanctions “with teeth” have achieved the following: “Strong or improving growth conditions,” said Goldman Sachs just last year, “combined with favorable demographics, form the foundation of the N-11 growth story.” The investment bank, furthermore, estimates “a measurable increase in the N-11’s share of global GDP, from roughly 12% in the current decade to 17% in 2040-2049.”

It’s a bad global economy we are facing right now, but Goldman Sachs’ charts illustrate that Iran is still one of five nations in the N-11 pot whose “productivity and sustainability of growth” is above average.
Shrugging off Dollar Dominance.

A British investment research firm wrote in January: “Sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran effectively restricts Iranian oil sales to barter contracts or to state-to-state agreements utilizing non-G8 currencies…It represents a major irritation to the Iranians, rather than a chokehold.”

The authors specify the Chinese Yuan as the non-G8 currency, but in the past few days that scenario has busted open with the addition of the Indian Rupee into the mix.

The new trade deal inked between Iran and India ensures Rupee payment for 45% of Iranian oil imports, with the balance remaining in Indian banks to pay for exports to the Islamic Republic. This achieves two important things that are an unintended consequence of US sanctions: firstly, it eliminates the Dollar as the trading currency (note that oil prices have traditionally been priced in US Dollars); secondly, it significantly accelerates economic integration between Iran and one of the four largest emerging economies in the world.

D.S. Rawat, head of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India, says of the agreement: “The potential of trade and economic relations between the two countries can touch the level of $30 billion by 2015 from the current level of $13.7 billion dollars in 2010-11."

There’s more. During the course of the past two weeks, Iran has purchased around 1.1 million tons of cereals and wheat from international markets – including products originating in Germany, Canada, Brazil and Australia - which it has paid for entirely in currencies other than the Dollar.

The US Dollar, which has been the international reserve currency for close to a century, is on its way out anyway. America’s huge balance of payments deficit has weakened US fundamentals and made investors wary. The downside of the Dollar’s changing status is that the Federal Reserve loses a lot of flexibility in managing its currency and the US economy. That does not bode well for keeping the US competitive against the BRIC nations and other emerging economies.
Iran Sanctions Biting the US Right Back?

It takes one solid idea, in a world desperately seeking them, to start the creaky shift to a new global order. Emerging economies have been nipping at the heels of the world’s governing bodies for decades, demanding entry into the hallowed halls of the UN Security Council’s permanent members; insisting on a seat at the main table at the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization.

When European leaders went begging for scraps at the last G-20 meeting, the BRICs found their feet and yawned a collective “no.” It signaled a reversal of fortunes, that meeting, and the idea that they can forge their own path was born. The BRICs then announced their first joint foreign policy statement last November – on Syria, of all places. The idea matured.

But US/EU sanctions against Iran are giving the idea steam. One has to act when faced with a dilemma, after all – and that dilemma has been literally foisted in the faces of nonaligned countries the world around: “sanction Iran or else.”

Now they are just shrugging and finding ways around the maze of traps set up by the Department of Treasury. Why should they care much? What is the United States today but an unwieldy bully with few arrows left in its quiver?

This week the US is putting the screws on Belgian-based SWIFT. If you’ve ever wired money to another country, you have used SWIFT – it is essentially the messaging system between banks that alerts them to money transfers. The US wants to cut Iranian banks out of the SWIFT system, in effect making it practically impossible for anyone inside or outside Iran to send or receive funds.

Who knows what Iran will do if this comes to pass? It will probably just join non-aligned countries to create an alternative SWIFT, further undermining the western grip on global finance. Iran, after all, decided last year not to put up with the prospect of perpetual cyberwar with the west, and is forging ahead with plans to create a closed internet system for itself.

Each step the US and EU take to hinder Iran’s flexibility is countered with an innovative solution – one that includes more and more non-western players who are keen to craft a new global order. They used to worry about that kind of confrontation with the west, but the collapse of the current order has left few obstacles in their paths - and even offers incentives.

Like the proverbial finger in the dyke to block a leak…the water will always find another way out and possibly even bust open the dam. A warning to Washington: the burden of anxiety will always fall on the one who needs the dam most.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow her on twitter@snarwani.

http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/sandb...nged-world

Resource Nationalism: Why the West is Jittery

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:08:45 -0500

Resource Nationalism: Why the West is Jittery

Garikai Chengu

Since World War II, the United States has been involved in the overthrow of 52 foreign leaders, some of them democratically elected. The common thread among these leaders has been resource nationalism: Lumumba, Nkrumah, João Goulart, Salvador Allende, Isabel Martinez de Perón and Gaddafi, to name but a few.

To this day the leaders under the most pressure from America are not necessarily the most corrupt or undemocratic - they are resource nationalists.

Note Mr Chavez and his agrarian reform and pro-poor oil policies; President Mugabe and his land reform and indigenisation programme; Mr Ahmadinejad and his nationalised oil industry and quest for nuclear capability for domestic energy needs; the late Kim Jong Il and his non free market system and "Juche" system of self-reliance.

The reason for US pressure on these leaders is simple: the biggest threat to America's capitalist imperialist economic model is lack of access to foreign markets. Or put simply, resource nationalism.

If these leaders and their policies succeed, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Iran would encourage other Latin American, African and Middle Eastern nations to follow suit. Thereby, hindering American access to 35 percent of the global market.

A prime example of how one nation's resource nationalism can reshape an entire continent to the betterment of the poor and the detriment of US corporate interests is Venezuela.

Mr Chavez has nationalised oil to promote free health care and education. The President has also dished out land to the poor. These resource nationalist policies have seen poverty tumble from 70 percent when Mr Chavez took office to just under 20 percent today.

Venezuela now has the most equitable income distribution of any nation in Latin America.
Largely, thanks to Venezuela's sharp reduction in poverty, unemployment and inequality, resource nationalism is sweeping across Latin America like wildfire. Unsurprisingly, Chavez has been singled out for an attempted CIA backed coup in 2002 and has been demonised by western media left, right and centre.

Just recently Chavez launched the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). Thirty-three heads of state from across the Americas came together to mark the monumental occasion.

The importance of this new institution in world politics cannot be overstated. The combined gross domestic product of the countries within CELAC make it the third-largest economic powerhouse in the world. It is also home to the world's largest oil reserves and the first and third largest global producers of food and energy, respectively.

Continue to read:
http://www.herald.co.zw/index.php?option...Itemid=132

Even If You Don’t Like Ron Paul You Should Watch This – Its only 1 minute

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 10:00:56 -0500

Even If You Don’t Like Ron Paul You Should Watch This – Its only 1 minute

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/02/19/...-1-minute/

Interview with the Ambassador of Iran in Switzerland 2012 (Part 1)

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 07:20:38 -0500

Interview with the Ambassador of Iran in Switzerland 2012 (Part 1)

Alles Schall und Rauch Blog

On 1 February 2012 I had the opportunity to conduct an interview with the Ambassador of Iran in Bern, Switzerland. I asked him about the current situation and what he thinks about the constant threats of the West.

http://vimeo.com/36685630