Reprise: Those Willfully Blind to Lawlessness

Roland Freisler, Official of Lies and Lawlessness

"The perpetrators were scholars, doctors, nurses, justice officials, the police and the health and workers’ administration.

The victims were poor, desperate, rebellious or in need of help. They came from psychiatric clinics and childrens hospitals, from old age homes and welfare institutions, from military hospitals and internment camps.

The number of victims is huge, the number of offenders who were sentenced, small."

Commemorative Tablet at Tiergartenstraße 4, Berlin

Most people are unaware or simply overlook the actions of the German government that began in 1939, in which the State, with the active cooperation of the medical and legal professions, began the systematic murder of people who were physically and mentally inferior, at least according to the judgement of the State.

This was view as a necessary but 'lesser evil' for the prosperity of the fortunate.  And it was the beginning of a slide into the abyss.

Die Weiße Rose observes that 'German intellectuals fled to their cellars, there, like plants struggling in the dark, away from light and sun, gradually to choke to death.'

One cannot blame the educated class in some ways, since from the very beginning the National Socialists were backing their words with violent street thugs in brown shirts.   And as for the working class, they were easily manipulated in their lack of cunning and experience, and their stubborn foolishness.

But what is so contemptible is that many among the very wealthy and the highly trained professional classes threw themselves into the arms of the power or evil, thinking that they could control it and benefit from it for their own selfish purposes.

Selfishness and greed and fear.

But even if we rightfully condemn the failure of those whose obligation it is to speak, how often are we seeing this and ignoring it in our own time?

When the economy was very obviously building towards the financial crisis of 2008, how many economists were ignoring the bubble conditions, preferring to keep their noses in their statistics, a willful condition of 'data blindness.'

How many lawyers and politicians look at outrageous miscarriages of justice and say and do nothing?
How many of those who have been blessed by circumstances sit back and smugly attribute their good fortune to their natural superiority as a the new ubermenschen, superior people?

It is not safe to see too much, and even less safe for the career minded to speak out against the actions of powerful insiders who control the benefactions of position, and the perks of the privileged class.

It is much more judicious to hide one's nose in a selective book of statistics, ignoring the reality, and relying instead on being data blind or ideologically blind to what is really happening.

It is easier to say 'I didn't know of this injustice' and afterward, 'who could see such a thing approaching?'

And then to do it all over again.

The White Rose
Second Leaflet

Munich, 1942

We will not be silent.

It is impossible to engage in intellectual discourse with National Socialist philosophy, for if there were such an entity, one would have to try by means of analysis and discussion either to prove its validity or to combat it. In actuality, however, we face a totally different situation.

At its very inception this movement depended on the deception and betrayal of one's fellow man; even at that time it was inwardly corrupt and could support itself only by constant lies. After all, Hitler states in an early edition of "his" book (a book written in the worst German I have ever read, in spite of the fact that it has been elevated to the position of the Bible in this nation of poets and thinkers): "It is unbelievable, to what extent one must betray a people in order to rule it."

If at the start this cancerous growth in the nation was not particularly noticeable, it was only because there were still enough forces at work that operated for the good, so that it was kept under control. As it grew larger, however, and finally in an ultimate spurt of growth attained ruling power, the tumor broke open, as it were, and infected the whole body.

The greater part of its former opponents went into hiding. The German intellectuals fled to their cellars, there, like plants struggling in the dark, away from light and sun, gradually to choke to death.

Now the end is at hand. Now it is our task to find one another again, to spread information from person to person, to keep a steady purpose, and to allow ourselves no rest until the last man is persuaded of the urgent need of his struggle against this system. When thus a wave of unrest goes through the land, when "it is in the air," when many join the cause, then in a great final effort this system can be shaken off.

After all, an end in terror is preferable to terror without end.

We are not in a position to draw up a final judgment about the meaning of our history. But if this catastrophe can be used to further the public welfare, it will be only by virtue of the fact that we are cleansed by suffering; that we yearn for the light in the midst of deepest night, summon our strength, and finally help in shaking off the yoke which weighs on our world.

We do not want to discuss here the question of the Jews, nor do we want in this leaflet to compose a defense or apology. No, only by way of example do we want to cite the fact that since the conquest of Poland three hundred thousand Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way.

Here we see the most frightful crime against human dignity, a crime that is unparalleled in the whole of history. For Jews, too, are human beings - no matter what position we take with respect to the Jewish question - and a crime of this dimension has been perpetrated against human beings.

Someone may say that the Jews deserve their fate. This assertion would be a monstrous impertinence; but let us assume that someone said this - what position has he then taken toward the fact that the entire Polish aristocratic youth is being annihilated? (May God grant that this program has not yet fully achieved its aim as yet!)

All male offspring of the houses of the nobility between the ages of fifteen and twenty were transported to concentration camps in Germany and sentenced to forced labor, and all the girls of this age group were sent to Norway, into the bordellos of the SS!

Why tell you these things, since you are fully aware of them - or if not of these, then of other equally grave crimes committed by this frightful sub- humanity? Because here we touch on a problem which involves us deeply and forces us all to take thought.

Why do German people behave so apathetically in the face of all these abominable crimes, crimes so unworthy of the human race? Hardly anyone thinks about that.

It is accepted as fact and put out of mind. The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals; they give them the opportunity to carry on their depredations; and of course they do so.

Is this a sign that the Germans are brutalized in their simplest human feelings, that no chord within them cries out at the sight of such deeds, that they have sunk into a fatal consciencelessness from which they will never, never awake?

It seems to be so, and will certainly be so, if the German does not at last start up out of his stupor, if he does not protest wherever and whenever he can against this clique of criminals, if he shows no sympathy for these hundreds of thousands of victims. He must evidence not only sympathy; no, much more: a sense of complicity in guilt.

For through his apathetic behavior he gives these evil men the opportunity to act as they do; he tolerates this "government" which has taken upon itself such an infinitely great burden of guilt; indeed, he himself is to blame for the fact that it came about at all...

Please make as many copies of this leaflet as you can and distribute them.

Charlie Sykes: How the Right Lost It's Mind

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."

Charles Mackay

As Thomas Frank is to the Democratic Party, Charlie Sykes is to the Republicans.

I have been no fan of Charlie, but he seems to have come to some very pointed observations worth hearing.

The GOP did not lose their minds—  they sold their souls for power and money.

But the real tragedy is that so did the Democratic establishment.

And then there is the 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one dares discuss—  the corrupting power of big money in politics, and in darn near everything else downstream, until thought itself dies by suicide, either from expedient convenience, or embarrassment.

Those among us who have for whatever reason remained relatively aloof from this madness, who follow a different way, wonder if they have changed, or if things have changed just that much around them.

But however it has occurred, increasingly they find themselves to be in this world but not of it, as if visitors, almost at times like strangers, in a stranger and stranger land.

Regulatory Capture: The Banks and the System That They Have Corrupted

"But the impotence one feels today— an impotence we should never consider permanent— does not excuse one from remaining true to oneself, nor does it excuse capitulation to the enemy, what ever mask he may wear.  Not the one facing us across the frontier or the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves.  The worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this Apparatus, and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others."

Simone Weil


"And in some ways, it creates this false illusion that there are people out there looking out for the interest of taxpayers, the checks and balances that are built into the system are operational, when in fact they're not.  And what you're going to see and what we are seeing is it'll be a breakdown of those governmental institutions.  And you'll see governments that continue to have policies that feed the interests of -- and I don't want to get clichéd, but the one percent or the .1 percent -- to the detriment of everyone else...

If TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car... I think it's inevitable. I mean, I don't think how you can look at all the incentives that were in place going up to 2008 and see that in many ways they've only gotten worse and come to any other conclusion."

Neil Barofsky


"Written by Carmen Segarra, the petite lawyer turned bank examiner turned whistleblower turned one-woman swat team, the 340-page tome takes the reader along on her gut-wrenching workdays for an entire seven months inside one of the most powerful and corrupted watchdogs of the powerful and corrupted players on Wall Street – the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The days were literally gut-wrenching. Segarra reports that after months of being alternately gas-lighted and bullied at the New York Fed to whip her into the ranks of the corrupted, she had to go to a gastroenterologist and learned her stomach lining was gone.

She soldiered through her painful stomach ailments and secretly tape-recorded 46 hours of conversations between New York Fed officials and Goldman Sachs. After being fired for refusing to soften her examination opinion on Goldman Sachs, Segarra released the tapes to ProPublica and the radio program This American Life and the story went viral from there...

In a nutshell, the whoring works like this. There are huge financial incentives to go along, get along, and keep your mouth shut about fraud. The financial incentives encompass both the salary, pension and benefits at the New York Fed as well as the high-paying job waiting for you at a Wall Street bank or Wall Street law firm if you show you are a team player.

If the Democratic leadership of the House Financial Services Committee is smart, it will reopen the Senate’s aborted inquiry into the New York Fed’s labyrinthine conflicts of interest in supervising Wall Street and make removing that supervisory role a core component of the Democrat’s 2020 platform. Senator Bernie Sanders’ platform can certainly be expected to continue the accurate battle cry that 'the business model of Wall Street is fraud.'"

Pam Martens, Wall Street on Parade

This is a good example of both regulatory capture and the credibility trap that co-opts those who benefits from the system as it is, even if it is by turning a blind eye and saying nothing, going along to get along, taking the 'bullet or the bribe.'

Never assume that because a person, such as media analyst or reporter, is highly paid that they are somehow beyond the temptation to violate their trust.  Quite the contrary.   They do not believe that change can come because they have anaesthetized their integrity as a matter of convenience.  And when called upon, they will support and defend and excuse the system as it is, at first by their inaction, and then by their willing cooperation.

The corruption takes a person one seemingly innocuous decision and event at a time.  their separate their fingers, one by one, until they finally let their souls slip through and fall— and they belong to the darkness of this world.  And at the end of the day, for what?   A little more money, the patina of prestige and superiority, access to power?

Who then can stand against the world, when power and money are assumed and created out of nothing, and distributed in an unjust, interconnected system of favors and services, without duty and without honor?

And so those captured in this system excuse and accept their own part in it, for their personal benefit and professional ego and advancement, that heady feeling of sophistication and acceptance by the worldly.

It's an old story  It is so old that at times it seems as if distant, just a story from another time— a fable.   But it is real.  It is the very fundamental core of this reality.  It is the continuing struggle.

It is, in the end, the only thing that matters, the only triumph or personal tragedy.  It is the only consequence that you will dwell upon, when the husk is stripped bare, and you yourself face the only certainty in this world alone, and as your truly are.

Donna Brazile Says that Even the Democratic Party Reforms Are Without Substance

And here we thought that only their 'we feel your pain' policies are empty platitudes, without substance, as they continually calibrated back to their corporate donors who keep stuffing the political establishment's pockets of both parties, who intend to keep 'setting the menus' for the voters' choices.

Thank you for clarifying the priorities of the Democratic Party establishment as it reforms itself, Donna.

This in the video below was my take as well.  I was incredulous at the reveal.  God bless the inexhaustible arrogance of the power elite.

Same as it ever was.

Leaked DNC Memo Demands 'Unity' of All 2018 Candidates - GOP Tax Bill Shows a Party Beyond Repentance

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."

Harry Truman, Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950


"We must dissent from the poverty of vision and the absence of moral leadership.  We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.”

Thurgood Marshall

The political and social establishment is ensnared,  strangling within a credibility trap.  It prevents them from truly confronting themselves and what they have done, and what they are still doing in the service of power and money.

It prevents them from addressing the problems, much less the needed reforms.  It prompts them to act ineffectively and oddly, to the point that they obviously become a part of the problem and an impediment to progress.

The GOP seems almost beyond repair.  The Democrats need to unravel the Clinton/Wall Street wing of the party which has its head buried deep in their party power structure like a big fat tick.

The Republicans need a 'twelve step' program for any kind of helpful change to have even the slightest chance.

The GOP tax bill is blatant corporate giveaway for the benefit of the one percent, and one of the more recent signs of their blindness caused by ideology in service to greed.  They are not even bothering to excuse it anymore, except for the most naive of their supporters.  They try to hide it by voting in secret on largely undiscussed bills with little debate.  And as usual cover their perfidy with hypocritical slogans about freedom.

An even bigger disappointment because they have become content with failure, the DNC is purging itself of all progressive policies, dissent from the Wall Street status quo, with the Clintonistas trying to retain a tight grip on power— the power to keep losing elections unfortunately. But as long as they are pulling down fat consulting fees and favors from wealthy donors they seem to be content.

They cannot talk about real economic policy proposals for the benefit of their base. This would expose their hypocrisy and anger their real masters. All they have is negative campaigning about the other party, the 'lesser evil' proposition, and never ending fear tactics about Russia.

They too are serving their big money donors first and foremost, but at least have the modesty to cover themselves with the fig leaf of identity politics in addition to jingoism.

Both parties have come to resemble competing crime families, more so than representative political organizations.

There is another financial crisis coming, which will be fueled by the third artificial asset bubble since the GOP and the Clintons deregulated Wall Street, the financial sector, and the media, permitting the growth of powerful monopolies.

And there will be hell to pay. The problem is that they plan to stick the public with the tab, once again. That is why they wish to retain their control of the levers of power. 

Don't believe it? Watch, and be amazed. They have no shame in the pursuit of power and money.

No Real Chance of Another Financial Crisis - 'Silly'

I like Dean Baker quite well, and often link to his columns. On most things we are pretty much on the same page.

And to his credit he was one of the few 'mainstream' economists to actually see the housing bubble developing, and call it out. Some may claim to have done so, and can even cite a sentence or two where they may have mentioned it, like Paul Krugman for example. But very few spoke about doing something about it while it was in progress.  The Fed was aware according to their own minutes, and ignored it.

The difficulty we have in the economics profession, I fear, is a great deal of herd instinct and concern about what others may say. And when the Fed runs their policy pennants up the flagpole, only someone truly secure in their thinking, or forsworn to some strong ideological interpretation of reality or bias if we are truly honest, dare not salute it.

Am I such a person? Do I actually see a fragile financial system that is still corrupt and highly levered, grossly mispricing risks? Or am I just seeing things the way in which I wish to see them?

That difficulty arises because economics is no science. It involves judgement and principles, and weighs the facts far too heavily based upon 'reputation' and 'status.' And of course I have none of those and wish none.

But it makes the point which I have made over and again, that all of the economic models are faulty and merely a caricature of reality.  And therefore policy ought not to be dictated by models, but by policy objectives and a strong bias to results, rather than the dictates of process or methods.  In this FDR had it exactly right.  If we find something does not stimulate the broader economy or effect the desired policy objective, like tax cuts for the rich, using that approach over and over again is certainly not going to be effective.

Economics are a form of social and political science.  And with the political and social process corrupted by big money, what can we expect from would be 'philosopher kings.'

The housing bubble was no 'cause' of the latest financial crisis. More properly it was the tinder and the trigger event. The S&L crisis was just as great, if not greater. Why then did it not bring the global financial system to its knees?

The interconnectedness of the global system with its massive and underregulated TBTF Banks, the widespread and often fraudulent mispricing of risk, all make cause for a financial system to be 'fragile.' In this thinking Nassim Taleb is far ahead of the common economic thought as a real 'systems thinker.'   The Fed is not a systemic thinking organization because they are owned by the financial status quo, and real systemic reform rarely comes from within.

I see the same fragility which existed from 1999 to 2008 still in the system, only grown larger, global, and more profoundly influencing the political processes.

The only question is what 'trigger event' might set it spinning, and how great of a magnitude will it have to be in order to do so. The more fragile the system, the less that is required to knock it off its underpinnings.

And a crisis is not a binary, singular event. There is the 'trigger' and the dawning perception of risks, and the initial responses of the political, social, and regulatory powers to consider.

There is no point in debating this, because the regulators and powerful groups like the Fed are caught in a credibility trap, which prevents them from seeing things as they are, and saying so.

So Mr. Baker, rather than looking for the bubble, let's say we have a fragile system still disordered and mispricing risk, with a few very large banks engaging in reckless speculation, mispricing risk for short term profits, manipulating markets, and distorting the processes designed to maintain a balance in the economy.

Rather than hold out for a 'new bubble' as your criterion, perhaps we may also consider that the patient is still on full life support after the last bubble and crisis.  Why do we need to find a new source of malady when the old one is still having its way?

I think if one exercises clear and open judgement, they can see that we have stirred up the same pot of witches brew that has made the system fragile and vulnerable to an exogenous shock, and has kept it so.

A new crisis does not have to happen. This is the vain comfort in these sorts of 'black swan' events, being hard to predict.  But they can be more likely given the right conditions, and I fear little will be done about this one until even those who are quite personally comfortable with things as they are begin to feel the pain,

The problem is not a 'bubble.'  The problem is pervasive corruption, fraud, and lack of meaningful reform.  The 'candidate' is the financial system itself, with its outsized hedge funds and the TBTF Banks with their serial crime sprees and accommodative regulators in particular.

And if one cannot see that in this rotten system with its brazenly narrow rewarding of a select few with the bulk of new income, then there is little more that can be said.

Neil Irwin, a writer for the NYT Upshot section, had an interesting debate with himself about the likely future course of the economy. He got the picture mostly right in my view, with a few important qualifications.

"First, his negative scenario is another recession and possibly a financial crisis. I know a lot of folks are saying this stuff, but it's frankly a little silly. The basis of the last financial crisis was a massive amount of debt issued against a hugely over-valued asset (housing). A financial crisis that actually rocks the economy needs this sort of basis.

If a lot of people are speculating in the stock of Uber or other wonder companies, and reality wipes them out, this is just a story of some speculators being wiped out. It is not going to shake the economy as a whole. (San Francisco's economy could take a serious hit.)

Anyhow, financial crises don't just happen, there has to be a real basis for them. To me the housing bubble was pretty obvious given the unprecedented and unexplained run-up in prices in the largest market in the world. Perhaps there is another bubble out there like this, but neither Irwin nor anyone else has even identified a serious candidate. Until someone can at least give us their candidate bubble, we need not take the financial crisis story seriously.

If we take this collapse story off the table, then we need to reframe the negative scenario. It is not a sudden plunge in output, but rather a period of slow growth and weak job creation. This seems like a much more plausible story...

Anyhow, a story of slow job growth and ongoing wage stagnation would look like a pretty bad story to most of the country. It may not be as dramatic as a financial crisis that brings the world banking system to its knees, but it is far more likely and therefore something that we should be very worried about."

Dean Baker, Debating the Economy with Neil Irwin, 31 October 2015

Wilkerson: Who Makes US Foreign Policy

Part of what I teach is how since World War II and the acquisition of this enormous power by what in essence is the new Rome in the world, the United States, part of the shift that takes place in manipulating and managing that new power is a centralization of foreign policy away from the old cabinet places where it used to take place, most prominently through the Foreign Service and through the secretary of state, to the White House and to the creation of the 1947 National Security Act, the National Security Council.

So if you ask me pro forma where does it exist today, it exists more in the National Security Council and its staff than it does anywhere else, certainly anywhere else in the cabinet. So what I'm saying is it's centralized in the White House.

But what does that mean in terms of, I think, your real question, who's behind the White House, and who's therefore behind U.S. foreign policy, more or less? I think the answer today is the oligarchs, which would be the same answer, incidentally, ironically, if you will, for Putin in Russia, the people who own the wealth, the people who therefore have the power and who more or less (and I'm not being too facetious here, I don't think) buy the president and thus buy American foreign policy. So that's as succinct an answer as I can give you and touch on a few historical points...

And you could say in some respects this shadow behind the power that makes money off war, period, no matter who's the belligerent, makes money off that volatility now, especially with computers that are able to assist them in doing so, like currency manipulation, for example, or just general speculation. With computers you can do it at lightning speed and you can do it in a nanosecond, and you can make billions in that nanosecond, and you don't care about what you're doing to the real economy, because you're raking in the dough.

Lawrence Wilkerson

You may watch the entire three video interview here.

Letter to Edward M. House
Warm Springs, November 21, 1933

My dear Friend:

...I had a nice talk with Jack Morgan the other day and he and he seemed more worried about Tugwell's speech than about anything else, especially when Tugwell said, "From now on property rights and financial rights will be subordinated to human rights." J.P.M. did not seem much troubled over the gold purchasing, and confessed that he had been completely misled in regard to the Federal expenditures.

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson— and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of WW [Woodrow Wilson]— The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United Stated - only on a far bigger and broader basis.

I am having a grand rest and am catching up on much needed sleep. Take care of yourself and do write me soon.

Franklin Roosevelt

War is a racket. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General.

The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912.

I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights.

Major General Smedley Butler, USMC

President Carter: US Is Now 'Just an Oligarchy With Unlimited Political Bribery"

You might not have heard about this interview on the mainstream media.  It occurred several days ago.  Apparently Jimmy is not gleefully participating in the triumphant Clinton-Bush winners road tour and congenial yukfest. 

 

Some, nearing the latter part of their days, tend to feel the weight of their conscience.  But certainly not all, especially not those who believe in nothing greater than themselves.

 

Carter's startling admission is at the root, the very heart of the lack of reform and recovery. 

 

But the pundits, even the so-called liberal media and the disgruntled conservative media, will not discuss it frankly and openly.   They traffic in shallow anger and distraction, and faithfully serve the special interests.

And there is as little serious discussion in the pampered corporatist media, whose mission is to obfuscate and distract the public from the key issues with 'bread, circuses, and sensationalism.'

This is the kind of thing that everyone in power, and almost all those who bask in that power, know but never talk about openly, feigning ignorance with dismissive ridicule.  

 

They are caught in a credibility trap of their own making.  And so they while away the days with private looting, waiting to see which way and when the winds of reaction may blow, while doing everything they can to maintain the status quo which they have created for their own benefit.

It is the dark heart of corruption, the quiet coup d'état that has overthrown the American republic.

 

The people are beginning to ask, 'After six years, why is there tremendous profits for those who caused the problems in the first place, but no recovery for the rest of us?'

And the elite look with bewilderment, fear, and anger at the fruits of their treachery and deceit.  

They think to themselves, 'We know that we are superior people, tasked with the burdens of leadership, so they must simply be ungrateful,  jealous of our success.'

 

A small but highly visible minority may look to the worst of the oligarchs as their leader and savior.  One might call it a kind of Stockholm Syndrome, but really it is just a perverse reaction, the impulse of the camp follower that identifies with their abusers, thinking that this elevates them from the rest.

 

And the media wisely warns them, slurring any candidates out of the mainstream control, the narcissist and the socialist, urging the people to stick with the familiar oligarchic brand names, Bush and Clinton, and in extremis that slickly formed alloy and extruded creation of the money masters, brand Obama.

Hubris begets nemesis.  If they were not so self-absorbed and morally stunted by their pride and selective experience they would understand that people will not stand by and allow themselves to be abused forever.

Transcript:

HARTMANN: Our Supreme Court has now said, “unlimited money in politics.” It seems like a violation of principles of democracy. … Your thoughts on that?

CARTER: It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members.

So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over. … The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.

Hat tip for the above to Sam Sacks and especially to Jon Schwarz at The Intercept.

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - The Inevitable Interconnectedness of It All

The Bucket Shop was very quiet today. There was no precious metal action noted in the delivery report from yesterday, and in the warehouses we saw the usual moving around of bullion.

This is certainly a change from the beginning of this active month for gold, which saw a sizable number of contracts being claimed for 'delivery.'  

 

Well, there is always some benefit in anything, and the quiet markets give one time to think, about things past in the light of the present.  I was thinking about the manipulation of the markets, and of the unfolding tragedy in Greece, and of the serial abuses of political power , enable by a remarkable harshness and willful ignorance which seems to be endemic to our times.

Earlier today in a short piece about the discouragement in the people I recalled a famous quote from William Gladstone, said during his efforts to extend suffrage to the working class people of Great Britain.   It was related to the long effort to achieve justice.  You may read it here. 

One may cite any number of other figures from different periods of time, who took the long hard fight with unfailing energy and good spirits.   More recently Gandhi and Martin Luther King come to mind.

 

I think that in his attempt to extend suffrage to the working, landless classes of Britain, Gladstone rightly assumed, or perhaps more properly believed, that the working poor of his day were educable, that no human being was without value, was useless. He is an interesting figure in a period of history that itself was interesting, with great figures who are too often forgotten now. 

 

How many educated people really know anything about an earlier figure from that century, William Wilberforce, who was a leading proponent in the long fight for the abolition of slavery? He provided an example and an inspiration for that same effort later in the US though an effort that was long and arduous.

The 19th century, in the wake of the post-Napoleonic victory, was a time of desperate differences and dichotomies in England, of the miserably poor and the incredibly rich, with London itself at the epitome of one of the world's greatest empires.  One encounters this sort of thing quite famously in Dickens, for example.  We marvel at the grandeur of empire, and forget to look at its foundations built on squalor and human misery.

I find that the times where certain key people notably consider the quality of human life, what it means to be human, to be often situated at pivotal moments in history.   The response to that question by a nation often plays an important role on the path that their society takes.

 

Justice is most often not an issue for a single person or a class of people per se. It is more often the manifestation of a more general disorder in thinking.   The same sort of thought process that sends the disabled to houses of death can propagate itself to the weak, the outcast, and the other. It is not a great leap once the threshold of inhumanity has been breached.

 

Injustice rarely travels alone.  It is always accompanied by a cohort of issues.  And therefore justice cannot be achieved in one matter, unless it has a more general place in the hearts of those who would pursue it.

 

So it would seem to be that those who ignore the manipulation of gold and silver, for example, might have a care that such abuse of power does not become so commonly accepted for the sake of expediency.  Because the abuse of one form of wealth by the state can quite easily be extended to any other holdings, whether they be pension, or savings, or even livelihoods.  As we saw so vividly in the past, the arguments that one form or wealth or person is unworthy is a malleable thing in the hands of the unscrupulous.

 

And further, those who fight for justice in the area of precious metals and other markets would do well to consider how hollow and uninspiring their fight might be, if they care only for those forms of justice that fill their pockets, but care little or even accept and promote other forms of injustice against other people and classes of property and human values.  Even the worst of the crooks will cry foul when they perceive an injustice done to themselves, and quite loudly as we have seen.

 

Justice in interconnected.  It is a well known platitude of course, but it is also a fact, that no man is an island, sufficient unto himself.   Our modern masters of the universe may fancy themselves to be exceptional, better than any in all of history, but like other they are standing not only on the shoulders of giants, but on the common base of all their fellows, of their own good will and pursuits of happiness.  

 

They make seek to distinguish and raise themselves up in their own minds and society by stigmatizing and stereotyping others as less worthy of justice and life.  But they may soon enough find themselves on the receiving end of that same sort of dehumanization at the hands of the more powerful.  History has proven this over and over again. 

 

As Edmund Burke famously observed,  'when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.'

 

Or to more simply quote the Boss,  'no one wins unless everyone wins.'

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - Arc of Justice, Rising and Falling

The gold/silver price ratio remains extraordinarily high at 73.

NAV premiums are thin, which is a bit of a change from their more deeply negative trend.

In general, people with whom I speak seem discouraged, disheartened, tempted to hide in apathy and meaningless diversions. Those who promote reform see the monolith of a corrupted governance spoiled by big money that seems impenetrable.  Truth is hidden and whispered, with lies and deceptions abounding, spread by the megaphone of the mainstream media.

It can be discouraging indeed, to see the sense of duty and honour so poorly treated in this triumph of the age of greed.  There is a temptation to see ourselves at some low point, lower than those who have gone before us, and then to wallow in apathy and inaction, in a kind of a sick hopelessness that 'nothing can be done.'

But this is where a sense of history and of human nature can provide to us a great comfort and encouragement to continue on. Liberty and the hopes and aspirations of the common people are always rising and falling, as is the rise and fall of wickedness, and the darker powers of this world that at times would seem to block out the very light.  

And yet if we have read and understood what our fathers and mothers, and our grandfathers and grandmothers and those who went before them faced, it does not seem so terrible now, not at all.

There is only one real difference.  Now is our time to take up the reins of humanity, and stand and work and wait for the inevitability of the human spirit to rise once again, if we will only continue on in our struggle and endure with hope and faith in ourselves and a higher power that arcs, if slowly but faithfully, towards justice. 

And perhaps we might remind ourselves that we have not lost, we can have a personal victory that matters, if we can maintain the spark of love in our hearts.   And bear in mind that the struggle is never over in this world, but that our own struggle only will be over when we go to our final rest, and hand over the instruments of our warfare to those who come after. 

This is the nature of the world and of our humanity, always winning and losing, rising and falling.  At long last, the world will pass away, and does not matter.  Money is necessary, but it is not the end of the game.  Power will not sustain our soul when we are stripped naked. These worldly prizes are not winning, they are snares and traps.  Having riches will not 'enable you to do good.'  It would corrupt and condemn you to a life of graceless desperation.  What matters is how we have lived and loved, and what we bring with us when we finally face the last. 

But for now it is our time to take up the struggle, and to act to promote justice and to prevent the spread of oppression and deceit.  This is our calling.  People may ask, 'Look at the way things are.  If there is a God,  why doesn't He do something about it?'   And He did.  He sent us.

So despite these failings and misgivings, despite the short term triumphs of those who would use the body politic as their personal servant, and harness the moneys of the world as their new armies for plunder and colonization, we might, with some eye to history, take courage in the words of the great lights of history who shine across the ages for us like beacons.  As William Gladstone said in the fight for voting rights for the common people:

"You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side. The great social forces which move onwards in their might and majesty, and with the tumult of our debates does not for a moment impede or disturb-- those great social forces are against you; they are marshaled on our side; and the banner which we now carry in this fight, though perhaps at some moments it may droop over our sinking heads, yet soon again will float in the eye of heaven, and will be borne by the firm hands of the united people of the three kingdoms, perhaps not to an easy, but to a certain and to a not distant victory."

William E Gladstone, Representation of the People Act Speech, 1866

Hillary as President: Robert Reich vs. Nomi Prins

I am so very glad that Pam and Russ Martens have written this article below.   I had intended to write something on this topic, and I probably would not have done it nearly so succinctly and so well.

The excerpt below is just a taste of a longer and more interesting piece, and I suggest that you read it.

While the Republicans are temporarily fragmenting along lines of personal ambition and various billionaire special interest groups, the Democrats are continuing to split between the Wall Street and populist progressive wings.   

And The Clintons are the unabashed leaders of the big money wing of the party.  With regard to the most recent series of financial crises, the Clinton's set the stage, and Bush II enacted it.

It seems likely that if unchallenged, the party bosses will be running roughshod over the concerns of the progressive and reform-minded elements of their constituency.

Another election of Bush v. Clinton would be a suitable emblem for the decline of democracy.

The next election, I believe, will be the opening act in an interesting decades long evolution of the American Republic.

Wall Street On Parade
Debating Hillary for President: Robert Reich v. Nomi Prins
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: May 25, 2015

Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary in Bill Clinton’s administration and currently Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, is an important voice for tackling income inequality in America by bringing back the Glass-Steagall Act, busting up the too-big-to-fail banks, and imposing a securities transaction tax...

Unfortunately, Reich, an otherwise clear-eyed progressive has a deep blind spot. Her name is Hillary Clinton...

There is one person in America who might be able to change Robert Reich’s mind about Hillary before he blows his otherwise stellar work on taming Wall Street with an unwise gambit of getting deeper into the Hillary camp. That person is Nomi Prins, a Wall Street veteran and meticulous researcher on the democracy-shriveling nexus between Wall Street and the Oval Office...

A column by Prins on Hillary Clinton’s Presidential attributes was posted to Paul Craig Roberts’ web site last Friday. It is not the detail-lite version on Rubin. Prins writes:

“When Hillary Clinton video-announced her bid for the Oval Office, she claimed she wanted to be a ‘champion’ for the American people. Since then, she has attempted to recast herself as a populist and distance herself from some of the policies of her husband. But Bill Clinton did not become president without sharing the friendships, associations, and ideologies of the elite banking sect, nor will Hillary Clinton. Such relationships run too deep and are too longstanding…

“Though she may, in the heat of that campaign, raise the bad-apples or bad-situation explanation for Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis of 2007-2008, rest assured that she will not point fingers at her friends. She will not chastise the people that pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop to speak or the ones that have long shared the social circles in which she and her husband move…”

Read the entire article at Wall Street On Parade here.