[ashvin]

RE,

I think we have said just about all there is to say on this one.

I shouldn’t even have stipulated to the accuracy of your chess analogy in my last response, but I did…

Like I said before, we can customize analogies to fit our arguments all day. You say the OMMP is the equivalent of getting the pawns across the board and making them Queens, giving us a chance to win the ultimate game of Chess, and I obviously disagree completely.

Maybe someone else has thoughts on all this, but we’re just going around in circles now.

I do not think the debate was counter-productive, though. It is very important to contemplate and discuss these issues now, because they WILL become our reality in one form or another.

[ashvin]

pipefit post=3406 wrote: It is almost universally agreed that the Euro is dead, except that a half billion people are still using it out of habit. And yet it still buys 25% than a dollar. Where is the deflation, lol?

The dollar is on par with a dead man walking (Euro), and is losing ground to another guy with ALS (Yen).

Is that all an aggregation of 17 developed economies can muster – 25%? Not too long ago, the euro was purchasing twice as much as the dollar. Isolated stock comparisons of currencies make for BAD analysis.

And there is a cliff of social security and medicare payments dead ahead.

It is apparent that hyperinflation is only a year or two away, at most. Got metal?

Exactly, a cliff – meaning, many of those payments won’t be made. Defaults on obligations = hyperinflation? I think not.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3392 wrote:
By % of population this is highly unlikely, since I am quite sure Octavian and most certainly Caligula and Nero wiped out greater percentages of the population Rome was controlling, not to mention explicitly enslaving more people also. Uncle Joe just gets a real bad rpe because he was so recent.

I said % of the population per year. Joe gets a bad rep because a shit load of innocent Russians died under his rule as a direct result of his policies of ethnic deportation, collectivization, political persecution, etc. If the Russian population was on average about 100 million people at this time (probably less), then the lower end of the estimates put it at 30% of the population DEAD by the end of his rule (not tortured, injured, raped, or anything else). That’s about 3% per year.

Then of course you also have Vlad the Impaler, who at one point stuck something like 10,000 people all staked out around the Castle. Not even Uncle Joe was THAT in your face. Not sure the total population Vlad was working with, but my bet is he would beat Stalin out by % figures also in a few short years of rule.

Hitler’s Holocaust wasn’t THAT in our faces either. Millions of Jews systemically exterminated, among others, but most of it was out of sight in concentration camps.

I disagree that is is “useless” to make this analysis, because it represents real history of Homo Sapiens, and you gotta get a good handle on how these dynamics operate in reality, not in some fantasy world you would like to see come true.

It would be JMHO that the current Oligarchy running the show ALREADY beats Uncle Joe by an Order of Magnitude. These folks are operating Globally, destroying the ecosystem and are no doubt ultimately responsible for 10s of millions of deaths already, and in the next few years should work into the Billions at astounding speed if a stop isn’t put to their level of destruction. Vlad the Impaler would be an Improvement and Uncle Joe a positive CUPCAKE compared to these folks.

Like I said before, I do not think our goal here should be to commit less evil than the really evil guys when it’s all said and done. Replacing one set of evil people with a slightly less evil set of people is not some big accomplishment for humanity in my book.

Disagreed. You are not going to work your way back to the Perfect World in a single step here, and Less Evil is better than Great Evil. You have to be a bit realistic here and take into account the realities of human history and human behavior. These things will not change overnight, so when presented with two bad alternatives, you take the one which is less worse.

I am just being Realistic and carefully observing Human Behavior and making the best of a bad situation.

Seriously, I find it disturbing that you spend so much time comparing nasty leaders in order to justify your plan. WELL… Stalin was bad but he wasn’t AS BAD as Vlad the Impaler, and Vlad wasn’t as bad as Hitler, and Ghengis Khan was better than them all.

You can run circles around the facts all day, but they won’t change. Plans like yours have almost always resulted in extremely destructive consequences for humanity, especially in recent history. You are not the one being realistic here, you are the one being Idealistic and ignoring human dynamics at large scales for the sake of your argument.

You are making all kinds of unwarranted assumptions – that your plan will be carried out “properly”, that the people carrying it out will not abuse their powers, that it is a stepping stone towards creating a “perfect world”, that it is an absolutely necessary risk we must take, that Evil is justified to battle Evil as long as it’s “less evil”, that the chances of success are high because the “force multiplier of oil” will be gone.

What does that last one even mean? Who is right now in control of the soon to be scarce amounts of oil/resources in the world. Why is this an advantage for the vengeful masses? How will your Army of the Righteous get organized, communicate and carry out its functions in an orderly manner around the entire world? When do you launch the plan? Are you waiting for the global economy and rule of law to entirely break down, plunging societies into chaos, before you launch the plan?

Most of my questions in this discussion about how the plan will ACTUALLY work have received vague and ultimately unsatisfactory answers. They reek of idealism, not realism. SB was exactly right when saying this:

And so, here Ash is trying to convince RE of the error of RE’s desires/agenda while at the same time I’m sure Ash will also admit that we are going to inevitably see these very same agendas carried out the world over.

In fact, I believe an explicit part of the NWO agenda is something very similar in structure and claimed motives to the OMMP. It will use economic/sociopolitical upheaval to justify radical, totalitarian policies that purport to take out the Old Order Trash and lead us towards a Utopia on Earth. Neither you, nor I nor anyone else here will be in charge of this movement. When you hear about it, you will be screaming “DON’T LISTEN TO THEM, THEY ARE LYING TO YOU!” – but the ignorant masses will not hear you. Many of them will follow right along and they will actively support the transition. Others will resist, for moral, ethical, spiritual, practical reasons, whatever – it doesn’t matter – they will be deemed Defenders of the Old Order and dealt with accordingly.

The whole history of Homo Sapiens on Earth is one of EXTREME levels of Violence, through all recorded History that is true and you cannot deny it. If you are not prepared to do Violence when it becomes necessary to Win, you just will not WIN.

Some of us don’t want to be stuck in a perpetual cycle of brutal Chess Games, believe it or not. Implicit in your analogy is the fact that, even if we use our few pieces to make the desperate moves that prolong the game, the game will simply continue, except now you will have two sets of pieces that are vying for global dominance through bloody warfare, and neither one of them will be good for the rest of us who are sitting by and watching it all go down, even though they will both CLAIM to be.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3386 wrote: Anyhow, Biblical intepretation and philosophy of referencing aside here, do you still make the case Stalin was worse than the Romanoffs?

I think it is useless to try and determine which nasty dictators
were “worse” than which other ones over time. By % of population killed per year of rule (assuming the deaths largely resulted from the ruler’s policies), Stalin is probably the worst to have ever lived. There are obviously other measures of Evilness, though.

Like I said before, I do not think our goal here should be to commit less evil than the really evil guys when it’s all said and done. Replacing one set of evil people with a slightly less evil set of people is not some big accomplishment for humanity in my book.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3377 wrote: I never said you did that Ashvin. I merely pointed out that you Pick and Choose the quotes and text you wish to use in an argument. It’s selective.

Similarly, I select out quotes from the Bible which support my arguments, for instance the Revelation 18 quote I used above. I don’t think I am misrepresenting it to say that represents a description of a monetary system collapse, do you?

Far as what God’s Will actually is here, in totality it is somewhat difficult to elucidate it completely from the Bible.

…

Anyhow, analogies of the Bible to the General Theory of Relativity are pretty good, because neither one has been shown to be definitively true. You can still go in and pick apart General Relativity Theory, and you can use parts of it to justify other proofs without the entire thing being correct as well.

Again, I’m not asking you to believe anything yourself. And I have never claimed ANY theory can be proven to be true.

It is absolutely untrue that you can use things from a theory that support your argument, while failing to account for things from that very same theory that go against your argument. A theory is not bits and pieces of evidence, and it does not have the luxury of being internally inconsistent yet still valid. Any physicist who does that with Relativity Theory is a bad one.

I am big on the Hellfire aspect though and Jesus did say:

Jesus wrote: 5:29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast [it] from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not [that] thy whole body should be cast into hell.

So what if the Illuminati are the “right eye” that Jesus is talking about here?

Point is, regardless of how consistent you think the Bible is or has been “proven” to be, it is not incumbent on anyone except a Fundy Christian who takes every last word written there as the Word of God to believe the whole thing or use the whole thing either. Nor do you have to use the entirety of a post by Ambrose Evans Pritchard to demonstrate what a Nincompoop he is. Usually one or two paragraphs of his stuff does that quite well these days.

Your quotation and interpretation of Jesus above, through Matthew, is a GREAT example of why you are wrong on this issue. When considering the context in which that passage is written, among other things, it becomes very easy to figure out exactly what the passage is talking about. Here are the 17 verses that come after the two you quoted in Matthew 5:

Matthew531to48 wrote: “It was said, ‘WHOEVER SENDS HIS WIFE AWAY, LET HIM GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE’; 32but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the reason of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

33“Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FALSE VOWS, BUT SHALL FULFILL YOUR VOWS TO THE LORD.’ 34“But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING. 36“Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37“But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.

38“You have heard that it was said, ‘AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.’ 39“But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40“If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. 41“Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. 42“Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.

43“You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ 44“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47“If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

It then becomes clear that this entire part is talking about striving towards personal avoidance of sin against the Father at all costs (i.e. gouging out an eyeball or cutting off one hand), and, unfortunately for you, striving towards avoidance of retribution against your enemies. In fact, it emphasizes showing love and compassion for them. Therefore, your interpretation that Matthew 5:29 may be talking about going after the Illuminati with the modern Inquisition is clearly untenable.

[ashvin]

ben,

Oh, right, you believe my two comments (here and on DD) are “inconsistent” because you have done absolutely no research of your own on these issues, instead swallowing up every piece of slop Uncle El G spoon feeds you, and therefore have no idea what you are talking about.

Notice the word “pseudo-spiritual” in my response to El G. That means FALSE spirituality! David Icke is the biggest pseudo-spiritualist piece of crap out there. He has openly admitted to receiving many of his ideas about the solar logos and what not from “channeled” entities. These ideas just so happen to be the exact same ones given to Alice Bailey when she was also in communication with “ascended masters”. They are obvious perversions of the Bible and Christianity, as I have explained to you before. David Icke is a Luciferian Theosophist, whether he knows it or not.

I may even dedicate a topic to this issue on DD in the near future, just to finally squash all of this Icke nonsense from you and El G.

Not coincidentally, the best debunkers of Icke are true Christians. These are people who believe in the importance of using science, logic and rationality to tear apart BOGUS arguments, such as those presented by Icke, because their God gave them those tools to discern TRUTH from deception. They are also heavily spiritual people. In fact, it is their faith and spirituality which motivates them to put so much time and effort into debunking those who worship false gods or, worse yet, claim to BE GOD. That includes Icke along with the whole kitten caboodle of New Age and esoteric evangelists.

[ashvin]

[quote=ben post=3353]

I also found that to be a deeply inconsistent suggestion by ash. naturally he will claim otherwise, but implicit in the claim will probably be a judgement that’s not his to make.

Inconsistent… with what? What implicit judgment?

RE asked for ideas about other ways to deal with the NWO elites, and I gave him one. It’s not the path I have personally chosen to take at this point, but it undeniably a path that many have chosen to take and that many regard as a very productive one.

But anyway… I don’t think I will ever truly understand WTF it is you are talking about, ben, so…

how bout them Cs last night?? They’re taking it to Game 7 for sure.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3352 wrote: Of course we can pick and choose what to use and what not to use in an argument. You do it every time you write an article here and snippet out quotes from other authors. To support your arguments, you select out quotes from other Bloggers who have a smilar POV or take on the situation you do. To undermine the opposition, you select out quotes which are so egregiously STUPID they make the opposition look ridiculous.

Why should the Bible be any different? Because it is ostensibly the Word of God? There are MANY authors who contributed to the Bible, consider them the Bloggers of their time. Some of them may have truly been Prophets inspired by Divine Direction guiding their Keyboard Fingers, others may simply have been tools of a particular faction seeking to get it’s agenda into the Christian Party Platform. Did they REALLY BELIEVE what they were writing? HTF do I know? They may have just been Propagandists for a particular spin.

This is not true. If I have ever quoted someone to a support a worldview or theory that misrepresents the totality of their own view, I would like you to point it out to me, because that would be a very misleading thing to do.

Biblical Christianity (and Judaism to a lesser extent) is quite literally a Theory of Everything, from the beginnings of the Universe to birth of the human species to Armageddon, the Rapture and the Day of the Lord.

Physicists that are attempting to develop a TOE cannot incorporate parts of Einstein’s realitivity theories that support their hypotheses and dismiss other parts that contradict them. It’s all or nothing for them – either their TOE is consistent with relativity or it’s not.

There is no dispute over what Einstein’s theory was, and Christianity is like the Theory of General Relativity in the religious world. No other religion has texts that are so well-preserved and consistent, both between copies of the texts and between texts by different authors. Even between the Books of the Old Testament and those of the New, the consistency of descriptions of people and events is stunning.

A lot of propaganda has surfaced over the centuries about the Bible’s hidden symbolism, or its inconsistencies, or mistranslations of certain passages, or missing texts that were allegedly a part of it, etc. But now, most people with a computer, some simple document analysis software and internet access can debunk most of that stuff, since all of the original writings are archived online.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3350 wrote: [As to a comparative numerical accounting goes of whether more Innocents were sent to the Great Beyond by Uncle Joe Stalin or the Romanoff family going back to Peter the Great, I can’t answer that for sure, but I would bet on a percentage of population basis at any given time the Romanoffs were responsible for more deaths than Stalin was.

You want to compare the deaths over a time period of 250 years to a time period of a little over 10? When considering deaths resulting from famine, estimates say that Stalin presided over anywhere from 30-60 million over the course of 12 years.

On the Backfire analogy, clearly we disagree, this is NOT a “new fire”, it is set SPECIFICALLY to combat an already ongoing conflagration. Not even setting the fire in a new forest either, setting it in all the places where the fire currently rages out of control. My analogy works better than yours does Ashvin, hands down here.

Of course you believe your analogy works better… it is YOUR plan after all. You think the plan is the best possible way to go about combating human forces of destruction right now, and I believe the odds are that your plan will only add to the destruction, or substitute one type of destruction for another, equally brutal type of destruction that ultimately gets us no closer to “saving” humanity than we were before. We can come up with random analogies to fit our arguments all day…

Far as your selective choices go of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et al go as representative of the Evil Dictator outcome, it remains a possibility but does not HAVE to be the outcome. All I need to do is demonstrate ONE instance of a Dictator who improved the lives of the people he ruled over to show this outcome is not inevitable. I think Fidel Castro does that pretty well by his lonesome. There is little doubt that quite a few Innocents were sent to the Great Beyond when Castro took over, but on balance things mostly were better for the Cubans. At least they didn’t get raped like the Haitians did.

Why is your burden of proof to only show that counter-productive genocide is not INEVITABLE under your plan all of a sudden? As long as there is a 1 in 10 million chance that it will work without producing those horrible results, you are willing to go through with it? And, really, we should stick to comparing apples and apples. Plans that explicitly promote the formation of totalitarian group that uses systematic torture/genocide to achieve its stated goals. Castro isn’t a great comparison.

Considering “drawing on Spiritual energies” to combat the Forces of Evil, here you are starting to sound like Ben expecting to get an answer from the 5th Dimension. What you are saying in essence is that we should all just PRAY together here, and Kumbaya all will be well. I don’t buy this as a solution, as you say people are Praying RIGHT NOW for this insanity to end, but it AIN’T ENDING. I suggest a more terrestrial based approach and will leave the Spirit world to you and the 5th Dimension to Ben.

I didn’t say anything about praying for everything to get better. The core idea is to prevent as many OTHER people from supporting the Evil agenda at the top as possible, both physically and spiritually, because there will come a time when those at the top NEED that support. That goal can be accomplished in many ways, and spiritual warfare can be just as active as any other type of activism. You have schools/teaching (what you do), missions, charities and even stuff like exorcisms, designed to dispense with the Evil forces that have occupied people.

The point here is that there are other possibilities besides the OMMP. You may claim they are not working, but others would claim they are working in subtle ways by gradually undermining the support base needed by the elites to accomplish their long-term goals. Perhaps they are horribly wrong, but then again, you might be about the OMMP too.

I think you are being overly dismissive of this approach, because their is CLEARLY a spiritual element to what’s going on here with the NWO elites. Any plan to stop them or get rid of them must take that into account.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3350 wrote:

Since you do not know for sure whether God exists or if Jesus was the Son of God, you can’t be sure the Bible is the Literal Truth. Neither am I sure whether it is literal truth or not, but I suspect many things in it are not.

You seem to believe some spiritual teachings are literal truth, and then you also cite ‘experts” who claim the whole thing is literal truth. It’s a fairly confused position you are taking overall Ashvin.

OK, here is a simple example:

Karl Marx developed a theory of how political economies evolve over time, how feudalism led to capitalism, and how capitalism would break down over time. Now we can disagree with his interpretation of historical events, but we cannot dispute the fact that HE BELIEVED that’s how it went down. Looking at all of his writings as a whole, it is indisputable that he was talking about feudalism and capitalism and communism literally, and not as some metaphor for something else.

Similarly, I do not think you can pick and choose what you think is literal and what you think is parable from the authors of the Biblical texts, just because some things jive with what you believe and some things don’t. With regards to Jesus and his words/action, either the Gospels of his apostles were right or wrong – but they said what they meant and meant what they said. I do not believe we can do this:

I look for meaning in the Bible and what ring true I use, what does not I look at mainly as parable or misperceptions by the writers or translators.

Gotta run to the gym now… so I’ll complete my move later.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3348 wrote: You didn’t answer the question. Do you tke LITERALLY that Jesus was the Son of God?

RE

Your question actually has two different meanings, but I will go ahead and answer both of them.

1) According to Christianity and the Bible, Jesus was LITERALLY the Son of God, which is really the equivalent of God Himself. I absolutely do not believe that the New Testament Gospels were documenting the life of a normal human being that existed in history. They were not using metaphors or anything like that when they described the miracles he performed.

2) As to my personal beliefs, I DON’T KNOW and I don’t pretend to know for certain whether God exists and whether Jesus was the Son of God. I have not reached any firm conclusions on those things one way or the other. It most certainly is not outside the realm of possibility for me.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3337 wrote: Nicholas and Alexandra Romanoff were filled full of Lead in 1917. Far as I know, that is part of the 20th Century.

If you are claiming the Bolshevik Revolutions and the following travesties that took place in the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin were overall good things for humanity, similar to how the OMMP will be, then I think you have made my argument for me.

You know, entire communities of people are being wiped out ALREADY as we SPEAK. So to argue that the Inquisition would CAUSE something which is already ongoing and accelerating is simply a crock of shit.

When you have a really BIG Forest Fire raging and sprinkling water on it isn’t stopping it, what do you do? You set a BACKFIRE and let it burn also. You kill a lot of Innocent Trees that way but in the end you save most of the Forest. Of course you can argue that it would be better of to let the whole forest burn down more often, but inthe case of Homo Sapiens if it all burns down this time its probably never grwoing back again.

This is just circular logic. You are attacking my critiques of OMMP by assuming the very conclusion that I am trying to refute. My argument is that it’s NOT like setting a backfire, it is like setting a completely different forest on fire, using the very same accelerants that were used by the people who set the first forest on fire. At the very least, it is like adding fuel to an ongoing fire.

Back to the Evil Dictators you see lurking around every Street Corner. How about Joan of Arc? Was she an Evil Dictator? What about Fidel? Was he an Evil Dictator? How about Hugo Chavez? is he an Evil Dictator? Dictators often do unpleasant things, but they aren’t all Evil either.

I didn’t say that every leader who promises their people a better future are Evil. I was just pointing out that many Dictators who can easily be classified as Evil have used that promise over the centuries to justify very radical and aggressive policies, and especially in the 20th century when those policies could be implemented at large scales, like I emphasized before. I’m thinking Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot here. Whether or not these people were actually motivated by “evil” is pretty irrelevant here. The consequences of their actions speak for themselves.

When somebody comes up with a better Option with a greater chance of success I’ll jump right on board. Meanwhile, its the best option I can come up with. If you have a better one, I am all ears. I’ll deconstruct it and demonstrate why it has a lower potential for success.

OK, I’ll give it a shot. The Evil People at the very top of the pyramid you seek to destroy are Satanists/Luciferians, right? They are deeply into the process of drawing energy/power from Satanic rituals, and whether or not Satan is real, those practices seemed to have worked for them over the years. Perhaps we should think about drawing on spiritual energies ourselves as a way of combating the evil forces. Fight fire with fire, right? What better way than to engage in spiritual warfare! Come to think of it… that’s exactly what a lot of people are doing right now, both Christians and non-Christians.

No, I didn’t bring up Jesus, you did. I never use Jesus as justification since I am not a Christian. I do use the Bible as reference material and as a possible Window to understand God better, but I don;t buy the whole ball of wax lock stock and barrel.

You didn’t bring up Jesus specifically, but after I accused you of committing the ultimate sin by trying to dispense Divine Justice in your plan, you responded in defense by saying that what you are doing may actually be God’s plan. I proceeded to refute that by saying it goes against the teachings of the Bible and Jesus.

Biblical scholars can “all agree that the Bible is quite straightforward and should be taken literally”, but regardless of what Triv would call an appeal to authority argument, I am sorry, I just don’t buy that Moses parted the Red Sea or that Jesus walked on Water.

I do believe though that quite a bit of the History in the Bible is correct, including the fact that a Preacher named Jesus likely was walking around Rome and the periphery during some exceedingly hard times. Son of God though? No moreso than you or I are Sons of God in all probability. Do you take LITERALLY that Jesus was the Son of God? This may be the source of our differing perceptions of the Bible.

You are missing the point here. It is irrelevant whether Moses actually parted the Red Sea or Jesus performed miracles. What is relevant is what the the spiritual teachings of Christianity are, based on a thorough examination of the historical/textual evidence. Our perceptions on that shouldn’t differ any more than they differ on what any other religion teaches, or on what any other ancient documents have said. I only brought this up to refute your assertion that OMMP could be the plan of God from the Bible – I don’t think TRUE believers would take kindly to using their faith as justification for genocide, no matter how well thought out it is.

[ashvin]

MayAllBWell post=3331 wrote: Ash, would appreciate a simple list what you think the Fed QE actions might be, including “same old same olds” (buy Treasuries, buy Mortgages, …?) as well as “and now for something new and different”.

The potential actions I see are extending the termination date of operation twist (selling short and buying long treasuries in equal amounts), “sterilized” QE3 (see diagram below), unsterilized asset purchases of treasuries, MBS, muni bonds, or… Eurozone peripheral bonds (Spanish or Italian). Like RE, I think only the last one would quell market fears for awhile, but I also think it’s very unlikely to occur for political reasons.

Also, what if they did nothing at this time? Isn’t the situation spiraling out of control something significant elements of the “powers that be” want to happen? Deflation will make those that survive potentially many times richer and more “powerful” (as in “power over others”)…

Yes, that’s a possibility that I have mentioned a few times. I was quite a lonely voice all of last year when I was saying QE3 wouldn’t occur in 2011 and this year when I said it may not go down until elections. Politically, it would still be difficult to sell before elections, but it gets much easier as the markets fall and the economic data gets much worse, such as Friday’s NFP. Financially, the benefits to the banks are only slightly better than they were before, but it would have to be a big bazooka (more than $1T) and, IMO, it would have to target MBS, munis or EZ bonds.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3335 wrote:
No, the thesis that it will continue in perpetuity is yours, not mine. The corruption and rot go pretty deep I will grant you, but eventually you will work your way down to the point the kitchen is clean enough to cook in again.

I also am quite SURE the Army of Evil will amass itself, which is why the Army of Good better start getting ready here to go Mano-a-Mano with the AoE in a No Rules, Take No Prisoners Final Battle for ALL the Marbles.

…

Is there a Rule here against Wafting and Making Shit Up as you go along? I was not aware of any such rule here.

In any event, the Cutoffs being made here are Monetary ones, not Age or Intelligence ones. Not going after Kids or Retards. Going after PIGMEN.

Look, the point I was trying to emphasize with the questions about cutoffs and what not was that, with them, your actions will be arbitrary and unsuccessful, but without them, your actions will necessarily harm a significant number of innocent people. And I believe you have already stipulated to the latter, so there’s really no point debating it further.

Innocent people and not-so-guilty people WILL be sacrificed in the OMMP. You believe it is a necessary evil, and I believe it is an unacceptable evil. Other people can decide for themselves.

I won’t specualte on the likelihood of the Inquisition coming to pass or who might lead it either. The Track Record for such things is rather muddy overall, but I would say that the general results of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror were overall an improvement over the Monarchy that preceeded it. Also I would say that although certainly corrupt in the aftermath, it was an Improvement over in Russia when Nicholas and Alexandra Romanoff were filled full of lead in a Ruskie basement

Again, I don’t think the track record is very “muddy” at all, especially in the 20th century, which is more applicable to our times due to the scale of reactionary movements in the age of fossil fuels.

As to myself being pulled in front of the Inquisition? Possible of course, but a risk I am willing to take as a last ditch effort to Save Mother Earth and avoid an ELE for Homo Sapiens.

What if it’s not just you, but everyone that you care about? What if it’s an entire community of people where you happen to live? At what point will you say, “enough is enough”, the means no longer justify the stated (but not certain) ends? Even if you are intellectually, emotionally and spiritually capable of drawing that line, MOST PEOPLE are not. That’s just the reality of the situation we are in.

Ever evolving is important in order to adapt to changing circumstances. 😛

I know this is not exactly what we were talking about in this particular portion of the debate (OOMP as an ever-evolving plan), but as a partial aside:

The concept of evolution is a dangerous weapon when it is consciously applied to human societies as an end goal. I am highly suspicious of anyone who claims their policies are geared towards “evolving” the human species over short time frames. The Eugenics policies of the 20th century were a direct result of that mentality.

I do agree of course that we need to shrink back to smaller more sustainable political groupings and legal systems of course. The Inquisition is part of the Catabolic process of the large systems before a new Anabolic period or Better Tomorrow can begin.

Ah yes, the “Better Tomorrow” – promised by Evil Dictators implementing genocidal policies since time immemorial.

Sometimes perhaps, not this time.

I disagree of course, run correctly the Inquisition will take out the Masters and Free the Slaves, not the other way round that you project. Of course, Inquisiton Management is a difficult thing, but I never made the case this would be easy either.

Well you admitted above that you cannot speculate on if, when or how exactly the OMMP would come to pass, or WHO would end up leading it, so would it be fair to say that it’s POSSIBLE that the OMMP, when actually implemented in the real world, would be led by misleading forces that want to accomplish the opposite of what you want to accomplish? That’s the point I am getting at.

In the case of the Banks, it isn’t a False Dichotomy. If the Banks aren’t Bailed out, the World economy WILL vaporize! No Letters of Credit, no credible functioning Money, no Oil trade you can go on and on here with this. Nobody has put forth a credible plan to work in the aftermath of a systemic banking collapse, and no I don’t think coining up all the Tungsten in Fort Knox will work nor do I think non-Debt based money in a Resource Based Economy will work either, but those are long debates all of their own.

Yes, those are issues to be discussed in their own right. The false dichotomy I was referring to is a cognitive/psychological one, designed to make people believe that bailing out the banks is the ONLY option for humanity. Kind of like your argument for OMMP is designed to make people believe that an ELE is inevitable without it. The logic here is that, if we do not act soon to implement something like the OMMP, more Fukushima type events will keep occurring until humanity is wiped out. Who knows, you may be right – extinction may be humanity’s ultimate destiny at this point, at least in the physical sense. But even that fact doesn’t necessitate OMMP as our ONLY option to deal with that reality.

OK, add BS to Wafting and Making Shit Up here as your stock in trade arguments. AKA pitch out some Napalm Lite.

All the Biblical Stories may or may not all be true. I am not convinced for instance that Moses parted the Red Sea or that Jesus Walked on Water either. One has to read the Bible with some Critical thinking, you can’t buy the whole thing as Absolute Truth. At the very least there have been too many centuries worth of Revisions to it to be 100% sure of what was written down in the first place. Besides that, said stories were written by observers who you may or may not believe were Prophets of God, but even so saw the world through their own flawed Human Eyes.

It is incumbent on the Sons and Daughters of God CURRENTLY walking the Earth to respond to the challenges of our own time, which all are not precisely the same ones that were apparent when the Bible was written. For instance, there were no Nuke Plants sitting around as Time Bombs waiting to go off then. Nor were there 7B people inhabiting the Earth either. In the Bible, God’s Word was to “Go Forth and Multiply”. Is that what we need to do NOW? Our time has different challenges to deal with, and we must find out own way to respond to them. Every last answer is not written down in the Bible or apparent in the words of Jesus Christ either.

I most certainly understand the risks involved here, but I am pretty sure Turning the Other Cheek is not the solution we need here right now, and Jesus suggested that one also. Methinks it is time to FIGHT BACK, not turn the Other Cheek.

The reason why we are talking about Jesus and the Bible is because you essentially brought them up as justifications for your plan, in so far as you can mitigate the genocidal effects of it by offering people the opportunity to repent for their sins.

I am not arguing for the correctness or incorrectness of what the Bible says happened and what Jesus taught. I am arguing for representing those things accurately, rather than manipulating them for our own arguments. The Bible consists of perhaps the most well-preserved and widely-circulated ancient texts that we know about. By studying those texts and comparing them to each other, we can determine by and large exactly what it was saying, in terms of past events, spiritual teachings and future prophecies.

You don’t have to agree with it, but you cannot deny that it is, in fact, saying those things. I am by no means a Biblical Scholar, but there are quite a few Biblical Scholars that I have read and respect (some of whom aren’t even Christian), and they all agree that the Bible is quite straightforward and should be taken literally. That is something the institutions of the Church have not done well at all, and we should not strive to repeat their mistakes (or intentional deceptions).

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3319 wrote: [quote=ashvin post=3317]

As I made CLEAR Ashvin, the Inqusition is NOT concerned with Small Fry who play Poker for a Living. We are going after the BIG BOYS. Waste of time, energy and the Legal Resources of the Inquisitors to go after Small Fry like you. We will be busy with much BIGGER Fish for a good while here. Might be a good idea though to start weaning yourself off this dependency on the Weakness and Stupidity of others to make your living though.

No, what you made clear is that NO ONE can escape the wrath of the Inquisition when it really gets going. Yes, you will obviously want to target the king pins at first, but you will find that the rot of corruption extends much deeper in this system. There is no system without the active and passive complicity of billions, and if you think the king pins won’t amass an army of the complicit on their side when all of these Rightheous Crusades go down, then you are sorely mistaken.

No, I am NOT overestimating the number of Meek, since I am droping a cutoff point here on initial Prosecutions and keeping it basically to the Top Visible end of the Pyramid.

Low Level Criminals are not Targeted here. The Inquisitors are not after the Drug Users or even the Street Dealers. We are after the King Pins. if you are a Dealer, you may be pulled in by the Inquisition and asked to Name some Names. Your Punishment and Penitence will probably be light if you cooperate with the Inqusition, just a few years scrubbing Cesspools probably.

…

You can’t make an arbitrary cutoff here, but it is not necessary to do so since Kids do not control large corporations like BP or TEPCO, and neither do Morons either.

If said kids happen to be Progeny of Vicious Criminals convicted of Crimes Against Humanity, they will be Orphaned and sent to Re-education Camps. Hoepfully they are not too far gone already. Long as they graduate their re-education and don’t pull the same nasty stunts their parents did, they’ll be fine.

You are wafting all over the place here and you know it. In one place you have cut off points, and in others you believe they are arbitrary and cannot be used. It is clear that you are making this shit up as you go along – the ridiculously vague criminal code, the “initial prosecutions”, the top of the pyramid, the low-level torture and scrubbing of cesspools, the re-education camps, etc., etc. Trust me, I know it’s fun to play Devil’s Advocate – that’s a part of what I’m doing in this argument too (although you may be doing it a bit more literally :evil:).

But the other part is out of genuine concern about the ideas people will get in their heads when they are seduced by fantasies such as yours. You know just as well as I do that your hyper-idealistic plan will not come to pass, ever… UNLESS, it is undertaken by an ignorant mob following a charismatic leader that has convinced them it is in their interests to kill off large swaths of people who represent the Old Order. Then you will get your OMMP, but who knows, you may end up being one of the roaches that gets exterminated.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.

That could be said of ANY Legal System Ashvin. None of them are perfect without Loopholes. You do the best you can, eh?

Yes, that could be said of any legal system operating at the complex scale of global human civilization. Our aim should not be to replicate those flawed systems or come up with new ones at the same scale, but to completely down-size the scale of operation. Your ever-evolving OMMP is a worldwide system of subjective “laws” that seeks to enact a “righteous” genocide in the name of protecting the helpless masses, and usher in a new era of peace and stability.

I never said they WERE Stupid Ashvin, which is why it is necessary to OUTSMART them! I’m Volunteering here in the effort 🙂 I’m Certified Smart! I’d be happy to have you back me up also on this end as well. There are plenty of Meek out there with enough additional Smarts to make this battle on the Smarts level along with plenty to do the Fisticuffs necessary as well here. Once the force multiplier of Oil gets knocked down, should be a rout IMHO.

Sometimes it’s smarter to recognize that the ends don’t justify the means, and that success can be had in more ways than one. To sacrifice one’s vengeful bloodlust for the good of the human soul, even when the former is convincingly dressed up as a humanitarian act. Your OMMP will play right into their hands of controlled depopulation. Remember, they NEED a justification for top-down, centralized enslavement and genocide of the masses, and proposals along the lines of OMMP will give it to them. A rout, indeed.

Negative thinking IMHO. It probably cannot be done quick enough to Save the vast majority of the population, but it maybe possible to do it quickly enough to avoid an ELE. Gotta make the EFFORT anyhow.

Realistic thinking. We don’t have to make the effort – that is the point of free will and conscious decisions. The OMMP already sounds like a situation in which people will be told “if you don’t support the effort, you will be responsible for an ELE that is certain to occur”. A false dichotomy along the lines of “bail out the banks or watch the world economy be vaporized”, except even more extreme.

Biblical Stories are IMHO mainly parables which may or may not represent God’s will in all respects. For instance, all that stuff about how after 3 months a Slave Girl should willingly submit to her New master blah blah. Or Render Unto Caesar yadda yadda. Or Turn the Other Cheek. Representative of the time period, but not necessarily God’s Will in perpetutity. You gotta be adaptible here to changing circumstances and be able to write NEW parables which further define God’s Will at any given point in history.

Another BS tactic used by people to subvert Biblical law and the teachings of Jesus – just say that it is all filled with symbolic parables and open to endless interpretation. It is no coincidence that the Roman Catholic Church kept the Bible from the people when it officially adopted Christianity – it wanted man-made religious/political/economic traditions that were ultimately geared towards retribution and war to overrule the very obvious and very clear teachings of love, forgiveness and peace found in the Books themselves. The truths laid out by Jesus as God’s human incarnation are meant to be eternal, and you cannot use Him to justify goals that are in opposition to those truths by erroneously claiming they are “adaptable” to the times.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3316 wrote:

Did I say anywhere that the Inquisition should not make Legal Definitions here for what constitutes Crimes Against Humanity and what the appropriate Punsihments should be? I am all for developing a comprehensive Code to make these Definitions before beginning the Auto da Fe.

We can start on the Code of RE Hammurabi right here with 5 starter Principles:

1- If you were in a position of Authority with knowledge of the dangers of what you or the company you worked for were doing and did not Blow the Whistle on them, you are GUILTY
2- Corporate Shields are declared retroactively Invalid.
3-If you actively engaged in Economic Pursuits with the goal of Enriching yourself at the Expense of Others, you are GUILTY.
4-If you loaned money to others at Usurious interest rates defined as say anything above 1%/mo, you are GUILTY
5-If you Invested in Corporations which you had Knowledge were engaged in activities destroying Mother Earth and endangering the lives of others, you are GUILTY

Well damn… I may be guilty of #3 myself, seeing as how I regularly play poker.

Now you may give me a pass, because you are smart enough to understand that the people who give me their money are not really under any sort of coercion, do so of their own free will, start with a level playing field and I am not doing it to get RICH but rather to pay bills, but your over-zealous compatriots in newly-formed positions of authority within the Inquisition may not interpret my actions the same way. Sorry if I don’t trust anyone with that kind of power to use it wisely…

I never said this would stop Violence from the Other Side of the line. They will commit Violent acts regardless of the Law anyhow, so this just provides for a Level Playing Field. Mano-a-Mano, and the Meek got the Numbers Advantage here. Once the Force Multiplier of Oil is out of the Game, the Good Guys WIN. Remember the Wisdom of Uncle Joe Stalin, “You Can’t Make an Omelette without Breaking a Few Eggs.”

I think you are over-estimating the number of the “Meek” here. Hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people could technically be guilty of the OMMP criminal code. All kinds of people who work for corporations could be guilty of #1, as long as they have authority over at least one other person at the company. #3 speaks for itself – of course no one will admit they were doing it to get rich, but it will be their word against the newly-appointed Righteous. And #5 could include anyone who has ever spent a penny on the products of those destructive corporations – why limit it to people who actually bought shares? I’m sure a good portion of the people reading TAE, DD and most other similar sites are guilty of #4 and #5 as well. When it’s all said and done here, OMMP may end up doing the Illuminati’s job for it.

Far as Kids are concerned, they probably mostly can be Saved here by pulling them out of the Environment and doing Behavioral Modification, the Greed pathways are not so well set into their Neural Connections yet. Other older Family Members can be Individually Judged for the Level of their Complicity.

I’m still waiting to hear an age cutoff… and what about the mentally ill? Do we have an IQ cutoff line too, do we follow the definitions of DSMIV, what?

I already stipulated that you do not go into the Auto da Fe at all without a clear set of criteria as to what constitutes Guilt and what the appropriate Punishment for that Guilt is. So it is not “Murder”, it is Capital Punishment if so deemed appropriate by the Court of the Inquisition.

And my argument is that a “clear set of criteria” for what you propose to do is an oxymoron, a paradox, impossible.

The Inquisition isn’t going to go after the Small Fry here with the Hammer, you start with the OBVIOUSLY and CLEARLY GUILTY at the visible Top of Pyramid, and you use them to lever your way into the the folks Behind the Curtain. There are AT LEAST 10,000 of these SCUMBAGS to start with and that will take plenty of time to work through the Docket.

Those people aren’t stupid, though, They didn’t get to those positions without knowing how to game the all of the laws, rules, and plans that were established to work against them. I suspect that’s exactly what they will do with the OMMP, too. Set up a bunch of patsies to take the fall. By the time you make it to 10 of the real bad guys, the rest will be in hiding and actively leading you to all the wrong places and people. Actually, I would be suspect of OMMP as soon as I heard about it, because it may have already been co-opted by them before it got off the ground.

Fantasies about organizing it all quickly and implementing it simultaneously around the globe with an element of surprise are just that… fantasies.

God works in Mysterious Ways, and exactly How He Speaks to us can’t be determined here a priori. Perhaps God is speaking in such a way as to encourage an Inqusition here? If we don’t undertake it, we would be Rejecting God.

In any event, in the ABSENCE of an Inquisition, stopping the progressive RAPE of Mother Earth and the endless TORTURE of the vast majority of the Population has not thusfar been possible through other more conventional means, so I suggest a change of direction here to hopefully align up better with God’s Will.

Does He really work in mysterious ways? I think that’s just a catch phrase people like to use. By and large, if He exists, I imagine that He works in very straightforward ways. The Bible is replete with examples of God directly intervening in Earthly affairs and telling people exactly what He wanted them to do and when he wanted them to do it.

Perhaps the OMMP is not God’s will, perhaps it’s the opposite of His will. Maybe he is allowing this rape and suffering to continue to test the faith of humanity in Him and his promises for the future and see if they will obey the teachings of Jesus even when it seems they would be better off abandoning those teachings and taking matters into their own hands. Isn’t that a possibility to consider, seeing as how it is a major theme of the Bible?

I never denied Innocent Lives will be lost here, in fact I explicitly said numerous times that “You cannot make an Omelette without Breaking a few Eggs”. What you have to make a Judgement on is in WHICH scenario will MORE Innocent Lives be Lost, and in which scenario MORE of the Guilty will be Brought to Justice?

Best Evidence right now is that if we do NOT undertake the Inqusition, EVERYBODY WILL DIE, as in Homo Sapiens suffers an Extinction Level Event and we go the way of the Dinosaur. If we have to break some Eggs to stop that, so be it. We all KNOW here that MANY Innocents are losing their lives RIGHT NOW, AS WE SPEAK. No more Mr. Nice Guy while this is an ongoing WAR against J6P.

Well, for all of the reasons discussed, I disagree. I think the chances are very high that more innocent lives will be lost with the OMMP than without it, and, on top of that, by pursuing it we may condemn ourselves to physical and/or psychological damnation, either here on Earth for the rest of our lives or in the afterlife for all of eternity.

[ashvin]

RE wrote:

No they aren’t. Legal systems prevent nothing, they merely define punishment for disobediance to the law.

They also define what the “law” is, how to determine who has disobeyed the law, what the punishment should be and how and by whom that punishment should be carried out. It is also almost always a function of centralized institutions of governance recognized by the people under their jurisdiction..

The point here is that there is no reason for us to call OMMP a “legal system”, as if that somehow mitigates the level of premeditated violence carried out in its name.

You should recall from prior conversations regarding the Constitution that it is my general conclusion that it was written by a bunch of Aristocrats to justify their Private property rights and doesn’t do much for the average J6P.

And you should recall that I agree with that conclusion. I was talking specifically about the Bill of Rights, though, which limits the arbitrary use of state-sanctioned force against the people. If OMMP is designed to circumvent the Bill of Rights, then it contains an implicit justification for its enemies to do the same.

Disagreed, scale does not make a difference in principle, only in the logistics for ferreting out the truth. More complex, certainly, but in principle still the same.

Far as families go, they are often complicit. For example, its likely Bernie Madoff’s Wife and Son were complicit. Also of course Bush1 and Bush2 both complicit. Its up to the Court of the Inquisition to determine how deep the rot of corruption is in a given family.

Pray tell, how will the Court of the Inquisition (i.e. you and your cronies) do that? Is there an age limit? What about the 6 year old kid who seems to be a corrupted little brat? The Husband/Wife who materially supported the corruption without knowing, or that sat by and didn’t do anything to stop their spouse? Or perhaps they did do something, but they just didn’t do “enough”? How can we be sure that your torturous methods do not lead to false confessions, just like the Inquisition’s?

No, my main driver is to clean up the kitchen. You stop when the Kitchen is clean. Granted this may take a while and the decision is subjective in the end, but that is true for just abotu all legal decisions.

Oh, another thing about legal systems – they should be designed to limit the use of subjectivity as much as possible. So if you insist on calling OMMP a legal system with “legal decisions”, then it is a really shitty one.

And you are not cleaning a Kitchen, you are torturing and murdering people. Since you are human, you are not doing that without being consumed by emotions. You cannot dismiss that fact by analogizing it to cleaning a kitchen.

Ashvin wrote: As for sin and penitence, is it not you who is committing the ultimate sin – putting yourself in the role of God? According to the Bible, God is the only one who can know with absolute certainty who is Evil, and who has been saved through penitence and a change of hearts. And, He WILL cast his wrath on the former when the time comes. It is not man’s role to dispense with that kind of Divine Justice.

RE wrote: You can assume that if such a plan is undertaken that you are operating under God’s direction and are so the tool of God in it’s implementation, you are not God him/hers/itself. Far as whether it is Man’s Role to dispense Divine Justice, that is a matter for God to decide. If God wants to use a man to dispense Divine Justice, it is his/her/its perogative to do so.

Uh, no, we can’t assume anything. Unless God speaks to us directly and guides us towards those actions, then we cannot assume we have God’s blessing simply because we have incorporated our human understandings of sin and penitence. If anything, since we never predicated the value of OMMP on its ability to obtain God’s approval, we can assume that we DON’T have it for the sake of this argument.

We don’t know what the consequences will be here for taking these actions, but the likely consequences for not taking them are dire enough to warrant taking the risk. We know if we don’t gain control over this, we get more Fuk-U-shimas and more Macondos. I suggest that the consequences could be good ones. A clean kitchen empty of cockroaches is to the benefit of all except the cockroaches.

We do know some of the consequences – innocent lives will be sacrificed and at least some of the people carrying out the Inquisition will start operating with less than pure motives, or perhaps even at cross-purposes. This is what ALWAYS happens, without fail. So let’s not pretend that we don’t know whether some of those things will happen. What we truly don’t know is what the chances for success are, i.e. the chances of preventing future Fukushimas or Deepwater Horizons, but my educated guesstimate is that they will be slim to razor thin.

[ashvin]

Sorry RE,

When I was trying to reply to your last comment, I accidentally clicked “edit” instead of “reply”. Then I went ahead and wrote my comment and hit Submit. If you still have the comment you can post it again, but I don’t think there is any way for me to restore it. Now I just went ahead and deleted it, and re-posted my reply under my name. I think a good portion of your original comment is captured in the quotation blocks, though.

[ashvin]

Golden Oxen post=3306 wrote: I always thought anyone that worked for the government was a Democrat, and isn’t there a Democrat in charge at the White House?

Nope, most people who work for the government are either puppets of global corporatist forces or completely clueless about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it – i.e. just doing what they’re told. The textbook ideology of Democrats and Republicans as portrayed by the MSM has very little to do with it.

TAE exposes a view of a world wide credit collapse and deflation, however it is just a Republican ploy if it shows up in the numbers before the election?

Who said anything about a “Republican” ploy? Getting Romney in office does not only have to be the goal of Republicans. In fact, the label “Republican” is almost meaningless in this context. Instead, it could be the ploy of those who feel Romney is better suited to their own elite goals than Obama is over the next 4 years.

Like I said in the post, though, this is just pure speculation on my part. I have no supporting evidence one way or the other. I’m just wondering… why should the BLS and other agencies stop massaging the data right now a few months before elections?

Rush Limbaugh would devote an entire show to this one.

Limbaugh couldn’t hit the water if he fell out of a boat, let alone cover this topic in any coherent or meaningful way.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3299 wrote: [quote=ashvin post=3290]
Sure it is “premeditated”. Any Legal System is, and I am advocating for a Legal System which holds these folks ACCOUNTABLE, ferrets them out and brings them before the Court of the Inquisition. Sorry, english Common Law is not WORKING. If something doesn’t work, you try something DIFFERENT. As Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.

You can call it whatever you want, but it is not a legal system. Legal systems are designed exactly to prevent OMMP. You can make a very good argument that legal systems are not adequate purveyors of justice in times like these, but you can’t pretend that OMMP is some kind of legal framework for carrying out justice. It not only goes against every principle of common law, but every right found in our Constitution. Isn’t it ironic that we rail against the NDAA for subverting due process, but we are so eager to throw it away ourselves when it comes to taking out the “bad guys”?

Its merely a matter of scale, not principle…

Not only did they stick the Gun to the Population in the PAST, they currently KEEP the gun pointed at everybody ELSE. I SEE a RAPE in progress here, and I am gonna STOP it NOW by Gunning Down the who knows how many people complicit in this operation who AL are taking money out of the Cash Register at the moment. No more Mr. Nice Guy. This is a WAR here, and people are DYING as we speak. I am EVEN willing to alow these folks to OWN UP to their Sins and Repent and allow them to LIVE, an opportunity they did NOT give their Victims. So who is more Righteous here, eh?

First, the issues of scale and complexity automatically make it a difference in principles between the individual rape victim in the liqour store and the entire world that may be exposed to the consequences of Fukushima. How are you determining who is complicit in that incident? Anyone that has taken “money out of the Cash Register”?? That’s a bit vague, to say the least. What about the families of the people you determine to be complicit… how do they factor in? I think even you would admit that what you are proposing is RECKLESS. It is a desperate measure for desperate times, right?

That motivation is not much different from theirs. You are just targeting different people for different end goals, but you are being consumed by many of the same emotions that drive them – fear, anxiety, desperation, frustration, anger, rage. And once we start down that road, who among us will have the discipline to stop?? Maybe you will, but many of your followers/compatriots won’t.

As for sin and penitence, is it not you who is committing the ultimate sin – putting yourself in the role of God? According to the Bible, God is the only one who can know with absolute certainty who is Evil, and who has been saved through penitence and a change of hearts. And, He WILL cast his wrath on the former when the time comes. It is not man’s role to dispense with that kind of Divine Justice.

You say, “so who is more righteous here, eh?”

Why are you suddenly comparing your actions to theirs, as if the latter is measuring stick that we should all strive to beat by an inch? The fact that they are Evil does not give us a free pass as long as we manage to be a little less evil (or more righteous) than they are. We should strive to be completely righteous and nothing less. The OMMP, IMO, is not a great way to start.

I don’t know anything for sure other than the fact what we are doing AIN’T Working. I advocate a change of tactics. May work, may not. if somebody comes up with a better plan, I am all ears, but IMHO here a few Perp Walks and Passive Resistance or “Active Withdrawal” is NOT a better plan with any greater chance of success, in fact I rate it lower in its possibilities for success.

Bring in the Orkin Man.

So the argument is – if what we’re doing doesn’t seem to be “working”, then we should do whatever else comes to mind, no matter what the consequences are? Sorry, I don’t buy that for a second. And aren’t you the one who has said many times that the Owners are in the process of destroying their own wealth/control base, by plundering energy resources and crippling the planet’s environment/ecosystems? That’s something I happen to believe as well, and perhaps that is the best tactic we can hope for at this point. The only thing we have near full control over now is our own free will and actions, and that is not something we should wield lightly or recklessly.

[ashvin]

davefairtex post=3295 wrote: What’s the FOFOA roadmap of getting this thing legally implemented? Its natural enemy would seem to be the banksters, who make their very living by making money through loans and originating derivatives…

That’s exactly the point.

Their views on the market system and the supranational bankers/corporations range from very benign to very favorable. They believe Freegold will naturally evolve through market mechanisms that force the hands of the politicians/bureaucrats who will change the rules. They believe it will benefit everyone – the politicians need a way to restart economic growth (keep the banking system alive), the bankers need a way to stay solvent, the “super-producers” need a way to offload all of the junk they produce, the savers need a way to protect their excess wealth from government mismanagement, the consumers/debtors need to get out from under their debts and start consuming again. Everyone wants to live in peace and harmony forever. Sure, inequities and injustices will remain, but that is just how nature works…

That’s THEIR view.

[ashvin]

thread for FPC commentary “Aristotle on Utopia”

[ashvin]

Candace,

Thanks for the suggestion. I will try to write my thoughts on these issues in a commentary or feature.

[ashvin]

FrankRichards post=3289 wrote: The “more” link 404s

should be working now

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3286 wrote: [quote=ashvin post=3283]

Easy example, 2 guns, 2 shooters, 2 victims.

Case 1: Shooter goes into liquor store, kills clerk to take register money.

Motivation: Evil

Case 2: Shooter sees rape in progress, kills rapist to save victim.

Motivation: Good

You don’t become your enemy by using the same tactics, it depends on the motivation behind it.

You know as well as I do that this is a bad analogy to your systemic roto-rooter plan, or let’s just call it the Orkin Man Master Plan (OMMP).
The OMMP is operating at very large scales and at a much more complex level than your individual person shooting to kill a murderer and/or rapist in the act of the crime.

In the individual analogy, your motivations are indeed much different than that of your targets. Actually, your tactics are different also, because there is not much premeditation involved and you seem to only be resorting to force when you just so happen to be in a position to directly save another person’s life, or at least save them from bodily harm.

In OMMP, our tactics involve premeditation and targeting specific people for extermination. Our motivation is to rid the world, via tortures and executions, of a certain number of people who we believe are counter-productive to the ability of humanity to survive and thrive. We will not hesitate to cross any thresholds to accomplish what we set out to do, and will adopt an “if you are not with us, you are against us” policy. We are going into the OMMP knowing full well that many “innocents” will be killed/harmed in the process of reaching our end goals.

Do our tactics and motivations really sound that much different from those of the Monsters we are seeking out? And that’s what Nietzsche was talking about…

Collateral damage? No doubt, but WORSE collateral damage if you don’t do it. Leave the vermin lose here, they’ll kill us ALL. Seriously. Now they want to mine Uranium in the Chesapeake Bay, as Surly mentioned in the Diner. How long do you take this shit before you get rid of this vermin, eh?

You can’t know that for sure. For all you know, the OOMP will FAIL miserably, and they will still end up attaining their goals. Except now you will both have innocent blood on your hands. In fact, the odds are that the FAIL part is exactly what will happen. If they are going to fail also, it will most likely be because they end up destroying themselves through their own destructive actions, one way or another.

[ashvin]

The only way we win or get justice is by changing what’s in their hearts/minds. They have to freely choose to stop working towards evil goals.

Killing them won’t work – hell, we can’t even figure out who they are. Even if we could, it would only bring us short-term satisfaction.

Everyone here knows that any targeted plan to “root out the evil” will result in large amounts of collateral damage. I don’t want to become them to (potentially) defeat them – it’s not worth it.

Nietzsche wrote: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

John 8:32 wrote: “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3246 wrote: Are you SURE about that Ashvin? I think Helicopter Ben could Swap out $1T with Super Mario Dragon in a nanosecond, and then SMD could go ahead and create the Spain Healthy Investment Tool (S.H.I.T.) to float his Krony Kapitalista Spic Buddies a microsecond after that.

Are these boys really going to let a piddling $50B Bank Failure pull down the whole Ball of Wax so easy? They are all TERRIFIED of the cascade and counterparty risk here involved.

Oh, no doubt they are terrified. And no doubt there will be immense pressure by US/EU/IMF officials on Germany to let the ECB monetize, even more than there has been already. But I don’t see how unilateral monetization could either a) happen or b) make any sense without that consent.

If Germany isn’t on board for the EFSF/ESM (a Spanish bailout would probably require at least half of funds pledged), and/or ECB monetization, then you are going against one of your biggest (and most credible) sources of capital, who may just choose to leave. What sense does the Eurozone make without Germany behind it?

That’s not say Merkel’s government will not cave in to the pressure – they might. But that itself raises other political/legal issues with the German people and the German Parliament, which the German Const. Court has said must be involved in all such decisions. Then you also have countries like the Netherlands who may resist, but I am less hopeful that they will hold out.

Maybe this one is the one finally Too Big to Save, but I am not yet convinced of this. If the Spanish Banks and their Goobermint can Circle Jerk money creation to paper this over for a year, on a yet bigger scale so can the CBs.

They have been papering it over, but the real economy has been deteriorating the whole time. Now Spain looks a lot like Greece in that regard, and the Eurocrats are having a hard time keeping GREECE within the bailout/austerity paradigm. If Greece ends up leaving, then the surplus countries have just thrown a lot of money down a black hole. What are the chances that they will agree to do the same for Spain, which is many times bigger?

This sucker doesn’t come down until the CBs themselves capitulate, and its not all that clear they are ready to do that yet. This may not be under control of the Krauts either. I think it is a canard to see the Krauts as controllers of the ECB. They are a big player to be sure, but they are not the ones in real control over this. A political decision here to Print or Not Print is supranational, and its occuring not in the Bundesbank, but in the back room of the BIS.

If financial/monetary officials of the $IMFS decide to unilaterally set up ECB monetization facilities for Eurozone peripheral countries, then I think they will need to make damn sure they have control of national military forces that are ready and willing to launch coups and suppress sociopolitical dissent. The only other way is do it all in secret, but I don’t see how that’s possible.

Of course, the Fed can beef up its currency swap operations with the ECB, and the ECB can launch another LTRO, and they can keep floating rumors about printing and/or Euro bonds, and countries can try to insulate their own national banking systems from contagion, but all of those things are unlikely to have much effect. We must also consider the possibility that the IMFS Owners actually want the Eurozone to break up, because they rightly or wrongly believe it will benefit them in terms of consolidating wealth/control in the medium to long-term.

[ashvin]

Reverse Engineer post=3190 wrote: Ashvin, WHEN are you guys gonna fix the Avatars? I could go and substitute, but I left the defaults for the purpose of fidelity to the original commentary.
RE

Good question. I have been on our web guy about it for awhile now, but I think he has been busy dealing with the site access issues, among other things. I will remind him about it again soon.

[ashvin]

[quote=steve from virginia post=3186]

It seems to me that the monetary gold arguments were all made — and settled — by Wicksell and Bagehot a hundred and ten or so years ago.

…

In this context, the gold-money argument presumes a specific post-modern industrial economic society that functions/trades a specific way … a society that has conveniently forgotten Bagehot (and have never bothered to look up Wicksell). This is argument in a vacuum: not a real argument at all.

What does come next? Hard to say but the constant will be ‘less’.

Perhaps the monetary gold arguments were settled, but Freegold theory does not argue that gold will act as (transactional) money. Instead, it says that fiat currencies will continue to act as money and will not be fixed to any commodity, but gold will trade parallel to it as a store of value – only used by those who want to “save” their excess wealth.

The specifics aren’t really necessary here, and I obviously agree that the theory runs into many problems when confronted with reality (such as its presumption of a functioning post-modern industrial economy at a global scale). My point in these comments, though, is that I try to be fair to the theory when I critique it – I want to portray it accurately and address very specific issues that it raises, usually based on quotations from A, FOA or FOFOA.

I don’t really believe it’s satisfactory to reference a few economists from ANY era and say that they have settled the entire matter.

[ashvin]

There are better arguments out there already …

Minsky’s FIH was a key part of my critique in Part IV of my original series – Deflationary Canyons and Caves

After being confronted with that critique, a few of the Freegold people implied that they agreed with most of what Keen/Minsky have to say, but thought the debt deflation theory was incomplete, in terms of how central authorities can make sure the Mother of All Deflations never really takes off.

I disagree, but the point is that they are not unaware of these arguments.

One thing is for certain – none of these people ever talk about the dollar-oil military nexus.

[ashvin]

FOFOFOA post=3169 wrote: Superproducers have been, and continue to, acquire gold. Freegold is only the recognition of this fact; it is achieving a state of equilibrium that does not exist in the current world of suppressed gold prices. Why do central banks hold gold? Why is the euro structured to benefit from freegold prices? Because they understand this.

So freegold is not a theory; it is a process that is underway.

There is a reason why FGAs catch so much flack for being dogmatic about their beliefs, and it’s because of comments like this one. Freegold is only ONE explanation for why countries and institutions may be accumulating gold in recent years (no one is quite sure to what extent), and there are MANY other explanations. That is the hallmark of a THEORY, whether you like it or not. FOFOA would probably take offense to your suggestion that Freegold is the “recognition” of a simple fact.

FOFOA: In my world, Freegold is a way to view unfolding events as they happen. It is a view of the valley below, as seen from a high vantage. It is a cipher for understanding what we see. It is not a description of what should be. Instead, it is framework, different from almost everything else you are reading, in which you can interpret unfolding events in a different light.

That, my friend, is a description of a THEORY. Theories are designed to help people take observations of what’s happening around them and make some sense of them by placing them in a broader framework, and to use that framework to figure out what’s likely to happen in the future. Freegold may be a unique theory, but it is still a theory, and that means it is not a certainty or a fact.

I probably understand Freegold theory better than you do, so please stop posting general explanations of what a Freegold system is supposed to do, and come back when you can actually respond to the specific critiques presented. We’ll be here.

[ashvin]

Wrong, there is no straw man. I am using the exact same logic that you used in your response to me explaining why Freegold WILL occur.

When you say “super producers” and “consumers”, you are admittedly referencing nations and corporations, along with individuals (to a much lesser extent). This was your argument:

“The super producers believe it is in their interest to replace the current system with a global freegold system, and it will also benefit consumers, so therefore Freegold will occur”.

Do you not agree that the super producers (nations/corporations) believe it is in their interest to avoid thermonuclear war, environmental destruction and/or climate change? Of course they do! If any of those things (continue to) happen, they won’t be producing squat and other nations/people won’t be consuming squat.

But getting from point A to end point Z is not quite that simple – the coordinated international agreements, monitoring and enforcement required to establish a nuclear-free, fossil fuel-independent, environmentally-friendly global economy, and the long-term psychology and cooperative will power on the part of everyone involved, are things that will require a hell of a lot more than the super producers pursuing what they believe to be in their best interests.

Now that’s pretty simple, no?

[ashvin]

TheTrivium4TW post=3151 wrote: As this process is occurring, guys like Ash will revel in the fact they don’t control absolutely everything, but they will miss the bigger point – THEY DON’T NEED TO IN ORDER TO RIP OFF MUCH OF HUMANITY’S FACE. But the perceived “intellectual win” will be enough of a victory for some as the oligarchs watch the world burn from their mansions (unless people realize the con and take positive action to resist this tyrannical system in legal ways).

If the Owners have that as much control over the outcomes as you suggest, what good will “positive action to resist… in legal ways” do? And how do we go about waking the people up? Continually shouting at them that everything that has happened and is happening in their lives within a larger society is part of a wicked master plan, and that they are eternally screwed?

It amazes me that people seem to believe the tactics used by the financial elites in the late 19th century , or in the GD, will be exactly as effective now as they were then, despite all of the popular sociopolitical sentiment and cognitive dissonance working in the opposite direction, as well as energy/environmental issues.

Even the most “radical” doomers, who believe now marks the coming of the Antichrist, recognize that it ALSO marks the time of Christ’s return, God’s Judgement and His salvation. If instead you adhere to Asian philosophy/religion, then perhaps you recognize there is a yang for every yin. If you are a secular Marxist, the painful death of capitalism signifies the natural transition to a better world system. The list goes on… the night is darkest before the dawn, and all that.

Perhaps that’s just something we tell ourselves so we can sleep better at night, but, OTOH, maybe there’s a lot of truth to it. There is certainly plenty of evidence that would lead me to believe that the Owners will not maintain control for a lot longer – that they will be consumed by their own bad deeds. My point is that the TPTB control narrative is only half of the equation, if that, and should be treated as such.

[ashvin]

FOFOFOA post=3135 wrote: Freegold will happen because superproducers need a way to save their excess value, in size, through time. If they don’t get it they have no incentive to produce more than they need, since their savings are diluted. If they don’t produce, consumers can’t consume. It is in the interests of both parties to make gold freely valued, and so it will happen.

It is also in the interest of all human societies (including superproducers and consumers and everyone in between) to completely decommission their nuclear arsenals and transition to a renewable energy economy very quickly. Do you think either of those things are destined to happen because they are in our interest? Surely the idealism inherent in the logic cannot be lost on you…

Contrary to what you have been indoctrinated to believe, markets don’t exist to solve every problem in complex human society, and usually create many more than they mitigate or resolve.

Simple, no?

No, unfortunately for F-theory advocates, the world is not so simple.

[ashvin]

FOFOFOA,

You say that you want specific critiques of Freegold theory (there is a reason I like to refer to it as “F-theory”), but you refuse to respond to my first critique, which was aimed specifically at people such as you.

Right now, here in this thread, you are using the classic method of argumentation that all Idealistic philosophers/thinkers have used – you are assuming that there are no impediments to Freegold becoming reality, and then arguing for why it will work well to balance trade, protect savers and what not.

The problem for you is that a THEORY also makes predictions about what is likely to happen. And the first prediction of F-theory is that a system of Freegold will actually be put in place by a combination of market forces and central authorities. FOFOA repeatedly states that Freegold is not what he thinks SHOULD happen, but what he thinks WILL happen.

Hence, my first critique comparing his hard money/soft money dialectic to Hegel’s. The philosophy of Hegel made a lot of theoretical sense, but practically it could never become a political economic reality in this world. So maybe you can explain to us why the Freegold Monetary Utopia will be any more likely to happen in this world than the Utopia envisioned by Hegel… or Marx, or anyone else for that matter.

[ashvin]

RE,

When I wrote my original critiques of Freegold last year, I spent a few months debating people on FOFOA’s forum. All of his regulars took some time out to engage me in discussion (without ever really addressing the substance of my arguments…), but FOFOA never would. He would respond to the rabid hard money gold bugs who showed up on his forum with weak arguments for gold-backed money, but never me. What he wants is EASY targets in a controlled environment, and neither I nor TAE are those. Therefore, he would never show up here to debate. He responded to my emails once, and told me I could not quote anything he wrote, because he was not writing in his official role as FOFOA. I respected that request.

Our friend FOFOFOA reflects the same mentality. He responded on the first critique to pipefit and GO, because they are hard money gold bugs and he believed, perhaps correctly, that they are easy targets for a Freegold advocate to take aim with. However, he does not want to consider any critiques that do not involve all of the simplistic arguments for hard money or deflation, even if those critiques are based on concepts directly quoted from FOFOA himself and contained with the theory of Freegold.

But don’t worry, friend, you will get plenty more opportunities, as will your friends, and the friends of your friends.

[ashvin]

Alexander Ac post=3105 wrote: Hello Ash, here is what happens accourding to Financial Times (h/t ZeroHedge):

https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2012/05-2/FT%20breakdown.jpg

Saw that and liked it. Doesn’t try to quantify anything based on isolated history, like Pettifor, and doesn’t resort to meaningless phrases such as “crisis management”, like the Bundesbank.

Of course, the “Exit euro” and “EURO BREAK UP” bubbles are colored in a shade of gray that seems to represent a great void for humanity. Not such horrendous outcomes, IMO.

[ashvin]

YesMaybe post=3104 wrote: The sea was angry that day, my friends–like an old man trying to return soup at a deli.

The great beast appeared before me… I tell you he was ten stories high if he was a foot! He let out a great bellow, I said “easy, big fella!” 😆

Setting aside the question of Greece exiting the euro, I’m curious what people’s view here is about likely outcomes of the greek election. If it turns out in line with recent polling, it would seem neither a pro-memorandum nor an anti-memorandum coalition will be possible. And then what, another election? Maybe PASOK taking a U-turn and joining SYRIZA?

I’m pretty confident that they won’t make it to a THIRD election. If no pro-euro coalition is formed, that’s basically the same as forming an anti-euro coalition. They need Greece to reaffirm its “commitment” to the bailout/austerity ponzi, and soon.

(according to me, anti-memorandum is anti-euro, regardless of what the politicians say)

[ashvin]

FOFOFOA is right.

Dr. Keen and others have shown that the Fed does not CONTROL interest rates, nor do they control the money supply, within the logic of this system. Creation of base money in the past actually lags the creation of credit money by private banks – the banks create money (credit) and go looking for reserves later. That is the way the system has evolved over time.

This is where Triv’s argument breaks down. The Owners cannot defy the laws of human behavior in complex, dynamic systems any more than they can defy the laws of physics. They are also boxed in by the very systems that they helped to create (both capitalism and debt-backed money), so their range of options available to exercise control diminishes over time. They have been instrumental in directing the course of evolution, but they do not control it.

These are not “microeconomic” discussions, they are discussions about how the system actually works, when considering ALL aspects of the system, not just the tiny cabal of occult elites who have traditionally been in complete control of policy decisions within the system. That being said, we run into other problems when we ignore that aspect of concentrated control present in the system throughout our history, which is basically what FOFOA does, so that is a legitimate critique of his perspective and the theory he advocates. OTOH, if Freegold is a theory that was established at the upper levels of the BIS, then it is quite relevant to any discussions of the NWO agenda.

Either way, it is it not legitimate to dismiss everything he writes or argues because of that. If it was, then we would have to dismiss the writings of just about every economic/financial analyst out there who fails to say “this is what’s happening and what will happen because the Owners SAY SO”. There is value in trying to understand how our world works and where we may be headed, and that is what we are all trying to do. If you believe that EVERYTHING that happens to human society is controlled and pre-determined by TPTB, some type of God and/or some Alien species, then there really isn’t anything left to say, is there?

[ashvin]

andrew_not_the_saint post=3081 wrote: His writings on gold were always hard to digest and bloated, and in the end, I just find most of it to be just “ideas” without empirical evidence backing it up.

I understand what you mean, but somewhat disagree. The best parts of the best economic theories, IMO, boil down to “ideas” about how these systems have worked in the past and how they may evolve or devolve in the future. Usually, the theories or parts of theories with too much emphasis on empirical/mathematical data analysis are the ones that are a bunch of BS. A notable exception to this may be Dr. Steve Keen, who has attempted to model Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis, but his model is very simple and even he admits that a lot more work needs to be done to make it close to reality (and his narrow focus probably gives him an overly optimistic picture of reality, anyway).

That same naivety is certainly found in FOFOA, but his theories are just as interesting and not much less devoid of evidence. His view/descriptions of how the monetary system currently works is much better than most other out there, especially MMT (modern monetary theory). It is not really anything new, either, just a description of monetary history with a semi-Austrian spin. I also think there is evidence to suggest that there were/are high-level people involved in the founding of the EU/EMU who eventually wanted to use a Freegold system to overtake the $IMFS and make Europe the dominant global force once again. However, in contrast to FOFOA, I believe those dreams have been dashed in the last few years and I can’t imagine that any of them still hold out hope.

[Author]

Posts