Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin
A Digest of Urban Survival Resources
For Independent Minded People!
ISSN 2161-5543
In
This Issue:
1. A better way to compensate Washington
Politicians
2. Detox tips for over indulgent holiday
eating
3. Alternative medicine resource
4. United Police State of America-Doug
Casey Interview
Prohibition is an awful flop. We like it.
It can't stop what it's meant to stop. We like it.
It's left a trail of graft and slime,
It don't prohibit worth a dime,
It's filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we're for it."
-- Franklin P. Adams
It can't stop what it's meant to stop. We like it.
It's left a trail of graft and slime,
It don't prohibit worth a dime,
It's filled our land with vice and crime.
Nevertheless, we're for it."
-- Franklin P. Adams
A Better Pay Plan for Washington Politicians
Pet food banks need
donations of unopened food – contact your area food bank for details.
PM’s
Compendium of Useful Resources
Detox tips for overindulgence
during the holidays
(NaturalNews) With all the delicious foods to choose from during the holidays, and in spite of our best efforts to keep food indulgences to a minimum, there are times when we find that it's nearly impossible to resist an extra helping of treats.
(NaturalNews) With all the delicious foods to choose from during the holidays, and in spite of our best efforts to keep food indulgences to a minimum, there are times when we find that it's nearly impossible to resist an extra helping of treats.
10 Unexpected Buildings Architects Turned Into Homes
When buying a home most of
us consider residential neighborhoods with traditional homes. Few would
consider the idea of converting nonresidential structures into homes but there
are those who are more adventurous. The range of unusual structures is broad;
from grain silos to old fire towers architects have stretched their
imaginations to create truly unique homes.
Alternative Medicine
Find solid information on
preventing and treating such things as insomnia, depression, motion sickness
and more from the University of Maryland Medical Center…
Also…look up answers to
medical questions at:
FreeKibble.com and FreeKibbleKat.com
post a fun new trivia question daily.
Try it out. Sponsors will donate
10 pieces of kibble to shelter pets.
The Nanny State Updates…
The Obama
Administration has announced that it will seek the expansion of the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) to include a wider range of espionage operations. The
move which has attracted little attention would create a large spy network in
the Pentagon as the same time that the CIA is moving to
build more of an independent air force and military operational capacity.
On September 13, 2012, the Dept of Homeland
Security graduated its first class of FEMA Corps youth, aka the Homeland Youth.
Image courtesy of DHS.gov.
Truth or Fiction? Here are two opposing views…
Donate your old
cell phone to the Petco Foundation and they’ll use the profits to rescue
animals-print a prepaid label at Petco.com/recycle and drop it in the mail.
The Parting Thought- Two-part series-thought crimes?
|
The United (Police) State of America
An Interview with Doug Casey |
|
Louis James: Doug, after
conversations like the one we had last week, we often get letters from angry
readers who accuse you of hating America, disloyalty, and perhaps even
treason. These people don’t know or understand what I do about you — that you
love the idea that was America. It’s the United State it has become for which
you have nothing but contempt. Perhaps we should try to explain this to them?
Doug Casey: I doubt it would work; it’s a tough row to hoe, trying to explain things to people who are so set in their thinking that they truly and literally don’t want to hear anything that might threaten their notions. A person who feels threatened by ideas and who responds with emotion is acting irrationally. How can we have a discussion with someone whose emotion trumps their reason? How do we even begin to untangle the thinking of people who [gathered two weeks ago] to give thanks for the bounty produced by freedom and hard work — the famous puritan work ethic — by eating a turkey bought with food stamps? But we can outline the ideas, for the record. Louis: I’ll bring a copy if they ever do put you on trial for thought crime — which is frighteningly close to being real these days and called treason to boot. Doug: It’s not just close; it’s here. Just try telling an unapproved joke in a security line in an airport these days. Louis: True enough. Where to begin? Doug: At the beginning. America was founded as a confederation of independent countries — that’s what a state is. Or was, in our language. The original United States of America was a confederation of countries that banded together for protection against larger and more powerful countries they feared might be hostile. This is not a disputed interpretation of history, but as solid a fact as the study of history produces — and yet a largely neglected one. |
But the seeds of destruction were already sown at the very beginning — with the Alien and Sedition Acts being perhaps the first highly visible step in the wrong direction. Then came the forceful assertion of one national government, with states reduced to administrative regions via the War of Southern Secession, from 1861- ’65. I’m no fan of state governments, incidentally, but at least they’re smaller and closer to their subjects than the federal government. Another major step in the wrong direction occurred with the Spanish-American War of 1898, where the US acquired an overseas empire by force. The next major step downhill was the creation of the Federal Reserve and the income tax, both in 1913, just in time for World War I. It took time for these things to make the system crash, because it was still a fairly free economy.
Louis: But crash it did in 1929...
Doug: Yes. And it led to the Great Depression of 1929-’46, which lasted so long entirely because of the unmitigated disaster of the New Deal (which we discussed recently). The New Deal injected socialist-fascist ideas into mainstream American thought like a poisonous acid, corrupting the heart of the idea of America that once made the place great. The process was completed with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, which really established the basis of the welfare-warfare state. It truly set the stage for the total ethical, economic, social, political, and even military disaster now unfolding before our eyes.
Still, the beating heart of the idea of America — which is to say both social and economic freedom — took time to corrupt. Like a strong man who doesn’t know he’s headed for a heart attack, American culture didn’t really peak until the 1950s. The bullet-finned 1959 Cadillac is a symbol of this peak, in my mind.
Louis: Then
we had Johnson and his “guns and butter” policy — War in Vietnam and War on
Poverty at the same time — followed by tricky Dick kicking the last leg out of
under the stool by taking the dollar off an even theoretical gold standard.
Doug: Yes. Nixon was arguably even a worse president than Johnson, with the devaluation of the dollar in 1971 and his creation of the War on Drugs. Things have spiraled out of control since then. In The Casey Report, we’ve written reams about these last decades and how they led to and shaped what’s happening now. But I have to say, the focus has been largely financial.
Louis: Which is as it should be, in a publication designed to help investors navigate these turbulent times.
Doug: Yes, but the corruption goes way beyond that, beyond even the senseless wars and idiotic foreign policy we discussed last week. America, once the land of the brave and the home of the free, is well on its way to becoming a police state — worse than any we’ve seen in the past, including the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Louis: How could it get worse than that?
Doug: Yes. Nixon was arguably even a worse president than Johnson, with the devaluation of the dollar in 1971 and his creation of the War on Drugs. Things have spiraled out of control since then. In The Casey Report, we’ve written reams about these last decades and how they led to and shaped what’s happening now. But I have to say, the focus has been largely financial.
Louis: Which is as it should be, in a publication designed to help investors navigate these turbulent times.
Doug: Yes, but the corruption goes way beyond that, beyond even the senseless wars and idiotic foreign policy we discussed last week. America, once the land of the brave and the home of the free, is well on its way to becoming a police state — worse than any we’ve seen in the past, including the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Louis: How could it get worse than that?
Doug: Because Big Brother has better technology now, allowing possible manipulation and control of the population that Stalin and Hitler never dreamed of. And because the US used to be such a great place, a lot of people have been tricked into believing it’s the same as it was. But there’s no more resemblance between the America of old and the US of today than there was between the Rome of the Republic and the Rome of the later emperors. Furthermore, most Americans have conflated the government with society. They’re not only different things, but often antithetical.
Louis: I thought you said you’re an optimist!
Doug: Because
Big Brother has better technology now, allowing possible manipulation and
control of the population that Stalin and Hitler never dreamed of. And because
the US used to be such a great place, a lot of people have been tricked into
believing it’s the same as it was. But there’s no more resemblance between the
America of old and the US of today than there was between the Rome of the
Republic and the Rome of the later emperors. Furthermore, most Americans have
conflated the government with society. They’re not only different things, but
often antithetical.
Louis: I thought you said you’re an optimist!
Doug: I am. But that’s for the survivors who make it through the wringer the global economy — and every person on this planet — is about to go through. I keep telling you that the coming Greater Depression is going to be even worse than I think it is. You may think I’m joking, but I’m not. I do think that, primarily for reasons we discussed in our conversation on technology, what comes next will not only be even better than I imagine, it will be better than I can imagine... but first we have to go through the wringer. I see no way around it. I truly don’t.
Louis: Okay, I know you believe that. Can you substantiate the police-state claim?
Doug: Well, rather than give you anecdotal evidence — of which there are masses more each day — let me refer to a rather perceptive blog post by a George Washington law professor named Jonathan Turley, titled 10 Reasons Why the US Is No Longer the Land of the Free. I’m sure I don’t see everything the way the professor does, but the list struck me as quite accurate and very important for people to understand.
Louis: I’m sure I don’t want to hear this, but okay, shoot.
Doug: [Chuckles] Maybe you don’t, but I know you value the truth. These points underline something I’ve said for years: the Bill of Rights is a completely dead letter. It’s essentially meaningless and rarely even gets the benefit of lip service. Quoting it will result in derision, if not arrest as a dangerous radical.
Louis: I thought you said you’re an optimist!
Doug: I am. But that’s for the survivors who make it through the wringer the global economy — and every person on this planet — is about to go through. I keep telling you that the coming Greater Depression is going to be even worse than I think it is. You may think I’m joking, but I’m not. I do think that, primarily for reasons we discussed in our conversation on technology, what comes next will not only be even better than I imagine, it will be better than I can imagine... but first we have to go through the wringer. I see no way around it. I truly don’t.
Louis: Okay, I know you believe that. Can you substantiate the police-state claim?
Doug: Well, rather than give you anecdotal evidence — of which there are masses more each day — let me refer to a rather perceptive blog post by a George Washington law professor named Jonathan Turley, titled 10 Reasons Why the US Is No Longer the Land of the Free. I’m sure I don’t see everything the way the professor does, but the list struck me as quite accurate and very important for people to understand.
Louis: I’m sure I don’t want to hear this, but okay, shoot.
Doug: [Chuckles] Maybe you don’t, but I know you value the truth. These points underline something I’ve said for years: the Bill of Rights is a completely dead letter. It’s essentially meaningless and rarely even gets the benefit of lip service. Quoting it will result in derision, if not arrest as a dangerous radical.
Frankly, I didn’t think the civil liberties situation
could get worse than it was under Cheney-Bush, but it has. Obama has repealed
none of what they did — and added more...
Regards,
Doug Casey,
for The Daily Reckoning
Regards,
Doug Casey,
for The Daily Reckoning
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1 comment:
Just love it...keep up the good work and our continued wishes for your health recovery.
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