This article is loaded with very important
information about the international banking system, the gold market and China’s
current activities. The insights about how the international monetary system
operates are very revealing. Jim Rickards is one of the most sought after
monetary experts in the world and I have been following his work for a long
time. Pay close attention to what Rickards says -- http://bonnerandpartners.com/weekend-edition-why-most-gold-bugs-are-dead-wrong/
Saturday, May 16, 2015
Friday, May 15, 2015
Friday, April 17, 2015
Can the Political-Financial Power Complex be Redeemed?
Back
in the eighteenth century, Voltaire wrote that, “With Great Power, there must
also come Great Responsibility.” Stan Lee echoed the sentiment in his first
Spiderman comic book in 1962. Recent financial leaders have shown no such
affinity toward responsibility. Instead, the Big Six bank leaders exercise a
historically dangerous power while enjoying Washington’s full ideological and
financial support with no strings attached. Lax regulators, politicians eager
for lucrative private sector jobs after public service and we taxpayers,
subsidize them. Their firms’ fraudulent practices transcend borders. During the
past three decades, America’s most elite bankers have worked strategically to
bend the banking system, the laws, and the federal government to support their
supremacy. Read the complete article at -- http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2015/04/08/can-the-political-financial-power-complex-be-redeemed/
Thursday, April 2, 2015
What is Power?
Power
is ability to move someone or something from one place to another, to do something
or not do something.
● Power consists of persuasion or force.
● Persuasion is when the cause of
movement or action comes from within a person or thing.
● Force is when the cause of movement or
actions from outside a person or thing.
● The promise of a reward or threat of harm
is a form of persuasion.
● Physically pushing someone or
something from one place to another is a form of force.
● Laws are a form of persuasion.
● A prison is a form of force.
● Money is the greatest instrument of persuasion.
● Money only exists by persuasion.
● The larger the number of people that
act together, the greater the power.
Become
aware of the power matrix in which you and the rest of us live. Many uses of
power are done in the open, but many others are being done in stealth through mass communication systems and social media without our being aware of them.
Cogitate
on this for a while!
The
Country Cogitator
Friday, February 6, 2015
Does Your Pharmacy Have the Same Problem as Cleburne’s Walgreen Pharmacy?
As
I rounded the corner to head down the aisle to the pharmacy, I saw the dreaded
sight – a line that extended across the
aisle I was on and across part of the next aisle. So, I changed my course
and moved over to that aisle so I could intercept the line and find my place at
the end. Once in line I realized it would probably not be as bad as I first
though because there were only four people in front of me – for some reason they decided to keep a safe
distance of about 4 ft. between them.
You
know how it is when you submit to “the line.” Our senses start taking in
everything in our surrounding – probably inherited
this from our ancestors who wanted to make sure there were no mountain lines or
rattlesnakes close by where they were waiting in line for a drink of water.
This makes us really good at spotting potential threats – and I did. Over to
the left there were four people sitting in chairs waiting on prescriptions and
outside the drive thru window there were two cars. We were all looking toward
one spot – and that spot was occupied by
one young woman. There were ten of us all looking at her!
I
quickly noticed that she was looking somewhere too – back in the pharmacy where
there were three or four other Walgreen employees staying business and making
sure they made no eye contact with us.
After
about 25 or more minutes standing in line, I made it to her – provided the
usual stuff – name, address, DOB. She
went over and picked up a bag and handed it to me and told me to put my info in
the system. When she told me the price I asked her if that was correct, it was
only about half what it was supposed to be – and then it happened. She looked
in the bag and there was only one bottle. Then she went back to the computer
and clicked and said – they only filled one prescription. With a strained
forced smile she said – “Would you like
wait for us to fill it – in about another 30 minutes?”
That’s
when I decided this Walgreen pharmacy has a problem. A problem is an existing
situation that fails to meet values and expectations.” So I analyzed the
situation and came up with the following options for what the problem is:
(1) Customers are less important than
other things.
(2) Employees that interact with
customers are too expensive to hire.
(3) Too many customers show at once.
(4) Too many customers show up at the
wrong time.
After
cogitating on this highly important situation I reached this conclusion – This Walgreen Pharmacy must have too many
customers!
What
do you think? Got any suggestions?
The
Country Cogitator
PS I feel a little better now.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Secret Meeting, Too Big to Fail & Too Powerful to Prosecute
What
would you think if a CNN Breaking News announcement interrupted the regular
program and a reporter appeared announcing that the US Assistant Secretary of
the Treasury, a US Senator, and five high level officers of the largest banks
in America had been discovered secretly meeting to create a system in which
private banks would take control of the entire monetary system of the USA?
In
November 1910, CNN did not exist, but the meeting described above took place.
The men traveled by private train to a private resort owned by J. P. Morgan at Jekyll Island off the Georgia coast.
Those present were:[i]
(1) Frank Vanderlip, President of Rockefeller’s
National City Bank of New York.
(2) Henry P. Davidson, senior partner of J. P. Morgan & Co.
(3) Charles D. Norton, President of Morgan-controlled First National Bank of
New York.
(4) Benjamin Strong, Vice President of Morgan-controlled Bankers Trust.
(5) Paul Warburg, a German immigrant and
senior partner of Kuhn Loeb & Co.
(6) A. Platt Anderson, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury of the United States.
(7) Senator Nelson Aldrich, chairman of the
Senate Finance Committee, and father-in-law
of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
Warburg’s
plan proposed the creation of the Federal
Reserve Association, an association with twelve member banks whose stock would be owned by private stockholders.
The Federal Reserve Association would control the nation’s money and credit; it
would be a bank of issue, meaning the private
bankers would be able to create currency or money at will, and it would finance
the Government by securing credit in times of war. Senator Aldrich later
admitted the agenda in a magazine article:
Before passage
of this Act, the New York Bankers could only dominate the reserves of New York.
Now we are able to dominate bank reserves of the entire country.[ii]
Contrary to what many Americans
believe -- the Federal Reserve System is
not a government agency. It is a private corporation completely owned by
commercial banks. What do you believe is their top priority – making the most money or increasing the quality
of life for the most Americans?
The one thing I can’t figure out is why so many Americans
have bought into the mantra – “the less
government regulation the better off America will be.” Who do you think
benefits the most from less regulation? Could it be –
Banks that are too big to fail!
&
Bankers that are too powerful to prosecute!
Or,
as US Attorney General Eric Holder said:
"I am concerned that the size of
some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for
us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if you do prosecute,
if you do bring a criminal charge, it will have a negative impact on the
national economy, perhaps even the world economy."[iii]
Now
that’s the ideal situation for an elite few – but I don’t think it is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they
created our great nation. Tocqueville predicted that if American citizens failed to voluntarily associate together to achieve great
things by participating in the governing process, the following will happen:
(1) Wealthy and powerful men would come to
control the governing process and use it to increase their power and wealth.
(2) Individuals will become powerless because
they dependent on wealthy and powerful individuals.
(3) Freedom and liberty will be in great
jeopardy and the existence of the nation will be endangered.
Cogitate on that
awhile!
The
Country Cogitator
Banking 101
Introduction
How
important is money to most people? It is clearly a basic requirement for life
and most people spend the majority of their lives working to acquire it. So,
what do you know about money itself? Do you know the answers to these
questions?
(1) What
is money?
(2) Where
does it come from?
(3) Who
makes it?
Wouldn’t
you think that people who spend so much time and effort trying to acquire money
would make it their business to know as much as possible about money? How many
courses about money did you take in high school and college? Doesn’t that seem
strange?
The
reason the masses aren’t taught about money and the banking system is probably
because those who control the banking and monetary systems do not want them to
know what they have done in the past and what they are doing now. We are about
to change things and let the genie out of the box.
What is money?
The
answer we are going to give for this question is for what money was before the
1970s. There have been significant changes since then.
(1) commodity money – A commodity is something
useful or valued.[i]
It is something that can be traded for something else. In the history of
mankind, a wide range of commodities have served as money: salt,
hides, cattle, slaves, tobacco, sugar, metals, silver, and gold, to name a few.
At any moment in time, there are likely to be several commodities that strive
for the position of being the universal standard for pricing (dollars, ounces
of gold, number of cows, etc.).[ii]
(2) fiat money -- Fiat money replaces
commodity money with valueless and
inconvertible symbols issued by the state. It ultimately rests on social
trust in the ability of the state to enforce payments in this form of money; it
competes with commodity money and restricts the presence of the latter in the
sphere of exchange; it also provides a standard unit of account for prices.
Fiat money can take several forms varying from cheap metallic coin, to crude
paper monies with forced circulation, to sophisticated legal tender issued by
central banks and backed by state debt.[iii]
(3) credit money -- Credit money is
a privately issued form of money that results from credit relations among
agents of circulation. It is inherently a promise to pay in the future, a
liability of the issuer. Credit money is normally created as financial
institutions issue liabilities to finance the loans they make. By the same
token, credit money returns to its issuer as loans mature (liabilities drain
away). Final settlement requires either cancellation against another promise to
pay, or the intervention of commodity or fiat money. [iv]
So,
money can be a commodity, something that is valueless issued by the state, or a
promise to pay something in the future. This is probably not the definition you
had in mind a few seconds ago. The
acceptance of fiat or credit money ultimately rests on social trust in the ability of the state to enforce payments
in that form of money.[v]
If a society does not have that trust, it will turn to commodity money instead.
The bottom line is that the whole USA monetary systems ultimately exists because of one thing -- TRUST! The government's -- and the 1%'s -- greatest fear is that people will stop trusting the system.
Cogitate on that for awhile!
The Country Cogitator
Friday, August 29, 2014
State’s 1st bullet train to chase A&M’s Hwy. 6 ghosts
 |
| Fightin' Foobirds! Fish Class, Air Force Squadron 14, Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, '62-'63. Yours truly, corner, lower right, bewildered as ever. "Big Red," or Amos DeWitt, my fish old lady, is on top row beside tequila bottle, with white glove and fingers high. Crazy bunch. We really, really, really did know what Life was about then. |
The announcement this week Texas’ new bullet train expected to run within 10 years between Dallas and Houston will make just one stop (just off Hwy. 6 at Aggieland in College Station) is proof once again either “any blind raccoon can find an acorn or two if it just keeps scratching around” or, doubly so, "ghosts don’t live forever."
Indeed, the train caps a splashy PR campaign to reverse the school’s negative image vis a vis "modern times" that started a half century ago.
And it sure ‘nuff shreds a “locked-in” location moniker that no doubt either kept or drove thousands away from the school, too. Highway 6, not interstates, is how you reach A&M. So plan on staying a while, it was. Especially in the old days.
It hasn’t been but 50 some-odd years, yes, since only gung-ho, idealistic Army or Air Force wannabes, or passing-down farmers or ranchers kids mostly, or naive idiots like my fellow blogger Jim Myers and I, dared to venture off to Aggieland for college – to forced ROTC life in the mean Corps of Cadets. A powerful 12th man!
After barbers shaved off all our hair from our heads and we were put in military uniforms to march for an hour or so under a hot Texas afternoon sun, we were put at “Parade, rest!” in front of our barracks/dorms.
Before being dismissed, a steel-jawed first-sergeant walked angrily before each one of us – his glowing-red eyeballs glued to our faces as he passed by, watching us for a sign of weakness, just a twitch – row after row, while shouting long-lived words like these:
“Texas A&M put more military officers in World War II than any other military school in this country! Be proud you’re here! You hear!!? If not, if you don’t like it, always remember – Highway 6 runs both ways!! Take one of ’em!!!”
Hee, hee. After that first year, that’s exactly what Jim and I did. Flew the coop to happier learning grounds.
Huge setback for both of us, of course. Starting off college by gittin’ outta Dodge City isn’t exactly a textbook case on how to begin a college education.
But Texas A&M didn’t exactly offer the textbook campus life Jim and I had envisioned growing up in Cleburne either.
Should’ve prepared ourselves better? Cram all of that to see in one weekend visit our senior year in high school? Not quite. Sure wish the internet had been around then with the com boxes to get into, though. Whoo!
But it was a valuable lesson in life for each of us, too, the long and short of it was.
“Put more glue on your hands. There might be times when you might want to hang around a while longer. Life has a way of changing.”
Change came, too, for the old school. ’62-’63 (our year) was the last year Texas A&M refused to admit female students, for instance. Hwy. 6 became a co-ed highway. Just behind that was lifting the 2-year Corps membership requirement.
Top athletes around the country started giving the campus a second look, in the years that followed. The focus on academics intensified. Research, always A&M’s core strength, grew more prominent as corporate growth funneled more funds into the institution.
To thousands and thousands of graduates and their families over the years, Aggieland always has been one of the best, if not the best, campus in the nation. What has evolved through the past half century is now more people know it.
Soon the only stop between Dallas and Houston, on the only bullet train in the State of Texas, will be at A&M.
Would I let my teenage daughter go to school there in a few years on an academic scholarship, if she became interested?
La-dee-da! The times they are a changin’, ain’t they?!!
---------------------
Here's the link again on the Fort Worth Star Telegram train story. http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/08/27/6072469/high-speed-rail-gaining-steam.html?rh=1
–– 30 –-
Friday, August 15, 2014
Power: Some things history reveals about it.
I
was working on a project today and came across a paper I filed away a few years
ago about “power.” So, after cogitating on it for a little while, I decided to
share some of the highlights with you. Understanding what power is and some
time-tested truths about it is an essential step to more accurately understanding
history, as well as changing things today.
What is power?
Power is the
capacity of some persons to realize their wishes; to produce the effects they
want to produce; and to produce intended and foreseen effects on others.
(1) Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. -- Whether it is
kings, presidents, or CEOs, or petty tyrants around the community, they get so
full of themselves that they cut corners, cheat, treat people badly, or make
such gross displays of their status that they alienate their followers or stir
up an opposition.
(2)
The fact that power corrupts
means that power congeals. -- People
and organization try to hold on to power at all costs. Once there is a power
structure, it is very hard to change it or dislodge it.
(3) The powerful always try to create an outside enemy, real or imagined, to
bind the followers to the leaders. -- The
human tendency to divide people into "us" and "them," which
social psychology experiments suggest is readily triggered, makes this a very
easy task to accomplish.
(4) Divide and conquer. -- If
the followers are not faithfully bound to the leader by the dread of the
outside enemy, then leaders can stay in power by favoring some followers and
punishing others.
(5) Provide the followers with bread and circuses. Capitalize
on the fact that people's everyday life can be compelling for many reasons: a
love of friends and family, pleasure in work or artistic or athletic skills,
and a desire for routines. If everyday life is possible, then people are less
likely to try to challenge a power structure.
(6) The powerful believe that the enemy of their enemy is their
friend. -- Only by understanding this axiom is it
possible to realize that there is a rationale to the constantly shifting
alliances that occur in human power struggles at any level from the personal to
the international. When the issue is power, principles usually go out the
window.
Source:
Basics of Studying Power
by G. William Domhoff / April 2005 -- http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/methods/studying_power.html
Thanks for join the cogitation emergence!
JM
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Why do we let them exploit us?
The
French historian and progressive philosopher Fernand Braudel observed that throughout
history there seemed to be a minority of people who:
(1) held power and wealth
(2) ruled society
(3) exploited the population to sustain
their power and privilege
In
America the “population” is called “citizens.” An interesting thing happens
when we flip the list above and read it like this: There seems to be a minority
of people who exploit (use selfishly for one's own ends)
the citizens:
(1) to sustain their power &
privilege
(2) to rule society
(3) to acquire their power & wealth
This
raises the following questions:
(1) How do they exploit the citizens?
(2) How do they use the government to
rule citizens?
(3) How do they hold their power &
wealth?
When
we know the answers to the above questions, we can then discover the names of:
(1) those who hold power & wealth
(2) those who do the acts of exploitation
(3) government officials who make it
possible for the minority to rule citizens
(4) those who hold the minority’s wealth
for them
Knowing
who the predators are is an important & necessary component for solving
many of the problems we face today. But, it isn't as important or as big of a
challenge as the solving the primary problem: the ability for citizens to work together for a common purpose.
For
this to happen each citizen have to come together as “members of the common
purpose group” instead of “members of special interests groups” or the “crowd
of complaining passive observers.” The minority who holds the power, wealth
& privilege isn't worried – they know
history is on their side – citizens rarely work together.
(1) What if citizens could come together
because they agree on a common purpose?
(2) What if they worked together to
achieve that common purpose?
(3) What if they chose leaders who were
committed to the common purpose?
(4) What if professionals committed to
the common purpose?
Real
change begins with finding a common purpose and making a commitment to working
with fellow citizens, neighbors, family members, friends, workers, network
associates, and anyone else to make the common purpose the reality for the
population. What do you think should be the common purpose? Cogitate on that!
JM
The
Country Cogitator
PS
- If you think this is worth cogitating on please let me know by “Liking” my Facebook
page – Click Here.
Monday, August 4, 2014
Mean old “rulemakers” pick on “big old bank.”
Do you feel sorry for a company that
just reported a $12.3 billion profit and whose chairman is complaining that
things would have been better if it had not needed to “invest significant time
and resources” in meeting the “heightened and evolving expectations of our
regulators.”
The problem is that rulemakers are
putting “unprecedented” pressure on the bank and distracting its staff. It has 256,000 employees, but has
“extremely limited space capacity” to deal with the “increasingly fragmented,
often extra-territorial, still evolving” rules.
- Those mean old US rulemakers hit the bank with a $1.9 billion fine for breaking anti-money-laundering rules -- most notably managing transfers for Mexican drug cartels.
- It has paid $2.7 billion in restitution for more than one million mis-sold insurance policies in Britain.
- It is under investigation in just about every rate-rigging case out there, from Libor to foreign-exchange, gold, silver and other benchmarks.
- It is sitting on $3.3 billion in provisions for unspecified future legal problems.
What are those places called that are referred to as “extra-territorial”
and "their rules?" They are called "sovereign nations" and their rules are called "laws."
If you really want to be
entertained, download the annual report from the link in the article below and go to page 259 and read its legal
laundry list.
Read this very interesting and enlightening article at -- http://qz.com/244328/hsbc-is-looking-for-sympathy-after-reporting-a-12-3-billion-profit/#/h/92259,1,92260,1,92262,5/
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Economic Facts Instead of Political Propaganda
James
Rickards, the author of The Death of
Money: The Coming Collapse of the International Monetary System (a must
read) has written a great article about the real economic conditions of America
today. Below is a summary of important facts.
Listening
to mainstream market commentary on television and reading the financial press
leaves one with the impression that the economic recovery is gaining strength
and that stock market indices, at or near all-time highs, will go higher still.
But, the facts show that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are awful and getting
worse.
(1) It was
reported that 288,000 jobs were created in June, but full-time jobs declined by
523,000 while part time jobs increased by about 800,000. Part-time jobs offer fewer
hours, lower pay and few benefits.
(2) There are
7.5 million people working part-time on an involuntary basis compared to about
4.4 million doing so in 2007. Employers are aware of this and simply cut
full-time jobs and replace them with part-timers to reduce costs.
(3) Much of the
decline in the declining unemployment rate is attributable not to job creation
but to the declining number of people looking for work. According to the “rigged
standard” they use, once people stop looking for a job, they are no longer
technically “unemployed” and no longer counted as “unemployed.” The
unemployment rate would be zero if everyone stopped looking for work. Only
62.8% of Americans participate in the work force today.
(4) Productivity
of those working is now in decline.
(5) Real wages
are stagnant.
(6) Over 50
million on food stamps, 11 million on disability, and millions more on extended
unemployment benefits.
(7) These are
the real reasons for the shocking 2.9 percent decline in first quarter GDP. It was
not the result of “cold weather.”
You
should also be aware of the following:
(1) China is
slowing precipitously and may be on the brink of a credit collapse.
(2) European
growth is near zero.
(3) The mighty
German economy is slowing partly because of weaker demand from Ukraine, Russia
and China.
(4) U.S.
financial markets appear to be growing bubbles.
(5) US stock
indices are at all-time highs while economic fundamentals fall apart.
(6) The
structural reform that is required for a turnaround can only come from
structural reform, which is the job of the White House and Congress, not the
Federal Reserve. This looks unlikely because they are barely speaking.
Read
the complete article at – http://www.darientimes.com/33772/rickards-stock-market-reality-check/
For
information about The Death of Money
or to purchase it go to -- http://www.amazon.com/The-Death-Money-Collapse-International/dp/1591846706/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=thebiblicalherit&linkCode=w00&linkId=DNKTKXFS5M3YGCU6&creativeASIN=1591846706
That's today's cogitation!
JM
That's today's cogitation!
JM
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Has Wall Street’s Day of Judgment Come? Powerful Corporations Sue Big Banks for $250 Billion.
For years, homeowners have been
battling Wall Street in an attempt to recover some portion of their massive
losses from the housing Ponzi scheme. But progress has been slow, as they have
been outgunned and out-spent by the banking titans. In June, however, the banks
may have met their match, as some equally powerful titans strode onto the
stage. Investors led by BlackRock,
the world’s largest asset manager, and PIMCO,
the world’s largest bond-fund manager, have sued some of the world’s largest
banks for breach of fiduciary duty as trustees of their investment funds.
The defendants are the so-called
trust banks that oversee payments and enforce terms on more than $2 trillion in
residential mortgage securities. They include units of Deutsche Bank AG, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, HSBC Holdings PLC,
and Bank of New York Mellon Corp. Six nearly identical complaints charge
the trust banks with breach of their duty to force lenders and sponsors of the
mortgage-backed securities to repurchase defective loans.
Beyond
the legal issues are the implications for the solvency of the banking system
itself. The world’s largest banks are considered “too big to fail” for a
reason. The fractional reserve banking scheme is a form of shell game (click
here for info about fractional reserve banking).
Theoretically,
deposits under $250,000 are protected by FDIC deposit insurance. But the
FDIC fund contains only about $47 billion – a mere 20% of the Black Rock/PIMCO
damage claims. Before 2010, the FDIC could borrow from the Treasury if it
ran short of money. But since the Dodd Frank Act eliminates government
bailouts, the availability of Treasury funds for that purpose is now in doubt.
Read
the complete article at -- http://www.occupy.com/article/big-banks-hit-monster-250-billion-lawsuit-housing-crisis
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Do you really believe this media blitz is about the kids at the border?
More
than 52,000 unaccompanied children have crossed the U.S. border since October
2013, a 92 percent increase from the same time period last year. [i]
I am sure you have noticed the media blast about the “kids
crossing the border.” Do you believe that all of this attention is really about
those kids? Pay close attention to what the spin doctors are cranking out about
them:
(1) physical dangers to their lives
(2) hunger
(3) homelessness
(4) need of healthcare
(5) lack of opportunities
I do not want to imply that these kids should not be
helped, but I have no doubt that the needs of children are why the media is
being flooded with hours and hours of coverage every day – and most of it is coming from interviews with politicians.
What happened? All of the sudden did every politician
become zealously consumed with meeting the needs of children? You might want to
consider a few questions:
(1) Why now?
(2) Why just children coming across the southern border?
(3) Why are they silent about tens-of-millions American children with the
same needs?
A history lesson that isn’t being taught in most schools
and universities is that of the Committee
on Public Information (CPI) and
how it was used to intentionally manipulate the views of American citizens to
enter World War I. It was so successful that it literally changed power
dynamics in the world. Today, it is used not only by governments, but powerful
individuals, corporations, organizations, etc.
The story begins on April 13, 1917 when the Wilson White
House created the most impressive propaganda bureau the world had ever seen --
the Committee on Public Information
(CPI). Wilson named George Creel to head it and he was
joined by one of the shrewdest propagandists in American history, Edward Bernays. Benays brought with him intimate knowledge of
a new branch of human psychology, which had not yet been translated into
English. He was the exclusive literary agent in America for his uncle, the Austrian
psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.[ii] Bernays
would describe his work as “the
engineering of consent.” He acquired the title, “the father of spin,” -- the
technique of manipulating the reality of the masses to produce his desired ends.
New breakthroughs in psychology and communications
technology merged to create a power tool that could be used to persuade the
masses. Bernays wrote two books – Crystallizing
Public Opinion [iii] and Propaganda [iv]
-- that reveal a great deal about his method. In the opening paragraph of
Propaganda Bernays wrote:
The
conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of
the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate
this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is
the true ruling power of our country. [v]
Bernays draws a stark contrast between the “intelligent
few” and the “public mind:
It
was of course the astonishing success of propaganda during the war that opened
the eyes of the intelligent few . . . to the possibilities of regimenting the
public mind. [vi]
Regimenting is defined as “to organize rigidly especially for the sake
of regulation or control.” [vii] Bernays
continues:
The
American government developed a technique which . . . was new . . . the
manipulation of patriotic opinion made use of the mental clichés and the
emotional habits of the public to produce mass reactions against the alleged
atrocities, the terror, and the tyranny of the enemy. It was only natural,
after the war ended, that intelligent persons should ask themselves whether it
was possible to apply a similar technique to the problems of peace. [viii]
Take a close look at the things Bernays used to
manipulate the masses. I think you will find that are still being used
frequently & successfully today.
(1) patriotism
(2) mental clichés
(3) emotional habits
(4) alleged atrocities
(5) terror
(6) identifying an enemy
Who are the “intelligent few” that are working to control
the minds of the American citizens? Bernays writes:
Who are the men who, without our realizing
it, give us our ideas, tell us whom to admire and whom to despise, what to
believe . . . There are invisible rulers who control the
destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words
and actions of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons
operating behind the scenes. Nor, what is still
more important, the extent to which our thoughts and habits are modified by
authorities. . . we are ruled by dictators exercising great power. . . The invisible
government tends to be concentrated in the hands of the few because of the expense
of manipulating the social machinery which controls the opinions and habits of
the masses. . . . The leaders
who lend their authority to any propaganda campaign will do so only if it can
be made to touch their own interests. [ix]
The “invisible few” are not the elected officials. They
are the powerful wealthy elite who can afford to buy expertise, media access,
and influence elected officials. This is not an organized conspiracy in which
they all have the same agenda – even
though they probably want the same outcomes – wealth, power & control.
(1) Why do the “invisible few” want your attention focused on the southern
border?
(2) What do they not want you to focus on?
(3) How do your values compare with their agendas?
Well, time-tested wisdom says – “follow the money if you want to know the truth!”
Add to it the new wisdom that says – “It’s all about positioning & polarizing.”
I forgot to tell you that the “invisible few” have persuaded
our elected officials to pass laws that make it almost impossible to discover
whose receiving their funds. They make it seem like they know they are guilty
of doing something bad.
That’s my cogitations for the day.
JM - The Country Cogitator
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Some Cogitations for the Day
Citizens should have the right to determine the profits
corporations make from goods & services citizens are required by law to
purchase. (The Country Cogitator – follow on Twitter)
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than
ignorance. (George Bernard Shaw)
Associate with men of
good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone
than in bad company.
(George Washington)Saturday, June 21, 2014
Moaning, Groaning & Complaining
Don’t criticize unless you can do better –
beginning with identifying the specific causes of a problem and offering
specific ways to “fix” it.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
US Constitution or Corporate Markets?
Which
should be the highest authority?
● According to
our political system it is the “state” governed by the rule of law for the
benefit of citizens.
● According to multinational
corporations it is “markets” governed by CEOs for the benefit of shareholders.
So,
which should be America’s highest priority – the values established by the
Founding Fathers or the highest profits CEOs can produce? What will the future
of -- and life in -- America be if the authority system of multinational corporations
governs the world?
Cogitate
on that -- and share your wisdom with your elected representatives!
Friday, June 13, 2014
"Set aside sectarian differences" - Are You Kidding!!!
I
love the term “set aside sectarian
differences.” I just heard President Obama use it in an interview about
what’s gone wrong in Iraq. Did the military advisors of Bush I & Bush II
really think that the success of two military invasions would be accomplished
because the leaders of the nations of the Middle East would really “set aside
sectarian differences?” Did they believe
that after foreign armies marched through their lands centuries of tribal
hatred and a century of battles between oil corporations for the black gold
would simply magically disappear?
Sectarian
means “narrowly confined or devoted to a particular sect; narrowly confined or limited
in interest, purpose, scope, etc.” What is a sect? It is any group,
party, or faction united by a specific doctrine (belief) or under a doctrinal leader.
I have an idea.
You know it’s always better to teach something by showing and demonstrating how
it works than by simply describing it – for
example, how to fly a jet plane. What if all it took to get a license to
fly jets was to complete an online course -- but never get into the cockpit of a real jet plane? Would you take
a ride with a pilot trained like that?
So here is my
idea. How about our political leaders showing
the leaders of the Middle East nations how to “setting aside sectarian differences”
by “setting aside their sectarian (political) differences” and governing our
nation -- guarding and protecting the
people that elected them?
If our leaders did that – the shock might scare “the
sectarianism” out of a lot of leaders around the world!
JM
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