Erstwhile Urban Wanderer

August 29, 2008 – Whimsical, cynical mental diversion about a diabolical but purely fictional “plan” presented before a purely fictional audience of pharmaceutical industry representatives a couple of decades ago. This “plan” was formulated from my observations about the current state of affairs pertaining to the use of pharmaceuticals. While I am a lover of conspiracy theories, this is not a conspiracy theory; it’s merely intended to be wry and thought provoking.

By Dave Eriqat

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very pleased to be here today. I won’t attempt to start my presentation with a joke because I always seem to forget the punchline!

[Laughter]

Instead of a joke, I would like to present to you what I believe is a road map for our industry for the next century that will make us all fabulously wealthy!

[Applause]

What is our business? It’s selling drugs. We don’t make any more money if our drugs “cure” an RB! For you newbies in the audience, “RB” doesn’t stand for “rube,” although that wouldn’t be inappropriate. It stands for “revenue body,” or what we oldtimers used to refer to as “patients.”

[Laughter]

We only make money if we can keep on selling drugs to an RB. The more drugs we can sell an RB, the better. In fact, if one drug makes the RB sick and another drug can be sold to treat the symptoms of the first, then so much the better!

[Applause]

Now, I won’t lie to you. We face an uphill struggle to implement this plan. Americans generally like to think of themselves as strong and independent, and thus they’ve traditionally shunned taking medications for any length of time. We’ve got to change the public perception of medications from one of treating disease to one of enhancing health. Our advertising guys can probably take care of that. In fact, they’re already working on a campaign to convince the public that taking aspirin on a regular basis enhances health by reducing the likelihood of heart attacks. But aspirin is just a test case. It’s small potatoes compared to the drugs we’d like to sell. For those RBs who are resistant to advertising, it would help to enlist the aid of government to force certain kinds of medications, such as vaccines, onto the public, as well as to neutralize competing medications, food supplements and healthful foods.

[Murmuring agreement]

In today’s competitive business climate it’s not good enough to simply wait around for an RB to get sick. So this plan contains proactive measures to help create new RBs to consume our product. One way, a bit heavy-handed but effective, is to induce illness in the public. Horrifying as it sounds, there are plenty of sanitary ways of inducing illness that are several steps removed from our industry, affording us plausible deniability. Another way to manufacture RBs is by convincing people, through advertising, that ordinary phenomena are cause for alarm and are best treated by our medications. And let me stress this point: Under no circumstances should we ever allow RBs to recognize that their ailments are lifestyle-related and correctable by making changes to their lifestyle! Empowering the RBs like that is suicidal for our business. We must present our industry as the sole remedy for all of life’s aches and pains and discomforts. Our goal should be to get every American woman, man, child and infant to consume at least one pill daily!

[Hearty applause]

So without further ado, let’s get to the slides.

Enlisting Government

Currently, direct advertising of our product on television and in other media is not permitted. Our lobbyists are working now to get the law changed to permit direct advertising. Once this is accomplished we will be able to enlist the RBs themselves in our marketing efforts!

We must eliminate all competing products, including dietary supplements, vitamins, herbs and illegal drugs. The plan here is to first crack down on fringe supplements, then move on to vitamins and eventually even home-grown herbs. We must also ensure continued maintenance of existing prohibitions on illegal drugs, particularly marijuana, which unfortunately seems to have numerous medicinal benefits. Marijuana is our number one adversary.

Since we obviously want to build automatic price increases into our product …

[Applause]

… we certainly want to get the government into the business of buying our product! I believe that with the right legislative persuasion we can get Medicare to start paying for drugs for RBs. Once that happens it will open the door to automatic 100% annual increases in our product prices.

[Applause]

Now, government can really give us a hand in the proactive area too. Once we’ve gotten dietary supplements off the market, food nutrition itself is the natural next target. If we can reduce the nutritional quality of food, people can eat as much of the stuff as they want and it won’t result in any improvement to their health. They’ll have no choice but to come to us for health maintenance drugs.

Some researchers are reporting promising results in the area of radiation. They’ve discovered that irradiating food destroys its nutritional value, especially in raw produce. The RBs might as well eat cake!

[Applause and laughter]

Of course, the public is uneasy about radiation, but it’s nothing that can’t be overcome with a few highly publicized food-borne disease outbreaks. After that the public will clamor for irradiation!

We are in the process of researching ways to accelerate dependence of RBs on our product. One of the most expedient approaches is to simply spray toxic chemicals into the atmosphere. But this is a costly approach, which is why government involvement is a must. We figure that we can spray these chemicals into the atmosphere and the RBs will assume that they are ordinary jet exhaust trails, that is, if they even bother to pay attention to the skies. This technique is ideal for creating all manner of respiratory problems requiring chronic treatment regimens using our products!

[Applause]

There is a huge and untapped captive market for our vaccine producing members: schoolchildren. Not enough parents are getting their children vaccinated, so if we can get the government to mandate – or at least strongly “suggest” – vaccinations for schoolchildren, we can significantly increase the size of our market overnight. Once we establish a precedent for forced vaccinations, there’s no limit to the number of vaccines we can sell. As I speak before you, scientists in our industry are working on a vaccine for HPV that they hope can be administered to girls as young as ten years old, and that’s just a hint of the bright future that awaits us!

[Hearty applause]

We need the government to pass laws enforcing intellectual property rights. We can’t have low cost producers in other countries mimicking our drugs. If necessary, we can lower our prices to what the market will bear in each country, but we cannot have them making their own copies of our drugs. Intellectual property rights is equally important to our friends in the genetically modified foods industry as well, and I will discuss their cooperation with us a little later in the presentation.

Finally, we need to press for new laws to protect us from product liability lawsuits. This agenda is even more important as we embark on this aggressive development and marketing program.

Advertising

It goes without saying that once the government legalizes direct advertising we will need to substantially boost our advertising budgets. I’m talking about a saturated campaign, in print media, on television and radio. I’d like to see every RB exposed to at least ten pharmaceutical ads a day!

[Applause]

Through effective advertising, we can recruit the RBs themselves as unwitting representatives! We’ll make sure the doctors are so overburdened and properly motivated that they’ll simply prescribe whatever the RB asks for. Once that happens, our advertising team will do the rest.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this presentation. a big problem for us is the disease stigma associated with medications. We need to change that image and make it OK for RBs to be taking medications daily, even multiple medications. We need to make consumption of medications look like fun, and even be seen as sexy. We need to cast medications in the light of enhancing health rather than treating disease, so our advertisements must show RBs engaged in active, fun activities and always smiling, while making it clear that our product is responsible for their vitality. Think of the old cigarette advertisements as a model. We can also indulge in a little stealth advertising, perhaps by getting late night comedians to tell jokes about our products and their side effects. The jokes may be on us, but we’ll be the ones laughing all the way to the bank!

[Applause and laughter]

I always say America is the most innovative country on earth. Let’s apply that innovation to our industry. If a malady doesn’t exist for a drug we have to sell, let’s invent one!

[Laughter]

The other day my wife was telling me about her friend who was having trouble sleeping because her legs moved around a lot during the night. My wife’s story inspired an epiphany: Why not create a disease – call it “restless leg syndrome” – and then sell a drug to treat it? That’s the kind of innovation we ought to be exploring in our industry. In case you think I’m joking, I took my idea to our R&D department and they think it has promise!

[Laughter]

Now, there are a lot of obstinate Americans who won’t go along with our program. Unfortunately, they might set an unwelcome example for others to follow. So to nip that sort of thing in the bud it’s important for our advertising campaign to paint such people as Luddites at best and guilty of dangerous negligence at worst. For example, some high-profile legal cases involving parents who refuse to vaccinate their children would go a long way toward demonizing such people and cement our product in the category of conventional wisdom.

Finally, although we are campaigning to avoid having to list side effects of our medications in advertisements, there’s a good chance we will have to do so. By all means, people, don’t make the mistake of listing the side effects in a sober, frightening way! List them quickly and in a cheery voice! Heck, make the side effects sound like fun too!

[Laughter]

Enlisting Doctors and the Medical Industry

I cannot overemphasize the value of giving free samples of our product to doctors. It’s the second part of an effective two-pronged marketing strategy, the other part being direct advertising to the RBs.

Of course, ingratiating ourselves to the doctors is also a good way to get them to “push” our product. Spare no expense wining and dining doctors, paying for their travel to medical “conferences” and giving them gifts. Just remember to put your company name and phone number on the damned gifts!

[Laughter]

We should cultivate contacts within medical schools and medical journals to emphasize drugs over other approaches to health maintenance, especially lifestyle changes!

We should encourage a greater and greater dissemination of information, especially contradictory information. The idea would be to so overload the doctors and RBs with confusing information that they will have no choice but to take our word for it that our drugs are effective.

We should work with the health insurance companies to emphasize drugs over other treatments and tie this in with government participation in paying for drugs. If we present our proposal properly, we can appeal to the health insurance companies’ natural predisposition to share in the profits. By diverting health care dollars from doctors to drugs we can also increase the workload on doctors, making them even less likely to resist our marketing appeals.

Controlling Studies

In order to maintain our product image, we must control studies of our product’s safety and efficacy. There are a few simple rules in this regard.

First, if a study reveals too many samples that don’t show any sort of benefit from our medications, simply omit them and retain the samples that do show benefit.

Second, if a study just plain makes the product look bad, by all means terminate it! Find an excuse, any excuse, to terminate the study prematurely and figure out another way to present our product in a more positive light, perhaps even rebranding it to treat an entirely different disease.

Third, if independent studies are critical of our product or show negligible benefits from it, hire a sympathetic expert to refute that study. If nothing else, confusion about the product’s efficacy improves the effectiveness of our marketing efforts!

[Laughter]

Enlisting Chemical Industry

As with irradiation, genetic modification promises to significantly decrease the nutritional value of food, while simultaneously inducing disease in the RBs. Our friends in the chemical industry have really taken up the reins of research in this area. Thank you Sanmonto!

[Applause]

Other areas of research hold promise for inducing disease as well, especially artificial sweeteners and artificial fats. The beauty of these chemicals is that they will sell themselves. Americans are so desperate to shed pounds they will eat anything that promises to accomplish that without any effort!

[Laughter]

We should definitely encourage the use of more plastics for food and beverage packaging. There’s growing evidence that plastics can be a ally for us, silently contributing to the ill-health of the RBs.

Non-stick coatings on cookware also hold promise as a vector for introducing toxic chemicals into the RBs. We’re working with chemical industry representatives to identify more types of cookware that could be coated with these materials.

Finally, we must work with the chemical industry and governments to get fluoride added to all municipal water systems. If nothing else, studies show that fluoride is helpful in producing a docile population, making the RBs more receptive to our future marketing campaigns.

Closing Comments

I apologize for the length of my presentation, but as you may have gathered from it there are many opportunities for future growth for our industry. By leveraging off other industries, advertising and government, there’s almost no limit to our future growth potential. That means money, money, money my friends! Thank you, and good day.

[Wild applause and standing ovation]

Update – 20 February 2009

On a serious note, here’s a great video titled, Pharma Not in Business of Health, Healing, Cures, Wellness, from an self-proclaimed insider who explains most succinctly our for-profit “health” care system. In reality, as this lady explains, we have a sick care system because keeping people sick and constantly in need of treatment or medication is far more profitable.

August 23, 2008 – The U.S. miscalculated in Georgia and now may be unable to carry out its long dreamed of attack on Iran. Unfortunately, by continuing to antagonize Russia the U.S. is flirting with World War III. In fact, WWIII may be desired to distract the public from the growing economic crises and provide a cover explanation for them.

By Dave Eriqat

As recently as just a few weeks ago I was still very worried that the U.S., or Israel subsequently joined by the U.S. would attack Iran. Some of the reasons for my alarm still exist today and have even intensified since a few weeks ago, principally, the still largely concealed but rapidly deteriorating U.S. economy, which is now spilling over to the rest of the world. War is an age-old ruse to distract the public from economic woes and provide fiscal stimulus to the economy.

Fortuitously – for us non-South Ossetians – it appears that the U.S. badly miscalculated in Georgia, and that single strategic error in a tiny country may have brought an end to U.S. and Israeli designs on Iran. I’ve long wondered why Russia and China continue to put up with the U.S.’s bullying around the world. Finally it appears that Russia has had its fill. I believe Russia’s swift and decisive action in Georgia in response to U.S.-instigated provocation may have caught the leadership of the U.S. off guard. In addition, Russia’s mention of resorting to nuclear weapons to deal with future conflicts seems to have succeeded in sending both the U.S. and Israel a strong message that Russia will not tolerate any more meddling in its vicinity. Russia also seems to have strengthened its presence in Iran, so that if the U.S. or Israel attacks Iran, they face an increased prospect of harming Russian people or Russian assets. In light of Russia’s powerful response in Georgia, the U.S. and Israel would be prudent to avoid a nastier repeat of that response in Iran.

In addition, it seems that a three-way tug of war within the U.S. administration is taking a toll on its resolve and organization. For a long time the administration has been dominated by the neocons. These are the people who got the U.S. into quagmire wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and who would love to proceed to Iran. This faction is a close ally of Israel – some of its acolytes hold dual citizenship in the U.S. and Israel – and harbors the goals of global domination, control of the world’s oil supply and protection and expansion of Israel.

However, beginning a couple of years ago a more experienced and sophisticated, but no less megalomaniacal faction set up shop and began resisting the neocons. These people are led by their godfather, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and their primary focus, besides global domination, is to destroy Russia and perhaps China as well. (Why can’t these wicked old people simply die quietly? I mean, this guy is 80 years old and still scheming for world domination!)

Also in the last couple of years, a third faction has gingerly stood up, challenging the neocons and presumably the Russia-haters too: patriotic professionals in the U.S. military. These people may have thwarted disaster by publicly exposing that some U.S. nuclear missiles improperly went for a joyride over the U.S. last summer, their ultimate destination still unknown. In the last couple of years, several uncompliant high-ranking officers have either resigned or been “resigned,” most notably Admiral Fallon, who had bluntly stated that the U.S. would not attack Iran on his watch. The solution chosen by the neocons to overcome that particular obstacle? End Fallon’s watch and replace him with someone more adept at licking boots. But despite all the forced resignations of patriotic officers resisting the neocons’ plans there seem to be plenty more such people still among the ranks.

This ongoing tug of war between these three factions at last seems to be weakening the resolve of the neocons and causing increasing disarray within the administration. One gets the sense today of an administration that’s beleaguered and fighting to stave off criminal indictments. (Fortunately it has a very cooperative Congress on its side.)

Lately it appears that even the growing 9/11 Truth movement may have played a constructive role in averting an attack on Iran, by reducing the likelihood of a false flag attack that could have been used as a pretext for such an attack. The preposterous explanation for the collapse of World Trade Center Building Seven, released just days ago, is evidence of the pressure the 9/11 Truth movement has brought to bear on the powers-that-be, who I think now recognize that a lot of people won’t be fooled by another false flag attack.

We’re not out of the woods yet, as the neocons will remain in power for another five months. As recent events in Georgia showed, significant developments – positive or negative – can occur swiftly and unexpectedly. There is still a massive armada of U.S. warships in the vicinity of Iran. There is also a separate problem of ongoing U.S. antagonism of Russia, especially with this missile basing agreement the U.S. just signed with Poland, which is a very serious destabilizing threat to Russia. It appears that the powers-that-be are determined to start World War III, whether in Iran, Eastern Europe or Central Asia; it doesn’t seem to matter where so long as they get their war.

Nevertheless, despite these remaining dangers, I’m breathing easier today than I have in several years. Just keep your fingers crossed that somebody doesn’t let their testosterone override their judgment.

August 21, 2008 – Lighthearted explanation of what appeals to me about this movie genre, a review of a couple of my favorite western movies, and a list of all my favorite western movies, including the year of release and the principal actors.

By Dave Eriqat

I’ve always loved American western movies. Of course, I grew up during their heyday, the 1950s through the 1970s. During that era western films frequently appeared in theaters and often several western television shows aired concurrently. Westerns have largely died out as a movie and television genre, although once in a while even today a good movie will come along.

While recognizing that movies are just fictional films, westerns depict the very moral values that are dear to me: honesty, trustworthiness, bravery, honor, integrity, justice, loyalty, property rights and personal liberty. Unlike many of today’s movies and television shows, western films seldom glorify despicable behavior and moral relativism.

I also love the freedom portrayed in these films, which frequently depict the lone rider on his, or sometimes her horse, making their way across the empty landscape. Man, horse, nature: what could be more carefree and natural? It’s refreshing to see the splendor of unadulterated nature, devoid of highways, cars, overpopulation and overdevelopment.

Owing to the fact that most western movies, at least the ones I favor, were made decades ago when people harbored different values, many of the “bad guys” are actually rather appealing. I’d rather hang out with some of the bad guys in these old westerns than pretty much any of the people we refer to as our “leaders” today. The bad guys in these films exhibit more humanity and stronger moral values than our present day leaders do.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

Last night I watched the epic, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, unquestionably my favorite western film. Surprisingly, although I love John Wayne and have dozens of his western movies, I actually have more movies starring Clint Eastwood!

As many people know, the omnipresent backdrop for the movie is the American Civil War, and the movie does a good job of depicting the callousness and pointlessness of war, especially that one. (I recently ran across a well-researched essay that persuasively argues that Abraham Lincoln, who is often credited with ending the Civil War, had a large hand in starting it!)

As good as this American western is, and as well as it treats the history of the American Civil War, the movie was written, directed and mostly acted by Italians and filmed in Spain! The only thing about it that’s of American origin is its three principal actors.

This movie has undergone steady improvement in the more than four decades since it was filmed. I first saw it on television, where it was hacked to bits to make room for commercials, resulting in a choppy, almost incoherent movie that was about two and a half hours long, including commercials. Years later I acquired the movie on video tape and it was still about two and a half hours long, but without commercials, resulting in a much more fluid and coherent movie, but which still contained a few abrupt transitions. Some more years later I acquired it on DVD and it was about two and three-quarters of an hour long, the extra fifteen minutes or so helping to fill in some gaps in the story. Finally a few years ago I acquired yet another version of the film on DVD that’s about three hours long and fills in still more blanks. At last, the movie doesn’t feel as if something is missing. In order to fill in the remaining few minutes the producers had to dig out some old film that was evidently dubbed in Italian and re-dub it in English, getting the original actors to do the voice overs (thank goodness they were still alive forty years later). So while watching the movie the voices of the young actors occasionally give way to the voices of the same actors as old men! It’s a bit distracting and amusing, but worth suffering for the extra footage that in most cases really does help fill in gaps in the story.

In my favorite scene Blondie and Tuco come across a Union regiment fighting to gain control of an insignificant bridge, described as a “flyspeck” by the captain; the “other side” is seeking to do the same thing. To the childlike astonishment of Tuco, who would never engage in any action that was not directly beneficial to himself, the captain informs the two rogues that the combatants engage in two battles daily, seemingly scheduled like clockwork. The captain makes the treasonous admission that he’d like to destroy the bridge, if only he had the courage to defy his orders, and thereby “save many thousands of lives.” He doesn’t say he’d merely save thousands of his own men; he seems to want to save the men on both sides. But the jaded, cynical, drunken soldier dutifully carries on with the twice daily carnage. Observing the bloody scene, Blondie succinctly sums up the lunacy of war, saying, “I’ve never seen so many men wasted so badly.” In an act of self-serving nobility, the two rogues blow up the bridge just as the captain envisioned and thus save the lives of the men fighting to control it.

Not long after blowing up the bridge, Blondie encounters a suffering young soldier, left behind by his regiment, alone and near death. Blondie comforts the dying soldier during his few remaining seconds of life, covering the young man with his coat to keep him warm and offering him a final drag on his cigar.

Shortly after that humanitarian act comes the climax of the movie, the unparalleled and superbly done three-way gunfight between Tuco, Blondie and Angel Eyes, which symbolically takes place in the center of a massive circular cemetery “populated” with thousands and thousands of graves, a testament to the waste of life associated with war. It’s sobering – even though this is a fictional film – to realize that under each one of those mounds is a body, a formerly living, thriving human being. Although the scene in this movie is fictional, I have been to actual military cemeteries that looked like this and it’s even more sobering in real life. One walks around such a cemetery noting grave marker after marker reading, “Born 1924, Died 1944”; “Born 1923, Died 1942”; and so on and so on; hundreds, thousands of such graves. What a waste of young lives, for nothing, absolutely nothing.

Tuco, standing before the cemetery where the gold is buried

War is nothing but a macabre and bloody chess game played by bombastic, egotistical, avaricious, stone-hearted old men (and sometimes old women – Madeleine Albright comes to mind), wherein the chess pieces are real live human beings, kids, to be snuffed out in the prime of their lives. In my opinion there has never been a “good war” in all of human history, and I find it ironic that some religions countenance such a concept. Here I am, a heathen, devoutly opposed to war, violence and senseless destruction on moral grounds, while the devoutly religious endorse the notion that there is such a thing as a “good war.” (End of sermon.)

The only thing I find slightly objectionable in this movie is at the very end, where after the climactic gunfight and digging up the fortune in gold, Blondie needlessly inflicts a parting cruel joke on the affable Tuco.

Rooster Cogburn (… and the Lady)

This movie is superior to its excellent predecessor, True Grit, and features some spectacular scenery of the Pacific Northwest. It is filmed in the Deschutes National Forest and Rogue River area in Oregon, a part of the country I’m slightly familiar with. Although I live in Kentucky now, the truth is that I’m a westerner and feel most at home among the mountains and forests of the west.

Beautiful scene from the movie

Rooster Cogburn stars the beloved, larger-than-life John Wayne in one of the very last films of his career. I happen to think this is his most endearing role, thanks to the warm rapport between him and Katharine Hepburn, who I think is generally an awful actor but is outstanding in this role as a spirited, outspoken, judgmental, bible-thumping minister.

Rooster Cogburn and Miss. Goodnight

For an example of the rapport between the two characters, here’s a snippet of dialog toward the end of the movie.

Miss Goodnight: “Will we get back Reuben? What are our chances?”

Rooster Cogburn: “The odds are the same, sister. They ain’t in our favor.”

Miss Goodnight: “When you drop us off, at Webber’s Falls … and go out after them, you will be careful, won’t you, Reuben? Wolf and I care about you, very much.”

Rooster Cogburn: “Well, ma’am … I don’t know much … about thoroughbreds, horses or women. Them that I did know, I never liked. They’re too nervous and spooky. They scare me. But you’re one highbred filly that don’t. ‘Course I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about half the time, but that don’t matter. Bein’ around you pleases me.”

Miss Goodnight: “Those are about the nicest words I ever heard said to me. Thank you, Reuben.”

The dialog throughout the rest of the movie is equally warm but it’s not nauseating thanks to the frequent humorous relief in the film and the stunning scenery that’s expertly captured on film.

My Favorite Western Movies

August 16, 2008 – An unwelcome preview of our possible future in which systems and utilities work a little less reliably.

By Dave Eriqat

A couple of weeks after my last visit to the grocery store I was starting to run low on produce, and my garden and my neighbor’s are about spent. So yesterday I reluctantly acquiesced to put on some clothes and make the trip to the store and buy some produce. I’ve done this dozens of times before and had no reason to expect that this trip would be any different. But when I got to the store a startling scene confronted and alarmed me: empty shelves. Not a couple of empty shelves, mind you, but every single refrigerated shelf! I’d say roughly one-fourth of the food shelves in the entire store were empty. There was no cold produce, no meat of any kind, no fish, no dairy products of any kind, no cheese, butter, milk, yogurt, no eggs. I mean, absolutely nothing. (I asked two employees why the shelves were empty and both answered that they didn’t know! How incurious are these people? If I worked in that store and saw such a shocking sight, I’d expend the tiniest bit of effort to find out what was wrong, if only to be able to answer the customers’ predictable questions with something more intelligent than, “Uh, I don’t know.”)

While I reassured myself that it was an anomalous event, given my expectations of the future I couldn’t help but see it as a preview of things to come. I had to stifle a panicky survival instinct that started to well up inside me, even though I knew this was an anomaly. In the back of my mind I could hear a little survivalist voice anxiously saying, “I have no food at home; there is no food here; gotta find food.”

Our food distribution system is somewhat fragile. I’ve read repeatedly that grocery stores have only a few days’ supply of food on their shelves. So what happens if there is a shortage of food? Or if there is a shortage of fuel for the trucks that deliver food? Answer: empty shelves like what I saw yesterday. In addition, what happens if there is an electricity outage? Even if there is no shortage of food or fuel, refrigerators won’t work without electricity, resulting in the same empty shelves I saw yesterday. Larger stores might have backup generators, but how long can those keep the refrigerators running? A protracted electricity outage is likely to affect things like fuel delivery (among other things, fuel pumps don’t work without electricity), and fuel is required to run the backup electrical generators!

And even if stores have food to sell, cash registers, UPC scanners and ATM card readers don’t work without electricity, and the staff is hopelessly incapable of using battery powered calculators in lieu of cash registers. I once witnessed a clerk trying to ring up a simple purchase of mine using a calculator because the store’s cash registers weren’t working. I had calculated the total including the tax in my head, but the clerk, using a calculator, managed to undercharge me by $10! Normally I would have pointed out the error, but the clerk was obviously so befuddled already that I decided not to make things any worse and left, $10 richer.

I was surprised that a large, wealthy store (its initials are W-M) would suffer a problem so severe and prolonged as to necessitate clearing out the entire refrigerated foods section. What about smaller, poorer stores? What if they had financial problems or difficulty obtaining replacement parts? In such cases the stores could be without refrigerated foods for weeks!

My first impulse was to head home and shop at my local grocery store, which is exactly what I did. I don’t usually shop there because it has such a paltry selection, but paltry is better than none. However, in a genuine shortage crisis, that small store would also be cleaned out swiftly, especially with panicky people buying more food than they immediately needed.

Now fortunately, where I live people have backyard gardens that provide some food, and there are lots of farms around here whose owners might be willing to sell their food directly to the public. Of course, farms and backyard gardens produce food only a few months out of the year. There are also massive grain elevators within walking distance whose operators might be willing to sell grain during a crisis. And there is the river, which is so teeming with fish that one can practically sit in a boat and wait for a big, fat catfish to jump right into it!

But what about cities? Cities are almost totally dependent on a steady inflow of trucks to keep the stores stocked. In a crisis, panicky urbanites would probably frantically drive from one store to the next hoping to find some food, only to find empty shelves in ten or twelve stores before giving up in despair. While a big city might have a thousand times the number of stores we have here, it also has a thousand times the population.

It’s probably a good idea to keep several months worth of food on hand, especially foods that don’t need freezing or refrigeration, such as canned goods, pasta, flour, oats, rice, beans, sugar, salt, spices, herbs, nuts, dried fruit, dry cereal, powdered milk, dry yeast, cooking oil, coffee, tea and my favorite, alcohol. Another type of food to keep on hand, an expensive luxury, is freeze-dried food. Interestingly enough, a couple of freeze-dried food distributors report being more or less out of stock after the U.S. Government recently purchased nearly all their stock. I wonder what the government knows that it’s not telling us.

And don’t forget bottled water! About a year ago we had a water main break and I was without water for over six hours. Let me tell you, six hours without water really makes you appreciate how dependent you are on the stuff. Aside from needing the stuff to quench your thirst, you need it to cook, clean, wash your hands, shower and flush the toilet. I was on the verge of hauling some buckets down to the river to fetch some water so I could at least use the toilet, when the water main was repaired. Of course, then the lines were fouled and it took several days for the mud and filth to be cleansed from the lines. Right after that episode I went out and bought ten gallons of bottled water so I’d at least have something to drink should that happen again.

In the last year I’ve suffered a water outage, several electricity outages, a prolonged Internet outage, a telephone outage, soaring fuel prices, and now a temporary food shortage. While I sense that these problems are becoming a bit more frequent, most importantly they are instructive lessons about what to expect in the future and how to prepare for them.

See also A Preview Of Things To Come – Part II.

August 14, 2008 – A lamentation about how the U.S. today is run like an organized crime syndicate, all nice and legal, with a humorous introduction.

By Dave Eriqat

A Typical Day At The Compound

[Scene: Four capos are sitting around a conference table plotting strategy.]

…

Bennie “Bucks”, hands clasped as if praying: Should I start the “helicopter” now, Henry?

Henry “Bazooka”, calmly and authoritatively lighting a cigar: Not yet, not yet. Let’s see if we can trick the Chinese or the Arabs into buying some more Treasury bonds first. If not, then you can crank up the helicopter.

Georgie “The Brain”, looking up from his doodling on a piece of paper: Hey, I’ve got an idea. If the Chinese want a piece of the action in Iraqi oil, why not demand that they buy some more bonds?

Henry “Bazooka”: Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking too.

Dicky “Shotgun”: Yeah, and if they don’t want to play ball, we’ll just take the gloves off! By the way, when are we going to hit Iran?

Georgie “The Brain”: Christ, Dicky, can’t you think of anything else? I’ve got my legacy to think about and our guys are going to get slaughtered in the election as it is.

Dicky “Shotgun”, leaning forward and slapping his palms on the table: So what? Who gives a fuck what the voters think? Just cancel the damned election – you have unitary power – and let’s get on with taking down Tehran!

Henry “Bazooka”: That might not be such a great idea for the economy. We’ve pretty much got everybody where we want them right now. All those morons that trade with us bet the farm on our economy, so now they have to bail us out or go down with our ship. If we attack yet another country they might decide to swallow their losses and let us sink. We pulled out all the stops to pound down oil and commodity prices and pump up the dollar and the stock market in time for the election. Let’s not throw away all that effort by causing oil to shoot through the roof. [Chuckling and raising his cigar to his lips.] Besides, maybe the Israelis will make the first move against Iran anyway.

Bennie “Bucks”, timidly raising a finger: We do have a problem, though. We’re running out of Treasuries to trade for worthless securities. Sooner or later we’re going to have to start up the printing presses.

Henry “Bazooka”, leaning back and slowly exhaling a perfectly circular smoke ring: I’ve got that covered. The SEC isn’t going to look too closely at the books anymore, so companies can hide their worthless junk in the level three category and doll up their quarterly financials. We’ve got our banker pals protected from naked shorting, so their stock ought to hold up pretty well without any more intervention on our side. And Georgie here just signed the housing bailout bill, so we have unlimited Treasury funds now to use for anything we want. Congress isn’t going to look very closely at what we do with that money. So just be patient, Bennie.

Georgie “The Brain”: That reminds me, Bennie. The missus wants to build a second guest house down at the ranch. After all I’ve done for the bankers, you think they can get us a good “loan”?

Bennie “Bucks”: I’ll make some calls …

Dicky “Shotgun”, impatiently interrupting: Well, if we can’t go to Tehran, can we at least stir up a little trouble for the Russians in Georgia?

Georgie “The Brain”: Go for it! I never liked that pecker, Putin, anyway. Hee, hee. Pecker Putin, Pecker Putin. Hey, that’s funny! I crack myself up! Pecker Putin! Thinks he’s so tough because he knows karate. Big deal! I know how to do stuff …

Henry “Bazooka”: Georgie, please! Give it a rest! Dicky, I don’t see a problem with that. Just don’t let it get out of control like you almost did with those nukes from North Dakota last summer. Jesus! What the hell were you thinking?

Dicky “Shotgun”: Excellent! Hey, Henry, you got any more of those cigars?

Henry “Bazooka”, pulling a cigar out of his pocket and sliding it across the table to Dicky: What’s the matter? Can’t you afford them?

[All four capos burst into gut-splitting guffaws.]

…

Organized Crime Nation

Recently I’ve commented to several people and in several forums that I feel like I’m living in a town run by an organized crime family. There are no laws or rules other than what the crime family bosses say there are. And if the existing rules prove inconvenient for the bosses, they simply ignore them until they get around to changing them. Meanwhile, the rest of us struggle to keep abreast of the latest rules, ever afraid of displeasing these bosses, even if unwittingly.

Americans seem to harbor a romantic but naive fondness for gangsters. Consider one of this nation’s most cherished movies, The Godfather. While it’s a great movie, it glorifies violence and criminality, albeit with a touch of class and honor. The pervasive message in this movie is, if you have a disagreement with someone or find yourself competing against them in business, the solution is to just kill them. Or take the popular television show, The Sopranos, which portrays the same mentality.

I’ve got news for Americans, we’re living the fictions portrayed in those films! And the real life gangsters aren’t low class thugs, but are the captains of business and politics, the elites.

Three Class Society

I used to think of the U.S. as having a two class society comprised of elites and masses, but I now believe there’s a third class, which I call the enlightened: a significant number of people who understand how the system truly works, who are repulsed by it, but who really don’t know what to do about it. Some, like me, write about it as an outlet for their frustration; others start political foundations to explore alternative systems; many throw up their hands in despair and leave the country.

By “class” I’m not employing the traditional meaning of socioeconomic class, but rather I refer to ideological or psychological class.

The Elites (“The Bad”)

A tiny percentage of the population comprises the elite class. This class is not defined by breeding, culture, character, education or wealth, although its members are never poor. It’s virtually impossible to be a member of this class and fail to become rich. One can be a complete nincompoop, but as long as they are a member of this class they will be rich. Nevertheless, its members belong to this class not by virtue of their wealth but by virtue of their insider status. These are people have extensive connections to other insiders and they are willing to get their hands dirty and take maximum advantage of the system without regard to scruples, principles, justice, honor, integrity or the harm they cause to other people or the nation. The power and wealth of individuals within this group spans a broad spectrum. There is little to no distinction between government or private sector members of this class, and they seamlessly wend their way back and forth between the two sectors. There is no distinction between nationalities either; citizens of any nation are free to participate in the system, so long as they possess the proper elite credentials. Members of the elite class travel freely across national borders and own houses, businesses and assets in many different countries. Should one country’s laws prove inconvenient, members of the elite class can find safe haven in a more accommodating country until their lawyers can arrange for the purchase of the mitigating indulgences.

Did you know that the presumed Republican candidate for President and his wife are reputedly worth $200 million? I had no idea, but it seems par for the course for our “representatives” today. A former president and his wife, who began their political career possessing rather humble means, are now worth at least $100 million. It’s interesting how money seems to be gravitationally attracted to those in politics. According to this article in American Free Press:

IF YOU STILL DOUBT that the big media is determined to keep under wraps the organized crime origins of the $200 million fortune of John McCain and his wife Cindy, take note of how the prestigious Washington Post touched on the issue in its July 22 edition. Rather, instead, note how the Post covered up the matter.

Notice how the article emphasizes the reputed connection between the candidate and organized crime, as if there is really any difference between organized crime and politics today.

The Masses (“The Ugly”)

The vast majority of the population (90% or more) occupies the class I call the masses. The wealth of these people also varies widely, encompassing everyone from the abjectly poor and homeless through the very wealthy. The primary distinguishing characteristic of the masses is that they are utterly disenfranchised from the levers of power. They may own modest sized businesses, be quite wealthy, serve on legislatures, be celebrities, be political activists, make campaign contributions, vote diligently, make a lot of noise, but they are still utterly disenfranchised and none of them are even aware of that fact. This ignorance of their impotent status is an essential determinant of their membership in this class known as the masses; were they not ignorant, they might be members of the enlightened class. The masses continue to play the rigged “game,” retaining faith in the “system,” at most acknowledging that it’s not perfect, but believing that perhaps with a little effort and the right leadership it can be “fixed.”

The Enlightened (“The Good”)

Finally there is the third class I mentioned, the enlightened, who see clearly how the system works but are essentially powerless to change it. These people are significant in number in absolute terms, but represent a tiny minority in relative terms. These people, too, span a wide socioeconomic spectrum, although it’s nearly impossible for someone to be wealthy and enlightened at the same time. Along the path to riches people face a repetitive dilemma: to maintain their integrity and principles or sacrifice them “just a little bit” for gain. By the time they find their pot of gold, their integrity and principles are so compromised that the people have likely become full fledged members of the elite class. I’m sure there are exceptions, people who do manage to become rich while maintaining every ounce of their integrity and principles, but such people would be truly exceptional.

While some enlightened people see a narrow but incisive slice of the corruption, others, such as me, see a broad but shallow panorama. Nobody can see the entire picture of corruption that permeates the system, but my belief is that it is total: every legislative process, regulatory apparatus, law enforcement agency, procurement process and election is compromised today.

Despite my jaded attitude, I’m surprised almost daily by new revelations. For example, earlier today I read an article by former U.S. Marine, Scott Ritter, describing how he believed his life was threatened by the U.S. Government itself when he sought to investigate WMDs in Iraq. A little later today I read an article by the awe-inspiring Catherine Austin Fitts that revealed breathtaking criminality within the government in her discussion of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which President Bush just signed into law. To quote one shocking paragraph from her article:

After I began researching HUD fraud in the late 1990s, I would be contacted by people with experience with HUD fraud. They insisted that the same home was being used to create ten or more mortgages that were placed into different pools. They alleged that Chase as the lead HUD servicer and the other big banks were implementing such systems. This was why we would see the same house default two, three, or four times in a year, they claimed. FHA mortgages had to be churned through multiple defaults to generate the cash to keep all these fraudulent pools afloat. This, they insisted, was all going to finance various secret government operations and private agendas. [My emphasis]

By the way, I can’t recommend highly enough Ms. Fitts’ epic Dillon Read & the Aristocracy of Stock Profits for an insight into the sheer criminality that pervades our system. Another must-read is the aptly named article, The Nearly Unfathomable Depths Of Pentagon Corruption, a lengthy, two-part exposé that left even me stupefied. It is incisive stories like these that enrich my understanding of how pervasive and deep the decay and corruption is in our system.

Complicity

The elites obviously participate in this corrupt system because they’re making staggering fortunes. Naturally, they want to keep the system going as long as possible, but they are so consumed by greed that they don’t understand the need for balance, for sharing the wealth. It’s this unmitigated greed that’s creating the socially destabilizing inequity we see brewing today. How much of an advantage do these elites enjoy? Consider this just-released report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which says that between 1998 and 2005 over 60% of the approximately 1.3 million U.S. Controlled Corporations (USCCs) reported no tax liability. As we all know, corporations are the playthings of the elites. Do average citizens get a similar pass when it comes to paying taxes? Just ask Ed and Elaine Brown of New Hampshire. It must be sweet to be one of the elite: deferred prosecution, guaranteed markets, government protected monopolies, and no income taxes.

The masses have no choice but to participate in this corrupt system. The elites own the hamster cage, the masses live in the hamster cage, and they’d better run on that wheel if they want access to food, water, energy, money, jobs, health care, education, information, entertainment, or even to disseminate their own ideas through publishing. Only the Internet is outside of the control of the elites, which is precisely why they are trying so desperately to control it. The Internet is the most powerful and egalitarian tool for the dissemination of information ever devised.

The Internet must not be allowed to be destroyed. If we do nothing else to improve our condition, we must protect this sanctuary of enlightenment.

Members of the enlightened class that remain in this country have little choice but to participate in this corrupt system as well. There are signs, however, of people seeking a way out of the system. Some people live “off the grid.” Some, like me, have deliberately sought to distance themselves from the system as much as possible, by ceasing the pointless practice of voting, reducing their dependence on a high income, minimizing entangling alliances with corporations, producing their own food and energy, relying on bartering, living in locales that afford them physical separation from the “system.” Some people have recognized that since our system revolves around money the best way to withdraw support from the system is to stop feeding it money. The enlightened would surely like to have a greater impact than they are having, but there is a huge obstacle: the elites are simply too powerful. They have worked assiduously for decades, perhaps more than a century, to build this system from which they now enjoy unfathomable profits. (Hedge fund managers have been known to “earn” a billion dollar salary in a single year!) This system is fully legitimized by a staggering number of laws, each having at least one cash-dripping lobbyist to defend it, making it next to impossible to “reform” the system. Of course, that’s by design. Still, the enlightened have begun to climb out of the hamster cage and create an alternative existence, hoping to set an example for the masses that they will follow, but they are not yet following.

The only way the enlightened class can hope to overcome the legitimacy and financial and military power the elites now control is through force of numbers, but there simply aren’t enough enlightened people to mount such a challenge. They need the support of the masses, whose number is immense, but the problem is how to get through to those masses.

So many people among the masses have been so thoroughly brainwashed into believing that their government is not only legitimate but pristine, and that they must always be subservient to the authority of government, that it is next to impossible to convince them to join the enlightened. (Even after everything that’s been revealed, even as the economy goes down the drain, the President enjoys the support of something like 25% of the populace!) From time to time I have fancied attempting to enlighten a family member about just one vein of criminality slicing through our system, only to realize that such a task would involve several hours of persuasion, not to mention several hours of research beforehand in order to assemble a body of convincing evidence. This daunting effort is required to enlighten a single person about a single problem. (Over the years I have had to read dozens of books and literally tens of thousands of articles to acquire the limited understanding I now possess.) It’s beyond impractical to try to convince large numbers of people that the system is a criminal enterprise through and through, especially if they don’t want to know about this stuff anyway. In any case, such efforts are pointless because enlightenment cannot be given to people; they have to seek it out and discover it for themselves. All we can do is point them in the right direction, and only when they are ready.

I’ve always loved my nation, and I’ve come to my conclusions about the system in place today slowly and reluctantly. My beliefs do not ensue from a predisposition to “hate America.” Nevertheless, were I to try and enlighten some of these people about the true nature of our system, I have little doubt that I’d be dismissed as a kook at best, and at worst I’d be accused of being “unpatriotic.”

In any case, I wouldn’t even know where to begin to educate the clueless masses about this sorry state of affairs and the myriad people responsible for it. Even if they were receptive to being made aware of this knowledge, it would take months to give them an adequate introduction to the problems and convince them to take meaningful, constructive action toward solving them. It seems like the only practical route for the masses to achieve enlightenment is painful first hand experience, after which the masses will finally begin to see the truth about the world they live in, provided they mange to see through the elites’ misdirection. Unfortunately, such poverty and oppression is the stuff of which revolutions are made. It would be nice if we could enlighten the masses and start truly reforming the system and bypass revolution.

Countries that export goods to the U.S. are complicit in supporting this system as well, needing to maintain the volume of exports to the U.S. in order to maintain social order in their own nations. Consequently, they’re caught in a sort of Catch-22: the longer they associate with the U.S., the more corrupt their own system becomes; yet to withdraw from the U.S. would result in more immediate turmoil and hardship in their own countries. Some of these countries are in a second Catch-22 with respect to financial issues: thanks to the one-sided export relationship they have with the U.S. in which they sell real goods in exchange for electronic digits called dollars, they have now accumulated vast quantities of dollar-denominated financial instruments that will surely decrease substantially in value over time; yet if they try to sell these financial instruments they will decrease in value even faster. My suspicion is that these trading partners recognize that they are in such a Catch-22 with regard to these financial issues, so they have established numerous sovereign wealth funds to quietly unload these financial instruments, but that approach has so far not been terribly successful at profitably shedding their massive accumulation of dollar reserves. However they are still looking for opportunities to unload their dollars and sooner or later they will probably discover a successful avenue. If the holders of vast quantities of dollars discover a painless way to get rid of them, the game may well end abruptly and the whole house of cards that shields the corrupt U.S. system from scrutiny may come tumbling down, because the U.S. will no longer be able to sell its debt to anyone. It will have to resort to “printing” money and likely end up like Zimbabwe, which last I heard, had 2,000,000% annual inflation.

I offered the following speculation in my own essay titled What Would It Look Like If Civilization Had A Nervous Breakdown?:

There is, however, a new variable in the house price equation that didn’t exist until recently: foreign buyers. The globe is awash in trillions of U.S. dollars that the U.S. manufactured to satisfy its hungry appetite for imported goods. If the U.S. dollar continues to decline sharply in value, as it’s been doing for years, those foreign holders of dollars may seek to spend them before they lose any more value. What better place to spend U.S. dollars than in their country of origin, on residential, commercial, and even agricultural real estate, on infrastructure, and on what remains of our industrial base.

Well, according to this recent article, sovereign wealth funds are seeking to do just what I speculated:

One sovereign fund, said to have earmarked $29 billion to purchase foreclosed residential real estate, recently hired a West Coast mortgage broker and is starting to search for bargains.

While Americans are no longer be able to afford homes in this country, foreign buyers are coming in, buying those homes, and keeping their prices elevated, thus keeping the game going when what’s really needed is a massive downward correction, a purging of excess. I won’t be surprised if cash-strapped U.S. states start selling off public assets to holders of vast quantities of dollars, making foreign countries the proud new owners of our formerly public assets, such as highways, bridges, water and energy infrastructure, and maybe even public parks. I hope the postage to mail payment for my electricity bill to China isn’t too much.

A Levitating Leviathan

Although it’s difficult to prove because secrecy is endemic in the government, there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that the government, in collusion with key insider companies, routinely manipulates pretty much all the financial markets: currencies, bonds, commodities, precious metals, stocks, and now even housing.

The government has more than once expressed interest in preventing house prices from falling. While counterintuitive to us lowly citizens who cannot afford today’s house prices, it does make sense to lenders, who are on the hook for the inflated prices, to keep house prices elevated rather than suffer losses. Physical housing is also the cornerstone of an elaborate house of cards of derivative financial instruments. If house prices decline, then a derivative house of cards many times the size of the physical housing market suffers huge losses.

How does the government manipulate house prices? By maintaining artificially low, effectively negative interest rates, for one. The Federal Reserve sets the federal funds target rate, which affects short term interest rates for such things as home equity loans, which are now all but dead. By manipulating long term bond prices upward, long term mortgage interest rates can be driven downward. In addition, for at least the last year the government has been bailing out the banking industry with hundreds of billions of dollars in “loans” and “liquidity injections.” These bailouts are an indirect form of house price manipulation because when the government keeps the banks afloat and effectively absorbs their losses, the banks can keep on lending without regard to risk, which helps maintain higher house prices. In addition, the maximum loan value that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – which together own more than 50% of all mortgages in America – can purchase was recently increased substantially, offloading one more element of risk – big loans – from the banks to the government, thus helping to maintain higher house prices. Were the banks instead forced to suffer the consequences of their profligacy, lending would shut down and house prices would plummet (even faster than they are already plummeting). While such a scenario would produce financial carnage, it would be over with swiftly and at the end of it all houses would be far more affordable. Finally, as Ms. Fitts points out, the manipulation of the housing market has now become overt and legitimized in the new Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.

Whether by design or happenstance the U.S. Government is in a unique position internationally to manufacture money at will simply by typing numbers into a computer, and players continue to play along, in part, because of forced complicity. No other country in the world enjoys this monetary luxury.

As already noted, countries presently hold trillions of U.S. dollars. Were they to cease accepting dollars in exchange for their goods, the value of their existing dollars would plummet, costing them hundreds of billions of dollars. In addition, in order to maintain favorable exchange rates between their currencies and the dollar and thus keep their export machines humming, many countries are forced to debase their own currencies, which artificially elevates the value of the dollar relative to other currencies. Thanks to long standing agreement, most oil sold on the planet is priced in dollars, and many other goods sold internationally are priced in dollars. These trade practices create artificial demand for dollars, thus elevating their value. While the dollar is no longer backed by gold, it is in a sense “backed” by oil, as well as military muscle. It has been noted by many that Iraq was attacked not long after it ceased selling its oil for dollars. I believe that might well have been one of several reasons why Iraq was attacked, especially since immediately after the U.S. occupied Iraq its oil was again being sold for dollars.

So government-led manipulation, subtle extortion and even military force are used to keep the system levitated. Without such active intervention, the system would probably disintegrate rapidly.

What Went Wrong

The founders of this nation sought to create a decentralized federation of states, primarily to maximize individual freedom and self governance and minimize the likelihood of tyranny developing. Such decentralization also had the advantage of thwarting large scale corruption.

However, from the earliest days of this nation’s history, at least as far back as Abraham Lincoln, our “leaders” have often been hostile to the Constitution, finding it too constraining, utterly missing the point that “constraint” was the primary goal of the Constitution. Slowly but surely, the federal government eviscerated the Constitution, one article and amendment at a time, so slowly that hardly anybody noticed or uttered a peep of objection. Today we have a leviathan of a central government that has usurped powers far outside those authorized by the Constitution. As a result, it has become a veritable one stop shop for people seeking to corrupt the system; no longer do such people need to negotiate corrupt deals with fifty separate state governments. Even the manner of corruption has become sanitized and legitimized: it’s called campaign contributions. If one wants to corrupt the system today all they have to do is make some well placed, juicy campaign contributions and, voilá, a new law is crafted specifically to benefit the donor, all nice and legal. To paraphrase Ms. Fitts’ Dillon Read web site, modern business operates on the maxim of, “buy a lawmaker, make a law, make a business.” Nevertheless, there is still plenty of “old school” sleazy corruption and illegality as well.

How Much Longer

One question I frequently ask myself is, “How much longer can this all continue?” How much longer can the government continue to manipulate the price of everything? How much longer will exporters continue to play along and accept our dollars for their real goods? How much longer will the masses remain sequestered in a state of self-imposed blissful ignorance? How much longer can businesses in the U.S. continue to hide their losses? How much longer can the government keep monetizing everything with impunity? How much longer can this country keep exporting its wealth-creating jobs and industries without acknowledging the repercussions?

Frankly, I’m awed by the acumen with which the elites have been able to keep the game going thus far. I expected to see starker signs of disintegration long before now, but even now things seem to be moving in slow motion.

Psychological Toll

When I was a kid, values like integrity, honor and trustworthiness were lauded. I actually believed in those values as a kid and still do today. I can still recite from memory the Boy Scout Oath and the Scout Law. To our leaders, however, those values are duplicitous marketing slogans that are mocked in private. I can picture our leaders having a hearty chuckle in private at the foolish masses who believe in slogans like “freedom” and “democracy,” while they pat themselves on the back for their staggering personal windfalls derived from propping up friendly dictators and killing millions of innocent people.

While I joke about the state of affairs under which we live, it has taken a profound psychological toll on me. Knowing that I live in a system of organized crime has crushed my spirit and extinguished what minuscule ambition I once possessed. I see little point in planning for or working toward any sort of future knowing that the system can capriciously turn against me at any moment. I’m no longer willing to play the rigged game as a “serf” or compromise myself to achieve “success.” To preserve my sanity I’ve felt compelled to “check out” of the system and content myself with mere existence, as a “useless eater” and “useless drinker.” But if it helps my case any with the elites who supposedly want to exterminate all the useless eaters, I eat like a bird these days because I’m dieting.

Update – 04 February 2009

Well, it took a while, but people are starting to see things my way. According to this article, a Chinese central bank official has had the temerity to intimate that our former Treasury Secretary is a “gangster.”

A Chinese central bank official attacked reported comments by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that China’s high savings rate helped trigger the global credit crisis.

“This view is extremely ridiculous and irresponsible and it’s ‘gangster logic,’” Zhang Jianhua, the bank’s research head, said. His comments were in an interview with the state-run Xinhua News Agency, posted on a government Web site today. [My emphasis]

August 9, 2008 – A brief examination of the “evil” television, its pros and cons, including a list of my favorite television shows and the years they aired.

By Dave Eriqat

Television is evil. At least that’s what everyone says. I myself have disparaged television from time to time. Mostly I have criticized the uncritical, vegetative manner in which people watch television, as well as the length of time they spend doing so. I’ve also criticized the inane and insulting commercials and some of the appalling shows that are so popular.

However, television, like anything else, is simply an inanimate tool that can be used beneficially or abused. Other things can be abused just as easily, even computers. I readily admit that I spend too much time using my computer – I suppose I’m a computer addict. However, I don’t use the computer to the extent that it interferes with my life (except when it comes to my avoiding spending four hours in the hot sun cutting the grass; then I can find abundant excuses to hunker down in front of the computer!).

I watch television almost daily. At dinnertime I almost always watch Everybody Loves Raymond. When the commercials come on I mute the volume and avert my attention from the television – the ads are utterly wasted on me. (I wonder how long before advertisers gain control of our televisions and prevent us from muting the volume!) Sometimes I take a peek at the 24 hour weather channel just to see what kind of weather to expect during the next few days. On rare occasions I take a peek at the national news broadcast to see what propaganda is being spewed. A few weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised to see a story on CBS about troubled banks that actually delved deeply enough into the story to discuss the esoteric Texas Ratio. More rarely I might glance at the local news, but its insipidity is unbearable. Why are all local news programs alike? Except for a few different details, such as place names, the stories are the same, the “actors” look the same, the program flow is the same. Sometimes in the evening I’ll watch an episode of an old television program, such as Kung Fu, of which I have hundreds. That’s the best way to watch television, without commercials. On average, I probably spend about one hour a day watching television in the manner I described, far less time than I spend reading articles online, reading books, writing, or even cooking.

I actually watch more television today than I did a few months ago, thanks to the HDTV tuner I acquired recently. By the way, I can personally attest that the HDTV tuner coupon program the government is operating is one of example of a government program that works well. The coupon I received paid for 80% of the cost of the HDTV tuner. And while some people, such as my father, resent the government subsidizing these devices, I disagree. The government is the one mandating the switch from analog to digital transmission. Therefore, it’s appropriate that the government should help poor people like me pay for the transition rather than render our old televisions obsolete. (Even if everyone could afford to go buy a new television, can you imagine the environmental impact of disposing of all the old ones? Keeping them operational is pragmatic, if nothing else.) Besides, probably a small fraction of television viewers receive their signals through the airwaves, so it’s not as if the government needs to subsidize an HDTV tuner for every single television in America. Even if it did, let’s say there are 300 million televisions in America. At a cost to the government of $40 per HDTV tuner, that’s a one-time cost of only $12 billion. That’s what the the government is spending every month on the war in Iraq! That’s a few percent of what the government has spent bailing out the nation’s bankers since last summer! Aside from the low cost to me for the HDTV tuner, the darn thing works spectacularly! I used to get three channels very poorly, so poorly, in fact, that I seldom bothered to watch them! Now I get the same three channels, but they are subdivided into several digital channels each and they are crystal clear. Sometimes atmospheric conditions or – I believe – local radio sources interfere with the signal, but I can usually compensate by moving my antenna around (just like the old days). Usually the signal either works or doesn’t, which is what I would expect with a digital broadcast.

While I don’t think my television viewing habits come close to being abusive, it’s obvious that many people do abuse television. I’ve read that Americans spend an average of six or eight hours watching television. I don’t see how that’s possible, but I’ll accept it at face value. In any case, if this is true, then that’s definitely abusive. I have had occasion to observe people watching television in the manner I object to. I once observed a dear friend of mine reposing in his recliner, hardly stirring, half awake, watching – or rather absorbing – Faux News. At some point during the broadcast my friend said something that floored me. He said with all seriousness, “I think Bush will go down as one of the best presidents in history.” I was stunned, not because I have a partisan objection to Bush – he’s irrelevant to me and I am neither supportive of nor antagonistic toward the guy. I was stunned because my friend is a very intelligent and kind fellow, and evidence abounds of the enormous damage Bush has caused to our nation. The only explanation I could come up with why my friend would say something like that is that it was implanted into his brain by the likes of Faux News during one of his half-awake receptive states.

When I watch news programs my critical thinking skills go on red alert and I look for the slightest indication of important omissions, truthiness, spin, etc. I’m pleasantly surprised, like with that CBS story, when the story is not misleading and reasonably thorough (as thorough as one can be in thirty seconds). But a lot of people shut off their critical thinking skills when they vegetate in front of the television, so the programming can enter their minds and more or less brainwash them. Astonishingly, nobody I know who watches television bothers to turn off the volume when commercials come on. Not only are commercials especially offensive because of their louder volume and insulting messages, but they are even more likely to brainwash the viewer. After all, what is marketing if not brainwashing?

Television is useful as a barometer of social attitudes, especially serial shows. I’ve been watching television since shortly after it was invented, so I’ve seen huge changes in the nature of television programs. My favorite era for television shows is the 1960s and 1970s. After that it was pretty much downhill, with some notable exceptions, such as Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond.

Cop shows in particular seem to reflect our changing social attitudes. In the 1950s and 1960s cop shows such as Dragnet, Ironside, Adam 12 and Hawaii Five-O reflected the strict law-and-order mentality of those eras, but with professionalism and civility. In the 1970s cop shows like The Streets of San Francisco, Starsky & Hutch and The Rockford Files depicted a kinder, gentler, more compassionate demeanor, echoing society’s attitudes of the time. Citizens’ rights were at their peak and government power was at its lowest ebb during the 1970s, and these shows echoed that fact by depicting cops dealing with the public in a reverential manner. Cop shows at the beginning of the 1980s, such as Magnum P.I., continued the gentle 1970s motif, but by the mid-1980s, shows such as Hunter and Miami Vice, veered away from “coddling” the criminals, reflecting a similar harshness overtaking society at that time. The latter two shows began to blur the line between righteous law enforcement and criminality, but still the integrity of the cops remained unimpeachable. Magnum P.I. of the 1980s was a lot like The Rockford Files of the 1970s, and, in fact, the star of Magnum P.I., Tom Selleck, appeared as a private detective in a couple of episodes of The Rockford Files, so I can’t help but think those appearances inspired the later show. By the 1990s, however, shows such as NYPD Blue really began to depict cops as imperfect human beings capable of being immoral and even criminal. Finally today, in the 2000s, shows such as COPS and 24 are downright loathsome and proudly depict – no, glorify – cops that can be described as borderline criminals or terrorists, goons. Other contemporary cop shows, such as NCIS, laud technological wizardry and seemingly unlimited law enforcement powers in the hands of trustworthy “authorities.” I don’t think I need to dwell on the parallels between these modern shows and modern day society.

In summary, television, like anything else, can be “evil” if used improperly. But it can also be a useful information tool and a window on the world. Television is exceedingly useful as a sociological tool, succinctly and accurately capturing society’s changing values. One more thing I love about watching old television programs: I love seeing old footage of the way things were when I was a kid. The simplicity of life, the freedom from technology, the lack of real estate development, the diversity of people, architecture, businesses, in contrast to today’s saturating, monochromatic, clonish forms. It’s like going back in time, to a happier (to me) time. Another thing I enjoy when watching old television shows is seeing actors before they became famous. For example, one of Harrison Ford’s earliest appearances was in an episode of Ironside. You may get the impression that I’m some kind of TV-holic. That isn’t the case at all. I simply have a passion for movies and some television shows, I’ve been around a long time, and I have an extremely good memory that enables me to remember an extraordinary number of details.

As I always suspected, my favorite era for television shows was the 1970s. The table below lists how many of my favorite shows aired in each decade (some shows spanned as many as three decades).

To conclude, I’d like to offer this list of my favorite television shows.

August 6, 2008 – Human beings seem to be on an eternal treadmill of “starting over,” suffering under growing oppression, and ultimately collapsing in tragic ruin. Perhaps the problem is government itself. While the idea of government sounds appealing because it promises to offload from the individual the dreary burden of running society, in the end the “cure” is worse than the disease.

By Dave Eriqat

It’s a simple enough question: “What is progress?” Is it tall buildings, expansive highways, indoor plumbing, missions into space, sophisticated medicine, a pervasive communication infrastructure? These represent technological progress. What I want to know is, what constitutes social progress? For the thousands of years of recorded human history there has apparently been no social progress! People will defensively and stridently contest my assertion, pointing to all manner of bells and whistles that we’ve tacked onto an ossified socio-political blueprint over the millennia: public retirement benefits, public health care, environmental protection, etc. These all sound nice and progressive, although the benefit of these enhancements is never weighed against the cost. After all, these enhancements are paid for by stealing the wealth of others or oppressing freedom. Has the undercarriage of civilization changed at all in the last several thousand years?

Regardless of whether one calls their socio-political system a democracy, a republic, communist, socialist, or a monarchy; regardless of whether a country is headed by a Führer, a Prime Minister, a President, a Party Chairman, a Dear Leader, or a Queen or a King, the essential structure is always the same: a small group of elites sits atop the system, enriching itself, dictating to the rest of us how to live and acting as though it owns our lives. Courtiers buzz around these elite rulers like so many flies, angling for a chance to feed on the realm. Gradually the system becomes bloated, unproductive, capricious and tyrannical, stifling society, commerce and freedom, until collapse ensues and the same structure is rebuilt with a different name. Where is the progress in this interminable pattern?

The word progress means to move, advance, change. Ironically, every politician running for office promises “change,” underscoring how much people value change (because the right kind of change represents progress). Yet as soon as the election is past, the promise of change is quickly forgotten by all.

Where do we see ourselves another millennium from now? Still squabbling about whether to preemptively attack another country? Still being oppressed by our government? Still lamenting our exploitation by the privileged classes? If we continue to resist taking dramatic and thoughtful steps to improve our society, but instead continue to rely on happenstance to produce evolutionary progress, then in a thousand years we’ll be in the same place we are now, which is the same place we were a thousand years ago.

Do We Really Need Government?

“Do we really need government?” This is a question I innocently posed recently on a so-called progressive web site, hoping to open peoples’ minds to the idea of real progress – change. To my surprise, the door I attempted to open was swiftly slammed shut, the respondents recoiling as if it were heretical to merely entertain the notion that government was not essential, and this attitude from so-called progressives! Some of my critics seemed to think that government was necessary to enforce the law; others said that without government, thugs and gangs would dominate our society. Totally lost on these respondents was the irony that government has become the biggest of lawbreakers (routinely violating the Constitution, domestic and international law) and that many people working for government today can be charitably described as thugs, and the agencies they work for as gangs. So how would the absence of government make life any worse than it is today? Today we suffer oppression from legitimized lawbreakers and thugs and pay for the privilege with our taxes! In any case, I don’t view such cautionary observations of the respondent as insurmountable obstacles in the way of creating a new structure for society. These observations are simply criteria that need to be addressed when formulating a new design.

We now have a couple of generations worth of evidence that our system is badly broken and getting worse, yet people desperately cling to the fantasy that a little tweaking around the edges and electing a savior will rehabilitate the system. One respondent asked if I would prefer the law of the jungle over our present system. Although I didn’t say so, I would prefer that! Animals voluntarily exercise far more restraint in their application of violence than humans do; we would be well served to emulate them.

What would I consider real progress for humanity? Imagine a harmonious and tolerant world in which everyone was a totally free individual; free to do whatever they wanted; free to travel wherever they wanted; free to speak their mind without fear of reprisal; with one simple constraining principle: one’s freedom stops where it infringes on the freedom or rights of another. Interestingly, this is the law of the jungle, which seems so abhorrent to the respondent mentioned above. Animals instinctively understand that should they initiate violence against another there may be repercussions, so they avoid doing so indiscriminately. For the most part animals live freely and in harmony with each other and their environment. Violence is minimal and usually justified. Animals commit violence in order to eat, but only to the extent necessary to sate their hunger. By contrast, humans inflict the most inhumane and egregious acts of barbarity on their prey and hoard resources far beyond their needs. Animals commit violence in order to secure a mate or defend a territory, both of which are essential to the primary purpose of life, reproduction. However, this type of violence is seldom lethal and is usually brief; the loser of such a battle simply slinks off to find another territory or mate. Wicked, needless violence in the animal world is rare, mostly being confined to the primates, especially our close relative the chimpanzee. So I ask, “Are human beings incapable of living as peacefully as the lowly animals?” Wouldn’t such a world as free as I described at least be an ideal worth working toward, even if we never quite get there? It seems few even want to entertain the possibility.

Many people believe others need to be forcibly controlled, as if they would run amok if not kept on a short leash. I ask the reader, “Would you run amok?” Is fear of retribution from government or god the only thing keeping you moral? If you would not run amok then why do you assume others would? I believe cities in both The Netherlands and Germany have experimented with rescinding all traffic rules, and rather than producing chaos, these initiatives in freedom resulted in cooperation, respect and civility. Why could this experiment not succeed if applied to the broader society?

Central Planning

There’s a reason why every individual organism has a brain, and that’s so that each individual can evaluate their own particular circumstances and make the best decision for their self based on those circumstances. Through millions of years of trial and error nature discovered that central planning does not work so it endowed each one of us with a powerful brain. If, in fact, such central planning were superior, then a tiny minority of our species would possess powerful brains and the rest of us would have brains capable of little more than running our heart and lungs.

Curiously, I’ve long believed that 90% of people would just as soon shut off their brains and let somebody else do the thinking and direct their lives for them. Such people can usually be found vegetating in a bath of mesmerizing rays emitted by the television. Happily for them, approximately 5% of humans possess authoritarian tendencies and are perfectly happy to dictate to the rest of us how to live. These people are often the very ones who end up at the top of the infinitely repeated socio-political pattern that adopts so many seemingly different guises. What the masses never seem to figure out is that when they cede control to central planners, those people do not make decisions that are in the best interests of the masses, but in the best interests of the central planners. It’s only because their comfort is not too severely impaired by the sacrifices they make to the central planners that the masses tolerate this state of affairs. Revolutions occur when the masses start to suffer too greatly, which seems to inevitably occur because the masters of the system are never satisfied; avarice and lust for power can never be satisfied. The remaining 5% of people neither want to dominate nor be dominated and often describe themselves as “libertarian,” or something equivalent.

Recognizing the benefits of decentralized decision-making, the authors of the U.S. Constitution went out of their way to prevent the U.S. Government from becoming a central planning regime. That’s why very few powers were delegated to the federal government and virtually everything else was explicitly reserved for the states and the people. Nevertheless, over time and in direct conflict with the spirit and letter of the Constitution, the U.S. Government has usurped more and more powers, at last becoming a central planning regime, no different from the erstwhile Soviet Union or modern China. What we have today is heavy handed central planning, entrenched corruption, declining real productivity, popular apathy and drug abuse, and a growing likelihood of shortages of all kinds of things in the not too distant future. Thanks to the bursting of the housing bubble and the deepening recession it appears that we will be living in more densely-packed dwellings from now on as well. Such a a state of affairs could have described the Soviet Union of the early 1980s, shortly before its demise.

Progressives And Conservatives

To my disappointment, I’ve discovered over the years that “progressives” aren’t really progressive at all. So-called progressives are often just authoritarians of the left. It’s amusing to read such people railing against “conservatives,” whom they demonize as authoritarians of the right. Of course, often it’s those who are most similar who seem detest each other the most. I view the political spectrum as a circle, like this:

Political spectrum

So-called progressives aren’t really interested in change; they, just like their counterparts on the right, simply want to use the force of government to coerce people into behaving a certain way, their way. “Conservatives” want to force people to support militarism, religion and unfettered free enterprise (only for the elites); “progressives” want to force people to conserve resources and be politically correct. Both persuasions are authoritarian, both abhor freedom, both see government as absolutely essential to accomplishing their goals, and neither will even momentarily entertain the idea of a world without government. One thing I find common in both “progressives” and “conservatives” is their envy of people who indulge in “forbidden” freedoms. For example, progressives envy those who have large houses and cars, forgetting that the owners are paying for their higher consumption. Conservatives, on the other hand, envy what they see as the carefree lifestyles of certain people, such as gay people, perhaps wishing to subject such people to their own rigid, pious way of life. Both progressives and conservatives would be most comfortable in a world in which everyone was identical, enjoyed equal standards of living, behaved the same way, harbored the same thoughts and was devoted to the same ideals.

While the question I posed above was not intended to be a blueprint for an alternative social structure – such a design would be complex and require much time to devise – the ensuing discussion didn’t go far enough to even begin addressing alternatives to government, save the derisive and dismissive comment about adopting the law of the jungle. The terrified respondents seemed eager to close the door on any such discussion. Interestingly, nobody disputed my examples of government malfeasance – they simply glossed over them, accepting them as necessary evils in the pursuit of a greater good. Hence, it’s not surprising that I’ve also been reluctant to call myself progressive, although I have done so in the past. However, what I mean when calling myself progressive is that I want to make progress.

Conclusion

I don’t deny that government is capable of doing good or that it has done good deeds in the past. I question the merits of government solely on the grounds of cost-benefit analysis. While government is capable of doing good, what is the cost? It seems to me that government causes far more harm than good, so on balance it’s a losing proposition. If government did as much good as harm, would it then be justifiable? I still don’t think so because of the enormous economic cost of government. The various levels of government in the U.S. today consume something like 50% of the nation’s GDP. Even if government had a neutral effect on the nation, what’s the point of spending 50% of our productive effort on something that yields no net positive results? Wouldn’t we be better off having double the resources at our disposal and making our own decisions regarding its disposition?

I am not an ideologue. I have no devotion to any sort of political schema or social structure, not even libertarianism, even though I frequently call myself a libertarian. I’m a pragmatist and my observations of history have convinced me that never in human history has a government actually “worked” for very long. Even the famous democracy of classical Greece found itself embroiled in many wars; in any case, even that government did not endure. Why? Could it be that the concept of government is fundamentally flawed? It appears to me that every government has eventually devolved into despotism and tyranny. This outcome is what the U.S. Constitution sought to prevent, and it failed. If one of the best written such documents in human history could not prevent this outcome, then what makes us believe that government can ever succeed?

Perhaps real progress for humankind could finally be made after all these thousands of years if people finally recognized that fact of history, stopped naively hoping for a miraculous rehabilitation of government, and gave serious thought to what a world without government might look like and how it might be effected. The contemporary vernacular definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well, I think we have accumulated enough examples of government throughout human history to conclude that recreating this same socio-political design over and over again is not likely to produce different results. Maybe it’s time to take that first step toward real progress.