America Held Hostage On The Edge Of Constant Crisis

by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market blog,

Torture, or what our government calls “enhanced interrogation”, is not a tactic so much as a darkly artistic process. The subject of this process has something that the torturer wants; it might be information, or a forced confession to a crime the subject did not commit, but most often, torture is designed to gain nothing more than psychological compliance.

The goal is to manipulate the subject into believing that submission is the only possible future, and that such submission is inevitable regardless of the will of the victim. The torturer often builds himself up as a kind of parent figure for the subject – becoming the only entity that can supply shelter, water, food, and comfort. The torturer is taskmaster and abuser, but also caregiver in the twisted relationship dynamic. A schizophrenic balance is struck in which the subject longs for the outside world and a return to the pleasures of the past (making him desperate and malleable), but he also partially accepts his prison walls as home (giving him a false faith that compliance will lead to a safer and more predictable tomorrow).

Until this compliance is achieved, the subject is exposed to endless and erratic crisis events in which his body is damaged, his mind is deprived of sense, perception, and sleep, and his life is overtly threatened. He may receive brief moments of rest, but these are designed only to make the next torture session even more raw and painful. If the subject does not understand how the process works, or if he doesn't have a strong sense of his own identity, then he will quickly lose track of reality. Every moment becomes a waking nightmare, a warped and gruesome carnival, and life becomes nothing more than an absurd and obscure experiment barely worth living.

It is my belief based on substantial evidence that America, as a nation and a culture, is now being held hostage and tortured into submission on a grand scale using economic terror by the elitist establishment which dominates BOTH major political parties. The goal? To push our society to conform completely with the concepts of globalization, bureaucratic micro-management, and greatly reduced living standards. We are being conditioned to accept defeat and failure, and like children, to cry out for a parental authority to save us in our state of helplessness and fear, even if that authority was the cause of our fear from the very beginning.

The Thin Thread Of The American Economic Fantasy

In the past three months the U.S. has flirted with total fiscal collapse three times. The first event came in August with market rumors that the Federal Reserve was nearing a “consensus” on plans to cut QE stimulus measures, causing panic amongst investors who now realize that the ONLY pillar still holding our fiscal edifice together is endless fiat currency creation by the Fed. Markets began a paradigm which is now the “new normal”; plummeting whenever good economic news hits the mainstream on the fear that the central bank will tighten policy, and skyrocketing when bad economic news hits the mainstream on the assumption that the Fed will continue printing. It is official - lackluster employment reports are something to cheer, and overall systemic crisis is good for stocks:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/22/us-usa-economy-idUSBRE99L04G20131022

The possibility of a Fed taper has shown us clearly that any action by the private bank to reduce or remove quantitative easing will result in a market panic and implosion. If the globalists within the Fed apparatus decide one day soon that they want to bring the U.S. to its knees, destroy the dollar, and introduce a new world reserve currency, they can do it with little more than a word proclaiming QE over, or unsuccessful. So far, they keep the life support machine running...

The second event came with the drive by the Obama Administration to turn their covert war in Syria into a full blown invasion. Despite presumptions by many naysayers that Russia and China wouldn't lift a finger to aid the Assad regime, both nations staunchly opposed action by the U.S. in the region and tensions neared critical mass. Make no mistake, a WWIII level event could have easily erupted, and some Americans seem to remain oblivious to the danger.

China and Russia maintain vast influence in global markets. The EU, for instance, is utterly dependent on Russian natural gas exports for their energy needs. The U.S. economy could be annihilated within weeks by an announcement by China to dump their treasury holdings or the dollar as the world reserve currency. This is just a taste of the financial risks associated with a new war in the Middle East, and military risks add even more potential calamity. Anyone who believes that Chinese or Russian views on American political or military behavior “do not matter” is living in a deluded cartoon-land.

The third event came with the recent debt ceiling debate and government shutdown. One-third of the U.S. population is disturbingly dependent on scraps from the government's table, and any mention of cuts to entitlement programs (or social security, which government treats exactly like an entitlement program) causes immediate and militant finger pointing. Democrats have been especially vicious in their accusations and rhetoric, consistently referring to Constitutional conservatives and “Tea Party” legislators as “extremists”, “traitors”, and even “domestic enemies”:



I happen to take a slightly different view to a majority of independent analysts in that I believe the establishment is just as likely to push America into deliberate default as it is to push America into infinite debt and inflationary collapse. The end result will be exactly the same regardless of the path taken, and we have yet another opportunity to dance on the edge of oblivion coming in three to four months when the debt debate starts all over again.

The point is, our financial system has become so unbalanced and internally diseased that if ANY event follows through to culmination, whether political, economic, or international, the economy WILL shatter. The past three month are a resounding testament to this fact.

The “De-Americanization' Of The Global Economy

In my article 'How The Dollar Will Be Replaced', published in 2012, I summarized the Catch-22 nature of America's debt problem which I have been warning about since 2006, and how this will eventually end in the abandonment of the dollar as the world reserve currency. To this day, and in the face of overwhelming evidence that the dollar is doomed, some people still refuse to grasp reality.

In the midst of the latest debt debate China has made clear it's intentions through state run media to end its relationship with the greenback, not just to form a Chinese-centric reserve currency system, but a global currency system centered on a “new world order”:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2013-10/13/c_132794246.htm

Last year China surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest importer and exporter, making its currency, the Yuan, more desirable than the greenback as a reserve in the long term. Since 2010, China has been quietly but quickly establishing multiple bilateral trade agreements with numerous countries dropping the dollar as the primary purchasing mechanism. China has accumulated massive gold stores and is set to become the world's largest holder of gold in the next two years. In the past year, China has also surpassed the U.S. as the number one importer of oil, making it a more valued market for the Middle East and causing many to question the dollar's relevance as the petro-currency:

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/China-is-Now-the-Worlds-Largest-Importer-of-OilWhat-Next.html

Saudi Arabia, America's primary ally and foothold in the global oil market, is now openly calling for an end to traditional agreements and a separation from the U.S. because of the lack of military action in Syria. This too does not bode well for the dollar's petro-status. Like a chess maneuver, it would seem we have been cornered by the globalists on oil. If we invade Syria or Iran we risk losing petro-status. If we do not invade Syria or Iran, we still risk losing petro-status:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/22/us-saudi-usa-idUSBRE99L0K12013...

In response to the dismal debt ceiling extension and the uncertainty underlying the new debate coming in the next few months, China's ratings agency, Dagong, has downgraded U.S. treasury bonds yet again:

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/17/news/economy/debt-ceiling-deal-china/

U.S. Treasuries are now witnessing the lowest foreign demand since 2001:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-20/treasuries-losing-cachet-with-weakest-foreign-demand-since-2001.html?cmpid=yhoo

Three near-crisis events in only three months have signaled a severe acceleration in what the Chinese call the “de-Americanization” of the global economy. All of the financial shifts taking place since the derivatives implosion of 2008, as well as those rushing like white-water rapids through the global system in the wake of the debt ceiling debate, are gravitating towards ONE outcome – the destruction of the dollar, and the introduction of a new global currency (the SDR) controlled the the IMF.

Russia's Vladimir Putin has called for a global currency run by the IMF to replace the dollar:

http://archive.is/SJhB

China has called for a global currency run by the IMF to replace the dollar:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7168919

Elitists within the U.S. have called for a global currency run by the IMF to replace the Dollar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBO34qcnoqM

Hell, even the Vatican has called for a global currency run by a “global public authority” to replace the dollar:

http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pontifical-council-for-justice-and-peace-on-the-global-economy

There is a world-wide strategy in motion to end the dollar, and with it, America as we know it today. The only question is, how many more near-disasters will we have to experience before the trigger event takes place?

The Torture Continues

With so many near misses culminating so close together, it may be wise to consider what could happen in the the next three months while we wait for debt debate theater part deux. Like a prisoner in Abu Ghraib, America is trapped, waiting for the next humiliation, the next degradation, or the next session of pain. Are we merely being acclimated to the idea of incessant crisis? Are we learning to become apathetic at the edge of the chasm? Or, are we being driven to madness, mass-madness, by a concert of elitist interrogators seeking our acquiescence?

Again, the central purpose of torture is to acquire consent. Not just extorted consent, but voluntary consent. It is not enough for the torturer to force the subject to obey, he wants the subject to EMBRACE his servitude. To gladly abandon all hope. To see his captor as his only salvation.

The globalist establishment wants us to beg them to save us from the tortures they create. If we never give them this, they will never win.