It was 2017. Clans were governing America.

The first clans organized around local police forces. The conservatives’ war on crime during the late 20th century and the Bush/Obama war on terror during the first decade of the 21st century had resulted in the police becoming militarized and unaccountable.

As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. The newly formed tribes expanded to encompass the relatives and friends of the police.

The dollar had collapsed as world reserve currency in 2012 when the worsening economic depression made it clear to Washington’s creditors that the federal budget deficit was too large to be financed except by the printing of money.

Keeps going…

Also interesting because it’s written by this guy:

Paul Craig Roberts is a former editor and columnist for both the Wall Street Journal and Business Week. He worked as the Assistant Secretary to the Treasury under the Reagan administration, but has since disavowed both the Republicans and Democrats.

Haven’t read the book so I don’t know how much vitriol he directs towards the Reagan Revolution, which deserves a lot. Given his serious credentials, this Kevin Costner movie scenario is even stranger.  The man has credibility.  He’s a conservative, but a level-headed one:

Paul Craig Roberts: In recent years there has been a redistribution of power in the US from government to private. The US now resembles an oligarchy of private interests. The most powerful ones are Wall Street, AIPAC, the military/security complex, the oil industry, agri-business, insurance and pharmaceuticals. These private interests control economic and foreign policy, write the legislation that Congress passes and the President signs, and have achieved the monopolization of the US economy by large-scale commercial organizations. As far as I can tell, traditional conservatives scarcely exist in the US today. They have been eliminated by the neoconservatives, essentially militarists committed to US world hegemony….

In my experience with libertarians, especially during my tenure as Distinguished Scholar at the Cato Institute during the 1990s, I have encountered an ideological inflexibility, dogma if you will, that turns blind eyes to analytical and empirical evidence. Many, most likely most, libertarians regard jobs off-shoring as the beneficial workings of free trade. Those, such as myself, who present the clear facts of the case are demonized as “protectionists,” which means that libertarians do not have to examine the facts and encounter the empirical evidence.

Daily Bell: You mentioned one of your books. Can you update our audience on some of your other writing?

Paul Craig Roberts: I regard all of my books as important. In my latest book, How The Economy Was Lost, I explain why off-shoring is not free trade. I also explain why the two necessary conditions set out by David Ricardo for the principle of comparative advantage, the basis for free trade, no longer exist. I further explain that when a country moves the production of goods and services that it consumes offshore, GDP growth and consumer incomes are moved offshore as well. Jobs off-shoring or “globalism” is a way to convert US labor income into executive bonuses and capital gains to shareholders. This is the explanation for the rising income inequality in the US.

Daily Bell: And also for rising unemployment?

Paul Craig Roberts: Since 2008 the lowest interest rates and largest federal budget deficits in US history have been unable to stop the rise in US unemployment, much less to call the unemployed back to work. There are no jobs to which to call workers back.

Puts the science fictional fear-mongering in context.

[I'm] very disturbed to see that so many people have been taken in by Alex Jones and cannot see that he’s, at best, an unstable megalomaniac who’s low on facts and high on fear-mongering, and worse, he fits to a tee the description of a disinformation agent or agent provocateur. I wouldn’t trust this guy as far as I could throw him.

By and large, I agree. He gives conspiracy theory a bad name by linking it to the unhinged fringe – even if he’s calling attention to real corruption and he’s an equal-opportunity critic, paranoid about the left and right. He’ll take the video below too far, but he’s right about the overuse of executive power. Isn’t any better with Obama than Bush. I’m a former Obama supporter whose support has waned since he started legislating. This video (on “liberal” MSNBC) is getting traction on the right. But it should. It fucking sucks:

He’s right (for the most part). Celebrity is the opiate of the masses. What he doesn’t mention is that Miami is set to be drowned in oil if projections are true.  I wonder if that even made into LeBron James’ discussions about going to Miami.  Because it’s possibly set up to be a very different city and he’ll have to spend his time doing PSA’s for Miami’s “clean” beaches.

He’s also wrong most of the time.

But Alex Jones can be entertaining. He shouldn’t be so quick to go Godwin, or basically lose it completely, but that’s Alex Jones, and it’s a shame he’s the main representative of these type of ideas – especially since some of them are true.

RA Wilson calls some conspiracy theorists “adrenaline addicts.” Think that describes AJ. He wants there to be a conspiracy more than he wants there to be a solution. His stupid bullhorn is all about calling attention to himself, thereby making some reasonable questions about govt. seem like the product of the wacko fringe. Funny how the people who talk most about “liberty” are proto-fascists.

That led me to books by the person who runs the site, Laura Knight Jadczyk:

Signs of the Times, or SOTT.net, was launched on March 26, 2002 by Laura Knight-Jadczyk.

A historian and author of repute in her own right, Laura Knight-Jadczyk is the wife of renowned theoretical physicist, Arkadiusz Jadczyk, one of the world’s few living experts in hyperdimensional physics.

Since its early days when it was just a one-woman operation, SOTT.net has evolved into one of the leading news sites for those tired of the “news” that is “reported” by the mainstream media.

The original idea behind SOTT was to track what was going on socially and politically in terms of global energies in much the same way that a physicist attempts to track and measure more subtle energies – the theory being that society is like a macro-quantum system that follows certain laws of the Universe, and can be predicted in the same way that the quantum world can be statistically analyzed and predicted.

About her book, The Wave, she says,

I began writing the Wave Series and other articles as a way of collecting excerpts together in general subjects. As I did this, a truly extraordinary thing began to happen. The Cassiopaean Experiment had resulted in transmissions from myself in the future, and I realized that by doing the suggested research, by digging for the answers based on the clues given me, I was becoming myself in the future – a cosmic self. I began to see what I had been trying to convey to myself from this superconscious state. The years of experimental work had created a new circuit wherein it was possible to simply ask a question in my mind about the subject at hand, and the answer would flow through my fingers onto the keyboard. I was often as amazed at what came out as anyone.

As I’ve mentioned, this is the premise behind The American Book of the Dead – that I was channeling myself in the future. As I’ve also mentioned, I don’t actually believe I’ve done this because I think my writing of the novel was too self-conscious and self-reflective in the here and now. Interesting to think it’s possible – and who knows, maybe I did.

I’m hoping that the forums of Cassiopaea are not overrun with deranged teabaggers, as is the case with places like Godlike Productions and Above Top Secret.  I did a bit of digging and some accuse the group of being a cult.  Not surprising, given that Laura Knight Jadczyk claims to channel beings from Cassiopaea with sessions such as:

Q: (L) Are there alien bases on the Moon?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Who do the bases belong to?
A: Grays.
Q: (L) Was there ever at any time such a thing as mermaids?
A: No.
Q: (L) What is the origin of this legend?
A: Sailors delirium.
Q: (L) Are there alien bases on Mars?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Whose?
A: Grays and Lizards.

More:

Q: (L) What procedure or technology do the Grays use to pass
through solid matter?
A: Transdimensional atomic rearrangement.
Q: (L) How do aliens transport themselves or others on beams of
light?
A: By electron focusing and previous answer.

Q: (V) Do I have an implant in my right ear?
A: Yes.
Q: (V) It has been going off a lot lately.
A: Caused by your interactions with these powerful channels.
Q: (V) What do you mean by powerful channels?
A: Laura and F***.
Q: (V) Are they Lizard implants?
A: Yes. Monitoring heavily lately.
Q: (V) When did I get the implants?
A: Age 3.

etc.

Is this group a cult? I don’t know. But I think “cult” is wielded in the same way as “conspiracy theory” – to automatically discredit an idea. Is this a singularly weird spiritual framework? No doubt. But a cult involves brainwashing, abuse of believers, and generally being holed up in the same place. Selling books is not quite the same thing.  If every strange spiritual practice is labeled a cult – even if it is led by someone with a propensity for high strangeness – this could tamp down people’s attempts at spiritual exploration.

No doubt someone who follows that road is “out there” but the question isn’t whether or not a channeler is actually channeling something real, the question is if the result is interesting. Same thing with UFOs – so much rides on “proof” but the important question is, What’s this all mean if it’s true. That there’s no hard proof doesn’t mean that issue’s been resolved.  A channeler may just be inventing fiction – but fiction isn’t a lie just because it’s made up.  Even if the channeler believes too strongly that they’re tapped into the real thing (as most channelers seem to) that doesn’t disregard everything they put to paper.  Fact is, we don’t know exactly where it’s coming from any more than we know where artistic inspiration comes from and what makes some artists tapped into something beyond themselves and some artists not.

And I’m no Icke-ite by any means – and Laura Knight Jadczyk subscribes to those sorts of ideas. But I do see a fundamental weirdness in how the world is devolving. As a friend wrote to me recently:

The whole situation is indeed so weird and crazy that even the most “absurd” explanations can seem plausible.

Profit? Doesn’t make sense, as you point out.

“Progress”? Nope.

Power? Over a despoiled ash heap?

Vampiric shape-shifting reptiles from outer space? … well… maybe…

All of this serves as grist for the MSM propaganda machine to ostensibly scare people away from the patriot movement, or to scare patriots from the militias. l

As anti-right militia as I am, the timing of this is fairly odd. Health care passes, conservatives freak out, hysteria is growing, and violence begins to feel inevitable. Now this. An argument could be made that this high-profile raid is actually necessary to stamp out what exactly what the paranoid poster mentions above.

Would I feel differently if this was a left-wing group targeted by the Bush administration?  No, not if they were hiding out in the forest (video) planning on killing cops, or anybody.  This isn’t an action against “dissent” or even gun ownership, it’s against plotting terrorism.  I know that with the Patriot Act, anybody can be deemed a terrorist and arrested, but these guys are obviously on another level.  Where the right wing loses any ground is when they start talking about how this is an example of Obama stamping on our “freedoms” without once mentioning that the Hutaree movement is a band of lunatics:

The Doctrine of the Hutaree is based on faith and most of all the testimony of Jesus. Hebrews 11:1, ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, The Evidence of things not yet seen.’

Jesus spoke of the ten virgins in Matthew 25: 1-12. The wise ones took enough oil to last the whole night, just in case the bridegroom was late. The foolish ones took not enough oil to last the whole night and figured that the bridegroom would arrive earlier than he did.

These bridegrooms represent the Christian church of today. The oil, just as Jesus explained, represented faith. If you read the story right, you find out that the people with enough faith to last as long as it might take are the wise ones. They know and believe in the testimony of Christ, even through the darkest and most doubtful of times. This day is soon.

The foolish ones are the ones who expect Christ to arrive too soon. They have brought for themselves only enough oil to last for a short time, having not enough faith to last through the darkest hours. When the time comes for those without enough faith, they will fall to the Anti-Christ’s doctrine. And it will make perfect sense to the whole world; even the elect.

We all as Christians should stand firm in Christ and believe in him until our uttermost end. The testimony must by no means pass away and we must spread the word believing in Christ’s words, even during the end times.

Now when that hour Christ arrives the foolish ones would have already left their waiting mark, their place in Christ. Then when he comes over, trumpets blowing, and clouds flowing, the wise ones will come to him in the clouds and into heaven. The foolish will then remember what they were ‘supposed to do’ and cry out loud to God and knock on heaven’s door. But read and you’ll find that it says that when the door is shut no one enters afterwards. They will knock and he will say, “Away with you, for I know you not.

I Peter 5:11, ‘And this is the Testimony, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.’

Believe in this word and spread it to all you can. Stand, stay and pray for the defense of the word. For we live by faith and cannot see nor understand what we believe, entirely, but nevertheless the reward is worth it in the end.

ETERNAL LIFE IS IN JESUS, AMEN.

Of course there is no difference between this and Muslim car bombers. And until you can admit that, your outrage over Obama overstepping is meaningless. Meanwhile, Palin is truly a lunatic and doubles down on her target analogy:

To the teams that desire making it this far next year: Gear up! In the battle, set your sights on next season’s targets! From the shot across the bow – the first second’s tip-off – your leaders will be in the enemy’s crosshairs, so you must execute strong defensive tactics. You won’t win only playing defense, so get on offense! The crossfire is intense, so penetrate through enemy territory by bombing through the press, and use your strong weapons – your Big Guns – to drive to the hole. Shoot with accuracy; aim high and remember it takes blood, sweat and tears to win.

Because threatening the lives of congresspeople and encouraging the likes of Hutaree is hilarious. Conclusion: Sarah Palin wants people to die.  Amazing in our backwards world that people who so loudly tout “freedom” are proto-fascists.

Here’s Alex Jones targeting one of the guys who was arrested, Pale Horse.  Alex Jones, in Jonesian fashion, claims the guy is an FBI plant to make militias look bad – which is really the claim against this entire arrest. So if the guy’s called a “material witness” or something, cue additional hysteria.  Really, I imagine Jones is calling this guy out so he won’t be tied to him should something happen.

Huxley, after all, was a drug advocate – in that sense, he’s a New Ager, which inspires an equal amount of paranoia.  But Soma is the anti-mescaline.  Psychedelics do not make people docile, they seem to inspire upheaval. From Huxley.net:

For a start, soma is a very one-dimensional euphoriant. It gives rise to only a shallow, unempathetic and intellectually uninteresting well-being. Apparently, taking soma doesn’t give Bernard Marx, the disaffected sleep-learning specialist, more than a cheap thrill. Nor does it make him happy with his station in life. John the Savage commits suicide soon after taking soma [guilt and despair born of serotonin depletion!?]. The drug is said to be better than (promiscuous) sex – the only sex brave new worlders practise. But a regimen of soma doesn’t deliver anything sublime or life-enriching. It doesn’t catalyse any mystical epiphanies, intellectual breakthroughs or life-defining insights. It doesn’t in any way promote personal growth. Instead, soma provides a mindless, inauthentic “imbecile happiness” – a vacuous escapism which makes people comfortable with their lack of freedom. The drug heightens suggestibility, leaving its users vulnerable to government propaganda. Soma is a narcotic that raises “a quite impenetrable wall between the actual universe and their minds.”

Bonus: David Bowie singing “1984,” or David Bowie does Andrew Lloyd Weber.  Always thought “Diamond Dogs” should be a musical.  Question though is how a skeleton has a such a powerful voice.

Someday they won’t let you, so now you must agree
The times they are a-telling, and the changing isn’t free
You’ve read it in the tea leaves, and the tracks are on TV
Beware the savage jaw
Of 1984

They’ll split your pretty cranium, and fill it full of air
And tell that you’re eighty, but brother, you won’t care
You’ll be shooting up on anything, tomorrow’s never there
Beware the savage jaw
Of 1984

CHORUS
Come see, come see, remember me?
We played out an all night movie role
You said it would last, but I guess we enrolled
In 1984 (who could ask for more)
1984 (who could ask for mor-or-or-or-ore)
(Mor-or-or-or-ore)

I’m looking for a vehicle, I’m looking for a ride
I’m looking for a party, I’m looking for a side
I’m looking for the treason that I knew in ‘65
Beware the savage jaw
Of 1984

CHORUS
1984…

To sum up the video – it’s saying that Zeitgeist, which is anti-Christian, advocates a New Age New World Order in which Christianity is supplanted, even as the film attacks the New World Order which is coming through globalization. So Peter Joseph is an agent of the New Age agenda, even if he also warns against the NWO. God, I love this stuff. The New World Order is the new apocalypse, with everyone having a theory about how and when it’s going to arise (including myself, albeit in fiction).

In a recent video, Darryl Sloan talks about the occult symbolism in the U.S. and the U.K., such as the dollar bill and the MI5 logo, and wonders if that means there’s an occult influence in government.  It should be mentioned that just because MI5 or the Information Awareness Office uses occult symbolism does not mean they’re run on occult principles.  It’s just that occult symbolism has become a common motif.  Even so, the Information Awareness Office symbol is absurd:

I heard more than one person say, “Wait, that’s real? I thought it was a joke.”  The symbol is ridiculous on so many levels. If they are not really occult practitioners, how could they be so stupid as to not know what sort of paranoia this would inspire?  The fact is they had to know, which is enough to make you paranoid for other reasons – even if they aren’t practicing occultists, they are at least in the practice of inspiring paranoia.  They’ve discontinued the logo, with this explanation:

DARPA offices have traditionally designed and adopted logos. However. because the IAO logo has become a lightning rod and is needlessly diverting time and attention from the critical tasks of executing that office’s mission effectively and openly, we have decided to discontinue the use of the original logo.

For the record, the IAO logo was designed to convey the mission of that office; i.e., to imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate, and transition information technologies, components, and prototype, closed-loop information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness useful for preemption, national security warning, and national security decision making. On an elemental level, the logo is the representation of the office acronym (IAO) the eye above the pyramid represents “I” the pyramid represents “A,” and the globe represents “O.” In the detail, the eye scans the globe for evidence of terrorist planning and is focused on the part of the world that was the source of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “Scientia est polentia” means “Knowledge is power.” With the enabling technologies being developed by the office, the United States will be empowered to implement operational systems to thwart terrorist attacks like those of September 11, 2001.

The unfinished pyramid and the eye depicted in the logo were taken directly from the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States of America (for a history of the seal, see http://www.heraldica.org/topics/usa/usheroff.htm). Both sides of the seal also appear on the back of the U.S. $1 bill.

It may just be that the person who designed the logo is a total idiot with no sense of perspective or history.  When considering the human race, that explanation is just as likely as something nefarious.

Meanwhile, there’s outrage about the Missile Defense logo looking like the Obama symbol from the election and the crescent and star of the flag of Islam:

People on the left are mocking this – which it deserves – but also there’s no denying that it looks similar to the Obama symbol.  And if anything it’s probably better politics if they don’t look alike, given the right’s proclivity for total paranoia.  There’s nothing to infer about the Information Awareness Office logo – that’s occult symbolism without having to interpret it.  More evidence that the justified paranoia about the Bush administration has morphed into the less justified paranoia of the right.   It points out, though, that if Obama was running an Islamist plot inside the American government, why would he be so obvious about it?  He wouldn’t – and the same concept could hold true for the Information Awareness Office.   In the end, it turns out that the Missile Defense logo was designed during the Bush Administration. Of course, that’s what they would want you to think.

I responded to Darryl Sloan’s post by saying,

Here’s the Secret Teaching of All Ages:

Manly Palmer Hall – The Secret Teachings of All Ages

The Venus Project clearly separates the Zeitgeist movement from other conspiracy theorizing from the likes of Alex Jones or David Icke – who seem mainly to be fear peddlers without any real answer to moving on from that fear. That’s what disturbs me about them. Obama may be a disappointment who is tasked with rescuing an unsustainable system, but he is not equal to the Bush legacy. The sheer fact that he’s a black man with the name Barack Obama shows that we’re inching closer to a more open society. I don’t think you can underestimate that, even if his promise of change is not really arriving – and most likely can’t because “rescuing banks” is the process of rescuing something that caused the problem. But Jones and Icke want to see totalitarianism everywhere and then sell that fear, so they will look for evidence wherever they can. Their terror alert level doesn’t seem much more honest than the one perpetrated by the Bush administration.

The Venus Project is in part what makes Zeitgeist so convincing, because it offers a level-headed alternative amidst some very far out claims. What this vision of utopia doesn’t see to emphasize is our potential for spiritual evolution, as well as economic and technological progress.  Daniel Pinchbeck, in 2012, rails against the concept of the Singularity, as it sees technology as solving all our problems, when his more-New Age stance is that a kind of mind technology is more important for our progress than literal technology.  If we see technology as the savior, we’ll be less inclined to explore and expand consciousness and tap into the greater world of outer and inner space.  There’s something to this.

Perhaps the Venus Project could usher that in because only until we become less warlike we’d be given access to other worlds.  Otherwise we might abuse the privilege, as we abuse everything.  What’s attractive to me about a techno utopia is that it satisfies both needs – technological and spiritual, as the technological would free us to spend more time with spiritual and creative pursuits.  And it’s more practical and feasible to create a sustainable environment than waiting for an evolution that never comes.

The Maya, after all, were technologically advanced, and going “back to nature” doesn’t necessarily mean being free from technology.  The Na’vi from Avatar are nice and all, but I don’t want to sleep in a hammock in a tree – I like my computer and the copy of Logic that allows me to record music.  That’s not a distraction like TV, it enhances the potential for creativity. So on that front I agree with the Venus Project and its aim to use technology to create an environmentally sustainable world that frees people from the mindless and unnecessary work that makes up most people’s workdays.  If a true Theory of Everything incorporates both the religious and the scientific (determining the “why” as well as the “how”), then it would seem an advanced society would incorporate both as well.  My worry is that our entire structure needs to fall apart first in order for it to be rebuilt as something better.

I’m currently reading (among other things) A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit, which makes the supposition that people are at their best amid total catastrophe.  Most people have no doubt seen this, even if they’ve never been part of a disaster, as the collective support after 9-11 shows how disaster can inspire goodwill.  That’s not entirely a positive prospect, as it may just be the case that the world system needs to collapse in order for us to start over with a better blank slate.  The environment might go to war with us before we go to war with each other as a form of self-protection.  Either way, we seem to be headed in that direction, and troubling as it may be, how else do you reform a world of 8 billion people that needs instant reforming?  I suppose everyone could take Ayahuasca at once, and blow everyone’s heads open, but somehow I don’t see that happening.

Whatever the case, Zeitgeist and the Venus Project are literal manifestations of my novel and the soundtrack so I’ve been glued to finding out new information about these two developments – “The New City is my home and I love all I know.”  Cool to me too that the filmmaker writes and records his own music.

More: Who is Peter Joseph?