The threat of nuclear war, like terrorism, is meant to make you and everyone else submit. Is it working?

Brandon Smith / Commentary: Alt-Market and Signs of the Times

(October 19, 2016) — The interesting thing about working in alternative economics is that inevitably you will become the designated buzzkill. You may be presenting the facts on the ground and the reality behind the numbers, but most of what you have to report will not be pleasant. Alternative economists are doomed to be labeled “doom and gloomers.” And that’s okay… 

The truth is what it is, and sometimes it hurts people obsessed with undue positivism and bull market naivety. However, as bad as we seem to be when it comes to a negative outlook, we do not necessarily present the most ugly options on the table. 

There is an undeniable trend by some within the liberty movement to assume a Mad Max-style end game to our ever expanding house of cards. That is to say, they see the only plausible outcome being apocalyptic in nature, and nuclear holocaust fits well within this viewpoint. In many cases, the argument is sometimes presented that WWIII is in the best interests of global elites seeking a catalyst for their so-called “new world order.” 

Comment: We’ve not heard that variant before, but ‘nuclear armageddon’ is certainly on a lot of people’s minds. 
This is not to say that I don’t think WWIII is a possibility; it certainly is. But I remain rather skeptical of the usefulness of nuclear war for the elites. Primarily because everything they openly claim they hope to accomplish can be accomplished without nukes. 

Comment: What’s been useful for the elites, since 1945, is the THREAT of nuclear war, which is why they detonated those first ones in Japan — to show off ‘what they can do’. From there, they’ve been able to bully and brutalize countries everywhere into toeing the line. 

The narrative of a coming conflict between the East and the West has been boiling steadily as the U.S. election nears its end. Even the mainstream media is insinuating the potential for shots fired. Some believe the results of the election will determine the odds of war. I hold a different position. It seems to me that the rhetoric of East vs. West and nuclear exchange is being exploited as a distraction away from a different but almost equally catastrophic end game — the death of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. 

Comment: Absolutely, and along with it, the inevitable implosion of the American Empire. It could be messy though, even without a nuclear war, or any other kind of ‘hot war’. 

First, let’s be clear; nuclear war does little to serve elitist interests. Consider the fact that globalists have been working diligently since 9/11 to install a vast electronic surveillance infrastructure in major cities around the world. This includes a pervasive video surveillance presence, biometric data collection, facial recognition, voice fingerprinting, etc.

This is not only occurring in the U.S. and Europe, but in China and Russia. Vladimir Putin signed the Orwellian “Yarovaya Package” into law in June in Russia putting into motion an electronic surveillance apparatus directly on par with any measures exploited by the NSA. Perhaps ironically, even Edward Snowden, currently living in Russia under asylum, criticized the amendments. 

Comment: Indeed. But did he do that to ‘keep Russians in’, or to keep American influence out? And then, despite whatever ‘best intentions’ went into it, could it be subverted towards other means at a later stage? 
The point is, an elaborate and costly digital control grid is being built all around us. It makes very little sense for the elites to achieve such a level of full spectrum awareness and then flush it down the tubes in a 1.2 megaton blink of a eye. Keep in mind that a nuclear exchange also includes the targeting of military satellites — everything surveillance worthy will most likely be thoroughly toasted. 

Another issue to consider is the psychological underpinnings of elitism. Elites generally exhibit psychopathy, but it is a psychopathy driven by narcissism rather than nihilism. Narcissists tend to shy away from self destruction and the destruction of the treasures they believe they are entitled to.

The elites want total centralization of power and influence, and they want the masses to accept or even demand a system in which globalism becomes sacrosanct. They want the Earth, and they want it nice and pristine for themselves. They might be willing to sacrifice certain appendages of the system, but they are not intent on vaporizing the entire prize. 

Comment: Well said; the farmers are loathe to risk burning down the farm (although their actions could still lead to that happening, unintentionally, anyway). 
Given, psychopaths also do not like to lose. They do have a propensity for attempting to take others down with them if they are on the verge of failure. That said, I think the recent reports of the demise of globalism are greatly exaggerated. 

The narrative of coming world war revolves around certain assumptions. For example, some liberty proponents argue that the success of the Brexit referendum, the Trump campaign and the rise of sovereignty movements are an existential threat to the globalist empire. In their minds, a nuclear war triggered by the elites at this stage makes sense because globalism does appear to be “losing.” 

Comment: There’s also another possibility to consider: that the way in which they’ll ‘wreck the chessboard’ is not via nuking it, but by sabotaging it with more of the means they’ve used to date: specifically, terrorism and proxy wars. 

As I outlined in my last article, ‘Global Elites Are Getting Ready To Blame You For The Coming Financial Crash‘, this is simply not the case. In fact, the rise of conservative and sovereignty movements in the West sets the stage perfectly for the elites to initiate the final act of a world changing fiscal crisis. With these conservative movements in “power,” the ongoing economic collapse can then be blamed on “dangerous populists” rather than the international bankers that created the problem to begin with. 

Comment: Ok, but if enough of these ‘dangerous populists’ are in place, who of them will still be listening to these bankers? The only way their ‘plan’ can go ahead is if the populists execute their will! 

The globalists are not on the run, they are playing the Hegelian dialectic game as they always have; problem, reaction, solution. 

And, as I have evidenced and outlined in great detail in numerous articles, the “conflict” between East and West is an engineered sham. At the top of the political and financial pyramids of every major nation, including Russia and China, the elites promote globalism and a one world currency under the control of the International Monetary Fund.

Putin has openly supported IMF dominance of the global financial structure and the implementation of the SDR as a bridge to a global currency system. Chinese officials have done the same, and as of October, China is a major liquidity amplifier for the SDR. The BRICS bank, which was supposed to be a counterweight to the IMF and World Bank, actually works in collusion with the IMF and World Bank. The bottom line? There is no East versus West, at least not where the elites are concerned. 

Comment: It’s not like that at all. Russia and China have spent decades trying to hold the IMF and other global institutions to their own rules. But the US (in particular) has been bending those rules, rewriting them, or simply ignoring them, always pleading special cases that amount to ‘Because America!’ And now that the Americans have clearly shown that they’re not willing to live by the rules they themselves created, the ‘East’ has begun establishing a parallel structure of global governance. The elites at the top of that one are not the same ones at the top of the first, older one. 

The Russians and the Chinese are NOT on our side. They are not even on their own side. 

Comment: It’s not really an absolutist matter of ‘taking sides’. Dissidents in the West are better served by asking questions like… is what Russia and China say true? Is what they say true in some contexts? Does what they say match to reality? Does what they do match what they say? Does what they do produce net positive outcomes? 

The only legitimate opposition to the globalists is in the form of grassroots movements with very little concrete political influence. 

Comment: Actually, reality says otherwise. People can protest en masse all they like, but the only thing that has tamed the juggernaut of war are those ‘Eastern elites’. 

Whatever political influence we do gain tends to be quickly co-opted by deceitful measures and false leaders that ultimately serve the elites. 

Comment: Exactly so. When psychopaths rule, everything conforms to their standards. 

Even the Brexit and a Trump presidency are not a real threat because they are functions of a system that the elites control in the absolute, and they would never be allowed to gain traction unless the elites needed scapegoats for a greater economic crisis. 

Comment: But they don’t “control in the absolute”; that’s why crises are proliferating these days. 

Our fight has so far been one of disseminating information and countering propaganda; political battles have been rather fruitless. So, again, nuclear war hardly serves the interests of elites under these favorable conditions. 
Nuclear war is also a very poor way of managing the darker goals of globalists.

Their desire for substantial population reduction, for example, could be attained far more efficiently through economic collapse and mass starvation rather than the use of missiles and bombs. Food is a better weapon than smashed atoms ever will be. But if the false East/West paradigm is not setting the stage for nuclear war, then what is it being used for? 

Comment: There’s no evidence for this ‘substantial population reduction’ theory. Which isn’t to say that the population isn’t at risk of being ‘substantially reduced’… via natural means. 

As I have examined in the past, the division between East and West far better serves the elites in their effort to slowly but surely unseat the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency and replace it with the SDR basket — the next major step towards a single global currency system and a single global monetary authority. 

Comment: Yes, under US control. But that’s not going to happen now: 
Russian Actions in Syria Part of Radical Remaking of Global Order: A New World Awaits 

Let’s be clear, the globalists are NOT pro-dollar or pro-America. They never have been. In fact the Federal Reserve has been destroying the dollar’s purchasing power since the central bank’s inception. 

Comment: Sure, but it hasn’t been doing that deliberately. That’s an intergenerational consequence of ever-worsening greed and hubris. 

And, by asserting the dollar as the world reserve currency, the Fed has actually placed America in a position of severe financial weakness rather than strength. Our dependency on the dollar’s world reserve status to sustain our living standards is so complete that the loss of that status will indeed crush our country. Our system cannot function without reserve status. 

Comment: Yes, scary, isn’t it? 

I’ll break it down even further; through the death of the dollar, the elites not only set in motion the chaos needed to justify total centralization and a world currency alternative, but in the process they also could remove the greatest threat to their control — those millions of American citizens still holding to conservative ideals of sovereignty and personal liberty. 

Comment: Ordinary Americans present little threat to the elites; Russia and China present gargantuan threats. The elites already have ‘total centralization’ in their ‘unipolar world’, and they already have their ‘one world currency’ – the dollar. It’s done. It’s been a fait accompli since 1945! What’s changing now is that that regime is ending. Which, as the author said above, is a very scary prospect for some… 

The East vs. West paradigm creates a perfect rational for the end of the dollar’s reserve status. Just look at the geopolitical trends in motion. 
Saudi Arabia with its vast influence over many OPEC nations is shifting away from the U.S. and building closer ties with Russia and China.

The distancing of relations between the U.S. and the Saudis is even being encouraged in the U.S. through the passage of the 9/11 Saudi lawsuit bill. This will inevitably lead to the end of the dollar’s petro-status and, by extension, aid in the end of its world reserve status. 

Turkey is now gravitating towards Russia and away from NATO after the very odd and most likely staged “coup” that has given Erdogan unprecedented room for dictatorship. This new relationship may even include military support from Russia. 

Foreign central banks around the world, including Saudi Arabia and China, are currently liquidating their U.S. treasury holdings at record pace. The program for “de-dollarization” is already well underway. 

Comment: Bad for America: good for everyone else. 

The U.S. overall has also lost considerable goodwill among the peoples of the world (or what little goodwill it had left) in the wake of revelations that it along with allies has essentially instigated the breakdown in Syria and funded militant groups that make up the skeleton of ISIS. The continued function of our involvement in destabilizing Syria has no other benefit to the U.S. except to undermine the image of America. 

Comment: Right, but the PTB don’t know that! Or, if they sense it, they’re desperately trying to prop up that image, but it’s not working! And thus crises proliferate… 

It does not give us increased oil dominance. It does not give us increased regional dominance. In fact, our presence in Syria only continues to harm us and bring us into dangerous proximity with Eastern interests. 

Comment: Why is that a dangerous thing? The author thinks Easterners are dangerous?! 

There are people who do benefit from this dynamic — the globalists. 
The U.S. is painted as the bumbling villain of our little story, greedy and blinded by visions of empire. 

Comment: No, the US is the villain. 

The East is set up as the more rational party, the mediator trying to reason with Western madmen. 

Comment: Again, not ‘set up as’; it is ‘the rational party’. Hands down, the East is the more rational party. No empire in the history of world civilization has behaved so destructively on such a massive scale as the Anglo-American Empire, the party of the author’s ‘globalists’. 

For the globalists, the death of the dollar, which has been an ongoing project of theirs for decades, can now be completed, and they will receive NO blame whatsoever. History, if it is written by anyone other than liberty champions, will say that the East, not the central bankers, destroyed the dollar’s reserve status because it had to. History will say that we had it coming. 

Comment: This notion that the dollar’s death was planned by the American/Western elites is delusional. Those elites planned to rule in perpetuity – from their castles in the West – which is why they spent decades containing Russia and China, which are now breaking out of said containment. 
And since it is the West that is headed off the cliff, it is unlikely that such ‘liberty champions’ will have much of an influential say. The American/Western elite use crises to remain hegemonic, true, but they overestimate their ability to implement their plans. Russia’s intervention in Syria is a case in point. Even the ‘all powerful’ did not see it coming, and they’ve been scrambling ever since. 

In the aftermath, the elites hope to come to the rescue as global economic instability erupts with the failure of the dollar system. 

Comment: Why is this written in the future conditional sense? The dollar system has been failing for a while now, and especially since 2008. Can’t the author see the global economic instability that has erupted all around him? We’re in that ‘great economic collapse’ everyone is talking about! 

As they openly admit in The Economist in 1988, the dollar must be replaced by the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights; the new world order needs a great financial reset before it can take root. But, this is a much different methodology from widespread nuclear war. 

Comment: A lot of things were said in 1988, and the sudden, imminent collapse of the USSR wasn’t one of them! 

Questions arise as to November’s election and how this might affect East vs. West relations. I see no indication that it makes a difference who ends up in the White House as far as the economic result is concerned. As I have stated before, I believe Trump is the most likely candidate. Relations with the East are already in irreversible and engineered decline and even if Trump has good intentions, the globalists will pull the plug on financial support to markets not long after he enters the Oval Office. 

Comment: Assuming Trump does get in, then yes, financial shenanigans by Wall Street to ‘make Trump conform’ or whatever are very possible. 
But again, why is the word “engineered” inserted in the above paragraph? Relations are in irreversible decline because the US is behaving like a psychotic gorilla, not because it’s pretending to behave like one in order to trick people in to believing that it is. 
Beware the infinite regress! 

Eastern nations have been preparing for a break from the dollar for years. They work closely with the IMF. 

Comment: Yes, sort of. As explained above, they’re trying to make it and other nominally ‘global’ institutions work consistently, not remain skewed in favor of the Western elites that dominate the world. 

If anything, Trump’s presence will accelerate the reset. 

Comment: The only ‘reset’ that’s taking place is that the world is preparing for ‘life after America’. 

I think the notions of nuclear war and East vs. West conflagration endure for many reasons. An extreme distaste for Barack Obama has led many liberty proponents to assume that the man will never give up his seat of power. These people do not understand that Obama is nothing more than a Muppet, a middleman with no true influence. The elites do not need him in office to continue their program. 

Others assume that the mere chance of a Trump presidency is so dangerous to the elites that they would rather push the nuclear button than risk it. I think this is a bit naive. As stated in past articles, conservative movements are gaining control of a ship that is already sinking. They are being set up. A Trump win might help the elites. 
Very likely. Unless he really is some kind of maverick (small chance), Trump will most likely end up doing their bidding. But then again, maybe he won’t always! 

Comment: The bolded point above is the key one though: whoever is ‘at the helm’, the American Empire is finished. It may not happen under Trump or Clinton; it may take another generation; but sooner or later, it’s over. 

If the U.S. economy and currency collapses under Trump, conservative movements can be blamed. If they collapse under Clinton, the banking cabal will be blamed. It seems clear to me which option better serves elitists. 

Comment: As explained above, it’s already collapsing; it’s a process. There is no ‘singularity’ in all this. The elites will carry on feasting, ‘catapulting the propaganda’ and ‘projecting their strategic power’ until, as Lobaczewski wrote, “like germs, they are burned alive or buried deep in the ground along with the human body whose death they are causing.” 

A nuclear war is also perhaps subconsciously enticing to some people. The idea that the slate could be wiped clean leaving only the prepared to come out of the smoke and ash to rebuild could in some ways be considered a preferable outcome. 

Comment: Yes, good point. This dawned on us too. We also wondered if the reason it’s subconsciously enticing to some is because they can’t bear to see their ‘established authority’ — the ‘West is the Best’ — be publicly and internationally exposed for the monster it truly is? 

Compare that to liberty movements taking the blame for an economic calamity while battling against an encroaching globalist machine, sacrificing for years or possibly decades on the mere chance that we can, through force of will and ingenuity, defeat a well organized empire with an established mass surveillance network and millions of duped citizens on its side. 

Hell, I’m actually an optimist when it comes to our ability to overthrow globalism, but I see no easy way out of this situation. I find it saddening that the coming fight is so frightening to people that they would rather assume a nuclear nightmare is on the way. The slower agony of economic decay and a rebellion against Big Brother may be less appetizing, but in my view, it is unavoidable.

Comment: Speaking of nuclear armageddon being “subconsciously enticing”, we’ve also wondered if that scenario is some sort of anthropomorphized cometary impact scenario. A small possibility, but then, there have been a lot of meteor fireball events in recent years… 

Keeping to more ‘down-to-Earth’ scenarios, continued economic decay – in the West – is a certainty, and also more terrorism – lots of it, to distract from the continued economic decay: 

Russia Checkmates US in Syria: Expect More Terrorism, Not Nuclear War 

The author does make some good points throughout this article. However, it is peppered with divergence into black-and-white. It is not possible for China, Russia or anyone else to operate on the world stage while completely bypassing institutions like the IMF, so that’s an unrealistic criticism. They’ve got to work with what they’ve got, and anyway, they’re creating potential alternatives that are beneficial to the people of their countries and others.

The Western elite will always have their hand in global systems, and at this stage in the game grassroots movements aren’t going to change the fundamental underpinnings of our world. There might be a small chance to move towards a new type of world, but no one’s going to do it by avoiding the world’s systems. 

On a practical and individual level, consider how we need to live in the world, but don’t have to be of it. Just because we don’t like the Western corporatocracy doesn’t mean we can quit our jobs. Just because we don’t like Saudi Arabian head-choppers doesn’t mean we can avoid filling up our gas tanks. And just because we don’t like the corrupt banking system doesn’t mean we can avoid having a bank account. The alternative is to crawl up in a cave and wait to die. It’s an unfortunate part of the control system in which we live that we need these things to fulfill life’s responsibilities. 

In the meantime, forget about “overthrowing globalism”. Focus on trying to see what is true from what is false. . . .

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